In my ministry in the last few months I have personally come head to head with a philosophy that denigrates hard preaching. I am not surprised that I have encountered it, but I am surprised at the quarter from which it comes. Here on this website, I want to make it clear where I stand as an evangelist on the subject of Bible preaching. I realize that there will be men who visit this site wondering about my ministerial philosophy and I want to make it clear where I stand on this issue.

Increasingly vocal are the voices that demand a more mild approach to preaching. One should not raise his voice when preaching so as not to drive away the hearers, or at least so goes the rhetoric. There have even been more direct attacks in recent years from some that call themselves Fundamentalists. For instance, in a church in which I preached recently, a significant majority of the congregation left after the morning service never to return because I raised my voice when I preached. To be sure, there is a danger in preaching of “volume without significance” (to quote my pastor, Dr. Charles Surrett). The fact of an increased volume on certain points, however, is not weakness; it is natural communication that serves to strengthen the message in the minds of the listeners. Coupled with the attack on raised volume has come an attack on the kind of confrontational preaching that for years typified and built many independent Baptist churches. One man in a recent article posted on the Internet made these disparaging comparisons when describing a college he recently visited:

[The college] didn’t start off the college year with a “confess all your sins from the summer” meeting, but rather a meeting about a personal, daily walk with God. At dinner with the [college president and his wife], my heart sank once I realized I was the “opening act.” I told them that I wasn’t prepared for large altar calls and “Have Thine Own Way.” They calmed me down and assured me that this was intentional. I was doing a Christian Life Seminar, not “Opening Revival.” My stress level immediately dissipated, and I began to enjoy my seafood again. Personally, I have become less and less encouraged by scheduled “revival” meetings, decisionism, “hard preaching,” and the emotionalism that tags along. I think Christian camps could really adjust here as well. I’d rather take the teens in my church to a week of good exposition through Ephesians than double-barrel messages on music, morals, and movies. We have kids who don’t know the Word, don’t value the Word, and see Christianity through eyes of prohibitions, instead of truth, love, and grace.

It is impossible to read this man without thinking that he is leveling his guns at confrontational preaching. Indeed after going to his website on a few occasions, I am convinced that most who regularly write for the website see great problems with Fundamentalism as it has historically been. Evidently, in the mind of the above quoted author, one of the problems with Fundamentalism is its emphasis on hard preaching. That this attack should come is no surprise. What is surprising and grieving is that this man calls himself a Fundamentalist. I personally prefer the term Baptist to Fundamentalist, but I would subscribe to all of the tenants of historic Fundamentalism.

Anyone who studies history will find out that hard preaching was what defined Fundamentalism as a movement. The movement was largely propagated through Bible conferences that relied on preaching to educate the next generation. Today, many men in my generation are distancing themselves from old-fashioned preaching. In this article, however, I want to let it be known where I stand on the subject of preaching.

First of all, it is necessary to define what I mean by hard preaching. By hard preaching, I do not mean an angry man who gets up for forty minutes and berates mankind, whether in the building or outside the walls of the church. Hard preaching does not necessarily have to be loud, although it may be. One thing that consistently characterizes hard preaching is its confrontation of sin and its call for a decision. Hard preaching should leave no doubt in the mind of the hearer whether or not he is obedient on the particular point that has been emphasized in the preaching. It is here that preaching and teaching find their distinction. Teaching is the dissemination of information without the call to a decision. There is a valid time for teaching and it should take place from the pulpit on a weekly basis. A pastor is not Biblically qualified unless he is apt to teach (1 Timothy 3:2). There were times when our Lord taught the people (Matthew 5:2), that is, he gave them information to correct their thinking and educate them about spiritual things. There were also times, however, when the Son of God preached. He publicly called for the people to make a decision regarding repentance from sin and acceptance of the kingdom of God (Matthew 4:17, 23; 9:35; Mark 1:14; Luke 7:22). When many responded negatively to His preaching and did not accept it, His teaching changed dramatically. Instead of clearly teaching truth, His ministry began to use parables with the intent of veiling the truth from those who had already made the wrong decision about His preaching (Matthew 13:10-11). Hard preaching, then, is preaching that calls the hearer to make a decision either for or against what has been preached. When hard preaching is Bible-based, the listener’s response becomes a matter that will affect eternity.

Second of all, let me state unequivocally that I believe in hard, Bible-based preaching. As a God-called preacher of the Gospel who preaches hard from time to time, I find myself in a great company of men. Consider the following list:

All of these preached confrontationally calling for a decision on the part of the hearers. There will be angels in addition to these that have been mentioned that will also preach to men on earth in the Tribulation period (Revelation 14:6). From this list alone, it would seem that the medium of preaching is important to the plan of God. Consider these observations about the above list:

1. God has chosen preaching irrespective of dispensational boundaries. Beginning with “the seventh from Adam,” God’s preachers have been proclaiming His Truth. Before there was a Bible, before there was a church, before there was a nation of Israel, before the giving of the Law, before there was human government, there were confrontational preachers.


