A 03 -The Minister In His Pulpit
CHAPTER THREE IN HIS PULPIT THE MINISTER IN HIS PULPIT The minister’s study and personal life I enter into his pulpit ministrations as ^ seed and cultivation enter into the harvest. The pulpit is not the place where sermons are made, but the place of their delivery. The minister in his pulpit is more than preacher, though that is his chief function. In his pulpit he is the leader of devotion, the director of worship, the representative of all the activities of the congregation. The prayers, the reading of the Scripture, the music, the attention and reverence of the people, all enter into the ministrations of the pulpit. The minister in his pulpit is the conductor of all forces that pray, sing, preach, offer gifts, and worship.
Old Testament preachers had messages from God to the people. Jonah was instructed to “preach unto Nineveh the preaching that / bid thee.” Jon 3:2. The prophets were preachers of righteousness to the people. John the Baptist preached after long retirement and great preparation. Jesus Himself spent most of His life in preparation for His brief ministry. Pulpit is used once in the Bible. “Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and Ezra opened the book. ’ ’ Neh 8:4; Neh 8:5. John and Jesus spoke often in the open and Jesus used Peter’s boat for a pulpit. The pulpit now stands for the whole ministry of the Kingdom. The minister, in his pulpit, stands at the center of his ministry. What he utters there determines his value in the kingdom. Here the public hears him, weighs him, and renders its verdict. The minister should be himself in his pulpit.
He is neither an actor nor an elocutionist. He should not try to ape other ministers in thought, manner, or style. His own individuality is the only usable quantity for the Holy Spirit.
Unless God utters a message through Him that could not be uttered by any other; he is self deceived or a deceiver. His personality is nowhere more conspicuous or more potent than in his pulpit. You may not be able to define the strength of his ministry. You cannot tell whether it is in the man or the message. It is really in both; and the one would be powerless without the other. The name of Paul is powerful. He was a distinct personality touching not only his own time, but all times. The printing press cannot eliminate the minister, gigantic as the printing press is. “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believed.” 1Co 1:21. Paul says: “My preaching was not with enticing words but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”
1Co 2:4. Preaching differs from all other human utterances in the source of the message and the character of the minister. Scientific or historic truth may be found and delivered without reference to the character of the author. An orator may portray great historic characters or events and be an atheist; but a sermon must be uttered by clean lips. It is this high quality of character that makes the pulpit stand for all that is purest, highest, and holiest. Job asked, “Who can bring an unclean thing out of an unclean?” “Not one.” Isaiah speaks of himself as a man of unclean lips, dwelling among a people of unclean lips. Then he speaks of a seraphim bringing a live coal from the altar and laying it upon his mouth saying: “This hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin is purged.” Then Isaiah was prepared to say: ’ ’ Send me. ’ ’ The pulpit is not so much a place as a ministry. In coining money the metal must be of a certain fineness, a standard required by government.
It must have the stamp of the nation that coins it. “Whose image and superscription is this?” The mint is the coining and stamping agency of government. The minister is called of God and ordained by the Spirit. In his pulpit he is himself called and ordained to this high office of preaching. No human society can make ministers. Counterfeiters never use pure metal, and man-made ministers are spurious because man is not clothed with authority to call men into the ministry. Amos says: “As I followed the flock, the Lord said unto me, Go prophesy unto my people.” Isaiah was associated with kings and courts and God called him through a vision in the temple and said, “Go and tell this people.” Saul’s conversion and call to the ministry seem to have been almost simultaneous. Remaining with the disciples a few days in Damascus, “straightway he preached Christ in the synagogue. ’ ’ All his previous history pointed in an opposite direction. The minister is, therefore, a unique personality, differing essentially from all others in his call, his qualifications, his work, and his influence. In all ages men have respected their priests, followed their teachings, imitated their example, and feared their rebukes and warnings. This is conspicuous in all pagan religions Confucianism, Mohammedanism, and Mormonism illustrate this. Roman Catholicism confirms this claim. Protestantism is less so because of the democratic ideas that dominate it; though the Protestant pulpit largely fashions the moral and social ideals and activities of the age.
Hardly any institution can stand against the combined pulpit of Protestantism. Louisiana lottery disappeared under pulpit protest, and the saloon is doomed if the pulpit continues its “cry against” all wrong-doing. Jonah’s method is not antiquated it is the most modern pulpit utterance because it is God’s method. The pulpit must “cry against” all wrong-doing. It would be a shame on the nation and a disgrace to the pulpit to make war on flies and mosquitoes and leave the saloon and the brothel. The minister in his pulpit can “cry against” all evils in terms of scripture and by authority of the Holy Ghost. He may say a “sinful nation,” a “people laden with iniquity,” or “thou art the man. ’ ’ The pulpit is no place for trivial speech, personal complaints, petty lectures on small questions; but the place for exposition of God’s word, the treatment of great moral themes, the appeal to the “highest in human hearts, the comfort of those in trouble, and the invitation to all to come to Jesus for pardon and life. The pulpit is the place of authority; here the minister can say: “Thus saith the Lord,” as the judge on the bench can say: ’ ’ This is the law. ’ ’ It is this association of the minister and the pulpit that adds the weight of divine authority to his message. “What the judge says in the store does not have the weight of what he utters on “the bench” in the courtroom. The minister should have “his pulpit” the pulpit that is open to him and for which he is responsible. His place is not in commerce, politics, the market-place. His ministry should not be subordinate to some other avocation; all other avocations should be subordinate to his pulpit. Paul was a tent-maker; but preaching was his business. His pulpit was not in one house, one place, or even one nation. His whole life from his conversion was pulpit ministration. Prisons became temples, wrecks became pulpits, scourges anointing for wider fields of usefulness. His learning put him before kings and philosophers, and his courage enabled him to speak to the mob from the stairway in the castle in Jerusalem. His religious convictions and utterances opened the way for his great messages. If beaten and dragged out of the city and cast upon the garbage heap on the dumping hill, he would come back by the grace of God arid go on his way preaching the gospel.
