Dynamite Preaching

I don't know if you've ever heard the expression run like a scalded dog years ago in the south when all the cooking and canning and preserving the food was done outside. There were occasions where some dog would come in contact with some spilled hot water and take off running like a crazy person. If you've ever been scalded you're familiar with that kind of pain.

When we look at Jesus in his earthly ministry we tend to think of Jesus and the twelve as a band of merry men on a non-stop joy ride through the woods. We think how fun it must have been to be part of that little circle but being a disciple of Jesus was no joy ride like we tend to think. Rather it was a scalding experience where your weaknesses were exposed like fresh cut wounds that smarted and were uncomfortable.

Jesus had three years to take a ragtag bunch of uneducated men and train them into the early leaders of the church on earth. He had to take a stumbling bumbling Peter and make him the preacher of Pentecost. The trouble friend with our brand of Christianity is that it's too easily explained.

The world looks at our million dollar buildings and large church campuses of our denominational churches and it can all be explained away by money and manpower. But the early church could not be explained. There was no explanation for a person who refused to say Caesar is Lord but only said Jesus is Lord because that was a crime against the state punishable by confiscation of your home, your belongings, your family was imprisoned and you were even probably put to death.

There was a time when the church couldn't be explained by money and manpower but only by God and holy ghost power. Vance Havner used to say if we serve such a dynamite God why are so many of us living firecracker lives. Unfortunately modern Christianity today is not storming the gates of hell because we ran out of dynamite years ago.

Well so we have a little firecracker life that doesn't disturb anybody. We settle for a settled pastorate that is merely respectable but not remarkable. But a plastic water pistol will never put out a raging fire a hundred stories high.

Why would Jesus pour out his life into a little band of common men? Why didn't he handpick princes to be his followers and rich rulers, men of great learning, men of great influence? Why didn't he put together a man, a group of men who were movers and shakers? That's what we do today in the church. Why did God choose lowly fishermen and tradesmen? I guess we see the answer in the book of Acts where it says, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.

I reckon our Christianity today isn't much of a marvel to anyone, let alone a God-hating society. It's just tame enough to be respectable. But God in times past has raised up human instruments who knew how to preach.

Men like George Whitefield who preached scalding sermons. When Whitefield preached his first public sermon at Mary the Crypt in Gloucester, England, it was said of that sermon that it drove 15 people mad. I have stood in the pulpit of that church.

It's the same pulpit in Whitefield's day. And I can assure you, friends, judging by the size of that sanctuary, 15 people was a good percentage of his congregation. But when we preach today, we're not driving anybody mad or even upsetting them a little.

We preach nice little sermons that don't upset anybody. But Jonathan Edwards threw hot water on his congregations and scalded them when he preached in Enfield, Connecticut in 1740 in his now famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. It was said by an eyewitness that the minister had to desist from preaching for all the piercing cries of the people who were screaming like scalded dogs.

Oh, I'm going to hell. Oh, what must I do to be saved? Oh, my sins are too much for me. I was sitting in a seminary preaching class where a student raised his hand to ask a question.

He remarked to the preaching professor, I see you have taught us. You've mentioned that we should be good communicators and use our voice and personality when we preach. But when I study revival and read about men like Jonathan Edwards, I see that Edwards relied on the Holy Spirit to work on men's hearts.

The preaching professor made a face like he just bit into a lemon. And in a condescending voice, he said, son, you are no Jonathan Edwards. Well, I believe that student knew more about preaching than that eggheaded professor.

But the church in the West today is more concerned about self-preservation than saving souls. A few are willing to live a life of faith and go out on a limb for God today and put their skins at risk. An evangelist friend of mine who's been an evangelist for 40 years summed up most preaching today by saying how he visited a church recently and the pastor spent one minute reading the word of God and then spent 20 minutes telling a amusing story about his little girl's birthday party.

And everybody there smiled and laughed and had a good time. The church has become a showboat instead of a lifeboat. And most pastors tell amusing stories to be relatable and accepted by their hearers.

And everybody drops into hell together. Rather, we should be preaching the great doctrines of the gospel, which are ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration. All I know, friends, is that personally, I know a difference.

When I used to preach about the subject of revival, I got compliments on my sermon and we had a nice fellowship together, eating lunch after the service. But when I changed and I started preaching for revival, when I stayed out of bed all night in prayer and preached next morning on the last judgment and a burning hell and man's duty repentance, I saw all hell break out among the people like a stick of dynamite had just been blown up in the center aisle of that church. The deacons were frozen in their seats by power stronger than they as a young man jumped up and down the center of the aisle, yelling his head off for everybody to hear.

I just got saved. I just got saved. Afterwards, the music minister, with tears in his eyes, told me he saw Jesus sitting on his throne.

Well, my sermon cost me my love offering. I got paid nothing as a visiting preacher, but the church was turned upside down and lives were changed. But many of our churches today have gotten out of the transformation business to go into the educational business, as teaching has replaced preaching.

Teaching informs, preaching transforms. But if you want to see citadels of sin attacked and lives transformed for Christ and communities changed for the glory of God, then preach with the Bible in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other, in the power of the Holy Ghost.