A Parable, a Prophet, and a King by Lewis Kiger

We were watching a movie not too long ago and unbeknown to us, it was one of those movies that had a hidden secret that isn’t revealed until the very end. As the surprising dramatic finale revealed itself, it left us sitting there wondering, how did we miss this important piece the whole time? Really, how could we have watched this entire movie and not seen this coming?

One of the earliest parables found in the Bible has a similar conclusion that provoked a similar reaction.

In 2 Samuel 12:1-7, Nathan (God’s prophet) appears before King David and shares a story with him. It is an infuriating account of a wealthy man, who had unexpected dinner guests arrive at his home. But instead of choosing one of the many sheep from his numerous herds to feed his visitors, this rich man selfishly slips over to a neighbor’s home; and snatches away his one and only little lamb to have it slaughtered and prepared for the banquet.

Upon hearing this story, King David became furious. His anger was triggered, and in fiery indignation he rises from the throne and pronounces that the man who has done such a thing, will restore four-fold what he has taken, and then be put to death. The king is livid, to say the least. David finds it outrageous that such an atrocious act would be done in his kingdom.

It is just at this instant, that the Biblical plot thickens…for at that exact moment; Nathan takes his prophetic finger and points it at the chest of the enraged king and with holy boldness declares to him, you are the man that has done this thing.

An uncomfortable silence falls over the throne room, as the royal monarch processes Nathan’s indictment.

As many of my readers are aware, the king had recently committed adultery with Bathsheba the wife of Uriah.

While out walking on the palace rooftop one night, David had observed this attractive young lady bathing, and rather than turning away; David allowed lust to give birth to sin in his heart and he sent for her and had sexual relations with Bathsheba.

The erring king then recalled her husband from battle and commanded him to go home and “spend time with his wife” to try and cover his crime. However Uriah, the faithful soldier, refused to engage in the privileges of marriage while his brethren were sleeping in tents on that battlefield. And in spite of several attempts, the king could not persuade him to spend intimate time with his wife, so in another moment of selfish weakness; David orders Uriah back to war, and commands his generals to position him in the bloodiest battle and then withdraw from him. Uriah is quickly killed.

Nathan Rebukes David

 by James Tissot

While these awful events were unknown to the majority of the people in Israel, they were not unknown to God.

The shepherd king who is identified as a “man after God’s own heart” has fallen. Though he had several wives and sundry concubines, yet he added further to these sins, by stealing away the only wife of a godly man.

Like a solid right hook out-of-nowhere, Nathan’s parable hit the king right between the eyes. David, who grew up tending his father’s flock was rocked to the core by this simple story.

With one fell swoop, the king went from righteous indignation to guilty brokenness.

It was this parable that God used to convict the heart of the stumbling king. It was this relatable illustration that Nathan shared that led David to repent of his sins, and to ask God for forgiveness.

Readers, this is the purpose of parables in the Bible. Not to reveal some deep theological doctrines and not to build prophetic positions on. But to relate clear and simple truths that provoke thought and action. Jesus often employed parables for just these reasons. To provoke thought and change.

King David must have felt like we felt, when we reached the startling climax of that movie…shocked and surprised. Like us, he never saw it coming.

But doubtlessly, he was thankful that a man of God had the courage to confront him in his sin and to encourage him to find forgiveness from the God of all grace.

Pastor Lewis Kiger

Memorial Heights Baptist Church

svdbygrace2@roadrunner.com

The Dragon's War

Revelation 12 paints the picture of the epic story of redemption. The story begins with a woman, clothed with the sun, standing above the moon wearing a crown of 12 stars.  She is nine months pregnant and has gone into labor. In this vulnerable position we see slithering toward her, a red, seven-headed dragon. This wicked beast is on the prowl, hunting her child. With a hideous grin, smiling through his vicious fangs, he waits to destroy her child. However, we read that the son is born, ascends to Heaven and the women escapes. The dragon missed his shot.

William Blake

The woman is the nation of Israel. The son, is the child of Isaiah 7-9; Immanuel, the Lord Jesus Christ. As God’s people looked and longed for the Messiah to come, so had the dragon; also known as Satan. About 4,000 years’ prior, the dragon rebelled against the Lord God and fell from Heaven like lighting. On Earth, God had created Adam and Eve and placed them in a perfect paradise. Enter the dragon, who spins a deceptive lie about God. They foolishly chose to listen to him, and rebelled against their creator and plummeted humanity into corruption. The dragon had won, despoiled paradise and usurped the role as ruler of the world. In the midst of this sad tale of destruction, God made a promise to Eve. Through the seed of a woman, a child would be born who would grow up and crush the head of the serpent. The dragon's day is coming. For generations, in a preemptive strike, the dragon tried  and failed to destroy the woman before the son was born, but he had failed. So when this promised  child was born, the dragon circled the woman ready to destroy the Son who came to destroy him.

