Preach the Word

Well, welcome to my show, episode 175. Going to do something a little bit different for this show, going to talk about preaching. You may say “Well, I'm not a preacher.” Yeah, but I bet you you've been asked to deliver a message sometime or another to some group, amen. Let's talk about that because the Bible says in Second Timothy we should be ready in season and out of season, amen. Are you ready? Thank you for listening to today's episode of Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self brought to you by the International College of Ministry, now enrolling at icmcollege.org. Go to it check it out, got a lot of free stuff on there too, amen. Check it out. God bless you, Dr. Ray here.

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Okay, here we go. Dr. Ray here. Heavenly Father, I thank you for everyone listening to this show. Again, Lord, I pray that uh, your Holy Spirit will be with us. Bless those that are, that are… downloaded this show that are listening now, Father let your Holy Spirit touch them. Open up our ears and our hearts to receive you and your word today. In Jesus’ name, amen. So this is about preaching and again, you may say, “Well, I'm not a preacher.” Yeah, but I bet you've been asked to speak before and there are some tips I think I can help you with. I'm not saying I'm a great public speaker, but I, I've been around a little bit and I know what I'm doing, okay? 

So, preach the word. You know, in the book of Timothy, I think it's Second Timothy, it says, “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching.” So we're called to preach and teach, amen. And preaching and teaching is a different thing. Right now, uh, in the church I don't see that many preachers. I hear a lot of teachers. Teachers are normally, biblically speaking, teachers explain the word of God and I like to say that preachers proclaim the word of God. Preaching is exciting. Preaching moves the spirit, moves the heart, uh, many times brings in the presence of God. Preaching will convict people, uh, preaching will, will…will lead people to salvation, to deliverance, to healing…a lot of cool things happen with effective preaching.

Teaching is more about making disciples, helping us understand the word of God, helping us understand truth and get it into our spirit, and learn how to use that truth in practical ways. And hear me, there's a time to teach and there's a time to preach and that's important. You need to understand is it time to preach or teach? What I see happening in churches right now is that most pastors are not preaching at all, they're just teaching every Sunday. They're teaching a– some type of a life lesson every Sunday. And I guess that's okay, but generally speaking, you're not seeing a move of God in that church. Now, there are a few churches that are preaching the word of God and when there's uh, preaching going on, the spirit is stirred, the hearts are changed, there's– salvations are happening, deliverance and healing, things are happening, the anointing and presence of God comes in. It's, it's a wonderful thing, it really is. But you know, we need both. We need teaching and we need preaching. But I want to talk to you a little bit about preaching, okay? Just um, and again, I know not everybody listening to me are preachers but if you are, this is a very important uh, important uh, show for you. 

Generally speaking, there's um, about four types of preaching. There's topical preaching, textual preaching, expository preaching, and types and shadows. Now, topical preaching is very common and also very dangerous. Topical preaching is where the speaker has a topic and he supports this topic by pulling scriptures, you know, from various places in the Bible to, you know, to confirm his topic. Now, it sounds great, but you know, top– by the way, a topic could be forgiveness, could be love, it could be uh, healing, it could be, you know, whatever, whatever ever the topic is. However, the problem is you can cut and paste scriptures out of context and make the Bible say whatever you want it to say. You can pretty much find a scripture out of context to support any pretext that you have, amen. And unfortunately, taking the Bible out of context has caused a lot of denominational splits and differences and separation so if you're going to preach a topic and you say, “You know what? I'm just going to research all different types of scriptures on there,” it's okay to do that but be careful that you're not pulling a scripture out of context to support your topic. 

In other words, you can pull these scriptures out of context and make the Bible say what you want it to say. Make sure you're letting the Bible speak for itself and not let the Bible support you and what you want to say. You support the Bible and what the Bible wants to say and I hope that, that…that makes, makes sense to you, amen. I'll give you um, an an example. Well, you're, you're in a small group, you're, you're a small group and just a few people there. Well, the Bible says “Wherever two or three are gathered My name, there I am in the midst…” You've heard that, right? Two or three are gathered, have you ever read that scripture? What, what takes place before those verses and after those verses? It'll kind of open up your eyes. I've heard that scripture quoted so many times, “Wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in your midst.” Well, what Jesus was referring to was church discipline. “When a brother is in sin, go to him and if he hears you, you've restored him but if he refuses to hear you, take two or three witnesses with you. If he refuses to hear you and uh, two or three witnesses, take him before the church. If he refuses to hear the church, let him be treated as a pagan. Wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there will I be in your midst.” So he's talking about when you– “...two or three gather in My name” to restore a person who's in sin, that's what that verse is about, amen. Just read the– just read it for yourself, you know, don't take my word for it. 

