Can Preaching Ever Be Too Deep?
When I was a young preacher, I worked with a lad that loved to insult expository preachers. He would praise the bombastic style and thank God that it wasn’t a dry expositor preaching the night that he was saved. He often accused me of being too deep in the Word. In fact, I heard that a lot from the churches where I would candidate as pastor to the point that I thought that it might be so. I determined that the next church that I preached at I would lighten up and be more bombastic. The result? The people loved me and wanted me to come back, but the pulpit committee felt that I was too shallow. Go figure. Come to think of it, most congregations have loved me but not the pulpit committees. I never understood why Duke University used the name Demon Deacons until I started candidating. C];-)}|>
I have no problem with bombastic preaching but even bombastic preaching should be expository. If you are not preaching what the passage is saying than what are you preaching? More than once I have heard a bombastic preacher start with a verse or passage and then go off to the opposite end of the world. Though what he said might be biblical I had no clue why he used the verse he did as his starting point. There was no correlation between the message and the passage. He was giving a nice and enthusiastic Bible talk but I don’t believe he was preaching.
Neh 8:5-8
5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up:
6 And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground.
7 Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place.
8 So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. (KJV)
This is a perfect description of what preaching is all about. If you are going to be effective in a preaching ministry you need to be sure that the people understand the Word. God said that His word would not return unto Him void not your motivational speech with a scriptural twist. (Isa 55:11) Being excited about God’s Word is fine but rightly dividing it is equally important. Zeal without knowledge is destructive. (Rom 10:2,3)
After all these years, I finally decided to respond to the question, “Can preaching ever be too deep?” Daniel thanked and praised God for revealing the deep and secret things to him.
Dan 2:19-22
19 Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.
20 Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his:
21 And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:
22 He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. (KJV)
The word deep here is an Aramaic word for profound and even unsearchable. God is so high above us in His thoughts and ways that only by Him revealing His inner or deep thoughts can we even begin to understand Him and by that understand man. (Isa 55:9)
“The truth about God is the truth about man and the truth about man is the truth about God.” - Ian Thomas
Since our heart is wicked and deceitful, the only way we can know the truth about God or man is for Him to reveal it to us. (Jer 17:9) In our sinful flesh we can only achieve a shallow understanding of God. Depth of wisdom comes from Him and Him alone.
Ps 36:6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast. (KJV)
We are called to know the judgments of God and His judgments are called a great deep. Man has succeeded in going extremely deep into the ocean, but there are depths we still cannot reach because the pressure is so strong that we will implode. What we have seen has been marvelous, but one wonders what may lie at those greater depths.
God’s judgments are the same. Trying to go into them and understand them requires the help of the Holy Spirit and the preservation of God or our puny minds would implode from the vastness of holiness and wisdom we would encounter. The holiest of us have only dove into the shallows of God’s judgments. There are depths that we will never reach until we get to Glory. Considering the beauty and the wonder of what we have seen it is unimaginable what still lies in His deep. D. L. Moody once had to ask God to pull back on the illumination and presence that God was blessing him with lest he died.
Job 12:22 He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death. (KJV)
Job declared that God is involved in deep things. Have you ever been in such complete darkness that it felt like there was no end to it? To God, no darkness is too deep to hide or to be lost in. He can find anything or anyone even in the shadow of death. When we are right with Him that is a blessing, but a cause of fear when we are not. I am glad that God is deep and can reach deep or I would have never been found.
Ps 92:5-6
5 O LORD, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep.
6 A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this. (KJV)
God’s thoughts are very deep. It is out of His deep or profound thoughts that His wondrous works are wrought. How glorious is the mind of God that can bring forth the universe, man, salvation, and our eternal home? We are looking at a world wrecked by sin and the flood yet we find great beauty all around. The Pre-Fall world would make this look like a garbage dump. Yet, Heaven will be even greater than anything that Adam ever saw. (1 Cor 2:9)
1 Cor 2:9-13
9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. (KJV)
The Holy Spirit is given to us so that we might know the things freely given to us and His Spirit searcheth the deep things of God. The word deep here carries not only the concept of profound but mystery as well. Left to our selves without the Word and the indwelling Spirit God would be just a big mystery. Those without these things are truly lost and confused in a world that seems to have no purpose or meaning. It is a rut with only a grave at the end of the rut.
Yet, the very deep, profound and mysterious God has chosen to love us, save us and give us the opportunity to dive deep into His being and expose our selves to the vastness of His wisdom and holiness. What a blessing!!! How can we then say that it is wrong to seek greater depths and say that preaching can be too deep? To say that means that you miss the truth about God and the truth about man while missing great blessings as well.
Now, can preaching be filled with too much of man and not enough of God? Yes, this is true. There are many theologies that are clearly of man. Because they are complex and only understood by the elite men assume that they are delving deep into God. That is why there is so much division among the sects and denominations. Too much of man’s theology and not enough of the mind of Christ has caused division and confusion, which is clearly not of Christ. (1 Cor 11:18, 19; 14:33 )
If we were to only go into the shallows of God’s thoughts we would see that the division is not of God, but as Paul says is a necessity so that folks can find the truth if they seek Him and His Word. God is so deep that we will never get too deep in our preaching for most of us can barely get past kiddie’s pool depth before we quit and say that is enough, I know all I need to know. Like a child we taunt the ones who hunger for greater depths of wisdom and the knowledge of our gloriously deep and mysterious God. The deeper we go the deeper we will want preaching to be. Let it be always so. Maranatha!!!
