What Kind Of Preacher Do We Need?*
Vance Havner preached at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
WHAT KIND OF PREACHER DO WE NEED?
In these wild and weird and wicked times the work of the preacher is being rethought and revamped and re-examined. Some think his main business, according to Ephesians 4:12, is to be the equipper of the laymen for their ministry. He's being pushed away from the center of the platform to the wings in favor of celebrities, experts, and entertainers. But the "Old Books' still says, "How shall they hear without a preacher?"
What kind of preacher do we need? We need the same kind we've always needed. Nothing important has changed. Just because we've split the atom and gone to the moon doesn't mean we need a new kind of preacher. We have a new kind in some quarters, but we don't need him. There's a lot of cheap preaching going around over the country. I heard of a preacher some years ago when haircuts were selling for fifty cents who had a barber in the crowd who said, "I'll cut your hair for nothing. I'll take it out in preaching." The preacher said, "Well, I'll have you know that I don't preach any fifty-cent sermons!" And the barber said, "That's all right. I'll come several times." I see that the chapel talks are selling for a dime-a-piece out in the library. My publishers did a paperback for me some time ago, and on the cover they had The Best of Vance Havner--60¢.
What kind of preacher do we need? We need anointed preachers. In Exodus 30 there were three restrictions about the anointing oil for the priest: ("Upon man's flesh it shall not be poured; whoso compoundeth any like it or whosoever putteth any of it on a stranger shall be cut off from his people.") I think we Southern Baptists have just about rededicated ourselves to death. We are running an "Old-Adam Improvement Society," an unsanctified flesh that never has died to sin and risen again to walk in newness of life. It's running down church aisles to rededicate, and God couldn't use it if it were rededicated a thousand times because ' flesh shall not glory in His presence, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Those two ought to be placarded in every church across the country. That's why God chose "not many wise, mighty, and noble, that no flesh should glory in His presence." Not many wise, because they try to get to heaven head-first instead of heart-first. The only thing I know of that has its head and heart in the same place is cabbage, and you're no cabbage. Not many mighty, not many presidents of the United States can you think of who you believe were born-again, spirit-filled, New Testament Christians? Not many noble, glorying in their ancestry. The trouble with this ancestry business is that it's like potatoes--the best part is usually under the ground. God does not pour His anointing oil on old Adam. But this unction, this unguent, this ointment is not sold over any counter. Simon Magus tried to buy it, but it's not for sale. It's not compounded in any apothecary, not put together by chemistry. A preacher may be wrapped in the robes of learning; his study walls may be decked with diplomas, his home filled with travel souvenirs of many lands; he may wear all the trappings of ecclesiastical prestige and pageantry; but he cannot function without unction. If he tries it, he will spend his time taxiing down the runway and never taking off.
John Wesley demonstrated that a long time ago. The last time I spoke here at Southwestern was back in the forties--my talks last a long time. They asked me over at SMU at the same time to talk to the preacher boys over there. I was at First Church, Dallas for the evangelistic conference, and I had prepared three messages for the Baptists, and, yet, found myself, in spite of everything, preparing a message with a lot of John Wesley in it. I didn't know I had to go over to SMU until I got here. There I had my sermon for John Wesley, and I said to them, "John Wesley started out equipped with the most formidable qualifications as a preacher. No man ever prepared ready to preach. the Indians without ever being converted himself.''
The preacher we need is authoritative. The other day one of our ministers said that we must get away from authoritarian preaching. I think we need to get back to it. we've already gotten away from it. My Lord told us "having authority and not as the Scribes," and a lot I hear today sounds like the Scribes. "There was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eye;" when authority goes out, anarchy comes in. You remember that my Lord met the devil not in His own power, not in His own name, but met him with the word of God--"it is written....it is written....it is written." If He could defeat the devil with three verses out of Deuteronomy, we ought to be able to defeat him with the whole Bible. Don't be ashamed of the old-time faith. There isn't anything newer. We have a New Testament about a new and living way which we enter by the new birth that makes us new creatures with a new name and with a new song. We're walking in newness of life, we're living by a new commandment, headed for new heaven and new earth and the new Jerusalem. And almost the last word in the New Testament is "Behold, I make all things new." No wonder the gospel is good news--old-time, new-time, anytime, all the time. God's not running an antique show. "These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee."