Christ Jesus was born and lived and Satan did his level best to destroy the Son. The Son was hanging on a cross outside of Jerusalem, and the dragon seemed to have prevailed. The Son was dead and laid in a tomb. But as God said in the garden, the crushing of the serpent’s head would bruise the Son's heel. The defeat of the dragon came by the death of the Son, but the Son did not stay in the tomb.  He conquered the dragon, thwarted his plan. Jesus rose from the dead, leading captivity captive and ascended to heaven giving gifts unto men. Even though the dragon was defeated, he is still at large. Since he missed his opportunity to defeat the Son, he turns his anger to defeat the kingdom of the Son. He turned to finally devour the woman, but she is gone, hidden in the wilderness. He turns his wrathful eye upon the Son's Bride. Since that time, the dragon has been at war with her. The dragon came and murdered king Adam and his bride, and stole the kingdom. Our champion, the Lord and King Jesus, will come again, rescue His bride and then finally slay the dragon, once and for all.

Let the Elders Rule Tuesday with Timothy # 66

1 Timothy 5:17-18  Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.  For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.

This passage is a particular pickle for some of our Baptist brethren and, as I heard one preacher say, "this goes for the sistern, too". The Elders rule. What are we going to do with that?

Oversight of the elder was not a novel idea that Paul is proposing here. In fact, Paul says this in passing. The presupposition here was that the elders ruled, and here is how you treat them. Had this been a new idea in the church, Paul would have had to explain what this meant. We could do a Greek study, but, as is almost always the case, the text means the same thing in Greek as it does in English.  As a pastor admonishes those under his authority, and as a father rules his house, and as a man is the steward of his life and superintends his good works, so the pastor leads the church (1 Thes. 5:12; 1 Tim 3:4-5, 12; Titus 3:8, 14).  

If the first thought that comes into your mind is "church authority!" you may be a little imbalanced. If your first instinct is to kick against the pricks of authority and redefine and explain away Scripture when you find it offensive, then you need to ask if you are under the authority of God's Word? After the United States had won her Independence from Great Britain, some of the citizens so bristled at anything that looked like a monarchy, they objected good ideas that were in their favor. I think independent Baptists can get like that. Any mention of authority, oversight, and rule in the church and there is a visceral reaction and charges of dictatorship and popery fill the air. I'm wholeheartedly a congregationalist in polity and believe in church authority.  But it is clear that there is leadership in the congregation, there has to be, and if it isn't the pastor, then it is someone else. Of course there are bad pastors, just as there are bad church members. There are extreme cases where the man takes the office and imagines himself a king of his own kingdom, and there are cases where the pastor realizes he has taken a church which is someone else's kingdom. But let's be careful not to be imbalanced as a reaction against one particular evil. The body of Christ serves her Head, the Lord Jesus. We are all in the body under the kingship of Christ. Different members with different jobs, but all together as one. When we loose site of that, then all is lost.

Ephesians 4:1-3  I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;  Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

The office of pastor is a position of authority, under authority. The pastor serves a particular role in the body of the church, defined as outlined in the Scripture. The reason the qualifications of the bishop focused on his character is because you are electing a man to lead you and watch over your soul and character matters. The church disciplines, the church receives members, the church selects elders. The authority of discipline is with the church, so the pastor can rebuke and exhort, but the pastor cannot make anyone do anything. The shrewd politician understands this and takes advantage of it, but the godly see that a pastor is for their spiritual good. The true and blessed polity of God's churches depend on love, trust, and humility on all sides. The church selects its own elders who are qualified to lead and then they must voluntarily submit themselves to their leadership and oversight. If you can't trust your pastor to have oversight, why is he your pastor? Seriously, why? The book of Hebrews says that the pastor has to give an account, so that means that the church has called him to leadership and has recognized him as the leader (Heb 13: 17; cf. 13: 7).  The gentiles rule over others for their own gain, but Jesus disciples are to love and give sacrificially for the least of God's people. The servants and ministers of Christ follow their Lord and give themselves and give their life to live to bless and serve others. 

