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From TeachingtheWord's Bible Knowledgebase

Scripture and the Church

Must the Church Stop Preaching to Millennials?

by Dr. Paul M. Elliott Part 5 of a series. Read part 4.

Leading evangelical spokesmen insist the church must change its methods

because the Millennial generation is different from all that came before it.

What does Scripture say?

Today we continue our examination of three ruinous developments in the church.

Presently we are discussing the second of the three, the growing substitution of

sensory experiences for Biblical preaching.

We have seen that some of today's leading Christian apologists assert that

"traditional preaching" will not "work" with the Millennial generation (those born

since the 1980s). Millennials, they insist, are an inherently different generation

from all who preceded them. To "reach" them we must substitute sensory

experience for "traditional preaching." The most egregious example is the present

project to construct what is purported to be a full-scale reproduction of Noah's Ark

as part of a theme park near Cincinnati, Ohio.

Ministries That Started Well But Are Going Off Course

Before I continue, let me say that over the years I have benefited greatly from the

educational resources published by the two creation apologetics ministries that I

cited in our last article, which have both adopted this philosophy. The Institute for

Creation Research and Answers in Genesis have done a great deal to proclaim the

vital importance of the doctrine of the inspiration and authority of Scripture,

including its historical and scientific accuracy. It is a foolish and sinful deception to

teach, as some do in our time, that God the Holy Spirit gave us Scriptures which

are scientifically inaccurate as a purported accommodation to the alleged ignorance

of ancient man. For God to have done so would make Him a deceiver and a liar.

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ICR and AIG have done a great deal to answer such foolishness. They have also

done a great deal to heighten Christians' awareness and appreciation both of the

vastness of the universe and its incredible intricacies, and of the infinite greatness

of the God who created it. For all of these things we should be exceedingly grateful

to these ministries. But they have now fallen into a clever trap of the enemy by

adopting a philosophy that effectively denies the power of the Scriptures they have

so ardently defended. It is a great tragedy, and it is my prayer that they will see

the error and folly of their position, and repent of it.

Are Millennials Unprecedented?

In a recent issue of ICR's magazine Acts and Facts, chief executive officer Dr. Henry

Morris III stated that "The Millennials remain the most conflicted, opinionated,

optimistic, unsure, and unreached demographic in our lifetimes."1 According to

God's Word, is this actually the case?

When, according to our Creator, has there ever been a generation of sinners who

were not confused?

But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they

are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually

discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

When has there ever been a generation of sinners that was not opinionated – full of

its own fleshly philosophies, and opposed to God?

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen,

being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and

Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew

God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in

their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise,

they became fools… (Romans 1:20-22).

When has there ever been a generation that was not, at one and the same time,

optimistic about the possibility, supposedly, of entering the kingdom of God by good

works – but at the same time was always unsure if they had "done enough" good

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works? When has there ever a generation that we could not refer to as "unreached"?

For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of

God… (Romans 3:22-23)

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously

charged both Jews and Greeks [Gentiles] that they are all under sin. As it is

written: There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who

understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside;

they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no,

not one. Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced

deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing

and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are

in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of

God before their eyes.

In all these statements about the universal condition of man, the Apostle Paul

quotes God's law - the Old Testament. He then concludes:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the

law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty

before God. (Romans 3:9-19)

The things that are said to be new or unprecedented about the Millennial generation

are not new at all. It is totally un-Biblical to say that man has changed and therefore

the church must divert from God's ordained method. Man has not changed. Man is

still the sinful, willful, rebellious creature he has always been. Every generation of

mankind is born in unbelief, born in sin. No generation of man will ever come to the

light of God's truth on his own, because man's deeds are evil (John 3:19).

The Church Must Not Appeal To Pride

Sinful man himself is the problem. Sinful man, apart from the working of God the

Holy Spirit, in all generations despises the things of God. Sinful man thinks the

things of God, the things of His true church, are foolish and weak. Sinful man, in

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every generation, wants to glory in his flesh.

To think that we must make a special appeal to the Millennial generation, to think

that Biblical preaching will not "work" with this generation, is to say that we must

appeal to this generation's flesh and pride in order to reach it. Such an attitude

flatters this generation rather than calling it to repentance.

Dr. J. Gresham Machen lamented this kind of foolish thinking as far back as 1923 in

his great book, Christianity and Liberalism. He spoke of what was heard at that

time, nearly 100 years ago, in modernist pulpits all across America. He said that

the keynote of the modernist preacher was something like this: "Now we have in

the Bible – especially in the life of Jesus – something so good that we believe it is

good enough even for you good people." He said that the modernist preacher was

trying to put people into the visible church "without requiring them to relinquish

their pride; they are trying to help men avoid the conviction of sin."2 It is exactly

what the Apostle Paul describes in Second Timothy 4:3, which is nothing more than

an appeal to the "itching ears" of hearers who will not put up with sound doctrine.

What, in contrast, must be the attitude of Christ's church concerning these things?

What does Scripture say? We shall examine that question as we continue.

References

1. Henry Morris III, "Unlocking the Times" in Acts & Facts volume 43, issue 11, as viewed online at

http://www.icr.org/article/8369 on 11/13/2014.

2. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Co.,

1923), page 25.

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