This past spring I contacted several seminaries asking for a
report on their graduations. Included in this issue are articles
and pictures of those who responded. How grateful we are that
our Lord continues to call men to preach the gospel. But what kind
of preaching is needed today? It is my contention that we need the
same kind of preaching today that we have always needed. Nothing
important has changed. Just because we have split the atom and sent
a man to the moon: just because we have laptops instead of legal
pads; just because the people in our congregations are more educated
today than a century ago does not mean we need a new kind of Christianity.
Announcement
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not idle speculation. It is not
some human thought or idea, nor some new kind of philosophy developed
by twelve men who followed and admired a Nazarene by the name of
Jesus. The gospel of Jesus Christ is an announcement It is a declaration,
a proclaiming of the truth.
The trouble that we see around us today is that many preachers
insist on regarding the glorious truth of God's Holy Word as an
outlook on life. Too many preachers see what they preach as one
way of several to get to heaven. Today many are being told that
Christianity comes to us through meditation, mantras, and meaningless messages. We have to sing 7-11 songs, that is. songs
that have the same seven words sung eleven times.
Billy Sunday would have his audience sing anywhere from a half
hour to an hour before he started preaching claiming that it made
the people more receptive to the message. I suppose he thought he
could help the Holy Spirit in His work. I was at a service once
where the praise team wanted the congregation to sing: "There is
Power in the Blood." They insisted that when we got to the word
"Power" we had to sing "POW-er, POW-er, POW-er..." When we got to
that part of the song, the congregation dutifully sang, "POW-er. .
. POW-er.. .POW-er..." I thought I was watching a rerun of Bonanza.
Some people think Christianity comes to us through the deep thinking
of some theologians years ago or through present day philosophers
who want to discover the meaning of life and how to deal with those
problems. They claim as gospel books like: "I'm OK,You're OK" and
"Why Bad Things Happen to Good People." They seek advice from Dr.
Phil for their lives while watching his life unravel. They want
to know the problem of evil and will look anywhere but in the Bible
to discover it. Man's thinking is taking the place of God's revelation. What people are saying has become more important than what
God has said. But that is not the Gospel!
The whole position of the Apostles is that they had something
to declare. They had something to announce. Their announcement was
so wonderful that they could not contain themselves but had to tell
others. John began his epistle that way. He wrote; this is what
we have heard! This is what we have seen with our own eyes! This
is what our hands have handled! This is an amazing message! That
is the way all preaching must be. It must be a glorious announcement
that God has sent His Son into the world to save His people from
their sin.
Apostolic
Preaching must also be apostolic. Of course, there are no apostles
today in the original sense of the word, but an apostle is one who
is sent by God. A preacher must be one who has been sent by God.
The apostles studied at the feet of Jesus Christ. Jesus told
them: "Learn of Me." That means studying and applying yourself to the
Word of God. What made the apostles great preachers? It was not
their accents, although that seems to he a selling point nowadays.
Today it seems the farther away a person has to come, the greater
authority we consider him on a subject. That was not it for the
apostles. The rulers and elders in Acts were not impressed with
the accents of Peter and John, but they marveled at them nonetheless
because they had been with Jesus. The apostles were witnesses to the resurrection.
A lot of ministers base their preaching upon experience: "It
is what I hear; what I see; and what I touch." That is nonsense.
No preacher is proof for the existence of God. The things they personally
experience are not proof for the existence of God. Faith must be
rooted in certain facts--things that actually happened in history.
The basis of our faith, and therefore the basis of all true preaching,
must be the Apostolic Witness. It is what they saw and heard that
is of utmost importance.
Did the disciples tell the truth or not? What if these men reported
things about Jesus Christ that simply were not true? What if they
made up the virgin birth, the miracles, the death upon the cross,
and the resurrection? They are all being challenged today. If any
of it is not true, then we have nothing, and, as Paul writes, we
are among the most wretched of all people on this earth.
Christianity believes the truth. It is believing things that
happened at a certain time in history. We accept and believe the
testimony of men who were there, not some Jesus Seminar that tries
to decipher the words Jesus actually spoke some two thousand years
later. Theologians at some seminar in California may try to convince
us that the only words Jesus spoke of the Lord's
Prayer are the words: "Our Father," but we would rather believe
those who actually heard Him speak and recorded those words for
us. We cannot accept articles published by people who want to sell
magazines claiming that Jesus moved to France with Mary Magdalene.
We believe the testimony of those who heard the words of Jesus spoken,
saw the miracles with their own eyes, touched Him, and empowered
by the Holy Spirit, wrote these things down for us that we might
know Jesus, too.
We believe John when he writes, "Many other signs therefore Jesus
also performed in the presence of His disciples, which are not written
in this book; but these have been written that you may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may
have life in His name" (John 20:30, 31). Either we receive what
the disciples recorded as truth---all of it; or we have to reject
what they wrote--all of it.
Authoritative
The preaching we need today must also be authoritative. Jesus
taught as one who had authority, not as the scribes and Pharisees.
