The Authority of preaching the Word of God by David O. Cofield

I am sharing some thoughts this week about the joy of a pastor to be a preacher of the Word.  In Monday's post, I share the importance of the Word.  It is the authority a preacher has; so his preaching must be Biblically set, Biblically saturated and Biblically solid.

Paul said to Timothy is I Timothy 4:13 "Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine (teaching)."

I love the quote from St. Augustine who said, "When the Scriptures speak, God speaks."

Our authority for preaching comes from the God who called the preacher and the Scriptures he preaches.  There is no authority in "what he thinks" or "what others have said."  The authority rests in the Word of God alone.

And the preaching of the Word is indispensable in the life of a church.  A United Methodist Bishop Carl J. Sanders of Alabama wrote in 1974 these words:

"..the church can exist without buildings, without liturgies, without choirs, without Sunday Schools, without professional clergymen, without creeds, without even women's societies.  But the church cannot possibly exist without preaching the Word.  Preaching has power like nothing else the church has or does. ...The time has come to restore preaching to its rightful place, its primary position in the work of the ministry.  In preaching there is power!"

Why the decline in preaching?
1.  Pastors have turned from the true well of living water.  Preaching is hard work (I will write about this later) and too many pastors have neglected the hard work to prepare to preach.  Woe to the preacher who forsakes his calling.

2.  The church has not demanded more preaching.  We are living in a culture of entertainment forgetting the church is not about entertaining us and in fact, the focus of the church is not even us...it is God.  And there is no higher honor to be given to God than to honor His Word. But, we don't want the discipline it takes to listen and obey.

For too many churches, the Word of God has become optional.  We put everything else before the attendance of when the Word is preached and then our attitude is one of standing in judgement of the message and the messenger.  Instead, our attitude should be "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears."  And any time hearing is mentioned in the Bible it carries the idea of obedience.

When a preacher under the anointing of the Spirit takes the "sword of the Spirit" and swings it, he himself is always amazed.  Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote of the preaching event: "I am speaking, but I am really a spectator.  I am amazed at what is happening.  I am listening, I am looking on in utter astonishment, for I am not doing it.  It is true preaching when I am conscious that I am being used; in a sense, I am as much a spectator as the people who are listening to me.  There is this consciousness that it is outside me, and yet I am involved in it;  I am merely the instrument and the vehicle and the channel of all this."

Oh what a moment for the preacher and the people who hear.

Samuel Chadwick sums it up for me, "I would rather preach than do anything else in the world.  I would rather preach than eat my dinner or have a holiday.  I would rather pay to preach than be paid not to preach.  ...it is a calling an archangel might covet."

Dr. Stephen Olford (now in Heaven) use to say, "There is only one thing that will take the place of great preaching and that is greater preaching."