Nelson's Anual Preachers's Sourcebook Vol. 3.
There is no higher calling in life than to open the book of God to the people of God.
In our increasingly godless culture the question asked of the ancient prophet has never rung more true in the hearts of those who come to here us preach—“Is there any word from the Lord?” The contributors in this volume are all Bible believers, not necessarily Bible beaters.
They are young and old, well known and hardly known, widely published and unpublished, black and white, traditional and contemporary.
Some of them preach in a coat and tie, others in jeans and open collars. But the one common characteristic they all hold is an insistence upon the trustworthiness of scripture and the knowledge that without a personal faith in Christ alone our hearers are in route to a godless eternity.
As a preacher myself for over four decades I want to raise a warning flag up the flagpole of a volume such as this.
Nelson's Anual Preachers's Sourcebook Vol. 3 is not designed to provide an “easy fix” for late Saturday night sermon preparation. Volumes such as this should never be used as the only tool on the work bench of your personal study.
This sourcebook is designed to lay alongside all your other tools of word studies, exegesis, commentaries, prayer and analytical thought that goes into a fully developed and crafted sermon.
Then filtered through your own personality and experience, along with windows of personal illustrations, it is the editor’s prayer that the finished product will exhort, encourage and edify those who will hear it.
Perhaps there are no greater opportunities for the “preacher” to become the “pastor” than through the ministry of funerals and weddings.
Our friends may soon forget some of our most thought provoking and well prepared sermons, but they will never forget who stood by their side at the open grave of a loved one or who shared in the joy of officiating when they became “one in Christ” at a wedding altar.
Because weddings and funerals go a long way in legitimizing and earning a pulpit hearing much is devoted to these two ministries in this volume.
So, let’s begin the journey, confidant that it still . . . and will always . . . please God “by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21).
