Preach only "what is there, not what I think is there"

In his introduction to "Evangelical Preaching: An anthology of sermons by Charles Simeon", John Stott comments that one of the key secrets of Simeon's effectiveness as a preacher is that he was "wholly and thoroughly faithful to Scripture":

His overriding concern was so to expound Scripture that his congregation would receive it undiluted and uncontaminated by worldly wisdom. To him "biblical exposition" meant opening up some part of Scripture so that the people could feed upon it.

"My endeavour," he wrote to his publisher, "is to bring out of Scripture what is there, and not to thrust in what I think is there. I have a great jealousy on this head: never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding".

Those words seem to me to be the clearest statement ever made of the expositor's goal. Would that more preachers could wholeheartedly echo and endorse it today!

(Quoted from Charles Simeon, Evangelical Preaching (Multnomah Press), Introduction by John R. W. Stott)

May it be so indeed!