Video of the Week: Saul Williams & the Power of Spoken Words

One of my favorite Poets is the remarkable Saul Williams. His ability to play words in ways that bring new meaning and force unorthodox thoughts through rhyme, cadence and knowledge has played a major role in my understanding of communication. He is a beautiful word-smith and is a fellow believer that poetry as a verbalized performance gives certain pieces a sense of power and beauty that is missing if just read silently from a page. In this weeks clip Saul shows this masterfully. This comes from an older film he did entitled SLAM, and the spoken word poem is, I believe, a section from his Amethyst Rock. The scene is set in the context that Saul’s character has been unfairly arrested and placed in the D.C. prison system and while incarcerated becomes the target of harassment. Another inmate, who also happens to have it out for Saul, is coming up to him with the intention to kill him for some reason I cant remember. All of the sudden, and Saul knowing whats about to go down, he erupts into this spoken word monologue capturing the startled attention of his supposed killer, other inmates, and the in-prison English teacher. He directs his words at his killer but the aim of his poem is to bring the killer into a close relationship with himself showing him the “bigger picture,” if you will, of why it is all these black men are in prison in the first place. Whether you agree with his message or not, one thing is clear; this is a marvelous portrayal of what the power of speech can do and how words and thoughts can change minds and hearts in an instant. No wonder our Lord chose the simple preaching of words to spread His message and Kingdom throughout the world.

Alter Calls: A Denial of Gods Work in Salvation

Where to start? Never with man!  This weekend I am embarking on a retreat with my church’s youth to upstate New York, taking about 50 teenagers to get away, have fun and focus on our Lord.  I am hopeful and excited to spend this weekend with them with the hopes of God doing a miraculous work in their hearts, either bringing them closer in relationship to Him or infact giving them new life altogether.  I am always in prayer for this, before each Bible study, Sunday night youth group, or Sunday School and don’t particulary think that me taking them away this weekend allows God to give life more than any other time, but still I am hopeful. 

   Regardless, there is always a concern I have in taking my kids to this retreat.  There is a preacher on the second day that gives a sermon to all the kids that have come for the weekend (there are other churches there as well) and he always ends with an alter call after a highly emotional driven message.  I’ve never heard a sermon where I walk away saying “Yes, what a wonderful God, worthy to be praised!” or “How I am in need of repenatnce, what wonderful grace Christ has offered!”  I do leave thinking, “I wish there was more Bible.”  And after most of the kids are in tears, the Preacher invites them to the front of the chapel in order to repent, give their lives and pray. 

    Now I am not saying that God is not in the business of using this in order to bring home His own.  God very well could be doing a work in the hearts of various souls there.  What I am nervous about is the false hope he may be giving to those present and the results that usually come from these type of instances.  What is at the foundation of the alter call is the presupposition that the sinner has the ability to bring about regeneration.  That being born again is a matter of someone making a decision for Christ.  That their actual physical action of going up front is them deciding for Christ and that they are therefore now born again.  It is this that disturbs me, that it is in counter distinction with scripture and is really a unique practice (the alter call) not familiar to the majority of the Church’s history. 

“1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.“(John 3:1-8)

Terry Chrisope in a book review of Ian Muuray’s Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring
of American Evangelicalism, 1750-1858, (One of my favorite books to date…I know, I have too many favoritre books.) gives a good account of the issue at hand.  read what he says here.

     “The first and perhaps most fundamental issue to be raised by this book is that of the theology of conversion. Prior to approximately 1830 a Calvinistic conception of human inability and the necessity for the operation of divine grace prevailed among American Protestants except for the Methodists. A corresponding understanding of revival as a sovereign outpouring of divine power accompanied this view. After 1830 the Methodist theology of conversion (known as Arminianism or semi-pelagianism) became gradually but widely accepted. This view sees conversion as dependent on the response of the autonomous human will rather than being the result of the special work of the Holy Spirit. This theology was associated with a new view of revivals, one which saw them as the product of the human means used to promote them. This revised understanding of conversion and revival had no more energetic proponent than Charles G. Finney, whose views came to prevail among American evangelical Protestants…….

