Pierre-Charles Marcel (1910–1992) on the Call of God and the Gospel Offer

Where there is preaching there is the call of God. The word is preached nowhere without its being by the providence and the will of God, who wishes to show his love to and through us. Since it is already established that preaching is the instrumental cause of faith, we may add that when God sends a preacher those who hear must not doubt that God loves them and wishes to provide for their salvation and to call them personally to enter his kingdom . . . . As for the listener, he must be convinced that this word is not of men but of God, and that it does not come to him from earth but from heaven. The remission of sins, the promise of eternal [p. 62 begins] life, the proclamation of salvation are not within man’s power. It is Christ who, through the mouth of his messengers, speaks and promises all. The proffered remission of sins is a veritable promise of God. The condemnation which is announced to unbelievers is a very certain judgment of God.

Pierre Charles Marcel, The Relevance of Preaching, trans Rob Roy McGregor (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1963), 61–62.

(1) Preaching is a public proclamation of the infinite love of God. For everyone indiscriminately (the unconverted who attend worship; those, protestants or no, who abstain from coming to hear the word where it is preached), the preaching of the law and the gospel bears evidence of the boundless love of God. It confirms that God does not take pleasure in the death of the sinner, but in his conversion and new life. It declares that the sacrifice of Christ is, without qualification, sufficient for the remission of all sins, that no one will suffer loss because he has the mistaken notion that this sacrifice is not sufficiently valid and efficacious for all [p. 105 begins] men: “But the free gift is not like the trespass . . . But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more . . . (Rom. 5:15, 20).

(2) Preaching is a safeguard against the self-destruction of man by sin. The preaching of the word is equally a proclamation of the goodness and compassion of God toward all men. By virtue of his holiness God everywhere wills to turn sinners from sin, which leads to death, and by virtue of his goodness and grace, he cautions them against their self-destruction. By seeing to it that the word continues to be preached, God temporarily postpones the execution of the death sentence which must fall inexorably upon all those who will not repent and believe. It a certain sense, the offer of salvation is for them a blessing. The purpose of preaching the word is to revealed clearly to all alike the divine compassion with regard to sinners (Ps. 81:13; Prov. 1:24; Ezek. 3:18, 27; 33:11; Amos 8:11; Matt. 11:20–24, 23:37, etc.).

(3) For those who are hardened in unbelief, the preaching of the word is, every often, also the source of all types of blessings and not (as some might be inclined to believe) just a malediction. Illumination of the understanding, the heavenly gift, participation in the Holy Spirit, and delight in the word of God and in the powers of the age to come, have been and sometimes are the portion of those who have fallen or who will fall away by denying Christ (Heb. 6:4–6).

Ibid., 104–105. On page 106, Marcel also argues that the preaching of the word of God is a “restraining grace.”

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Nathanael Ball (1623–1689) on Pleading, not Merely Publishing

To be Pleaders with you about it. The Lord gives us leave to be exceeding earnest with you about the matters of your souls, to stir you up by all the Ways and by all the Arguments that possibly we can, to look after this Freedom. He requires that we should lay out the very strength of our spirits in this Work; that we should deal with you as for our lives, and as for the saving of our own souls. He would have us study what to say to you, and to pray much to God, that he would fill our mouths with Arguments when we come to speak to you; and that he would help us, that we may not be willing to let you alone in your trifling careless delays; but to urge upon you the necessity of this Freedom, and the danger of missing of it, and the benefit that you will reap by it. Ministers should not only be Publishers, but they should be Pleaders, yea, Beseechers of their hearers in this matter: We pray you in Christ's stead (saith the Apostle) be ye reconciled to God, 2 Cor. 5:20.

Nathanael Ball, Spiritual Bondage and Freedom (London: Printed for Jonathan Robinson, at the Golden Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1683), 56–57.

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Credit to Travis Fentiman for bringing Nathanael Ball to my attention.

Similarly, B. H. Carroll said:

This scripture [Ezek. 33:11] teaches that those commissioned to publish the good tidings of salvation to men are exhorted by the Spirit of God to pray as they publish. They are not to be dumb placards on the wall; they are not to be cold advertisements in a paper; they are not to be mere abstract announcements, but that publication shall be loving, sympathetic, earnest, accompanied by their prayers that God will lead the men to salvation whom he thus invites through the gospel.

[Note: Observe today how some preachers and apologists merely declare facts or abstract propositions in their evangelistic endeavors. They do not plead with men to lay hold of the freedom available in Christ. John J. Murray (in his preface to Silversides' book on The Free Offer) observes of our day that "although the gospel offer has not been consciously denied, the wooing note of former times has been lacking." We need to be watchful against this subtle coldness of heart and spirit of the hyper-Calvinist error.]

