The other day I heard someone pray that another person would receive positive medical test results. However, when we are looking for cancer we don't want a positive result - that would mean we have cancer. You see, sometimes positive isn't good.

The Zig Ziglar, Dale Carnegie, and Norman Vincent Peale crowd has yet to grasp this reality. We hear about "positive preaching" and "positive mental attitude," as if perception can trump reality. Pleas for balanced preaching are generally nothing more than a cry to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.

What is positive and what is negative? Positive is supposed to build people up while negative tears them down. Perpetually 'happy' preaching, however, works a most evil result upon its audience.

People who need to hear rebuke (not want hear, but need hear) never do. Would Peter's Pentecost audience have been cut to the heart if he had blasted them with happy talk instead of telling them, "You are the men" (to paraphrase with help from another negativist, the prophet Nathan).

Positive preaching refrains from rocking the boat, which is, of course, perceived to be the greatest risk to church growth. A sinking boat, however, does not always rock before its plunges. Could it be that all this positive preaching is like the band playing on the deck of the Titanic?