Preacher, Quit Clowning Around!

"Surely you know of preachers who are more like clowns than prophets. A clown’s job is to entertain, to make the crowd feel good for a while, to help them forget their problems and needs. A prophet, on the other hand, is to bring people face to face with God, to show them their spiritual bankruptcy, to make known their spiritual nakedness, to reveal to them that though they think they are rich and have need of nothing, they actually are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. He then is to exalt Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of sinners, the One who died and was raised again for their justification. He is to call people to repentance and faith in Jesus. He is not to entertain, not to motivate or inspire to emotional, psychological, or professional well being. He is not merely to inform people of Biblical knowledge. He is to bring people face to face with the Holy One of Israel, the One who is a consuming fire, the One who will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, the One with whom we all have to do, the One with the two-edged sword who treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty.

Frivolity and triviality are exceedingly poor mediums for such a message. Life and death issues are not communicated well by clowns. The present worship service in some churches where the preacher enters the pulpit on a motorcycle, in a wheelbarrow, or descending from a high wire (I am not making this up) denies the sober message of the prophet. Reducing the sermon to ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes devoid of Biblical exposition, failing to use the S (sin) word or the H (hell) word, failing to speak clearly about the glory of Christ and His person and work, coming across as a motivational speaker or clown, is to impugn the name of Christ and the office of preaching.

For example, let’s say your spouse has been diagnosed with cancer and has six months to live. How would you feel if the doctor delivered the message to you in drama, in song and dance, or in a stand-up comedy routine? Surely you would be insulted? Would you not consider the doctor to be incredibly insensitive, making light of a serious and painful issue? The medium is essential to the message. Doesn’t the sober nature of the message of life and death, heaven and hell, demand a similar form of communication? Words are what the preacher has at his disposal, words under the ministry of the Holy Spirit, words made active by the Spirit who works in both the preacher and congregation. Words will do. We don’t need drama. We don’t need song and dance. We don’t need comedy. We need straightforward words, cutting like a knife into the hearts of the hearers, opening them up to the folly of their own devices, drawing them back to Jesus who alone has the power to save and keep them until that great day."

The full article by Al Baker can be found at The Banner of Truth