09/06/2026
Rubber Mallet and 8 pound sledgehammer
- OR - in other words: right tool at the right time
There are a multitude of different types of hammers for various jobs, materials, and applications. One such type is the mallet. Mallets can be made from rawhide, or nylon, or rubber, or other materials. Mallets are needed when a “soft tap” on a fragile or delicate surface or material is needed. Sometimes mallets are also be on mechanical equipment, fi****ms, watches, etc. There are times a mallet is used for the concern of the surface’s appearance after the blow lands - desirous to not mar nor scar the surface, nor destroy the structural integrity of the item being worked on.
There are hammers for nailing framing lumber together; hammers for finish-carpentry. Hammers for brick-work and other masonry applications. And there are sledgehammers.
The sledge is the big, heavy bruiser. Breaking rock, breaking up concrete, moving logs into place, setting huge beams and joists into position, demolishing walls, countertops, flooring and everything else on “demo-day”, the sledgehammer is a simple, brute force tool that moves stuff and breaks things.
> Sermons, preaching and
preachers
When it comes to sermons, messages, lessons, speaking, and preaching, it came to my mind that the “toolbox of hammers” can be a good analogy for how sermons are delivered.
In my experience, observing and listening to many different speakers (pastors, preachers, teachers) for over three decades, in numerous churches and venues (conferences, camps, etc), it seems to me that a pastor must be both the “mallet and the sledge”, or better stated, the sermon, the message must have both the power and brute force of a sledge hammer, and the gentleness and deftness of a mallet. The Holy Spirit must provide the gifting, equipping, the unction, while a speaker is delivering the message; a pastor must preach the sermon and rely on the Holy Spirit for power and precision.
When the Word of God is preached; when Christ and Him crucified is proclaimed; when the Church is being edified and the unconverted evangelized, they must be both the sledge and the mallet.
Too many broken people are destroyed by only the bully sledges; and too many wanton sinners are only massage by the mallet and never have their hard hearts broken by the sledgehammer. The Gospel is both the sledgehammer and the mallet. It breaks us, moves us, and reshapes us, and conforms us. The Holy Spirit is conforming us into the image of Christ. God is gracious and merciful to both break us and save us; to confront with brute force, and gently carry us to the cross, and to the throne of grace.
Preachers must bring and use both tools rightly. Churches must have both tools in the arsenal and expect both to be utilized in the proclamation ministry.
Lord, break my hard-heartedness, and please gracefully and graciously move into proper alignment with Christ .
