“The Reformation Pulpit”(Email) March 14, 2009

“The Reformation Pulpit” (Email) March 14, 2009

What’s wrong with the modern pulpit?

The Method & Manner of Preaching the Gospel must be thoroughly biblical!
The Content of the Gospel Message Preached must be thoroughly biblical!
The Emphasis of every part of the Gospel Message Preached must be thoroughly biblical!

Some Crucial Questions!

1-How are the unconverted described in the Bible?

Wicked=Workers of Iniquity=Unrighteous=Unsaved=Unconverted

Job 18:21: Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked And this is the place of him who does not know God.”
Job 31:3: Is it not destruction for the wicked, And disaster for the workers of iniquity? Job 34:8: Who goes in company with the workers of iniquity, And walks with wicked men?
Matt 7:22, 23: Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (KJV-‘workers of iniquity’)
Job 27:7,8: May my enemy be like the wicked, And he who rises up against me like the unrighteous For what is the hope of the hypocrite, Though he may gain much, If God takes away his life?
II Thess 1:7b, 8, 9: When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, (I Jn 3:10-I Cor 6:9, 10)

2-How should unconverted sinners be addressed?

Psalm 50:16-21- “But to the wicked God says: “What right have you to declare My statutes Or take My covenant in your mouth . . . .”
Ezekiel 3:18: “When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.

Every unconverted sinner (religious-not religious-baptized or not-morally respectable or immoral-must be warned by the preacher of the danger of hell unless they personally and truly come to know Christ!

3-Must the unconverted be strongly warned of God’s wrath so that they might repent and seek Christ?

**Acts 17:30, 31**-“Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

Calvin: "Because he hath appointed a day . . . .therefore they must be violently enforced unto repentance, which cannot be done better than when they be cited to appear before God’s judgment-seat, and that fearful judgment is set before them, which they may neither despise nor escape."

Luke 13:1-5-“There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? 3 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

Jeremiah 4:4 "Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, And take away the foreskins of your hearts, You men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Lest My fury come forth like fire . . . .And burn so that no one can quench it, Because of the evil of your doings.”

Henry: “The danger they are threatened with, which they are concerned to avoid. Repent and reform, lest my fury come forth like fire, which it is now ready to do, as that fire which came forth from the Lord and consumed the sacrifices, and which was always kept burning upon the altar and none might quench it; such is God's wrath against impenitent sinners, because of the evil of their doings.“

Calvin: “For, before the mind of the sinner, inclines to repentance, it must be aroused by thinking of Divine judgment. . . Scripture often mentions judgment when it urges to repentance. . . (Acts 17:30, 31-Jer 4:4).”

Dr. Joel Beeke: Bringing the Gospel to Covenant Children:
"Don’t be afraid to talk to your children about hell, as that can make a deep impression upon them. . . . But that knowledge is an important evangelistic tool in your arsenal of truth —a tool that the Holy Spirit has used throughout church history to show . . . that they need to forsake sin and flee from the wrath of God to the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ."

RC Sproul: “The power of the gospel is the word of God . . . nobody needs a gospel if there’s no judgement, or law, if God is not a God of judgement. If there is no such thing as hell, what good is the gospel? The gospel tells us that we are saved from the wrath to come. . . . I can’t think of anything more politically incorrect in 21st cen. America than the wrath of God, the justice of God or the doctrine of hell.”

John MacArthur: “They cannot seek grace and salvation unless they are affected with the dread of the wrath of God that is upon them. Unless men sense they are in grave danger there’s no pressure applied to them to change."

Cornelius Van Til: "Both need to be told that they are in the way of death, that the wrath of God rests upon them and will abide upon them forever unless they repent and believe the gospel."

John Piper: "In order for the gospel to make sense, we must expect and fear the wrath of God. But for the wrath of God to be expected and feared, we must despise sin as an offence against God."

John Murray: "But hell is an unspeakable reality and, if evangelism is to march on its way, it must by God’s grace produce that sense of condemnation complexioned by the apprehension of perdition as the reward of sin. For it is the anguish of such a sense of condemnation, in the anguish of a conscience that stings with apprehension of the wrath and curse of God, that the gospel of God’s free grace becomes as cold water to a thirsty soul and as good news from a far country."

Martyn Lloyd-Jones-Romans 5: I am assuming, of course, that the Gospel is being preached truly, that it is the true evangel which starts with the wrath of God, and man’s helplessness.

JC Ryle: "Never will a man flee until he sees there is real cause to be afraid. Never will he seek heaven until be is convinced that there is risk of his falling into hell. The religion in which there is no mention of hell, is not the religion of John the Baptist, and of our Lord Jesus, and His apostles."

Do not these Scriptures (Acts 17:30, 31; Luke 13:1-5; Jeremiah 4:4) clearly teach that it is the preacher’s responsibility to warn every unsaved person sitting in the pew in front of him, that unless they personally repent and genuinely believe in Christ that they will go to hell? In addition, must not preachers strongly encourage sinners of God’s free love and grace in Christ received by faith alone?

If the above scriptural evidence is clear; why don’t you as a preacher do this; and why doesn’t your pastor do this?

Deut 12:32
“Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.”