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. 2 Timothy 4:3
A man who was a deacon in one of the denominational churches was responsible for delivering a short message each Sunday during the main service. One Sunday, the deacon stood up and read an article from one of the news magazines. He said that he did so because he had run out of material from the Bible. What??? I know that you are just as astonished as I am at that statement. How could anybody ever run out of material from the Bible? None of us in our own studies of the Scriptures has ever run out of material. Most of the preachers we know will tell us that the deeper they delve into the Word of God for material for their messages, the deeper they realize the well is from which to draw their material. There is only one way in which that deacon could have run out of material from the Bible: he was just too lazy to look for it. And that is just one of the reasons why most of the sermons of modern Christendom are nothing but empty unbiblical fluff.
It might be easier for a lazy deacon to look in a worldly magazine to find something that will appeal to his worldly audience than to look for something from the Bible that they would listen to. After all, the magazine article doesn’t necessarily have to be the truth, it just has to appeal to the listeners’ itchy ears. People today are not looking for the truth, they are looking for something that they can agree with. The Bible’s message that condemns their sin and demands their repentance doesn’t fit their appetite, and so the preacher doesn’t give them the Bible’s message. Because he (or she) is not only lazy but is also a coward.
Even the most liberal of seminaries have Bibles in them, although the teachers may not teach the truth that the Bible contains. There is no excuse for the modern preacher to not know the Bible. But to preach the Gospel and other truths will never do if the modern preacher is to be hired by a modern church. Even if he knows the truth, he must preach what the people want to hear, or be out of a job. But he does so at great peril. Consider the words of Ezekiel 33:6: ‘But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand’. So the modern preacher is not only lazy and a coward, but is also faithless.
The reason people hear empty, ear-tickling messages today is the messenger doesn’t believe the Bible. The miracles recorded in the Scriptures are referred to as myths, and the great doctrinal teachings are reduced to allegories and fables. It’s no wonder that the people don’t want to hear the Bible. The philosophies and deceptions of the world are more appealing to them.
As our text declares, the time has come when people will not endure sound doctrine. May that never be said of us. – Jim MacIntosh