The Need For Preaching (Part 3)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I�m your host, proud to be your host, pleased to be your host, pushed to be your host, provoked to be your host.

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It can be a mosaic of. Last time I talked about preaching, the dearth of preaching, and I asked the question, why should we even preach the Bible? Why preach the Bible verse by verse? Why preach expositorily?

Why exalt Christ in our preaching? Why think about authorial intent? We looked at a lot of those questions. We live in a sad state these days, and so I think we ought to preach the Bible for lots of reasons.

The Culture's Demand for Biblical Preaching

Number one, the contemporary culture demands that kind of preaching. Remember last time we looked at there�s a famine in the land, not for food, but for the Word of God. But the culture around us should force us to say, �We have got to preach the Bible.

Who else is going to do it? I have referred to this article quite a few times, Wall Street Journal of all places, March 10, 2004, quote, �For the first time in 10 years, Mary Wilkinson went to church one Sunday in January.

She sat in a pew back at the St. Francis Episcopal Church in Stamford, Connecticut. Flipping through a prayer book and listening intently to the priest�s sermon, what drew Mrs. Wilkinson back into the fold was a new monthly program the church introduced, �Holy Communion for Pets.

As part of the service, the 59-year-old retired portfolio manager carried her 17-year-old tiger cat to the altar, waited in line behind three panting dogs to receive the host, and had a special benediction performed for her cat, named Purrbox Jr.

�I like that the other parishioners are animal people Mrs. Wilkinson says. �With pews hard to fill, a small number of otherwise traditional clergy are welcoming animals into the flock. Some are creating pet-friendly worship services, while others have started making house calls for sick animals.

The Wall Street Journal goes on to say, �Some are starting to accompany pet owners to the vet when they euthanize a beloved pet. Okay, I just have to stop there for a second. I already have enough to do as a pastor.

For me to go with you, I think it's a sad day to put down a dog. I don't know if it's a sad day to put down a cat or not. I'm sure it is if you love the cat. It's a sad day when you take an animal, a domesticated animal, and have to put that animal down and euthanize that animal.

I've had to do it before, and it makes me cry, and I'm the man of the house, so I do it. My wife doesn't have to do it. Kids don't have to do it. But please, if you have someone who's in the hospital or a death of a loved one who's a human, who's a homo sapien, who's made in the image and likeness of God, who has a soul and a spirit, please call me.

I'm never too busy for that. But if I have to escort you to the vet, we've got a big problem. Well, let's get back to this. The Wall Street Journal says some are starting to accompany pet owners to the vet.

We just read that. Occasionally, clergy are even officiating at pet funerals and group bark mitzvahs. All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has doubled attendance at its Sunday evening service since it began last summer to invite pets at least once a month.

Last summer, a member of St. Francis Episcopal Church in Stanford began bringing her King Charles Spaniel on Sunday morning. Soon, several other attendees were regularly bringing their dogs. They felt that they would be welcome because they've had a blessing of the animal, says Frank Baker, the church's former secretary.

I don't know what to do. I have no idea what to do with that. It's one of those things where if you tell a big enough lie, people will believe it because it's so stupendous, it's so outrageous, it's so egregious.

Pet services. Now, if you have a sick animal and you want to say, Lord, would you please heal my animal? I don't have any problem with that. But for worship services, last time I checked, worship services are for believers.

But I guess it makes sense here because this place isn't a church and these people aren't believers and the clergy is not redeemed. At least they're not acting like it. Then what's the big deal if you want to invite some pets in to receive the host?

I wonder if the communion wafer is beef scented. It's a little piece of beef jerky or something. Golly. Pet friendly worship services. But you know, the thing is, pragmatically, it works. It works. When there's all kinds of dogs, you go to Nantucket Island, everybody's got their dog.

You go to San Francisco, everybody's got their dog. You go to Paris and everybody has their dog. Hey, people like to bring their dogs. It's pet friendly. By the way, you are able to bring dogs to Bethlehem Bible Church anytime you'd like and you can have them sit in the front or back by the baptismal font, wherever you'd like to have them sit, they can.

