Before the Sermon, Part 1

The Solemn Duty and Principle of Hearing God's Word

0:02 May I encourage you to turn with me in your own Bibles to the 8th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 8 and verse 18. Our Lord Jesus, speaking to his own disciples, said, Take heed, therefore, how you hear. For whosoever has, to him shall be given. And whosoever has not, from him shall be taken away, even that which he seems to have.

0:44 It is a solemn privilege to hear the preaching. It is a solemn privilege to hear the preaching of the Word of God, a privilege that brings with it many serious responsibilities. And one of those serious responsibilities which accompany the privilege of hearing the Word of God preached is clearly identified by our Lord himself in the words of this text that we began to consider last Lord's Day morning. Take heed, therefore.

1:21 Therefore, how you hear. In our initial consideration of this portion of the Word of God last Lord's Day morning, we saw that it contains a duty commanded by our Lord. Using a present imperative, our Lord says, Be continually paying attention to how you are hearing.

1:50 That would be a literal rendering of the words, We have a serious duty commanded by our Lord. And that duty is followed by our Lord underscoring a very solemn principle. Take heed, therefore, how you hear. Therefore, whosoever, to him that has, shall be given.

2:18 And whosoever has not, from him shall be taken away. That which he seems to have. That which he seems to have. It is our response to the command.

2:30 Of our Lord to take heed how we hear that is buttressed by this solemn principle, that those who truly possessed spiritual understanding as they take heed how they continue to hear will be given yet more spiritual understanding. But those who do not take heed how they hear, while they seem to possess some measure of spiritual illumination, through careless hearing even that which they seem to possess is by degrees taken from them. And in the light of these words of the Lord Jesus, we sought to focus on this great principle of the clear duty of all who are privileged to hear the word of God preached, consciously and carefully to regard the manner in which they hear that word. And after examining several texts which demonstrate why such a duty is necessary, I stated that we would, in the ensuing messages, consider this duty of taking heed to how we hear in three broad categories.

Three Categories of Taking Heed: Before, During, and After

3:56 First, that category which pertains to our preparation for hearing the word of God preached. Then, that category that pertains to our actual discipline of hearing the word preached. And finally, the category...

4:13 The category that relates to our actions after hearing the word preached. Or more succinctly stated, our duty to take heed how we hear before, during, and after the preaching of the word of God. Now, if you and I are to take seriously the word of God from the lips of our Lord Jesus, to constantly be careful with respect to...

4:43 How we hear the word of God, then sooner or later we will have to come to grips with the fact that that taking heed to how we hear involves our preparation prior to the actual preaching of the word of God. And as you seek to prepare your heart for the preaching of the word, my first exhortation is this. Consciously cultivate...

Preparation 1: Cultivate Awareness of the Living God's Word

5:13 Consciously cultivate a fresh awareness that you will be confronted with the very word of the living God.

5:24 Consciously cultivate a fresh awareness that you will be confronted with the very word of the living God. For example, when our Lord Jesus in his wilderness temptation confronted that first temptation from the tempter and said, It is right. It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word...

5:52 He did not say that proceeded as though it were a word that proceeded and now it just lies there, a dead word. But he said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word literally that is proceeding from the mouth of God. In other words, Jesus regarded...

6:17 the written word of God from the book of Deuteronomy as the living God speaking in that very situation in the wilderness. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that is proceeding from the mouth of God. Well, did God come down in the wilderness and speak a fresh word to the Lord Jesus? No!

6:45 But by standing upon that which God has given us... But by standing upon that which God has given us...

6:48 God had spoken centuries before, Jesus is acknowledging that that word inscripturated and written by Moses the penman was nothing other than the word of the living God, as much the word of God as though God thundered it out of heaven there in the wilderness. Yes, and if the Lord Jesus had that regard for the word of God, should not we? For the scriptures say of themselves in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 16, all scripture is God breathed, it is the out breathing of the mind and will of God, and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness. And therefore the terminology, throughout scripture, scripture says, God says, it stands written, all of that terminology is meant to point us to this reality, that standing behind and above and beneath and surrounding every word of God in scripture is the living almighty God himself, our creator, our sustainer, and our judge.

