Today's Teflon Pulpit Vs Old Time Religion

I have a pan that I cook my breakfast in. It's a Teflon pan, a non-stick pan. Some of you know what I'm talking about.

It makes cooking easier because the eggs and sausages just slide right out of that pan with no effort. And that Teflon pan, friends, reminds me of some of our modern pulpits in our churches today, where men in these Teflon pulpits want to expend the least amount of effort to get results. They slide out of easy Christianity, obtained along a broad way, and the least little efforts expended to get the job done.

Let me share a story with you, and it will explain my point. I know a family that on this past Easter Sunday, they visited a Baptist church of less than 50 members. It was obvious to everyone there they were visitors.

In fact, they were the only visitors. They filled out the visitor slip and put it in the offering basket. And when the service was over, they patiently waited at the back of the church to meet the pastor.

But he didn't want to meet them. He wouldn't make the effort to take a few steps necessary to come over and say hello or to greet them. He just ignored them.

So they left without getting to meet that pastor. A few days later, they received a letter in the mail from the pastor inviting them to come back to his church, and it had a mimeographed signature at the bottom. That pastor didn't even take the time to personally sign his own letter.

It's not that he was the pastor of a megachurch with 10,000 people. This man had less than 50 in his church on Sunday, but he couldn't take the time to shake a hand or sign his own name. He obviously didn't want to put forth much effort to grow his dying church.

But back in the days of the old-time religion, as soon as the service ended, the pastor would rush back to the back of the church to shake hands and greet folks because those men knew their congregations. Those old-time preachers knew the spiritual condition of every single member of their church. They were shepherds who knew their sheep.

They took the time to sit at kitchen tables and get to know folks, get to know their spiritual condition. But most pastors today don't even know the names of their members, much less their spiritual condition. Today, friends, I'd like to contrast today's Teflon pulpit with the old-time religion of our fathers, the kind of religion that spurned revivals and religious awakenings, that gripped the conscience of the nation and added converts to the churches.

The old-time religion changed the world instead of the world changing it. Listen to the following contrasts. Today's Teflon pulpit proclaims an easy-to-believe gospel and a broad way to heaven.

Just accept Jesus and you will go to heaven. The old-time religion proclaimed that few were saved and those with great difficulty. The way was narrow, the gate straight.

You had to strive to enter in. Today's Teflon pulpit is a teaching pulpit. There is very little preaching.

Expository teaching fills the head with knowledge but affects little change within. The old-time religion preached the doctrines of the gospel which are ruin, redemption, repentance, and regeneration. These old-time preachers preached evangelistic sermons meant to awaken sinners to their lost condition and bring conviction of sin.

They were not afraid to preach that sin was black and hell was hot. They preached about the cross and the blood of Savior who hung there. The old-time preachers preached the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ and they preached up man's duty of repentance.

The title of my message today friends is today's Teflon pulpit versus old-time religion and my text can be found in the book of Lamentations in chapter 5 and verse 21. Let me read that to us now. Turn us thou unto thee oh lord and we shall be turned renew our days as of old.

That's what we need today friends. We don't need a modern gospel for the modern crowd. We need the old-time gospel and the old-time religion because a man hasn't changed his stripes.

He's still the biggest sinner he ever was. Listen friend, you're not a sinner because you sin. Rather you sin because you are a big sinner.

My bible says that man drinks iniquity like it's water and that's true friends. A man loves a sin. He hugs it, coddles it, fights for it, and man will fight anybody who tries to separate him from his sins.

But today's Teflon pulpit takes the easy way to do church and they do it with a watered-down gospel. The typical Teflon pastor will run his church based on the latest church growth bestseller that he can get his hands on and read. He will then model his church after that best-selling book.

He's a copycat. This was the case and still is in many churches where many pastors went out and bought the book by Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church, and these men then modeled their churches to mirror the one Rick Warren laid out in his book. That's one of the reasons why so many churches in this country have gone to seed, why they split and went into divisions, why they went to hell in a hand basket.

It's because the pastor wants the easy way to grow his church based on somebody else's results. He doesn't want to do it the old-fashioned way of going out and knocking on doors and shaking hands with folks. When I planted a church several decades ago, I went door-to-door to every house in several different neighborhoods and handed them a brochure on our church and introduced myself and shook their hand.

I asked them about their spiritual condition and I shared the gospel with them as much as I could. It was hard work. First, we had to gather at the church and spend some time in prayer before we went out ringing doorbells.

We spent that time in prayer because we were asking the Holy Spirit to go out before us and prepare hearts before we went out there to confront them with the gospel. Then we went out and did the physical work of walking streets, ringing doorbells, and talking to folks. We paired off in twos.

