Preach the Gospel

I’ve been soaking up Charles Simeon lately. Here’s some encouragement for you from Simeon if you’re preaching today. His thoughts are based on 1 Corinthians 9:16: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”

Respecting men’s call to the ministerial office, it would be difficult to speak with any degree of certainty…But the obligation to discharge the office with fidelity, when once it has been undertaken, is as manifest in relation to us, as it was in reference to St. Paul himself: a dispensation having been committed to us, we may every one of us say, “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel!”

Simeon says that the office of ministers is, “in one word, is to ‘preach the Gospel.'” And for those “who discharge their ministry aright”:

They may meet with much opposition from an ungodly world: but they are truly happy, in the hope that “they shall both save themselves and those who hear them.” Sweet is the thought which a faithful minister has in looking forward to the time of meeting his people at the judgment-seat of Christ. The sight of many whom he shall then have to present to God as his spiritual children, saying, “Here am I, and the children whom thou hast given me;” and the prospect, that, to all eternity, he shall have them as “his joy and crown of rejoicing” before his God; say, is not this delightful? Will not this be a rich reward for all his labours, and for all that he had suffered in the discharge of his high office? Yes, verily, if he had died a thousand deaths for them, this would be an abundant recompence: and this blessedness assuredly awaits the laborious minister, the faithful servant of his God. (Horae Homileticae Vol. 16: 1 and 2 Corinthians)