A Problem in Modern Preaching

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Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective.
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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
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Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.
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When we talk about the subject of preaching, certainly a lot of different areas of preaching come up.
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Should a person preach an expository, verse-by-verse, book-by-book preaching, or should someone preach topical messages, subject-based, systematic teaching, and this debate has been raging for a long time and that's not what I want to settle today, but I do want to talk about the subject of preaching because very recently there was a pastor in the First General Baptist Church of Malden, Missouri who made waves because of something that he said during a sermon and what I want to talk about on the program today after we listen to his comments is not really so much what he said, even though I do think there is some real bad stuff in there, but why he would say the things that he's saying and what culture of preaching would produce this type of conversation from the pulpit.
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So this is Stuart Allen Clark.
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Some of you may have heard of him.
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He is, or was, the pastor of the First General Baptist Church in Malden, Missouri, and he's going to talk about why men are unhappy in their marriages.
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Let's listen in.
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And ladies here, here's the thing you need to know about men.
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Don't give him a reason to be like this distracted boyfriend.
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You hear me? Don't give him a reason to be looking around.
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Hello? So, okay, why is it so many times that women, after they get married, let themselves go? Why is it? Why do they do that? Now look, I'm not saying every woman can be the epic, the epic trophy wife of all time, like Melania Trump.
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I'm not saying that at all.
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Most women can't be trophy wives, but you know, like her, maybe you're a participation trophy.
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I don't know, but all I can say is not everybody looks like that, amen? Not everybody looks like that, but you don't need to look like a butch either.
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But you say, how can I do that? Oh, I'm so glad you asked that question.
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I'm so glad you asked that question because you're in my office, you and your husband, and we're talking about your marriage, and you've asked me this question about what can I do about that? All right, if you were sitting in my office, here's the first thing I'd say to you, and boy, I hate to say this, this is why I don't do marital counseling anymore, and that is weight control.
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So how important is this? Let me tell you something.
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I have a friend.
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He has put a divorce weight on his wife.
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That's how important this is.
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You know, makeup.
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Makeup is a good thing.
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You know, one little boy said to another little boy, why do girls wear makeup and perfume? He said, because they're ugly and they stink.
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You don't want to be ugly and stink.
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Scientists have discovered, by the way, a food that diminishes a woman's sex drive.
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It's called wedding cake.
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Yeah.
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Okay, well, that was a lot to take in, and I want to make a few points.
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I did not produce that audio clip.
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I pulled that audio clip online, and that was edited.
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That wasn't all one stream of thought from that sermon.
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That was broken up thoughts throughout the message, so I want to make that clear.
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And something that someone has pointed out is that Pastor Clark is himself an overweight man, so there is a lot of irony in the message where it seems as if he's calling women to take care of themselves and to look like, he made the statement himself, to look like trophy wives and referenced Melania Trump and other people.
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It was a very odd message, and this is not new.
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This hit the scene a few weeks ago.
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In fact, I'm looking at an article from March 2nd, 2021, so this is several weeks old, and I want to read from the article because what the article says is that actually after this message, this pastor resigns, and so this is what it says.
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It says, leaders of the General Baptist Council of Associations have recommended an investigation of a minister who preached that, quote, weight control, end quote, by wives is the solution for marital problems.
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Stuart Allen Clark, pastor of the First General Baptist Church of Malden, Missouri, is seen in video clips of a February 21st sermon questioning the appearance of women after they married their husbands, and it goes on to quote some of the things that he said that we just heard, and ultimately, it says, at the end, it says the church later posted a one-sentence statement about its pastor status, quote, as of March 2nd, 2021, Pastor Stuart Allen Clark has taken a leave of absence and is seeking professional counseling, end quote.
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All right, I want to say from the outset, as a pastor, I know that it's possible to say things from the pulpit that later we wish we hadn't said.
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In fact, I recently heard Steve Lawson talk about the fact that there have been times in his ministry where he was attempting to be humorous, and his attempts at humor went a little too much almost to where he was trying to be a comedian, and so he had to come back later and repent of that before his people, and so the very best preachers in the world have times where when they step down from the pulpit, they say, wow, I wish I hadn't have said that.
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So in my heart, there's a certain point where I tend to be a little sympathetic toward someone making a mistake, and so I want to say from the outset, I don't know Stuart Allen Clark.
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I don't know his heart.
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I don't know that he is a terrible, no good, very bad person.
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I know that this was not a good sermon based on the parts that I've heard.
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I know that he did not give sound marital advice in this message, but I want to just make it clear that I'm not here bashing him as a person.
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I don't know him, and I know that everybody makes mistakes, even preachers, and we tend to be the people whose mistakes are brought to light more than others.
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So again, there's a certain part of me that has sympathy, and I want to say that from the outset, because what I'm going to say for the rest of the program, I don't want it to come across, one, as that I'm putting myself on some kind of a pedestal, because that's very dangerous, or to say that I could never make a mistake.
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Again, I have, and I will again.
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I'll make mistakes, so let that be said.
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But what I want to talk about today is what is the atmosphere of preaching or the attitude towards preaching that would bring about this type of sermon? Because ultimately, what he is saying is bad, but why does he feel the need to say this? Why is his sermon essentially a marital counseling sermon? And somebody says, well, people need to preach on marriage, and I do believe that that's true, because the Bible, of course, addresses the subject of marriage, and as we are preaching through Scripture, we are going to be looking at passages that deal with marriage.