For several years we had a run on that expression "Tell it like it is." You can't preach it like it is if you don't believe it like it was. And if you don't believe that my Lord was virgin born and died for our sins and rose bodily from the grave and that the scriptures are God-breathed, then you can't preach it like it is because that's the way it was, and the way it was, it still is. You can't preach Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today if you don't believe that what He was yesterday, He is now. (It's almost the unpardonable sin to be dogmatic today. When I go to a doctor, I want a dogmatic doctor. I don't want him to say, "Well, it could be this and it could be that. We'll give you these pills, and if they don't kill you, we'll try these." I want a dogmatic doctor. When I get on a plane, I want a dogmatic pilot. I don't want him to say, "I believe we're going to try something new today." When I go to church, I don't want to hear an expert in the art of almost saying something. I don't want to come away feeling like I'd been out to dinner where they didn't serve anything but Cool Whip. The preacher of today is not apologetic. He shouldn't be with an inferiority complex in the presence of the new left and the hippies and the jet set. One of our leading black preachers said the other day, "I don't belong to the right wing or the left wing. They're both flapping on the same old bird." If anybody's embarrassed, it ought to be that other crowd; not us. William Jennings Bryan, in the speech that made him a candidate for the presidency, said, "The humblest citizen of the land when clad in the armor of a righteous cause is stronger than all the hosts of error." The simplest man can know the answer. You don't have to belong to Who's Who to know what's what. We don't have to call in T.V. celebrities and athletic personalities to put the gospel over. You don't have to hob-nob with Sodom and get chummy with Gomorrah and go to love-ins to find out what the hippies are thinking or read Playboy to know what the world is thinking. What difference does it make? My thoughts are not your thoughts. Some of the avant garde boys ought to wake up. The devil told me years ago that if I didn't get with it, and if I preached like this I wouldn't have anywhere to preach, that I'd starve to death. Now, from the way I look, you may think the devil was right, but I haven't. I'm busier in the Seventies than I ever was in the Fifties. Some dear fellows are knocking themselves out trying to keep up with the procession. They ought to get up-to-date. We don't need something new so much as we need something so old that it would be new if anybody tried it. They tell us we need a new lingo today; we must change our phraseology. It used to be a "problem"; now it's a Hang-up." It used to be a "blessing"; now it's a "meaningful experience." We must be relevant and communicate and dialogue in the "now"; study the spectrum; seek fulfillment in involvement; get down to the nitty gritty. What does it matter what you call it? They used to call it "itch" but now it's "allergy," but you scratch just the same. Instead of setting the pattern, the professing church today tags along imitating every fad as it comes by. You don't have to put on modern attire and pick a guitar and stage rock operas and move from hymns to hootenannies to put the gospel over. They tell us that the idiom of Isaac Watts is out-of-date today, and so we must drag the message of the gospel down to the vernacular of tile streets. But the're still reading Shakespeare in the old vernacular; they are still reading medical books and legal books in the old terminology. It's an insult to the intelligence of young people to give them the impression that we have to cheapen the gospel to make it intelligible. The church of Jesus Christ was never meant to be an accompanist to anything; she's a soloist with her own song to sing. The argument that the end justifies the means forgets that the means determines the end. I get amused at some of the things that churches are doing today. The Ichabod Memorial Church, for instance, packs them in with folk music. And over at Ephesus they said, We're going to have a T.V. personality." And at Pergamos they bring in a fellow who can play a fiddle and tap drums and blow a harmonica all at the same time. And at Sardis they said, "we're going to dress like we did one hundred years ago and have Aunt Dinah's quilting party and we'll all see Nelly home." And then, Laodicea, not to be undone, has a talking horse. I saw one of them some time ago. They asked him how many commandments, and he said "ten"; how many apostles, "twelve"; some smart-alec said, "How many hypocrites in this church?" and he went into a dance on all-fours.
The preacher of today must be finally be apocalyptic. He ought to sound like the book of Revelation, for we are "living in a grand and awful time, in an age on ages telling to be living is sublime." I heard a radio preacher some time ago take as his text, "When these things begin to come to pass, lift up your heads for your redemption draws nigh." And he said, "Just as the crocuses are coming up now in springtime, so a new age of brotherhood and socialism through educational legislation under religious auspices--social gospeler's paradise. The crocuses are blooming because anew day has dawned." And I said, "Lord have mercy on any preacher who can live in an hour like this and stand in the pulpit croaking about crocuses." We're living in a day of beasts and seals and trumpets and four horsemen and the harlot and the beast and scorpions and dragons and the sea of glass mingled with fire and earthquakes and falling stars and Babylon and the bottomless pit and the lake of fire and Gog and Magog and the six hundred and sixty-six and the downfall of the devil and the great white city coming down. It's no time to tiptoe through the tulips today.
