The Language of LIFE
THERE
IS A WONDER IN THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL. Those who have been
appointed to the task of preaching know that they face an amazing
dilemma. As far as they know, no one is able to hear what they say
with the ears of faith. They wait on the Spirit of God as they preach
to spiritually dead men and women, all the while, directing their
hearers to do the impossible! This would seem a most daunting job,
one fraught with assured disappointment and a sense of futility, were
it not for the language of life that is built into the Gospel.
For
the preacher there is hope in the words employed by the Scripture.
The language itself speaks to LIFE! Though no one is privy to the
inward workings of the Holy Spirit, nor can anyone see a person being
given life through the Word, the preacher is yet told to use language
that only the spiritually living can hear. To the dead sinner the
command is "Come to Christ", "Believe on Christ",
"Call on the Name of the Lord", "Repent" and
"Turn". These are admonitions to the living. The Gospel
addresses living needs, such as hunger, thirst and relief from
burdens. Such terms are exclusive to the realm of the living. The
dead do not know nor can they experience such things.
Sweet
dilemma this …knowing that God alone gives life, the preacher is
told to speak in a manner as if everyone to whom he speaks can hear.
The preacher is thus, gloriously insulated from the burden of making
folks hear, which to him, is an impossibility anyway. However, at the
same time he is commanded to speak to his fellow sinners as if they
can respond. "Wherefore
he saith, Awake thou
that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and CHRIST
SHALL GIVE THEE LIGHT."
-Ephesians 5:14 [KJV]
-Gospel
report by preacher Tim James
Sequoyah
Sovereign Grace Baptist church of Cherokee, North Carolina USA
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