Let’s face it—right now preaching the Word is out of season. Humanity is experiencing God’s wrath as He gives people over to consequences of sinful choices . . . . Society may be feeling this divine abandonment in our age more than ever before. And the decline in preaching in the church can actually contribute to people’s sense of helplessness. . . .
But the market-driven philosophy currently in vogue says that declaring biblical truth is outmoded. Biblical exposition and theology are seen as antiquated and irrelevant. “Churchgoers don’t want to be preached to anymore,” this philosophy says. “The baby-boom generation won’t just sit in the pew while someone up front preaches. They are products of a media-driven generation, and they need a church experience that will satisfy them on their own terms.”
But Paul says [2 Tim. 4:2ff.] the excellent minister must be faithful to preach the Word even when it is not in fashion. . . . Paul was speaking of an explosive eagerness to preach, like that of Jeremiah, who said that the Word of God was a fire in his bones. That’s what he was demanding of Timothy. Not reluctance but readiness. Not hesitation but fearlessness. No cool talk but the fire of the Word of God.
—John F. MacArthur, Jr., Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes Like the World, 33
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