George Whitefield (1714–1770) on Preaching to Self-Righteous Sinners, or Sinai Before Zion

For the law must be preached to self-righteous sinners. We must take care of healing, before we see sinners wounded, lest we should say, ‘Peace, peace,’ where there is no peace. Secure sinners must hear the thundering of Mount Sinai, before we bring him to Mount Zion. They who never preach up the law, it is to be feared, are unskillful in delivering the glad tidings of the gospel. Every minister should be a Boanerges, a sun of thunder, as well as a Barnabas, a son of consolation. There was an earthquake and a whirlwind, before the small still voice came to Elijah: we must first show people that they are condemned, and then show them how they must be saved. But how and when to preach the law, and when to apply the promises of the gospel, wisdom is profitable to direct.

George Whitefield, “The Seed of the Woman, and the Seed of the Serpent,” in Select Sermons of George Whitefield (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1990), 151.

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John Stott on Our Need to Apeal in our Proclamations

Tom Ascol tweeted an excellent quote by John Stott:

It is not enough to expound a thoroughly orthodox doctrine of reconciliation if we never beg people to come to Christ.

John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1986), 201.

I would add this: And we will never sincerely “beg people to come to Christ” until we are thoroughly persuaded that God himself wishes all men to be saved in the revealed will and through our appeals, as taught by the passage (2 Cor. 5:18–20) that Stott is expounding.

Wise Advice for Open Air Preaching

Kevin Williams has posted his Guidelines for Open Air Preaching on the Puritan Fellowship blog.

George Whitefield (1714–1770) on Preaching and the Love of God

We are to preach the gospel: to whom? To every creature: here is the commission, every creature. I suppose the apostles were not to see every creature; they did not go into all nations: they had particular districts: but wherever they did go they preached. Did you ever hear that Paul, or any of the apostles sent away a congregation without a sermon? No, no; when turned out of the temple they preached in the highways, hedges, streets, and lanes of the city; they went to the water side; there Lydia was catched. My brethren, we have a commission here from Christ; and not only a commission, but we have a command to preach to every creature: all that are willing to hear. “He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear;” and if some shall say, they will not come if we do preach, would to God we tried them, “where the carcass is there will the eagles be gathered together.” We are to preach glad tidings of salvation; to tell a poor benighted world lying in the wicked one the devil, their state and condition; we are to tell them, “God is love;” to tell them, that God loves them better than they do themselves. We must preach the law, but not leave the people there. We must tell them how Moses brings them to the borders of Canaan, and then tell them of a glorious Joshua that will carry them over Jordan; first to show them their wants; and then point out to them a Jesus that can supply, and more than supply all their wants. This we are to tell every creature: and it is for this that people stone gospel preachers. I do not think the prisoners would be angry with us if we were to tell them, the king commissions us to declare to them that they might come out of their prison, that their chains may be knocked off. If you was to go to one of them and say, Here you have your chains; and he was to say, I have no chains on at all, you would think that man’s brain was turned: and so is every man's who does not see himself to be in the chains of sin and deceit. We are “to preach liberty to the captives, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord; sound the jubilee trumpet, and tell them the year of release is come:” that Jesus can make them happy.

George Whitefield, “The gospel, a dying saints Triumph,” in Memoirs of Rev. George Whitefield, ed. John Gillies (New Haven:Whitmore & Buckingham and H. Mansfield, 1834), 520.

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Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) and the Centrality of Pulpit Teaching

"Another way in which the Puritans emphasized preaching was that when they began to put up their own buildings they put their pulpits in the centre. What attracted the attention of the worshippers was not the altar, so-called, but a pulpit with an open Bible on it. It is regrettable to find increasingly that there is no pulpit Bible in many nonconformist churches at the present time and there are too many pulpits placed in a corner! I think that has some significance. But the Puritans had a central pulpit; and the Bible was there on it.

Moreover some of these men preached large numbers of sermons. Some preached every day of the week, and on Sundays more than once. Calvin himself was pre-eminently a great preacher. He preached at times every day and twice on a Sunday; and the Puritans perpetuated this idea. There was constant and systematic preaching, and people would travel considerable distances in order to hear such preaching. Nothing was so characteristic of the Puritans as their belief in preaching and their delight in listening to preaching. Then the number of sermons printed by them was remarkable. This raises a very interesting point, which we tend to forget, namely, that so much of the theological teaching of the Puritans was given in the form of preaching and sermons. I suggest in passing that we must consider once more whether the best way of teaching theology is not through preaching, through exposition of the Word. If you keep to the Word you will preserve a balance, and be constantly reminded of the importance of applying it as you go along."

D. M. Lloyd-Jones, The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors (Carlisle, Penn.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 378-379.

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God Preaching Through Us

I posted this recently on a discussion board, so I may as well put it here. I was arguing that God himself is preaching, appealing and offering the gospel through us to all that hear.

