My sixteen-year-old son, Calvin, persuaded me to go deer hunting with him. I can scarcely kill an ant, much less a deer. “Michigan is overpopulated with deer,” he told me. “More should be shot each year.” “Real men get their deer with a bow,” he went on. For Calvin, guns are too easy. Shooting deer with bows takes more skill and lots of practice. If my son had his way, every spare minute would be dedicated to archery.

I capitulated, having no idea how serious this sport was. I bought the works: a good bow, arrows, targets, clothing. On the first day of practice, we unloaded the Styrofoam targets on the edge of the seminary lawn. “Okay, Dad,” Calvin said, setting the targets fifteen yards away. “Aim for the bull’s eye.” He showed me how to set the arrow, how to pull back the bow, how to use the sights, and how to release the arrow.

Wham! I hit the target on my first shot. I was amazed. My next three arrows also hit the target. This isn’t bad, I thought.

We went to pull out the arrows. They were all within a foot of the bull’s eye. But my son was a hard taskmaster. “Not bad for the first time, Dad, but not good enough,” he said. “The two closest ones are okay, but look at those two arrows over here. If you shot a deer with those, you would only wound him. You need to get much closer to the bull’s eye. All your arrows have to fit on a paper plate around the bull’s eye.”

After an hour of shooting, several minor adjustments to my bow's sight, and a rather sore shoulder, Calvin said, “All right, Dad, you're getting them all close enough now.”

“Thanks for helping me; this is a lot of fun,” I said to Calvin. “But I should be getting back to work.”

Calvin looked at me in disbelief. “We’ve only begun!” he said. “It’s time to move to the 25-yard range.”

Like an obedient child, I started over again. I kept hitting the target, but I was still too frequently off the mark. Another hour flew by with fifty more shots and an even sorer shoulder. I gradually improved until nearly all the arrows were within a few inches of the bull’s eye.

“You’re ready for fine-tuning the red sight at the 35­ yard mark, Dad,” Calvin said. “This is the tough one.”

He was right. I missed the entire target twice. Slowly but surely, however, my arrows found the mark. Finally, all three sights were set.

Calvin didn’t let up. He told me that to be a good deer hunter, I should practice at 45 yards. So, practice we did.

Then Calvin took me inside. He showed me pictures and videos of deer, pointing out exactly where I should shoot them. Finally, he said, “Dad, I don’t want you to just wound a deer; you’ve got to get it right.”

Hitting the Mark in Preaching⤒🔗

Preaching is much like deer hunting. Our target in preaching is the minds and souls of our hearers. We need to aim carefully so we do not merely wound people, but go to the heart of their spiritual needs and ailments. We need to adjust our sights for different people. For example, God-fearing believers, like 15-yarders, are very tender and close by. It is easy to reach their consciences with the arrows of God’s Word. The 25-yarders — backsliding Christians and those held in spiritual bondage — are harder to reach; they are more desensitized to sin and resistant to believing the gospel lest it take away their freedom. Then there are the 35-yarders, who are open to the gospel but resist a true, vital relationship with God, and the 45-yarders, who feel that it is hopeless for God ever to save them. Like Gallio in Acts 18:17, they show no concern for the gospel.

Preachers are like archers, aiming the arrows of God’s Word at various consciences at different distances, using different sights. Like deer hunters, we should always aim to strike a telling blow — a killing blow at unbelief, self-righteousness, pride, and all manner of sin. But unlike deer hunters, we aim for the conscience for other reasons as well: to instruct, to challenge, to comfort, to warn. In short, we target our people where they are with law and gospel, always mindful that we have many different kinds of hearers every time we stand up to preach.

The art of “soul hunting” from the pulpit takes much practice. It takes dependence on the Holy Spirit. No matter how astute you are as a preacher, without the Holy Spirit, you will miss the mark every time, no matter how close you are.