Certainly at the center of all these questions, is an issue with which it will be extremely difficult for many [modern churches] to deal objectively and scripturally. It is the issue of the altar call or invitation system (which is not synonymous with inviting people to come to Christ). Murray argues that the use of this device, calling on hearers to respond with some kind of physical movement, such as coming forward in a service, reflects a theology which replaces divine grace with a human ability which is strong enough to respond to God and the demands of the gospel. The older, Calvinistic theology denies any such ability, thus leaving the hearer shut up to divine grace as the only answer to his needs – a grace which must bestow a believing heart as well as forgiveness of sins. The new theology posits full human ability to respond any time one wills to do so; the only thing needed is the presentation to the hearer of the proper motivation to encourage and secure his response. With this view arose the direct appeal to “do something” physical which is embodied in the altar call.

But a great danger is involved here. It is the danger that a physical movement (coming forward) will be confused with a spiritual act (believing on Christ), thus potentially deceiving those who respond with the called-for physical movement. Sadly, such confusion is found too often within [modern Churches] today.

The great difficulty is, of course, that the invitation system has become so institutionalized in [American church] life that many people-laymen as well as pastors and preachers cannot conceive of evangelism taking place in any other way. Indeed, questioning biblical propriety of the altar call would be viewed by many as an assault on evangelism.  And certainly it is the case that the altar call is the means by which evangelists and pastors count converts and by which churches count new members and gauge the effectiveness of preachers. Many people, therefore, will feel threatened by the suggestion that the invitation system as it is commonly practiced is the outgrowth of bad theology. And yet, a careful perusal of the history presented by Murray indicates that this is precisely the case. The altar call was the central innovation of revivalism, the practical and symbolic embodiment of its theology. Its elimination may be the first necessary step toward the recovery of genuine revival.”

Now again, I do not mean to say that God can not do His sovereign work at this weekends coming retreat, by all means I pray for it, I do not want to foster cynicism and a disgust for what they will hear that may be used by God to turn their dead hearts into living flesh.  But I do go with a watchful (and prayeful) eye and do plan to continually present a true offer of the Gospel to those who will hear me, including the teaching of their total depravity and all.  Ultimately, I will have more time with my kids than the preacher ever will, so for this, again, I look forward to our trip.  I mean, where else do you get to see kids intertubing down snow filled slopes ending in an onslaught of icing, sprite and pudding being thrown at them or donuts being launched 50 feet in the air with a tiny 7th grade girl, usually quiet and secluded, being cheered on by friends to catch the donut in her braces filled mouth?  Lets pray that God uses those donuts (and His Word being preached) to knock spiritual life in their souls!

Charles Simeon and Expository Preaching

The study, art and practice of preaching, Bible preaching, has been a major focus of mine with in the past couple of months. I just read through D. Martyn Lloyd Jones Preaching and Preachers, and exactly as was promised to me before I read it, I came away from that book deeply in love with the art of biblical preaching. As I was walking out of school today, I saw someone had left me some papers in my school mailbox. It turned out to be two essays on Preaching. I immediately recognized them from a book my pastor is reading entitled Preach the Word: Essays on Expository Preaching, and they were two essays; first from J.I. Packer and the second from Peter Jensen, who, by the way, I just had the honor of hearing him preach at Capitol Hill Baptist Church about a month ago.

I just finished reading Packer’s essay entitled Expository Preaching: Charles Simeon and Ourselves, and I can not keep from writing about it. First and foremost, this book needs to be picked up just to read the essays contained in it. I haven’t had a chance to get it yet for myself, but just from these two essays alone, I think it’s safe to assume the rest are just as good. J.I. Packer has done an excellent job in making the reader completely forget that Packer wrote it. You are immediately drawn into the life of Charles Simeon, who has quickly become one of by favorite historical figures to read about.