If it is a blind assisting dog, a helper dog, a dog that helps you walk and maybe assist you in some way, shape or form, we'd love to have those kind of dogs who assist humans walk and, quote unquote, see.

We'd love to have those. But over my dead body, am I going to give a little bit of chicken broth in a communion cup to some kind of dog? What are people thinking? It's a free country. You can do whatever you like.

But why call it Christianity? Why call it Christianity? Holy communion? Those words don't go together when you have it for per box junior or Fido or Spot or if you want to name your dog Elvis. It just doesn't work.

And so if we've got this type of situation in evangelicalism today and here, more like liberal mainstream, people are ashamed of the gospel. They're ashamed of the Bible. They're ashamed that Jesus is the only way.

And they must be silenced. How? Well, by preaching. One of the reasons why we need to preach today with a high view of God and a high view of Scripture and a high view of the substitutional atonement of Jesus Christ is because the culture doesn't have a clue.

They don't have a clue. We in churches today are to preach the word. It's demanded to not give our imposition upon the text, but to expose the text for what it is. And we call that exposing the text, expository preaching.

The Sinful Human Heart and Man-Centered Worship

Now, why should we preach the Bible? One, we saw last time because the culture demands it. Two, the second reason we should preach the Bible is because the sinful nature of mankind forces us to preach the gospel.

We need to make sure to preach the Bible because that's the only way sin can be dealt with. Stephen Charnock in his Existence and Attributes of God book says, when we believe that we should be satisfied rather than that God should be glorified, we put God below ourselves as though he has been made for us, not we for him.

There's no greater blasphemy than using God as our servant, and there is no worse place to do it than the realm of worship, where we make the worship of God to end in ourselves rather than in God. We ought to preach Christ verse by verse, expositorily, because so many other churches are catering to the sinful demands of mankind.

Expectations that say something like this, what's in it for me today? What will I get out of this service? After all, the customer's number one. If you don't serve that customer here, they'll go down the street to that other bigger church.

And you want to have, you know, it's the church that advertises itself like Twin Lakes does in Santa Cruz. When you go to the Yellow Pages, it says something like, our four promises, upbeat music that's not boring, short sermons, good youth program and nursery, relevant and casual dress, come as you are.

That's exactly what Charnock was condemning. That type of preaching, that type of promotion of the church that is looking for the audience. And then you get these felt need sermons that all revolve around people.

Now, people have real needs and Paul addresses those, the writer of Hebrews addresses those, but they're all in the context of the gospel, spiraling out of the gospel in response to the gospel, not specifically dealing with the felt needs of people.

These are actual sermon titles. How can I have a happier marriage? How can I handle my money? By the way, these draw people in big time. How can I like my job? Am I caught in an adult children of alcoholics pattern, ACOA?

How can I be a better parent? How can I get more time for myself? Boy, that'll sell. How can I feel better about myself? And here's the one that's over the top. What would Jesus say to Madonna? Yai, yai, yai, yai, yai.

You know, modern sermons today, they're about, you know what, strike that. They're not even as deep as children's sermons were last generation. You know, some churches they'll say, well, today we'd like to call the kids up and we're going to give you a little pastoral sermon for the children.

Everybody come up here and gather around the pastor. No pushing, no shoving, no spitting, no biting, no spit wads. And then what you do is you preach a little sermon to the children in a disguise. So it's really for the adults, but you're too afraid to tell the adults and don't have enough courage to tell the adults what you want to tell the children.

So you tell the children and hopefully the adults catch on. And then you just miss the kids so they can go eat their goldfish and Ritz crackers. Sadly, the sermons for the children a generation ago were deeper than most of these felt need type preaching churches today.

Isn't that a sad commentary? Barnhouse said if Satan were really to take over a city, the following would happen. The bars would close. No alcohol would be sold. There would be happy marriages and well-behaved children, no crime.

And everyone would be in churches on Sunday where Christ is not preached. That's exactly what happens in our culture today with moralism and virtuism and be good and do good and feel good. The preaching about sin and the cause of Christ's death, the love of God, the sin of man.