Calvin told me the best deer hunters realize they haven’t yet mastered the sport but have a long way to go. That is true of preachers, too. If we think we are already outstanding preachers who know how to bring God’s Word to all kinds of hearers, we have deceived ourselves.

Zealous for God’s glory, godly preachers are vitally interested in the application of the Word. They want to understand how to target their audience effectively, dependently, irresistibly.

Let me offer a few thoughts on this grand and glorious subject of targeting an audience as we preach. First, we will establish a few basic ground rules; then we will look at how to preach to the 15-, 25-, 35-, and 45-yard­ers, as well as others.

Ground Rules of Preaching←⤒🔗

Rule #1: Preaching must be applicatory←↰⤒🔗

The English word application comes from two Latin words, ap meaning “to” and plico meaning “fold.” Application thus means joining something to something else. Applicatory preaching is the process of riveting truth so powerfully in people that they cannot help but see how they must change and how they can be empowered to make those changes.

Applicatory preaching matches the text to every aspect of a listener’s life, promoting, by the grace of the Spirit, a religion that is power and not mere form (2 Tim. 3:5). Robert Burns defined such religion as “Christianity brought home to men’s business and bosoms.” The principle on which it rests is that “Christianity should not only be known, and understood, and believed, but also felt, and enjoyed, and practically applied.”¹

In the final analysis, preaching is about application.

Even a cursory look at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, apostolic preaching in the Acts of the Apostles, and the great preaching of ages past, such as the sermons of John Calvin or Jonathan Edwards, shows that good preaching is rich with application. Without it, we may have good teaching, but that is not preaching. Spurgeon exaggerated only slightly when he said, “Where the application begins, there the sermon begins.”

Fellow preachers, we need to remember that we are not called to speak before people, but to people. Application is not just important; it is essential! Those who fear God will want God’s Word personally administered to them. Daniel Webster said, “When a man preaches to me, I want him to make it three things: a personal matter, a personal matter, and a personal matter.”

The best preachers in the Bible and throughout church history included application throughout their sermons as well as in the conclusion. In The Christian Ministry, Charles Bridges said about application:

The method of perpetual application, where the subject will admit of it, is probably best calculated for effect — applying each head distinctly; and addressing separate classes (or groups) at the close with suitable exhortation, warning, or encouragement. The Epistle to the Hebrews (itself a series of sermons) is a complete model of this scheme. Argumentative throughout, connected in its train of reasoning, and logical in its deductions — each successive link is interrupted by some personal and forcible conviction; while the continuity of the chain is preserved entire to the end.”²

The Puritan preachers, who learned from the Reform­ers, were masters of the art of application. This art of application is beautifully summarized in a short chapter titled “Of the Preaching of the Word” in the Directory for Reformed Worship, composed by the Puritan Westminster divines:

He (the preacher) is not to rest in general doctrine, although never so much cleared and confirmed, but to bring it home to special use, by application to his hearers: which albeit it prove a work of great difficulty to himself, requiring much prudence, zeal, and meditation, and to the natural and corrupt man will be very unpleasant; yet he is to endeavour to perform it in such a manner, that his auditors may feel the word of God to be quick and powerful, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; and that, if any unbeliever or ignorant person be present, he may have the secrets of his heart made manifest, and give glory to God.³

The Westminster divines identified six kinds of application:

• Instruction: doctrinal application;
• Confutation: refuting contemporary error;
• Exhortation: pressing and admonishing the sheep to obey the imperatives and duties set forth in the text being preached, as well as expounding “the means that help to the performance of them”;
• Dehortation: rebuking sin, stirring up conviction of the  heinousness of sin and hatred for it, as well as declaring the dread consequences of sin and showing how to avoid it;
• Comfort: encouraging believers to press on in the good  fight of faith, despite various troubles and afflictions; and
• Trial: preaching standards and marks of grace for purposes of self-examination and correction, so as to stir up believers to do their duty, to be humbled by their sin, and to be strengthened with comfort, according to their spiritual condition.⁴