A Petrine Argument:

God is, in a sense, preaching through us when we preach in real holiness and truth, i.e. when we are consistent with his word. Just as Jesus suffered through his church when Saul persecuted her (Acts 9:4), so Jesus is preaching through his church (in the Spirit) when she faithfully offers the gospel terms to lost humanity.

I would argue that the pre-incarnate Christ was preaching through Noah when Noah preached to the perishing sinners in his day, according to 1 Peter 3:19. Just as he was in the prophets when they were searching the scriptures, he was also in Noah when he preached repentance.

NKJ 1 Peter 1:10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

NKJ 1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

NKJ 2 Peter 2:5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;

Here's how I combine these passages. Noah was warning people and preaching repentance (even as we do, but we have more information about Christ). He was calling upon his generation to believe God's revealed word. When these people were alive on earth, they were disobeying the exhortations of Noah and the Spirit of Christ who was in him at (just as he was in all the prophets) making the appeal. Now, these same spirits are in a prison of sorts awaiting final judgment. Note: The timing of Christ's preaching was in the days of Noah and through Noah, not during some intermediate state between his death and resurrection.

God was in the prophets and Apostles in a special way when they spoke the word of God, but it is still true that the Spirit of Christ appeals to lost humanity through us, even as he did through them.

A Few Concluding Comments:

There are different ways that one can argue that God is preaching through us and offering the gospel indescriminately to all who hear, but I thought I would bring up these controversial passages to make the connection.

If one rejects this reasoning, then 2 Cor. 5:20 should be sufficient:

NRS 2 Corinthians 5:20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

p.s. If you want good commentaries that interpret 1 Peter 3:18 in the way I did, see Wayne Grudem's 1 Peter commentary in the Tyndale series, and check Curtis Vaughn's Bible Study Commentary on 1 Peter (Zondervan).

On the significance of Titus 2:15

In periods of unsettled faith, skepticism, and mere curious speculation in matters of religion, teachers of all kinds swarm like the flies in Egypt. The demand creates the supply. The hearers invite and shape their own preachers. If the people desire a calf to worship, a ministerial calf-maker is readily found.—Vincent, quoted in Homer Kent's The Pastoral Epistles, page 294.

I first heard the above quote by Vincent in one of the sermons by John MacArthur on Titus 2:15:

NKJ Titus 2:15 Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.

Dr. MacArthur was speaking at a Shepherd's Conference in Ft. Worth many years ago (in the 90's). I have remembered his sermon on this particular text ever since. It was truly excellent.

What was excellent was not so much John's manner of speech, but what he brought out of the text. It was an excellent example of the strengths of expository preaching. Expository preaching is contextual preaching, and this is what MacArthur was doing.

NKJ Nehemiah 8:8 So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading.

John brought out the sense of the text and showed it's relevance to the culture today. He helped us to understand what was being said in a verse that seems insignificant at first glance. In his own studies, he initially considered it a kind of throw away verse that one makes a few comments on and moves along. I think it was the term "authority" that triggered his attention and caused him to meditate.

I can't recall the order in which he started his analysis, but he brought the listeners into a meditation on "these things." The context of the Pastoral epistles was considered so as to bring out the sense of "these things." The conclusion of the matter was that Paul is speaking about sound doctrine. Sound doctrine certainly includes the practice of godliness, but genuine godliness is built on right thinking about God, Christ, man, sin, salvation and our eternal hope. "These things" refers to all of these doctrines, and the teacher is to equip the people of God to think accurately and biblically about such matters. Theological precision is required, but our day is not a day of theological precision. It hardly qualifies as an age in which people are interested in sound theology. In such an apathetic and unthinking age, the leaders in the church are to teach "these things," and not their own judgment as to what is good for the people. Christ, through Paul, is commanding leaders to teach "these things"! It may have been in this particular message by MacArthur where he mentioned that he gives his people what they don't want to hear. In other words, the tendency of our depraved minds is to avoid thinking about "these things," but the preacher cannot compromise. The church needs genuine shepherds, and not ministerial calf-makers who set aside and pervert God's word for the sake of "growth."

Dr. MacArthur also brought out the significance of the term "authority" in the text. He quoted Packer as saying that the bible is the real preacher. The job of the man in the pulpit is to let some passage say it's peace. The challenge is for the preacher to get out of the way, and let the passage speak. The goal is scriptural projection and not self-projection. The people need to discern that their true authority is God speaking through his word, and not that their authority is some religious expert standing in front of the book. Genuine authority in preaching occurs when a man speaks in such a way that the scriptures speak through him. After thoroughly digesting the contents of a passage in such a way that it impacts his affections, the preacher is to then open the book before the people and speak contextually. That's when one speaks with true "authority."

