“I Believe in Preaching”: Sermons Available Free of Charge
God-ordained preaching. Preaching is not man’s idea but God’s idea. In fact, you could say that when God created the world, He did so by preaching. God created the cosmos simply by proclaiming a Word (Gen 1:2). We later understand that that Word was none other than the person of the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity (Jn 1:1). Just as a Word created physical life, so it is that the Word of God creates spiritual life (1 Pet 1:23). Indeed, “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ.”
Therefore, God has constituted that the gospel will advance by preaching (2 Tim 4:1-4). To deliver the message, God the Holy Spirit continually raises up preachers. Men, whose lives are to embody the righteousness of the message albeit imperfectly, are called to proclaim the message to a lost world with boldness and conviction. The Holy Spirit has done this in every generation since the apostles. Christianity never depends upon any one man. It depends upon Christ, working in power through His Spirit through the proclaimed Word. The power is in the Word of God!
For these reasons, I believe that Spirit-filled gospel preaching will be needed until the Lord returns. It is not an outmoded form of communication; it is precisely what God knows is needed in the present hour to advance His kingdom. I once heard John Stott say before he died, “I believe in preaching.” Although he added the state of preaching in the world today is “dismal,” it is the medium by which the message must be delivered. For that reason, the church must not discard it but treasure it.
Preaching in the Local Church
Nothing can and should replace hearing a sermon preached live in a local assembly. I urge all my readers to endeavor to be faithful members of a local church where the Word of God is faithfully proclaimed. That experience cannot be replicated by any sermon you watch or listen to online. Hearing a sermon live, in the power of the Holy Spirit, is exponentially better than hearing a recording or watching a YouTube sermon.
That being said, I know that not everyone lives near a local church that teaches the Bible in an expository method, sequentially working through texts of Scripture. In many ways, expository preaching has become a lost art. It is not that I claim to be a master of the craft (in many ways, I am just beginning to understand the first principles related to expository preaching). Indeed, there has been a resurgence in the practice, starting with Martyn Lloyd-Jones and John Stott in the twentieth century, and preachers like John MacArthur and R. C. Sproul in the twenty-first century, but despite the resurgence, there is still a great need for an expository preaching ministry in many towns and cities across the globe. People are thirsting for truth like never before.
Sermons Available to You
For these types of people—people in dry, difficult places—we have made my sermons available free of charge at Unashamed Truth. Not that I consider my preaching to be great. I echo Lloyd-Jones saying that I would not walk across the street to hear myself preach. But I do endeavor to be a faithful witness to the truth. In that regard, I unashamedly commend my messages to you. May they bless and enrich your soul as the Word of God has done to my soul as I have prepared and preached them.
In the coming days, we will announce endeavors to advance the cause of expository preaching and warm, experiential reformed theology—in other words, God-centered Christianity. May the Lord continue to raise up preachers and anoint His preached Word. Soli Deo Gloria.
