May All Who Come Behind Us Find Us Faithful
Each Monday morning I begin a list of items on my to-do list that is virtually the same each week. I must prepare a new sermon for a future day that is about two months or more away. I must polish a sermon I wrote about two months ago awaiting for this Sunday to arrive. I must prepare the Sunday order of services including the songs we will sing and the scriptures we will read. I must prepare a listening sheet that hopefully makes taking notes easier and helps leave an impression in your mind, and along with this a corresponding PowerPoint presentation so that with my fast speaking you do not miss the critical points I wish to make.
Number 9 on my list of twenty items is the bulletin article. Almost every week I write a new one which often is the hardest task I face second only to sermon preparation. During the week I drafted this article, I was looking over old sermons dating back to 2003 only months after I became pastor of the church. If you are willing to allow the preacher a little pride, I must say that over twenty years as pastor has found my subject matter little changed, and the doctrine I preach remarkably consistent. I am trying to say I have not looked for new fads nor for reinterpretations of centuries old applications of the biblical text. With a God who does not change, our interpretations of doctrine should be as unchanging as God Himself. This is not to say our interpretations are always correct and need never change, but it does mean if I find multiple examples of change, if I find many wrong interpretations from the beginning of my ministry, I have done a great disservice to the people of God. I have led a generation of believers down the wrong paths.
As I read and study from past generations of faithful preachers, I do not find radical reinterpretations of God’s word from one century to the next. How is it then that in the last five decades our opinions of morality have changed, the sound hermeneutics of the past have changed, the sanctification of believers seems barely existent, and those we expect to still be faithful are slowly fading away and are in situations where the Lord’s church and their service in it is nearly non-existent. We need not fool ourselves into thinking my ministry is not reaching its end. No—I am not making an announcement. I am simply reminding you how difficult it will be to find a minister who has not compromised with the world to satisfy a culture rapidly descending into the pit of hell. Who will stop it if our preachers have already joined it? Who will stop it when our preachers are not only acquiescing to it but are full of haste to lead the charge?
With God’s help and by His grace, I intend to be that same preacher tomorrow who nearly a quarter of a century ago mounted this pulpit. I hope to die, succumb to a replacement, or fade in my health with my hands still on the reins of God’s truth. There is no mistaking that we are not popular when preaching God’s truth rather than man’s opinions. Writing bulletin articles may be number 9 on my weekly list, but I assure you number one each week is faithfulness to the truth. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever—why is this not our quest?
Pastor V. Mark Smith