“I’ve heard that before,” or “I already know that,” are frequent complaints directed to young preachers, if interpreted wrongly, such laments have the potential to damage him greatly. These erroneous comments imply that preaching is a form of mere entertainment designed to keep the hearers attention through freshness and relevance. But if the preacher and “church” are only scant entertainment, then the point of preaching has been utterly missed. In Paul’s exhortation to young pastor Timothy he reveals what the true purpose of preaching is
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
The job of the preacher is to preach the word! Not his own thoughts, ideas, opinions nor the latest avant garde heresy. He is not there to entertain, he is there to confront and correct. A much better picture is to view the preacher as a fitness instructor and the people as his class, they all have varied degrees of physical fitness but they all benefit from the exercise. So too with the preaching of the word (provided the preacher is not some godless heretic) every Christian can benefit from hearing the foundational truth’s of scripture addressed repetitiously.
Now, let us consider the critical comments at the beginning from our new point of reference…the Word. Who, in an exercise class, would be likely to object: “I’ve heard about a jumping jack before”, or “I already know about push-ups, they’re boring?” You would likely hear these objections from the pasty overweight gentleman in the back, who lives in his mother’s basement and invests most of his free time into his level 72 death troll on World of Warcraft.
There is much that physical and spiritual fitness have in common. Just as those who desire to be physically fit do not despise the lowly push-up; those who desire to be spiritually fit do not despise repetitive sermons regarding fundamental Christian truths. Here is the hinge on which the entire argument turns; such complaints do not reveal a problem in the preacher, but a problem in the recipient . . . a hard and calloused heart. Itching ears which desire to be scratched by the latest thing or newest “truth” do not indicate great spirituality but great carnality.
“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings’ courts. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. Luke 7:24-26
I find an irony in Christ’s description of John the Baptist, reminding me so much of our day. People desperately need a fresh word from the Lord, desperately need a prophet, yet they often reject them, because unlike the shaking reed they are insensitive, and unlike the nicely dressed, cultured, refined men of the court, they are uncouth or plainly dressed. People want a sensitive, tolerant, refined prophet of the Lord, but they will never find one for such a creature does not exist.
What does desiring this flavor of prophet say about us, and why won’t we find him? The question is valid. Why do we want Oprah friendly prophets? We want them because we don’t want to offend anyone. Being closed-minded is nearly equivalent to murder, and intolerance to child molestation. We want divine guidance and exhortation to do things which even the hedonists, feminists, and communists will applaud. We want our prophets to injure, “Thus saith the Lord . . . be nice.” or “Thus saith the Lord . . . Recycle.”
But this friendly prophet mentality completely misses the point of the prophet’s job. The prophets’ job is not to attach God’s name to whatever is culturally acceptable, the prophet’s job is to confront society’s accepted sins and anger nearly everyone in the process. According to no less than Jesus Christ a false prophet is one whom “all men speak well of” A politically correct prophet of God will not exist because a politically correct prophet of God cannot exist! The Prophet is an emissary from a perfect and perfectly immovable God who enforces laws so righteous that no one else can possibly keep them. The only refuge from his wrath is to commit yourself to His son, be bathed in His blood, and cry out for His mercy. Any emissary for this God will declare a message guaranteed to bring hatred, slander, and often death upon himself. After all the greatest prophet whom ever lived said to his unconverted brothers that, “The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.” This prophet’s name was Jesus…
Now do you see why we don’t accept this type of prophet? Here’s the dilemma, we want a prophet but godly prophets make us look narrow minded and un-cool. What are we to do? The frequent solution to this dilemma is what truly frightens me. Knowing that a true prophet will hurt our reputation but wanting a prophet nonetheless we accept a different sort of prophet altogether, one who will never offend, never challenge, and always affirm. In other words . . . a false prophet.
A number of years ago, my wife and I experienced a tragedy in our lives as we witnessed the still-birth of our daughter seven months into her gestation. She had a genetic disorder called triploidy. According to healthline.com, the longest an infant with this condition has ever lived outside of the womb is ten months. Attempting to explain the range of emotions I felt that day as I watched my daughter enter the world already dead is impossible. To even look at her was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. And it has taken me years to now even be able to admit that.
Triploidy is a complete genetic fluke. What it meant was that rather than having two sets of chromosomes in her cell structure, her chromosome sets were tripled, hence the name. The severity of retardation that occurs under this kind of situation is genetically apocalyptic. Thus it is a mercy of God that children who are born with it do not live. Were they to do so, their lives would be complete and total misery.
You can then imagine my reaction when my wife told me that someone inferred to her that the reason our child was dieing was because we did not have enough faith in God. For the record, I completely forgive this person now and have no bitterness, however it really begged a question…what exactly is faith? Is, as this individual suggested, faith some exasperated internal force of will that makes God our marionette? I know that we see God’s hand move in response to the faith of men, so I can say that I understand the tension of this question. However I will say that God responding to our faith will always have His purposes in mind as the ultimate end of His response rather than our own self-gratification…period.
Trying to wrangle faith to the ground so it cries uncle and defines itself is a rather slippery task. If you have not noticed, scripture uses the word faith so much, and we know that faith is the only way to please God, yet scripture rarely seems to actually define faith in cerebral terms. I think the closest it gets to being defined is Hebrews 11:1.
It would probably take me pages and pages to explain what I am about to say, but for the sake of this being a blog I will just throw it out there that it seems to me as if there are a couple facets of faith, and God responding to our faith is really one facet, however, I think that the most important facet of faith I have come to understand is that it is a positive/obedient response to God.
Galatians 3:5-6 says, “He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Did you catch that? The hearing of faith? What in the world does that mean? I looked up numerous commentaries on this tonight and every one of them utterly dodged and failed to explain what the “hearing of faith,” even means. Verse six gives us a clue, in order for Abraham to believe God, what first had to happen? God had to say something…He, in His almighty sovereignty made a claim…He made a promise. What was that promise? Abraham would have a son. Abraham believed that God would do through him, what God had promised, and that son would bring forth a nation.
I forgave that individual because they knew not what they were saying, it seems that she, like many people in our society have imbibed more theology about faith from Yoda and Luke Skywalker lifting an X-wing out of a swamp than they do from the Bible. They think that faith is the force of personal will.
According to Galatians, faith is hearing God, and responding to His desires…this is the dynamic of walking in the Spirit, and growing as a Christian, this is what Paul is getting at when he asks, “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” NO!!! And yet so many today have been swayed and lulled into a near demonic belief system by thinking that faith is a product of fleshly force of will.
A number of years after this tragedy, God blessed my wife and I with a healthy daughter, and not just any daughter, she is mind blowing. When she was about a year and a half old she had a fever over 105 degrees, my wife took her to the doctor’s office, and while she was waiting for our family practitioner to come in, my daughter had a febrile seizure. My wife said it went on for minute after hellish minute. We spent the rest of the day in the emergency room as my daughter lay upon my chest crying hour after hour in an almost non-coherent fashion, until the fever broke and we took her home safe.
About a week or two later, since I was not there when this occurred, I asked my wife what she was thinking or feeling when the seizure was in full swing. I had waited a while to ask her, because all the while I had been personally thinking about our first daughter, and the subject has been a very tender one for my wife over the years. Her answer utterly shocked me, “I just prayed, and thanked God for the time He gave me with her.” The implication being that the thought of my daughter becoming a vegetable or worse, dieing, had crossed her mind.
If that is not true faith, then I do not know what is. My wife, out of the abundance of her heart, simply responded to the sovereignty of God with the faith of a child, utterly, totally, completely trusting Him, regardless of the outcome.
