Skip to main content

What is Wrong With Preaching Today?

I recently stumbled on a booklet by Al Martin, What is wrong with preaching today? at the Evangelical Library (London). It is 24 pages filled with excellency. You can get the electronic version for free at Grace Gems.  Here are a few quotes that struck me from it:

"All failures in preaching today are basically the failure either of the man who preaches or of the message he brings"

"The soil out of which powerful preaching grows is the preacher’s own life"

"The more you and I are known by our people, our influence will increase or diminish according to the tenor of our lives"

 "The Word of God must be to us first of all be that Book which we relish because here we see the face of the God whom we love, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ"

"The problem with our preaching is the shoddiness of our lives in the realm of practical piety as expressed in domestic life and in our speech"

"You are never free to be an instrument of blessing to your people unless you are free from the effects of their smiles and their frowns"

"What hinders us from being faithful to men is really a form of self love. We love our own feelings so much that we are not willing to run the risk of offending people and getting them mad at us. Oh, they may perish in hell, but that is all right just so long as they perish loving us"
"
"All who listen to us preach for any measure of time should come to the conclusion after sitting under our ministries, that unless they repent and bring forth the fruits of repentance, they will perish even though their heads may be packed full of objective and correct orthodoxy"

"Doubts which are produced by honest self-examination in the light of the objective standard of the Word of God, may be the best thing that ever happened to some people....doubts will never damn a man, but sinful presumption will".
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I am what I am by Gloria Gaynor

Beverly Knight closed the opening ceremony of the Paralympics with what has been dubbed the signature tune of the Paralympics. I had no idea Ms Knight is still in the singing business. And clearly going by the raving reviews she will continue to be around. One media source says her performance was so electric that "there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as she sang the lyrics to the song and people even watching at home felt the passion in her words" . The song was Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am . Clearly not written by Gloria Gaynor but certainly musically owned and popularized by her. It opens triumphantly: I am what I am / I am my own special creation / So come take a look / Give me the hook or the ovation / It's my world that I want to have a little pride in / My world and it's not a place I have to hide in / Life's not worth a damn till you can say I am what I am The words “I am what I am” echo over ten times in the song. A bold declaration that she
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

Why has God ordained prayer?

One of the most important truths we need to grasp in our life with Christ is that God ordains both the end and means of achieving that end. He determines the outcomes and how those outcomes are brought about. Unless we understand this truth we are likely to be unfruitful in our lives. For example, we are likely to fall into a sin of prayerlessness. Many of us do not take prayer seriously because deep down we do not realise that unless we pray, we won’t have that which we desire God to for us. We often do not have things, because we do not ask for them( James 4:2). God can give us things but not without prayer. He has promised us to call on him and He will answer us (Jeremiah 33:3; Psalm 91:15).  Now,  in order for us to really believe this truth that God will not give us what we desire without prayer, we need to be convinced on why God has ordained prayer as a means of delivering outcomes. I think once we understand that it will help to take prayer seriously. I found this explanation g
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

How Churches Decay

Whenever and wherever the doctrines of free grace and justification by faith have prevailed in the Christian Church; and according to the degree of clearness with which they have been enforced, the practical duties of Christianity have flourished in the same proportion. Wherever they have declined, or been tempered with the reasonings and expedients of men, either from a well meant, though mistaken fear, lest they should be abused, or from a desire to accommodate the Gospel, and render it more palatable to the depraved taste of the world, the consequence has always  been, an equal declension in practice. So long as the Gospel of Christ is maintained without adulteration, it is found sufficient for every valuable purpose; but when the wisdom of man is permitted to add to the perfect work of God, a wide door is opened for innumerable mischiefs. JOHN NEWTON ( Source : A Review of Ecclesiastical History)
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →