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Preachers of Righteousness
by Art Katz - www.BenIsrael.com
A message given by
Art Katz to a group of pastors and lay leaders in Phoenix, Arizona on
Dec. 9th, 2000. It is a message given principally to those who have
the task of bringing the word of God to their fellowships. But
because of the generally worldly nature of church life, pastors are
often compromised to bring biblically correct messages that appeal to
their audiences instead of a word that brings requirement—and
therefore lose the very means by which maturity can be gained.
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I believe that God
wants to make a statement concerning the phenomenon of the preached
word, not only for those who are responsible for bringing the word of
God, but also for the whole church at large. In my observation, we do
not adequately esteem the spoken word as being the word of God. We do
not understand what ‘preaching the word’ means or the
condition of the vessel that brings it. It is the responsibility of
the church to provide the environment and atmosphere conducive to
bringing the word of God. When I say ‘word of God,’ I am
not speaking about a biblical message. It is better understood as the
appointed and express word that God Himself gives.
I have therefore
entitled this essay, Preachers of Righteousness. The thing that makes
any preacher righteous is that he is not speaking his own word. The
word is not his own; it is God’s, and that alone is what makes
it righteous – in the refusal to speak out of his own capability
and savvy. It is a phenomenon that has been so little addressed by
the church. There is hardly any understanding of the dynamic and
great weight of the divine things between God and man involved in
true proclamation. While the world may have its oratory, it is
only in the church that the phenomenon of true proclamation is found.
Preaching is a divine function; it is a phenomenon that needs to be
respected, esteemed, cherished, prayed and travailed for. True
preaching as the word of God can only be proclaimed by a preacher of
righteousness. It means that a divine perspective is being brought to
men on the earth, and more often than not, in the earth. It is a
collision between perspectives and value systems. When God speaks He
is not speaking to adorn, support or endorse what is in the world or
earthly. He is bringing a heavenly perspective unique to Himself. It
is a divine perspective. And invariably that perspective is at odds
or at enmity with that which prevails as the conventional and
acceptable wisdom of the world. God ‘turns over the apple
cart’ of those things that are cherished, esteemed and held dear
by men - even in the church.
The church is
called to be pilgrims, strangers and sojourners in the world. And not
the least of the functions of preaching is to stab God’s
sleeping people into an awareness of the degree to which they have
unconsciously succumbed to the world and its values. One of the
functions of the church is to ‘blow the whistle’ and to
reveal the farce, the falsity, the charade, and the whole deceptive
mechanism that constitutes the world. God is in complete opposition
to the conventional wisdom of the world. And if we knew it and were
hearing that kind of word and receiving it, we ourselves would also
be in opposition with the world. We ourselves would be uncomfortable
and know our pilgrim status and know that we are here for certain
purposes. Are we agitated in our spirit like righteous Lot? Are we
exacerbated by the evil all around us?
It will take
courage to bring a word of that kind because even within the church
itself there is a vested interest in its own self-perpetuation. It
does not want to have its apple cart turned over. And in order to
continue the vices by which it is sustained - often the gifts,
offerings, tithes of its members - it shrinks therefore from
offending. But the word of God in its essence is an offense. So, for
a man to bring such a word, and threaten his own security by
upsetting those who are paying his bill, is almost a contradiction in
terms. To compound the predicament, many preachers themselves are so
ensconced in the system that they do not see the necessity for a word
of this kind. They could not even conceive of it, let alone bring it.
For this reason,
the preached word will be resisted and unwelcome. It brings a
heavenly view into the earthly place. This means that there will be
every kind of powerful opposition by the world’s powers of
darkness. They want to retain or allow their wisdom to be
accepted as normative. The world and its system trivialize the things
that are ultimate and absolute and make absolute and ultimate the
things that are trivial. It seeks to diminish the solemn and
significant things of God - even to keep them from consideration. It
is a complete turning of things upside down. The function of
preaching is to set them right.
