Calvin and Powerful Preaching

Over the years, after listening to a great many men preach a great number of sermons, I have often asked myself “why did they bother?” Oh, they delineated their three points well enough, demonstrated adequately their knowledge of the pluperfect and told their mandatory joke and received the mandatory chuckle. But frankly, for all their time, energy and effort, they simply had little to say worth hearing. Their preaching had no point. It is tempting to speculate on what motivates a man to step into a pulpit week after week and plague the people of God with inanities, irrelevancies, wooly-headed nonsense and pious mush but you’d just think I was being nasty again. But the sad fact is, even in Reformed churches, much of our preaching is often deplorable and this may well explain much of the present deplorable state of the church. And to demonstrate my erudition, I am going to sprinkle a few quotes from Calvin who saw many of the same problems.

Calvin said, “among so many excellent gifts which God has adorned mankind, it is a peculiar privilege that He deigns to consecrate men’s lips and tongues to His service, that His voice may be heard in them.” It is the grace of God that He entrusts the proclamation of His word to men. He could have given this job to angels; He might have written it in mile high letters in the sky. But instead, He chose to reveal Himself in Scripture, and then allow men to make that revelation known through preaching. Therefore before a man steps into the pulpit, he must know, Who put him there, why He put him there and what He expects him to accomplish. God does not call men to preach so that they can pontificate on their own opinions, entertain people with amusing anecdotes or make a few helpful suggestions. They are there to proclaim the very words of Almighty God. Calvin said “the office of preaching is committed to pastors for no other purpose than that God alone may be heard there.” And that means our task is to love, understand and proclaim the Law of God. God is our King; and preaching is primarily proclaiming the King’s commandments to His people. Calvin said, “a rule is proscribed to all God’s servants that they bring not their own inventions, but simply deliver as from God hand to hand, what they have received from God.”

But if a preacher does not know the Law of God, if he does not understand how His precepts work out in his own life, and how they are to work in others,’ then he simple has nothing to say. Instead he fills up the time wandering around the theological landscape, blathering about nothing while the people of God starve for want of spiritual food. The Law is more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey (cf. Psa 19). But being wiser than God, too may preachers give His people pious platitudes, warmed over humanistic psychology or theological irrelevance. Hence one acid test of powerful preaching is whether or not the congregation understands WHAT God wants them to do as a result of this sermon and then is motivated to do something about it. If the congregation cannot answer that fundamental question after their pastor preaches, then he has failed them. If the pastor cannot answer that question before he preaches he has failed God.

Part of the problem of course is that there are many men in the pulpit who are clearly not called to be there. Oh, they may have all the required academic degrees, their theology impeccable and a properly constituted authority may have duly ordained them. But they are not called to preach. You can tell because they do not have “fire in the belly;” i.e., an overwhelming passion to proclaim the Word of God. A passion so powerful a man cannot just sit idly by but is compelled to preach the Word. Preaching for such men is not a chore, but rather life itself. The apostle Paul said, “I am constrained to preach the gospel” (1 Cor 9:16). For Paul, preaching was not a ticket to an easy middle class job, it was not a way of attaining the respect and admiration of others. He had to preach. He could not keep himself from preaching. He had “fire in his belly.” If a man does not have this fire, then he is not called to preach. Calvin said, “God’s servants ought to speak from the inmost affections of their heart.” Powerful preaching is something that begins deep down inside us at the very root of our being.

Now granted, simply WANTING to preach is not exactly the same as being “CALLED” to preach. James is very clear on this, “let not many of you become teachers brethren knowing as such we will incur a stricter judgment (3:1).” Some “preachers” ought to consider these words carefully and perhaps think about getting themselves an honest job, saving themselves and God’s people a lot of grief.

Powerful preaching gets down inside someone’s soul and transforms it through the power of the Word. It is God through His Holy Spirit Who takes His Word and rips out sinful hearts. It is God who through His Holy Spirit then uses that Word to replace that wicked heart with a new one. It is God, through His Holy Spirit Who then takes His Word and rebuilds a new life. Powerful preaching is not the same as the rabble-rousing manipulation of the street corner radical. Neither is it the crowd-pleasing machinations of the great orator. The apostle Paul was no great shakes as an orator. In fact, it certainly appears that his delivery lacked a few things (cf. 1 Cor 2:1ff). But his words changed lives. Hence a man called to preach is someone God uses to build character into His people. Powerful preaching convicts us deeply of our sins, makes us want to obey God, love our brother, enables us to grow in grace, wisdom and holiness. Powerful preaching is not intended primarily to entertain, or thrill, or excite but to change lives. Calvin said, “It is too common a fault that men desire to be taught in an ingenious and witty style.” But powerful preaching will grab the attention and demand that people listen because of the profundity of the subject matter, the clarity of the presentation, the application that it demands.

Powerful preaching also requires more than just proclaiming true doctrine (1 Cor 11:1) or giving an interesting theological treatise. Calvin says “the duty of a good teacher is rather to exhort to a holy life, than to occupy the minds of men with useless questions.” We ought to preach so that men might repent of their sins and confess Jesus as Lord. When the Apostle Peter preached at the first gospel message at Pentecost, He laid out the true doctrine of Christ by reminding them of the Old Testament prophecies and testifying to what they themselves had seen and heard. But he did not stop there, he also “kept on exhorting them saying, ‘be saved from this perverse generation’ (Acts 2:40).” His sermon demanded an application. Erudite philosophical sermons that engage the mind but do not demand a change are just so many empty words in the air. Yes, God’s people need truth, but they need truth applied!

Finally, powerful preaching is more than just jumping on the peoples’ cases. Calvin says, “Some ministers are always fulminating through a pretence of zeal, they show no sign of benevolence, hence they have no authority and all their admonitions are hateful.” The Scriptures give us a number of terms referring to how we should preach. We are to “admonish” the unruly, “encourage” the faint hearted, “strengthen” the weak (1 Thess 5:14). Thus powerful preaching will convict, but it will also encourage. We identify the problem but we also carefully explain the answer. Sometimes, people will be deeply wounded by the Holy Spirit through our preaching and our words are what He will use to comfort them in their distress. Sometimes they must be humbled before God and our words are used to bow their proud necks. But we never leave them in that state of humiliation, for we always bring back the grace of God in Jesus and our acceptance to Him through Him. We only bring them down, so that we can then exalt them with Christ. Calvin said, “Then only are reproofs beneficial when they are in a manner seasoned with honey.”

Conclusion

There is much more to say but since Andrew Sandlin’s new editorial policy limits the length of our columns these days (you would think he paid by the word!) we have to cut this short. Just let it be said that powerful preaching is not an option. God demands it, His people need it and we who are called to preach have a responsibility to provide it. Start with your own heart, wrestling daily with applying the Word of God to your own life (Josh 1:8) so that you know by experience what a sinful heard needs to hear. Love your people and know them so you can preach to the trials, tribulations and temptations they face. Cry out to the Holy Spirit to fill you (Acts 1:8), and use you for unless God gives you something, you simply have nothing to say. And then step into that pulpit, wanting to please God, present His Word clearly, and see His power unleashed.

-Rev. Brian M. Abshire