Saving Them From Ignorance

February 21, 2011 #8

Dr. Al Mohler recently spoke to a Pastor's Conference in Jacksonville FL. The following is an excerpt from that message as reported by the Associated Baptist Press on February 15, 2011. These are words well worth pondering and heeding.

Preaching through several chapters from the New Testament book of Romans, Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, posed "a serious question" to 1,300 pastors attending a recent five-day annual Bible conference at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla.

"How many of your people know much of anything about what we have been talking about in the first 11 chapters of Romans?" he asked. "How many people are there who have been sitting in pews for decades who know next to nothing about this, because they've never been taught?"

In a message webcast on the First Baptist Church website, Mohler reminded the audience that the Apostle Paul "was not writing these things to a Ph.D. seminar in some theological seminary" but rather was imparting basic knowledge to "baby Christians" in the first-century church at Rome.

Mohler said "one of the central problems in the church" today is that many people "simply don't know enough to be faithful Christians."

"The nominalism that marks their lives can be traced to a nominalism in terms of their knowledge," he said.

Whose fault is that?

"If we were to absolutely be honest with ourselves, how much time do we actually spend -- even in the lives and programming of many of our churches -- in teaching anyone … anything substantial about and from the Word of God?" Mohler queried.

"The main means by which God saves his people from ignorance is the preaching and teaching of the Word of God," Mohler said. "That's why a conference like this is so important. It's not because we think of the pastorate as a profession set alongside other professions, so we can gather together for a little professional encouragement to go out and be a little better at what we do. No, we believe that those to teach and preach the Word of God are the God-appointed agents to save God's people from ignorance."

The stakes, Mohler said, are high.

"Life and death, heaven and hell, hang in the balance," he proclaimed. "If you do not teach and preach the Word of God, if you do not faithfully teach the Word of God so that your people hear it and understand it and grow upon it, then they are consigned to unfaithfulness, and many will be consigned to hell."

Follow this link and reflect on the combination of these two messages; Mohler & MacArthur.


"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx3ColYGNMM"