The Form of the Sermon. part 2

We have come to the second half of chapter 4 in our reading of Martyn Lloyd-Jones book Preaching and Preachers concerning the form of the sermon. This is an excellent section on preparing an outline. While there is more to preaching than form, and it can be a danger to become hardened  against truth if it doesn't fall into even the preferred form, the fact is "when truth is presented in this particular way it is more easily assimilated by the people, it is easier for them to take it in, to remember it, to understand it, and to benefit from it." The form Lloyd-Jones is found by the following steps:

1. Exposition of the text
2. Finding the doctrine in the text
3. Application of the text to the hearers.

When you read a passage, you are not doing and information dump. You are not saying all the true things you can think the passage is saying. That is not a sermon. A sermon should have a theme. When you take a passage of Scripture, and expound it and then preach it, that sermon should have a point. You may say "my sermons usually have three points". Here is the key. Here is the difficulty and where most go off the rails. The "points" in a message should all be developing the main point of the message.

The conclusion of a sermon is not tacking the gospel on at the end. Rather the whole sermon should be working towards the conclusion. Read a passage of Scripture and find the meaning of the text. Next you examine it for the doctrine it is teaching us. Expound the text, get the meaning you are going to preach, have one doctrine that comes from the text, and seek to apply it. That is how you get your proposition.

Think of the proposition as being able to tell someone what your sermon was about in a text message. If it takes you 7 text messages to explain what your sermon was about, you probably didn't have a clear proposition. Work on that, think about the one thing you sermon is about. This is why some topical sermons are hard to follow. For example, they take a topic on marriage. Then there are three points about marriage from three different passages of Scripture. Each point is true and each of the points are all about marriage, but they are not related to each other in a logical flow of thought. Point one doesn't logically flow to point two and points one and two do not build to get us to point number three.

Here is an example of what NOT to do. I happened to be looking through some of my old notes recently and saw a sermon I entitled "We Must Preach Jesus" from Acts 4:14-23. The proposition was that the people of God can do nothing else but preach Jesus because we have no other message. My points were:

1. Foolish Judgment 
2. Fiery Zeal
3. Fundamental Report

I had three points, and they were even alliterated! But I dropped the ball because my third point, though true, didn't fit with proposition of my message. I had opposition to the gospel followed by a zeal for the gospel preaching, leading to the example of the apostle serving through the local church. I hold to the truth of what I said, but it didn't fit together. My sermon would have benefited from the Sesame Street game, "One of these things is not like the other." The message would have been better served to only have the first two points and then a completely separate message for the report.

In summary, your message needs to have one main proposition and that one point needs to be derived from the passage you are preaching. The proposition is what you want people to do or believe based upon the exposition of God's Word. Each of your points need to advance your proposition. If you point doesn't advance the proposition, then you need to reconsider the proposition or reconsider your point. We might think of the sermon as a table, the proposition as the table top and each of your points being the legs.

Just an aside. I have found the easiest way to do this is when I go from point one to point two, write a one sentence summary of point one, restate my proposition, and then a one sentence summary of how that leads us to point two. Writing those three sentences can be difficult, but it will be a world of help to at least clarify your thought. There are tons of ways to do this. In Romans 9, Paul teaches a line of thought and then anticipates an objection to his first point, asks the question, and that leads him to his next thought. By preaching the whole chapter, you could use Paul's questions as your transition statements and the next line of thought as your points.

Resurrection Sunday

Why do you go to church on Sunday? Why not Saturday night or Tuesday afternoon? For several thousand years, the people of God set Saturday set apart for worship. But almost 2,000 years ago, an abrupt shift happened in the worship of God. A group of dejected disciples who had lamented the loss of their leader; disappointed apostles, mourning their missing Messiah were surprised with news that seemed too good to be true. The Lord rose from the dead (Luke 24:1-7). Early one Sunday morning in Jerusalem so many centuries ago, a couple women found the tomb of my Lord empty then found the Lord Jesus alive. From that Sunday, until this past Sunday and every one in between, Christians have assembled together in the name of Christ to worship the risen Lord (Mark 16:9, John 20:19; 20:26 Acts 20:7, I Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10). There has not been a Sunday since that blessed day in which the people of God have not met to worship. Jesus was crucified, laid in a tomb, and after three days and three nights, rose from the dead, verified and witnessed by multitudes (1 Cor. 15:4-8). Christ died for our sins, rose for our justification and because Jesus rose from the dead, you have hope of eternal life. The victorious Savior, laid down his life, and by his omnipotent power, took it up again. Jesus. Defeated. Death.

