The Demand for Positive Preaching
Dub McClish
Beacon – February 24, 2014
More and more over the past few years the cry for “positive” preaching has been heard. Surely, preachers need to preach positively in the sense that we offer something that is solid and concrete when we get up to preach. Any fool can raise questions and broadcast his own uncertainties. However, we have a certified Gospel (Gal. 1:11) based upon the “word of prophecy made more sure” (2 Pet. 1:19). The Gospel of Christ is “in truth, the word of God” (1 Thes. 2:13). The task of Gospel preachers is to preach this sure and certain truth and to be positive about it! In the Gospel, we have something to offer the world that it cannot get anywhere else, and we must unashamedly offer it. True Gospel preaching will always accentuate the “pluses” of Gospel obedience and Christian living which ends in eternal life.
However, I have found that most folk who insist on “positive” preaching have something else in mind. They usually mean: “Don’t preach on specific sins”; “Don’t preach on the necessity of baptism”; “Don’t preach about the one church”; “Don’t expose religious error and call it by name”; etc. (Is it not strange how negative these folks are who demand “positive” preaching?) To this growing element within the church “positive” preaching not only excludes such things as the above but it focuses almost entirely on grace, love, mercy, and joy as they understand them. Surely, none can deny that, properly conceived, these are important themes of the Gospel, and they dare not be neglected. But I deny that these are the only important subjects of the Gospel. “Godly sorrow,” for example is necessary to produce salvation (2 Cor. 7:10).
The “positive” approach represents the encroachment of the false philosophy that all guilt feelings are harmful. Those thus persuaded will not long tolerate preaching that makes them feel guilty. Many in the church now want to do their drinking and dancing, go on living in their adulterous marriages, wear immodest clothing in public, forsake the assembly at will, etc., and never be called in question. If the preacher does not send them from the assembly “feeling good” he has wasted their time! To such, one who dares to continue preaching the whole counsel of God is “negative” and “offensive.” Straightforward preaching that identifies sin and error is “arrogant” preaching and constitutes “an unbalanced gospel” to them.
I challenge such brethren to apply their standards of “positive” preaching to our Lord. He repeatedly rebuked the sins and sinners of His day in scathing words (Mat. 6:1-18; 11:16-24; 12:34, 39; 15:1-20; 23:1-29; etc.). This often involved calling the name of their party and naming their sins. Our Lord had more to say about the judgment, eternal condemnation, and the wrath of God than He did about some of the more “positive” themes craved by some brethren. By their standards, our Lord was an “unloving,” “offensive,” “negative,” even “unbalanced” preacher! Judging by the shameful way some brethren treat faithful preachers, Jesus and His apostles would be chased from numerous pulpits, were they on earth today.
Some get far more excited about how “dynamic” a speaker may be than how Scriptural his sermon is. They want a preacher who can draw the crowds, often with little concern for what he draws them with. Such people have either never learned, or have chosen to ignore, the characteristics of New Testament preachers and their message. Gospel preaching was decisive and demanded a decision of its listeners. It was distinctive preaching that drew plain lines between the kingdoms of darkness and light, between righteousness and worldliness, between truth and error. It was bold preaching that openly challenged the morally and spiritually bankrupt philosophies of the time. But that kind of distinctive, plain, yet loving preaching that swept the first century world and swept our young nation 150 years ago is unappreciated by many today.
A non-convicting type of preaching provides only superficial healing for the deep needs of the soul. I am interested in saving souls. Can I do this by withholding part of the Word from them, by making them “feel good” when they need to be convicted of sin, by being so careful not to offend that they never see a distinction between truth and error through my preaching? R. N. Hogan was right: “There has been so much sweet-talk preaching that a lot of the saints have spiritual sugar diabetes.” A generation raised on this kind of super-sweet, entertainment-oriented preaching has left many a church spiritually malnourished and unfamiliar with the meat of the Gospel. This is why scores of our congregations are on the brink of losing their identity and of lapsing into full-scale denominationalism.
The numerical and spiritual strength of the church today has not been gained through a compromising, non-disturbing message but through fearless preaching of the distinctive Gospel. It is no mere coincidence that our rapid growth rate in the first half of the century began to decline about the same time that the cry for “positive,” “non-offensive” preaching began to be raised. Today’s soft, promotional type of preaching is destroying the generation has grown up on it. Unless there is an awakening to what is happening, those of us who are determined to preach and follow the truth may soon find ourselves starting all over again in homes and rented halls as the apostasy of a century ago required. It is already occurring in some communities.
With Micaiah of old, let us preachers have the wisdom and courage to say, even to those in “high places” who seek to silence us, “As Jehovah liveth, what my God saith, that will I speak” (2 Chr. 18:13). And let us have godly men and women who will support faithful preaching by asking for “the old paths, where is the good way” (Jer. 6:16). In such a restoration alone is the solution to the problems of false doctrine and immorality that are so prevalent in the churches!
Denton, TX