THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD: A DREADFUL CALLING

THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD: A DREADFULL CALLING

(A Puritan's view of the Pulpit)

• "A minister once said, 'The pulpit is the most dreadful place on the earth.' We may ask why a called minister of the Gospel would say such a thing. Why? Why is the pulpit so dreadful? Its just a place where a man, twice a week, or so, gives a short address to people from the Bible on a spiritual lesson which may help them make better decisions in life. If that is your view of the pulpit, then an early retirement, before next Sunday, is very much in order for you."

• C. Mathew McMahon has written a very convicting series on the Puritan view of the Pulpit on his website: A Puritans Mind. It is from part one of his series that the previous quote is taken. I encourage you to check it out here. For those of you who are preachers, I want to take a few minutes of your time now to impress upon you the seriousness of the ministry of the Word.

• I too, share the sentiments of the minister who said: "The Pulpit is the most dreadful place on earth," and I challenge you, if you do not presently see the ministry of the Word in this way, you seriously need to pause and consider the profundity of the task that has been assigned to you.

• First, consider who's ambassador you are. If you have been called to preach the Word, it is no less of a personage than the very God - the Great and Terrible God of the universe, the one Supreme Potentate and Most Holy Judge, in whose hands are all things and for whose purpose all things exist, whom you presume to represent! This is no earthly dictator, no mere human authority for whom you speak. This is no man or woman, whose words may be trifled with without consequence. This is God almighty, of whom it is said: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." This is the Great God and King of whom it is written: "From His face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was found no place for them!" This is the God from whose mouth no error proceeds and whose councels shall stand for all of eternity! This is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords whose very word binds and looses, blesses and condemns, kills and gives life! And will you DARE to speak for Him!? Will you open up your mouth and proceed to spew out words on His behalf!? In your fallen, sinful, tainted condition, do you presume to speak for such an one who is absolute holiness, absolute righteousness and perfectly just in all His ways!? What fool could apporach such a task without a sense of holy fear? What mindless oaf would appraoch such a dreadful assignment with a tepid flipancy? This is not play time. This is not lecture time. This is not an exercise in pop-psychology, or a seven-secrets-to-success seminar. You stand under the heavy hand and the piercing watch-gaze of the very Creator Himself when you stand in the pulpit! And will you not take such a task seriously? Will you not tremble under the tremendous weight of what you have been called to do? If not, then I agree with Mr. McMahon, "an early retirement, before next Sunday, is very much in order for you." And this not as a repremand as much as a safeguard. Every Christian under the sound of your voice stands at spiritual risk if you should alter the message. You yourself stand at risk if you should alter the message. I beg of you preacher, take your assignment seriously or do not take it at all!

• Second, consider the message you must deliver. You have not been called to report some article cut out of a newspaper, or to give a report of something you read in a magazine. You do not come to give a discussion based upon a book by some human author. This is the very Word of God! Will you water it down? Will you pick and choose which parts of it are good for edification based upon your own wisdom? Will you stand in judgment over it and give obedience to one part of it and not the other? Will you do anything whatever to add to it or take away from it? You are an ambassador; not a king! You are the messanger; not the dictator! You are the servant; not the Lord! It is not your job to stand in judgment over the Word, to water down the Word or to pick and choose what is and what is not good from out of the Word. It is simply your job to deliver the Word! If you cannot simply deliver the Word as it has been given to us by God Himself, then PLEASE do not accept the assignment. If you cannot resign yourself to the truthfulness of every part of God's Holy Word, then PLEASE do not go forth sowing half a seed. If you will not or cannot simply allow God to speak for Himself without redefining, reinterpreting, or reshaping His message than PLEASE spare yourself and those to whom you would presume to speak dangers of a deficient message. Jesus said: "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My Words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels"(Lk. 9:26). I ask you; can the Word of God be approached with too much fear? Can the task be taken too seriously? Can too much time be spent in preparation for the preaching of the pure Word of God? Can too much time be spent on exegesis and the propor application of hermeneutics? Can too much time be spent in prayer begging God's assistance in sermon preparation? Can a fallen creature ever see this as too dreadful of a task? Oh Please, please, preacher, I beg of you, take this task seriously!

