A Study in Preaching (Part
Two)--The Mountain
We continue to examine the core characteristics of NT
preaching as provided for us in the inspired narrative of Acts
14:8-18. We began by looking at the miracle that fulfills preaching.
A man crippled from birth (defective feet), who had never walked,
heard the apostle Paul preach the gospel of grace. A hearing of
the truth led to a believing with the heart. And Paul, having
perceived the spiritual transition that was taking place in him,
issued a command for the impotent man to “Stand upright!” That which
was defective became effective as he leaped and walked immediately.
Thanks be unto God for the miracle of faith as a response to the
preached Word!
We now shift our attention to the mountain that faces
preaching. By “mountain” we refer to the obstacle that must be
overcome in order for preaching to bear genuine fruit in the hearts
and lives of hearers. It must be scaled and conquered, not
gone around. The mountain of which we speak is the false god that
has entrenched itself in the human heart. The ultimate challenge in
preaching is the dethronement of that false god.
The post-miracle picture painted by Luke is one of
genuine religious activity and great excitement. The people were
convinced that “the gods” had come down “to us” in the likeness of
men (14:11). In their minds, this was nothing less than an up close
and personal encounter with deity. To use evangelical vernacular,
the people were willing and ready to accept Paul and Barnabas as
their personal lords and saviors!
In our study of the miracle that fulfills preaching,
we observed that seeing void of hearing can result in assigning a
genuine miracle to the wrong god. And now we see that false worship
begets a faulty perspective. If you and I had been in that crowd, we
might have wondered: “How in the world can these folks entertain a
message about the Lord Jesus Christ—the One in whose name the
miracle was performed—and then make the two Roman gods Jupiter and
Mercury the center of their attention?” Yet the same dichotomy
occurs every Lord’s Day in America as good men of God, who love the
truth and preach it in power, observe the members of their
congregations live the other six days of the week as though Christ’s
lifeless bones were still in that borrowed tomb.
There are two critical observations to be made. The
first: Consecration is far more vital than communication! I remember
Ronald Reagan being called The Great Communicator. But to this day
the Marxists who inhabit high places in our government still spit on
his grave. This is because Reagan, a master of communication, was
never able to alter their philosophical core. And so it is with man
at his spiritual core. If there is no dethronement of a false
god and the enthronement of the Lord Jesus—the supreme act of
consecration—it matters not the extent to which the man of God
preaches the stars down with an articulation that angels would envy!
The second is this: Gods are always revealed at the point of
sacrifice. The priest of Jupiter, the local religious honcho, had
rustled up some oxen and garlands to garner the approval of his gods
(14:13). It is not clear whether he owned that stuff or whether he
had made an appeal to the people to give a “sacrificial love
offering” for the cause. One thing is certain: That for which a man
or woman is willing to sacrifice is revelatory regarding that which
rules the heart! This would be a good time to reflect upon the last
time you sacrificed something (time, money, self-interest,
possessions, a relationship) and attach that something to the entity
for which you sacrificed it. Can you attach it to the Lord Jesus? If
not, why not?
I heard Dr. Bob Jones III preach a message in which
he stated: “The problem with God’s people today is NOT that they
don’t love Christ. It is that they do not love Christ ONLY!” I
believe that statement, which I heard two decades ago, is as
applicable today as ever. Most if not all of us have gone through
spiritual valleys where we discovered, perhaps in retrospect, that
the primary cause for our calamity was a divided affection where, as
the Lord Jesus put it, we attempted to love-serve God plus something
else (Matthew 6:24). For the child of God, the time-proven recipe
for spiritual misery is an approach to life that includes two or
more masters!
Now, the key difference between regeneration and
revival is this: Regeneration is the dislodging of gods from the
hearts of the lost whereas revival has to do with the same
dislodging of gods from the hearts of believers. I often wondered in
years past why churches that held “Revival Meetings” encouraged
folks to bring their lost friends and neighbors. Wouldn’t it be more
accurate to use the phrase “Regeneration Meetings” to describe such
efforts? If you want to reach the lost, bring in the Evangelist. The
arduous task of awakening a lukewarm church and scaling its
mountains of false gods, however, is reserved for a special breed of
spiritual warrior—the Revivalist!
The next time your pastor steps to the pulpit to
preach God’s truth, think of him as a climber of mountains…for that
is exactly what he is. The congregation he is about to address is a
collective mountain range consisting of everything from foothills to
Mount Everest. Pray earnestly for him as he climbs! Pray that the
collapse of those mountains and the consecration of hearts will
result from his communication…and pray that it begins with you! In
our next Pen, we will examine the message that fires preaching.
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