To this list, we might add doxological application, or preaching and applying those truths of Scripture that induce a sense of the beauty and glory of God and His truth, inciting hearers to praise Him as He revealed Himself in Scripture. This promotes what our forebears called experimental or experiential preaching that lifts up our hearts and affections to end in the beauty, glory, and love of the Triune God in and through Jesus Christ our Lord.⁵

Rule #2: Preaching must be discriminatory←↰⤒🔗

Preaching must discriminate — that is, it must separate one group of people from another. We must draw a clear, biblical line of demarcation between a Christian and a non-Christian, opening the kingdom of heaven to one and shutting it against the other. The Heidelberg Catechism calls preaching and Christian discipline the “keys of the kingdom of heaven,” and, referencing Mat­thew 16:19, says that “by these two, the kingdom of heaven is opened to believers and shut against unbeliev­ers.” If this key of preaching is not used to discriminate, preaching is not the kingdom work for which Christ commissioned His apostles and servants.

Discriminatory preaching, then, must open the kingdom of heaven by offering the forgiveness of sins and eternal life to all who, by true faith, embrace Christ as Savior and Lord, but it must also shut the kingdom of heaven by proclaiming the wrath of God and His eternal condemnation upon those who are unbelieving, unrepentant, and unconverted. Such preaching teaches that our religion must result in a personal, experienced relationship with Jesus Christ. If our religion is not experiential, we will perish — not because experience itself saves, but because the Christ who saves sinners must be experienced personally as the foundation upon which the house of our eternal hope is built (Matt. 7:22-27; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2:2).

Bridges presents three aspects of discriminatory preaching. First, preaching must distinctly “trace the line of demarcation between the Church and the world,” he says. As ministers, we must bear in mind that there are fundamentally two kinds of hearers before us: the saved and the unsaved. Bridges stresses the biblical support for this division:

They are described by their state before God, as righteous or wicked (Prov. 14:32; Mal. 3:18) — by their knowledge or ignorance of the Gospel, as spiritual or natural men (1 Cor. 2:14-15) — by their special regard to Christ, as believers or unbelievers (Mark 16:16; John 3:18, 36) — by their interest in the Spirit of God, “being in the Spirit, or having not the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9) — by their habits of life, “walking after and minding, the things of the Spirit, or the things of the flesh” (Rom. 5:1, 5) — by their respec­tive rules of conduct, the word of God, or “the course of this world” (Ps. 119:105; Matt. 25:46) — by the Masters whom they respectively obey, the servants of God, or the servants of Satan (Rom. 6:16) — by the road in which they travel, the narrow way or the broad road (Matt. 7:13-14) — by the ends to which their roads are carrying them, life or death — heaven or hell (Rom. 8:13; Matt. 25:46).⁶

A second line separates the false professor or hypo­crite from the true believer. Jesus Himself draws that line sharply when He speaks of those who claim to belong to His professing church and cry, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” His response is, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:22-23).

Of this second line of discrimination, Bridges writes, “Every part of the Christian character has its counterfeit. How easily are the delusions of fancy or feeling mistaken for the impressions of grace! The genuineness of the work of God must be estimated, not by the extent, but by the influence, of Scriptural knowledge — not by a fluency of gifts, but by their exercise in connexion with holiness and love.”⁷David Brainerd put it this way, “Labour to distinguish clearly, upon experiences and affections in religion, that you may make a difference between the gold and the shining cross. I say, labour here, if ever you would be an useful Minister of Christ.”⁸

As ministers, we need to help our hearers rightly examine themselves. 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.” We must not assume or presume that all church-goers, including children, are all saved, and we are to avoid presumed church “unregeneration,” as if only a few who have professed faith in Christ are truly saved. Rather, we are to present repeatedly the biblical marks of those who have been born again and come to Christ by way of saving faith and genuine repentance.

