The Need of Proclaimed Truth!

It has been stated that there are three responsibilities of a pastor within the church. Those responsibilities are in feeding the sheep (from the pure word of God), to seek the conversion of the goats (in the preaching of the Gospel) and when necessary to kick the wolves in the teeth (protecting our fellowships from those who would seek to lead the sheep astray in false teaching). However, today those responsibilities seem to have morphed into something in stark contradiction. Today it seems the responsibilities of the pastor is to allow the sheep to starve and languish, seek to cater to the whims and likings of the goats and never attempt to offend the wolves. In going this route many have forsaken the very hand in whom they confess to serve.  I am continually amazed at the great ability of human beings, even more so those who call themselves Christ’s disciples who would find it repulsive to ever think of ever offending someone (man), who never seem to find it repulsion in the least how they continually offend God.

J.C Ryle on the subject of this shallow preaching/teaching has written;“Dislike of dogma (doctrine) produces, “especially among young people,”… what I must venture to call…a ‘jellyfish’ Christianity…that is, Christianity without bone, or muscle, or power. A jellyfish is a pretty and graceful object when it floats in the sea, contracting and expanding like a little, delicate, transparent umbrella. Yet the same jellyfish, when cast on the shore, is a mere helpless lump, without capacity for movement, self-defense, self-preservation. Alas! It is a vivid type of much of the religion of this day, of which the leading principle is, ‘No dogma, no distinct tenets, no positive doctrine.’ We have hundreds of jellyfish clergymen, who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity. They have no definite opinions; they belong to no school or party; they are so afraid of ‘extreme views’ that they have no views at all. We have thousands of jellyfish sermons preached every year, sermons without an edge, or a point, or a corner, smooth as billiard balls, awakening no sinner and edifying no saint. We have Legions of jellyfish young men annually turned out from our Universities, armed with a few scraps of second-hand philosophy, who think it a mark of cleverness and intellect to have no decided opinions about anything in religion, and to be utterly unable to make up their minds as to what is Christian truth…we have myriad of jellyfish worshipers — respectable Church-going people, who have no distinct and definite views about any point in theology. They cannot discern things that differ; any more than color-blind people can distinguish colors. They think everybody is right and nobody wrong, everything is true and nothing is false, all sermons are good and none are bad, every clergyman is sound and no clergyman is unsound. They are ‘tossed to and fro, like children, by every wind of doctrine’; often carried away by any new excitement and sensational movement; ever ready for new things, because they have no firm grasp on the old; and utterly unable to ‘render a reason of the hope that is in them.’…Never was it so important for laymen to hold systematic views of truth, and for ordained ministers to ‘enunciate dogma/doctrine’ very clearly and distinctly in their teaching.”

Simply put, we need pastors (both indigenous and foreign) who seek to honor Christ and glorify God foremost. We need Pastors and teachers who seek to feed those starving sheep (I know many of them) who are so very hungry and are desperate for the pure, Christ centered, Christ honoring, God glorifying and scripturally saturated word.

It has been a humbling experience these last several months especially to have been given the great honor of preaching in many of these churches, gatherings and house fellowship concerning many of these issues. I am especially thankful for our very own fellowship that meets within a home on Sundays. It has been amazing to see how many Indigenous young men and women are falling in love with a God that sadly they had never been introduced to in many of these other churches.

My prayer is that we would take Christ at His word and dare greatly for His glory. I pray that many in this land would repent of their man centered, man made and man fashioned messages and would take up the only true Gospel that saves and has any real power. I pray that many would overcome their fears and cowardliness.  And boldly, lovingly, compassionately and humbly point a lost word to its only true hope.