A Word for Preachers...Mohler on the Need for Urgency in Preaching

"In all too many pulpits, God has become our next-door neighbor, our great cosmic companion, or the divine leader of our small group, rather than the holy God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Perhaps the lack of urgency in so much preaching today comes from a lack of understanding about humanity's awful predicament. The greatest problem we human beings face is not a shortage of self-esteem. It is that we have rebelled against God, and, in His holiness, God will one day hold us to horrible account for our sin.

"The gospel necessarily comes with an urgent warning, because the distinction between those who obey its call and those who disobey is not merely between a better life and a worse life. It is the difference between life and death. It is an eternal distinction, for the cost of disobedience and the coast of not hearing the gospel is eternal death.

"That is why we must preach with urgency of a dying man. It is because human beings are in desperate need of salvation. Time is short, God's wrath is certain, and eternity hangs in the balance. Moreover, there is for each of us only one way out of this predicament, and that is the salvation God Himself has won through the gospel of his Son, Jesus Christ."

Al Mohler
He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World

Sola Conference

The five "Solas" stand at the heart of Reformation Christianity and they will be the theme of a conference in Michigan this December. I look forward to attending the Sola Conference in Lansing on December 6th and 7th, and sitting under the teaching of a great group of speakers.

Heikkinen and DeYoung (the conference's organizers) speak about it in the video below:



Check it out here, register by July 31 for only $45, and I'll see you there! The schedule is as follows:

Friday, December 6, 2013 

9:00 – 1:00: Preconference Track for Pastors & Church Planters

2:30 – 4:00: Session 1 – Sola (Noel Heikkinen)
4:30 – 5:30: Session 2 – Ad Fontes: Why Going Backward Is the Best Way to Go Forward (Kevin DeYoung)
7:30 – 9:00: Session 3 – Sola Fide (Matt Chandler)

Saturday, December 7, 2013

8:30 – 9:30: Session 4 – Sola Gratia (Leonce Crump)
10:00 – 11:00: Session 5 – Solus Christus (Stephen Um)
11:30 – 12:30: Session 6 – Panel Discussion
3:00 – 4:00: Session 7 – Sola Scriptura (Albert Mohler)
4:30 – 5:30: Session 8 – Soli Deo Gloria (John Piper)

A Word for Preachers...Mohler on the Preacher's Privilege

"What a high privilege it is to be a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our Lord has given us the honor, the calling, the stewardship and the commission of preaching a saving gospel to a world that is in desperate need of salvation--and all to the end that Jesus would be worshiped as Savior in every tongue, from every tribe and people and nation.

"Looking at Paul's urgency in the book of Romans, we are confronted with a direct challenge. Do we really believe that the world needs to hear the message of the gospel? Do we really believe that the gospel saves? Do we really believe that faith comes by hearing the Word of God? If so, then our minds should be filled with no more urgent desire than to preach. This is not an option for us or for the church. It is our commission. "

Al Mohler
He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World

A Word for Preachers...Mohler on the Grace of God to the Preacher

"Another critical point for the preacher to understand is that God has given him this calling not for his own benefit but for the benefit of the church. Look at what Paul says in Colossians 1:24: 'I rejoice in my sufferings.' he says, 'for your sake.' He ministered 'for the sake of his body, that is the church.' Our calling to preach is a calling to serve others, and it is given to us entirely by God's grace. We have been called out and granted a stewardship that we do not deserve and that we are not capable of fulfilling. Nonetheless, God chooses us to carry it out."

Al Mohler
He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World

A Word for Preachers...Mohler on Christ-Centered Preaching

"Even more, the moralistic fables that many evangelicals hear from their pastors week in and week out will not evoke the kind of burning-in-the-heart awe that these two disciples experienced on the road to Emmaus. If we want our people to feel that kind of excitement about the gospel, then they need to hear and know the same sweeping story that Jesus unfolded to these two disciples.

"'Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,' Luke says, 'he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.' Every single text of Scripture points to Jesus Christ. He is the Lord of all, and therefore He is the Lord of the Scriptures too. From Moses to the prophets, He is the focus of every single word of the Bible. Every verse of Scripture finds its fulfillment in Him, and every story of the Bible is not just a compendium of good short stories, but a grand, life-encompassing metanarrative of God's work of redemption in the world."

Al Mohler
He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World

A Word for Preachers...Mohler on Wee Little Morality Sermons

"The tendency to isolate our sermons to one tiny piece of biblical text is a major problem, and it also explains why so much evangelical preaching is moralistic. It is easy to pick out a familiar story, make a few points from it about what people should do and should not do, and then be done with it. But that kind of preaching will leave a church weak and starving, because the Christians who sit under it never find themselves in the big story of God's work in the world. If we as preachers want to see our people growing to maturity in Christ, we must give them more than a diet of wee little morality sermons. We must place every text we preach firmly within the grand, sweeping story of the Bible."

