This is the positive side of Paul's admonition concerning the necessity of preaching the Word: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths" (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
People Need to Hear the Truth
Human nature is such that people will get itchy ears and begin to gravitate toward teachers who will only say what they want to hear. I f all you care about is attracting a crowd, start a "doughnut" church whose primary goal is to make people feel good and be happy about themselves. In a church like this people can get any kind of doughnut they want, with as much glaze over the truth as they want, and it will all taste sweet. But the result will be a group of people on a temporary "sugar high" who will stumble and falter someday for lack of solid spiritual nourishment.
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Now I'm not saying it will always be easy to preach the truth, or to hear and obey it. When my granddaughter and I make our morning run to the doughnut shop, there is usually a line of people ahead us crowding in to get their sugar fix. But did you ever notice that you don't see long lines at the health food stores? There is a message here for the church, because the Greek word for sound in verse 3 means "healthy." By and large, people won't gravitate toward either healthy food or healthy doctrine if left on their own. That's why the church has to make sure that there is one place where people are being fed a healthy, balanced diet of the truth as it is found in God's Word.
People Need Healthy Spiritual Food
Whenever I teach this passage I think of our trips home to my parents' house in Baltimore. My momma is still determined to make sure that I eat right, and she doesn't care one bit that I am a grown man and grandfather who is capable of making his own choices. When we sit down to eat, she'll put a bowl of squash or some other nasty stuff I don't like on the table, and may the Lord have mercy if I try to pass it along without taking some.
The fried chicken will come by, and you can be sure I get my thighs. The potato salad, green beans, and hot bread come around, and I'm in business. Then the squash comes and I try to pass it on. But if momma sees me, she says, "Boy, what do you think you're doing?"
I try to protest. "Momma, I'm a grown man and I don't want any squash. I know what I like and what I don't like, and I don't like squash."
To which my mother will say, "You know what, you are in my house now" She will then take the bowl and start spooning this stuff onto my plate. And she always puts more on my plate than I would have if I had just gone ahead and done it myself. Then she hits me with the clinching line, "And you'd better eat it all, too, because it's good for you." I know that, but if it were up to me my meal would be fried chicken and the other stuff without worrying about what's good for me.