[BBC List] see through preaching

[Mike Abendroth]

Plexiglas Preaching: The Devastating Consequences of a Watered-Down Message


John MacArthur
 

Having established the importance of discernment in Chapter 1, this chapter
addresses its absence in contemporary Christianity. It is an examination of
the major reasons discernment is so scarce in today's church. The culprit is
watered-down preaching. Hosea 4:6
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Hos+4%3A6>  records God's
estimation of spiritual leaders who fail to faithfully proclaim His message:
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected
knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me." A quick survey of modern
preaching reveals that many contemporary pulpits deserve similar
assessments. Why? It is because they have exchanged the full counsel of God
for doctrinally shallow, seeker-friendly "talks." When warm and fuzzy moral
messages, peppered with cute anecdotes and an occasional skit, replace the
meat of God's Word, the consequences are devastating. This chapter, which
originally appeared as an article in Pulpit magazine, outlines the
disastrous results of Plexiglas pulpits and the messages they represent.

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Those who are familiar with my ministry know that I am committed to
expository preaching. It is my unshakable conviction that the proclamation
of God's Word should always be the heart and the focus of the church's
ministry (2 Tim 4:2 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=2Ti+4%3A2> ).
And proper biblical preaching should be systematic, expositional,
theological, and God-centered.

Such preaching is in short supply these days. There are plenty of gifted
communicators in the modern evangelical movement, but today's sermons tend
to be short, shallow, topical homilies that massage people's egos and focus
on fairly insipid subjects like human relationships, "successful" living,
emotional issues, and other practical but worldly-and not definitively
biblical-themes. Like the ubiquitous Plexiglas lecterns from which these
messages are delivered, such preaching is lightweight and without substance,
cheap and synthetic, leaving little more than an ephemeral impression on the
minds of the hearers.

Some time ago I hosted a discussion at the Expositors' Institute, an annual
small-group colloquium on preaching held at our church. In preparation for
that seminar, I took a yellow legal pad and a pen and began listing the
negative effects of the superficial brand of preaching that is so rife in
modern evangelicalism.

I initially thought I might be able to identify about ten, but in the end I
had jotted down a list of sixty-one devastating consequences. I've distilled
them to fifteen by combining and eliminating all but the most crucial ones.
I offer them as a warning against superficial, marginally-biblical
preaching-both to those who stand behind the pulpit and to those who sit in
the pew.

1. It usurps the authority of God over the soul. Whether a preacher boldly
proclaims the Word of God or not is ultimately a question of authority. Who
has the right to speak to the church? The preacher or God? Whenever anything
is substituted for the preaching of the Word, God's authority is usurped.
What a prideful thing to do! In fact, it is hard to conceive of anything
more insolent that could be done by a man who is called by God to preach.

2. It removes the lordship of Christ from His church. Who is the Head of the
church? Is Christ really the dominant teaching 

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authority in the church? If so, then why are there so many churches where
His Word is not being faithfully proclaimed? When we look at contemporary
ministry, we see programs and methods that are the fruit of human invention,
the offspring of opinion polls and neighborhood surveys, and other pragmatic
artifices. Church-growth experts have in essence wrested control of the
church's agenda from her true Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Puritan
forefathers resisted the imposition of government-imposed liturgies for
precisely this reason: They saw it as a direct attack on the headship of
Christ over His own church. Modern preachers who neglect the Word of God
have yielded the ground those men fought and sometimes died for. When Jesus
Christ is exalted among His people, His power is manifest in the church.
When the church is commandeered by compromisers who want to appease the
culture, the gospel is minimized, true power is lost, artificial energy must
be manufactured, and superficiality takes the place of truth.

3. It hinders the work of the Holy Spirit. What is the instrument the Spirit
uses to do His work? The Word of God. He uses the Word as the instrument of
regeneration (1 Pet 1:23
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=1Pe+1%3A23> ; Jas 1:18
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Jas+1%3A18> ). He also uses it as
the means of sanctification (John 17:17
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Jn+17%3A17> ). In fact, it is the
only tool He uses (Eph 6:17
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Eph+6%3A17> ). So when preachers
neglect God's Word, they undermine the work of the Holy Spirit, producing
shallow conversions and spiritually lame Christians-if not utterly spurious
ones.

