What is Absent in Today's Preaching?

To answer this question it is possible to give a multiplicity of comments and all could be true, depending from what perspective it is analysed. My own observation is that there is less emphasis today on sin and its consequences, that there is a tendency to preach a very doctrinal message (and I am in no way criticising such) which veers away from addressing the issues of man’s real condition in the sight of God, that there is a lot of preaching which is clinically and grammatically correct but which lacks power, and that there is less emphasis today on the holiness of God. It is not my intention to sit in judgment, but to point out what I observe are grave omissions in some of today’s preaching. In other words, there are some essentials which are being avoided.

Richard Baxter urged pastors to preach “chiefly on the greatest, most certain, and most necessary truths. Many other things,” he says, “are desirable to be known, but this must be known, or else our people are undone for ever.” Hell is such a doctrine. It ‘must be known’ as must heaven.

The tendency today is not to mention hell because it is unpopular and not socially acceptable to speak about punishment, or name eternal punishment. A reason given for this omission is that such preaching causes people to be gripped by fear and emotion which may lead to shallow conversions, or nervous breakdowns.

It is fair to say that when there was more preaching on hell and eternal punishment there was undoubtedly more fear of God and a greater awareness of sin. Historically the church was not afraid to address these difficult issues and, it could be argued, they saw more fruit than we are seeing today. Surely to avoid addressing such issues could be termed as unfaithfulness to the whole Word of God.

The seriousness of the consequences of failing at this point is highlighted in the words of Edward Donnelly, “Hell is a place of torment where millions of human beings will be enclosed forever. Statisticians tell us that approximately ninety-five million people die every year. That means that, every second, three human beings enter hell or heaven. Within the next hour, eleven thousand men, women and children will have gone forever to a place of everlasting joy or a place of everlasting pain.” Surely this makes the declaration of hell vitally important.

In pulpit ministry, whether at home or abroad, it is imperative that we do not sell our hearers short with less than a fully-orbed presentation of Biblical truth. All God’s servants have faced the temptation to avoid the unpopular parts of the Gospel, but it is not our prerogative to choose to gloss over these fundamentals of the Gospel, but to proclaim them. Failure to preach on hell must, in some measure, contribute to so few conversions in our churches. In addition there may be many people sitting in our churches who are being denied the whole counsel of God.

In this issue of Breakthrough we present up-to-date information from our fields of ministry, showing how the Gospel is impacting the lives of many for the first time. In setting out what the Lord is doing through the ministries of SGA one is aware that we must maintain and proclaim the truth of the Gospel in all its purity, not avoiding the difficult issues.

William Smylie

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