True preaching is
to bring the divine perspective to bear in a way that will affect
men’s understanding and their lives. A plumb-line has dropped
from heaven, and adjustments will have to be made with the word that
has come. You cannot go on with ‘business as usual.’ One of
the ways in which I know whether the word that proceeds out of my
mouth has been received is to see to what degree men will continue
with ‘business as usual’ after the word. If the word that
is preached makes no requirement, it is not God’s word. It can
be biblically correct, it can be a wonderful homily, it can encompass
biblical themes, but if it makes no demand, it is not the word of
God. God will not send His word into the earth that we should be
amused and entertained. His word requires, and invariably it is a
radical requirement. And for that reason we hear so little of a true
preached word, for men do not want to be required of, or require of
others what they would not have required of themselves.
One of my great
complaints about the church is how little it requires of its members.
And therefore it is essentially a passive ‘pay-the-bill,’
‘come-for-our-Sunday-fix’ and go home with nothing really
altered. Our witness is therefore almost negligible. We do not
constitute an island of reality in a sea of unreality. We are so one
with that unreality that we cannot distinguish the voice of God when
it comes. We are not attuned to hear a word that calls us into the
heavenly perspective in order that we might live a heavenly life
while in the earth. Such a word would occasion an opposition if not a
persecution to those who bring it - as well as upon those who receive
it. So we intuitively shrink from hearing and considering the word,
which if taken seriously would invite an opposition from the powers
of darkness.
God says that it
pleased Him “through the foolishness of preaching” to save
them that would believe. We need to know that preaching is the
epitome of foolishness. If we do not know it as that, we do not know
what true preaching is. God entrusts a heavenly word to proceed out
of earthly lips, out of a man who is dust and who knows it, and who
is so aware of his frailty. For the true preacher of righteousness,
the proclamation of the word is always an urgent issue of life and
death. He feels that it is a once-and-for-all moment that will not be
given again. He sees it not as a sermon but that very eternity is at
stake. And that is the way we ought also to feel who are hearing that
word. The proclamation of the word is not the exclusive
responsibility of the speaker; there is also a responsibility put on
the people who are hearing it, so as to draw it out of God’s
very heart as something cherished.
It makes a world
of difference what the attitude of that corporate fellowship is. If
they are sitting with arms folded, looking cynical, looking at their
watches, thinking that it is ‘just another sermon,’ then
that is exactly what they will get. But if they feel that this is a once-and-for-all
occasion that will not be given again and that the man who has come
has been sent, then it will affect the character and the quality of
the word that issues out of the man’s mouth. A lot of us, who
are mumbling under our breaths and holding the preacher at fault for
the failure really to deliver the goods, do not know to what degree
we are affecting the spoken word. The Lord may be chastening an
entire fellowship by the diminishing of the word through the
minister, who accepts it as being somehow his own failure. It is a
humiliation that he has to bear in the office that he is functioning
in. It may be the result of his own failure, but equally that of the
fellowship that fails to understand the significance of the spoken word.
What we do on
Saturday night or before a meeting will adversely affect our ability
to hear the word and respond to it. If we were watching television
and think nothing of indulging ourselves in totally unspiritual
conduct, and think that the pastor will bring the goods the next
morning, then we will be dulling our spirits. God will not
accommodate an attitude of indifference or carnal mindset. We should
be up the night before on our knees, if not our faces, praying for
the word the next day. Do we see the word as mere instruction, or do
we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God? We ought
to be bearing the speaker up and identify with him in the peculiarity
of his calling. We should be sensing his trembling and frailty. We
are in something together, and we have got to know it and pull
together if we want the true word of God. And God is not going to
give it if He sees a heart that is not willing to be changed by the
word or even suffer its inconvenience.
The preacher of
righteousness therefore has an unwelcome task. It is a task of an
ultimate kind that requires an ultimate anointing, lest it be
dismissed as merely something interesting or moving. It is God
speaking through a man that requires a man’s life. Something is
at stake in the hearing of the word. Those who heard Paul at Mars
Hill were eternally accountable to God for that hearing. To hear an
apostle once is enough to be held responsible for that word and its
eternal consequence. The whole atmosphere of church life and the
whole corporate character of church would be elevated, deepened, made
more serious, and made more significant if we rightly understood the
phenomenon of preaching. Not least would be the giving of ourselves
in prayerful support of those who are called to this remarkable and
awesome task.
