Don't Disagree but....

I don't disagree with what Sean says; but I repeat: the `aha' moment is not application; it is not the end point of the sermon; it is not sufficient in itself to communicate the imperative; it certainly is not where Paul ends his letters; and it isn't where Sean ends his sermons, some of which I have had the pleasure of hearing.  But for some preachers of whom I am aware (naming no names) it is indeed where they end, as if a pointed `go and do thou likewise at the end of an exposition of the good samaritan; might lead to legalism.

When I preach on David and Bathsheba, for example, I certainly point out as the primary point of the story that David fails and thus is not the great king who will definitively deliver his people; that greater David is only found in Christ.  But I might also advise the men in the congregation that, even if they are as greatly blessed by, and as intimate with God as, David was, sneaking a peak at their neighbour's wife in the shower is a very bad idea and could lead them to a very bad end. 

As one correspondent emailed this afternoon (a presbyterian, by the way) -- the dreary, predictable monotony of so much bad redemptive historical preaching (not the good stuff, as outlined by Sean) is why his favourite preachers are baptists.