PREACHING FALSE
By A. W. Pink
I. LICENTIOUS PREACHING
The
twofoldness of Divine Truth is broadly illustrated by the dividing of God's
Word into its two Testaments, wherein, characteristically speaking, we have set
forth the Divine Law and the Divine Gospel, and where distinctively (though not
exclusively) God is revealed respectively as "Light" and "Love."
The same twofoldness of Truth appears in each of those grand objects and
subjects, though this is far from being as clearly apprehended as it should be.
The Law which God gave unto
In
view of this twofoldness of Truth and the opposition of the carnal mind
thereto, it should no more surprise us that such diverse elements as legality
and lawlessness are found in the same persons than we should be to read that
Pilate and Herod who "were at enmity between themselves," on
the day of our Saviour's mock trial before them "were made friends
together" (Luke 23:12), and that they made common cause in
opposing and condemning Him. Legality is the perverting of God's Law.
Lawlessness or licentiousness is the corrupting of the Gospel
: or if we speak of these evils as they apply to the distinctive
features of each, legality is the wresting of the righteous element in
both the Law and the Gospel, while licentiousness is the abuse of the grace
element in them. For while it be true that grace is the outstanding and
predominant characteristic of the Gospel, yet it must ever be insisted upon
that it is not a grace which is exercised at the expense of righteousness,
rather does it reign "through righteousness" (Rom. 5:21).
Now
since it be true that the roots of both legality and licentiousness are found
in every man by nature, it behooves the servant of God to be on his most
prayerful and careful guard against giving place to either of these evils, for
in proportion as he does so the Truth is falsified and the souls of his hearers
are poisoned. If he be guilty of preaching in a legalistic way, the person and
work of Christ is dishonored and the spirit of self-righteousness is fed to
those who sit under him. Unless he makes it crystal clear that none but Christ
can avail the sinner and that there is in Him a sufficiency to meet his every
need, unless he expresses himself beyond a peradventure of being misunderstood
that the merits of Christ's righteousness and blood are the sole means for
delivering a believing sinner from the curse of the broken law and his alone
title to everlasting bliss, he has failed at the most vital point of his
mission and duty. The trumpet he is called upon to blow must give forth no uncertain
sound at this point: nothing but faith in the finished work of Christ, and
nothing added thereto, can supply the sinner with a standing-ground before the
thrice holy God.
On
the other hand, it is equally important and essential that the minister steer
clear of the opposite extreme. If he be guilty of preaching in a licentious way
then the person and work of Christ is equally dishonored and the spirit of
religious bolshevism is fostered in his hearers. Unless he makes it as plain as
an object bathed in the light of the noonday sun that God hates sin, all sin,
and will not compromise with or condone it in any one; unless he declares and
insists that Christ came to save His people from their sins---from the
love of them, from the dominion of them---he has failed at the most essential
part of his task. The great work of the pulpit is to press the authoritative
claims of the Creator and Judge of all the earth, to show how sort we have come
of meeting God's just requirements, to announce His imperative demand of
repentance---the sinner must throw down the weapons of his rebellion and
forsake his evil way before he can trust in Christ to the saving of his soul:
that Christ is to be received as King to rule over him as well as Priest to
atone for him, to surrender to Him as his rightful Lord ere he can embrace him
as his gracious Saviour.
Such
a task as we have briefly outlined above is no easy one, and only those who are
called and qualified by God are fitted to discharge it. To preserve the balance
of Truth so that the requirements of righteousness and the riches of grace are
equally poised: to avoid Arminianism on the one side and Antinomianism on the
other is an undertaking far beyond the capacity of any "novice"
(I Tim. 3:6). It requires a "workman" and not a lazy man, a
student and not a sloven, one who studies to "show himself approved
unto God" (II Tim.
It
is because so many untaught men, unregenerate men, now occupy the pulpits that "another
gospel" (Gal. 1:6) is being so widely and generally disseminated.