But we can take verses out of context to make the Bible, you know, say what we want it to say. So if you're going to do a topic, that's fine, but make sure that the verses you use not only support your topic but you're not pulling something, you know, out of the correct frame of reference or incorrect frame of reference if that makes sense, okay? I can make the Bible support just about anything, anything. I can pull scriptures out of context to tell you that tithing is terrible, I can pull scriptures out of context to tell you that tithing, tithing is wonderful, I can take scriptures out of context to say that divorce is awful, I can take scriptures out of context to say God loves divorce, I mean, you could prove anything, you can prove anything taking scriptures out of context. It's like taking a newspaper or a book and cutting words out of different pages of the book and reassembling those words to create a whole new story. Now, I'm not saying don't do a topical sermon, but just be careful and make sure you have integrity when you do a topical sermon. 

Another type of sermon is a textual sermon. That's where you'll, you read a text. Now, I'm telling you this because if you get called to preach, uh, this, this can help you, okay? Develop your message. A textual message is where you read a text, like, maybe you read Psalms 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leads me beside still waters,” and you, you read the text, that, out of that text you pull your message. The Lord is my shepherd, He leads me…and so you literally preach on what it means to be led by a shepherd. You're pulling something out of that text to create your message, that's called a textual message, okay? 

Another type of message is types and shadows. That's where you'll maybe tell a story of, of, of Moses and uh, delivering the children of Israel which is a-- symbolic of Christ delivering us out of bondage. As the children were delivered, uh, of Israel, delivered out of slavery, so is Christ delivering us out of slavery and out of bondage to the devil. That's a type and shadow type, you know, preaching, amen. And then there's my favorite which is expository, which is when you just preach the word verse by verse. Now, don't do tons of verses, but preach the word verse by verse. And, and, you know, verse one, verse two, verse three, verse four, verse 5. I don't recommend - bear with me - going over five or six verses. Now, hear, hear me carefully. In preaching, less is more. Less is more because it's better to give, and I heard this recently from another speaker, I forgot his name, but it's better to give. And, and I agree with it wholly, totally. It's better to give three points that everybody will remember and take home than 15 points that they'll forget.

So when you preach, you should have a focal point for your message. In other words, there's two things I, I, I want to do when I'm preaching. I want to have– there’s a main point that I– a take-home point. This is the most important thing I want you to know today and I want to make sure you get this. This is what I want you to talk about in the car going home with your spouse, this is the main point I'm trying to get to today. This is my revelation I'm trying to get to. It's a focal point. What so many young preachers do is they don't have a focal point, they have 20 focal points and they have so many focal points that by the time they're finished with their message, it all becomes a blur. It reminds me of going to the buffet. You know, they used to have a lot of buffets, you don't see many anymore, and there's so much food on the buffet. You try a little bit of this, you try a little bit of that, you try a little bit of this, and by the time you finish eating all this stuff from the buffet and you're completely pigged out, you don't remember what you ate and you don't really enjoy much of any of it, amen. So it's better, less is more when it comes to preaching. 

So you– am I saying just make your message short? No, I'm not, but what you can do is when you're doing an expository message verse by verse and maybe you're only going to preach four verses, but you can stop in a key verse. You can stop in a key verse. Let me give you an example here real quick. Let's go back to something that's very familiar. We'll go back we'll go back to Psalms, all right? Now, it's a, it's a really short– this is a six-verse Psalm, okay? So I've only got six verses and I'm going, I'm going to be, I'm going to do an expository sermon. Now, I, I want to do more than a 5-minute sermon. So we have, you know, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul, He leads me in the path of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” You know, He leads me beside still waters. There was a time in my life, I was going through a very difficult time, my– I was having marriage difficulties, business difficulties, it seems like– difficulties with my kids, I was starting to struggle with depression, I did not know what I was going to do. I had this darkness come over me, some people call it the dark night of your soul. I was really struggling and I, and I prayed, and I prayed, and I needed some peace in my life and I didn't know what to do. And I was reading this Psalm, “He leads me beside still waters…” and I prayed, I said, “Lord, I want, I need, I need the still waters. I'm in a storm, Father, I'm in a storm. I need the waters to be still.” And as I was praying, this, this peace came over me and I– and all of a sudden, it's like the waves just stopped crashing against my boat and I felt like I was just floating in peace. It made no sense. But I was just floating in peace that nobody could understand and there's, there was a storm, my life was in uh, turmoil but, but I was having still waters in my soul. This is what my Shepherd had done to me. He led me to these still waters and, and it happened through prayer. And I guess now folks, now I'm going stop that, but what you, what you see is even though there's only six verses, you can expound on these verses, give examples, give life stories, give a um, give um, a comparison. In other words, expound on the word of God. 

