The Chief End of Preaching

“What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence. . . . I can forgive a man for a bad sermon, I can forgive the preacher almost anything if he gives me a sense of God, if he gives me something for my soul, if he gives me the sense that, though he is inadequate himself, he is handling something which is very great and very glorious, if he gives me some dim glimpse of the majesty and the glory of God, the love of Christ my Savior, and the magnificence of the gospel.”

– D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 110-111.