Multitudes who have neither "tasted that the
Lord is gracious" nor have "the fear of the Lord" in
them have, from various motives and considerations, invaded the sacred calling
of the ministry, and out of the abundance of their corrupt hearts they speak.
Being blind themselves, they lead the blind into the ditch. Having no love for
the Shepherd they have none for the sheep, being but "hirelings."
They are themselves "of the world" and therefore "the
world heareth them" (I John 4:5), for they preach that which is
acceptable unto fallen human nature, and as like attracts like, they gather
around themselves a company of admirers who flatter and support them. They will
bring in just enough of God's Truth to deceive the unwary and give the
appearance of orthodoxy to their message, but not sufficient of the Truth,
especially the searching portions thereof, to render their hearers
uncomfortable by destroying their false peace. They will name Christ but
not preach Him, mention the Gospel but not expound it.
Some
of these men will preach legality under the pretense of furthering morality and
honoring the Divine Law. They will preach up good works, but lay no foundation
on which they may be built. They confound justification and sanctification,
making personal holiness to be the ground of the sinner's acceptance before
God. They sow their vineyards with "divers
seed" (Deut. 22:9) so that Law and Gospel, Divine grace and creature
performances are so mingled together that their distinctive characters are
obliterated. Others preach Licentiousness under the guise of magnifying the
grace of God. They omit the Divine call to repentance, say nothing about the necessity
of forsaking our sins if we are to obtain mercy (Prov. 28:13), lay no stress
upon regeneration as a being made " a new creature in Christ"
(II Cor. 5:17), but declare that the sinner has simply to accept Christ as his
personal Saviour---though his heart be still unhumbled, without contrition and
thoroughly in love with the world---and eternal life is now his. The result of
this preaching is well calculated to bolster up the deluded, for instead of
insisting that saving faith is evidenced by its spiritual fruits, instead of
teaching that the Christian life is a warfare against the world, the flesh and
the devil and that none but the overcomer will reach Heaven, they are
assured---no matter how carnal their walk---that "once saved, always
saved," and thus they are soothed in their sins and comforted with a
false peace unto they awake in Hell. Shun all such preaching, my reader, as you
would a deadly plague. "Cease, my son, to hear the
instruction that causeth thee to err from the words of knowledge"
(Prov.
II. EVANGELICAL PREACHING
Evangelical
preaching is that preaching which accords with the spirit and substance of the
Gospel of God. It is preaching which is tainted with neither legality nor
licentiousness: which gives full place to both the grace of God and the righteousness
of God. It maintains the claims of Divine holiness, yet without bringing the
soul into bondage. It proclaims a free salvation without making light of sin.
It presents a Saviour who is suited to and sufficient for the very chief of
sinners, yet affirms that only those who have been brought to loathe themselves
and are sick of sin will welcome such a holy Physician. It announces the
glorious liberty into which the sons of God have been brought and urges them to
stand fast in the same, yet it also points out that such liberty is the very
reverse of being a license granted us to indulge the lusts of the flesh without
fear of consequences. While denying that good works enter at all into the
ground of our acceptance with God, care is taken to show that a faith which
does not produce good works is worthless and saves no one.
Our
lot is cast in a day of such spiritual darkness, ignorance, and corrupting of
the Truth that there is as much need for pointing out what true evangelical
preaching consists of, as there is for showing what is not either legal
or licentious preaching. Where real evangelism is to be found (and few are the
places where is now exists) so great is the confusion in many minds that there
are not a few who will charge that preacher with either legality or
licentiousness. Both are items of opprobrium, the former especially being one
which Satan is very fond of using or discrediting the servants of God, and once
the rumor gains currency that such and such a preacher is "Legalistic"
many people will shun his ministrations. Those who insist that the Moral Law is
the believer's Rule of conduct and who press the perceptive parts of Scripture
are often dubbed "Legalists" and charged with bringing God's people
into bondage, but such an accusation is both baseless and slanderous, and must
not be heeded by lovers of the Truth.