Third, Bridges says, “We must also regard the different individualities of profession within the Church.” Like Jesus, we must distinguish between the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear (Mark 4:28). Like Paul, we must distinguish between babes and adults in grace (1 Cor. 3:1); like John, we must preach to various believ­ers as little children, young men, and fathers in grace (1 John 2:12-14). I’ll have more to say on John’s division later.

In short, discriminatory preaching must remain faithful to God’s Word. Probing the inward knowledge of the soul, the message must flow from a proper interpretation of the Word of God and must center in Jesus Christ (John 1:29, 36). Grace is to be offered indiscriminately to all (Matt. 13:24-30); however, the divine acts, marks, and fruits of grace that God works in His people must be explained. This will encourage the elect to know themselves aright and will uncover the false hopes of the hypocrite.

As Bishop Joseph Hall says, “The minister must discern between his sheep and wolves; in his sheep, between the sound and unsound; in the unsound, between the weak and the tainted; in the tainted, between the nature, qualities, and degrees of the disease and infection; and to all these he must know to administer a word in season. He hath antidotes for all temptations, counsels for all doubts, evictions for all errors; for all languishings, encouragements.”

Elsewhere, Hall concludes that it is difficult to decide “which we should guard most against, the infusion of a false peace, or the inflaming of the wounds which we ought to heal.”⁹Little wonder, then, that Richard Baxter warns us that when we, as spiritual physicians, apply the wrong spiritual medication to our parishioners, we can become murderers of their souls, which has grave ramifications for eternity.¹⁰We must be honest with the soul of every person and strive to bring them and the touchstone of Holy Scripture together (Ezek. 3:17-21).

Rule #3: Preaching must neither ignore the pew nor let the pew control the pulpit←↰⤒🔗

Books on homiletics differ widely here. For example, in Making a Difference in Preaching, Haddon Robinson emphasizes that preachers are to sacrifice what comes most naturally to us and should take great pains to become like Paul, who said, “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). According to Robinson, we must go to great lengths not to offend people from the pulpit, carefully choosing our words, using gender-inclusive language such as “spokesperson” rather than “spokesman.” To his credit, Robinson mentions near the end of his chapter that we can paralyze ourselves if we “focus too hard on not offending.” Then “we end up with weasel sermons that are defensive, cautious, and spineless.”¹¹

By contrast, in Preaching and Preachers, Martyn Lloyd-Jones warns against not letting the pew control the pulpit. He says we must not target audiences too specifically and noticeably. You do not have to be a factory worker to reach factory workers, he says.¹²All people — seniors, middle-agers, college students, children — have the same spiritual disease and need the same gospel. If you preach the gospel simply, both children and intellectuals will understand. We do not need sermons for youth, sermons for soldiers, and sermons for farmers, Lloyd-Jones says.

The pew must not tone down the pulpit. We must preach the whole counsel of God, including unpleasant subjects. We must call sin, sin, and not hesitate to call for thorough repentance. We must not cater to modern ideas that weaken the content of preaching or shorten the sermon to the length that many people desire. When you preach in the power of the Spirit, Lloyd-Jones concludes, “you can preach to a mixed congregation of varying intellects and understanding and knowledge and culture, and all can derive benefit from it ... There is no greater fallacy than to think that you need a gospel for special types of people.”¹³

In the main, Lloyd-Jones is right, though there are occasions when at least parts of biblical messages have been directed to people in various intellectual and social classes and of various ages and gender groups. John the Baptist “preached” to soldiers when answering the ques­tion, “And what shall we do?” (Luke 3:14). Paul addressed slaves, masters, young women, old women, etc. James preached to a specific social class when addressing the rich in his letter, “Go to now, ye rich men...” (James 5:1ff.). But the purpose of this series of articles is to set forth the biblical warrant for preaching to various conditions of soul. While the former types of preaching are quite common, it is the latter that is so missing in most American evangelicalism. Consequently, when we speak of targeting our audience, the question before us is: How do we, in radical dependence on the Holy Spirit, reach people by means of the Word in various conditions of soul?