The Preacher's Duty

It's been said that the role of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. The largest part of our congregations are dead in sin and lay asleep upon the pillows of a false foundation. To merely give them soothing sermons is to keep them asleep in the sleep of death to their ultimate destruction and damnation.

That men are asleep in their sins and unaware of their danger is a truth taught throughout the scriptures. Men who are asleep inside a burning building need to be aroused, need to be aroused immediately to become alarmed to their imminent danger. Soothing preaching will not disturb them nor inform them that death is at the door.

But pastors who merely entertain their congregations are butchers of the souls of men. Telling jokes and funny stories to get approval from one's hearers is a sure way to seal the damnation of those hearers. If they stay under such a corrupted ministry of a false shepherd and to fail to warn the wicked of their sins is to have their blood on your hands at the judgment.

One of the great judgments from God in this generation against a corrupt people is to give them false shepherds as guides as a punishment for sin. The Pharisees and scribes were the religious leaders of the backslidden Jews and these blind guides tossed their hearers into the ditch in which they fell headlong themselves. The predominantly entertaining pulpit of our day is an indictment against the church at large and is a great divine judgment which damns the souls of men who sit under such false ministries.

Men lie in a spiritual stupor sunk deep in the mire of their sins and they sink deeper and deeper by the hour toward their eternal ruin. Souls that sleep the sleep of death need to be aroused, awakened and alarmed. Only penetrating preaching will accomplish this.

Jesus spoke to the Pharisees the following warning in John's Gospel in chapter 8 and in verses 34-37. Jesus answered them, Because my word hath no place in you. What Jesus is stating here friends to these blind guides was the fact that Christ's preaching made no impression upon them because of the hardness of their hearts.

His words fell like rain on a rock which just ran off leaving no impression. The original Greek language of the Gospel text reads, My word does not penetrate into you. I suggest to you friends what we need today in our pulpits is not entertaining men who are popular with their hearers but men of God who preach penetrating sermons.

Faithful ambassadors of heaven who preach the full counsel of God under the anointing of the Spirit of God and whose preaching is alarming, convincing, commanding and powerful. As the truth of God's word penetrates into the hearts and conscience of sinners who are in love with sin and who lie in danger of being sent to hell for punishment of sin. In the book of Romans we read of the need of pure gospel preaching.

So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The tale of my message today friends is the preacher's duty and my text is found in Ezekiel chapter 33. You can turn in your Bibles there now friends.

We will be in verses 7 through 11 and let me read us this striking passage of scripture to us at this time. Here now is the word of God and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of his holy word. So thou, O son of man, I have sent thee a watchman unto the house of Israel.

Therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die if thou does not speak to warn the wicked from his way. That wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand.

Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way, to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. Therefore, O son of man, speak unto the house of Israel. Thus we speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live? Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel? I will stop there, friends. And there are several aspects I'd like to draw out from our text today in regard to the preacher's duty to lost sinners. We must preach warning sermons to awaken them to their lost condition and perilous position outside of Christ.

This is accomplished through penetrating preaching that falls into three categories. Alarming preaching, searching preaching, and powerful preaching. First, we see that we warn men by alarming preaching.

Alarming preaching awakes the sleeping sinner to his great danger. God's word is described in Jeremiah 23, 29, which states, Is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord? The terrors of the law are sounded about the ears to awaken an alarm, as like a fire suddenly awakens in alarms. We are to warn men of their duty of repentance, and that God requires perfection to get into his heaven, and that no man is perfect.

That the strict and severe law of God will be the measuring line that all men will have to stand against. And if you stand there in your own merits, you will fail that test and be sent to a devil's hell. I know I am a sinner, and I need a substitute for sin in the person of Jesus Christ.

The preached terrors of the law, in all their strictness and severity, is the duty of the preacher. This is the only thing, friends, that will awaken men to their lost condition and alarm them to their great danger of dying in their sins. Number two, we warn men by searching preaching.

Searching preaching. A surgeon searches for the malignancy to cut it out. We must call sin, sin, and preach the sinfulness of sin.

Naming sin for what it is, so the Holy Spirit can bring conviction of sin. We must preach searching sermons that are detectives, shining spotlights on the conscience of men. Numbers 32, 23 declares, but if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.

I remember Dr. Stephen Olford used to preach a sermon entitled, The Infallible Detective, from Numbers chapter 32, and that the Holy Spirit was that infallible detective, and that your sin will find you out. The preacher's duty is to preach searching sermons that cut deep into the heart and conscience with the scapel of the Word of God. We see God's Word described in this very way in Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12, which states, For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged 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.

And lastly, friends, the duty of the preacher is to warn men by a powerful preaching, a powerful preaching. We see this in Jeremiah 23, 29 as well, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces. The preached word is like a powerful hammer that keeps pounding away at the conscience and breaks up all false foundations.

The Apostle Paul told his hearers, And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Remember, friends, the warning from the Word of God, found in Ezekiel, that if we fail to warn men of their danger of dying in their sins, and to turn from their wicked ways, then their blood will be on our hands. Let us pray.