2. God uses preachers to reach people in all walks of life. Whether they are commoners on the streets of a pagan city (Nineveh), Jewish royalty (2 Kings 19:6-7), Jews (Acts 2:4), or Gentiles (Acts 19:10), rich, or poor; God has chosen the medium of preaching to communicate His truth to them.


3. God uses all kinds of men to be His preachers. Paul, an educated Jew; Peter, an uneducated Jew; Isaiah, a scholar; Amos, a farmer; Micaiah, a prisoner – all were used by God to confront sin and proclaim God’s message.

These examples and observations from Scriptural narrative offer ample evidence for the assertion that God has ordained confrontational preaching. But in case the examples are somehow insufficient, He has also given us clear statements as to His chosen medium for communicating truth. There is no doubt that God, while unchanging in His character, has changed the way in which He works with mankind over the years. There was a time when God “winked at” certain things, “but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Therefore, the fact that God used some means in the Old Testament does not necessarily mean that He will use them today. The Old Testament sacrificial system is a prime example. It was the unique tool of God to picture the work of the coming Messiah, but since Christ has come, it is no longer necessary because Christ has fulfilled the typology. Regarding the subject of confrontational preaching, however, God leaves no room for question as to whether He still uses it as a means.

"For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." 1 Corinthians 1:21-24

God here divides the world into two categories of seekers: those who seek for the supernatural and those who seek for wisdom. God has chosen that neither find eternal truth from their preferred pursuit. The Jews do not find it in signs and the Greeks’ wisdom leads to emptiness. When a person trusts Christ as Savior, however, the preaching of Christ fulfills whatever means he used to try to find eternal truth. Christ is the power of God to the saved Jew and the wisdom of God to the saved Greek, but in both cases, the chosen medium of communicating Christ to unsaved man is still preaching.

God reiterates this preference for preaching in three books written to two men who were pastors: Timothy and Titus. Chronologically some of the latest books to be included in the New Testament, these books make it clear that confrontational preaching is still God’s chosen way of communicating the truth. Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:11, “These things command and teach.”

Teaching was to be part of Timothy’s ministry, but is not commanding beyond the mere broadcast of information? To command means that there must be confrontation that demands a decision on the part of the hearer. Again in 1 Timothy 6:17 Paul admonished, “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God.” The word charge means “to give orders, command, instruct, direct” (BAGD). This can be nothing other than a confrontation that demands a decision. To Titus, Paul exalted the medium of preaching in his introduction to the epistle: “God that cannot lie, promised before the world began; But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching” (Titus 1:2-3). After detailing the content of the message that Titus was to communicate, Paul told him how to get it across: “These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee” (Titus 2:15). The balance of a Biblical ministry is all here. Speak is a nondescript word that says that Titus is to make these things known in public by audibly mentioning them. Exhort means that there are times when additional persuasion is needed to get the person to do what is right. Rebuke means a confrontation of the wrongdoing and call for repentance.

As Paul neared the end of his life, he wrote one final epistle to Timothy, bearing his heart for the ministry in which his son in the faith was engaged. The First Epistle to Timothy reads more like a manual while 2 Timothy is more of a heart to heart message of a dying man. Towards the end of his epistle, Paul once again enjoins Timothy: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:1-2). There can be no doubt that the Apostle not only allowed for confrontational preaching, but commanded Timothy to do it. That Paul meant for preaching to mean more than just the dissemination of knowledge is clear from the very next verse: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” Men do not like confrontation that demands a decision. They would much rather hear some options that they can take or leave. They much prefer teachers to preachers. God’s men have always been confrontational, that is, they have always preached, leaving no doubt that there must be a decision made about what has been heard. God still uses preaching.

Today we are seeing the prophecy of 2 Timothy 4:3 fulfilled before our very eyes, not only in the lives of New Evangelicals, but also now in the lives of those who call themselves Fundamentalists. Perhaps men are tempted to leave confrontational preaching because they see that it frequently drives people away. Perhaps they see the likes of Chuck Swindoll, John MacArthur, David Jeremiah, and others who openly claim to be teachers gain huge followings and enjoy great popularity.

Any man who is called of God, however, should not do what he does because it is popular; he should do it because God said to do it. Jeremiah preached for fifty years to a people that wanted nothing to do with accepting his message. Still, he did not stop preaching and confronting sin just because no one liked to hear it. He did what he did because God had commanded him. Indeed, when Jeremiah had decided to quit in Jeremiah 20:9, he found he was unable to do so because of the call of God upon him: “Then said I, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.”

By the grace of God, Paul Crow Evangelistic Ministries will always be about confrontational preaching. God has chosen preaching as a medium, and I do not want to find a better way. I have been a part of a drama ministry in the past, I have been a part of making a Christian television program, I pass out printed Gospel tracts, I read and promote good Christian books, but I believe that these are all side lights to the main event and main means of communication: preaching the Word of God. Let others decry and forsake preaching. By God’s grace, I will continue to do it as long as I am on this earth.