What does a Van Gogh painting of rabbits in a field
have to do with the resurrection?
Good question.

I love celebrating the resurrection. And praise God, He gives you 52 days a year to publicly rejoice in the resurrection of Christ. That is why the doors are open to the house of God every Sunday morning. Each Sunday is a bold declaration that Jesus rose from the dead. We shouldn’t have one day out of the year we set apart in commemoration of the resurrection because EVERY Sunday is resurrection Sunday. If your only thought of Christ and his resurrection comes once a year, and that with marsh-mellowly candies and mystical, egg laying bunny rabbits, you have a serious spiritual problem. The Bible doesn’t say anything about appointing  just one day out of the year to remember Jesus rose from the dead.  When Jesus rose from the dead, the disciples rejoiced in that fact together, every Sunday. We are told not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together on the Lord's day, and when we do, even if it is two or three who are gathered together, Christ is in the midst of that assembly.

If you love the Lord Jesus Christ, you will want to gather and worship Him. The Lord's day is the day of worship, the day of rest, the testimony of the resurrection, the declaration that you follow the risen Christ and that he is your Lord. Don't rob yourself of the ordinary means God uses to bless his people through Sunday worship. Don't let your children think that one Lord's day is more important than the others. I invite you to worship the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This Sunday and every Sunday after.

A good preface

This is from the preface of William Perkins book on preaching "The Art of Phrophecying". A winesome introduction as well as a preemptive strike against petty criticism. Good advice for reading anything, for that matter.

"If you are persuaded of this style of preaching, walk on with me; if you have some doubts, inquire with me; if you begin to see points at which you have wandered, come back on to the right path with me; if you see that I have strayed, call me back to the road you are on. Your appreciation of me will become disapproval soon enough if you do not like godly and moderate-minded men ! But if anyone has petty complaints about these pages—few as they are— my conscience is a strong enough defence against all criticism, because my only concern has been to serve the church of God. So I commit you to him, and this little book on the art of prophesying to you as well as to him."

You Must Be Born Again

No Preaching & Preachers this week, Lord willing, I'll post next week. I preached at conference for the Glade Creek Missionary Baptist Church this weekend, so I fell behind. The theme of the conference was on salvation and I preached on You Must Be Born Again.

If you are interested, here is the sermon. 

Excuses, excuses. Proverbs 26:13

"The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets." - Proverbs 26:13 
 
Meet the slothful man. He is the idle and shiftless ne'er do well, puttering around working hard at keeping from having to work. With much fortitude, Mr. Sloth rolls out of bed because he has a lot of work he has to take care of today. Sitting down to breakfast, his heart is full of determination as his belly is filling with eggs; he's going to get stuff done. Walking out the door, he kisses his poor, longsuffering wife on the head and tells her that he's off to take care of business. On the porch, he takes a deep breath and looks up at the sun beating down on him. "Sure is hot, for 9 in the morning." No matter, better get to it. He gets to the end of the lane, and spots something off in the distance. "It's moving pretty slow, and whatever it is, it looks big from here." The shape, though he can't be sure from this distance, almost looks like –wait, is that…a lion?

His wife is doing the morning dishes when the door busts open and her husband wildly declares "There is a lion in the way; a lion in the streets! That vicious beast could have ate me alive!" He sits down in his favorite chair in the living room to recover and orders from his beloved a tall cool drink. "That was close. I could have died! I just wish I would have been able to get to work. Maybe tomorrow."

    Yawning Man (disputed attribution)
    Pieter Bruegel the Elder

If he were a character on a television show, he'd be the loveable lazybones. But in real life, it isn't very funny. Mr. Slothful isn't funny to his wife. It isn't very funny to his kids. It isn't very funny for those people who are depending on him to live up to his God given responsibilities as a man, to put his hand to his work. Was there a lion in the street? Who knows. Maybe, maybe not. If there wasn't a lion, there very well could have been one, in this man's mind, and what, do you want him to die?!? The point here is it was an excuse. And so what if there was a lion? He goes back to bed instead of, I don't know, taking care of the lion in the way! If there was a danger, there is a danger to everyone else in the community. I've lived long enough to know that if there were free tickets to the Super Bowl on the other side of that lion, he would have braved the danger. Whether working for someone else (Ephesians 4:28), or working on things around the house, or working for the Lord, be diligent in your calling. Proverbs 15:19  The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain.

