p. 16 | The Preaching Needed

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 2, 1901

The Preaching Needed.

The following, from an address by Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, a Presbyterian, to Methodist preachers, written at the request of the Christian Advocate, has a grand, glorious ring in these days of human devices and Biblical criticism: “I exhort you not to be caught by the current delusion that this ‘advanced age’ requires entirely new methods and a new style of preaching, and what is absurdly called an ‘up-to-date gospel.’ This age of ours, with all its mighty mechanical inventions and its increasing mammon worship, has not advanced one single inch beyond its indispensable need of the atoning blood of Jesus and the converting power of the Holy Spirit. All the telegraphs and the telephones, and all the universities, with their boasted achievements in scholarship, have not yet outlawed Calvary and Pentecost. Human nature has not changed; human sinfulness and sorrows have not changed; the Word of God has not changed; the Holy Spirit has not changed; the precious promises have not changed; and what fallen man needed to lift him Godward nineteen centuries ago he needs to-day. Stick to the old Gospel. When God gives you another, preach it, but not before. Don’t waste your breath in defending your Bible; it is self-evidencing. Your commission is, ‘Preach the Word,’ and God will take care of it.”