We wouldn't want to talk about that. That kind of puts a damper on everything. It's like having a cemetery out in the back of the church. Who wants that? We want preaching that revolves around us. God's here to love you and give you your best life now.

And you're a number one. Warren Wiersbe said when worship becomes pragmatic, it ceases to be worship. Man-centered preaching today by other churches, hollers, screams for other churches, real churches to preach the real gospel that deals with sin and its consequences, sin and its remedy, Christ Jesus.

Michael Horton talked a lot about moralizing and man-centered preaching. If it isn't American values, it's self-esteem, career guidance, tips for life of some sort. How to get up when life's got you down preaching are some such drivel.

I recently, Horton said, preached in a large conservative evangelical church in which the title sermon in the bulletin was replaced with life perspectives. Horton said to preach the Bible as a handbook for life, or as the answer to every question, rather than as the revelation of Christ is to turn the Bible into an entirely different book.

Now that's insightful. This is how the Pharisees approach scripture. However, as we can clearly see, we can see clearly from the questions they asked Jesus, all of them amounting to something akin to trivial pursuits.

What happens if a person divorces and remarries? Why do your disciples pick grain on Sabbath? Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? For the Pharisees, the scriptures were a source of trivia for life's dilemmas.

Wow, that hits it on the head. That hits it on the head. You've got Rick Warren, when he started the Purpose Driven Life column in Ladies Home Journal years ago, had his first column was called Learn to Love Yourself.

And these were his five points. Accept yourself, love yourself, be true to yourself, forgive yourself, believe in yourself. That was Rick Warren, a pastor who knows better, who writes the monthly column for Ladies Home Journal, when you could really tell people about sin and the Savior.

This column begins with self-esteem still wobbly after all these years. These five simple truths will show you that you don't need to be perfect to be priceless. You are special. You are priceless. You're the apple of God's eye.

God loves you like crazy. There's a crazy love for you. That sells. That sells a lot of books. That sells old books. That sells new books. That packs churches. But it puts man at the center. And we need real expository Christ-exalting preaching.

I actually, when I go to churches, I'd like to hear about Jesus. How about you? I'd like to hear about Jesus who died in my place and was raised from the dead. I'd like to hear about Jesus, the eternal God, the eternal Yahweh.

I'd like to hear about Jesus, frankly. And if you're not going to give me Jesus, then don't call yourself a Christian church. How dare Rick Warren write a column that says, accept yourself, love yourself, be true to yourself, forgive yourself, believe in yourself.

And then closing with the words, you can believe what others say about you, or you can believe in yourself as God does. Who says you're really, that you are truly acceptable, lovable, valuable, and capable.

I have a couple words for that. A, blasphemy. B, sickening. C, grotesque. And then these days to have John Piper come and invite him like he's part of the team. The gospel is not accept yourself, love yourself, be true to yourself, forgive yourself, and believe in yourself.

How about things like, call me self, call me, call me self, call me old fashioned, maybe deny yourself, forsake yourself, be sick of yourself, hate yourself. Whatever happened to those things? Whatever happened to the cost of discipleship?

Whatever happened to sin? He'd say, well, you know, these are for Christian people. I never say to myself, today I'm going to work on accepting myself. I already do a great job of that. I might even be perfect in accepting myself.

Once in a while, there's something about me that I don't like, but I think I pretty much mastered accepting myself. Let's see, love yourself. Boy, by the way, I'm really good at that. I don't know if anybody else excels in loving themselves like I love myself.

I spend a lot of time on it. I have a lot of devotion to do it. I make sure that I think about it a lot. Think about me a lot. If love is wanting what's best, then I really want what's best for me. I am really good at that.

Why do I need some lady's home journal to tell me that? Be true to yourself. Well, I guess, what would the opposite be? Be false to yourself? Tell yourself lies? Yeah, I don't want to break out some country music song or blues song.

Forgive yourself. What do you mean, forgive yourself? We sin against God, ultimately. Sinning against anyone that's ultimately against God. Psalm 51, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done evil is in thy sight.

We sin against other people. We don't sin against ourself. Self, you know, I haven't loved you as much as I've loved my neighbor today. Could you please forgive me? Oh, yes, I think so. Self, I have not loved you with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength today.

