Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," March Edition, 2011
Pastor Are You Neglecting Important Themes In Your Preaching Ministry?
Some time ago an honest pastor confessed that as a result of the influence of our ministry he had discovered that he was neglecting important themes in his preaching agenda–themes that did not fit comfortably into the Scofield/Darbyite mentality that most evangelical church goers these days now hold. So, again, what are some of those neglected preaching themes?
There are no doubt quite a number of them, but clearly two are of critical importance. The first is the biblical concept of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the central idea of the New Testament. One has only to do a causal reading of the New Testament to find the kingdom of God phraseology everywhere mentioned. What is this kingdom of God that Jesus declared was “at hand” when He began his public ministry among the Jews two-thousand years ago?
The received dispensational mantra is that the kingdom was “postponed” to the Jews at the end of Daniel’s prophecy of the 69 weeks, and that Jesus is coming back again to “set it up.” Friends, that teaching is a bold-faced lie of the Devil, absolutely delusional, and without one shred of solid exegetical evidence to support it in the entire New Testament. One only needs to academically debunk Sir Robert Anderson’s theory of interpreting Daniel’s prophecy of the Seventy Weeks to send such unscriptural notion packing, once and for all, back to the scrap heap of all past discredited ideologies of the human race.
And yet the mentality still sits deeply entrenched. And as a result the New Testament doctrine of the kingdom goes on being ignored. The same could be said of the theme of a coming universal judgment day. When is the last time you heard a sermon preached on Matthew 25:31-42 or Revelation 20:11-16 with relevant contemporary application? It it doesn’t fit their little pea-brain outline of dispensational theory most preachers won’t touch it! This is apostasy straight from the pulpit! Pastor, wake up!
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