Preaching Without Fear or Favor – Will It Hinder Revival?
By Tim Downs
I remember back when I was a young boy, it was in the late 70s, not to long ago. My mother used to send us to an Apostolic church where we heard the most awesome preaching ever preached! The preaching had a certain sound, a sound of thunder and it made people come to a place of repentance! As you read this article it may take you back to when you used to hear preaching like this!
Over the years things have changed, as I sought to find out why I learned a very valuable lesson. I have found that there are a lot of Pastors and Preachers who have believed that preaching the word with fire and authority keeps people from coming to church, and that if they don’t preach sin so much, and just water the message down a little then we will have larger churches and we can say were in revival. We have (pardon the expression) brought political correctness in as part of the church. It has been said, if we loosen our standard, if we just don’t preach it so hard, if were a little more friendly our church will grow faster!
Do you remember when people would be so convicted of their sins, they would run to the altar instead of having to be begged to come and stand in the altar? Remember when people would bow down and kneel on the altar instead of standing around like a banquet hall? This was because the preaching was done without fear of favor! We need an old fashioned spirit of fire preaching to come back into our churches, a fire from the Holy Ghost that preached real sin, real Hell and real Holy Ghost!
You may say, well people won’t come to our churches. Let me address the problem with this so it’s very clear. For many years, people have blamed standards, harsh preaching and many other things on our churches not growing. The truth is that people just don’t work to win the lost. People will ask on a rare occasion if their friend would like to come to church, and ask in a way that the person feels they really do not want them to come.
We don’t need softer preaching, less standards, worldly music, cafes in the vestibule. We need soul winners! We need to train people to reach the lost! When people are doing the job they were commanded to do, then our churches will grow, people will come, the power of God will be manifest!
We don’t see miracles and signs like we used to because we have watered down the message. We can change this, when we become soul minded, people will fill our churches, we will have real Apostolic revival! This is the time to teach every saint of God to reach out for the lost, to start winning souls. Pastors, start preaching the word with fire once again, you will see people convicted and pray though in your altars!
