The Pulpit

The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it filled
with solemn awe, that bids me well beware
with what intent I touch that holy thing;)
the pulpit (when the satirist has at last,
strutting and vaporing in an empty school,
spent all his force, and made no proselyte;)
I say the pulpit (in the sober use
of its legitimate, peculiar powers)
must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand,
the most important and effectual guard,
support, and ornament of virtue’s cause.
There stands the messenger of truth. There stands
the legate of the skies; his theme divine,
his office sacred, his credentials clear.
By him, the violated law speaks out
its thunders, and by him, in strains as sweet
as angels use, the gospel whispers peace.
He ’stablishes the strong, restores the weak,
reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart,
and, armed himself in panoply complete
of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms
bright as his own, and trains, by every rule
of holy discipline, to glorious war,
the sacramental host of God’s elect.

William Cowper, 1731-1800.

HT: Christ Is Deeper Still

George Whitefield and Naps In Church

This approach may not be directly transferable to our day and context, but I think more men would do well to have Whitefield’s chutzpah:

He [Whitefield] had complete confidence in the authority of his message, and was determined that it should receive the respect it deserved as God’s Word. Once in a New Jersey meeting-house he “noticed an old man settling down for his accustomed, sermon-time nap”, writes John Pollock, one of his biographers. Whitefield began his sermon quietly, without disturbing the gentleman’s slumbers. But then “in measured, deliberate words” he said:

“If I had come to speak to you in my own name, you might rest your elbows upon your knees and your heads on your hands, and go to sleep!…But I have come to you in the name of the Lord God of hosts, and (he clapped his hands and stamped his foot) I must and I will be heard.” The old man woke up startled.

(John Stott, Between Two Worlds, 32-33)

HT: The Fool’s Gold

“I Could Never Love A God Like That”

I have long felt that one of the greatest needs in the church today is study of the attributes of God.  Today I find through Reformed Voices that Paul Washer, whom I admire greatly, agrees. -JB

“One of the greatest needs other than preaching the gospel and true conversion is to teach on the attributes of God, because people basically don’t know Him.

If I were to go into most churches and preach on the attributes of God, what would happen about midway through that week is you would have faithful church members who have been there for forty years who would stand up and say,

‘That’s not my god, I could never love a god like that,’

… even though I’m just preaching the historical Christian view of God.” -Paul Washer from the sermon I am Under Obligation

John Piper: Powerless Pulpits Deny the Existence of Hell

An Urgent Need

from Reformed Voices:

“There is an urgent need for courageous preachers in the pulpits of the world today, like the apostles in the early Church who ‘were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness’ (Acts 4:31). Neither men-pleasers not time-servers ever make good preachers. We are called to the sacred task of biblical exposition, and commissioned to proclaim what God has said, not what human beings want to hear. Many modern churchmen suffer from a malady called ‘itching ears’, which induces them to ‘accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings’ (2 Tim. 4:3). But we have no liberty to scratch their itch or pander to their likings. Rather are we to resemble Paul in Ephesus who resisted this very temptation and twice insisted that he ‘did not shrink from declaring’ to them what had to be declared, namely ‘the whole counsel of God’ (Acts 20:20, 27). We have to beware of selecting our texts and topics – even unconsciously – according to personal prejudice or popular fashion. The medicine of the gospel has been prescribed by the Good Physician; we may neither dilute it nor add ingredients to make it more palatable; we must serve it neat. Nor need we fear that people will not take it. To be sure, some may leave, but most will respond. ‘People are driven from the Church,’ commented George Buttrick, ‘not so much by stern truth that makes them uneasy as by weak nothings that make them contemptuous.’” -John R.W. Stott, from Between Two Worlds