Preaching Urgently! By Leslie Holmes

More than ten years later, I still recall that student who told me he had devised a 17-year plan for completing a 3-year seminary degree. “I’ve got a deal going with the Lord,” he smiled. I asked him to show me where in Scripture God was a wheeler-dealer. He couldn’t!

I also recall another young man who said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury the dead!’” (Matthew 8:21–22). He was saying, “I’ll follow you but I’ll do it on my schedule.”

Then I remembered Felix who responded to Paul’s message by saying, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity, I will summon you” (Acts 24:25). Paul did not preach a theology of “When it suits you!” His Gospel was always Carpe Diem, always with a note of urgency.

Scripture says, “Today, (not tomorrow . . . next year . . . in 17 years) if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (Psalm 95:8; Hebrews 3:15). Do it now! Today!

When God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, “Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac . . . ” (Genesis 22:3). There was no sign of procrastination, no dilly-dallying. Only when Abraham reached that mountaintop did he learn that God’s is always urgent and that He always rewards our faithfulness. The preaching lesson for us from this passage is that God was not after Abraham’s son but Abraham’s heart.

“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4).

I preached not long ago to underground congregations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Russia, and taught at a secret seminary in Serbia. Each of those cities has beautiful church buildings. My hosts, however, said that the message preached in them, like those during the 17th Century English Act of Uniformity, must conform to certain government regulations. Free preaching is not permitted. Even today, there are places in our world where preaching is firmly restricted. Never assume it will never be so where you are. Preach now with urgency!

We must preach urgently because this life is uncertain. “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1). James, in his inimitable way, makes it even more direct: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:13–16).

Today’s edition of our local paper lists obituaries for two preachers. Each was younger than me! One was younger than my son! You and I do not know the date or place of our final sermon. I write this not to alarm you, but so that you might sense that you could soon be preaching for the very last time.

It brings back the advice of Richard Baxter of England, who, contrary to the Act of Uniformity, “preached as never sure to preach again, a dying man to dying men.”

So, with gratitude-filled hearts for your call to preach, go preach and do it with urgency!

Leslie Holmes is a Contributing Editor of Preaching and the former Moderator of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.