M&E--Sound the Trumpet

While I am perhaps unfit to post anything derogatory about Joel Osteen and his Prosperity Gospel peers, it is time to revisit a topic that has been on my heart recently. I will try to abstain from the type of diatribe that my strong feelings on this subject tend to evoke.

Spurgeon's words in Morning and Evening for Sept. 20 reminded me of the recent trend in the Evangelical world that troubles me most: Failure to proclaim sin boldly. Can our love for the lost be so cold that we shirk our duty to proclaim the first crucial tenet of the precious Gospel? Spurgeon had it right:

"Take the gospel to them; carry it to their door; put it in their way; do not suffer them to escape it; blow the trumpet right against their ears."

And yet, the Evangelical world removes crosses from its sanctuaries, removes sin from its sermons, removes anything so negative as owning up to our own deep deep depravity all for the sake of drawing the lost to us instead of taking the Gospel to their doorstep in all its potent glory. We have gone far from blowing the trumpet "right against their ears," and are instead in danger of losing our voice altogether as we shout our own praises.

We seek so hard not to offend that the largest Evangelical church in America is led by a man who says,

"It's not a churchy feel...We don't have crosses up there. We believe in all that, but I like to take the barriers down that have kept people from coming." Source: Fox News

Have we gone so far that 35,000 of us follow a man who summarily refers to crosses with the term "all that" and whose primary focus is to give people a feel-good boost instead of the words of Christ? If the cross will keep people from coming to church, how can we expect them to be willing to "Take up this cross" and follow the Lord?

If we refuse even to hang crosses lest we offend some, this is like a man who marries a woman and does not let her out of the house, nor does he tell anyone that he is married to her. The man reaps the benefits of having a wife, but in his heart despises her. This is the essence of cheapening the precious blood of Christ, shed for sin and the reconciliation of poor sinners such as I.

Brother Spurgeon exhorts us to proclaim Christ's words boldly: sin, wretchedness, and all, instead of suppressing them with the intent of drawing larger crowds. If Jesus Himself could draw crowds of thousands while at the same time speaking a harder word than the Prophets, we have nothing to fear when we proclaim truth. Speak. Shout. They will come.