• Third, consider the effects that this peaching will have upon the souls of your hearers. If your words are too soothing, a sinner could be hardened in his sin and eternally damned. If your words are too harsh and legalistic, a sinner could be frightened away from God forever. If your words are too ambiguous, a sinner could be misguided and never find the straight and narrow road that leads to life. If your words are unfaithful to Scripture, God will withhold His blessing upon you and your congregation. While it is true that God has chosen those who will be saved from before the foundation of the world, yet it is through the preaching of His Word that they are drawn. While it is true that He will never fail to bring those whom He has chosen to a lively faith in Christ, yet you and I are still responsible for the faithful delivery of the Word. Judas was predestined by God to betray Christ unto death, but observe Christ's own words conserning Him: "For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whome He is betrayed!" (Lk. 22:22). God's eternal decrees of salvation and reprobation provide no justification for the one through whom damnation is delivered. When a preacher distorts the Word of God in such a way that sinners are crystalized in their sin and eternally lost, the apostle James has a word for that man: "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment" (Jms. 3:1). If through the faithful preaching of Gods Word, your sermon becomes "an aroma of death unto death" then so be it; for God has said: "My Word will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it" (Isa. 55:11). But woe unto you preacher, if your sermons should prove to be an aroma of death unto death through your own neglegence! Woe, woe unto you preacher, if your sermons should bind up sinners in eternal fetters of condemnation because you were not faithful to the message that was entrusted to you! Woe, woe, woe unto you preacher, if your sermons should lead sinners away from the straight and narrow path because you were ashamed to preach the pure Word of God!! Oh please, please, preacher, preach the Word, the True Word, and nothing but the Word!!

• Finally, those of us who feel we have been commissioned to preach the Word of God had better be sure that we have been called to that ministry. This is not a ministry for everybody. Not just anybody can take up the mantle and preach "the power of God unto Salvation." We are all called to be Christ's witnesses. But few, very few are called to preach the Word of God. How do you know if you are called to preach the Word of God? Let me suggest at least three points of consideration.

• First of all I would direct you to the words of Jeremiah: "But His Word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay" (Jer. 20:9). Do you have this burning passion to preach the Word of God? Or is it simply another task that you think might be fun? Is the Word of God shut up like a fire in you bones, so much that you cannot do anything else? Or is it something that you could take or leave? When God calls a preacher, he cannot do anything else. Providence may prevent his preaching until he is proporly trained, but the burning desire is always within him. Which brings me to the next mark of the called preacher.

• Second, has God providentially provided you with training in the Word? When a man is called to preach the Word of God, the Sovereign King of Glory will providentially arrange for you to be trained in the Word. The disciplines of exegesis and hermeneutics are no laughing matter. The man who has no understanding of how these disciplines apply, has no business preaching the Word of God. Done rightly, Biblical exegesis can be an exhausting task. Done rightly, the propor application of hermeneutics can be mentally draining. And all this, before the discipline of homiletics can even be attempted, which is no less difficult a labor as the others. Hours and hours can be spent in sermon preparation. The man of God who has truely been called of God will understand the seriousness of these disciplines and seek to be trained for the same, and God will providentially provide the needed education.

• Third, I would simply ask you, does your view of the ministry of the Word line up with what has been said here? Is the task a dreadfull one in your mind? Do you truely understand who it is that you represent? Do you truely understand the seriousness of the message with which you have been entrusted? Do you truely understand the effects that message could and will have upon it's hearers? The prospect should terrify you! Such a holy calling should humble you beyond measure and make you cry out in abrogation of yourself and your terrible inadequecy! Such a weighty labor should make you melt under the recognition of your own frailness, sinfullness, weakness and lack of understanding! Only then can you truely embrace the calling of God to preach the Word. Only then have you embraced the Puritan view of the pulpit. Only then have you truely discerned that the ministry of the Word is indeed a dreadful calling.