An awful lot of what we hear today sounds like the scribes. Jesus
met the devil not in His own name or His own power but with the
Scriptures: "It is written." The devil tempted our first parents
with the words, "Did God really say..." Where they failed the test, the
second Adam responds with a resounding "Yes!" by citing what God
had indeed said. If He could defeat the devil with three verses
out of Deuteronomy, we ought to be able to do it with the whole
Bible.
What ministers are to declare should not come from ourselves
but that which comes to us through the authority of the apostles.
This is absolutely fundamental. Peter wrote: "We did not follow
cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty"
(2 Peter 1:16).
Our only authority is the apostolic witness; our Gospel is based
upon what they wrote. in the opening verses of his first epistle,
John writes three times, "we have seen it"; twice he writes "we
have heard it"; and then he adds, "with our own hands we have touched
it." John emphasizes this in his opening verses so that there can
be no doubt.
The whole foundation of the Church rests upon the fact that the
apostles bear witness to Jesus Christ. They saw His miracles and
heard His teaching. More than that, they were witnesses to His death
and resurrection. There is no message apart from that.
Never be ashamed of that old-time gospel. There is nothing newer.
We have been given a glorious gospel to preach! That old fashioned
gospel tells us all about a new way of living. We enter that way
by being born again. Through Christ we are new creatures with a new song, a new name, walking in
a newness of life, living by a new commandment, and headed for a
new heaven and a new earth.
At the very end of the Bible we hear these words from the One
who sits upon the throne: "Behold I make all things new" (Revelation
21:5). God is not running an antique shop. If you cannot preach
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever, then you can
not preach at all.
You cannot preach it like it is if you do not believe it like
it was. If you do not believe that the Scriptures are God-breathed
and that Jesus was born of a virgin, died at Calvary for your sin,
and rose bodily from the grave, then you cannot preach it like it
was and you cannot preach it like it is. You have no business in
the ministry.
There is no need to be apologetic with some kind of inferiority
complex in the presence of the new way of thinking, the emergent
church, or any other wind of doctrine that seems to be tickling
the ears of so many today. If anybody should be embarrassed today,
it ought not be the preachers of the gospel. We do not have to call
in TV celebrities, sports personalities, or the like to bring the
good news of the gospel. We are not trying to fix up something because
it does not need fixing. Too many preachers today miss the beauty
of Scripture so they think they have to add to it, as if their touch
can make it better.
We do not need anything new as much as we need something so old
that it would be new if anybody actually tried it. We have developed what I call "ark-theology"
(our Christian schools do the same thing). We build the ark--our
churches and our schools--seeking to separate ourselves from the
world. Once we are in the ark, sailing along smoothly, we start
looking at the world. "Oh, they have contemporary music; we should
have that, too." So we bring it into the ark. "Oh, they have sports;
we should have that, too." So we add a gymnasium to the ark and
offer all kinds of activities. On and on it goes until the world
cannot tell the difference between the church and itself
Today we are trying frantically to popularize the gospel. The
Ichabod Memorial Church tries to pack people in with some great
music. Over at Ephesus they bring in a TV personality who can play
the piano by ear. Pergamum says, "We can do one better. We have
a fellow that can fiddle with his beard." Sardis is going to have
a quilting bee, and over at Laodicea they have a talking horse.
We seem to be living in a fog where we cannot tell the difference
between the divine and the demonic. Ministers must assert their
delegated authority as preachers and preach the Word in the power
of the Spirit. That word must be authoritative. Peter wrote: "If
any man speak, let him speak the oracles of God" (1 Peter 4:11).
Absolute
Someone once said of Spurgeon, "The only colors Mr. Spurgeon
knew were black and white." No minister should ever see that as
an insult. This is the day of relativism. Right used to be right
and wrong used to be wrong. Things were black and white. Now black
and white have been smudged into an indefinite gray.
This past Easter, I read an interview in the newspaper of a very
well-known, well-liked minister. He commented, "Why, if I thought
someone actually rose from the dead, I would shout it from the mountain
tops." Exactly! That is what he is supposed to be doing as a minister!
Paul wrote, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel." He wrote, "Woe
to me if I do not preach the gospel!" We are dealing with absolutes:
the absolute authority of the Scriptures; the absolute Lordship
of Jesus Christ; the absolute sovereignty of God.
The sense of urgency has been lost in much of our preaching today.
The man standing in the pulpit has no business saying: "I would
suggest to you, tonight," or "on the whole, I think," or "1 am almost
persuaded," or "research and speculation point us in this direction."
That is not the purpose of the Christian pulpit.
The preacher must say as John did: "These things declare we unto
you." Preachers are to say: "Thus saith the Lord." Ministers who do that will be accused
of being far too dogmatic, doctrinal, and closed-minded. ‘The preacher
who is not dogmatic, however; is not a New Testament preacher. There
should be nothing tentative about our preaching, nothing doubtful
about what is to be said. The minister is not to dissect God's Word
or theorize about it. He is not called to take the Bible apart.
