The Preacher's Toolbox of Seven Hot Hammers

I believe friends I found the reason why many folks aren't getting saved today. I heard a Baptist preacher hit the nail on the head when he was commenting on the recent meeting he just attended. He said the preaching was biblical and powerful, the worship was Christ exalting, but what was lacking was the power of God in convicting and birthing.

I believe the old boy got it right. The missing ingredient in our meetings today is the power of God through Holy Spirit conviction. That's why so few are getting saved.

Some of us still remember how to preach, but we've forgotten how to strip men down with all the rights and claims that the gospel has on a sinner. We don't use the word of God like we should, like old-time preachers who knew how to wield the axe of the doctrines of the gospel as they hew men down. We don't know how to strip the bark off of hardened sinners anymore, so folks just make a decision for Jesus on their own self-righteousness.

Join the church and get baptized. Why aren't folks tugging on her sleeves anymore inquiring, oh what must that do to be saved? In the book of Jeremiah in chapter 23 and verse 29 we see the tools of God in the breaking up of the fallow ground of the sinner's heart. God's word declares about itself, is not my word like as a fire saith the Lord and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.

Let me ask you friend, what does a fire do? It awakens, it alarms. I was in a hotel in London when a fire broke out in the middle of the night and it wasn't long until every one of us were standing on the street in our pajamas. We were awakened by the fire alarm and we became alarmed.

And if I may ask you brother preacher, what does a hammer do? Well you say, I reckon it pounds away on a thing until it gets the job done. You answered right. The gospel when properly preached in its purity and proper order will burn men's conscience like a fire and the word of God will pound away at the stony heart until it breaks that rock in pieces.

The reason why we don't see the power of God in a meeting today in holy spirit conviction is mainly because our preaching is deficient. Now if you want to argue with me about that you go right ahead but you'll lose that argument because the watered down gospel only produces wet blankets that sit and drip in church every Sunday morning and complain it's too cold in here. Well listen to me friend, it won't be cold where you're heading.

It's hot there, real hot. I'm going to give you today friends a lesson in preaching from this old preacher who still knows how to preach even though most folks don't want me anymore. I offer my services to the head of my denomination in my local community who's in charge of all the churches.

I told him I'd do pulpit supply where they lacked a pastor or I'd preach in meetings wherever they needed me. This man looked at me like I was a dinosaur, kindly escorted me out and I've not heard from him again. He won't even return my phone calls or emails.

Why? Because the gospel that is preached in most churches today is not the gospel of my bible but another gospel that damns hardened sinners into a false profession of faith and fills membership roles with some tithers to support a program. Now that's the introduction to my message. Here is the title, The Preacher's Toolbox of Seven Hot Hammers.

I'll make you a promise friend, if you're willing to change your preaching to see God move in the hearts of sinners and conviction of sin, then I'll show you how to open this toolbox and pull out these seven hot hammers and begin pounding away on the conscience of man. The gospel when it is preached in its purity and proper order will get the job done by preventing men from building upon a sandy foundation because it'll get them to see their malady so they can turn to their remedy in the person of Jesus Christ. Did you know friend that salvation is Christ? You got to get to him and get under his blood for forgiveness of sin.

Here now is the preacher's toolbox of seven hot hammers. I will first list them then elaborate upon each head. You may want to get out your pens and paper to jot these down.

Hammer number one, the holiness of God. Hammer number two, the badness of man's heart. Hammer number three, the strictness of the law.

Hammer number four, the miseries of hell. Hammer number five, the demand for repentance. Hammer number six, the necessity of regeneration.

And lastly, hammer number seven, the preciousness of Christ. Now you start picking up those hot seven hammers and change your preaching to the bible's way and you won't see folks walking an aisle in response to your invitation with a smile on their face while they chew on their gum on the way to shake your hand. No sir, rather you'll see the blood drain out of their faces as their eyes get red with tears as they realize their great guilt of breaking God's law through sin and seeing that they're on their way to hell in acknowledgement that they deserve to go there.

Your mission field is your own lost congregation that you gathered beneath your former preaching. It was my homiletical mentor Dr. Stephen F. Oldford who shared with me this story. He said he was at the time a young pastor of a church in England that was losing its members under his preaching while Stephen Oldford was crossing the Atlantic aboard a ship.

He saw to his surprise Martin Lloyd Jones walking on deck one morning. They greeted each other and Stephen Oldford asked for his advice by relating to the doctor his problem of losing members and how to better grow his church. Martin Lloyd Jones smiled and replied, my dear brother don't you know that you first have to decrease a church before you can build it? So put on your work gloves brother pastor and get out your toolbox and start busting up your church so you can build a new one.

Let's pick up hammer number one the holiness of God. In Isaiah 57 15 God declares about himself for thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabited eternity whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

The holiness of God is a hammer in the hand of any preacher who realizes the need to preach up an exalted view of God. I'm afraid in our day of wet blanket Christianity we have lowered God down to our level and put God on man's level who can't save a flea much less a sinner hoarding in his sins. Get out that hammer and first smash that little God you have been serving.

