Who Killed Off the Preachers

I heard about a businessman from England who came to America to visit many churches in several cities to hear samples of American preaching. He went back home vastly dissatisfied. When asked if the preaching in this country was any good, he commented that there were no preachers that he could find.

All he found were teachers. I'm afraid the old boy was right. You'd be hard-pressed to find a preacher in this country because just about everybody standing in a pulpit is teaching and not preaching.

There's a vast difference between the two for teaching informs and preaching transforms. You can sit under a good Bible teacher and learn as much as you want to, taking notes and come away even challenged by what you heard. But under such teaching, nobody's going to get disturbed and alarmed and awaken to the lost condition and cry out, what must I do to be saved? In 2 Timothy 4.2, we read the apostle Paul's admonition to his disciple Timothy, teach the word.

No, does it say that? It says, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all, long-suffering and doctrine. You can't reprove sin, friends, while you're teaching. You can't rebuke hypocrites while you're teaching your nice little messages that don't upset anyone.

You'll never turn a town upside down by teaching. But if you get an on-fire preacher who's aflame with the spirit of God, you can shake a town like you'd shake a garbage dumpster and all sorts of vermin will spill out and run away. The preaching of Mordecai Ham would arrest the hearts of the most vile sinners and conviction would grip entire towns to such a degree that saloons were permanently closed for lack of business.

Jails lay empty for lack of customers and churches were filled to overflowing. One even advertised in the newspaper that no more converts should attend as there was not room for them. Preachers like Ham and Sam Jones and Rolf Barnard could literally shake entire towns for God in a day when Christianity changed the world instead of the world changing Christianity.

When Mordecai Ham preached in Jackson, Tennessee in 1921, one-fourth of the population was saved. When Sam Jones preached in Nashville, Tennessee in 1885, the most hardened sinners in that city were saved. One man was a notorious riverboat captain by the name of Thomas Ryman.

When he came to Christ, he had all his boats pour all their booze overboard and then he made the money, gave the money to build Ryman Auditorium so Sam Jones could hold meetings in there and preach. When Rolf Barnard came to town, it wasn't long before petitions were drawn up and signed by 300 people to run them out of town. These mighty men were mighty weapons in the hands of holy God because they were preachers of the cross.

Today we're just a bunch of teachers with nice little messages that don't disturb anyone. Even the good deacons can sit there and smile in agreement, but maybe that explains why so few are being saved today. They're just going to hell a lot more informed.

Let us pray.