8.
Expository Preaching is the Power of the Pastorate because it is Always Contemporary.
When
we go to the Word, and preach the Word, we never have to worry about whether
it is the right time or not, or if this is the right message or not. Now surely
wisdom is needed to discern between preaching Lamentations at a wedding or Leviticus
chapter 15 and "bodily discharges" at the dedication or baptism of
an infant. But, you know what I mean. As I think about this conference, I am
reminded once more that expository preaching is always in vogue, always "cool,"
if you will, for the human condition remains the same in every age.
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How
did Lloyd-Jones follow Campbell-Morgan? Expository preaching. How did Boice
follow Barnhouse? Expository preaching. How did Timothy follow Paul? "Preach
the Word." We must guard what was deposited to us with expository preaching.
We must, because we can't conduct a sound ministry of visitation of the sick
and dying without it. We cannot carry on the work of evangelism, discipleship,
world missions, building up our saints, or being a witness to our communities
without expositing the Word from another world. We were made for it. It is our
lives. It is our heart.
Readers
of great missionary's stories will recall the amazing story of that intrepid
Scotsman, the physician Dr. David Livingstone, who, like Lloyd-Jones, was not
only a medical doctor but also a preacher of the Gospel. You will recall that
David Livingstone's body was returned from Africa, where he died, to be buried
with highest honors in Westminster Abbey. But do you also recall that before
his body was removed from the deepest parts of that great continent to make
the 700 mile trip to the coast, the tribesmen of the place where he died so
loved this man that they removed his heart from his body and buried it in great
ritual in the land where he preached the Gospel?7,8 Jesus
said in Matthew 6:21, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will
be also" (NIV). The tribesmen knew that David Livingstone's treasure was
Africa. His soul would go to His Savior. His body would return, for the time
being, to his native country. But Livingstone's heart was in Africa.
Do
our people know that we treasure them? Do they know that we treasure preaching
the Gospel of God to them? Do they know where our hearts are?
I
have talked to some of the older folks in our congregation, and I think that
the reason my predecessors are so honored is that, like Livingstone, they preached
the Word to a certain people in a certain time in a certain place. That Word
did for those people in their land, in their time, what the Word
always does — saves, changes lives, heals, restores, gives hope, brings assurance,
and brings God to men and men to God. I am convinced that in the final analysis,
this is the answer.