8:16 And if, we are to take heed how we hear, we must develop by the grace of God and independence upon the Holy Spirit, that ability to cultivate a fresh awareness each time we come to the preaching of the word of God. That beneath and around and above, that word that we see in this book, that is open to the psalms at the beginning of our work. The word of God is the thing that is the next chapter in our worship. The word of God is read in the old and new testaments, and then is opened up in one area or another, and expounded to us that this almighty living God who made us and all things, who gives to us life and breath and all things, and before whom we shall stand in the last day. not openly verbalize soliloquy between ourselves and God sometime before we come to the preaching of the word and say something to this effect to our own hearts?

9:31 Oh, you creature made by the living God, whose very breath is given to you by that God, you son or daughter of Adam, who must stand before this God in the last day. And if you are a Christian, you who have been the object of the eternal love and the sovereign electing purpose of this God, and the object of the outpouring of the love of this God in the giving of His Son, oh, heart, awake! This your God is to speak to you in His word.

10:10 We must learn some kind of an internal soliloquy that will enable us to, come with freshness and with the conscious awareness that in the preaching of the word of God, it is the living God Himself who comes to speak to us. Blessed is the preacher who can say of his people, we give thanks to God for you, that when you receive from us the exposition and application of the word of God, you receive it, not as the word of men. Oh, that's...

10:48 That's Pastor So-and-so saying his thing. That's Pastor So-and-so saying his thing. That's So-and-so doing his thing. No.

10:56 But insofar as they have responsibly cut a straight course in the word of truth, 2 Timothy 2 and verse 15, they have brought to you that which is the word of God, without claiming infallibility for themselves, without claiming that their understanding is complete, that their exposition is the most accurate. Nonetheless, if they have not twisted the scriptures, if they have handled the word of God with integrity, that which they bring to you is indeed and in truth the word of God. For God says in 1 Peter 4 that those who speak are to speak as the oracles of God, and you who listen are to receive them as such.

Preparation 2: Repudiate Hindering Sins (1 Peter 2:1-2)

11:42 But then, in this area of preparation for the ministry of the word, may I exhort you, not only consciously to cultivate a fresh awareness that in coming to the preaching of the word, you come to the word of the living God himself, but now secondly, in taking heed how you hear, prior to the preaching of the word, you and I must consciously repudiate by fresh repentance all that would hinder the joyful reception and effective assimilation of the word of God. Now, in addressing this aspect of our study, I want you to consider with me two key texts. The first in 1 Peter chapter 2.

12:44 And this is the most significant passage to my understanding in all of the scriptures on this subject. The second passage is, a parallel passage, not as complete, and it buttresses the perspectives. 1 Peter 2, verses 1 and 2. Putting away therefore all wickedness or malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, as newborn babes long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that you may grow thereby unto salvation if you have tasted the milk Now, you will note that at the end of chapter 1, Peter describes the believer's new life in Christ as a life begotten by the instrumentality of the Word. Look at verses 22 and 23.

13:52 Being begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides. He says your divine begetting occurred in conjunction with the instrumentality of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, the Word which lives and abides. It is not a dead Word. It lives and it abides.

14:20 Other things live and die. All flesh is grass, and the glory thereof. As the flower of the grass, the grass withers and the flower falls. But the Word of the Lord abides forever, and it abides as the Word of the Lord, which He makes effectual to the begetting of divine life.

14:40 So these were a people who, by the grace of God, had known what it was to have new life imparted in conjunction with the Word of God. And that Word came in the form. Of the preaching of the gospel, the latter part of verse 25. And this is the Word of good tidings which was preached unto you.

15:02 So their new life was brought to them in the context of the preaching of the Word of God. Now I'm fully aware of the great theological debate as to whether the Word is an instrumental cause or whether it is an accompanying context. That's not unto edification. One thing is clear.

15:21 Any believer sitting there... among those who receive this epistle would say, If I have new life in Christ, I have it because God used the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, and that Word came to me in the preaching of the gospel.

15:38 I have new life because the life-giving Word of the gospel was brought to me and blessed to me by the Holy Spirit. Now then, Peter is saying, as you've received new life, by means of that Word, that life must be sustained and nourished by continually feeding upon that Word, lightened in verse 2, to wholesome milk imparted to an infant. There are times when the scriptural writers speak of Christians drinking milk in a way that bespeaks spiritual immaturity, but not in this context. And the central exhortation...

16:22 The central exhortation of this passage is in verse 2. The imperative verb is, Long for the spiritual milk that you may grow. That's the central exhortation. You've received life from that Word.

