There are tens of thousands of sermons out there on the Internet....placed there by men from the their own pulpits....and surely a very small percentage of them are wonderful....but why go there in this weak age of preaching when there are sermons primarily from men of the past....'the old paths'....that God had worked marvelously through....and continues to work through? A more pertinent question might be why do these pastors today recommend their own sermons.....when they themselves should be feeding at the trough of the Spurgeons and Ryles of the past....in order to more ably feed the sheep that God has given them? The following was first posted in June of 2020:
We are in need of a new 12" Teflon skillet. I'm getting tired of scraping the one we have now. Three and a half centuries ago one would probably call in a 'tinker'....a handyman who fixed pots and pans. John Bunyan was one such tinker. On a drive today in the Ohio countryside I pulled up a YouTube of Bunyan expert Derek Thomas giving one of his lectures on Pilgrim's Progress. Thomas related that the great Puritan theologian John Owens once said to King Charles II...."Could I possess the tinker's (preaching) abilities, please your majesty, I would gladly relinquish all my learning."
I came across this exhortation to preachers in a sermon of Charles Spurgeon's....(who by the way by his own testimony had read Pilgrim's Progress 100 times during his lifetime)....that book titled....Jesus, King Of Truth...."I have sometimes, when hearing sermons, wished the preacher would come to the point, and would deal with something that really concerned our soul's welfare. What concern have dying men with the thousand trivial questions which are flitting around us? We have heaven or hell before us, and death within a stone's throw; for God's sake do not trifle with us, but tell us the truth at once!"
If you leave church tomorrow feeling like something was missing....but you have no idea what it was....please consider grabbing your laptop and listening to this one sermon by Charles Spurgeon. Simply Google....'Charles Spurgeon....a blast of the trumpet against false peace.'
Note: Ligonier.org's Daily Audio today (Monday) presents a wonderful message from Sinclair Ferguson titled Becoming A Christian....and in it he gives an example using golfer Jack Nicholas....in the prime of his gold career. Ferguson relates that at the beginning of every season that Jack Nicholas would go back to "the man who had taught him to play golf"....and ask of him...."Mr. Grout....teach me to play golf." This is what pastors need to do today.....go back to these preachers from the past and say...."Mr. Spurgeon....Mr. Ryle....teach me how to preach!"
