AP

Preaching! Man’s Privilege and God’s Power!

The majority of Australians today are making poor trades in life. They trade eternal life for sinful pleasures. One family member asked me several years ago why not forsake one Sunday at church for a day at the beach? He could not understand why I would prefer worshipping the Lord to spending a pleasurable day at the beach. Most people today do not look far into the future – the here and now is as far as they can see.

But this has been the case of all mankind in times past. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) comments: “We may learn the folly and madness of the greater part of mankind in that for the sake of present, momentary gratification they run the venture of enduring all these eternal torments. They prefer a small pleasure, or a little wealth, or a little earthly honour and greatness that can last but for a moment to an escape from His punishment …”.

C. S. Lewis makes the comment in his Screwtape Letters that even playing of cards can lead to the death of many, if it crowds out the call of God. One wonders what Lewis would think of us now as we prefer to spend endless hours devouring social media or playing xbox than to hear the Gospel preached.

What then is the value of the Gospel? What would you give to hear it? In the light of eternity the Gospel message is worth infinitely more than anything that earth has to offer. If only our Australian family members and friends knew it. In a sermon preached on Christmas Day in 1860, Charles Spurgeon commented on the value of the Gospel to the inhabitants in Hell and the inhabitants in Heaven.

“Oh! What would the damned in hell give for a sermon could they but listen once more to the church-going bell and go up to the sanctuary! Ah, my brethren, they would consent, if it were possible, to bear 10 000 years of hell’s torments, if they might but once more have the word peached to them! Ah, if I had a congregation such as that would be, of men who have tasted the wrath of God, of men who know what an awful thing it is to fall into the hands of an angry God …..how would they leanforward to catch every word, with what deep attention would they all regard the preacher, each one saying, “Is there hope for me? May I not escape from the place of doom? Good God! May this fire not be quenched and I be plucked as a brand from the burning?”

Value then I pray you the privilege while you have it now. We are always foolish, and we never value mercy till we lose it. But I do adjure you cast not aside this folly – value it while it is called ‘today’, value that which once lost will seem to us to be priceless beyond all conception – estimated then at its true worth, invaluable and precious beyond a miser’s dream …

Let me again ask you to value it in a brighter light … by the estimation of the saints before the throne. Ye glorified ones, what think ye of the preaching of the word? Hark to them!Will they not sing it forth – “Faith came to us by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It was by it that we were led to confess our sins, by it we were led to wash our robes and make them white in the blood of the lamb”.

I am sure they before the throne think not lightly of God’s ministers. They would not speak with cold language of the truth of the Gospel, which is preached before your eyes. No, in their eternal hallelujahs, they bless the LORD, who sent the Gospel to them, as they sing, “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in the blood, unto Him be glory for ever and ever”.

Value then the preaching of the Word and count yourselves happy that you are allowed to listen to it”.

– Troy Appleton