Packer, in his contribution to the book entitled The Preacher and Preaching, discusses why people do not have a proper idea of what true preaching is. His second reason says:

Second, topical preaching has become a general rule, at least in North America. Sermons explore announced themes rather than biblical passages. Why is this? Partly, I suppose, to make preaching appear interesting and important in an age that has largely lost interest in the pulpit; partly, no doubt, to make the sermon sound different from what goes on in the Bible class before public worship starts; partly, too, because many topical preachers (not all) do not trust their Bible enough to let is speak its own message through their lips. Whatever the reason, however, the results are unhealthy. In a topical sermon the text is reduced to a peg on which the speaker hangs his line of thought; the shape and thrust of the message reflect his own best notions of what is good for people rather than being determined by the text itself. But the only authority that his sermon can then have is the human authority of a knowledgeable person speaking with emphasis and perhaps raising his voice. In my view topical discourses of this kind, no matter how biblical their component parts, cannot but fall short of being preaching in the full sense of that word, just because their biblical content is made to appear as part of the speaker's own wisdom. The authority of God revealed is thus resolved into that of religious expertise. That destroys the very idea of Christian preaching, which excludes the thought of speaking for the Bible and insists that the Bible must be allowed to speak for itself in and through the speaker's words. Granted, topical discourses may become real preaching if the speaker settles down to letting his happen, but many topical preachers never discipline themselves to become mouthpieces for messages from biblical texts at all. And many in the churches have only ever been exposed to topical preaching of the sort that I have described.

Douglas M. White describes the situation this way in his book The Excellence of Exposition:

Whether topical, textual, or expository, all preaching should be Biblical. Unfortunately this is not true of a great deal of the preaching in modern pulpits. The vast majority of sermons today could not be classified in any of the three categories stated. Topical preaching is most popular, but most of it has very little Biblical content, and therefore has little authority. Textual preaching is also extant, but here also there is too little real interpretation of Bible truth. A verse of Scripture may be quoted, which suggests an idea; that idea is incorporated into a topic, and the topic is then used as a point of departure for a thirty-minute demonstration of sermonic globe-trotting. Again, a phrase or clause is used as a topic, which is repeated half a dozen times or more during the discourse, with two or three lengthy anecdotes (which may not even be related) packed in between the repetitions. A minister of my acquaintance classifies this sort of thing as "bullfrog preaching—a croak and a jump."

Is there genuine authority in the most pulpits today? Is this one of the major reasons why many Christians are undiscerning? I think it is. Paul commands leaders to speak with authority in Titus 2:15. He commands them to speak sound doctrine in the church. It seems to me that we lack both of these things in the pulpit. It's no wonder that people are turning on their televisions without being able to detect the deception of false teachers!

In religion, what damned error, but some sober brow will bless it and approve it with a text, hiding the grossness with fair ornament?—Shakespeare

Not only is the preacher to teach sound doctrine with authority, but they are to do so in a way that exhorts and rebukes. There are positive and negative aspects. A friend of mine uses this quote below his name on discussion boards. It captures the thought of Paul:

A preacher must be both a soldier and a shepherd. He must nourish, defend, and teach; he must have teeth in his mouth and be able to bite and to fight.—Martin Luther

One dominated by a church growth mentality will not have this view of Luther or Paul. They will not engage in exhortations and rebukes. They will smile and always speak pleasant things.

NKJ 1 Kings 22:8 So the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "There is still one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the LORD; but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." And Jehoshaphat said, "Let not the king say such things!"

A true shepherd warns, rebukes builds up, mends with all patience and diligence. Like Augustine, he seeks to "love men and slay error." This is the idea in Titus 2:15. There should be a prophetic edge to the way a preacher speaks. If a preacher has meditated on a text, then it is in him like a fire that must come out.

NKJ Jeremiah 20:9 Then I said, "I will not make mention of Him, Nor speak anymore in His name." But His word was in my heart like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, And I could not.

A person who speaks God's word in this way cannot be despised. No one can think around, or evade his words. The scriptural teaching is made plain, so that they must either obey or disobey. If they are upset, then they will have to deal with the implications of the passage. All the preacher did was expound the passage. He is a messenger. If the listener doesn't like it, then they have to answer to scripture. There is no possibility of successful evasion when a preacher has done his job.

This was the essence of MacArthur's message from this passage, and it has impacted my thinking greatly. I am amazed at the implications of such a simple passage. It is not a "throw away" verse at all. It's speaks volumes to our culture today.

We lack sound doctrinal instruction. We lack a knowledge of "these things." We don't have preachers speaking with genuine authority. There is a loss of a prophetic edge, because the text is behind the preacher. Self-projection instead of Christ-projection is rampant. There is an inability to correct and slay error. We are undiscerning. We are children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. People are evading the implications of biblical teaching in their lives because their leaders are not informing their consciences. They are "thinking around" or evading the topical preachers since a mere human authority is conveyed.

Titus 2:15 speaks directly to this current problem. It's worth a significant amount of meditation!