What of serving thee? Does we think of the vast field for service of careers with children and young people, saved and unsaved adults? We pray that we may be fitted to better serve thee, so thy lives may be more fruitful in the days that lie ahead than they may have been in the past. We pray, then, for the guidance of the Spirit of God, and may all our discussion be to thy glory and for our good in the Savior's precious name. Now, last night, you will remember, we looked at the separation of the material, the gathering and the arranging of the material that we would use in teaching our class or bring a message or whatever it might be. And tonight we said we'd look at presenting that message. We've prepared it now, as it were, and we're going to talk now about presenting it. You remember that one of the similes that we used was the thought of gathering together a miscellaneous pile of groceries, vegetables, all of which were good in themselves, but there was the necessary preparation so that from that there might be prepared a meal. Now, we'll carry that similarly a little farther tonight. material for the meal was gathered together. It was sorted out, and the meal was prepared. But I think we'll all agree that the measure in which that served to us has a lot to do with our enjoying that meal. You go to some restaurants, and they just want to throw the food at you. it. But even apart from that, it sort of destroys your enjoyment of the meal if the food is just kind of slung at you. Well, here it is. Take it. It means so much if you have a well-trained courteous waitress, and she brings the food along to you and puts it before you in a way food should be served. I want to think of that in connection with our presenting a message for God. It isn't enough of good material. That's the beginning. It isn't enough to arrange that in a very orderly, attractive way. They might do that. But now, why have we done all that? Why have we gone to all the work of gathering that material and arranging it? It's all then, of course, for the purpose of presenting it to our class or the congregation, the audience we're going to speak to. So that the way in which we present it is going to have a great deal to do with the reception that that message is given and the benefits and blessings that come from it. I think we'll all agree on that. some good messages, and yet they just, frankly, weren't presented in a good way. And so as we would, we have found our attention wandering. We just couldn't seem to keep concentrated on it. We knew it was good, and we really should be listening to it for some reason or other. We just couldn't pay attention to it the way we even wanted to. Some of our other messages, that actually if you examined them there wasn't anything tremendous about them but that they held your attention somehow or other they seemed to move you and you had very little difficulty afterwards in recalling them and once you got started on your recollection of that message it wasn't difficult you found to follow right on through from beginning to the end now i I believe that whole thing was because of the way in which it was presented. You need good material, you need a good arrangement of it, but we must also present it in the most attractive and effective way that we possibly can. You may remember that last night, I think my final thought was to give you six characteristics. that a message should have. Now, I've added one more to it, and I want to remind you of these seven, and then show you the ones that are connected with the preparation and the ones connect with the presentation. First of all, I said that a message should be characterized by relevancy. It should relate the people that you are addressing. You wouldn't go to the jail and hold a service there and preach on Matthew 28, going into all the world. Well, that's exactly what they'd like to. The Bible circumscribed, they just can't go anywhere alone in all the world. So it should have a relevancy to your congregation. you would speak to the young people on, you wouldn't talk to the children of us, and so on. Then the second thing I stressed was, is to be characterized by accuracy. We are handling divine truth, and we must be accurate, whether we're teaching children or young people or adults, we must be accurate in our presenting the truth of God. Then I suggest that it should be characterized by simplicity. We should present our message so that the youngest one there, the one that has been saved the least, can at least understand what we're saying. They won't be able to take it all in. You wouldn't expect that. But I think the greatest messages are messages characterized by simplicity, and that is the business of a teacher, to take a truth that may in itself be difficult and deep and obscure and simplified, get it down to the level of the listener. As has been often said, the Lord said, feed my sheep. they feed my giraffe. Now, a giraffe can reach the way up and get some high things, but a sheep go out near the ground. So, if we're going to feed the Lord's sheep, we better put it out there in a simple way. Now that is not at all inferring that our congregation, our listeners, our audience, is limited than their intelligence, not at all. But they should not only be the characteristic of simplicity, but of clarity. Now, those two may seem the same, but I thought today I should insert that right there. That is a difference between simplicity and clarity. Clarity includes the thought that it can't be misunderstood. Now, that will find one of the most difficult things to do. In speaking or writing, to use language that cannot be