When I think of being earnest in the pulpit many quotes from preachers come to mind (see the quotes here by John Angell James). But what about earnestness during a one-on-one lunch or breakfast meeting? This is where I must learn more about earnestness and feel the same weight as when I climb behind the pulpit. If what people see inside and outside the pulpit are inconsistent, our preaching loses authority. If we are to be earnest in the pulpit we must be earnest outside the pulpit as well. This is the great warning from the life of M’Cheyne:

“Whatever be said in the pulpit men will not much regard, though they may feel it at the time, if the minister does not say the same in private, with equal earnestness, in speaking with his people face to face; and it must be in our moments of most familiar intercourse with them, that we are thus to put the seal to all we say in public. Familiar moments are the times when the things that are most closely twined round the heart are brought out to view; and shall we forbear … We must not only speak faithfully to our people in our sermons, but live faithfully for them too. Perhaps it may be found that the reason why many who preach the gospel fully and in all earnestness are not owned of God in the conversion of souls, is to be found in their defective exhibition of grace in these easy moments of life … It was noticed long ago that men will give you leave [permission] to preach against their sins as much as you will, if you will but be easy with them when you have done, and talk as they do, and live as they live. How much otherwise was it with Mr. M’Cheyne, all who knew him are witnesses.”

Andrew Bonar, Memoir & Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Banner of Truth: 1844/2004), p. 74