Example 1 : " The Conquest of Evil"
(a) Type and plan : First principle, the Atonement being an issue, but not to be expounded rigidly. The object is to bring forward the desperate plight of all of us, to portray the victory achieved for us, and point to its completion in the future. Personal interest is to be maintained throughout, not ported unnaturally at the close. Treatment is to be pictorial, the prevailing metaphor being that of war.

(b) Reading and hymns: John 16. Hymns from 118, 24, 141, 198.

(c) Opening (always a crucial matter). The lecture was designed for a time of war. It begins: " The war has been going on for a long time, now-no man knows quite how long, but certainly for several thousand years. There have been many casualties in this war. No man has counted them, but say upwards of 100,000,000,000-with all the survivors wounded to death, except One." That stroke ought to arrest attention, and direct the listeners to Jesus immediately,

(d) Development:
(i) The three great battles: two fought, one yet to come. The first a victory for sin, the second for righteousness, the third not in doubt.
(ii) The First Battle in the Garden: God and the Serpent over the man and his wife. God's will thwarted, and the outcome in universal sin and death. Quote " In Adam all die."
(iii) The Second Battle in a Garden, a Wilderness, a Temple, by river and lake, on " The place of a Skull." God and the Devil over and within the person of Jesus. The course of the battle in Jesus's following of God's will, culminating in Gethsemane and Calvary.
(iv) The Battle Won: Enemies and friends thought so-and both wrong.
(v) Jesus had foreshadowed victory: John 16:32-33; 12:31-33.
Note paradox: "When they kill me-I have won."
(vi) Resurrection a seal of victory.
(vii) First Christians' Reaction : What they did- Acts 2 : 41-42-and what they believed about the victory-Hebrews 2 : 14 and 2 Tim. 1 : 10- "He hath abolished death."
(viii) But they died; Give examples (Stephen, etc.) and they recognized the devil undefeated- 1 John 5 : 19.
(ix) Solution of the paradox : Jesus attained victory by resurrection : so also saints (1 Cor. 15 : 20ff,; 2 Tim. 4 : 8, etc.) ; and his overcoming applies to them in faith : I John 2 : 13 ; 5 : 4-5.
(x) The third battle : a foregone conclusion. Terror to the adversary (2 Thess. 1 : 7-8), hope to the disciple: Heb. 9:28.
(xi) The Separate Peace : made by those who know where the victory lies : John 16 : 33 ; Ephes. 2: 12-16.
(xii) The Consummation : when God, who left the Garden after (ii) will be there again-Rev. 21 : 3.

The plan is evident enough, but note the value of the unexpected between (iv) and (v), and the sudden pulling up of a too easy hope at (viii), to introduce the true nature of the Christian hope in (ix) and after. Note that baptism, introduced naturally in (vii) and (xi), as well as at the beginning of Jesus's public life in (iii), appears prominent!}', but without forcing, and there is a clear message to the receptive hearer which leaves him in no doubt about his duty. That separate peace is a call to him.