“Salvation is not a result of the will of man. It is not a result of the merit of man. It is not a result of some religious sacrifice on man’s part. It is not a result of the love of man. It is not a result of the good intention of man. It is not a result of the purpose of…
“You don’t know how it feels”, I recognize the voice of Tom Petty crooning over the words of the preacher. For a few moments MacArthur fades out and Petty reigns.
People come, people go
Some grow young, some grow cold
I woke up in between
A memory and a dream
So let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint…
“He chose us to be made holy in Christ. My old man was born to rock. He chose us to become blameless in Ch…So let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint…He chose us before the foundation of the…And you don’t know how it feels.”
The MacArthur-Petty mashup is clearly not working. In this cacophony I’m neither enjoying Petty or getting fed by MacArthur. One of these channels is trying to out power the other and neither one of them are really working, so I change the channel and go on my merry way.
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Something about trying to listen to that sermon, though, stuck with me. I realize that this is a pretty decent illustration of what we face in actuality every Sunday morning. It’s not just the distractions that I’m talking about. It is the spiritual warfare that is taking place.
It didn’t really matter how meaningful the content of the sermon, I simply couldn’t hear it. His passion didn’t matter either. Sure, it drew me in for a bit. It kept me wishing that I could maybe drown out Petty for a moment. But it didn’t matter much because when Tom Petty’s wailing drowned out MacArthur’s passion I was at the mercy of my radio frequency.
For us preachers it is the same thing. We can put together the grandest sermon and deliver it with phenomenal passion but if people aren’t given the ears to hear then it’ll be drowned out by the Tom Petty’s of their heart. They might even “hear” bits and pieces but it won’t enter the depths of their being. No, apart from the work of the Spirit our preaching isn’t going to do much good…it’ll just be one piece to the cacophony of sounds.
We are absolutely dependent upon the Spirit to bring impact from our work. Labor we must. Passionate proclamation is not an option. But if we really understand how important the Spirit’s work is, then we won’t have as much difficulty laboring in prayer just as we labor in sermon prep. The Spirit is powerful and can cause any of the songs of Tom Petty to fade into the background and the preachers words can dominate the frequency of the heart. That is what we must pray for and plead God for every week before (and while) we ascend to the pulpit.
Lord, give them ears to hear.
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Photo source: here
I haven’t a clue what MacArthur sermon was being preached so I just chose this one for the sake of writing the article: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation.