Bust that idol to pieces and start preaching on an exalted holy God. Hammer number two the badness of man's heart. My bible says in the book of Job this about man's condition that his heart is so bad that he drinks iniquity like water.

You start preaching on man's rune nature and just how dead in sin he really is to such a deep degree that he hates God and all things holy. That man is a rebel under the condemnation of God and man's heart is pictured aptly in Jeremiah 17 9 which states the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? You start hammering away on your hearers by telling them of their rune condition of total depravity that they have a depraved nature where they're bent towards sin and they need to see the badness of their heart to see their malady before they can seek a remedy for pardon of sin.

Hammer number three the strictness of the law that God requires perfection to get into his holy heaven and no man is perfect rather all are guilty rebels who have broken the law of God by sin for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God that every mother's son will one day be held up against the strictness and severity of God's law and a future judgment that awaits all mankind and if you stand there in your own merits you will fail that test for the sentencing of the law must be carried out against all lawbreakers that God is a God who must punish sin or resign his position as judge of all the earth you start getting out that red hot hammer of the strictness of the law and you pound away with the word of God until all false foundations are broken up and your hearers look and see and hear the thunder and see the lightning atop Mount Sinai as it's all together on a smoke a sinner must be brought to Mount Sinai by the law to witness part in the broken law of God before it can come to Mount Zion for salvation a hammer number four the miseries of hell Jesus preached often on hell and its torments he said it was a place of outer darkness where the worm doth not and it would be better for you to cut your offending right hand off and quit sinning and go to heaven with one hand rather than have two in hell but that those outside of Christ will be bound hand and foot and cast into hell where there be weeping and gnashing the teeth a weeping speaks a great loss and grief gnashing the teeth signifies great anger and regret hell is a place of misery where the damned cry night and day to no relief old-time preachers knew the value of preaching up a hot hell to awaken their hearers to their lost condition and to warn them not to go there when the church in America quit preaching on hell it traded in the one strategic weapon in the salvation of souls you pick up that hot hammer friend and begin to pound away on your congregation about the dangers and miseries of hell you'll probably lose some of your good deacons and some of your bigger contributors as you shrink your church down to a size that can trample beneath the great doctrines of the bible so some poor sinners can be brought to Christ and saved how bad do you want to see folks say friend it's better to fear God than the chairman of the deacons a hammer number five the demand for repentance in act 17 30 God's word declares and the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commands all men everywhere to repent the day the church kicked out the need for repentance for salvation was a sad day indeed just because a big successful seminary said that a sinner no longer needed to exercise repentance in the process of salvation that all he had to do was to believe and ever since churches joined that bandwagon which flooded their sanctuary with the unconverted who just said yes to Jesus on an only believed gospel did not realize they were only damning folks to hell you want to decrease your church brother pastor then start hammering away on your unconverted people that they better repent or just go on to hell we judge success today by the world's methods and its rotten standards and say if a man has grown his church by leaps and bounds then that qualifies him to be president of the whole denomination you get out your toolbox and pick up the hammer of God's demand for repentance and you'll cause a riot in your church but in the midst of the turmoil somebody just might get saved and it just might be you hammer number six the necessity of regeneration Jesus told Nicodemus accept a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God George Whitefield picked up the hammer of regeneration and shook two continents for God with his great cry of ye must be born again many of the great revivals in the history of the church began when the pastor started preaching to his people the utter necessity of a work of grace upon the heart through the supernatural act of regeneration which God performs you start hammering away on the doctrine of the new birth and see what effect it has on people's hearts most folks join the church today as unregenerate church members and we fill our sanctuaries with goats instead of sheep hammer number seven the preciousness of Christ I am warned in my bible against casting pearls before swine or they'll turn and ran to me never ever friend use john 3 16 on an unawakened sinner you're casting the pearl of great price before swine a sinner must first see his need of a savior from sin before you can present that remedy to him the faulty evangelism of our day birthed in football stadiums all across the land in evangelistic crusades merely handed folks a little Jesus like you hand out a free stick of gum and folks accepted that little Jesus with smiles on their faces as they walked in now and believe that to be salvation and that chewed on that Jesus like a piece of gum until the flavor went out of their religion now listen to me friends we cannot continue to carry on with the same man-centered methodologies that were passed on down to us by bigger names than us thinking we are on the right path when it's time to be honest with ourselves and admit our lacking or evangelism today the reason I kept hammer number seven last being the preciousness of Christ is for this gospel reason you hold back on presenting Christ until you have effectively used those other six hammers and you have a people who see their need they're hungry for God a weary of their sins and thirsty for Christ then and only then do you reach into your gospel toolbox and pull out the hammer of the preciousness of the pearl of great price who's worth selling all for and losing all for so we may so he may be gained you start using these seven red hot hammers and you'll see a change in your congregation souls will be awakened to the lost condition brought under holy spirit conviction and the power of God will be at work in the salvation of souls all to his glory oh well I hope this little lesson on preaching the gospels been helpful to you friends as it's been to me I'm an old man I've got an old gospel but if you want to use it feel free to get out those seven red hot hammers for once you truly learn what the gospel really is then lives begin to start being changed let us pray