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But again, I think that sometimes we look at preaching as self-help is the number one purpose, and I want to say from the outset today, I think that that is a wrong approach to understanding what it is that we are to do as pastors in preaching the Word of God.
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Preaching the Word of God is not about self-help.
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It's not about life improvement.
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It's not about, again, we've all heard it, having your best life now.
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It's not about telling motivational stories or giving motivational advice.
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These are things that have crept into preaching, but this is not what preaching is supposed to be.
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Preaching is simple, and I remember years ago, I read a little book by Pastor Steve Kreloff, who is a dear friend and a man I respect very much to this day.
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Last year, I had the opportunity to preach along with him at a conference, and that was a highlight of my preaching ministry, to get to preach with somebody who I consider a hero.
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And Pastor Steve Kreloff has been preaching for, I think, 40 years, and he's just had such a powerful, long ministry.
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And his approach to preaching is very simple, and it's not unique to him.
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You've probably heard it from other people, but this is what he, in his little book, he said, preaching is simple.
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You read the text, you explain the text, you apply the text, and then you move on.
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That's preaching.
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And I have to say, if somebody asks me, what is your method for preaching? That's my method.
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That's it.
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It's as simple as that.
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I'm going to read the text, I'm going to explain the text, and then I'm going to apply the text, and then I'm going to move on to the next text.
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I think that is the goal and the method that is biblical and appropriate.
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I'm not intending to be a comedian, even though every once in a while I will say something that is maybe intended to get people to relax a little or think about what I've said.
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There's nothing wrong with a little humor in a message.
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Again, not trying to be a comedian, but the purpose and goal in all of this is that God would speak through his word.
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His word is the truth.
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This is the word of the Lord, we say when we read the scriptures.
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This is the word of the Lord.
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And when we're preaching, the goal is to read the text and to explain the text.
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That's the expository part.
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That's exposing what's within the text, reading it and explaining it, and then applying it.
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And the application is often where it can sometimes go off the rails.
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And that may be where Pastor Clark was in his message, and that may be where he went off the rails.
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Maybe, again, I haven't heard the whole sermon, maybe he did do a very good job of reading and explaining a text of scripture on marriage, and when he got to the application portion, it went off the rails.
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That's possible.
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Again, I'm giving him every benefit of the doubt here.
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I don't know him as a person.
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But when I go back to the goal of preaching, how do we apply the text? This is one of the most difficult questions that pastors often deal with.
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Well, how do we apply this particular text? Some pastors think it's not the job of the minister to apply the text.
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They say that the spirit will apply the text, just read the text and explain its meaning.
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And if you explain the meaning well, then that will go into the mind and heart of the person, and the Holy Spirit will apply it to their heart in whatever way.
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And I think there's some truth to that.
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I think that sometimes, though, it is helpful if the minister points out some ways that this can be applied in the life of the believer, and so that becomes a line that we have to be careful that we don't make the application of the sermon the main part of the sermon.
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The main part of the sermon is explaining what the text means, because as Dr.
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John MacArthur has said, what the text means is the text.
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That may sound funny, but let me try to break that down because that's an important reality.
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What MacArthur is saying is this.
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The meaning of the text is the text.
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The meaning of the scripture is the scripture.
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And so if you just read the scripture and you don't know what it means, then you really have not understood the scripture, and therefore you don't know the scripture.
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If you just read words and you don't know what they mean, then it's still the scripture, of course, but if you don't understand it, it has no meaning.
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So the meaning is the scripture.
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The role of the pastor is to explain the scripture.
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That's the goal.
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That's the role.
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So often I sit and I listen to sermons, and I listen to several sermons every week as I prepare for my preaching.
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I'm always listening to other preachers, and over the years I've listened to hundreds of sermons, if not thousands of sermons from different preachers all around the world.
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And when I listen to preachers so often, there is not a reliance on the text.
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It's a reliance on creativity.
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It's a reliance on storytelling.
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It's a reliance over application, where everything's about how do we apply this to you, you, you, rather than understanding the grammatical and historical context of which it was written.
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And this becomes an issue in preaching.
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It becomes an issue of what is the goal.
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The goal is to get the meaning across, and if you're able to put some application in there, great, but ultimately the spirit, if you have preached the meaning of the text, the spirit will apply the text.
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And so when we look at situations like what has happened to Pastor Clark, it can only be said, I think, or it must be said, that what leads to this type of thing is a culture that doesn't value biblical preaching.
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It doesn't value expository preaching.
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It doesn't value letting the text speak and explaining the text and making the text the central part of the sermon.
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Rather than our creativity, rather than our ability to be humorous, rather than any of those things, let the text speak.
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God is speaking through his word, and we want to hear what God has to say about his word.
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That's the goal of preaching.
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And again, I say this knowing that I have made mistakes many times, and I'm certainly not the best preacher in the world.
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But I hope that this has helped to understand some of what leads to this, because there's an entire movement among Christians and a subculture within churches that has totally devalued the pulpit and totally placed all of the value of the church on entertainment, whether it be musical entertainment or comedians in the pulpit or anything else that leads to entertainment, rather than coming to hear from God in his word.
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And oh, that the Lord would send a revival in our nation of people who want to hear the word of the Lord.
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Well, that has been our show today on Coffee with the Calvinist.
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Thank you for listening, and we look forward to being with you again tomorrow.
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As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
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May God be with you.