Pygmy Preachers and Pew Potatoes

I was talking with a Christian about the subject of hell and the fact that hell is a place of punishment of everlasting duration and she looked at me strangely and commented, I have been in dozens of churches and I have never heard a sermon on hell. I just hear feel-good messages from the majority of the pulpits in this town. I believe that person is right in her assessment of churches and that reflects the land as a whole.

When a pastor preaches only feel-good messages, he reveals the fact that he is an unfaithful minister who cares little for your soul. In the book of Ezekiel, God addresses those who represent him as ambassadors and he speaks of those unfaithful ministers who fail to warn the wicked of their great danger of dying in their sins and being cast into hell. Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Ezekiel and go to chapter 3. We will read verses 17 through 20.

And friends, listen carefully to this striking passage of the great responsibility of those who are soul winners and those who preach the gospel. Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me.

When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life. The same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall surely die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul.

Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness, which he hath done shall not be remembered, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Listen, friends, these are sobering words which should alarm us who stand in pulpits in the land.

If we preachers fail to warn the wicked of their great and grave danger of dying in their sins, and entering a crisis eternity, then we shall be held responsible. Their blood will be on our hands. For the last several years, I have visited countless churches, and I have listened to many messages from preachers who cared more about their reputation than the souls of their hearers.

They were for the most part funny men who wanted your applause and approval. They wanted you to like their message and acknowledge that you liked it. They needed acceptance from their hearers, and they crafted their sermons to be entertaining and amusing.

It's like having cancer, and you go to the cancer specialist, and instead of him treating your cancer, he hands you a bag of candy and changes the subject and never addresses the fact that you are in grave danger of dying a painful death. Rather, he just tells you a few jokes on the way out of his clinic, and he makes you laugh a little, and gives you that bag of candy to give you a sugar high that will soon fade away. That, friends, is your average preacher in America today.

We have pygmies in the pulpit who preach pleasant little messages to pew potatoes who love to be entertained by their pastor. But years ago, there used to be giants in the land, preachers who warned men of their great danger, and who weren't afraid to preach up the blood and the cross and call sin black and hell hot. They cared little about pleasing you with their sermons because they were greatly concerned about your souls.

I'll be honest with you. In the last few years, I've gotten up and walked out of more church services than I've actually been able to sit through. I just can't take the nonsense that passes for church anymore.

When did the church become a nightclub? When did the church become a house of entertainment rather than a house of prayer? When did preachers change their message to please their congregations rather than alarm and awaken them to their great danger? How many pastors today are more like a Jay Leno than a Jonathan Edwards? Can you just imagine Jonathan Edwards warming up his congregation with a few funny jokes and stories before he preached on the everlasting burnings of hell? But today, we have more pygmies and pulpits than giants and more pew potatoes who are nothing more than unconverted church members who desire to be entertained. The church in America today, for the most part, will not warn you to flee from the wrath to come. And in regard to these pew potatoes, I remember Vance Havner saying, we have more babies in the sanctuary than in the nursery.

And these 200-pound babies cry and fuss when they get a new pastor because he changed their formula. The main problem, I believe, is we've built such enormous church campuses that need a high income stream to support them. You cannot risk preaching unpopular messages because the numbers will fall off.

And there goes your nice church campus with all the ball fields and lakes and picnic areas. So we water down the message not to offend anybody. And people get used to that kind of preaching.

And it becomes their main staple and diet. And if you try to take them off of it with preaching the full counsel of God, they will scream bloody murder. But our text in Ezekiel says that if we fail to warn the wicked of his wicked ways and he dies in his iniquities, his blood will be on our hands.

We don't think of that when we enter the pulpit on Sunday. Rather, we're too nervous about whether the crowd's gonna be entertained at our funny stories or not. After all, we have to keep them happy or they will move their membership.

And we can't have that. This generation of church members wants to be entertained. So we give them what they want rather than give them what they need.

We have lost sight of eternity and the God of eternity. For there is a coming day of judgment for all mankind. And in the midst of that terrible day is a great white throne that is so terrifying that earth and sky flee from its presence.

The judge of all the earth sits upon that white throne, which speaks of holiness and purity. Christ Jesus will judge every man according to the works he has done, whether good or bad. It's not a wholesale consignment where all are judged equally.