Al Mohler

A Word for Preachers...Al Mohler on the Preacher's Authority

"Far too many pastors operate under the assumption that the authority they enjoy is their own, that they somehow earned or achieved it, rather than merely receiving it from the hand of God.  Similarly, the people in our churches are often fooled into trusting the wrong kind of authority, an authority that originates in man and man's abilities rather than in the call of God...The preacher's authority lies not in profession, not in position and not in personality.  It lies in the Word of God alone."
Al Mohler
He Is Not Silent

A Word for Preachers...Mohler on the Theological Nature of Preaching

"We will be hard-pressed to define any activity as being more inherently theological than the preaching of God's Word, for preaching is an exercise in the theological exposition of Scripture.  Congregations that are fed nothing more than ambiguous 'principles' supposedly drawn from God's Word are doomed to a spiritual immaturity that will quickly become visible in compromise, complacency, and a host of other spiritual ills.

"Why else would the apostle Paul command Timothy to preach the Word in such solemn and serious terms? 'I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching' (2 Timothy 4:1-2)."

Al Mohler
He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World

Teaching From The Gospel Coalition

Two years ago I attended The Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago.  It was a fantastic experience and I thought very seriously about attending the 2011 installment of TGC this week.

Though it didn't work out for me to go, thanks to the wonders of technology, I've been blessed by the opportunity to take in some of the conference's great teaching.  Yesterday I watched Albert Mohler's talk via the live online stream of the conference's plenary talks provided  courtesy of Desiring God and TGC.  Last night I reviewed hundreds upon hundreds of tweets tagged #TGC11 and got a good feel for Tim Keller's talk, which has now been posted online, and which I plan on listening to later.

After the conference is over I will post another entry with links to all the talks.  Though I haven't heard it yet, I look forward to hearing Allistair Begg's talk from last night.  According to Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds, he concluded with this quote from John Calvin:

Without the gospel

everything is useless and vain;

without the gospel

we are not Christians;

without the gospel

all riches is poverty,

all wisdom, folly before God;

strength is weakness, and

all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made

children of God,

brothers of Jesus Christ,

fellow townsmen with the saints,

citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven,

heirs of God with Jesus Christ,

by whom

the poor are made rich,

the weak strong,

the fools wise,

the sinners justified,

the desolate comforted,

the doubting sure, and

slaves free.

The gospel is the Word of life.

A Word for Preachers

"Preaching is not the business of speculating about God's nature, will, or ways, but is bearing witness to what God has said concerning Himself. Preaching does not consist of speculation but of exposition. The preacher dares to speak the Word of truth to a generation that rejects the very notion of objective, public truth. This is not rooted in the preacher's arrogant claim to have discovered worldly wisdom or to have penetrated the secrets of the universe. To the contrary, the preacher dares to proclaim truth on the basis of God's sovereign self-disclosure. God has spoken, and He has commanded us to speak of Him."

Al Mohler

A Word for Preachers

"Ultimately, preaching will cease to be Christian preaching if the preacher loses confidence in the authority of the Bible as the Word of God and in the power of the spoken word to communicate the saving and transforming message of the Bible...The audacious claim of Christian preaching is that the faithful declaration of the Word of God , spoken through the preacher's voice, is even more powerful than anything music or image can deliver."

Al Mohler

Ten Books for Preachers to Read

In the most recent issue of Preaching Magazine, Al Mohler suggests the following 10 books for preachers to read in 2010. I've already gotten a little bit of a jump start on the list having read three of them (numbers 3, 4 and 5), and am looking forward to following his advice on a number of others.

1. Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice by Bryan Chapell (Baker Academic)
2. The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton (Public Affairs)
3. Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck (Moody Publishers)
4. Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church by Michael Horton (Baker Books)
5. The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne (Matthias Media)
6. Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches by Russell D. Moore (Crossway)
7. Ancient Word, Changing Worlds: The Doctrine of Scripture in a Modern Age by Stephen J. Nichols and Eric T. Brandt (Crossway)
8. Perspectives on Christian Worship: 5 Views edited by J. Matthew Pinson (B&H Academic)
9. Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults by Christian Smith with Patricia Snell (Oxford Univ. Press)
10. The Young and the Digital: What Migration to Social-Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future by S. Craig Watkins (Beacon Press)

(HT: Justin Taylor)