The church today needs once more to return to the primacy of preaching.
Sadly, we are again seeing a serious decline in the important place of preaching in the church — Ministers of the gospel are forsaking their God-given duty to “preach the Word” (2 Tim. 4:2). They are busy with counseling sessions, with church meetings, with social activities, and with their own personal interests. And what is it that suffers? What is neglected? The exposition of the Word of God before the public assembly of the church on the Lord’s Day!
Worship services are packed with new innovations — beautiful singing by trained choirs, liturgical dancing, testimonies, dialogues, dramatic presentations, and many other forms of entertainment. And what gets less and less time and attention? What is shoved to the rear of importance in the worship service? The preaching of the Word!
But why is this? What is the cause or (are) the causes of this near loss of preaching? Is it that many evangelical and conservative seminaries are no longer training their students to be chiefly preachers of the gospel, but rather counselors and liturgists and administrators? Is it that the churches are full of unfaithful shepherds who are feeding themselves and not the sheep of God? These may be reasons too. But they are all subordinate to a more basic and underlying reason.
That is that Protestant churches have forsaken the sole authority of the Scriptures and have, therefore, lost their confidence in the preaching of this Word. The churches at large have been influenced by the higher critical views of Scripture that swept this country at the beginning of this century. Men denying that the Bible was the inspired and infallible Word of God through and through. They claim it is more the word of man than of God. In this way they undercut the Bible’s authority and power. And many churches are fallen for this lie. This is “the great evangelical disaster” as Francis A. Schaeffer points out in his book by that very title. Hence, Protestant churches have lost their confidence in preaching this Word. If the Bible is in fact mainly the word of man, why preach it?!
The English preacher D. M. Lloyd-Jones makes precisely this point in commenting on the decline of preaching in the 20th century. He gives as the leading factor accounting for the decline of preaching this: “…The loss of belief in the authority of the Scriptures, and a diminution in the belief of the Truth.” And so he continues,
While men believed in the Scriptures as the authoritative Word of Cod and spoke on the basis of that authority you had great preaching. But once that went, and men began to speculate, and to theorize, the eloquence and the greatness of the spoken word inevitablv declined and began to wane…. As belief in the great doctrines of the Bible began to go out, and sermons were replaced by ethical addresses and homilies, and moral uplift and socio-political talk, it is not surprising that preaching declined (Preaching and Preachers, Zondervan, 1972, p.13).
That is where the church is at today.
What is the answer to this? A return to the Scriptures, first of all. And then, on the basis of that Word, a conviction that preaching is God’s method of saving and building up his church. This, too, is what Lloyd -Jones prescribes:
So I would sum up by saying that it is preaching alone that can convey the Truth to people, and bring them to the realization of their need and to the only satisfaction for their need. Ceremonies and ritual, singing and entertainment, and all your interest in political and social affairs cannot do this. .. . What men and women need is to be brought to a ‘knowledge of the truth’; and if this is not done you are simply palliating symptoms, and patching up the problem for the time being. In any case you are not carrying out the great mandate given to the Church and her ministers (ibid, p.40).
This is the way the church will be gathered and her saints remain strong. What is it that God’s people need? What is it that will still effect true reformation in the life of the church in these days of apostasy? It is the preaching of God’s holy Word. This alone will be effective and blessed, because it is God’s way. To this primary labor He has called and does call His church yet today. Anything less than this is disobedience to Him.
Let us be warned that a departure from this God-ordained method is sure to spell another generation of lawless Christians, running after ear tickling words and amassed in error. Let us pray and work for faithful pastors to bring us the faithful Word.
We are in an our when the Spirit is swiftly bringing forth another reformation in the Church, He is calling back the Bride to a purity in the Word. Cleansing the Fathers house of error and exposing at a rapid rate the wolves who have taking the forward seats of the church.
By all means let us preserve the pulpit!
Radical Disciples - A Remnant Revolution 