misunderstood, unambiguous language, that is very difficult. But it's something we should strive after. If you and I were to listen to those who have listened to us and get the feedback from them, we'd be amazed at what they thought we said. many a time I have been humbled in looking over papers that I've gathered up from a class I've tried to teach. And I thought, well, in the world did they ever get flat out of what I think I said? Well, evidently they did, or they wouldn't have put it down on paper. So we should strive for clarity. Make it so clear that it will be intelligible to all are there, and they will not misunderstand what we are saying. Now, that certainly has to be emphasized in connection with certain truths in the Bible, with all of them, but with certain, more than others possibly, the proper place of work, for instance, and so on. When we're preaching against works for salvation, then some can get the mistaken idea that works don't matter. Good works don't matter. whatever you want to, to say you believe them, that's it. So we've got to be very careful. Get clarity into your message, whoever it should be. And then, sincerity. So that those who, to whom we're speaking, realize that we are sincere about this business. It's not a question that we just have to occupy the time. Very sincere in this matter. And then, they should be fervent. thing. They should be, you remember, of John the Baptist that says he was a burning and a shining light. Now a thing can shine and still be very clear and cold. But John was a burning light. There was some warmth to him. It's not just enough that things accurate and clear. It can be just as clear and cold as an iceberg. But we want there to be some fervency about it. Someone asked an actor, a preacher, asked an actor. He said, how is it? When I preach, he said, I give them the truth of God. I give it to them as I know it from the Bible. But somehow or other, it just doesn't go across the way yours does. You get up and you have people just hang. hanging on every word that you're saying, and following your every movement. Well, you said, preachers, just this. You talk about facts as though there were fiction. I talk about fiction as though a fact, as a lot of fiction. You and I then must have a fervency that will make our hearers real. realize we are talking about things that really count for time and eternity. And seventh and last, should be characterized by spirituality. Our messages must be empowered by the Spirit. They can be clear, accurate, scriptural, and everything else, but it's only the Spirit of God can give them power. This is a miracle that you and I are looking for, a miracle in the spiritual world, and it can only be accomplished by the Spirit of God. Now, if you'll just glance over, if you have made a list of those, it will just glance over them. I think you will see that, speaking generally, the first three would come in in connection with your preparation. your lesson or your message, you will think, well, now is this suitable? Then you will ask yourself, is this it till they find? Am I being accurate now in what I'm going to say, what I prepared here? Then you will say, is this simple? Can I, do I fully understand? And can I expect my hearers to understand? Can I simply? Let's take away, you may save yourself, some of these ten-cylinder words and put in just the simple ones. Good Bob McCloskey and I are real good friends in the Lord, and we used to very often sit together at the Billy Graham campaign, and Bob and I would talk together about the things the Lord before the campaign began. brother was with us one night, and we were poking a little at each other, and Bob turned to me, he said, Bella McKay, do you ever listen to my program, who's on the radio? I said, Bob, I do. And I said, you get started on one cylinder. Then you get up to two cylinder words. Then you get up to three cylinder words. I'm going right along with you. And then you get to four, and then you get to five, and then you get to these big seven cylinder And I say, now, Bob doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm just going to stop listening. He said, Mac, you've got something right there. It was all in good fun, you see. But if we can use a simple word in place of an obscure one, let's do it. We're not there to impress people with our cleverness. We're there to impress people for Christ. things at once. If they're saying what a clever speaker that is, they're not saying what a great Christ that is. Someone left a meeting and on their way out they were asked, what did you think of the preacher? He said, I didn't think a thing about him. All I could think about was the Christ used preaching. Now that's preaching, rather than preaching. That's the way it should be, and so we will think of these three things at least we might include that clarity in our preparation. Certainly the first three and possibly the four we will include in our preparation. Now we're coming to presenting that message, and certainly the last three should be very evidence in our presentation, sincerity, and fervency, and spirituality. But now we want to move along. Why are we teaching? What's our purpose? What's our objective? Here's our class. Or here's the meeting. We're on the platform we're at. Now, Now, what are we trying to do? Don't we get somewhere best if we know where we're going? If we aim at nothing, we generally hit it. But if we realize what we have before us, then we have much more possibility of attaining that. Now let's think of five things. I've tried to simplify this as much as possible. you'd be able to get your notes and also record. First of all, we're