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Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today we feature Vance Havner. He was born in 1901 in Jugtown, North Carolina. Through his ministries, Dr. Havner maintained a love for the quiet and simple ways of his more rural past. Eventually, Protestant leaders from many denominations would call Havner and the dean of America's revival preachers. Today, Vance Havner presents a sermon recorded on August 19, 1974. He asks the question, what kind of preacher do we need.
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In these wild and weird and wicked times? The work of the preacher is being rethought and re examined, revamped. Some think his main business, According to Ephesians 4, 13:12, is to be the equipper of the layman for their ministry. He's been pushed away from the center of the platform to the weighings in favor of celebrities and experts and entertainers. But the old book still says, how shall they hear without a preacher? Now, what kind of preacher do we need? Well, we need the same kind we've always needed. Nothing important has changed. I wish some people could find that out. Will you remember it, please, that in the whole realm of thought, not one thing important has changed. We've gone to the moon and split the atom. But nothing important has changed. Now we have a new kind of preacher in some quarters, but we don't need him. There's a lot of cheap preaching going around today. I heard of a fellow years ago when haircuts were 50 cents apiece, who had a barber in the congregation who said, I'll take care of your haircuts. I'll take it out and preach it. The preacher said, well, I'll have you to know I don't have any 50 cent sermons. The barber said, that's all right. I'll come back several times. What kind of preacher do we need? We need anointed preacher, for one thing. The old preachers used to call it unction. I haven't heard that one in a long time. Unguent, Unguentine, the anointed preacher. Now, this unction, this unguent, is not sold over any counter. Simon Magus tried to buy it, but it's not for sale. It's not compounded by any apothecary. It's not put together by chemistry. A preacher may be wrapped in the robes of learning and his study walls may be decked with diplomas, and his home may be filled with travel souvenirs from around the world. He may wear all the trappings of ecclesiastical pageantry, but he cannot function without unction. If he tries it he, he would spend his time taxiing down to the Runway and never take off. John Wesley demonstrated this a long time ago. I don't suppose there ever was a man who started out in the ministry with more formidable qualifications than John Wesley. And yet he wasn't ready to preach. He was an Oxford man. His father, grandfather, great grandfather had all been preachers. His mother one of the godliest women who ever lived. He was a man of prayer and a separated man and a missionary, but not ready to preach. I remember some years ago I went out to the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas for the Evangelistic Conference and I was supposed to preach to the Baptist twice there and up at Southwestern Seminary, once to the students, and then found myself preparing a sermon about John Wesley in spite of everything. And I kept asking myself, what are you doing preparing this talk about John Wesley when you're going to preach to the Baptist? Well, I got up there and over at smu, the preacher boys, how I ever got that invitation I'll never know. But they asked me to come over and speak to them and I said that's where I'll get to use my John Wesley sermon. I said to them what I've just said to you, that with all these qualifications, John Wesley was not ready to preach. And many a pre Aldersgate Wesley today starts out to convert the Indians when he's never been converted himself. In Exodus 30, 30, 33, we read about the anointing oil for the priests and there were three restrictions about it. Upon man's flesh it shall not be poured. Whoso compoundeth any like it, or whoever puts any of it on a stranger shall be cut off from the people. I sometimes think we're rededicating ourselves to death these days. Old Adam's running down church aisles all over the country rededicating himself. Unsanctified flesh that never has died to sin and risen to walk in newness of life is rededicating itself. And God couldn't use it if it rededicated itself a thousand times. Because God cannot use old Adam. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. We need to hang that up all over the churches of America today. It may be religious flesh, it may be educated flesh, it may be well intentioned flesh, but they that are in the old Adam, it takes the new Adam, the new man in Christ Jesus, to please God. Only that. Well, that's why God did not choose many wise and mighty and noble, that no flesh should glory in his presence. God didn't choose the wise. Those People who try to get into the kingdom of God head first instead of heart first. And you can't do it. The only thing I know of that has its head and heart in the same place is cabbage. And you're no cabbage. And then the mighty. How many presidents of the United States can you think of that you believe are born again Spirit filled New Testament Christians. Sort of discouraging, isn't it? Not many mighty and not many noble. The blue bloods who brag about their ancestry all the time. Trouble with this ancestry business, It's a good deal like potatoes. The best part is usually under the ground. You don't get in that way. But no flesh should glory in his presence. They that are in the flesh cannot please God. In the second place, the preacher that we need is authoritative. The other day, one of our