John the Baptist Lost His Head

Years ago, while I was at the funeral of Stephen Olford, I was having a conversation with Adrian Rogers. And Adrian Rogers asked me a question. He looked me in the eye and his arms were folded across his chest and he said, Do you know what concerns me? I said, No, Dr. Rogers, what concerns you? And he answered with a heavy heart, he said, What concerns me is that I see God calling up men like Sidlo Baxter and Stephen Olford, and I look around and I don't see any comeuppers.

And it wasn't long after that I was staring at Adrian in his coffin. Where are all the comeuppers? As a research scholar of revival, I have spent the last several decades studying preaching of former generations. My Ph.D. dissertation was on the revival of religion of the 18th century in Great Britain under Wesleyan Whitfield.

I have traversed the globe to visit sites of great preaching. I've stood in the pulpit in Gloucester where George Whitfield preached his first sermon to which it was said he drove 15 people mad. I've stood on the exact spot in Bristol where Whitfield preached his first open-air sermon to coal miners, to where the tears began running down their faces, to where they made white streaks like gutters on their blackened faces when they heard about the love of Jesus.

And I've stood on the spot where Whitfield preached his very last sermon at Exeter and New Hampshire to an outdoor audience of 4,000. And I've stood in the pulpit where, directly below my feet, Whitfield is buried. I've walked the ground in Anfield, Connecticut, where Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

I've personally visited 60 locations in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut where Asahel Milton preached in powerful revivals. I've stood up on Round Top where D.L. Moody preached often and where he is buried in Northfield, Massachusetts. And I've read the sermons of the Puritans, the sermons of the Great Awakening, the sermons of the Second Great Awakening.

And I've studied preaching of the last hundred years. I'm not good with my hands. I can't change a flat tire or fix any broken thing around a house.

But I do possess an extensive knowledge of preaching. My homiletical mentor was Dr. Stephen F. Oldford, who taught me how to preach. I was in the very first graduating class of his school of preaching.

Now I say all this, friends, only to inform you that you would be amazed at how many pastors are completely ignorant of the subject of preaching. They couldn't preach their way out of a paper bag because all they know how to do is teach. There is a vast difference between teaching and preaching.

Teaching informs. Preaching transforms. Go visit some different churches in your town, friend, and you will hear mainly lectures and teaching, but hardly any true preaching on man's duty of repentance and his utter need of regeneration.

Even the subject matter of what you preach will determine the response you receive from your hearers. I can preach all day on the Laodicean Church and undress her of all her robes of entertainment and ease-of-believe messages, and people just love that kind of preaching. If you don't believe me, just read the sermon comments on my sermons America, Revival or Ruin, Silent Church and Sinful Nation, or the Cappuccino Church.

But when I preach searching sermons that are arrows pointed to pierce the conscience with the aim to awaken a lost church member, then my preaching is no longer popular. I remember one time I had double cancer surgery on my face, and my face was red and swollen for days, and I had ugly black stitches on both sides of my face, and when I would go out in public places, people would see me and look away with an uncomfortable look. I was avoided.

I was left alone. And I preach with the intention to break up someone's false foundation of a carnal security, and nobody wants that kind of preaching. And your support will dry up with that kind of preaching as well, friends.

You'll be unwanted and left alone. It's too uncomfortable. It's like I've got those black stitches still on my face.

People don't like to be made to feel uncomfortable, but I will afflict the comfortable as much as I comfort the afflicted. And with those thoughts in mind, friends, I want to preach a message on preaching. Turn in your Bibles to Matthew's Gospel.

We will be in chapter 3 and in verse 11. The title of my message this evening is John the Baptist Lost His Head because when he started preaching hard on repentance, it drew the king's ire, and it cost him his audience, and it cost him his head. Let me read us this striking passage of Scripture at this time.

Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of His holy word. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.

I believe this passage, friends, can teach us much about preaching. Again, John the Baptist speaks of Jesus here, the coming Messiah, who would preach repentance as well. The first message Jesus preached was on repentance, and His last word to the churches in Revelation was to repent.

Here, John the Baptist says a remarkable thing about the preaching of Jesus, for he likens it to a fire. Have you ever known, friends, someone like that, that when they preached they had a fire? I can remember Stephen Oford preaching. He had a fire when he preached, and when he even spoke to you one-on-one he still had that fire.

There are three aspects I'd like to draw out from our passage this evening, and I will precede them with this question. What does a fire do? I want to list three aspects of what a fire does in relation to preaching. Number one, a fire alarms and awakes.

A person in a house fire is awakened to their grave danger, and they are alarmed. Effective preaching will thunder the law of God about the ears of the hearers to awaken them to their lost condition and alarm them of their grave danger of dying in their sins and being cast into hell's fire. All you have to do is study the sermons of Solomon Stoddard or Jonathan Edwards or the Puritans to see what I mean.

Number two, the second aspect of a fire is that it reveals things that are hidden. The flashing light upon the conscience of man, bringing Holy Spirit conviction and revealing the hidden sins of the heart. John Song, the Chinese evangelist who shook China with his powerful preaching, focused on sin.

He would name specific sins in his sermons. As a matter of fact, he had a sermon entitled, in which he held a little wooden casket in his hands that contained pieces of paper that had certain sins written on them like lying, stealing, adultery, fornication. And as he pulled out those sins from his casket, he asked his hearers to raise their hand when they heard their sin.

Well, his audience would always end up broken at the altar of repentance 200,000 people came to Christ under John Song's powerful fire-filled preaching. So a fire reveals things hidden by throwing light on it. Lastly, a fire burns.

The silversmith holds the metal in the furnace of affliction until all the dross is burned away. So too, true preaching will reclaim backsliders to God as the heat of a singed conscience brings guilt and repentance. Mordecai Ham said that when he began his meetings in a church, he'd first have to preach hard messages to strip the bark off of all the backsliders in the church.

When Mordecai Ham preached in Jackson, Tennessee in the early 1920s, preaching that kind of message on repentance, one-third of the town came to Christ. John the Baptist said of Christ, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. An anointed preaching ministry should be the chief aim of our preaching, for without power from on high, we can't wake up a flea, much less a sinner hardened in his sins, but God can.

O brother preachers, tarry in the city until you are endued with power from on high so that your messages will burn and sear the consciences of your hearers and awaken them and alarm them to repent and come to Christ. Let us pray.