The wonderful thing about all this is to a Christian, good news is bad news and bad news is good news. When they shall say peace and safety, that's good news, but sudden destruction comes. But turn it around. When men's hearts fail them for fear of wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilence and earthquakes, that's bad news. But lift up your heads, because your redemption draws nigh. It is just the other way around about for a child of God. I'm not looking for something to happen; I'm looking for someone to come. I'm not waiting for the abolition of war and poverty and urban renewal; I'm living in the great until. The next time someone asks you what time it is, tell them it's until. He that hath begun a good work will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. I'm waiting until he that hindereth be taken out of the way. I'm judging nothing before the time until Jesus comes. I'm waiting until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, until He puts all things under his feet, until He subdues all things unto Himself. I want to be sincere and without offense until the day of Jesus Christ. I want to hold fast what I have until He comes. At the Lord's table I show forth His death until He come. He said occupy until He comes. I'm waiting until all His enemies be made His footstool. I'm living in the great until.
In Georgia some time ago after I preached along this line, a dear brother wrote me a letter. Instead of closing "Sincerely" or "Yours truly', he simply closed "Until." That's a good way to do it, brother. On the tombstone of A.J. Gordon are these words: "Until He Come." A few weeks ago, the dearest person I've ever known, the sweet little lady who for thirty-three years went with me all over America, just six weeks ago went to heaven. I'm the loneliest preacher in the world this morning. She died at 3:15 on Sunday morning; I preached at 11:00. I said that I haven't lost her because I know where she is. She's not left me; she's just preceeded me and I'll catch up with her shortly. "Death can hide but not divide; she's but on Christ's other side. She is with Christ and Christ with me; united still in Christ are we." After all, an old septuagenarian like myself doesn't need to hang his harp on the willows because I'll soon be there. She heard me preach on living in the great until, and the last thing she scribbled on a pad because she couldn't speak was "There's so much to endure that I can't tell you about until...." But I have an idea that when we meet again, she'll not tell me because it'll all be forgotten in the glory of His presence. After all, boot camp is about over for me, and my internship is just about ended, and I'm ready for the next chapter when His servant shall serve Him there. I haven't loafed here, and I'm not going to loaf over there. I have no vision of sitting on a cloud plucking a harp all through eternity. How will His enemies be made His footstool? By the preaching of the gospel? No. By social action? No. When you're up to your ears in crocodiles it's not time to discuss how to drain the swamp. We've got crocodiles. When He comes again cataclysmically and apocalyptically and suddenly he's not coming to hold a summit conference with His enemies, He's not coming to reconcile. He did that the first time. He's coming to destroy and conquer and to subdue. The day of reconciliation will be over and the day of retribution will begin. The first time, He came quietly, a baby in Bethlehem. He didn't cry aloud; His voice was not heard in the streets. But the next time there will be plenty of noise--a shout and the voice of an archangel and the trump of God. They used to ask how an angel's voice and the sound of a trumpet could be heard around the world, but now a man can blow a trumpet in New York and be heard in Australia. Our eardrums have been shattered by the devilish dissonance of rock 'n roll and even gospel jazz. If a man can blow a trumpet loud enough to deafen the living, an archangel ought to be able to blow one loud enough to wake up the dead.
That just about wraps it up, friends. I'm not looking for signs; I've seen signs a plenty. I'm listening for a shout. When you hear some scoffer say there are no signs of His coming, you've just seen another sign. When I was a boy I used to read novels and always read the last page first, wanting to see how it turned out. Then I'd start at the beginning, and sometimes my hero might be up to his ears in trouble, but I'd whisper, "That's alright. I've known the end from the beginning and you're coming out all right." I've got a Bible that reads along about the middle of it like the devil had it made, truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. But no matter how the devil struts across the page, I say "Your goose is cooked from the start. I've got a Bible with no devil on the first two pages and no devil on the last two pages. You'll never make it to the last page." So, that just about wraps it up. I'm listening for a shout. You preachers get going and be sure you're anointed. Be sure you're authoritative. And be sure you're apocalyptic. God bless you.