preachers down south said we must get away from authoritarian preaching. I think we need to get back to it. We've already gotten away from it. My Lord spoke as those having authority and not as the scribes. A lot of what I hear today sounds like the scribes. There's no king in Israel and every man does that which is right in his own eyes. When authority goes out, anarchy comes in, even in the pulpit. Have you observed that my Lord met the devil? Not in his own name. He could have met him in his own name. He didn't meet him in his own power. Met him with the Scriptures. It is written. It is written. It is written three times. If he could defeat the devil with three verses out of Deuteronomy, we ought to be able to do it with the whole Bible. Don't be ashamed of the old time faith. There isn't anything in this world newer than the old time religion. Why? We have a New Testament about a new and living way that you enter by the new birth and it makes you a new creature with a new name and a new song, walking in newness of life and living by a new commandment, headed for a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem. And almost the last word in the New Testament is Behold, I make all things new. No wonder it's good news. N for north and E for east and W for west and S for South. Old time, new time, any time, all the time. God's not running an antique shop. This thing is old. Yes, but it's new. These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. For several years we had the expression tell it like it is. It's about to play out, and I'm glad. But you can't preach it like it is if you don't believe it like it was. If you don't believe that the scriptures are God breathed and Jesus Christ, virgin born, that he died for our sins and rose bodily from the grave, you can't preach it like it is because that's the way it was. And the way it was is the way it is. You can't preach Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today. If you don't believe what he was yesterday, he still is. My wife was a Quaker, and you know, the Quakers got their name from the fact that they used to quake and shake under the power of God. Trouble today is that not many people are shook up by what they believe, but a lot of them are shaky about what they believe. It's almost the unpardonable sin to be dogmatic. Today, I believe in a dogmatic preacher. I believe in a dogmatic doctor. When I get sick, I want a dogmatic doctor. I don't want him to say, well, it could be this and it could be that. We'll give you these pills, and if they don't kill you, we'll try something else. I want a dogmatic doctor. When I get on the plane, go to Knoxville from here, I want a dogma. I don't want some fellow up there saying, we're going to try something new today. Ah. When I go to church, I don't want to hear an expert in the art of almost saying something. I want him to say it. Sometimes they almost say it. Get right up to it and then make a little detour. Never do. Christ, say it. I don't want to come away from church feeling like I've been out to dinner where they didn't serve anything but Cool Whip. I don't believe that a preacher ought to be apologetic with an inferiority complex in the presence of the new left and the hippies and the jet set. I heard a great black preacher say the other day, I don't belong to the right wing nor the left wing. They're both flapping on the same old bird. If anybody's embarrassed, it ought to be that other crowd, not us. William Jennings Bryan said, the humblest citizen of the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I think sometimes we're trying to fix up things that don't need fixing up. Trying to gild the lily and paint the sunset and hobnob with Sodom and get chummy with Gomorrah. Go to all the love inns to find out what the hippies are thinking. And drink ginger ale at the country club to find out what they're thinking. And read Playboy to know what the world is thinking. What difference does it make what they're thinking? My thoughts are not your thoughts, saith the Lord. We better find out what God's thinking. Some of these avant garde boys today ought to wake up. The devil told me if I didn't get with it, I wouldn't have anywhere to preach. He told me I'd starve to death. And from the way I look, you may think the devil is right, but I'm doing all right. Just had another good meal. Sandy Cove. I'm doing all right. I'm busier at 73. I will be in October than I ever was in the 50s or in the 40s. Now let me say to any young preacher or any young fellow thinking about it tonight, you say what God wants you to say and he'll find you a place to say. It may not be easy. He not invited you to a picnic, he invited you to a pilgrimage. He didn't invite you to a frolic, he invited you to a fight. But you say it, he'll give you a place to say it. We don't need something new today half as much as we need something so old it'd be new if anybody tried it. They tell us we must have a new lingo today and learn to talk all the new parlance of this day Used to be a problem, you know, now it's a hang up for instance, used to be a blessing and now it's a meaningful experience, whatever that is. So we must be relevant and communicate and dialogue with the now and study the spectrum and seek fulfillment and involvement and get down to the nitty gritty. Used to be itch and now it's allergy but you scratch just the same. What difference does it make? What's your coat? It makes me tired that the professing church today runs along imitating everything the world puts out. You don't have to put on modern attire and pick a guitar and stage rock operas and drop all the way from hymns to hooten nannies to get the word out. They tell us today that the idiom of Isaac Watts