Hark the Herald Preachers Preach
The Lord is good to His people, Israel (Ex 18:9; Ps 73:1), but He is coming to judge the world in righteousness (Ps 9:8; 96:13; Acts 17:31). His consolation is for Israel (Lk 2:25), but God has already condemned the world (Jn 3:18). Our Deliverer is coming to rescue His bride, from the very wrath He is bringing against the people of the earth (Rev 19:11–21). This is the Lord Jesus Christ, revealed on the pages of the Holy Bible and misrepresented everywhere in the world.
In His first advent, the eternal Son of God came on a mission, to liberate His chosen people from every nation (Rev 5:9). Elect of God, yet enslaved to sin, Jesus paid the ransom to set His beloved free, from bondage to sin and death (Mt 20:28; Rom 6:6; 8:2). This remnant people from every place and generation were predestined to adoption as God’s children, from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4–5; Rom 8:15, 23; 1 Jn 3:1).
Israel was God’s gracious choice (Rom 11:5), to display the wonders of His love…in election (Eph 1:4–5), redemption (Rom 5:8), and regeneration (Rom 5:5). Israel, God’s beloved, is not the world. In fact, the Bible sets the world as the dark foil for Israel. Israel and the world are antithetical. This is why there has always been conflict between the world and the born-again people of God (Jn 15:18; 1 Jn 2:15–17). This enmity will remain until the reprobate are removed on the terrible Day of the Lord (Jn 5:28–29).
Pelagian and Arminian preachers have long troubled the flock of God. By turning the election of God completely around, they have told multitudes of people to enter the voting booth and cast their ballot, to elect Jesus to be their preferred candidate for Savior. They have disregarded the Scriptures, “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation, through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth (2 Thess 2:13).”
In addition, these wicked men charge the men of God with lethargy and sloth because we refuse to transform the church into a thriving business enterprise, to convert goats into sheep, weeds into wheat or children of the devil into children of God. The Arminian preacher will never understand the Gospel of sovereign grace, until it is revealed to him by the Holy Spirit…if that is God’s will to do so.
Gospel preachers are not Jesus’ campaign managers, nor are they salesmen trying to make a customer into a buyer. Gospel preachers never put any onerous of responsibility upon their hearers, to do anything of themselves (1 Cor 1:30). There is zero impetus for Gospel hearers to do anything at all (Rom 4:5).
Gospel hearers are like soil (Mt 13). Soil does nothing except to be what it is…a receptacle for seed, planted by a farmer. Gospel hearers are like dead branches that have fallen off the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and which God the Father retrieves from the ground, to graft into the tree of life…the true Vine (Jn 15:1), who is Jesus Christ. Soil and dead branches do not make decisions or choices.
Christians are the lost people of God in the world. They were never the goats, weeds, or reprobate. The reprobate never become Christians because they are not of God (Jn 8:47). They were not given to Christ (Jn 6:37; 17:2, 6, 24), and so they do not belong to Christ (1 Cor 3:23). They are not His sheep (Jn 10:26), so they do not believe in Him because they cannot hear His voice. God’s Word has no place in them (Jn 8:37). God’s Spirit will never baptize nor abide in reprobate sons of disobedience (Rom 8:9; 9:22; Eph 2:2).
The Christian preacher is not a change agent for the world. He is a light that must be heard. He illumines with Words of understanding, true Words that set God’s captive people free (Is 61:1; Jn 8:32). He is a voice crying out in the wilderness of this dark world.
When Noah, the preacher of righteousness, instructed the people to get on the Ark, it was the family of God who obeyed. When Lot told his family, it was time to leave Sodom city, they obeyed. When Moses preached to a million people, why did they obey him? Was it his political policy? Was it his savvy salesmanship? (Hint: Aaron was doing all the talking!). All of the people God intended to save in these three biblical accounts were saved because His Spirit was upon them and compelled them. There were always unbelievers in the mix.
The same Spirit fills the man of God, today (1 Cor 2:4; 1 Pet 1:12). The Word of God is heralded (1 Cor 2:2; Col 1:28; 2 Tim 4:2). The preacher speaks. He announces, to all people everywhere, exactly what God has done and what He is doing (Mt 24:14; Mk 16:15). He is even privy to some of what God will do, as it is written prophecy in the Bible (there is no other kind of prophecy, today).
Never forget…there are only two groups of people in the world (1 Jn 3:10). They are distinguished by the Word of God, which separates the hearer/believers from the hearer/unbelievers (Rom 10:14–17; Heb 4:12). The only difference between the two is the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:36; Rom 8:9), who is guiding God’s redeemed out of the kingdom of this world and into the kingdom of God’s Son in the Spirit (Rom 14:17; Col 1:13). Hark the herald preachers preach, especially those who preach the truth, as it is in the Bible.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
December 27, 2020