on the platform, we're set. The first thing we have to do is to arrest the attention of people. Now, I suggested ways in which we could do that, possibly by our title. We can arrest the attention. If we don't, they might as well sit down. Having arrested the attention, awaken some real interest. You see, that attention may waver. So we want to awaken interest in what we have announced as our subject. We will do that, I suggested last night, by our introduction. If we have a wise introduction to it, maybe a simple illustration, maybe a current event, something like that, we will awaken their interest. so that they want to hear what we have to say. If we have done that, we've won about half of the battle. We want to inspire their confidence in us. Not for our glory, but so that they will listen to what we have to say and accept what we have to say. Now, we will do that, I believe, in a twofold way. First of all, by our sincerity, people who are of confidence enough in our message, if they recognize we are sincere. But that's not enough. You can be sincerely wrong. But by our scripture, if we had other nights or classes, I think it would be very possible for all of us to take any part whatsoever publicly to discuss the reading of the Word of God. That is something that is so terribly slurred over. Some years ago, the CBNC had hearing rings by what they called a layman's week. Some of you may remember. They had a Grimsley High School. Every night, they had a meeting. Every night, they had a speaker from amongst their group. Now, every one of those speakers was a Christian. Christian business man, an intelligent man, an educated man, a man who was getting on well in his chosen line of business. I went to practically every one of those nights, and I heard one good message in the week. No, I'm not saying they didn't talk about the truth and preach the truth. They did. I'm not saying they weren't good men. I'm not saying they weren't godly men. I'm not saying they weren't sincere men. I have no reason to believe that what? They were all of those things. But when you analyze what they were saying and how they were saying it, it was more how they were saying it, I could see immediately how unsaved people would lose their interest altogether. For one thing, and we get to that little bit later, them was very visibly nervous. Although they were intelligent, educated businessmen, they couldn't hide their nervousness. Now, if a preacher's nervous, he's going to have a nervous audience. If a preacher's embarrassed, he's going to have an embarrassed congregation. And there was practically no order to it. But one thing that struck me, and that's what I was going to say right here, their reading of the scripture was very, very true. Now, I believe that that is something we should pay real attention to. I'm speaking about the public reading of the Word of God. It's very important, and I believe it inspires confidence in the people the way we take our Bible and read it to them. You've often heard all of us who preach some time or another, we've all said, no, we're going to read the scripture. For the sake of time, we'll just read two verses. That takes about maybe 30 seconds. Then for an hour we give our word. Why save time on the word of God and listen to the word of man? Certainly you wouldn't expect him to read for 60 minutes. That, by the way, we read the word of God, can inspire confidence in our listeners, this is the word of God that's being read. It's, we should, one thing we should always do, if we announce the passage, which we should, once or twice or three times, give them time to get it. What's the use of telling them where it is and ask them to open their Bible? If they're half through the passage before they get to it, take time to let them get the passage, and then read it, and read it accurately, and read it forcefully, read it as you would expect the word of God to be read. I have often remarked, as the dear brother of home with the Lord now, a preacher of the gospel, and I think I can say honestly, in my early Christian days, I never heard of heard that man on the platform, read the scriptures, but I learned something before he began to preach altogether. Just the way he read it, I said to my fellow, well, why didn't I see that before? He hadn't pointed anything out. He just read it the way it should be read. And as I listened, I saw something I'd never seen before in that verse. Well, it impressed on me as a young man the desire to try and learn to read the word of God so people would understand it, as I read it. Then, fourth, we are there to impart instruction. When I go to a meeting, I want to come away feeling that I learn something. If not, why not stay at home? And we who occupy the place of a teacher or preacher we are there to impart some instruction regarding divine things. We owe it to those who are there that they learn something from what we say. And fifth, our message should impel them to some action. That's the crux of the whole thing. All of the others leading up to that is the one thing. You want them to make that step of accepting Christ. If you're exhorting the Lord's people, you want them to move in the direction that you've been indicating from the Word of God. And so on. So that I leave with you those five things as the objective, as it were, of our teaching. Now, let me give you a few B's, you know. In fact, we'll give you some B.C. I hope you haven't got a bad headache. And it'll be no worse after I get few if you do have one now. But here's a few B.C.s for you speakers now. First of all, decompose. Decompose. You know, that's a lot easier to say than to