It took us about three hours of commitment, one night a week for several months before we saw any results. Prayer in shoe leather was the old way to grow a church. Now pastors just want to read a book and monkey what the book says to do, adopt those man-centered methodologies into the church and see how many seats they can fill up next Sunday.

That approach, friends, has ruined many a church in your day and mine. I know for a fact of some big churches that were ruined by adopting man-centered methodologies. It ruined them.

So today's Teflon pulpit wants the easy way. Secondly, the Teflon pulpit is mainly a teaching pulpit. There's very little preaching.

It's all teaching. Well, you might ask, what's the difference between teaching and preaching? I'll tell you, friends, teaching informs. You leave the sanctuary with a little more head knowledge than when you came in.

Preaching transforms. Lives are changed through an anointed preaching ministry. I remember old-time preachers who wore crisp white shirts and preached that sin was black.

Some of them got a I remember it was said of Duncan Campbell that at times he became so overwrought in the pulpit he would pound his fist so hard that the pulpit would splinter. And that's true. I was listening to a sermon of his one time and I could actually hear him pounding on the pulpit with his big fist.

My point is that the church today has a Teflon pulpit that slides out only easy teaching messages that won't offend anybody. Today's Teflon pulpit has no authority because it refuses to preach against sin. And the result of this is you end up with a congregation of people who do not know what sin is.

There's nothing really mentioned from the pulpit that impacts eternity and nothing sticks to the hearers. They are satisfied by this smooth Teflon encouraging word that gives them a better feeling about themselves until they come back next Sunday. All the teaching is centered around man and his happiness.

There's even little effort placed into the typical fill-in-the-blank message and little effect is made upon the hearers of that easy message of a compromised gospel. And if the man in the pulpit does not confront his congregation with the urgent matters of eternity and warn them of the fires of hell then they'll live their lives consumed with this world and as consumers of it consume as much of it as possible. Why is the Teflon pulpit producing such a non-stick Christianity where very little of eternal worth sticks because most folks like to go out and find themselves a pastor who'll just scratch their itch.

They don't want a Christianity that gets in the way of their daily living. Most folks today in our churches just want to be entertained. Here's some light teaching that slides out of a Teflon pulpit and our brand of Christianity is a Teflon brand.

Nothing worthwhile sticks to it and we don't draw anybody to us to stick. There's very little eternal worth there. So folks view the modern church today as a joke because it lacks authority and in this regard friends the church in this country has failed this nation.

She's failed the nation by failing to be a moral compass to the nation. Consequently the nation has no morals and the moral downgrade in this country is spinning out of control. Recently there was a news story about a college girl who was raped in broad daylight on a crowded beach in Panama City, Florida and no one in that crowd of college kids did anything to help her or to stop that rape.

She wasn't even aware of the rape at the time. She was unconscious. Apparently someone had given her a knockout drug from a Camelback drink container and she passed out in broad daylight and was raped in the middle of a crowded beach and no one came to her rescue.

Somebody just videotaped it. She found out it was her by watching a news broadcast that showed a partial video of it and she recognized her tattoos and realized she was the victim and then called the police and admitted that this happened and the police said that it wasn't an isolated event but it happened repeatedly. These spring break drunken orgies.

Well whose fault is it? Is it the drunken and debauched young men who raped her? The bystanders who watched and did nothing? The cops who can't control it? The beach bars who pour booze like it's water down these college kids throats? Whose fault is it I ask? All of the above plus the main culprit and the main culprit is the church in America friend. Today's Teflon pulpit. The church in this country has failed this nation by preaching a watered-down brand of Christianity that refuses to mention sin.

We've dropped the ball. We wanted to reach the world so we invited the world into our churches and it's absolutely ruined us. I remember a time when preachers wouldn't be afraid to preach about sin and warn men of their duty of repentance but today we don't want to upset anybody so sin's not mentioned.

Hell is a forbidden subject. Repentance is not necessary to be saved. It's an only believe gospel.

Just make a decision to become a Christian and join our church and we'll do our level best to make you happy. Keep you occupied. Keep you entertained with our Teflon pulpit and non-stick Christianity.

That's one of the big reasons why this nation's in the safe shape she's in friends. People just don't know what sin is anymore. It's gotten right.

It's what's right in your own eyes and the very reason why God destroyed the earth in the days of Noah was because people lived with what was right in their eyes. My Bible says that back then society was filled with violence. Well how violent is it in your city tonight friend? How many murders are taking place at this very hour? And my Bible says of the days of Noah that every man's thoughts were only evil continually.

