July 25, 2016 - "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 2 Timothy 4:2
A young preacher going to his first pastorate met with the Deacon Chairman to discuss his Pastoral duties. "You can't preach on tithing," the deacon began…"cause we don't believe in it."…"and you can't preach on lying or stealing because there's s lot of thieves and liars in the church". "And don't preach on gossip or drinking…well you get the point." The bewildered young preacher gasped, "Then what can I preach on?" "Preach on the Jews!" he answered. "There aint one within a hundred miles of here!"
That story is funny… and sad. When a deacon once told me not to preach on abortion, I asked him why. "Because someone in the congregation might have had one ", he bellowed. I told him that I always preached God's forgiveness for any and all sins and that it's no harder for God to forgive a person for an abortion than to forgive them for stealing s pencil. Aborting a baby can be forgiven like any other sin.
The answer to the young preacher's question is an easy one. Preach the Word…all of it… always with love…even when it makes some folks unhappy. A new convert will be so happy to have his sins forgiven that he'll thank the preacher for preaching the truth.
As Billy Sunday used to say, "If you skin your congregation…but do it with love…. they'll go to the tannery with you to get the hide."
