Trap of Popularity Faith Series

We are in our faith series, friends, geared at messages for revival and spiritual growth. And today we'll look at a topic everybody seems to want, but few understand. And that is the trap of popularity for a preacher.

There is a well-known preacher, now in glory, who I just loved listening to his early sermons when he was a younger man. And this pastor had a medium-sized church. He could preach like John the Baptist.

His sermons were full of lightning and thunder. But when he became the pastor of one of the biggest churches in his denomination, he was still a great preacher, but he had to tone things down. He couldn't preach disturbing sermons anymore because he had to fit in with a certain level of acceptance with that bigger crowd.

To this day, I'd rather listen to his sermons from his younger years before he became famous because he was preaching like an old-time prophet back then. I kind of got a taste of this myself some years ago when I first started out on a public platform. I had some popular sermons that got me a little attention.

People would listen to them and post 20 comments on them saying what a great message it was. I was invited to preach at some pretty distinguished Christian conferences. I was invited to be interviewed on several different Christian radio stations as folks wanted to know more about me.

When Glenn Beck was at the height of his popularity, I even received a phone call from his personal secretary as they were considering using me for his TV show. And all the while, as my popularity grew, I was aware of a presence in the background egging me on to preach even more crowd-pleasing sermons. But that voice wasn't God's voice.

It was the voice of popularity from the tempter who told Jesus, All this power will I give thee in the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will give it. I came pretty close to the trap of popularity, but God in his mercy kept me back from it. I did some earnest introspection and heartfelt searching of the word of God and seeking God's face on my knees and I decided to no longer preach for comments praising me but to preach only for transformation in my hearers and God's glory.

That's when the comments stopped. That's when my financial support dried up. Nobody wants to sit down and write a favorable review of a sermon after they've been hit all over with buckshot.

Every once in a while, I'll hear from someone who heard one of my messages and they'll say their life's been changed and that's pretty much what I'm preaching for now. I'm preaching for change. Why, that's what the old-time preachers did.

Preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. That's what the Puritan preachers did. They preached for change and you can still read their sermons today and feel a pungent presence of Christ in them.

Somehow, we modern preachers lost our way. We fell into the trap of popularity. We decided it was better to give the people what they wanted rather than what they needed.

Now, don't get me wrong, friends. Every once in a while, God gives the church a Troll Spurgeon who is both penetrating and popular. But mostly, in our day, we have a bunch of entertainers filling our pulpits.

They warm up their crowds like a TV talk show host and go for the easiest laugh. They want acceptability, acknowledgement, appreciation and they love to preach messages that induce someone to say, oh, I just loved your message, pastor. But when I read my Bible, the preachers in those pages of Scripture didn't preach for acceptance or popularity.

In fact, John the Baptist ended up in prison for reproving a king and it cost him his head. Jesus' first public sermon ended with the following result. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the city and led him onto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built that they might cast him down headlong.

And when the apostles preached, there was either revival or riot or both. But mainly, after they preached, they were thrown into prison with a warning from the city magistrates saying, did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. But then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than man.

Maybe that's what some of us preachers ought to do today in this sin-soaked society that hates the name of Jesus. Maybe we ought to be like some of these other men in former times, men like the apostle Paul, Luther, Wesley, Whitefield, Knox, Edwards, Finney, Moody, each shared a common denominator, a fire in their belly. They each were so eaten up with the gospel and thirsty for Christ and filled with the Holy Ghost, they could not stand idly by while others perished.

They saw nothing but eternity, worshipped the Holy God and served the risen Christ, living not for earth nor its gains, but living only for heaven and its rewards. When they preached, they linked the devil with sin and the cross with salvation. They preached hell and its fire and Christ and him crucified.

Not one of them feared king, queen, or pope, and not one of them sought the compliments of man.