Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones continues his address against lay-preaching. (Part 1 may be found here.)

Let us first look at it in terms of this question of a call. What is the preacher? Well, obviously, the preacher is a Christian like every other Christian. That is basic and an absolute essential. But he is something more than that, there is something further; and this is where this whole question of a call comes in. A preacher is not a Christian who decides to preach, he does just not decide to do it; he does not even decide to take up preaching as a calling. Now that has often happened.  There have been men who have rather liked the idea of being a minister. It seems an ideal type of life, a life with a fair amount of leisure, giving ample opportunity for reading-reading philosophy, theology, or anything they may want to read. If they happen to be poets, well it is something that will give them ample time to write poetry. The same applies to essayists or novelists. This picture of the type lived by the minister has often appealed to young men, and there have been many who have gone into the ministry in that way.

I need scarcely say that this is entirely wrong and quite foreign to the picture one gets in Scriptures, and also as one reads the lives of the great preachers throughout the centuries. The answer to that false view is that preaching is never something that a man decides to do. What happens rather is that he becomes conscious of ‘a call’. This whole question of the call is not an easy matter; and all ministers have struggled with it because it is so vitally important for us.

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers