Thoughts on preaching - Alexander - XII - 'The matter of preaching' concluded

Required reading
Thoughts on preaching by J. W. Alexander (Available from Amazon or free here) - Conclude the 'The matter of preaching'.

My summary
Now Alexander turns to look at some of the consequences of preaching Christ crucified:
(i) there is little danger of excess in setting forth Christ objectively to their hearers;
(ii) the way and grounds of vital union to Christ should be thoroughly and abundantly set forth and cleared up in preaching;
(iii) the preaching will be doctrinal in that it will teach the whole word of God;
(iv) no great good will be effected by abstract metaphysical and philosophical arguments;
(v) the tendency to promote what is morally good will occur.

Then Alexander gives a few suggestions of the extent to which the preacher is obliged to give instructions to men in respect to worldly relations and interests, economic, social and political:
(i) preaching the gospel will bring with it morality;
(ii) Christianity insists on the exercise of religious principles and all the virtues of our holy religion in every sphere of life and action.

What grabbed me
I loved the centrality which Alexander gave to the gospel in today's reading: 'The nature of saving faith, as distinguished from all counterfeits of it; its simplicity, as distinguished from all the entanglements with which unbelief would embarrass it; its naked essence, as simple trust in Christ and his righteousness, should be, in one form and another, a frequent theme of preaching, and habitually inwoven with the whole texture of our discourses. This must be done, even if it incur the danger of seeming repetitions. It is the grand requisite to the birth of the soul into the kingdom of God. Simple and rudimentary as it is in Christian teaching, free justification is an article in which men born under the covenant of works are dull learners. There always are those in every congregation who are thinking and inquiring on the subject of religion, but who have never known what it is to believe on Christ to the saving of the soul. There are always babes in Christ, and weak believers, who tremble and stumble in their Christian walk, because they have no adequate view of the free, gratuitous, and full justification which faith embraces and insures merely for the taking. At this point, too, not a few older Christians, " when, for the time, they ought to be teachers, have need that one teach them which be the first principles of the doctrine of Christ." Many ministers have been surprised, in conversations with the sick and dying, to find persons who have been their hearers all their days, in a mist on this simple and vital question, How can a sinner be justified before God ?'

The gospel should be in every sermon.

Next week's reading       
Read 'Expository preaching'.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.