There are all sorts of things that can go wrong for a preacher. What is your worst nightmare? Last week I was at an event at All Souls in London, where a preacher referred to arriving at a church and realizing the message he planned to preach there was one he had preached there before. Is that a nightmare? What about sitting in a service as the first part dragged longer and longer, leaving less and less time for the message? I haven’t enjoyed that experience when it has happened. Or the other extreme. A couple of years ago in the Caribbean I was asked to preach for twenty minutes, but when we arrived at the church I was told my message would be live on the radio and I had to finish on the dot at 10:05am . . . and I was introduced at 9:00am. A twenty minute message squeezed into sixty-five. I’m sure you could add to this list of preaching nightmares.
But the worst nightmare? That’s easy. Preaching a sermon that is all me and no God. That’s the worst nightmare.
Biblical Preaching 
I was asked to preach a funeral message from the KJV of the 23rd Psalm. I was not used to the layout of the particular Bible I was using for it had a strange wrap of the text around passage numbers and would also cut verses to start new pages.
The funeral was for an individual who drank himself to death. Then it happened. I began the first part of the verse which was at the bottom of the page and continued with what I though was the rest of the verse at the top of the next.
It turned out I said: “He layeth beside the still” and proceeded with the next verse. I had one person come to be after and say “layeth beside the still” he sure did.
My biggest clanger was to mix up a list of the recently departed with a list of the those who were sick. I led prayers seeking recovery for the dead and gave thanks for the life of the sick.