1. A Vision of God

Every true preacher begins where Isaiah began: in the temple, in the year of a king\u2019s death, seeing a greater King who never dies. Isaiah saw the LORD \u201c sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, \u201d and heard the seraphims cry one to another of His holiness. Men preach small because they have seen God small. The street preacher who has had a vision of God preaches big \u2014 because God is big.

And the vision does what no training alone can do: it undoes the preacher before it uses him. Isaiah did not first say, \u201cHere am I, send me\u201d \u2014 he first cried, \u201cWoe is me!\u201d A man who has seen his own unclean lips against the holiness of God will never preach in pride, never preach for applause, and never preach another man\u2019s message. He preaches as one who has stood before the King.

"In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple."\u2014 Isaiah 6:1

"And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory."\u2014 Isaiah 6:3

"Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."\u2014 Isaiah 6:5

2. A Vision of Calvary

Take away Calvary and there is nothing left to preach. The open-air preacher does not offer the crowd a better life, a cleaner habit, or a kinder philosophy \u2014 he offers them a crucified Christ. On that cross the LORD laid on His Son the iniquity of us all: every lie, every lust, every blasphemy that the crowd on the pavement has ever committed was charged to Him, and He bore it in His own body.

That is why Paul \u2014 who had learning, standing, and religion enough to glory in \u2014 would glory in nothing else. A vision of Calvary settles the preacher\u2019s message forever: Christ died for sinners, for ALL sinners, and whosoever will may come. We do not preach ourselves, our church, or our university in the open air. We preach Christ crucified.

"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."\u2014 Galatians 6:14

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."\u2014 Isaiah 53:5

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."\u2014 Isaiah 53:6

3. A Vision of Eternity

Every face in the crowd will outlive the sun. The young man laughing at the preacher, the woman hurrying past with her shopping, the old man on the bench \u2014 every one of them is an eternal soul, and every one of them will spend eternity somewhere. A vision of eternity is what turns a pleasant religious talk into a rescue. There is no small preaching when forever hangs in the balance.

Eternity also steadies the preacher himself. The reproach of an afternoon is temporal; the crown is eternal. We look not at the things which are seen \u2014 the empty hands, the hard faces, the arrest, the rain \u2014 but at the things which are not seen: a city whose builder and maker is God, and souls snatched from an eternal fire. That is the arithmetic of the open air, and it always comes out in favour of preaching.

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."\u2014 2 Corinthians 4:18

4. A Vision of Our High Calling

Paul counted his pedigree, his zeal, and his blameless legal righteousness as loss \u2014 dung, he called it \u2014 beside the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. A man with a vision of his high calling does the same with his comfort, his reputation, and his weekends. The calling is HIGH: it comes from God, it is in Christ Jesus, and its prize is set before us at the end of the race.

And a high calling is a pressing calling. The apostle did not drift toward the mark; he pressed. He forgot the failures behind him \u2014 the sermons nobody heeded, the ground that stayed hard \u2014 and reached forth unto the work before him. That is the spirit this university trains into its preachers: not men waiting to feel ready, but men who have heard a call too high to negotiate with.

"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,"\u2014 Philippians 3:13

"I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."\u2014 Philippians 3:14

5. A Vision of the Lost

The last of the five visions is the one that walks out the door. When Jesus saw the multitudes, He did not see an audience, a market, or a nuisance \u2014 He saw sheep without a shepherd, and He was MOVED. Compassion is the engine of open-air preaching. Doctrine tells the preacher what to say; a vision of the lost tells him he cannot possibly keep it to himself.

And the seeking Saviour defines the seeking preacher. Christ did not wait in heaven for the lost to find Him; He came. He did not wait in the temple for Zacchaeus; He went to Jericho. The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost \u2014 and His servants go where He went: into the highways and hedges, the markets and the fairgrounds, to seek the same lost souls for the same Saviour.

"But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd."\u2014 Matthew 9:36

"For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."\u2014 Luke 19:10