August 30 – LD 35, Day 4: The Preaching of the Gospel

1. Romans 10:8-31

The way that God tells the church to teach His people is the lively preaching of the gospel. We should not pretend to be wiser than God and come up with other methods. Then we are assuming that God can't get His job done with preaching.

During the time of the Reformation, the argument presented by the Roman Catholics was, “We need the images as books to the laity.” The laity are the general church members, and Rome thought it was necessary to have these images as a point of contact or reference to God, especially since most of the people could not read. The reformers responded by saying simply, “Then we must teach them.”

Faith for the Christian comes by hearing (Romans 10:13-15). Our goal in worship is not to impress or entertain the senses, but to edify and educate the people of God by teaching them from the Scriptures. Jesus, in the great commission, commands the church to “Go, teach all nations” till the end of time. This is what we must do. The preaching of the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes.

Today, the argument is given that people have short attention spans, and that they communicate differently, so we need to communicate differently to them. And so we have what's called “contemporary worship,” which is largely a display of the artistic talent of different people in order to entertain. We must not capitulate to this urge to modernize. God's method is tried and true. The emptying out of large churches that have no substance, is proof that these new methods are not fruitful. God has commanded the gospel to be preached by preachers, not pictured by artists.

It's important for us, as individuals, to find a church that worships the Lord properly and preaches His Word faithfully. We need this for our own salvation.