The appetite for ear-tickling preaching

"They don’t want to hear healthy teaching. Why? Because people in the church want to own God without giving up sinful lifestyles, and they will not endure someone telling them what God’s Word says about it. What do they want to hear? “Having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions” (v. 3). Ironically, they seek out teachers. In fact, they heap to themselves teachers—but not sound ones. They choose the teachers who tell them what they want to hear. They want what tickles their ears and feeds their lusts. They want what makes them feel good about themselves. Preachers who offend them, they reject. They accumulate a mass of teachers who feed their insatiable selfish appe­tites. And the preacher who brings the message they most need to hear is the one they least like to hear. Unfortunately, preachers with ear-tickling messages are all too abun­dantly available.....The demand creates the supply. The hearers invite and shape their own preachers. If the people desire a calf to worship, a ministerial calf-maker is readily found.”

John MacArthur. Ashamed of the Gospel