Why don’t people listen to their pastors?
Posted at Reformation Scotland:
God sends preachers to announce the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ and to warn people of the dangers of their sin. The message that God wants us to hear is both clear and extremely important. So why don’t people listen? The Covenanting preacher John Welch identifies faults on the side of both the preacher and the hearer. Preachers may get frustrated that their hard work bears such little fruit, while hearers may get frustrated when preachers don’t come across as if they themselves grasp the magnitude of their responsibility. Not only hearers but also preachers can forget that the preaching of the cross, which seems such foolishness, both as to method and content, is after all both the wisdom of God and the power of God.Why people should listen to their pastors
First, the things they preach are absolutely necessary. It is necessary that you are converted and saved, that you turn, and turn for real, that you embrace Jesus Christ, as He is offered in the gospel, etc. This is how you are to be saved, or else lie in your sins and be eternally damned, and sentenced to everlasting torment. Is not the damnation of immortal soul a thing of weight and momentousness? Therefore, is it any wonder that ministers use all arguments to persuade you to do these things, seeing they are so absolutely necessary that, without doing them, all the world cannot save you from hell and eternal ruin.
Second, they are not only absolutely necessary, but of immediate necessity. They must be done without delay. Now or never! There is no repentance after death, and the longer they are delayed, the more difficult they become.
Third, there are great advantages to doing this. O the advantage of gaining even one soul to Christ! The advantage of confirming and establishing one soul in the moment of temptation! It is worth all the painstaking efforts a minister can make, even if he was to labour all his days. Not to speak of the advantages that come to the soul, and accrue to God’s glory!