Paul calls this ministry a “high calling of God in Christ Jesus;” Php 3:14, or, “heavenly calling. “ It is difficult to conceive of one called into the ministry and not called into a pulpit.
Jonah was called and sent to Nineveh; Amos was sent to his nation; Nathan was sent to David; Moses was sent to Egypt; Peter was sent to Caesarea; Paul was sent to many cities and countries. It would seem a contradiction for the United States to call men into the navy and never assign them, when prepared, to a ship. It seems reasonable that men called of God to preach will be called of God to a field. Is it not possible for ministers to defeat God’s plans and their own welfare by choosing a field or waiting for a ’ ’ good opening. ’ ’ Is not the smallest field large enough for the largest minister? Cornelius and Peter were both under the direction of the same Spirit. Do not churches decide what sort of a minister will suit them without asking God to direct them in their choice? The pulpit is commercialized, socialized, and educated away from God. Minister and people are making contracts, and trying to run the church on “business principles.” “What do they mean by ’’business principles?” Do they mean surrender to the will of God, or do they mean that which will satisfy their own notions and carry out their own ideas? The pulpit is nothing unless it represent God. The minister in ’his pulpit should never court popularity nor fear criticism. These are the Schylla and Charybdis between which ministers must pass after escaping other Sirens of the world. Popularity is a giant monster that greedily devours the worldly-minded. How often have we heard of the ’ ’ popular minister. Can that be said of any of the prophets or apostles? Was not their ministry a keen knife in the sores of men and of nations? Is it not said that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church?” Is not popularity the dream of vanity? To court popularity is to court a phantom and to lose out in the end. Sincerity endures longer than popularity. All popular fashions and popular men are short-lived.
Criticism is the other rock of danger. Some ministers resent it; others are overwhelmed by it. The best way is to profit by it. It may enlighten the wise minister, show him his weakness, reveal his opportunity. It may be the result of green-eyed envy, ignorance, selfishness, or ambition. No matter what the source of criticism, it may be treated in such a good spirit, answered in such a faithful life, contradicted by such useful service as to really develop the stronger powers of t’he minister. “Jesus was oppressed, and He was afflicted; yet He opened not His mouth.”
Pilate said to Jesus: “Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee?” “He answered him to never a word. ’ ’ Jesus did not eo.urt the best nor fear the worst. His pulpit had a cross in it, but He never left His pulpit. A crossless pulpit leads to a crownless life. “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul did not glory simply in the fact that Jesus suffered on the cross; but that he had Ms cross; for he said: “I am crucified with Christ.” Gal 6:14; Gal 2:20. He gloried that he was counted worthy to suffer in His name. The minister must have his cross in his pulpit and if cruel criticism nails him to it, he may glory in it; but he should not challenge criticism any more than he should court popularity. His ministry should strive to do the will of God without reference to flattery or complaint. Sincerity and impartiality will add much to the pulpit. The minister’s pulpit should speak the word Paul’s advice: “Preach the word, be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.”
2Ti 4:2. “ All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
2Ti 3:16; 2Ti 3:17. Modern preaching is often lacking in the WORD. Fads and fancies, reforms; and social service, charities and endowments, political problems and scientific questions, the topics of the day, furnish themes for pulpit treatment. These may all be used to illustrate the Word, but not to substitute for the Word. The Word is the only thing “that is quick and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. ’ ’ Heb 4:12. Other topics pierce the head, the word the heart; never mind that the “time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. ’ ’ 2Ti 3:3-5. The pulpit needs the genuine minister in this age. Any man can run with the crowd, drift with the current, respond to the tendency of the age. It takes an Amos or an Isaiah to rebuke the sin of the age. No intellectual sword can conquer the evils of the age; only the sword of the Spirit can cut to the vitals and win men to God. The pulpit is not a show window to be changed with every new fashion that invades society; it is a lighthouse sending forth rays of light the same in every age. No matter what weather or what ships pass the light is the same; this is the one institution that must send out rays of spiritual light. The lighthouse tower stands on a firm foundation, surrounded by shifting sands or changing waters, and sends out its light over calm or raging seas; so the pulpit is not changed by the evanescent movements among men; but holds up the word of God to light up the pathway of safety for voyagers over life’s sea amid storms and darkness.