never apologize for presenting the truth of man’s depravity. Evidences for the need for its proclamation scream at us daily through every news media. The second necessity, if we are to relate to the world, is to believe that Christ is the answer to man’s need. Paul declared, “ I believe, and therefore have I spoken” (II Cor. 4:13). Jesus told Nicodemus “ Ye must be born again” (John 3:3), and then explained that the basis of this new birth was to look in faith to Him as He went to the cross to pay the penalty for man’s sin (John 3:14-16). By the new birth, the Spirit of God comes to indwell the believer. He is the One who can change the course of a man's life giving him power to overcome sin and to produce fruits of “ love, joy and peace” (Gal. 5:22, 23) that are so diligently sought in the world today. Thus one must be convinced that his task is to remind man of his sinful condition, stressing the fact that he must turn from that sin and embrace Christ as Saviour and Lord. The message of repentance from sin is needed in the lives of Chris tians as well as in the unbelievers'. In fact, there is increasing evidence that much of the reason for a pow erless, irrelevant church is that pro fessing Christians have not allowed the Spirit of God to control their lives. This has resulted in such spiritual weakness and misery that the church is failing to demonstrate the vibrant tra n s fo rm a tio n that ought to characterize the Spirit- controlled child of God. This mes sage to Christians may be unpopu lar but it is desperately needed if the ministry through the church is going to make an impact on this age. Evangelist Vance Havner states the problem as follows: “ Little ef fort is being made to call the churches to repentance, and the reason is not hard to find. People like to go to great religious gather ings where they can lose them selves in the crowd and take no of fense at plain preaching. But let a minister stand in a local church THE KING'S BUSINESS
Making Preaching RELEVANT by Glenn 0 9Neal M alcom Boyd in a Life magazine article entitled “ A Cry from tne Underground Church" echoes a
man’s problem which is sin result ing in estrangement from God. Christ Jesus came into the world to “ save sinners.” Our problems have been blamed on environment for so long that it is often unpopular to place the proper stress on this truth. Yet there are evidences that even those who have formerly looked at man through rose-colored glasses are willing to give credence to the Bible explanation for man’s predicament. Pamela Johnson, an English writ er, who had observed the Moors trial which portrayed the depths of man’s degradation, wrote: “ When the Sermon on the Mount was bundled into the dustbin (or, in deed, any code of ideas that had raised men’s eyes from the ground) a moral vacuum was created: and the liberal humanists have not suc ceeded in filling it. What was de stroyed in one kind of society was any real sense of human purpose— which included social purpose. “ People deeply need purpose, and to say to them, ‘ It is sufficient that you behave in the interests of society as a whole,’ is simply not enough. It is far too abstract an approach to be any sort of guide to decent living. "The error of the liberal human ists is that they have been unable to offer an alternative faith to the one they have renounced, except for faith in the beneficial effects of total permissiveness in every form of culture. This faith is a romantic one, even more romantic than Rous seau’s. Once they ceased to believe even in the possibility of sheer in iquity and replaced this by a belief in Freud, they tore up the very stones of self-discipline and moral responsibility.” The minister of the Word must
message about the church which is being heard repeatedly. He de clares that many crying out from the underground church find the game of church-as-usual isn’t suf ficient now. “ More and more peo ple,” he says, “ are joining in a cry for honesty and meaning in faith. . . . Our cry comes out of real need. The meaninglessness of churchian- ity is acutely painful to us. An un changed Sunday morning . . . with the same prayers, same form of sermon, same hymns, and the same feeling of not-touching-base is in creasing a sense of despair about the church.” Has the pulpit become irrele vant? It is interesting to note that the age in which preaching has fallen into disfavor is the same pe riod in which the free speech plat form has come to prominence. Thus it might be observed that speech is not dead — that if the influence of the preacher is diminishing it may be partly the fault of the preacher and the church. Boyd fu r ther observes that “ In an age of supposed u n b e lie f, peop le are yearning in a desperate way for something to believe in." What can be done to encourage a relevant, effective ministry on the part of those who carry on the preaching and teaching ministry in the local church? The first essential is that there must be an awareness of man’s need. Before a doctor can give a rele vant prescription, he must make a proper diagnosis. Those who pro claim God’s message must be w ill ing to accept God’s analysis of 32
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker