We need more clarity, confidence and courage for the truth. No more weak pastors. No more weakness on what matters most.
Thanks for listening to Politics by Faith. I mean that really. Thank you for being here. Thanks for searching this out, this podcast, making it a part of your day. You could be doing anything right now and I don't want to talk about it too much because now you're thinking, well, I could be doing this and I should be doing that.
No, no, no. I'm glad you're here. Try to keep your attention. We did a TV special the other day on John MacArthur, we're gonna put it right here in the podcast feed as well. And the theme that emerged after talking about him for that hour was clarity and confidence and courage.
We'll add another C. Three things we need more of in America for all things that are true. We need clarity for truth, confidence in it, and the courage to share it. After recording this episode, I came across a poem.
If you've noticed that I've been quoting a lot more poetry lately, it's because I bought a book called The American Anthology by Edmund Steadman. It's just an anthology of amazing, the best American poems from 1790 to 1901. The book was published in 19, uh, from 1700, excuse me, 1790 to 1900. The book was published in 1901 and it's great. I've just been going through it and, uh, every poem is awesome.
So this one is from Timothy Dwight. I think we talked about Timothy Dwight the other day, the former president of Yale university from 1795 to 1817. He gave the commencement address in 1776. That's what we shared the other day. So a couple hundred years ago, wrote this great poem.
I love reading old things, old books, old poems, because you realize just like in the Bible, there's nothing new under the sun. And that gives me confidence that we can make it through. And these people who have been through these things often have solutions to these problems too, or at the very least what not to do. But he wrote this poem called The Smooth Divine. He says, There smiled the smooth divine, unused to wound the sinner's heart with hell's alarming
sound. No terrors on his gentle tongue attend, no grating truths the nicest ear offend. So this poem is about a preacher who does not have clarity, confidence, or courage. He's scared, but not even scared, he's too gentle. Doesn't mention hell. Doesn't mention anything that might offend anyone.
I don't want to offend anyone. I want to be politically correct. So I'm just going to speak gently. I want to appeal to as many people as possible. Nothing convicting. Nothing that smacks of judgment. We don't want to, you know, I don't want to say anything that may lead to rip to
repentance. No, no, nothing frightening, nothing upsetting, no terror on his gentle tongue. No grading truths. Don't want to offend anyone. That strange new birth, that Methodistic grace, nor in his heart nor sermons found a place. The Methodistic grace here, this is good. This is your
sinner. You need to repent and experience God's grace. That's what it is. That whole thing? No, not in that preacher's heart or in his sermons. Does that ever come out anywhere? So what does come out? Plato's fine tales he clumsily retold. Trite, fireside, moral seesaws, dull as old. So today the joke is, oh, that preacher
just gives a TED talk or a motivational speech. Back then it was Plato's fine tales he clumsily retold. But it's just empty rhetoric, doesn't mean anything, nothing convicting and nothing of God's word. His Christ and Bible placed a good remove. Guilt, hell deserving and forgiving love.
So we're not going to touch the important stuff. We're going to put Christ, the Bible, it's out of reach, don't need it. To his best, he said, mankind should cease to sin. Good frame required it. So did peace within. So like at best, this preacher's up there and saying, being a good person, just be a good person. Stop sinning. Everyone, okay, we'll just be nice. Let's just all be nice and if we're all nice, you know, love is love, and that's all we need to worry about.
Why? It'll make your life a little better. Good fame required it. You know, people will think nicer of you if you're just a nice person, be a good neighbor, and you'll feel a little better inside.
It's all the same reasons why atheists say you should be a good person. They don't believe in God, but some reason they still believe in good. Okay, fine. Their honors, well he knew, would never be driven,
but hoped they would still please to go to heaven. So the people in the audience who like it, who like the TED Talk, this preacher knows that they're of such high status, their position in society, the preacher knows they'll never give that up. They'll be like the rich young ruler, they'll never give up what they need to.
So why bother? Don't upset anyone. At best, maybe we can hope that everyone kind of wants to go to heaven a little bit. Each week, this preacher, he paid his visitation dues. Coaxed, jested, laughed, rehearsed the private news. Smoked with each goodie, thought her cheese excelled.
Her pipe he lighted and her baby held. So he makes his visits. He has fun, socializes, or placed in some great town with lacquered shoes. Trim wig and trim her gown, glistening hose. He bowed, talked politics, learned manners mild, most meekly questioned and most smoothly smiled.
So, well, maybe we'll do a little social climbing. If I'm in a nice town, then things will be a little bit nicer here, but I'll be all things to all people. At rich men's jests, laughed loud loud their stories praised. Their wives knew patterns gazed and gazed and gazed. Most daintily on pampered turkeys dined, nor shrunk with fasting nor with study pined."
So he'll laugh, play along, do the whole thing and get fed. Whew, man, feast on these delicious, delicious dinners. Never fasting. As the Bible says, when you fast, never bother with that and never want to just study God's word, never pined after studying. All right, here's the conclusion here.
Yet from their churches saw his brethren driven." So the preachers, these soft preachers who are leading these churches. See men leave. See his brethren driven, who thundered truth and spoke the voice of heaven. Chilled, trembling guilt in Satan's headlong path, charmed the feet back and roused the ear of
death." This is good. So this man sees the strong preachers, the men who want to be, who have the courage and the clarity and the confidence to go out and thunder truth and speak the voice of heaven and speak of sin and fight back against Satan and rouse the ear of death. So what does the preacher say? Let fools, he cried, starve on. All that fasting stuff.
While prudent, I snug in my nest shall live and snug shall die." So these blasphemous or weak churches that never shared the gospel message. The great men left and they spoke the truth. The preacher saw that and he said, whatever. Snug in my nest, I shall live and snug shall die. He wanted to be comfortable all the way to the end. How great is that? That poem's over 200 years old.
The moral of that story is go find a church with a preacher who thunders the truth and surround yourself with friends who thunder truth. I read Job 26 this morning. Job thunders that he will keep his integrity amidst it all. He says, as long as my breath is in me and the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness nor my tongue utter deceit till I die. I will not put away my integrity for me. My righteousness I hold fast
and will not let it go." And then my final point, Job 27, he's talking about wisdom here. And he talks about how people will search all over the world for gold and silver and iron and copper and search everywhere for it But what about wisdom? But where can wisdom be found and where is the place of understanding? People go anywhere to find the gold But where do they find wisdom?
Because they can find the gold and the silver and all these other jewels. It talks about all this other stuff. You should go read the whole thing, chapter, uh, Job 26, 27, all these different sapphires and all the rest. And those are valuable, but you can't buy wisdom with it. So how does he conclude this importance of wisdom to man?
He, God said, behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. And to depart from evil is understanding. Wisdom is the fear of the Lord. This concludes my mini sermon. Three points. Find people who thunder the truth. Hold fast to your integrity and never let it go. And the most valuable thing in the world is to fear the Lord.
Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript, commercial free. Website Mike Slater, Outlocals.com, transcript, commercial free. Website, Mike Slater.locals.com