The dismissal of God’s Word in a society often results in His removal of the Word to the detriment of His people. Those who reject the Word cannot expect that it will always be available. If this is a correct evaluation, perhaps we can attribute the anemic state of preaching in our day to our nation’s rejection of the Word of God. As the pulpit goes, so goes the church; so the feeble state of the church can be traced to a famine of the Word of the Lord from contemporary pulpits. In their “new way of doing church,” Steven Lawson writes, “exposition is being replaced by entertainment, preaching by performances, doctrine with drama, and theology with theatrics.” The irony is that the preaching of the cross, which the apostle Paul wrote is supposed to be foolishness to the world (1 Cor 1:18), has become foolishness to the contemporary church as well.
Biblical preaching must occupy the leading place of influence in the church – it always has, and must continue, or else the church will continue to waste away. If the church is going to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus Christ, if people are going to be brought to saving faith in Christ, and subsequent growth in Christ, they need the pure milk and strong meat of the Word of God – pastors much preach the message of Scripture, focused on Christ, and full of doctrinal instruction and sound theology.
The question to you is: are you starving yourself by neglecting and abstaining from the full-course meals offered from biblical preaching?