16:37 Now, like little babes, hungering and thirsting for that milk which will enable you to grow, so you are to hunger. You are to long for that spiritual milk that you may grow. Thereby, unto an ongoing and ultimately a completed salvation in Christ. But now notice, prior to the imperative, long for the spiritual milk, Peter says there has to be an activity of putting away.

17:12 Putting away, therefore, if you Greek students, you have an aorist participle preceding the aorist imperative. And you know what that means. That here is an activity that happens, as the weight of an imperative, but it must precede our obedience to the imperative. So Peter is saying, if you're going to truly long for the spiritual milk and grow, there's got to be a spiritual discipline of emptying your spiritual gut of that which will neutralize the benefit of that spiritual milk.

17:48 Now see the application to our passage. Peter is saying to these who've received, who've received life by the instrumentality of the word of God, that they are to long for the spiritual milk that they may grow. But he says your digestive system must be in a good state of health. And if it's to be in a good state of health, then you have got to put away.

18:16 And what does he address? First of all, he says put away all wickedness. And the word can mean wickedness, in the most general sense, all kinds of wickedness. Or it can mean, as it does in one other setting, malice, ill will.

18:33 Most of the commentators that I consulted said it is probably, in the general sense, he uses the word all in front of it. Put away all that could be called wickedness. Get your spiritual stomach cleaned out of all wickedness before you seek to take in the pure milk of the word of God. And then, grammatically, the next three things are grouped together.

18:58 Look at them. And all guile and hypocrisies and envies. All guile. That's deceit.

19:09 It's taken from a verb that you would use if you were to describe what you were doing when you were baiting a hook as a fisherman. It speaks of a person who is not what he appears to be in his dealings with you. He's full of guile and deceit, seeking to catch you. He says, put away, guile, and hypocrisies, pretense, wearing of the mask,

19:34 hearing with a smile, as though all was well. And then he says, all envy, scrudging another what he has because you don't have it, or you don't want another to enjoy what God has given him because you don't think he deserves it. That's envy. And Peter is a realist.

19:50 Though he could say of these people, you have purified your souls in your obedience to the fruit, they had experience, what we have come to learn, to designate as definitive sanctification. They had purified their souls in their obedience to the truth. Yet he acknowledges that so subtle and powerful is the acting of remaining and indwelling sin that he must say to these people, put away all wickedness. Then grouping them together, all guile and hypocrisies and envies.

20:26 And then a final singular thing, and all evil, all speaking. Literally means speaking against or speaking down, we would say running down others with your tongue. Having no more good to do with your tongue than to use it as an instrument to tear down and to destroy the character of others. Peter says, rid your spiritual digestive system of these things.

The Unconverted's Disposition to the Word (John 3)

20:55 Then long for the spiritual food that you may grow. And for you who are not the children of God. I want you to look at one final passage with me. Your disposition to the Word is one described very clearly in John chapter 3.

21:13 As long as you are in your unconverted state and love your sin, for if you're unconverted, that's why you remain unconverted, because you love your sin. And you know that to be converted, you in sin must come to a radical, permanent divorce. The sin of self-righteousness and pride and the lust, the love of the world, the indulgence of your appetites contrary to the law and will of God. And our Lord Jesus said in verse 19 of John 3, this is the judgment that light has come into the world.

21:48 And men love the darkness rather than the light. Why? For their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come to the light lest his work should be reproved.

22:01 But he that is doing the truth, notice, is not just believing, doing the truth. To believe the truth is to do the truth. He is continually coming to the light that his works may be made manifest that they have been wrought in God. My dear unconverted friend, you will not receive the word with profit as long as you are determined to coddle your sins and cling to those sins.

22:26 As long as you are determined to go on a lover of sin,

22:34 you must cry to God that he would enable you to do the right thing. He will enable you even here in this place this morning to repudiate your sins. See them for what they are in the light of God's holy law and the light of the cross of Christ as loathsome and odious and that which can only destroy you and take you into everlasting darkness. And turning from that sin, cast yourself upon the Lord Jesus Christ and ask him to have mercy upon you.

Concluding Exhortation for Self-Examination

23:04 And for you, the people of God, I urge you to ask yourself in some quiet place today, Lord, what is the state of my spiritual digestive system? Am I profiting from the word? Am I taking heed how I hear? And in the disciplines of taking heed how we hear, before the preaching of the word, consciously cultivate a fresh awareness that you will be confronting the very word of the living God and conscious, repudiate by fresh repentance all that would hinder the effective reception and assimilation of that word.