My job as a preacher is to underline my hearers’ Bibles for them.
That’s because when God speaks in the human heart, he often whispers. Elijah learned that in the cave after the wind and earthquake.
Although God can be soft spoken, occasionally he shouts for emphasis because people don’t always listen as they should. God can boost the volume to bring people to a moment of understanding, change, and growth. When those near Jesus heard the voice of the Father from heaven, they said it sounded like thunder.
Given the decibel power at his disposal, when God wants to crank up the volume in the human heart, he often chooses a surprising means to do so: He speaks through a preacher. Not necessarily a loud preacher, just a person anointed of the Spirit, earnest about God’s truth, who makes the Word and its application as clear as a desert sky.
When God wants to crank up the volume in the human heart, he speaks through a preacher.
A friend recently told me of an unforgettable experience she had while listening to Chuck Swindoll at Moody Bible Institute’s Founders’ Week. “I remember exactly where I was sitting in the auditorium,” she said. “I remember exactly what he said: ‘God hates lying.’ It had never struck me before how important it is to tell the absolute truth.”
My friend is the daughter of a pastor. She grew up reading the Bible. She has known all her life that lying is wrong, yet she would here and there bend the truth. Only when a preacher pointedly spoke those words did she fully hear what God had been saying to her for a long time.
God used a preacher to “crank it up.”
Amazing! Why would he who is The Truth use preachers, who in their personal lives may themselves “shade” the truth—and sometimes intentionally lie—to emphasize his truth? Isn’t that like a trumpet player putting a mute on his horn in order to play louder?
Perhaps it has something to do with the way God has chosen in this age both to hide himself and reveal himself. More than that, I believe God’s voice thunders through human vocal cords and personality because God is determined to glorify himself by making much of humanity. We are, after all, his crowning work.
He created us in his image. He died for us. He has forever united himself with human flesh in the resurrection body of Jesus. He has seated us with Christ in heavenly places. His chosen limitation in this age is to reach the perishing through partnership with people like you and me.
Therefore I preach with the assumption that the most simple truth in the Bible is inaudible, or invisible, to some people until I speak it in partnership with the Holy Spirit. Until I say, “God wants you to pray and believe he will answer,” some will never know the joy of answered prayer. Until I say, “God created everything that is,” some will believe matter evolved from nothing. Some simply won’t hear it or see it until I say it.
They need a preacher because they assume most of Scripture is irrelevant.
They need a preacher because they deceive themselves.
They need a preacher because they ignore what they do not understand.
They need a preacher to validate what they only suspect is true.
The preacher has one of the most exalted roles imaginable: to help people take Almighty God seriously. I am certified mail for the Word of God.
Craig Brian Larson is pastor of Lake Shore Assembly of God in Chicago, Illinois.
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