The man who brings
the word is at the same time himself the message. You cannot
disassociate the one from the other. He is not some kind of
antiseptic, impartial mechanism with a voice that God happens to
employ. He is a living organism, and the word’s credibility and
power of penetration are altogether related to the truth of the man
who is bringing the message. If he himself has not lived it, if he
himself is unwilling for the cost of it, then his word will fall to
the ground. It will be an interesting word, but it will not be
requiring. He is for that reason a candidate for the dealings of God
and the sifting that the requirements of God necessarily call for.
You cannot require of others what you have not given yourself.
The proclamation
of the word is not a professional function but spiritual. The man is
integral to the word he proclaims. It may well be that we are getting
shallow words because the men who are speaking are living shallow
lives. They have kept their defenses up. They have kept themselves
safely from the kinds of challenges and threats that would have
deepened their knowledge of God in the school of suffering. They are
unwilling to enter the fellowship of the Christ’s suffering.
They do not want to suffer humiliation and disappointment. And so
they guard their lives in such a way that keeps them from the imprint
of God, and therefore they cannot conceive of the kind of word that
requires. In a word, the true preacher is a sufferer. He not only
suffers while he brings the word, but there has also been a necessary
history of suffering that has preceded it.
I am suspicious of
any man who comes to the pulpit and who has every appearance of
‘having it all together’ and can hardly wait to open his
Bible to let forth. I doubt whether such a one is a preacher of
righteousness. A disposition that is meek and lowly is more
appropriate. In Spurgeon’s generation the pulpit was
called the ‘Holy Desk.’ You were coming up to a sacred
responsibility to which no man was capable. But the pulpit now has
become only a piece of furniture where you place your bible and papers.
The first function
of the word is death. It is a word that must necessarily kill before
it makes alive. It is a word that cuts and wounds before it heals.
But if you are a nice guy and don’t want to offend anybody, then
you void any possibility of life being ministered. If you cannot bear
to see anyone made uncomfortable and you therefore refrain from the
cutting, you disqualify yourself as a preacher. The true preacher of
righteousness needs therefore to have had the experience of the pain
of death in himself that enables him to bring the word of death.
Only then can it become the word of life. If he is self-conscious
about how he is being received and understood, he can forget about
any redemptive word of life. He has got to be dead, both to the
rebuke and rejection of God’s people, as well as their praise.
We can void the
word of God as being the word of God whenever there is any Cross-avoidance
or where there is any unwillingness to suffer disappointment, and
even an unwillingness to bring pain. We live in a kind of a patsy,
religious culture that wants the whole thing to take place in one
meeting so that the people can go home happy. And the pastors who are
acting out of their pastoral concern do not want to see the
congregation agitated or offended. They want the whole thing nicely
wrapped and packaged and delivered in one meeting. But often the man
of God brings a word that is not going to send the people home happy;
he may send them home disturbed or perplexed and let them steep in
the death of that word. In contradistinction, our whole culture is
instant and pleasure-oriented. It avoids pain and suffering, which is
another way of saying it avoids the Cross. And so the service has got
to be an enjoyment, not an agitation that leaves people with
unanswered questions.
The preacher has
got to live with the tension that however much he has prepared
himself and felt assured that this was the word of God, he may well
have missed it. Or even if he brings it, he may well have corrupted
it by some inadvertent thing that will slip out in the course of his
speaking. It might even have the effect of dulling the word or even
contradicting it, or give the hearer a reason to abdicate from the
responsibility of the word because they have found something
defective in what the speaker said. It is an uncanny kind of
suffering that is unique to preaching and the function of the preacher.
It is like walking
through a minefield. God’s people are instinctively looking for
a flaw or a failure in the speaker so that they will have grounds to
invalidate the word itself. So the man has got to live with the
tension of that framework of understanding. The sense of weakness,
the sense of infirmity and the sense of frailty are intrinsic to the
preaching. The man may look virile and sound authoritative, but in
his own heart and experience, he is fully aware that he is a “son
of man.” He is susceptible to the nature of man and its
weakness. And even if he is speaking correctly he is yet capable of
corrupting his own word by some inadvertent illustration, a wrong
inflection, or some kind of thing that will remove the obligation of
his hearers to take that word seriously. It is a remarkable tension.
But I would say that a Christian is one who has voluntarily given
himself to the understanding that living with tension is a form of
suffering intrinsic to the life of faith itself.