4. It demonstrates appalling pride and a lack of submission. In the modern
approach to "ministry," the Word of God is deliberately downplayed, the
reproach of Christ is quietly repudiated, the offense of the gospel is
carefully eliminated, and "worship" is purposely tailored to fit the
preferences of unbelievers. That is nothing but a refusal to submit to the
biblical mandate for the church. The effrontery of ministers who pursue such
a course is, to me, frightening.

5. It severs the preacher personally from the regular sanctifying grace of
Scripture. The greatest personal benefit that I get from preaching is the
work that the Spirit of God does on my own soul as I study and prepare for
two expository messages each Lord's 

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day. Week by week the duty of careful exposition keeps my own heart focused
and fixed on the Scriptures, and the Word of God nourishes me while I
prepare to feed my flock. So I am personally blessed and spiritually
strengthened through the enterprise. If for no other reason, I would never
abandon biblical preaching. The enemy of our souls is after preachers in
particular, and the sanctifying grace of the Word of God is critical to our
protection.

6. It clouds the true depth and transcendence of our message and therefore
cripples both corporate and personal worship. What passes for preaching in
some churches today is literally no more profound than what preachers in our
fathers' generation were teaching in the five-minute children's sermon they
gave before dismissing the kids. That's no exaggeration. It is often that
simplistic, if not utterly inane. There is nothing deep about it. Such an
approach makes it impossible for true worship to take place, because worship
is a transcendent experience. Worship should take us above the mundane and
simplistic. So the only way true worship can occur is if we first come to
grips with the depth of spiritual truth. Our people can only rise high in
worship in the same proportion to which we have taken them deep into the
profound truths of the Word. There is no way they can have lofty thoughts of
God unless we have plunged them into the depths of God's self-revelation.
But preaching today is neither profound nor transcendent. It doesn't go
down, and it doesn't go up. It merely aims to entertain.

By the way, true worship is not something that can be stimulated
artificially. A bigger, louder band and more sentimental music might do more
to stir people's emotions. But that is not genuine worship. True worship is
a response from the heart to God's truth (John 4:23
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Jn+4%3A23> ). You can actually
worship without music if you have seen the glories and the depth of what the
Bible teaches.

7. It prevents the preacher from fully developing the mind of Christ.
Pastors are supposed to be undershepherds of Christ. Too many modern
preachers are so bent on understanding the culture that they develop the
mind of the culture and not the mind of Christ. They start to think like the
world, and not like the 

39

Savior. Frankly, the nuances of worldly culture are virtually irrelevant to
me. I want to know the mind of Christ and bring that to bear on the culture,
no matter what culture I may be ministering to. If I'm going to stand up in
a pulpit and be a representative of Jesus Christ, I want to know how He
thinks-and that must be my message to His people too. The only way to know
and proclaim the mind of Christ is by being faithful to study and preach His
Word. What happens to preachers who obsess about cultural "relevancy" is
that they become worldly, not godly.

8. It depreciates by example the spiritual duty and priority of personal
Bible study. Is personal Bible study important? Of course. But what example
does the preacher set when he neglects the Bible in his own preaching? Why
would people think they need to study the Bible if the preacher doesn't do
serious study himself in the preparation of his sermons? There is now a
movement among some of the gurus of "seeker-sensitive" ministry to trim, as
much as possible, all explicit references to the Bible from the sermon-and
above all, don't ever ask your people to turn to a specific Bible passage
because that kind of thing makes "seekers" uncomfortable. Some
"seeker-sensitive" churches actively discourage their people from bringing
Bibles to church lest the sight of so many Bibles intimidate the "seekers."
As if it were dangerous to give your people the impression that the Bible
might be important!

9. It prevents the preacher from being the voice of God on every issue of
his time. Jeremiah 8:9 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Jer+8%3A9>
says, "The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold, they
have rejected the word of the Lord; so what wisdom do they have?" When I
speak, I want to be God's messenger. I'm not interested in exegeting what
some psychologist or business guru or college professor has to say about an
issue. My people don't need my opinion; they need to hear what God has to
say. If we preach as Scripture commands us, there should be no ambiguity
about whose message is coming from the pulpit.