Jealousy​ of God

This excellent passage is by Joe Thorn from his book Experienceing the Trinity.

"Jealousy is a word that evokes pictures of a controlling, oppressive husband who doesn’t trust his spouse and denies her freedom. But the jealousy of God for his people doesn’t stem from a lack of trust in his people. It comes from his desire to have an intimate and exclusive relationship with them. He calls them to maintain the fellowship they have with him above everything else. To say that God is jealous for you is to say that he loves you, desires you, and does not want to share you with other gods. His jealousy protects you from the false gods of the world that seek to use and exploit you. His jealousy is your good. Yes, his jealous love for you calls you to faithfulness. Does this limit your freedom? In some ways, of course it does. But why would you want to be free to dishonor the Lord? Where is the joy in finding temporal pleasure in idols that do not love you, cannot care for you, and will always hurt you? Here is what is beautiful in God’s jealousy: His love for you is fervent. His fidelity to you is unbreakable. And by his jealous love he swears to defend you and keep you. The jealousy of God for you should lift your countenance, not cast it down. You should feel safe, treasured, and compelled by his love to stay close to him. And though you fail him, he will not fail you. His love, unlike your own, is immovable."

Do you work, or just pastor? Tuesday with Timothy # 65

"Do you work, or are you just a pastor?" I've been asked that question enough that I am no longer surprised  the general population think preaching or pastoring is not really work. And all the stay at home mom's say "amen!"

It takes work, and it's usually hard work, to understand the meaning of the text and then to prepare a message for the people, rightly dividing and rightly applying it to the congregation. A message that is preached so plain and in such a logical way that the profundity of the passage is clear and accessible; that is the message that has been worked on, prayed over,  and studied. It takes no work to make a complicated matter seem complicated. It takes very little effort to make a simple thing complicated. That isn't the sign of a deep thinker, but a lazy preacher.

Because preaching is a spiritual endeavor, some think that study and preparation is not relying on the Holy Spirit. They quote Matthew 10  "take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.  For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you."  Using this verse to justify no preparation for your sermon is further proof you NEED to study. The context is clear this was direction for the apostles for when they were called to testify before the Jewish and Gentile leaders who are persecuting them, not for Sunday morning worship. I think it was Spurgeon's grandfather who told him to prepare like the fruit of your sermon depends upon your efforts and enter the pulpit knowing that the it depends on the Holy Spirit.

I have on many occasions, been asked to preach with only a few minutes notice. I relied on past study and was able to preach extemporaneously. If you do that every week, you will starve the sheep.

If we could borrow from Paul's instructions on "widows indeed" that elder that labors hard, works, and strives to understand the text and works hard to make it known to his people for their good is a "pastor, indeed." He is not only worthy of his pay, but he is worthy of twice whatever you are currently paying him. I know most churches pay their pastor as much as they can and not as much as they would like to, but it's a worthy investment for the church.

The Form of the Sermon. Preaching and Preachers Chapter 4, part 1

An expositor of Scripture is not to divorce yourself from systematic theology. Lloyd-Jones makes a great point here. The preacher must have a grasp of the whole message of the Bible and he must have a systematic theology. However, the systematic theology doesn't impose itself on the text, which is where you get sermons that have the right doctrine from the wrong verse. Truth is spoken, but it did not originate from the text, but from a true, systematic theology.

After the preliminary marks, he gets to the point of the chapter, the form of a sermon. He begins by stating what a sermon is not. The sermon is not an essay. I'm not against manuscripts, if it is a manuscript for preaching and not an essay for reading. We are not writing literature, but declaring truth.

The sermon is not a lecture. A lecture communicates facts. Preaching is for a decision, a call to action, an attack against error or strongholds in the heart. A lecture starts with a subject, but a sermon starts with the text.  

The sermon is not a commentary. Those that object to expository preaching do so, in part, because they misunderstand exposition or they have rarely heard good exposition. Expository preaching is not verse by verse running commentary on the text until you run out of time. That is a commentary, not a sermon. Lloyd-Jones says that if that is all you do, you haven't preached a sermon, but just the introduction to a sermon. After you have explained what the text means and what it clearly says, then you can apply the truths and preach the message that God has given. Don't just give facts. The sermon comes from the text, what the text actually says and what it actually means. Each part of the message, each point is derived from the theme of the meaning of the text. The sermon should be one whole unit, one whole message. If you have three points, they should all come from and be connected to the meaning of the text.

