This afternoon Dr. Lawson got very practical, leading the pastors here through “The Ten How To’s of Expository Preaching.” He went step-by-step through the process of preparing an expository sermon. Obviously he could not go into great depth as sermon preparation is something that often takes a semester or two to teach. But he went quickly from point-to-point, suggesting how a pastor can prepare this kind of sermon. He included a helpful handout that outlined the process. Dr. Lawson is a master expositor, so if you are a pastor with any interest in this kind of preaching, you’ll want to download both the handout and the audio. I’m sure both will be available before long.

Dr. Lawson concluded the conference by preaching a sermon on Amos 8, focusing on verse 11. He did this both to provide a challenge to the preachers in attendance and to model the exposition he and MacArthur have taught over the past two days. This verse from Amos includes words that gave title to one of his books: Famine in the Land.

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.”

At this time it would seem that evangelicals have more power and clout than at any other time in history, yet the church is not as healthy as she should be. The church is wretched, poor, miserable, blind and naked. There is great self-deception. What is needed is for us to understand that we are living in times of famine where there is famine for the hearing of the Word of God. We are ministering in days that are unprecedented as there has been open rejection of the divine authority of the Word.

Dr. Lawson spoke under five headings:

The Certainty of the Famine - The text begins with “Behold, days are coming.” This is as if to say, “Mark it well that this is going to happen.” God was not suggesting a possiblity but announcing a fact. The famine as going to come.

The Controller of the Famine - It is God who is going to send the famine. The most terrifying thing about this famine is that it comes from the hand of God. This famine will be a far greater famine than any punishment that may come at the hand of the surrounding nations.

The Character of the Famine - The nature of this famine will not be one of bread and water, but one of hearing the Word of the Lord. This will be no ordinary famine but one that is far worse than a famine of only food and drink! There is no greater curse on this earth than when God sends a famine for the hearing of the Word of God.

The Cause of the Famine - When the people did hear the Word of God and when the prophets came to them, they turned a deaf ear and turned away (Verses one through eight outline the transgressions of the people—their dishonesty, disregard, and ungodliness). In the days of prosperity and affluence, the nation rejected the prophets of God and therefore in captivity no prophet would be given them. No word would be heard. Could this be the case again for America today? Never has a nation been so blessed with access to the Word, to Bible training and to godly churches, and yet the nation continues to turn away from the Lord.

The Consequences of the Famine - The famine will be devastating. People will stagger from sea to sea, going to and fro seeking the Word of the Lord. Now they want a word from God (like America the day after 9/11). But they will not find what they are seeking. God will abandon them. Even the strongest of men will faint for thirst, not thirst for water but thirst for the Word.

The conclusion is this: Pastors today have the privilege of setting a table during the time of famine. They need to be men who are faithful, who will preach “thus saith the Lord!” The greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people in this world is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm, unskilled pastors. God has given the church over to this kind of unregenerate minister. But the greatest blessing are those who uphold the standard of sound words and who faithfully declare the Word of God. “May you be faithful. May I be faithful. May we encourage one another. May we stand for one another. May we pray for one another. That we may be faithful in these days of famine in the church…”

And this concluded the inaugural Expositors’ Conference.

One quick note: Throughout Dr. Lawson’s office and along the walls of the Fellowship Hall here at the church are many prints of notable reformers and some of history’s best preachers. I heard several of the people at the conference mention them. If you are one of those and are interested in purchasing similar prints, you can find many of them at ReformationArt.com. I’ve got a few of these on the walls of my office and love to have those great men staring down at me as I work!

In this session MacArthur continued where he left off as time ran out in the last one. As he discusses the value of expository preaching he is, in a sense, preaching to the choir (which is not to say there is anything wrong with that!). The crowd here has assembled to hear exactly this kind of information and receives it eagerly. Being a southern crowd, the sermons or addresses are punctuated by cries of “Amen!” and “Preach it!” and “Yes!” This is something we don’t hear much of in Canada. I suppose there are some who may find it an annoyance, but I love it. And I have to think it’s an encouragement to the man in the pulpit.

So here we continue with problems with failing to preach expositionally.