He is called to proclaim it.
Paul wrote in I Corinthians 2, "When I came to you I did not
come with eloquence or superior wisdom; I proclaimed to you the
testimony of God." Sounds pretty dogmatic, doesn't it? Let me tell
you, sin is dogmatic. You have either broken the Law of God or you
haven't. Death is dogmatic. You are either dead or you are alive.
Hell is dogmatic. Jesus spoke a lot more about hell than He did
about heaven. He was very dogmatic about it.
You will notice there is no middle ground. If you are not drawing
people in to Christ, you are driving them out. The Word of God is
a two edged sword. There are only two ways to respond to it: receive
or reject.
The Titanic set sail in 1912 on her maiden voyage. It was said
that she was unsinkable. The truth of the matter is, the only thing
it ever did do was sink. When it took off from England all kinds
of passengers were on board: millionaires, celebrities, people of
moderate means, and some poor folk, as well. A few hours later when
they put out the list of passengers in the Cunard office in New York, it carried only two categories: lost
and saved. Tragedy had crossed out every other distinction.
On life's sea there are scores of classifications, but when the
voyage is over it will not matter if you are rich man, poor man,
beggar man, thief. It will not matter if you are the butcher, the
baker, or the candlestick maker, whether you lived in the backwoods
or in a mansion, whether you drove a Cadillac or pedaled a bicycle;
it will all come down to the same thing: lost or saved. Those are
the only two options.
As preachers, we are dealing with absolutes. To you has been
given the responsibility to preach Christ and Him crucified. There
will be all kinds of neat distractions and all kinds of debates
to get involved in, but the bottom line has to be this: are you
preaching the Word? Are you preaching Christ and Him crucified?
John did not write his gospel or epistles to cause all kinds
of debates. He wrote so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God, and that believing you may have life
in His name.
Affectionate
Even so, while our preaching must be authoritative and absolute,
it must also be affectionate. Ephesians 4:15 says, "Speak the truth
in love."
Some preachers preach the truth but they do not do so in love.
I remember one minister in a classis where 1 served as pastor. He
was a very capable man but he would challenge the chair at every
classis meeting. He would argue his point until everybody was tired
of hearing him. Over lunch, an elder delegate said, "You know, I
agree with him, but I can't vote with him." Another elder replied,
"He could have ushered in the Second Coming and we would have voted
it down."
Then there are also those who speak in love but they have no
truth, They are the nicest people in the world. They preach all
kinds of warm-fuzzies but they have no clue of right and wrong.
At one church I served, the Christian school board was trying to
get the word "Reformed" out of their charter so that non-reformed
members could serve on the board.
I argued against it, contending that if parents were not members
of a Reformed church, they obviously were not teaching their children
the Reformed faith. What guarantee would parents have that, once
on the board, they would have any interest in teaching our children
the Reformed faith? It sounded logical to me at the time.
The principal of the school stood up. He was a good man who would
do anything for you. He stood up and said, "You know I have been
a principal in several different schools, in several different states.
I have served on boards with Roman Catholics and with Jews. And
you know," he continued, "they are just as Reformed as we are."
How do you argue against a statement like that'? He won the day,
but he lost the battle. The very people that he permitted to be
voted in refused to renew his contract the next year. They said
he was too wishy-washy.
Somewhere there has got to be a happy mixture of both truth and
love. The truth will keep you from dissolving into sentimentality;
love will keep you from hardening into severity. Truth will keep
you from turning into sugar; love will keep you from turning into
vinegar. The Lord preserves His saints, he does not pickle them.
Conclusion
This is the day of the beasts and the seals, the trumpets and
the four horsemen, the harlot and the beast. It is to this world
that preachers must bring their message. You must be certain of
the message you bring!
Look again at what John writes. To a world filled with pain and
suffering John writes: "we proclaim the Word of Life." To a world
filled with sin and death, John writes, "We proclaim to you eternal
life." it is not some fly-by-night guru that pens these words; it
is a disciple of Christ.
In John 1:14, John writes: "We beheld His glory..." He not only
saw it, he understood it as the Spirit of God taught him. He was
one of the twelve, appointed by Christ, called to be an Apostle, anointed by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the
good news of the gospel.
The message of John is this: on the face of this earth upon which
you and I are living with all its problems, trials, tribulations,
the Son of God has come. John knew this to be true because John
goes on to say: he had seen Him, heard Him, examined Him, touched
Him, and listened to Him. Then John adds, because He was here everything
has changed.
John wrote these things so that you can know Him, see Him, and
hear Him. And through it all, you will see how wonderful God's love
is. That is the message of the Christian Church to this tired, weary,
frustrated world. Not some watered down religion, but the very words
of God Himself.
It is a great day for preaching! Let your preaching be an announcement,
apostolic, authoritative, absolute, and affectionate.
Rev. Wybren H. Oord is the Pastor of the Covenant United Reformed
Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is also the editor of The Outlook.
