Franklin Camp
Another root of the restoration was Bible-founded and Bible-centered preaching. The men that set about to call man back to the Bible knew the Bible and preached the Bible. The Bible was their textbook. This root is fast drying up. There is too much preaching today that has everything in it but the Bible. I may not know whether a man is quoting from Norman Vincent Peale, or not, but I know enough about the Bible to know when a man is quoting from it. It is a tragedy for a man to get up in the pulpit with a Bible and then never use it. Some would do the church service if they left their Bible at home and got into the pulpit with a stack of magazines and Dale Carnegie’s books so the man in the pew would know what was taking place.
It is high time we put the preacher back in the study with his Bible and let him know we expect him to “get with it and preach it.” Some sermons I have heard recently would not have been tolerated in the country church where I grew up. He might have preached one, but that would have been the limit. They wanted the Bible and a man either preached that or he did not preach.
