The Devil Is A Boring Preacher

I have frequently heard the complaint that a message is too plain, that it cuts good people, or that it makes people feel bad. Billy Sunday used to respond to preachers who complained that he rubbed the fur the wrong way to turn the cat around. When sin is exposed, it does hurt those who have embraced that sin. People who live powerless, sinful lives are not simply wayward saints, they are detrimental to the Faith—they threaten the eternal welfare of all who know them because they misrepresent the Faith by their life and they distort the power of God into a pathetic caricature of God’s grace—a pale, anaemic corpse that will destroy all who touch it.

If lost people don’t like the message that is delivered because they’re hostile to the Gospel, the preacher delivering that message is in good company. It is quite possible, even probable, that the professed people of God have been infiltrated by Satan’s henchmen who have insinuated themselves into positions of influence accounting for the hostility. However, if the preacher bores the people of God with the Word of God, something has gone seriously awry. It may be that he has begun preaching just like the devil, and isn’t even aware of what he is doing.

APOSTOLIC PREACHING IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY — Biblical revelation is anything but boring. The biblical account provides the most exciting, engaging story imaginable, which accounts for the reason the Word of God is repeatedly aped in drama, poetry and song. Sermons typically bore listeners because they rest on abstractions at best, or employ clichés and platitudes at worst. Abstract ideas can easily be distanced from human sin. Satan loves such preaching, because it leaves his authority over human rebellion unthreatened.

Paul writes of a time “when people will not endure sound teaching.” Instead, he says people will have “itching ears.” Thus, they “will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away into myths” [2 TIMOTHY 4:3, 4]. Remember, Paul is speaking of erstwhile Christians. According to what is written, they are apostate, having turned away from the truth of the Word. Though continuing to maintain their church membership, they no longer walk in the truth.

The reason these apostates will turn aside from the truth is that they are seeking teaching “to suit their own passions.” Paul is saying that apostates are passionate about their own sin, and they seek myths that support their error. They want sermons that sooth their conscience, that lull them into spiritual somnolence—they demand preaching that is boring. Whilst they want to feel religious, in reality they want to be left alone to enjoy their lethargy.

Apostate Christians can listen to a sermon that tells them adultery is wrong, that urges them to be courteous and mannerly, even sermons that tell them that God has sent His Son to die for wicked sinners—so long as the sermon does not declare the whole Word of God to expose their own heart as sinful and in need of divine mercy and grace. Apostate Christians will snivel that they can’t handle meat, whimpering that they need milk whenever the Word is preached in power. Apostate Christians will tolerate anything that preserves their carefully crafted religious façade so long as it demands little change in their relationship to the Word.