I have tried to fashion my life and style around the word of God. And as a result, my style of ministry is without the traditional or the modern affectations the rhythmic Southern Baptist preacher has or the interactive sermons of today's modern high-five and other techniques that preachers use.

To cite these styles, as I have above, is to make no charge about affectations in one's ministry. Some things, I do think, are only showmanship, but I have not stated those above, so please do not arrive hastily at a generalization my words do not afford. I could cite ministerial behavior that is beyond showmanship and repugnant to the ministry of Christ, but my purpose here is something else completely.

The language of the Bible by God's holy prophets is stylistic and peculiar unto itself. I am not referring to the Elizabethan textual aspect the Bible is written in. For us who are Shakespearian trained, such language may be viewed as delightful and an interesting read as literature. So I will spend no time here discussing the nature of the 1611 Bible, as it is known in some circles.

The Bible is written in the language that holy men were God-prompted to speak in to his people. That language was often hyperbole and understatement, symbols and analogies, graphic and harsh. It is not a language that assuages the sin-ridden soul. As a result, the sinful erect a feign sensitivity or a thin skinnedness to things holy when God's word is targeting them. They feel that the man of God's words are too crude and overstated; they should be kinder and loving--they frequently cite with love and kindness have I drawn thee. This new found sensitivity does not become them, since they are hardened to sin and stout against God. And it is not a new found sensitivity at all. It is a technique they employ to maintain their covering for sin.

While in the world and even after coming into the church, their sensibilities were never so heightened as they claim them now, as God's word targets them. Since they are not going to change their behavior, they attack either the messenger or the method of the delivery--the language--as if they are scholars in etiquette or in a knowledge of God's word. It is self evident, they are neither.

The true minister of God, when made to see the grotesque nature of the sins of God's people, will exclaim is harsh terms because of the nature of the sin confronted. Most students of God's word know that truth, but there are those who use any technique and shallow reasoning to divert others from seeing their sins.

A number of years ago, I had a client whose husband could not read. He had skillfully hid this fact from his wife for 20 years of their marriage, using many techniques to disguise that fact. Many sinners, especially those sinners whom we find in the ministry, use any method they can to cover and keep covered their sins--they attack the minister who has the light of God in him; they attack his language; they attack anything they can, but never the truth that he speaks.

In the play Dutchman, by Leroi Jones [Amiri Baraka], the main character's, (Clay) real personality was neatly hidden from the world until Lula refused to allow him to go stealthily through society; she tore all the pretenses off him and revealed his insides. Likewise, the word of God will always tear the clothing off the sinner, regardless of how he/she howls and regardless of where his seat is inside or outside the church.

I am always eager to see what the enemy will place in the mouth of one confronted with God's truth. That is how he will attempt to combat the truth of God's word and the minister of God who is powerfully equipped with God's word. I wait for a response, knowing the truth of God's word wherein I stand, and I am curious about what a sinner will say, while in violation to God's word, yet wanting the word to cover him in his ungodly position.

Look at how God speaks through his ministers: the prophet Isaiah was a man of sophistication and social standing. Today, many colloquially call him the eagle-eyed prophet because of the depth and sophistication of his prophesies. In spite of that, note the harshness of his tone and words when describing the false and deceptive liars who prophesied in the name of their gods: Blind, ignorant, dumb dogs...sleepy, greedy dogs. [Isa. 56: 10-11] In today's society, he would be called a man who is not politically correct for such diction. The disabled, the overeaters, the slow learners, even the narcoleptics would have a claim of politically incorrect speech against him. But God placed in his mouth these words. Of course, any Seventh Grader could refine the diction to make it sound soft and fluffy; for example: His watchmen are all imperceptible men, they seem not to have learned all required of them, they linger a bit long in repose, and bid the table adieu too slowly. You see how foolish this becomes.