10. It breeds a congregation that is as weak and indifferent to the glory of
God as their pastor is. "Seeker-sensitive" preach-

40

ing fosters people who are consumed with their own well-being. When you tell
people that the church's primary ministry is to fix for them whatever is
wrong in this life-to meet their needs, to help them cope with their worldly
disappointments, and so on-the message you are sending is that their mundane
problems are more important than the glory of God and the majesty of Christ.
Again, that sabotages true worship.

11. It robs people of their only true source of help. People who sit under
superficial preaching become dependent on the cleverness and the creativity
of the speaker. When preachers punctuate their sermons with laser lights and
smoke, video clips and live drama, the message they send is that there isn't
a prayer the people in the pew could ever extract such profound material on
their own. Such gimmicks create a kind of dispensing mechanism that people
can't use to serve themselves. So they become spiritual couch potatoes who
just come in to be entertained, and whatever superficial spiritual content
they get from the preacher's weekly performance is all they will get. They
have no particular interest in the Bible because the sermons they hear don't
cultivate that. They are wowed by the preacher's creativity and manipulated
by the music, and that becomes their whole perspective on spirituality.

12. It encourages people to become indifferent to the Word of God and divine
authority. Predictably, in a church where the preaching of Scripture is
neglected, it becomes impossible to get people to submit to the authority of
Scripture. The preacher who always aims at meeting felt needs and strokes
the conceit of worldly people has no platform from which to confront the man
who wants to divorce his wife without cause. The man will say, "You don't
understand what I feel. I came here because you promised to meet my felt
needs. And I'm telling you, I don't feel like I want to live with this woman
anymore." You can't inject biblical authority into that. You certainly
wouldn't have an easy time pursuing church discipline. That is the monster
that superficial preaching creates. But if you are going to try to deal with
sin and apply any kind of authoritative principle to keep the church pure,
you must be preaching the Word.

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13. It lies to people about what they really need. In Jeremiah 8:11
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Jer+8%3A11> , God condemns the
prophets who treated people's wounds superficially. That verse applies
powerfully to the plastic preachers who populate so many prominent
evangelical pulpits today. They omit the hard truths about sin and judgment.
They tone down the offensive parts of Christ's message. They lie to people
about what they really need, promising them "fulfillment" and earthly
well-being when what people really need is an exalted vision of Christ and a
true understanding of the splendor of God's holiness.

14. It strips the pulpit of power. "The word of God is living and powerful,
and sharper than any two-edged sword" (Heb 4:12
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Heb+4%3A12> ). Everything else is
impotent, giving merely an illusion of power. Human strategy is not more
important than Scripture. The showman's ability to lure people in should not
impress us more than the Bible's ability to transform lives.

15. It puts the responsibility on the preacher to change people with his
cleverness. Preachers who pursue the modern approach to ministry must think
they have the power to change people. That, too, is a frightening expression
of pride. We preachers can't save people, and we can't sanctify them. We
can't change people with our insights, our cleverness, by entertaining them
or by appealing to their human whims and wishes and ambitions. There's only
One who can change sinners. That's God, and He does it by His Spirit through
the Word.

So pastors must preach the Word, even though it is currently out of fashion
to do so (2 Tim 4:2 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=2Ti+4%3A2> ).
That is the only way their ministry can ever truly be fruitful. Moreover, it
assures that they will be fruitful in ministry, because God's Word never
returns to Him void; it always accomplishes that for which He sends it and
prospers in what He sends it to do (Isa 55:11
<http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Isa+55%3A11> ).

-Fool's Gold?

 

Thanks.

 

Charis,

 

Mike Abendroth

 

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

 

Ephesians 3:21 auvtw/| h` do,xa evn th/| evkklhsi,a| 

 

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

 

"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician ... Faith is
not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on
Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us;
that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for
our sins.  It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a
sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can
pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It
brings us to the cross, . but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor
the sacrifice; . Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between
itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves,
and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing
virtue. It owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work
done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter
into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see
the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion
without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the "It is finished!"
of the Sin-bearer, and says, "Amen."   

NOT FAITH, BUT CHRIST 

by Horatius Bonar 
(1808-1889) 

 

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