is not understandable to the young people today. So we have to drag the gospel in the dirt and get the tune out of the nightclub in order to make it acceptable in this generation, which is a lot of eyewash. It's an insult to the intelligence of the young people of this generation to make a statement like that. Young people are perfectly capable and especially under the holy Spirit of understanding what Isaac Waltz was writing about. They study Shakespeare and the old idiom at college. They ask the pre med students the language of medicine is not exactly easy or of law. Whoever got out the idea that you have to cheapen the message of the gospel to make it intelligible. They say the end justifies the means. Yes, friend, but the means determines the end. If you use an unworthy means, you spoil the objective before you ever get to it. Then the preaching we need is absolute. This is a day of relativism. What's wrong for me may be right for you. And so on. Black and white have been smudged into indefinite gray. If it was right 50 years ago, it's still right. If it was wrong 50 years ago, it's still wrong. We're living in a day when we don't even win or lose wars. Paul Harvey said of the last two we've had. We were afraid to win them and ashamed to lose them. That's about the size of it. Except nobody will say it except Paul Harvey and maybe a few more. Old Douglas MacArthur said it in Congress. In war there is no substitute for victory that'll last after what a lot of fellows in Washington have said, yawn forever. We need to be definite. I like to hear what one big preacher thinks about another. Joseph Parker said this about Spurgeon. In his day, the only colors that Mr. Spurgeon knew were black and white. In all things he was definite. You were either up or down, in or out, alive or dead. As for middle zones and graded lines and light compounded with shadow. And in a graceful exercise of give and take, he only looked upon them as heterodoxy. And the enemies of the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Beloved, we're dealing in absolutes. The absolute authority of the Scripture, the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ, the absolute sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. And it sounds too dogmatic for some folks because they're living in the fog. They've moved all the way from dogma to smogma. Jesus Christ was absolute. He said, he that is not with me is against me. And he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. And that's absolute. Just two kinds of people. No third class. You see, I remember back in 19 and 12 when the Titanic went down. Some of you do that great ship that was supposed to be unsinkable and the only thing it ever did was sink on its first trip. And when it started out, it was loaded with millionaires and celebrities and people of moderate means and poor people down in the steerage. But a few hours later, after they hit that iceberg, there were only two lists in the canard offices in New York City. Lost and safe. Out on life. Sea. There are all kinds of classifications. But when the voyage is over, it won't matter whether you were a rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, butcher, baker, candlestick maker. Matter whether you lived on the boulevards or back in the backwoods. It won't matter whether you drove a Cadillac or pushed an apple cart through town. Only one thing will. That's absolute. And then the preaching ought to be affectionate. It ought to speak the truth in love. Some preach truth and don't have love. And some have love and don't preach the truth. You got to get the mixture right. A man with one foot in hot water and the other in ice water would be kind of uncomfortable. But you mix it and you get along pretty well. Truth will keep you from dissolving into sentimentality. Love will keep you from hardening into severity. And truth will keep you from turning to sugar. Love will keep you from turning to vinegar. You know, the Lord preserves his saints. He doesn't pickle them. And love is necessary to avoid that unfortunate development. I don't want to finish my course hard and embittered. I've been at it a long time. I've seen some examples, and it's a snare of the devil. And I don't want to go down bitter to my grave. Finally, the New Testament preacher ought to be apocalyptic. He ought to sound like the Book of Revelation. For we are living. We are living in a grand and awful time. In an age on ages telling to be living is sublime. The other day I heard a radio preacher with an outreach across the country preaching from the text. When these things begin to come to pass, lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. And he went on to say that we're approaching the new age of brotherhood and socialism through education, legislation under gospel auspices, paradise of social religion. Just as the crocuses are blooming in the spring, just so we're on the verge of this new day. And I thought, may the Lord have mercy on any preacher who can live in an hour like this and stand in a pulpit croaking about crocuses. This is no time for that. We're living in a day of beasts and seals and trumpets and four horsemen and the harlot on the beasts and scorpions and dragons and the sea of glass mingled with fire and earthquakes and fallen stars and Babylon and the bottomless pit and Gog and Magog and the lake of fire and the downfall of the devil and the great white city coming down. There's no time to tiptoe through the tulips now. For a person who really believes his Bible, good news is bad news and bad news is good news. It all depends on which crowd you're in when they shall say peace and safety. That sounds like good news. But sudden destruction cometh. That's bad news. But