Let me tell you what my seminary professor told me years ago. He said the reason expository preaching is so powerful is that the word of God cannot return void. Now, you can do a topical sermon and maybe your topic is on forgiveness but that's only going to hit the people and your audience that are struggling with unforgiveness. But when you expound on the word of God and you expound, say, on Psalms 23 verse by verse, you're going to hit everybody in the church because the word of God cannot return void. So what I'm saying is expository would– is like going down the scriptures. And so you know, it's a short Psalm but I could go on, you know, He, He restores my soul. 

And guys, I want to tell you - I'm going back to my sermon - after this turmoil, He put me in these still waters and it was like my soul was, was in turmoil but all of a sudden, it's like I had a new soul. It's like I was being restored inside, I was getting peace that passes all understanding. And yea, and yea, they walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I felt like I was in a deadly situation. There was, there was a, the, the dark shadows were all around me, the demons were all around me, but all of a sudden, I had no fear, no fear at all. He was with me, He had His rod His staff. He was my comfort, He was my protector. And so I'm getting passionate but all I'm doing is I'm just expounding and making the Psalms 23 personal. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,” I, I got to stop right here. You know, for years I thought when that scripture says He prepares a table, I, I, I kept picturing a dining room table, you know, with forks and knives and plates and napkins. No, a table is a high place that the shepherd would take their sheep. It was a high plateau where the enemies like the wolves and the lions and the bears and the tigers, oh my, could not get to the sheep. It was a safe place for the sheep. “He prepares a table in the presence of my enemies.” Even though there’re enemies all around, it's a safety place, it's a place of safety. That's what that table is. 

And so, in other words, I'm expounding but I'm, I'm giving people something they can hang on to. So what, what am I trying to tell them? I'm trying to tell them that you may be going through a difficult time in your life but there is a Shepherd who can give you peace, who can restore your soul, who will protect you from all the demonic activity all around you. He is your shepherd and that is His job. Your job is simply to allow Him to lead you, and these are the benefits that come to you. So, and I like to use the so what principle. I look at my audience and I think can I answer so what? I, I imagine people looking at me and going so what is this, Dr. Self, so what's this have to do with me? I'll tell you what it has to do with you, because if you're not going through difficult times, you will be and you need to understand the principle of the shepherd, the principles in the Psalms because if you're not going through the valley of the shadow of death, I promise you at some point you're going to walk through this valley and you're going to need this, amen. So I answered this so what question, so what does this have to do with me? And the message is focused, there's a message to it. 

Now, what many young preachers do, and some older, but especially young ones, is you finally get a chance to preach and you feel like I've got to give them everything I got. So you got 20 minutes and you prepare 10 pages of notes and man, you are just ripping and roaring. You give them fact after fact after fact, scripture after scripture after scripture, message after message after message, and you're pouring out, you're pouring out, you're, you're thinking the more I can give them the greater it is. And what happens is you've overloaded your audience and you've lost your audience. Remember, less is more. You, if you give them a few things that they will never forget is better than many things they cannot remember, amen. Hang on to that, hang on to that. Let your message have a focal point.

And so what you can do if you have a short notice to preach, just preach expository. You know, honestly, you can pick up the Bible and almost grab any passage of scripture and there's a message in it. You know, you, you read the Bible all the time and you see messages in the Bible all the time, right? So you can literally pick up the Bible and there's a message in it. Almost every, every chapter's got a message, every series of verses has a message. That's why I really like expository preaching. 

I'll tell you a funny story talking about being ready in season and out of season. So years ago, I was invited to this church and the invitation was uh, “Dr. Self, we want you to come to our church and tell us about your college.” And I went, “Wow, that'd be great.” You know, I'd love to talk about my college, you know, and “Yeah, I want to,” and he said, “Yeah,” “When do you want me?” He said um, “Wed– I want you to come Wednesday night and uh, we'll have you uh, talk about your college. We're going to have a lot of guests, uh, a lot of guests there. We've invited another church to come visit our church,” the old country churches used to do that, they'd visit each other, and I said, “Sure, I'll be, be, be happy to get up and talk about my college.” So I just…just uh, was sitting there at the church and uh, they did the traditional announcements and did praise and worship and uh, pretty good crowd there too. And everybody was doing the praise and singing the songs, doing the praise and worship. And after praise and worship was done, um, the pastor got up and said, “Our message tonight is from Dr. Ray Self. Come on up, Dr. Self.” Holy cow, you talk about short notice. I had no idea he expected me to preach. I thought I was just to get up and do a little message promo on my college all of a sudden, I have less than 30 second notice to preach. What do you do? You go expository. You pick up a passage of scripture and you start preaching it verse by verse. Again, don't do, don't do 20 verses, you know, maybe six verses, seven verses, and pick up the word of God and preach the word. And what's really cool with the Holy Spirit, as you are reading the word of God, the Spirit of the Lord will start giving you revelation up there on stage and words start coming out of your mouth you had no idea you were going to say. All you did was pick up the Bible, begin to read it, tune in to the Holy Spirit, and all of a sudden, you're preaching. It's called expository. 

