"I am told that someone said of Robert Murray McCheyne of Dundee, 'He seemed, as his preaching progressed, to advance upon you until he was standing inside your heart, applying the Word of God to all your life.'"My own increasing conviction is that this application begins at our own door. I think the secret of applicatory preaching is that we must apply to ourselves the Word of God while we are meditating upon it, while we are studying it. We must do this before we ever begin to think about applying it to other people.
"John Owen wrote, 'A man preacheth that sermon well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. If the Word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.' And again, 'He who doth not feed on and digest and thrive by what he preaches and prepares for his people, may give them poison as far as he knows, for unless he finds the power of it in his own heart, he cannot have any ground of confidence that it will have power in the hearts of others.'"
Eric J. Alexander
What is Biblical Preaching?
