Thought I would share some of what encouraged me:
We're preaching under the scrutiny of the omniscient, holy judge. I agree with Paul in 1 Corinthians 4 who said, "It's a small thing what you think of me," and I say that with all love to you, I can't build my sense of faithfulness on whether you like my sermon. I can't built it on whether you don't like my sermon. I appreciate your commendations. I cherish them. I appreciate your criticisms, I cherish them. But in the end I want to preach to honor the One who is the judge, right? And in the end He's going to reveal the secret things of the heart. He's going to give the reward to those who are worthy of it and only His judgment really matters...
...It's a very serious thing for me, this matter of preaching. Sometimes people say to me, "You spend so much time in preparation, why?" Not because I think you need it, I think God's Word deserves it. I could get by with you because you're such loving folks. And, frankly, with most people a few good stories will do it. But with God it's a different matter. Sometimes if you'll just be kind enough to indulge me when I get down so deep you're drowning, I really do have Him in mind and the honor of His truth...
...And, you know, you look at the evangelical church and you can see a perfect illustration of how the church has fallen victim to this. Christians all over the place are all whipped up to fight abortion and they're all exercised to fight homosexuality and the influence of homosexuals in places of influence and power. And we want to fight the Lesbian trends and we want to fight for religious freedoms in America and we want to preserve prayer in the schools and we want to fight against euthanasia and that all has a place. But I want to tell you something, and you need to understand this...the worst form of wickedness in existence consists of the perversion of God's truth. That is the worst form of wickedness. And the church today is utterly indifferent to that. It doesn't care about that. It treats that with indifference as if it was harmless, as if a right interpretation of Scripture somehow was unnecessary if not intrusive into an otherwise superficial tranquility. Here we are fighting all of this peripheral stuff and given away everything at the heart that defines our whole faith. This is suicide. There's not going to be any church to fight anything if we don't preserve the truth...
...But we live in a time when people want to depreciate sound doctrine. We want a sort of a...well, we want to be more loving. Let me tell you something, we were talking about this down at the Ligonier Conference, R.C. Sproul and I were talking about this a little bit and the idea that I don't want to tell you the truth, I don't want to call error error, I don't want to confront your sin or your error because I love you is just not true. It's not because I love you. If I love you I would seek your best and highest good, wouldn't I? And that's completely connected to your understanding of and obedience to divine truth. So if I don't...if I say...Well, I want this superficial tranquility...I don't think it's loving to do that. Truth is, you don't love them, you love yourself, that's the issue, and what you really do is love yourself so much you don't want them not to like you. Self-love, that's sin. You're afraid if you confront something they won't like you so you'd rather love yourself and have them like you than to love them enough to confront their error, show them the truth which can lead them to the blessing and well-being that produces God's greatest good in their lives. Loss of truth, loss of conviction, loss of discernment, loss of holiness, loss of divine power, loss of blessing...all they want is to get their ears tickled. Tell me a little about success. Tell me a little about prosperity. Give me some excitement. Elevate my feelings of well-being, self-esteem, and give me a bunch of emotional thrills."
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