do. When I get up there and look at those people, my knees start to knock and I forget everything I knew, after what my name was, I'd say, well, I think it's full of stuff. I know, I know. I've been preaching for almost 50 years. I've never got over, fully over the nervousness yet. I, frankly, I don't think that a preacher is up to much if he isn't just a little bit nervous. As Harold Singer used to say, well, man's really preaching. He is concentrated on his message. And Harold Syngen, one of the finest Bible teachers I ever listened to, he used to say that a preacher really preaching would take more out of himself in one hour than a workman would take out in an eight-hour days of hard work. And I believe that. But wanting to be nervous knowing to love the things, you see, after one Sometimes a speaker should be a hypocrite, who shouldn't appear to be what he actually is, and no matter how much the butterflies are floating around inside there, don't let any of them come out, swallow them down. We must be composed, because, you see, we destroy confidence if we're not. Now, there again, we could stand, as we sometimes have, a whole class on dealing with this matter of nervousness. But we can't take time for that tonight. But let me tell you this, which you possibly already know. The best thing for nervousness is deep breathing. My class used to get quite a kick when I would tell them they had to learn to breathe from their stomach. You know, the old-fashioned word belly, because it's our bellows, and the least our voice gets so thin, and the way up there when we get nervous, you know. The more nervous you get, the thinner your voice gets. Why? Because the supply of air is cut off. But if you learn to breathe, you man, now I don't know what the ladies can do, but I've been accustomed to teaching men how to preach. You man, tighten your belt up one more notch just before you're going to preach. And take a deep breath and then hold it down there. Now, I've got a bellows full of air while I'm talking to you, and I'm not using one single bit of it. It's down a reserve. My stomach is pressed against my belt just as tight as it possibly could be, and that's not from my dinner. That's from the air I just breathe in. You see, your lungs go right down to the top of your stomach. get it down in your lower lungs, you can hold it there against your stomach. And you've got all that. Now, that's what gives breath to voice. And so when you get nervous, you know how... Well, suppose right then, suppose while you're gasping for breath, They said, now our speaker for tonight is Brother Dale Andrews. We will now talk about homilactic. But to see if Dale instead of letting his voice get so thin, But you're... No commercials in this class, please. No commercials. All right, you've all watched basketball on TV. What does every basketball player do? If he's been a professional for 10 years, and he's going to shoot that crucial free throw, With two seconds left, what does he do? They say, bounce the ball. That's not all. That's not all. He takes a lot of deep breaths of me. And maybe he takes another one. What's he doing? He's calming his nerves. He's quietening himself. And he shoots and it goes in. Now, if he does that in basketball, why shouldn't we learn to do for the Lord? you see, and many a time I sat on the platform with a large congregation of a conference out there before me, and I sat there breathing just as deep as I could, so that when I got up, I would have control of my emotions and control of my voice. And even though you may be quivering on the inside, if you have a good supply of air down there you are not going to manifest it's not going to come up then you see you have that or extra emphasis if you have used all the air you've got to say what you want to say and you want to emphasize something it comes out like this and that just doesn't impress people but if you've got a lot of extra air to down here, you see, and you want to emphasize it. You've got plenty of it. You see? It's down here. I almost ruined what little preaching career I had in the first few years by talking from my throat. And my voice was always giving me trouble. I was forever swabbing my throat that and the next thing, and putting all kinds of towels on it and whatnot, until somebody gave me some good common sense advice and said, Brother Harold, stop talking from your throat and start talking from your stomach. I've never heard of talking from your stomach, but explain to me, and for quite some time I took deep breathing exercises lying flat on my back. Take that little baby, lay it out there, watch it while it breathes. What's going up and down? It's a little tummy. It's a little tummy. It's going up and down like that. It doesn't know anything about deep breathing. Now, look it up. Most of us breathe from about here up. That's about all we use. What the little child is doing, what God intended to do, is breathing all the way down. So when you and I learn to do that again, It's well worth, if we're going to be speaking from the platform, it's well worth spending time taking some exercise. A good one is lying flat on your back and learning to breathe that way. Make sure your stomach is just going up and down. Another one is just take something like a rod and start with it way down there and breathe in. That's not so hard. Now, wait a minute. Try and get down to your toes again. Exhale. And you'll find it's much more difficult to control your breath going out than it is coming in. You'll get rid of it in half the time it took you to get it in. But you see, when you're speaking, it's going out. So what you've got to