IN THESE SERMONS I speak as a preacher who is committed, inasmuch as in me lies, to proclaim" the whole counsel of God." The central theme is depicted in the title, The Revelation of God in Human Suffering. The theme of the stresses of life aims to give a common core of meaning and continuity to the sermons that have been developed in my own preaching ministry over a period of nearly twenty years since my ordination as a preacher of the Christian gospel.

Usually a person expects me to write a book on "pastoral counseling," "pastoral psychology," or "psychology of religion." For this very reason I am publishing a book of sermons. Counseling, psychology, and psychology of religion as implemented by a Christian pastor are inseparable from the work he does as a preacher. I take as my guiding light in this task the work of Jonathan Edwards, who saw vitally the relationship between his preaching and the "religious affections of man." Therefore, he wrote his "Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections." Even at the risk of making strange bedfellows of Edwards and Horace Bushnell, I note also with interest that Horace Bushnell's profound psychological concern for developmental problems in Christian nurture breathe like sweet incense through his sermons, such as the one on "Unconscious Influence." In other words, what I am saying is that the sermon is a living testimony of psychological wisdom and not a reflective essay about psychology.

Furthermore, in order that I may do what I can to undermine the idea that no one reads books of sermons, I am being bold enough to publish one with my publisher's gracious assistance. The lay person in the churches, the growing student in the chapel, the person outside the churches and chapels whose main avenue to knowing God will be through the sufferings that beset him on every side -- these are my audience. I am convinced that they do read books of sermons many times when they do not even go to church. I am acutely aware of the private burdens many ministers themselves carry. I hope that this book will help them both personally and as preachers themselves.

These sermons have all been preached to audiences of church people, theological seminary chapel gatherings, and congregations of religious assemblies of many different kinds. However, the spoken word and the written word are vastly different media of communication. A sermon that is spoken must be adapted to a known audience that also knows the preacher. But the written sermon goes to a reading audience who may or may not know and be known by the preacher. And, as Harry Emerson Fosdick has said, "sermons were not meant to be read, as essays are." For, as Phillips Brooks has said, preaching is essentially the communication of divine truth through human personality. Therefore, a sermon, as Fosdick says, is "direct personal address, individual consultation on a group scale, intended to achieve results. ... If a printed sermon is to seem real, therefore, the reader must read as though he were listening." (Harry Emerson Fosdick in On Being Fit to Live With, p. vii. Harper & Brothers, 1946.)

Prof. J. B. Weatherspoon once said about the use of psychological concepts in preaching: "When you go into the pulpit, just take the cream with you. Don't drag the separator in too!" Even though I have spent a lot of time working in the field of pastoral psychology, Professor Weatherspoon's suggestion has been a watchword for me as I have preached and written these sermons. The art of preaching calls for concealment of the art, because it is the eternal God in Christ to whom we call attention when we preach, not art or psychology. Psychological concepts should be understood well enough by the Christian preacher that they can be a part of his preaching without obscuring his main purpose of proclamation of the Christian witness. Biblical materials should be used without the trappings of jargon and without straining the text of the Scripture.

One more thing needs to be said about the relationships between preaching and counseling. A very real difference between these two ministries of the pastor exists alongside equally important similarities. When the preacher preaches, he appeals to the common and more universal elements in the human situation, whereas the pastoral counselor is committed to discovering the unique individuality of one person at a time and what the universals mean to him. Biblical preaching helps the pastor to rise above the particularities of his counselees to the wholeness of the counsel of God for every man. The effective preacher grounds his preaching and squares and plumbs it Biblically. Thus he avoids the fate of overgeneralizing about all people on the basis of hasty experience with one or two people. The inexhaustible wisdom of the Scriptures is the stuff of the revelation of God for all time. The stresses and strains of human suffering bring the Scriptures into bold relief again and again to the Christian pastor who has an intimate acquaintance both with the Bible and with suffering. The intention of these sermons is to weave the warp of Biblical revelation and the woof of human suffering into a fabric of durable Christian preaching.

-- WAYNE E. OATES

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