The Urgency Of Preaching The Gospel

Given the central place of preaching in the New Testament church, it would
seem that the priority of biblical preaching should be uncontested. After all,
as John A. Broadus – one of Southern Seminary’s founding faculty – famously
remarked, “Preaching is characteristic of Christianity. No other religion has
made the regular and frequent assembling of groups of people, to hear religious
instruction and exhortation, an integral part of Christian worship.”

Yet,
numerous influential voices within evangelicalism suggest that the age of the
expository sermon is now past. In its place, some contemporary preachers now
substitute messages intentionally designed to reach secular or superficial
congregations – messages which avoid preaching a biblical text, and thus avoid a
potentially embarrassing confrontation with biblical truth.

A subtle
shift visible at the onset of the twentieth century has become a great divide as
the century ends. The shift from expository preaching to more topical and
human-centered approaches has grown into a debate over the place of Scripture in
preaching, and the nature of preaching itself.

Two famous statements
about preaching illustrate this growing divide. Reflecting poetically on the
urgency and centrality of preaching, the Puritan pastor Richard Baxter once
remarked, “I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying
men.” With vivid expression and a sense of gospel gravity, Baxter understood
that preaching is literally a life or death affair. Eternity hangs in the
balance as the preacher proclaims the Word.

Contrast that statement to
the words of Harry Emerson Fosdick, perhaps the most famous (or infamous)
preacher of this century’s early decades. Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside
Church in New York City, provides an instructive contrast to the venerable
Baxter. “Preaching,” he explained, “is personal counseling on a group
basis.”

These two statements about preaching reveal the contours of the
contemporary debate. For Baxter, the promise of heaven and the horrors of hell
frame the preacher’s consuming burden. For Fosdick, the preacher is a kindly
counselor offering helpful advice and encouragement.

The current debate
over preaching is most commonly explained as a argument about the focus and
shape of the sermon. Should the preacher seek to preach a biblical text through
an expository sermon? Or, should the preacher direct the sermon to the “felt
needs” and perceived concerns of the hearers?

Clearly, many evangelicals
now favor the second approach. Urged on by devotees of “needs-based preaching,”
many evangelicals have abandoned the text without recognizing that they have
done so. These preachers may eventually get to the text in the course of the
sermon, but the text does not set the agenda or establish the shape of the
message.

Focusing on so-called “perceived needs” and allowing these needs
to set the preaching agenda inevitably leads to a loss of biblical authority and
biblical content in the sermon. Yet, this pattern is increasingly the norm in
many evangelical pulpits. Fosdick must be smiling from the grave.

Earlier
evangelicals recognized Fosdick’s approach as a rejection of biblical preaching.
An out-of-the-closet theological liberal, Fosdick paraded his rejection of
biblical inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility – and rejected other
doctrines central to the Christian faith. Enamored with trends in psychological
theory, Fosdick became liberal Protestantism’s happy pulpit therapist. The goal
of his preaching was well captured by the title of one of his many books, On
Being a Real Person.

Shockingly, this is now the approach evident in many
evangelical pulpits. The sacred desk has become an advice center and the pew has
become the therapist’s couch. Psychological and practical concerns have
displaced theological exegesis and the preacher directs his sermon to the
congregation’s perceived needs.

The problem is, of course, that the
sinner does not know what his most urgent need is. She is blind to her need for
redemption and reconciliation with God, and focuses on potentially real but
temporal needs such as personal fulfillment, financial security, family peace,
and career advancement. Too many sermons settle for answering these expressed
needs and concerns, and fail to proclaim the Word of Truth.

Without
doubt, few preachers following this popular trend intend to depart from the
Bible. But under the guise of an intention to reach modern secular men and women
“where they are,” the sermon has been transformed into a success seminar. Some
verses of Scripture may be added to the mix, but for a sermon to be genuinely
biblical, the text must set the agenda as the foundation of the message–not as
an authority cited for spiritual footnoting.

Charles Spurgeon confronted
the very same pattern of wavering pulpits in his own day. Some of the most
fashionable and well-attended London churches featured pulpiteers who were the
precursors to modern needs-based preachers. Spurgeon – who managed to draw a few
hearers despite his insistence on biblical preaching – confessed that “The true
ambassador for Christ feels that he himself stands before God and has to deal
with souls in God’s stead as God’s servant, and stands in a solemn place – a
place in which unfaithfulness is inhumanity to man as well as treason to
God.”

Spurgeon and Baxter understood the dangerous mandate of the
preacher, and were therefore driven to the Bible as their only authority and
message. They left their pulpits trembling with urgent concern for the souls of
their hearers and fully aware of their accountability to God for preaching His
Word, and His Word alone. Their sermons were measured by power; Fosdick’s by
popularity.

The current debate over preaching may well shake
congregations, denominations, and the evangelical movement. But know this: The
recovery and renewal of the church in this generation will come only when from
pulpit to pulpit the herald preaches as never sure to preach again, and as a
dying man to dying men.

[written by Al Mohler]