learn is just to have it going out. Now, I'm not talking about hot air going out. I'm talking about breath. Going out. control breath. Now that is, then, decomposed. Deconvincing. That's our second DC. Deconvincing. I don't think we need to say much more on that. It, as I've said, through sincerity in our part and scriptulness. AP Gibbs, and you'll notice I'm referring to him quite often, because he had an apt way of expressing things and just a few words along this line he used to say now you can sing on several keys that you should always preach and be natural that's a lot to that just be natural that'll convince people a whole lot more than any of the airs you put on just be yourself because you see if you're not if you're It becomes immediately apparent you're imitating someone, and an imitation is never worth as much as they originally are. So just be natural, be yourself, and you'll convince people of it. The third one, be clear. You'll notice I'm going back over some ground that we've already covered, but we're just coming at it from a little different angle, I hope. Be clear. thought, before you go before that class or that congregation, can you think through your message? You should be able to. If you haven't got it clearly before your mind, you'll never get it clearly before the minds of your hearers. Be clear in your thoughts and be clear in your words. We've already talked about it. Don't use high-sounding phraseology, or it'll sound like hollow phraseology. Just use simple, everyday, down-to-earth words, not uncouth words. I don't believe that slang and that is any place on the platform where we're handling the divine things of God. We shouldn't be pompous in our language, but we should be... pious. And then we should be clear in our speech, our thoughts, our words, and our speech. Let us learn and really work at it to enunciate our words clearly. Let us learn to pronounce them correctly. Let us learn to speak then distinctly. Now the most common failing of a platform speaker, and it's one I'm very guilty of, and that is to let your voice drop at the end of a sentence. Whenever I listen to a tape of a message I've given, I feel very embarrassed. At the many times I allow my voice to trail away at the end of the sentence. You know how aggravating that is. You're listening. The end of that sentence should be the most important. And the speaker drops his voice down and you wonder, just what did he say? What let's seek to speak clearly in such a way that will be heard and be understood. It's a good thing. If he can stand it, listen to a case of your teaching or your preaching. Now, it'll humble you. It'll be good for you. At first you'll want... Oh, no, that's not me. They slipped me another one. I know. I know right, sir, it's not me, but it is. That's what we listen to. That's exactly what we listen to when you're up there. And there it is. But the good thing, it makes us realize our weaknesses. places that we can improve, and surely that's what we want to do when we're serving the Lord. And then, of course, be controlled by the Spirit. Be controlled by the Spirit. We must not allow this unscriptural emphasis on the Spirit of God to cause us to swing to the other extreme and neglect. the filling of the spirit which we need. I have at times spent hours and hours over the preparation of a message. I have prayed over that message. And as I sat on the platform, waiting for time for me to get up and speak, my prayer again and again and again has been, Lord, tell me as your church, the whole thing will be you. I believe what I'm going to say will be accurate. It will be scripture. I'm going to say it as best I can. But, Lord, you have to take over and make it effective. So be through control. Control by the Spirit. And then, dare I give you the last one? Remember, a preacher is a fine book. He points the right way, even though he doesn't go on. out. So I'm going to give you the last point. Be considerate. Be considerate. Stop on top. You notice who said that? I put that in quotes. You heard about the preacher then, you? Young preacher? And when he got up, he's preaching away, and he'd run down to this end of the platform and put his arms up like this. And then he'd run down to the other end. and the platform put his arms up like this. And they said to math, they said those were strange gestures. Oh, he's doing that. Boy, so that was quotation-wise. So, I was quoting someone when I said be brief, you see. And stop on time, but after all, while I can't say much about that, yet I should. After all, I don't think I ever preached an hour over time. In fact, I'm here. There's proof of that. But still, it is, I know that. And the Lord impressed that on me, you know, after I got through my surgery and was able to come back to the services. You know, at the old 4th Avenue, I was so thin, you know, I've gone down to 145 pounds. And I was so thin that to sit on those old benches over there was torture and I was too proud to bring a cushion at first although my torment got better than my pride and I brought along Christian eventually but I thought now the Lord's just punishing me for the way I punished those people and I heard some of the longest sermons I've ever heard in all my life during that time at least they seem long to me so we need to remember that let's that are they to stop on time for they should be invited back again. Well, that's a few B.C.s now. Oh, I don't like to be negative. But I think in connection with this, it wouldn't hurt for us just to have a few don'ts. Sometimes if you approach a thing from a negative standpoint, you can say a lot in just a few words. what I'd