A failure to do expository preaching…

8. Depreciates by example the spiritual duty of personal Bible study.

9. Prevents the preacher from being the voice of God to every issue of his time.

10. Breeds a congregation that is weak and indifferent to the glory of God and Christ.

11. Robs people of their only true source of help, the Scripture.

12. Produces an attitude of indifference toward divine authority.

13. Lies to people about what they really need.

14. Strips the pulpit of power.

15. Assumes the preacher can change people by his own ability.

16. Reduces the preacher’s words to the level of everyone else’s words.

17. Portrays an attitude of self-love rather than loving God with all your heart, mind and soul.

18. Creates a destructive disconnect between doctrine and life.

19. Denigrates the full glory of God by omitting the attributes and the aspects of His revelation that are somehow unpalatable.

20. Reduces the preacher to the level of every rival preacher.

21. Emasculates the dominion of the pulpit over people’s minds and souls.

22. Disconnects people from the legacy of the past.

23. Removes protection from error and carnality so dangerous to the church.

24. Abandons the duty to guard the truth.

25. Fails to defend threatened truths.

26. Denies de facto that all spiritual blessings flow from one’s relationship with the Lord.

27. Generates selfish, shallow prayer.

28. Fails to leads people to self-denial—to true humility.

29. Cheats people of the means to truly delight in the Lord.

30. Lacks the general manliness of message and ministry.

Once again, if you wish to hear the brief explanations of each of these points, you’ll need to download the audio. Later this afternoon there will be a Q&A and that will be followed by two more addresses by Steve Lawson.

Here’s a winning quote from MacArthur when he was discussing a recent appearance on CNN’s Headline News. They said to him “Will you come on the show and talk about yoga?” He said, “Of course! I don’t care what the subject is. I know what I want to say. I know where I’m going with it.” And those who have seen him on Larry King or any other show know that he always gets there.

Incidentally, MacArthur often mentioned the Emerging Church in this talk. At one point he revealed that he has begun work on a new book that will serve as a follow-up to The Truth War. Since the publication of that book people have said that the book was unloving and that he should not write such books but instead just join in the conversation. So he has decided to write a book that answers the simple question, How did Jesus deal with those who misrepresented the truth? Did Jesus tend towards conversation or condemnation? Those who have studied the gospels will know…

I enjoyed a declious breakfast this morning with Don Elborne (of Rebuild Lakeshore fame) and some other new friends. This followed what was a great night’s sleep—a blessing since I was awfully weary with fatigue last night. No one can make breakfast quite like the southerners, even if they do insist on including grits and gravy with everything. I was assured that the grits down here are the definitive grits and have to say they weren’t quite as bad as some other attempts I’ve tasted, but I still don’t really understand the attraction. But no matter—I need to stop blogging about grits at all these conferences I go to. I think I’m just going to give up on grits altogether.

This morning we have the privilege of having Dr. John MacArthur speak to us. He will speak twice today, both times focusing on an aspect of expositional preaching. He began by discussing the slave metaphor so popular in Scripture in order to help pastors understand how they function as slaves. And from there he will transitioned into a list of dangers of not doing expositional preaching from the pulpit.

You have to view yourself in the big scheme of things as a slave. The language of contemporary Christianity is very man-centered and is all about a personal relationship with God (even though everyone has a personal relationship with Him). It is the language of personal fulfillment—of finding your dreams and purpose. The language of the New Testament is very different—the dominant metaphor is that of a slave. The word doulos or its variations appear over 100 times though it is not always translated as “slave” because that word carries with it so much stigma. But this tends to obscure its fullest meaning and is a liberty translators should not have. It should also be noted that slavery was as disgusting a concept at the time of the Bible as today—it was the absolute lowest status a person could have. It was as hard a sell in that day as it is today.

MacArthur went through many of the New Testament books (and, primarily, through the first few verses) showing how often the authors identify themselves as slaves. See, for example, Romans 1, Philippians 1, Revelation 1, and so on. Though your translation may render the words as “servant,” the literal (and better) translation is “slave.”

A slave is a person whose life is completely controlled by another person. He is completely dependent. This may seem to take us low, but even Jesus Christ took the form of a slave, being subject to a foreign will. His slavery took him down through obedience to the point of death on the cross. The Bible neither condones nor condemns slavery—it merely finds in it the perfect model for understanding the relationship of God to His people. But God’s people are not merely slaves, for God makes them sons and joint heirs and allow them to sit in His throne.

With this paradigm in mind we are ready to understand the mindset of one who serves Christ. MacArthur shared that some time ago he began to consider this question: What are the consequences of non-expositional preaching? He decided to sit down and come up with ten of them. After he sat down and wrote for a while, he had a list of sixty three. He pared this down to fifty and began to share them in this session.

