When I study church history, especially seasons of
revival, I find a common thread in the
preaching of those men whom God used mildly
in the midst of revival.
It's basically the core message of the gospel,
repentance, that God demands repentance from all sinners
and you must repent or perish.
Now, I know that goes against the teaching
of a long-deceased and very wrong-headed
seminary professor who founded a seminary and taught
repentance is not necessary for salvation.
And this error birthed the only-believed gospel
of our day, which was the mainspring of
football stadium crusades who had you walking out
for Jesus.
But I know this for a fact as
well, friends.
A few years ago I was standing speaking
with one of Billy Graham's nephews, Jim Wilson,
and this is what he told me.
He once asked Billy Graham, when he was
older, if he had any regrets and he
posed this question to him.
Uncle Billy, if you could go back and
do it all again, what would you change?
What would you do differently?
He said they were on the back porch
of Billy's home and Billy was sitting in
his favorite chair and he got a faraway
look in his eye and answered, I would
have preached repentance more.
And I believe, brother pastor, when we all
get to heaven and stand at the beam
of sea to review that we will say
the same to Jesus that we wished we
had preached repentance more.
Listen, friends, if you don't repent, you will
surely go to hell.
I'm just repeating what Jesus taught and when
he sent out the twelve disciples on their
first preaching mission, this is the doctrine that
they preached as well.
We see this in Mark 6, which states,
And they went out and preached that men
should repent.
I reckon Billy Graham should have paid more
attention to his mentor, Mordecai Ham, of whom
Billy Graham came to Christ in a tent
meeting under Ham.
Billy Graham was a member of a church,
but unsaved, and he went to hear Mordecai
Ham and he got mad at the preacher
because Ham called him out as a sinner
who needed to repent.
Ham later would comment, I didn't point at
him and call him a sinner, but the
Holy Spirit did.
And that's the key, friends.
We must preach the gospel in its purity
and proper order so the Holy Spirit can
go to work.
Picture in your mind two millstones grinding at
the mill as they grind flour.
The bottom stone is the preached word of
God, and the top stone is the Holy
Spirit making that connection.
As they turn together, they grind on the
sinner in conviction of sin.
If more preachers preached repentance, more sinners would
be saved.
I believe that, friends.
But the main hindrance to preaching repentance is
the risk we preachers face in offending man.
We look at what happened to another preacher
of repentance who called sin sin.
For John had said unto Herod, It is
not lawful for thee to have thy brother's
wife.
Most pastors don't want to upset the apple
court by preaching disturbing messages to their congregations
because they fear the good deacons more than
they fear Almighty God.
They don't want to upset anybody and risk
losing their head.
But the gospel of the Son of God
had a bloody cross right smack dab in
the middle of it.
And unless you repent, friend, you will die
in your sins and be cast into a
devil's hell that is full of the unrepentant.