Charles Simeon, born in 1759, lived a life of servitude to his Lord Jesus Christ that is marked by genuine humility, perseverance in the face of constant persecution, and perhaps most notably, his ability to preach the Bible honestly, powerfully, and effectively. What was so important to Simeon though, was that the Bible be preached in an expository manner. Packer eases the reader in to the nitty gritty with this statement:

“Our own constant suspicion, I think, is that our own preaching contains too much of man and not enough of God. [Does this not sound exactly like the definition of preaching constant topical sermons to you, it does to me?] We have an uneasy feeling that the hungry sheep who look up are not really being fed. It is not that we are not trying to break the bread of life to them; it is just that, despite ourselves, our sermons turn out dull and flat and trite and tedious and, in the event, not very nourishing. We are tempted (naturally) to soothe ourselves with the thought that the day of preaching is past, or that zealous visiting or organizing makes sufficient amends for ineffectiveness in the pulpit; but then we re-read 1 Cor. ii. 4— “my speech and my preaching was . . . in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”—and we are made uneasy again, and the conclusion is forced upon us once more that something is missing in our ministry. This, surely, is the real reason why we Evangelicals today are so fascinated by the subject of expository preaching: because we want to know how we can regain the lost authority and unction which made Evangelical preaching mighty in days past to humble sinners and built up the Church. When we ask: what is expository preaching? our question really means: how can we learn to preach God’s Word “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”? What is the secret of the preaching that achieves what our own sermons are failing to achieve?”

For Simeon, preaching a text was not finding a certain text in which you could use Sunday to make a point that has been consuming you or the church’s mind. A preachers job is not to find texts in order to substantiate a certain theological camp and make certain your parishioners are of like mind, no, the point of the sermon was “precisely exposition, bringing out of the texts what God had put in them.”

Expository sermons must be preached from the text, it must have a doctrinal substructure, they will always, if honest to the biblical text, be theocentric in perspective, and always, the sermon must be preached with power; believe it to preach it, don’t preach it to believe it. The Bible was meant to be openly and somberly explored in such a way that the meaning God meant for it to have could clearly come through to its hearers.

“The text chosen should so shape the sermon “that no other text in the Bible will suit the discourse” and nothing foreign to the text must be allowed to intrude. For the prime secret of freedom and authority in preaching, as Simeon was well aware, is the knowledge that what you are saying is exactly what your text says, so that your words have a proper claim to be received as the Word of God.”

Lastly, Packer ends with a most serious and ever so real challenge to todays preachers, a challenge Simeon both met and exemplified, and that is of course personal holiness. The sermon, the preaching, is only so good as the man himself. An effective sermon can only truly come from the heart of a man who has been so influenced and changed by the Gospel and Christ himself. His heart must long for, search for, and see God ever before any words can be spoken for others to search and see God. Packer says this.

“Simeon himself is our example here. The feature of his preaching which most constantly impressed his hearers was the fact that he was, as they said, “in earnest”; and that reflected his own overwhelming sense of sin, and of the wonder of the grace that had saved him; and that in turn bore witness to the closeness of his daily fellowship and walk with his God. As he gave time to sermon preparation, so he gave time to seeking God’s face. “The quality of his preaching,” writes the Bishop of Bradford, “was but a reflection of the quality of the man himself. And there can be little doubt that the man himself was largely made in the early morning hours which he devoted to private prayer and the devotional study of the Scriptures. It was his custom to rise at 4 a.m., light his own fire, and then devote the first four hours of the day to communion with God. Such costly self-discipline made the preacher. That was primary. The making of the sermon was secondary and derivative.” That was primary. If our question is: where is the Lord God of Charles Simeon? we now have our answer. As so often with God’s answers, it takes the form of a counter-question: where are the preachers who seek after the Lord God as Simeon did? This, surely, is the final word, if not of Simeon, at least from God through Simeon, to us who would preach the gospel of Christ in the power of God’s Spirit today. God help us to hear it, and to heed it.”

Thanks be to God for giving us men like Charles Simeon to whom we may look to as encouragement and mentors.