Of course the argument in response would be that Old Testament writings were much more harsh and crude than the New Testament writings. And they would add that God is love. But we will allow no comfort for their feet. God has always been love. But to say that God is love is not to state the entirety and end of God. Sure God is love, but he is truth, he is jealous, God is a consuming fire, God is many things. And certainly God is sovereign--a fact that is overlooked by 95% of those who attempt to minister God's word.

Paul warns the church to beware of dogs. Paul said that he fought with men as with beast. [Phil. 3:2; 1Cor 15:32] So the same depiction God uses in Isaiah is also used in New Testament writings. But beyond that, Paul, who is certainly beyond educational reproach, went farther in depicting the situations he fought with in the church. He wrote, quoting from the Cretans about their prophets, "...They are always liars, evil beasts...." Then he stated that their witness is true. [Titus 1:12] If one is looking for crudeness, to call one a liar must be viewed as crude. Or correct, if it is true.

Jesus himself said, when speaking of a king, "Tell that fox...." [Lke 13:32] He was not concerned about political correctness or the king's sensitivity to his words; he simply called him a dog--a fox is canine, hence, of the dog family. The Syrophenician Woman did not run off when Jesus called her a dog. Where was her overactive sensitivity? [Mat. 15:27]

So such protestations of usage are without foundation and are merely a pretense of sensitivity they do not possess. Why not be as sensitive to the odorous smell of their own sin as strongly as they are sensitive to the man of God's pointing their sins out?

Jonathan Swift was a minister during the Elizabethan era and wrote, among his many writings, the classic: A Modest Proposal. In that work he used the most outlandish ideas to develop his point because the condition of the people was so unreasonable and savage. Likewise, Richard Wright, an American writer, used very harsh terms in many of his works to depict the harshness of the conditions that existed in those works--The man who Almost became a Man.

Hyperbole is a literary device; it is the art of overstatement of a situation to highlight it. These techniques are not new. Man's wisdom comes from God; he was made in the image of God, and the Psalmist has written that there is no speech nor language where God's voice is not heard. [Psa. 90] How could it not be; we are his creation, and we reflect his imaginings. Throughout man's writings and throughout man's speech, God's voice is always heard. The great Apostle Paul knew this; that is why he used Greek literature and placed it into the word of God on Mars Hills. [Acts 17:28]

God has always used gross terms, even examples, to demonstrate the horrific nature of man's sins. This occurs in the old and the new covenants. He told Ezekiel that he would make his face harder than their faces in his fight against the people's sin. Look at the almost unbelievable thing God asked Ezekiel to do to demonstrate the horrors of his people's sin: God told Ezekiel to bake bread in their sight so they could see the monstrous nature of the actions and perceive their sins. The grossness of God's request, as seen by our standards, was this: the bread that was to be prepared in the sight of the people was to be prepared "...with dung that cometh out of man [human feces]." Whether the human dung was to cook the bread with [as Dr. Scofield's note interprets] or to be placed into the bread, it was a vulgar act that stunned the prophet. And when Ezekiel protested to God, he was allowed to substitute animal dung instead. [Ezek. 4:12-15]

With our new found sensitivities, we would have said that the prophet was mad. Indeed, God was not mad, but he was angry. This act was to show God's people the vulgarity of their sins.

The language of God's prophets is often strong. But it is that bromide language that identifies and eradicates sin. And it is the purpose of the man of God to show God's people their sin. [Isa. 58:1]

But sinners who are in the church do not like to be shown their sin; they want God to work around it, to excuse it, etc. Jesus has paid the price for us and given us the wherewithal that there be no sin in our lives. For us to continue in sin is to say that God's work was not complete, and was not enough.

The language of God is a masculine language; if one cannot stand it, one should not engage in sin and attempt to stay in God's house. The church is the wrong place for sinners who want to continue in sin because their sins will be uncovered by Godly ministers.

God uses masculine language because only masculine language can accomplish the heavy lifting of sin's removal. God is rooting out, through his word, those who would use God's house and God's people for their own benefit and seek to have a covering for sin. Jesus is the only covering for sin. []

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