Growing up, I don’t know how many times we would ride through narrow, winding roads up to Napoleon, Alabama or to Temple, Georgia for a gospel meeting. Usually some of my siblings or cousins would pile in the car with my auburn-headed Uncle Alton, Uncle Angus Shelnutt, or Preacher Miller and head to hear as good of preaching as the South has ever heard. Those were the days I came into contact with Jimmy Smith, Wayne Fussell, Carl Johnson, Jerry Dickinson, Bill Roden, Edwin Morris, Wayne McKamie, Ronny Wade, Joe Hisle and a host of other great gospel preachers. Most of those men are still driving those back roads to preach an old-timey gospel today, while a few of them have preached their last sermon and have stepped down from that honorable pulpit for good.
The preaching seemed different back then than much of what I hear today. Those old-timey gospel preachers didn’t preach anything fancy. It was just a simple, straight gospel. They quoted enough scripture to convert an infidel if they could; then they’d finish strong by reminding every listener – saint and sinner alike – that they needed to heed the gospel call and come in faith and repentance to be baptized for the remission of sins. There wasn’t anything fancy about that. It wasn’t a hard message to understand, even though it may have been a hard one to live.
I loved those days, and I miss them, because we’re seeing a bit of a change. Maybe many of today’s preachers have gotten too much formal education, something few of the old-timers were privileged enough to receive. Or perhaps it is just the era we live in. Men today are tiring a little of old-fashioned preaching. People don’t like having to hear a hard message; so, some say, change the message to one they will like more.
I was thinking of Ada, Oklahoma’s tall Joe Hisle who has been preaching a solid gospel all over the country now for half of a century. Perhaps the big preacher preaches a little too hard nowadays. Maybe it’s time to slow down, speak softer, and turn in those hour-long sermons for mini-devotionals. Maybe the time has come to stop telling the people you’re afraid they’re “getting used to the dark.”
Maybe.
I traveled the curvy roads of Alabama and Georgia many a sultry summer night to hear Brother Joe preach. Back then I was impressed that he preached as straight of a gospel as Preacher Miller and my Uncle Alton, the two men who taught me the most about how a man should fill the pulpit. But that was a long time ago. Perhaps Brother Joe, up in his 70s now, will mellow and start preaching softer, gentler sermons. Or perhaps he’ll answer me in his loud, gravelly voice: “Don't look for it, brother!"”
Joe, I am glad to say, still travels those crooked roads of the South and all over the country to preach the gospel. But I’m still noticing that when he walks into the church door he’s still carrying a satchel full of sermons. And when he stands up to preach they sound like those same old, straight-as-an-arrow sermons he preached back in the old day.
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