In a post from last year, Rev Winzer wrote:

I did not include the thread because I didn't want to spark a debate over the preacher to whom he refers. I would like more information on this 'medieval whip' that Rev Winzer mentions.

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"Preparing a sermon is like cooking a meal. You need pots and pans and utensils, but you don't bring them out to the table where people are eating." Derek Thomas


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While I'm not a mindreader and I make no claims of infallability, here's my guess:

Some people are gluttons for punishment. Feeling pain is to some people "pleasurable." Some people enjoy being convicted of sin... they think something along the lines that being a child of God means I hate my sin, which means that I enjoy it when it is pointed out to me and I feel convicted...

The problem in many cases is that they don't repent and change their ways... they just enjoy getting stung from time to time.

I've known a great many folks in fire-and-brimstone fundy type churches who really get off (at the risk of sounding crude, it really is almost analogous to an orgasmic experience for them) when the pastor has an especially scathing sermon.

When they have that type of "addiction to pain," conviction becomes a means to an end for them... they want the "rush."

Perhaps this is the strange phenomenon to which Rev Winzer refers.

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Ben
Chaplain, US Army
Ft. Riley, KS
TE Ohio Valley Presbytery, PCA

Thankyou Ben; good explanation!

I just want to note that the caution was relative to hearers, and how they responded to the convicting word, not a criticism of preaching which produces conviction.

The heart is deceitful above all things, even with respect to the most genuine operations of the Holy Spirit.

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Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

I think today's version of the Medieval Whip is looking too inwardly and not enough to Christ. I've known a few christians that are so introspective and constantly dwelling on sin in their lives. It gives them some sort of false piety to dwell on how awful they really are. Of course, there's a proper place for looking inwardly and checking our hearts, and examining ourselves to see if we are in the faith. But, if in the process we don't look to Christ and rely on His Sacrifice and His strength we can easily fall into despair!

"Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death." Romans 7:24-8:2

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Yvonne
Reformed Presbyterian
Currently seeking a Church

"A man's most glorious actions will at last be found to be but glorious sins, if he hath made himself, and not the glory of God, the end of those actions." -T. Brooks