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Sacrificial Preaching

Lord, I am a Christian by indoctrination or revelation? If I am merely parroting truths that have been dictated to me, woe is me and woe is any congregation that listens to me.

When Christ met Paul on the Damascus road, He revealed Himself to His former enemy. Afterward Paul did not confer with flesh and blood but escaped into the desert to receive further revelation (Galatians 1:15-17) Later, when he emerged to preach Christ, it was an incarnation message he preached, not one learned at the foot of a teacher.

All divine knowledge is received inwardly. Christian education has its place, but only to make Christ’s revelation to me possible. If cannot make that revelation actual. Too many Christians are around today who have taken on the culture of Christ without taking in His person. What is worse, too many spokesmen for Christ in the world are like the disciples before Pentecost—surrounded by Christ but not invaded by Him. After Pentecost the disciples did not need to be taught; they only needed opportunity to release what had been revealed. What had formerly been meaningless words now became truths that seared their hearts.

If Jesus did not dare to speak from Himself (John 7:17), how dare I? If Jesus spoke only what was revealed to Him by the Father (John 7:16), how can we possibly preach anything unless it is revealed to us? What we need in our pulpits are men who talk about God based on firsthand knowledge. God revealers will never lack an audience. I will do what Habakkuk did: “Station myself on the [watch] tower, and watch to see what He will say to me” (Habakkuk 2:1), (Berkeley). It is what God says to me that becomes the message people longingly desire.

W. Glyn Evans, Daily With the King, February 15, (Chicago: IL, Moody Press, 1989)