IF YOU CAN DO ANYTHING ELSE, DON'T PREACH

Friday, July 09, 2010

I grew up hearing and believing the old saying, "If you can do anything else, don't preach"

To me, this meant than unless you feel the "call of God" on your life you should not be preaching. If you can do anything else in life and be happy doing it--then you should.

Today, many feel that if you have a Bible in your hand and an opinion on your heart you should preach.

For forty-seven years I went to the pulpit feeling like "a dying man preaching to dying men perhaps never to preach again." There was a message on my heart that had been bathed in prayer. This was no small thing we were about to do--it was worship.

I was not the only one that felt this way. I knew that the congregation had come with Bibles in hand waiting to hear a Spirit filled message from the Word of God. Therefore I went to the pulpit prepared to present with passion the message that God had laid on my heart. Did I ever fail? YES! I am ashamed to say that there were Sundays I should have been honest and just said, "Not today dear friends, not today" and sat down. But those days were few and far between and I was ashamed and repented. In those days almost everybody got up on Sunday morning and got ready to go to church. They didn't get up and ask, "Are we going to church today?" That would have been like asking, "Are we going to breathe today?"

We all have heard the old, old story of the farmer who saw the letters G P in the clouds and thought it meant go preach. He later found out it meant go plow!

Sad to say too many elders of the church believe that if they can find a Tom, Dick, Harry or Mary that wants to preach they should send them to the pulpit.

What about the call from God? What about the leading of the Holy Spirit? What about not being able to do anything else but preach? 

I am praying today that God will fill our pulpits with men who have been called by him, filled with a message empowered by the Holy Spirit. And that they will preach that message with a passion that comes directly from the heart of God.