A Double Barreled Gospel

I'm going to make a statement, friends, that I believe is true. I believe that a good number of preachers out there are thinking, man, I believe that. I believe we have some real scholars out there in our pulpits today, and I'm thankful for them.

But to give out a well-written essay to be considered, now, I'm all for learning, or I wouldn't have spent all that time and money getting my two earned doctorates. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Instead of us preachers aiming our rifles high and filling our hearers' heads with lead, maybe it's high time we traded our rifles for a shotgun full of rock salt, and aim both barrels at the vitals of some poor sinner, and preach God's salvation on God's terms.

Inform them of the first message of the gospel, and that is, God is a God who must punish sin, and let them have both barrels of hell and judgment, and then reload and let them have it with both barrels of God's strict law and man's duty of repentance. Then pepper them again with man's utter necessity of a work of grace upon the heart through regeneration in a work of humiliation for sin. And maybe, just maybe, if your aim is good enough, we will start wounding some folks and tell the crowd, I've been hit.

Somebody help me. Then when we hear that cry, we know we're getting somewhere, and we can then come along with the second message of the gospel about a savior from sin. Listen, friends, I believe the day in which we're living in is a drastic day that is fast declining in God's scheme of things, and as preachers, we need a bigger target and a wider-barreled gun.

If we hope to do any good as far as getting some poor sinner under conviction of sin to the point where they get alarmed and realize they have one foot already in hell and the other is on slippery ice, it's time we are true to the souls of men, more than a time for their further education. I don't believe we need a deeper head knowledge of Christ so much today as we need an experiential knowledge of Him. But this is a desperate time, and folks in our congregations are dying off, and some of them drop right on down to hell with a head full of learning and an empty religious profession.

Uh, so we need to preach under the anointing of the Holy Ghost to where folks can cry out again under conviction. Is there any hope for an old sinner like me? Better to give them a gut wound and make them bleed so they can be in agony under Holy Ghost conviction, crying out, I'm wounded by sin. Is there any healing for me? So they'll know they're dying, men and women, who need a savior from sin, from sin.

Men like Mordecai Ham and Sam Jones believed you had to strip the bark off their hearers before they were ready to receive the Christ of the gospel. Mordecai Ham would preach a meeting for three weeks straight without giving any gospel invitation. First, he had to clean up all the church members by smashing their little idols and getting them out of their pig pens.

Folks would approach Evangelist Ham on the street and beg him to give an invitation at the next meeting. He'd say, you're not ready yet. Then after about three weeks of preaching hard on his two pillars of the gospel, which were man's duty of repentance and the utter lordship of Jesus Christ, he'd then give an invitation and the floodgates would burst and he'd have a thousand souls coming forward in one meeting.

But today, we hand folks a little Jesus before they see any need of him. But a double-barreled gospel full of the doctrines of the old days would fix that. It would sting folks where it hurts.

Brother preacher, lower your sights to the sinner's heart and conscience and unload both barrels of ruin and redemption on him. Then reload and blast him again with man's duty of repentance and his utter necessity of regeneration. And maybe, just maybe, our congregations will start getting saved before they just go on to hell.