Straight Talk
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000194 EndHTML:0000003118 StartFragment:0000002453 EndFragment:0000003082 SourceURL:file://localhost/Volumes/SERVER/EDITORIAL/4-05-11/COLUMNS/RuralViewpoints.doc @font-face { font-family: “Times New Roman”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
I’m sure that most of my readers have heard about the preacher who asked a listener in his Sunday morning Service to wake up the sleeping man sitting beside him? The man relied, “Preacher, you come down here and wake him up! You put him to sleep!” there is more truth than fiction in his answer. Sunday after Sunday congregations are given Sominex Sermons which results in members going to sleep. Here is what the problem is: Preachers asleep in the pulpit put people to sleep in the pew. I heard this proverb recently: “People are cold in the pew because there is an ice cube in the pulpit.”
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000194 EndHTML:0000003730 StartFragment:0000002455 EndFragment:0000003694 SourceURL:file://localhost/Volumes/SERVER/EDITORIAL/4-05-11/COLUMNS/RuralViewpoints.doc @font-face { font-family: “Times New Roman”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
It is pass time for preachers to walk up and study the Bible and preach it to a dying world. Sermons from the internet will not get the job done. Lazy preachers produce lazy members. Pulpits and pews use the same book, but the real problem is that they are not on the same page.
Not all preachers are like the ones I’ve described above, but if there were only one, then that would be one too many. Mark it down, the Rip Van Winkle syndrome will send us into the lake of fire, through a preacher in Saturday’s issue of the Tennessean said, in a book which he recently wrote, that hell is not as bad as it is pictured, and that a good God wouldn’t send people there for eternity. First of all, he hasn’t been to hell and back. Secondly, God doesn’t send people to hell, themselves by pursing a course that is anti-God. What is even worse is that this preacher is going to speak at Belmont in the near future.
I call upon all preachers who are asleep to wake up. Our land needs capable and faithful preachers, not “micky mouse” preachers. There is a vast difference in talking and preaching the Word of God. God is looking for dedication, not degrees.