like to know. First of all, let me give just a few don'ts that I've jotted down from my experience. First of all, don't preach on a subject or a text that you're not sure of. Be sure that you understand that text, that message before you attempt to teach it or preach it. Don't ride a hobby horse. I have gone to some place, and you're just about sure if you went there what you're going to hear. You're going to hear a message on prophecy. Every time you hear a message on prophecy, or every time you hear a message on church truth, or something like that. Now, these are all important things, but God doesn't want us riding a hobby horse. Oh, the book is too full for that, so vary your subject, so that there will be the element of surprise, as well as other elements that are very valuable. Another mistake, don't scold your audience. You know, they didn't have to come and listen to you, and likely they're saying inwardly, Well, I made one mistake. I can, but I'll not make the same one again. Don't scold your audience. You can speak plain. I believe in that. If we're speaking in the name of the Lord, we can speak words of rebuke. But that's entirely different than a scolding that I have heard coming from the platform. It's just entirely out of place. cliches. Well, you know what a cliché is. A cliché is a word or an expression, likely an expression, that in itself is quite all right. That has been used so often, it's become entirely worn out and lost all its effectiveness. Have you heard some messages? And about every second word of dear friend. Now, a preacher doesn't have to impress on the fact, on his audience, the fact they are his dear friends, the fact that they're sitting there listening, proved that, I think. If they're all to get up and leave, he might wonder whether they were his dear friends. But the fact that they're sticking it out to the bitter end, should it prove that they are his dear friends, it's all right, so drafts will make your dear friends, but not every second or two, and they're quite numbered. In other words, well, why? say something and then say no in other words and then say the same thing over again personally I think that is an insult to the intelligence of the audience or to you the first statement should have been clear enough they just haven't said in other words well you could go on there's all kinds I'm sure I have excise that I use again and again that I shouldn't but we should try to weed these out of our messages, and go ahead and, because so much of this can lose the attention of your audience, and then, as I mentioned in connection with preparing an outline, last night, don't overemphasize your outline. As I said, a skeleton's a good thing, but it isn't a nice thing to look at. And the skeleton of a sermon, if you see it in every sentence or two, it gets awfully boony, you know, or put a little flash on it. Don't overemphasize your outline. Don't spend too much time repeating your previous message. Now if you're giving a series of studies, if you're going through a book, as it were, or on a subject, it certainly is quite in order. to link what you are now speaking on with the previous one. But don't spend too much time on that. As I said, that's a rebuke that my spiritual father gave me right the beginning of my preaching career. He said, you've told us just what you told us night before. We'd heard it once. He said, I'd gone on ahead and given us something new tonight. So it's so possible to spend a lot of time reviewing and rehearsing and it really becomes rehashing. Don't take a notebook this size to the platform, Dragoon. That's all right in the classroom. I think it's quite in place in the classroom. We found in our early days at EMEA that because the students were accustomed them to seeing the teacher come to the classroom every day with his large notebook like this because they had a lot of material to refer to, and because they were expected to bring their notebooks and get down what they could, that when they were asked by the local assembly to take the Sunday night gospel meeting, they appeared with a notebook like this. you know well they didn't do anything for them when they marched up to the platform and opened up a notebook like this you know they just kind of went over like a lead balloon we should all be notable preachers i don't think we should tax our memory just try and remember everything if you can make a few notes but i believe they should be kept out of sight as much as possible If you feel in preparing a message, particularly if you are just more or less a beginner, if you feel you want to even write it out or write out quite an extensive outline and so on, go ahead and do it. But then take that and reduce it. And maybe take that and reduce it to a number of cards. Because I believe... The more conspicuous your notes are, the more danger there is of you losing the attention of your people. They like to see it. Now, they know that you study. They know that you prepare. They undoubtedly know that you have some notes. But they want to feel that it's coming from you, not from your notes. And I believe that if we keep our notes in that sense, as much out of sight as possible, it's better. I was telling some of the brethren last night when we gathered here early about our brother George Lander, who of course was a seminary trained minister before he came into the assembly, had had the best of training and was a very fine platform speaker. I was with him on many occasions at Bible conference. I was with him at this occasion in the city of New York at a large Bible conference there. And he gave a very outstanding message that