Faith Enough to Preach...

In 1991, I was voted out of the First Baptist Church of the town where I lived for preaching too hard against sin. My wife jokingly called me a "TOO" preacher; too hard, too loud, too long-winded, and she added, I stepped on too many toes. In an hour of cultural, social, moral and spiritual decay, straightforward, no-nonsense preaching would seem to be part of the solution; yet in the average Independent Baptist Church this kind of preaching cannot be found. Why?

I believe one of the reasons this type of preaching is missing is because of the lack of faith on the part of preachers. It takes faith to preach where people live. It takes faith to run the risk of angering your chief tithers. The questions that plague a pastor during these times are always the same; "how will we pay the bills if I nail that issue? What will happen to our faith promise if I take a stand on this? What happens if I get voted out, what will I do then? What about my wife and children?" In Luke 12, Christ warns His disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees. The cure is found in verses 4 - 7. That cure was to fear God instead of those that can only kill the body, and to remember that God cares for every facet of your life. Would to God we had men that would say with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, “But if not (if God chooses not to deliver us when we’ve done what's right), be it known unto thee, O King that we will not serve thy gods...” In other words, we will serve our God and stand against sin no matter what it costs us.

Preaching against sin keeps a church clean and gives freedom to those that really want to worship the Lord and grow in their Christian walk. We criticize those in the public school system that will allow an entire class to be slowed down for the sake of the few that cannot keep up, but there are those in our churches who are being stifled in their Christian walk because cowardly preachers don’t have enough faith in a living Almighty God to set them and the Church free from the bondage of worldly members. Such faith and boldness is only found in the prayer closet. I fear that too many men of God are living for the payday and sun down. They have forgotten the awesome responsibility we have to the people we serve and the to the God we will face. It’s time that we stop looking to man to fulfill our needs and look back to the one that redeemed our soul from the jaws of hell. The fear of man bringeth a snare; but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.” Prov. 29:25

I close with the words of Martyn Lloyd-Jones; “Present day preaching does not save men. Present day preaching does not even annoy men, but leaves them precisely where they were, without a ruffle and without the slightest disturbance... Anyone who happens to break these rules and who produces a disturbing effect upon members of his congregation is regarded as an objectionable person.” So true, so true.

Pastor Bill Pickell
Calvary Hill Baptist Church, Pacolet, SC. ChBaptist@Juno.com