Rather, each case will be reviewed individually. Cases will be tried. Evidence presented in that grand courtroom scene.

Men's lives will be held up against the strictness and severity of the law of God. God requires perfection to get to his heaven. And we are not perfect.

Rather, we are all lawbreakers and guilty rebels who deserve punishment for breaking that law. I know I'm a sinner and I need a sin substitute in the person of Jesus Christ. But on that day of judgment, earthly kings and rulers will tremble at the authority and majesty before them on that great white throne.

Allow me to read you that scene taken from the book of Revelation in chapter 20. And I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and heaven fled away and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.

And the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works.

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Listen, friends, this describes a huge crowd of dead people. They are all dead. Great and small, famous and obscure, rich and poor.

But they all have one thing in common. Their lives on earth as they knew it has ended. They now face eternity and the God of that eternity.

And many of them stand there because they were not warned not to go there. Rather, they just heard funny stories at their church on Sunday morning. And they were made to feel a little better about themselves before they went to lunch.

And now there are no more lunches and no more church services for it is all ended in death. As a tree falls, so it shall lay, says the word of God. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still.

And he which is filthy, let him be filthy still. And he that is righteous, let him be righteous still. And he that is holy, let him be holy still.

Let me ask you, how many sermons have you heard on hell this year? How many sermons have you heard on the need of repentance and the necessity of regeneration? Has the law been thundered in your ears to awaken you off your false foundation of carnal security? Have you been shown a bloody cross and the Prince of Glory who suffered and died there? There is a big crowd in hell, friends. It's been estimated that 83 people a minute die without Christ. They die in their sins.

When you add that up, that's about 5,000 people an hour. It's 119,000 a day who die in their sins and enter a Christless eternity. That means during the course of this week alone, 836,000 persons perished without Christ.

Do the math, and that comes out to be 3.3 million a month that drop into the torments of hell. Do you realize, brother preacher, brother evangelist, that there are over 40 million persons a year who die and open their eyes in hell and its regions? Now think of all the people who've lived on earth since the beginning of mankind and how those crowds of people fill the regions of hell with their cries and shrieks day and night. Hell is a noisy, crowded place of torments, and it's forever lasting.

But have we done our job as soul winners and warned the wicked not to go there? Have we preached the full counsel of God and shown man his duty of repentance and his necessity of regeneration through the new birth? Or have we watered down the gospel so much that it can't save a flea, much less a sinner from hell? When we stand before that judge, will our hands be clean of the blood of our hearers, or will their blood be on our hands for failing to warn the wicked? I remember a day in America years and years ago when you could enter a church and hear a sermon about hell. I remember a day in America when you would hear a sermon on sin, when you would hear about a bloody cross and a redeemer who died there because of sin. I remember preachers preaching up the duty of repentance, and unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

Preachers weren't afraid of men back in those days, but they sure feared the Almighty. But now we get a bunch of jokes and funny stories and comedy and entertainment, and we drop one by one into hell and its fires. I long for a day when revival comes to America once again, when the pulpits of this land are on fire with the Holy Spirit and men are bowed down under the awful presence of God.

I long for the day of anointed preaching where men and women and boys and girls cry out in alarm, what must I do to be saved? I long for a God consciousness in our sanctuaries once again. I pray every day for those days to return to this sin-soaked nation that has turned its back on God. I long for the day when the church is revived and each member is consumed with eternity and their motto is, only one life, t'will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last.

I long for God to raise up a new generation of preachers who aren't pygmies in the pulpit, but men of a different stamp. I long for God to raise up these kind of men, The Apostle Paul, Luther, Wesley, Whitfield, Knox, Edwards, Finney, Spurgeon, Moody, each shared a common denominator, a fire in their belly. They were each so eaten up with the gospel and thirsty for Christ and filled with the Holy Ghost.

They could not stand idly by while others perished. They saw nothing but eternity, worshiped the Holy God and served the risen Christ, living not for earth nor its gains, but living only for heaven and its rewards. When they preached, they linked the devil with sin and the cross with salvation.

They preached hell and its fire and Christ and him crucified. Not one of them feared king, queen, or pope, and not one of them sought the compliments of men.