Paul speaks about
“preaching Christ.” This does not mean that every message
has got to be ‘about’ Him. The true preaching of Christ
more often than not is implicitly a Christ-centered message even when
He is not explicitly the subject of it. If it truly is the word of
God, then Christ is being preached. What He is in Himself, what He
represents in Himself, the essence of His divinity and humanity is
being set forth in the word - even if the subject is, for example,
about Israel.
Much can be said
of the preparation of a preacher, not in the shaping of his message,
but the shaping of his character, his life, and his own relationship
with God. He needs a private, personal, unseen, devotional time with
God on a daily basis. What the man is publicly is altogether a
statement of what he is in private. If there is no authentic, daily,
continuous and devotional life at the onset of the day, then there is
little likelihood of being the bearer of the word. That is why we can
hear the same message from two different speakers. We yawn at the one
as it goes over our head or bounces off harmlessly, while the other
man is gripping and penetrating. The difference between the two is
that the latter has a continuous, daily intercourse with God in
devotion. And devotion is not devotion if you are going before the
Lord for the express purpose of finding a text or a message for the
day. That is a utilitarian spirit; it is a commercial transaction and
no longer a true devotion.
While it was yet
dark and before the daybreak, Jesus was with the Father in a
communion of prayer in a devotional relationship. It was not for the
purpose of receiving instruction for the day. But when the daylight
had broken and the demands came down, what had been wrought in His
private devotion would then be expressed throughout the rest of that
day. If you are a religious professional, you will not have the time
for that kind of devotional life. You would be too busy with a
multitude of details, and therefore that neglect will be reflected in
the lack of authority and penetration in the word that is preached.
The preacher of
righteousness will trust the Lord for the word to be given. If the
Lord is giving the word, He will be the Alpha and the Omega of it. He
gives the beginning, which is usually creaky, and He will also bring
the end. Preachers like that don’t grow on a tree; they come out
of a fellowship. And their first and early messages are usually an
admixture of flesh and Spirit. He needs, therefore, a loving
environment that can bring correction to his attention at the
appropriate moment. And he can hear and receive because it is not
calculated to shoot him down, but to encourage his growth and
maturity. The church itself is a key factor, providing an environment
in which proclaimers of God’s word come forth.
The bringing forth
of the preachers of righteousness in the Last Days is an exquisite
work of God. But it will not take place without the participation of
saints who understand the drama and the significance of it and are
willing to give themselves in encouragement in the bringing forth of
such men and their word. There needs to be a bearing with him because
he is often going to be ungainly and frequently speak at the wrong
time. He may even spoil an otherwise good service! So it takes
maturity in a people that are not service or success-oriented to bear
with such a man over a process of time, till he comes to a place
where he can bring the word of God to a people.
The preacher of
righteousness brings not only the word of God, but also the voice of
God. How often do we hear those scriptures in God’s lament over
Israel, “They failed to heed my voice...” There is
something about the texture of God’s voice that comes forth in
true preaching. The word brings a dimension, a cogency and a
seriousness in its sounding. You can almost tell where a man is in
the realm of the Spirit by the timbre of his voice. It is an index of
the depth of God’s working in that man that will affect in a
personal way how his voice comes forth. The man is caught up with the
word. The voice of God and the word of God that comes forth are a
statement of the proximity of that man to God over a long course of
time. It will reflect his willingness to bear the dealings of God
that have dug deep and sifted, and refined him. Obedience to speak
the words of God implies that even the expression of those words be
in the mood which God Himself gives - not our own more acceptable
mood or disposition. Our life is not our own; our mood is not our
own; our emotions are not are own. Therefore God has to have the full
possession of mind, body, soul, and spirit.
Something needs to
go forth to raise up men who will bear the word of the Lord,
preachers of righteousness, in every locality in this final
generation - men that are willing for the ‘school of
preaching,’ for the dealings of God, for the Cross of God and
for the sufferings of God. The word of the Lord needs to go forth out
of mouths that can be trusted in order that God’s people can be
fed, nourished, nurtured, challenged, changed, prepared, and fitted
for the Last Days’ obligations upon the church. There are
requirements and mandates called for, especially to cynical,
rationalistic Jews. They will need to see a demonstration, even in
the spoken word, that indicates something more than mere oratory.
They need to see a heavenly discourse coming down from above,
incarnate, being expressed through man. Amen!
Transcription:
James Marlow
Editing: Simon Hensma
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