Failure to do expositional preaching…

1. Usurps the authority of God over the soul.

2. Usurps the headship of Christ over His church.

3. Hinders the work of the Holy Spirit.

4. Demonstrates pride. (I’m not 100% sure whether this is really 3b or 4).

5. Severs the preacher personally from the regular sanctifying grace of the Scriptures.

6. Removes spiritual depth and transendance from worship.

7. Prevents the preacher from fully developing the mind of Christ that is critical to his work.

He’s going to pick up where he left off a bit later on.

Those interested in a fuller explanation will have to get ahold of the audio. One particularly interesting quote I noted went something like this: “I never study the Bible to make a sermon. I study the Bible first and foremost for my own soul.” This is something even bloggers would do well to keep in mind! We cannot properly apply the Scripture to others until we have first applied it to ourselves. Here’s another quote that is perhaps just a bit less applicable. “In Russia, when the men are excited, they kiss you on the lips. That’s just a bad custom…”

I’m writing this evening from Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama. I am here for The Expositors’ Conference which is a ministry of Steven Lawson and this church. It is a conference targeted at preachers and one that seeks to foster their love of, dedication to, and skill at expository preaching. Dr. Lawson was kind enough to ask me to come down here to take in the conference in this, its first year. Dr. Lawson will be speaking several times tonight and tomorrow and will be joined as well by John MacArthur.

I had a very early start to my day, leaving the house at 3 something (when taking into account a time zone change) and arrived around 11 after a couple of rather uneventful flights. I enjoyed lunch with Dr. Lawson and some other gentlemen from several states to the north. This afternoon I settled in to (finally!) catch up with some emailing. And then we came to the church tonight to enjoy the first two sessions.

Dr. Lawson kicked off the conference with a message entitled “The Invincible Weapon” drawn from Hebrews 4:12-13. Every great season in the history of the church, he said, and every hour of spiritual awakening has been accompanied by a recovery of biblical preaching. The only true reformation is reformation that emanates from the Word of God. The purpose of this message is to increase our confidence in the power of this invincible weapon. There is no true preaching of the Word of God apart from biblical preaching and there is no true biblical preaching apart from expository preaching. If we wish to see revival and reformation in our day, we must recover this manner of preaching.

The message was structured around seven marks of the supernatural, invincible weapon that is the Word of God.

1. In the opening words of this text we see that the Bible is the divine Word. God is the primary Author who used other authors to record his revelation. Thus it is not the opinion of men or the wisdom of this world, but the truth of the Almighty God Himself. This gives the Word of God the authority of God so that expository preaching carries with it His authority. We speak as one sent by God, under the authority of God.

2. The Bible is the living Word. This book is alive—it is a living book. Anyone who desires a living ministry that brings forth truth must bring the living book. Only a living book, when accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, can bring forth life.

3. The Bible is the powerful Word. Because it is living, it is powerful and dynamic and active. It is fully able to perform all that God wishes to accomplish through ministry. It is powerful to save, to sanctify, to satisfy, to strengthen, to stabilize, to steer, and to sustain.

4. The Bible is the sharp Word. The Bible is the sharpest weapon in any arsenal in the world. Nothing can compare to its razor-like sword. It is all edge—there is no dull side to it. Every chapter, every verse, every word, every jot and tittle is sharp. It cuts, converts, and changes. It cuts both ways, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, it hardens and it heals, blinds and enlightens.

5. The Bible is the piercing Word. This is similar to the last point but advances it further. The Bible penetrates the outward facade of the lives of people and the Word of God alone can get through to people and the very depths of their being. The Word of God penetrates into the hidden recesses of the heart showing a person to be what he truly is.

6. The Bible is the judging Word. The Bible has the ability to judge what it exposes within a person. It is able to sit as judge and preside over our lives and it alone has prerogative to carry its verdict. All things are open before it—it strips the soul and leaves us naked before God.

7. The Bible is the saving Word. The word “for” which begins the text points back to what has come before. Here we’ve seen a gospel invitation for sinners to come to saving faith in this superior Savior the Lord Jesus Christ. We learn, thus, that it is this Word that saves. We can only bring the Word and watch as the Spirit brings the Word to the heart, bringing life.

Though targeted at pastors, this sermon is valuable for any Christian. I’m sure the audio will be available before long and you may wish to consider listening to it that you can have a better apprehension of the wonders of the Word and its unique power and efficacy.

I’ll be back tomorrow with summaries of some other sessions and with whatever other updates I can come up with!