Do you think you have it in your heart to forgive me today, self? Oh, maybe. It is just sick. It is man-centered. Blasphemy is what it is. But it can give you eight services and 19 campuses and 25 million books, can it?

It's exactly what it can do. We have taken the telescope of truth. And instead of putting the eyepiece to our eye and then putting the lens out to see the grandeur and greatness of God, we flipped it around.

We flipped it around. And so now we look in the big lens and we see God as small. We see God as our servant. God is the pet. God is the accomplice to whatever we want. And God is there like a jovial grandfather, clapping, wonderfully saying, good job, Johnny.

Good job, Mike. Way to go. I'm proud of you. You're the best. Friends, I do not deny that we have been loved by God in a way that is extraordinarily incredible. To think like John 17, where Jesus in his prayer lets us know that the Father loves us as much as he loves his son.

We are in Christ Jesus. If you're a Christian, you're in Christ Jesus, based on Christ's perfect substitutionary death. His redemption, how he reconciled sinners to the Father. How he's raised from the dead.

We believe that. But you can't just talk about the love of God for us outside Christ and how we were yet sinners and Christ died for us. That is the demonstration of love. While we were yet sinners, Romans 5, 8, Christ died for us.

The love of God isn't that great if we're lovable. After all, Baal, Zeus, Hermes, or any other so-called God would love lovable people, would love people that gave them a lot of offerings, that offered a lot of oranges to eat, that offered a lot of virgins to slay.

They would love the lovable. But God is different. God who has a holy hatred and a wrath eternal for his enemies, people committing cosmic treason against God. And yet this God who in justice could slay everyone has provided clemency for many.

And he has chosen a bride for his son to go redeem and turn enemies into friends, to turn blasphemers into worshipers, to turn those who hate God into those who love God. And it is all because the people were lovable.

They believed in themselves. They accepted themselves. See how wrong that is? It's all because of Christ's great love with which he loved us. It's all because grace alone. It's all because it gives glory to God alone.

Grace Alone, God's Glory, and the Need for Gospel Preaching

We need to preach the gospel because there are others who won't talk about sin, who will somehow lift up and assuage and pet and pamper and just gloss over everything else because they are mammon men pleasers.

Mammon and men is what they want. And you know what they've gotten? They've gotten mammon and men to follow them. You think about pragmatism. Now, sometimes you need to be pragmatic, but here the pragmatism that says, how can we get more people in and kind of make them feel good with falsehoods?

There's a problem with that. I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling good at church. When you realize the forgiveness you have and how God has loved you and chosen you in eternity past, I get a good feeling regarding that, but I don't want to feel good based on falsehoods.

Learning to love yourself. How about learning to stop loving yourself? I don't think there's three great commandments. I think there was two last time I checked. You know, as people say in my Bible, in the only Bible, we have the great commandments and they're not accept yourself, love yourself, be true to yourself, forgive yourself for believing yourself.

Lady's home journal. How about let's lay out the righteousness of God? Let's lay out that God's wrath is revealed and let's lay out God's righteousness is revealed. And here we have the lamb of God is also the lion and you need a substitute and you've got more of a problem ladies in a home journal than accepting yourself.

You've got this problem. Will God accept me? And people say, well, I've accepted Jesus in my heart. I've got a question for you. Did God, the father accept you in his heart? And if you aren't enclosed and engulfed and covered by the righteous robes of Christ, if you aren't in Christ, if you don't have communion and union, the mystical union with Christ because of his salvation, how you've placed your faith in Christ Jesus alone, you're in big trouble.

He hasn't accepted you in his heart and he is going to banish you to a compassionless eternity where the lamb revelation 14 is going to be doing. The torturing is going to be doing the executing of judgment and hell.

So we need preachers today. I said last time, if you've got a preacher who preaches the word, hallelujah, praise God from whom all blessings flow. If you don't have a preacher to preach the word of God, Christ Jesus from a high level, make today your last Sunday.

This is Mike Avendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. God bless you.

We'll see you next time.