Now you– there's no way you can prepare a topical sermon and pull your scriptures together. You don't have time to research them and to look them up. There's– it'd be kind of difficult to do a type and shadow message unless you did it from memory. Um, you might could do a textual message where you pull a text out of a passage, you know, message out of a passage, but that's how you get ready in short notice, do, do an expository message. But I want to tell you this: if you're called to preach, do not, do not, do not prepare so many notes that you have no room for the revelation the Holy Spirit's going to give you as you're speaking. I promise as you get up to speak, more is going to come out of you than you realize, okay? Give room for the Holy Spirit. What so many again preachers do is they type out everything they have tons of notes, pages and pages and pages of notes, and then they feel like, “Well I've got to cover everything in my notes,” and there's no room for the Holy Spirit. Allow some blank time for the Holy Spirit, allow some space for the Holy Spirit because He will move if you give Him time. That's one of the keys to moving in the Holy Spirit, just give Him time, amen. Do not over prepare. Now, you should prepare. I study– I have notes every time I preach, but I also know that whatever I put on paper, the Holy Spirit is probably going to change it and He's going to put in a lot of stuff that I never would have thought of, okay? 

So I, I hope this has helped you a little bit. Been a little bit of a different type of um, speaking…podcast, but be ready to preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. You know, that's for all of us, that's for all of us. Again, if you just pick up the Bible and begin to preach it, you know, I have a Bible open here in front of me and I can pretty much go to anything in the Bible and preach it. You know, let's just pick up real, real quickly. Let's see, um, how about uh, Ephesians. Let's go to Ephesians, uh, Ephesians 4, all right? We go, Ephesians 4, verse 8, what does verse eight say, okay? Um, let's see here, let’s see…all right? Well, we go up here to uh, verse 8, “Therefore it says: ‘When He ascended on high, He led host…’” “‘...He led a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men.’ (And saying He ascended – what does it mean but He also descended to the lower regions of the earth? He who also descended is the One who ascended far above all heavens, that He might fill all things.) And He gave the apostles, the prophet, the evangelist, the shepherds and the teachers.” Let me tell you, folks, He ascended and He descended. He set us free and He gave us gifts. These ministers today are gifts from God, the gift of the apostle, the gift of the prophet, the gift of the pastor, the gift of the teacher. We have gifts among us, amen. Your pastor, your teacher, your evangelist, they are gifts to you, amen. And so you can see I just picked up a passage and began to preach it. And I know, that's kind of silly but the word is so rich, there's just– God speaks through His word and He wants to speak through you, amen. 

Be ready to preach the word and don't be, don't– And let me talk to you real quickly about nervousness. Yeah, you get nervous, that's normal. You, you will get nervous before you speak every single time. But I promise you, if you have the Bible open in front of you, you got your scripture– now what I do, is I'll print out my passage and put it in really big print so I can read it easy. I promise you, once you get up and you begin to speak and the Holy Spirit kicks in, that shyness will leave. To be nervous ahead of time is normal but the nerves will leave you once you get up to speak. It happens every time. I can tell you, countless preachers that talk about that, amen. This has been a little bit of a different show. I hope you've enjoyed it, amen. Get ready to preach, you're going to be called someday, amen. This is Dr. Ray Self, thank you so much for listening.

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Well, thank you again for listening to my show. I appreciate it very much. I think…I know it's a little bit of a different show, but I promise you almost everybody I know at some point or another, if you're a member of a church, has been asked to speak. And I hope this show maybe has encouraged you a little bit. You know, just to preach the word, be ready in season and out of season to preach the word. Um, and you know, maybe this show will help you. I hope so. Hopefully the show has been a blessing to you. Don't forget to check out our website, icmcollege.org/selftalk. And I got a new book coming out, I'm excited! I'm announcing my new book. It's going to be on Amazon by the time this show comes out. It's on Amazon, it's called The Call: God’s called, you answered, here's what you need to know. Um, I hope you enjoy this book, check it out, love to get it to you, amen. I would love to send you– if, if you, if you'd like uh, an autographed copy of my book, I tell you what you can do. You can donate to the ministry, icmcollege.org/donate. $15, put a little note and  I'll send you an autographed copy of the book, just for a minimum donation of $15. You can also, to be safe, email me, uh, drrayself@gmail.com. d-r-r-a-y-s-e-l-l-f  at gmail.com and $15 minimum donation and I'll send you an autograph copy of my book. Not that my autograph means a lot, but some people like it. I like it, amen. Or, if you prefer, you can do $15 to Cash App. My Cash App account is dollar sign, Dr Ray Self, all one word, lowercase, $drrayself and God bless you, thank you so much.