the other way, Reeves. When these things begin to come to pass, men's hearts failing them for fear wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes, lift up your head. Bad news is good news. It all depends on which side of the fence you're on. I don't know how you feel tonight. I think I do. I'm not waiting for the abolition of war and poverty and urban renewal. If you want to know what time it is, it's until next time. Somebody asks you what time it is, say, well, it's until. He might look at you a little funny, but tell him, friend, I mean by that he which hath begun a good work will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. I am waiting until he that hindereth be taken out of the way. I am judging nothing before the time. Until the Lord cometh. I am waiting until the fulness of the gentiles be come in. I'm waiting until the times of the gentiles be fulfilled. I'm waiting until he puts all things under his feet. I'm waiting until he subdues all things unto himself. I'm trying to keep myself sincere and without offense. Until the day of Jesus Christ. I'm holding fast what I have until he comes at the Lord's table, I show forth his death. Until he comes, I'm trying to occupy. Until he comes. I'm waiting until all his enemies be made. His footsteps. I'm living in the great. Until the other day, a brother who heard me give that message wrote a letter to me later, and instead of signing it sincerely or yours truly, he just signed it until. That's a good way to sign it. And A.J. gordon, that great preacher of Boston, lies there in the graveyard with this epitaph on the tombstone. Until he comes, we're living in the great. Until not too long ago, the dearest person I've ever known, the sweet little lady who went with me for 33 years over the country and was here a number of times, went home to heaven. She died at 3:15 on Sunday morning and I preached at 11. I remember. And I want to give a bit of a testimony later on this week because God has given me compensation and something to pass on. But when she could no longer speak because of all the apparatus they had in her mouth trying to breathe for her, she still could write. I don't know how, but she managed to scribble this on a pad. I am suffering things that I can't tell you about until. And there she stopped. But I think when we get together over there, we'll forget all about the pain. It won't take five minutes in the glory of his presence to cure us of all that. Oh, beloved, when is he going to make all his enemies his footstool? By the preaching of the gospel? No. By social action. No. Some folks say if you just improve the environment, that'll take care of your trouble. When you're up to your neck in crocodiles, it's no time to discuss how to drain the swamp, friend. We got crocodiles today. And when he comes again, cataclysmically and apocalyptically and suddenly, he's not coming to hold a summit conference with his enemies. He's not coming back to reconcile. He came the first time to do that. He's coming back to destroy and to conquer and to subdue. The day of reconciliation will be over and the day of retribution will begin. The first time he came quietly, a baby in Bethlehem. He did not cry aloud, nor was his voice heard in the streets. There will be a lot of noise next time. The shout the voice of the archangel and the trump of God that will wake up the dead. People used to ask, how could an angel's voice and a trumpet sound be heard around the world? They know better than that. Now a man can blow a trumpet in New York and be heard in Australia. Our ear drums have been shattered by music from the other side of the world. A man can blow a trumpet loud enough to deafen your eardrums. An archangel ought to be able to blow one loud enough to wake up the dead. So that's what I'm waiting for. That just about wraps it up, friend. I'm not looking for signs. I'm listening for a shout. We've had enough signs. Oh, we still have that crowd that Peter wrote about who said there are no signs. Those scoffers. And the next time you see a fellow who says there are no signs of our Lord's return, you've just seen Another sign. He's an animated placard advertising the very thing he denies. When I was a boy, I liked to read the little novels that came out in those days. I always read the last page first. Wanted to see what happened. I'd start over here. Sometimes my hero would be up to his ears in trouble. Didn't look like he'd make it through the next page. But I found myself saying, it's all right. I've known the end from the beginning. Friend, you'll make it. I've got a Bible here that if you open it about the middle, looks like the devil's got it and gone with it. But thank God there's no devil on the first two pages and no devil on the last two pages. Thank God for a book that takes care of the devil. And so I'm looking for that day when all his enemies were made. His footsteps. It's a great day for preaching. Anointed, authoritative, absolute, affectionate and apocalyptic. Father, I pray for any ministers who may be here tonight that thou would encourage them by the Holy Spirit and thy word to tell it as it really is in Thy word. Fear not the face of mortal man. Take care that they are workmen that need not to be ashamed. Making a straight course for the word of truth and bless all the rest. Help us to remember we don't need to be shaky today. We know where we're going, where we came from and where we are. In the light of the word of God, help us to stand unshaken. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.
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You've been listening to Vance Havner. Listen to Faith of Our Fathers each Saturday and Sunday to hear more great 20th century preachers.