Quoting Dr. Luke - Tuesday with Timothy #64

I Timothy 5:17-18  Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.

There is a blessed jewel in this passage that will strengthen your belief in the authority of Scripture. The chapter begins with Paul giving instructions to the church on caring for widows and who should receive continual financial support from the church. Now, he turns his focus to the pastors. The church has a responsibility to care for their pastor financially as he cares for them spiritually. Those that labor in the Bible and doctrine do a good work, and they are worthy of the church's support. Most people bristle at this passage because it talks about the pastor and money. Paul had to deal with accusations of being “in it for the money" so he worked a job to support himself, proving he wasn't a prophet for profit. Paul does what any man who labors in word and doctrine worth his salt does when addressing an issue – he brings the book. 

“For the scripture saith”. Paul shows from the Bible the principle of supporting the pastor from two unlikely places. He first illustrates that it is an act of love and mercy to support your pastor. Deuteronomy 25:4 says you shouldn’t put a muzzle on the ox that you use when threshing the corn. It was cruel and counter-productive to starve out your ox while he is working for you. Don't get greedy about mouth full of corn he’ll eat, and work him hungry. The ox is worthy of taking some of the fruit of his labor. The application is not that your pastor is a big dumb ox, but  rather don’t starve out your pastor to keep him humble and at least treat him as well as you do your livestock. 

Here is the verse that I wanted you to see. “The labourer is worthy of his reward”. Paul quotes Luke 10:7. This is a big deal because he refers to the gospel of Luke as Scripture – the written word of God. Paul did not viewed the writings of his friend, Dr. Luke, as the inspired word of God. Luke's gospel, for Paul, has the same weight and authority as Deuteronomy! Paul at once shows that both the Old Testament and the newly penned gospels and epistles are authoritative for the Christian. All of Luke's gospel is Scripture; the virgin birth, the life and ministry of Jesus, His miracles, and His death and resurrection. The New Testament writers knew their writings were inspired of God and quoted each other while submitting to that word. When you open the gospel of Luke, you can know that it is God's word and have faith in its message as not the words of men, but the very words of God.

The Sermon and Preaching. Preaching and Preachers, Chapter 3

"Cannot this all be done better by means of group discussions? Why must it be preaching? Why this particular form? Cannot his be replaced by a kind of 'dialogue', as it is now called, or exchange views? Should we not rather encourage more questions at the end of the sermons, and a dialogue between the minister and the people who have come to listen?"

Why preach at all? People don't really like it, so we are told. I don't believe that anyway. People love to be preached to. We loved to be preached to in TV shows, movies, songs. We love to be preached to on Talk Radio and Fox News. We love for people to make pronouncements about what is right and wrong, good and evil. We just don't like Christian preaching. Lloyd-Jones tries to parse out what makes preaching, preaching. It "does something to" the hearer. It isn't an information dump, but a call to decision. Christian preaching should not leave a person merely being entertained, but called upon to action, one way or the other. God isn't debated or discussed, but proclaimed.

But I think his distinctions between sermon and instruction, content and delivery go a bit too far because his definitions are very subjective. The difference between a sermon and preaching could depend on the mood of the congregation. I also disagree with his suggestion that if people will gravitate to hear a preachers if he preaches the truth. Scripture and history attest that this isn't always the case. This is where I believe that Lloyd-Jones can take events or experiences and make the case that this is the way it is for everyone or the way it is supposed to be.

The best part of this chapter is the discussion on where the man gets his message. It has to be the Bible. It is God's message, not the man's message. Preach the Word. Such as we have been given, give. We can't preach anything other than what we have received, and what we have received is God's word. Preaching from the headlines of the paper or preaching morals that we glean from TV and movies isn't Christian preaching. Christian preaching is making Christ know through the declaration of God's truth found in Scripture.

What do you think? Am I being too critical here? I have preached a message that blessed the souls of the congregation. I have preached that same message in a different place where people yawned the whole time and no one listened to  word I said. Did I only preach in the message that was received?

Your Humble Servant

"...And your humble servant."

A post shared by H.B. Charles Jr. (@hbcharlesjr) on Mar 25, 2017 at 4:45pm PDT