morning on the person of Christ. You've all heard how Christ is likened to, will save to the floor, to the little or the valley. And so on. Well, he had a long list of those. I was entertained for dinner at the home of a sister in the assembly, and she was remarking about what a splendid message it was. And I agreed with her heartily, for I sat on the platform behind Brother Landis and enjoyed it tremendously. There's just one of those unfoldings of Christ that just thrilled your heart. And she said to me, you know, Brother McKay, what amazed me was he gave the whole message message without using any notes. How could he remember all of those things? I said, now, sister, do you remember that Brother Landis had a very graceful gesture like this? Yes, he said, I thought that was very effective. I said it was. And every time he went like that he picked up his next point from his note. I was sitting right behind him. Now you see, that was real skillful using of the preparation he'd made without giving the impression to the people. Because, you see, if you read too much, it gets the taste of paper in your mouth and people can recognize it. But, Brother George, he would be going along, find all these graceful gestures you know, and then I'd say to myself, here comes another point. Sure enough, you'd pick it right up on the fly, and give it out, you know, it was good. I learned a whole lot, and one of the great privileges of my life has been to share the platform with some of these real platform giants. You'd have thought I'd learned a little more by it, but... don't make it too apparent then, but you usually notice the way I am turning a page now our classroom is one thing, I'm gathered with your class like that we are just taking up basic through these two nights because we're covering a vast amount of information and study and you have to adapt this to your circumstances, some of it you don't need some of it you'll have to adapt to whatever the circumstance may be where you are speaking and so there will be time I feel I hope that it doesn't seem out of place that I'm using this large notebook tonight it's simply my class lecture although these have been prepared fresh for new studies, no matter how complete my studies may be, I don't like to get up and just use the same thing again and again. It can form the basis for it, but I like to make fresh preparation for every time I stand up to speak, because every congregation will be different. And we ought to know a little bit more than when we spoke on the things a week a month ago, we said. So just adapt to yourself. But then, in connection with it, don't look down too much. Now I believe a lot of good speakers are not actually looking at their notes, but they keep their eyes down so much that they almost give the impression you're reading them. Now there's nothing inspiring about the top of the head on a speaker. so much better if he's looking at you. That's what you want people to do. If you want the speaker to look at you and you look at him. And if he can stand, if you can stand. And so you just keep looking at each other. It's perfectly essential. John said he wanted to speak face to face. Oh, I know what that means, but you can use that. It's just keeping our head down and tongue away. I'm not looking at my notes now, but you think I was, you see. I was just weaving it off, and so you take the opportunity. Now, if you're not looking at me, I can get a few winks to sleep now before you look up again. So don't look down too much. And don't develop on you, Joe, justice. Come unto me, all you at labor and are heavy laden. I will give you that. Doesn't that have a real appeal to it, don't you just feel like getting up and going, especially if it was Sam Ford that was up there saying, come under me, you know, you'd be heading for the door. We can take the effectiveness off a lot of good things we say by not using right gents. Now, I know I use my hands highly too much, but I'm pretty sure. Don't follow my example. It's a psychological thing. Because I have difficulty in pronouncing my words and enunciating, the psychologists say that you try to make up for that by using your hand. You see, it's a psychological fact. I asked one psychologist why it was when I was recovering that I wanted to write for a year or so when I couldn't read. I wanted to be writing, and I found myself writing things. be awake. He'll reach out and get a pad and be writing. I said to those Christians, I thought, well, why is that? Well, he said, you see, House, you haven't yet been able to speak like. And your being, your ego, you are responding to that urge to utter something. You can't do it the most way you ought to, so you're writing. So I know that because I'm constantly handicapped by the paralysis on my left side, I feel that I'm not speaking forcefully. And so I'm using this hand too much. I know that. But don't follow my examples. Follow what I'm saying. Don't develop unusual gestures. And as George Landerson, his lectures on comrades, you always say, don't keep always doing the same thing. Have you listened to some speakers, beloved brethren, will you please turn to Psalm 23? Now we will read from the first verse, the Lord is my shepherd. You know what that does? Why, you just lose interest right then. You get so much a part of his glasses that you forget what he's saying, and you start saying, well, suppose he dropped those. and they broke could he read and who would be able to fill him for him you see all of that goes through the minds of people that are supposed to be listening but they're not you've lost their attention well now that's enough don't you