They were living like they knew the best way they knew how but they didn't have a tv or internet back then but they were wicked anyway and God destroyed them all save Noah and his family. But the old time religion preached a gospel that had power to arrest the hearts of the most foulest sinners in a community. It preached about the Savior's blood that had power to wash sins away.

Old time preachers when they preached in the power of the Holy Ghost and proclaimed the great doctrines of the gospel. While conviction would grip an entire town under that kind of preaching there'd be a God consciousness among the hearers because those old time preachers spent all their free time with God and God attended their ministries. Listen friends as in our text today we need to ask God to turn us back to him and renew our days as of old.

This country needs to return to God and the church needs to return to biblical evangelistic preaching because the preaching needed at this desperate hour is evangelistic preaching where sinners are confronted with eternity and the holiness of God and the blackness of their sins. It's through evangelistic preaching that the gospel of the Son of God is applied by the Spirit of God to the hearts and consciousness of guilty sinners. Listen friends most folks join the church today by making a decision to become a Christian based on a fact or a bible verse but the trouble is they get baptized they serve in the church without ever having been awakened to their lost condition to see their need of a savior from sin.

They've never been convicted of sin or even repented from it. They still live in sin and call themselves Christians. Most folks today never have had a work of grace performed upon their heart through the supernatural act of regeneration which is the new birth.

We just make ourselves Christians today. Oh there's such a desperate need in this land for true evangelistic preaching where the law of God is thundered about the ears until people see Sinai all together on a smoke and tremble before a holy God under conviction of sin. We need to confront people today friends with eternity and the God of that eternity.

We need to warn folks about their great danger of dying in their sins and being sent to a devil's hell. Listen friends when the church fails to be a watchman to the community in which she lives she becomes a snare to it and through her failure brings great harm and destruction to it. Today's Teflon pulpit is derelict in her duty to warn sinners of a future judgment and a place of punishment for sin called hell.

Listen to this striking verse from Ezekiel it's an indictment against the modern pulpit of our hour. 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 dine his iniquity but whose blood will I require at thine hand. Listen friends this is what's happened in America in the last 60 years and it's the stark reality that the church has failed in her obligation to warn the wicked to turn from their wicked ways through repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.

The great Teflon pulpit agenda of seeker-friendly churches which has gripped entire denominations has also strangled the spiritual life out of them. It's a non-stick brand of Christianity we offer folks today. Heaven is easy to obtain and you can have it anytime you want to when you're good and ready it's up to you it's easy to become a Christian you just decide and when you do there's no moral standard you have to live by just do what's right in your own eyes like they did in the days of Noah and you'll be all right and when the church cease to preach on the evil of sin when the church stopped preaching against sin calling it black and hell hot then society began to loosen its bell to modesty because if church folks can live any way they want to then the rest of society can do what is right in its eyes as well that's why you can have a violent crime or rape on a crowded beach in broad daylight and college kids become spectators even voyeurs as the crime takes place and nobody has any guilt or feels any breach in their conscience because the nation has become reprobate silver because the church has failed in her capacity to be a moral compass to the nation sin does not exist anymore we've just renamed it and you do what's right in your own eyes that's where we are today friends as a nation and it's a sad state indeed and if the apostate church does not have a holy ghost revival and turn from her pride and repent of her wicked ways then this nation will continue to fill the cup of her iniquities until the great god of the bible brings a sudden and complete destruction on the entire lot america's committed more sins against the holy god than sodom and gomorrah ever did and where is the church in the midst of this corruption and vice and violence and murder and rape she stands behind her slick teflon pulpit with a feel good message that fails to warn the wicked to turn from the wicked way but you know what friends today's teflon pulpit has blood all over it and it's the blood of the wicked who dine their sins who died without being warned but do you know what i hear i hear the sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees because god is raising up a handful of young preacher boys all over this country and all over the world who do not fear man but only fear god i'm in contact with a few of them uh they're preaching on street corners beneath tents all across this land uh they're warning the wicked to turn from their sins uh they're not afraid to call sin black and to warn people about avoiding a burning hell uh they're warning folks of their duty of repentance to get into god's holy heaven uh they're holding up a blood-stained cross and a bloodied jesus for the pardon of sin these young men are preaching evangelistic messages to save sinners to awaken the conscience and they remind me of men in former times who preached the old-time religion that birthed revivals and awakened a nation and these kind of men's what we need today friends at this sad and tragic hour i pray that the lord will raise up some more i pray that he'll thrust him out to his harvest field i pray that the great god of the bible will continue to raise up men with the stamp of old-time religion men like the following 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 worship 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 and not one of them feared king queen or pope and not one of them sought the compliments of men