The Question is, Who Gets The Pulpit?

There is a growing demand today to silence the preacher.

Do not preach too long.

Do not preach too hard.

Do not talk about that subject.

Do not say it that strongly.

Be careful. There are children in the room.

Do not make people uncomfortable.

Do not talk too much about sin, judgment, repentance, hell, sexuality, marriage, modesty, worldliness, or surrender.

Apparently, forty minutes of strong biblical preaching once a week is dangerous.

But eight hours of instruction every day is not.

Think about that.

Some parents will remove their children from a sermon because they believe the message is too deep, too serious, or too harsh for them. Then Monday morning comes, and those same children are sent into classrooms for approximately seven or eight hours a day, five days a week.

And make no mistake about it. Education is never completely neutral.

Every curriculum teaches children something about reality.

Something about where they came from.

Something about what a human being is.

Something about morality.

Something about sexuality.

Something about authority.

Something about truth.

Something about the purpose of life.

Something about what should be accepted and what should be rejected.

In other words, somebody is always preaching.

The only question is: Who gets the pulpit?

We have become terrified that the preacher might influence our children while seemingly forgetting that everyone else is influencing them too.

A preacher opens the Bible and teaches that God created mankind, male and female, and suddenly someone worries that the subject is too controversial for children.

Yet children may encounter competing claims about human origins, gender, sexuality, identity, morality, and social structures throughout their education and culture.

Why is biblical teaching considered indoctrination while everything else is simply called education?

Why must the preacher whisper while the culture is permitted to shout?

Why must the church constantly ask permission to speak plainly while television, social media, entertainment, schools, friends, influencers, and the internet speak to our children every day?

Children are already hearing sermons.

They hear sermons from TikTok.

They hear sermons from YouTube.

They hear sermons from musicians.

They hear sermons from celebrities.

They hear sermons from teachers.

They hear sermons from movies.

They hear sermons from their friends.

They hear sermons from advertisements.

Every one of these voices is communicating some vision of what is true, what is good, what matters, and how life ought to be lived.

Then Sunday comes.

The preacher finally stands up with an open Bible and says, "Thus says the Lord."

And someone says:

"Tone it down."

No.

The answer to a culture that speaks boldly is not a church that speaks timidly.

Paul told Timothy:

"Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching." 2 Timothy 4:2

Notice the language.

Preach.

Convince.

Rebuke.

Exhort.

That does not describe a man carefully measuring every sentence according to whether someone might become uncomfortable.

The preacher's responsibility is not to determine how much truth modern society will tolerate.

His responsibility is to faithfully proclaim the Word of God.

Paul warned that a time would come when people would "not endure sound doctrine" but would gather teachers who would tell them what they wanted to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3

That danger did not disappear.

And our children do not need less biblical teaching because the world has become complicated.

They need more.

If they are old enough to hear competing explanations about creation, they are old enough to hear Genesis.

If they are old enough to hear arguments about gender, they are old enough to hear that God created mankind male and female.

If they are old enough to hear the world's ideas about sexuality, they are old enough to hear God's teaching about marriage and purity.

If they are old enough to encounter unbelief, they are old enough to learn apologetics.

If they are old enough to encounter sin, they are old enough to hear about repentance.

If they are old enough to be influenced by the world, they are old enough to be deeply instructed in the Word of God.

Stop treating children as though biblical truth will damage them while allowing the world unlimited access to their minds.

The church should not surrender its children intellectually and spiritually for thirty five or forty hours every week and then become worried that forty minutes of preaching on Sunday might be too much.

Jesus said:

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea." Mark 9:42

We ought to take seriously what is shaping the minds of our children.

Parents have the primary responsibility to teach them.

"And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children." Deuteronomy 6:6-7

Teach them diligently.

Not occasionally.

Not superficially.

Not only when the subject is comfortable.

Teach them.

Prepare them.

Ground them.

Give them enough truth that when competing voices speak, they can recognize the difference.

We do not protect children by keeping difficult biblical truth away from them.

We protect them by preparing them with truth before someone else prepares them with something contrary to it.

So stop muzzling the preacher.

Stop demanding that every sermon be softened until nobody could possibly be offended.

Stop acting as though children cannot handle serious biblical teaching.

They are already being taught.

They are already being influenced.

They are already hearing sermons.

The world understands something that the church sometimes forgets:

Whoever teaches the children today helps shape the adults of tomorrow.

If the world gets eight sermons a day, five days a week, then the church had better stop apologizing for preaching one.