preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. (2 Timothy 4:2 ESV)

I have heard--and probably have preached--some pretty bad sermons!

I have heard sermons that had points that were very difficult to follow, illustrations that didn't tug the heart, stories that lacked flow and connection to the passage. I have heard homiletical introductions that were too funny for the Temple of the Living God; conclusions that would not conclude; movie clips that should be left out of a church building.

Some sermons were plain boring; some sermons were longer than they needed to be. 

Yet I have realized that the worst sermons I have ever heard are not ones which lacked oratory dynamite or illustrative cleverness, but rather sermons that missed the point of the biblical text and thus the product of eisegetical genius. 

These sermons may tickle the ears, wow the crowd, make both sons of God and sons of disobedience chuckle in laughter, but they have zero regard for authorial intent--human author nor Divine author.

The preacher forces his personal agenda to be main point of the passage, which could only otherwise be at most a minutia of an application from the text. And he stretches the text so believably because "his point" is a valid concern for today's church, and yet he also stretches the text so heretically because it is the right theology from the wrong text.

Dear Pastor-Preacher,   

If you are going to preach a thematic/applicational sermon that is not the passage's author-intended point, preface this to your hearer's beforehand.

Else they learn from your preaching how they ought to read the Scriptures: intentionally inserting their own "messages" into the Bible, a "main idea" that was altogether absent from the passage.

Such is at the least an F in preaching class, and at the worst an exegetical fallacy at its finest.

I pray that you would read your Bible well, and preach God's Message well.

Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;

[...] devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:7, 13, 16 ESV)

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