Our
object before us in writing on our present subject is that the few servants of
God now remaining may be freed from the unjust aspersions which religious libertines
are so fond of heaping upon them, and that those Christians who read this
chapter may be more on their guard against giving ear to false accusations.
Those who declare that sanctification or practical holiness is an essential
part of salvation, who insist upon a godly walk as the necessary evidence of a
credible profession, and who faithfully warn the lord's people that looseness
of conduct and lack of strictness in their deportment will certainly sever
communion with their Beloved, will be most unfairly charged with
"legality." Those who lay much emphasis upon the vital importance of
maintaining a conscience void of offense toward God and men, who insist upon
the needs-be of the Christian's daily confessing every known sin before his Father,
and of making full restitution unto every fellow-creature he has wronged in any
way, will be unjustly charged with bringing the saints into bondage.
Not
only should the reader be much on his guard against forming or entertaining any
unwarrantable criticisms of a true servant of God, but he needs to be watchful
lest he gives ear unto any of Satan's lies against himself. So difficult
is it to keep the scales equally poised, so easily do we fail to heed both
sides of the Truth, that we are ever prone to lose the balance. Yet, knowing
our danger here, yea even when preserved therefrom, the great Enemy of our
souls will seek to persuade us we are guilty of erring. When such a scripture
as "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with
pure water" (Heb. 10:22) is before us and we perceive that a moral
fitness is required in order to obtain an audience with the Majesty on high,
the Devil will be ready to tell us that we are denying the sufficiency of
Christ's blood to give us access---confounding out legal title to do so
with our experimental meetness. When we give heed to such a word as "If
I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me" (Ps. 66:18)
the Devil will come as an angel of light bidding us beware of entertaining the
thought that God's answering of our prayers is dependent upon something good in
ourselves.
Now
evangelical preaching is designed to equip the Lord's people so that they can
repel such assaults of the Enemy and preserve them from the two extremes to
which they are prone. Evangelical preaching will expound the Everlasting
Covenant which God has made with His people in Christ and show that the whole
of their corruption becomes their greatest burden and grief. At regeneration
God puts His laws into their hearts and writes them in their minds (Heb.
Evangelical
preaching places the crown of honor where it rightfully belongs: not upon the
creature, but upon the head of the Lord Jesus. It makes nothing of man and
everything of Christ. It ever reminds the believer that it is a sovereign God
who makes him to differ from the reprobate and that he has nothing good
whatever in himself save what has been communicated to him by the blessed
Spirit (I Cor. 4:7). It teaches him that "all his springs" are
in the Lord (Ps. 87:7), that he must draw upon and draw from Him all that he
needs, receiving out of His exhaustless "fulness, grace for grace"
(John 1:16). It teaches him that Christ is his "life" (Col.
3:4), that he has no life apart from Christ, so that he must daily live in
Christ, live on Christ, live unto Christ. Said the apostle, "Christ
liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20);
and again, "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain"
(Phil. 1:21); and yet again, "I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me" (4:13).
At
the same time evangelical preaching is careful to insist upon human
responsibility and to call for the full discharge of Christian duty. If
presents to view the exalted and changeless standard at which we must ever aim:
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect" (Matt.
Evangelical
preaching avoids the snare of legality by bringing in Christ as the believer's
Object: the One to whom he owes everything, the One to whom he must apply for
the supply of every need, the One whom he is to glorify by a walk which is
pleasing in His sight. Evangelical preaching lays the axe at the roots of
self-righteousness by constantly reminding the believer of his continual
indebtedness to Divine grace, that nothing he can do is to be least degree
meritorious, and that should he fully perform his duty he is still "an
unprofitable servant." On the other hand, evangelical preaching avoids
the snare of licentiousness by steadily holding up the Divine standard of "Be
ye holy in all manner of conversation" or "behavior" (I Pet.
(Studies
in the Scriptures, date unknown).