During the Sermon, Part 4

The Solemn Responsibility of Hearing the Word

0:03 Now as we have done for several Lord's Days past, so again this morning may I urge you to turn, please, to the 8th chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, and hear the words of our Lord Jesus spoken to the inner circle of His disciples, having interpreted for them the parable of the sower and the soils, having addressed them with some very sobering, though easy to understand words in verses 16 and 17.

0:42 He then says, in what require no great debate as to their significance, the words that form the basis of our meditation, again this morning, Luke 8 and verse 18. 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 thinks or seems to have. Take heed.

1:27 And come. Constant and careful attention, therefore, how you hear. And these words lay upon everyone who is privileged to hear the pure, powerful, spirit-anointed preaching of the word, a solemn responsibility with respect to the manner in which they hear that word. And the outline by which I'm...

1:57 I'm speaking to amplify this clear biblical duty is not original with me. You will find it in many of the old Puritan works that we are to take heed how we hear with respect to what we do prior to the preaching of the word, what we do during the preaching of the word, and what we do subsequent to the preaching of the word. I'm presently addressing this second aspect, of taking heed how we hear, namely, taking heed to our hearing during the preaching of the word.

Sobering Facts and Specific Directives for Hearing

2:37 And I have set before you the fact that we must, first of all, come to grips with a sobering fact while we are hearing the word of God. There is a sobering fact to be faced while hearing the preaching of the word. And that fact is, that the insidious, soul-destructive influences of our remaining sin and of the devil himself are neither suspended nor negated under the preaching of the word. And then, last Lord's Day, I began to set before you this second exhortation

3:19 under this matter of our hearing the word. There is not only a sobering fact to be faced, but there are some specific directives to be implemented during the hearing of the word of God. We had time to consider only one last week, and it was this. We must hear the word of God with a resolute fixation of our minds.

3:49 We must hear the word of God with a resolute fixation of our minds. I gave you three texts of scripture that constitute the biblical basis for that exhortation. I sought to underscore the gospel motives that ought to move us to comply with that exhortation. And then I sought to identify the specific sins that must be mortified in the light of that exhortation.

4:25 Such sins as in daydreaming, mental laziness, intellectual flabbiness in general, so that in the imagery that apparently stuck with many of you, the preacher's preaching will be like the one side of a Velcro fastener and your mind and spirit like the other, so that when they come together in the special presence of God, there is that fastening of the word upon the mind of the listener. For whatever work God does in the heart and issues in the light

5:09 begins when the word first of all comes to the understanding of our minds. Now the second major and specific directive that I desire to set before you is this. Not only must we, under the preaching of the word of God, determine to heed that word with this resolute fixation of our minds, but secondly,

Preaching as Three-Fold Communication, Not One-Way

5:41 we must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us.

6:00 We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us.

6:04 We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us. We must here determine to render the appropriate responses of the heart which the word demands of us.

6:09 You see, the whole notion that preaching is a form of one-way communication is sheer nonsense. Now, Bible talking may be one-way communication. When someone casually leans over a pulpit or a lectern and shares his little notions and insights about what he thinks the Bible may say, laced with pop psychology and humor and the charisma of an entertaining, laid-back personality, that may indeed be clever, entertaining one-way communication.

6:46 But when a man of God, equipped by the Spirit of God, stands to declare with sobriety and urgency and in the power of the Holy Ghost, the Word of the living God as found in Scripture, it is not one-way communication.

7:06 It is a three-fold context of communication. The living God is present in the institution of preaching. So you have the living God, who has impregnated the heart of His servant with His own written Word, who is attending the ministry of His servant by the present aid of the Holy Spirit, so that...

7:33 ...he is speaking not in word only, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

7:39 So there is the living God. The living God, in whose presence we meet. The living God, who has impregnated the heart of His servant and attends the labors of His servant. Then there are the people of God, who come with prepared hearts to have dealings with their God, as He speaks through His Word.

8:01 And as the God, who has impregnated the heart of His servant, the heart of His servant, speak His word to His people, His people are to be having dealings with that same God. So there is the God in whose presence both preacher and congregation meet. There is the God who has laid His word upon the heart of His servant and attends His servants as they minister. There are the people of God who have come to meet with their God and they are hearing the voice of their God through the written word of their God and they are responding to their God while that word is coming to them. And so preaching

The Heart as the Chief Guest: Puritan Insights

8:44 is not a one-way communication, but it is this glorious, mysterious, and yet marvelous God-ordained framework of the living God, His servants, and His people, and all in the preaching of God. Of the word of God. Jeremiah Burroughs, one of the old Puritans, addressing this very subject wrote as follows, As there must be attending to the word of God, so there must be an opening of the heart to receive what God speaks to you. It is true that it is a

9:27 work of God to open the heart, but God works upon men as rational creatures, and He makes you to be active. In opening your hearts, as John Wells counsels, we must deal with our hearts to embrace the word as it is dispensed to us. The gospel is not only to be let in by our apprehension, that is our minds. It must start there, receiving the word with fixation of mind, but it must be locked in by our affections, and we are to entertain it.

10:05 Not only in the light of it, but in the love of it. He later returns to this most vital of considerations and writes, The heart is king in the little world of man. The inward man must be employed in holy ordinances, not so much the ear as the understanding, not so much the knee as the memory, not so much the tongue as the heart, though as our Savior said, this must be done. But the other not left undone. In a word, the heart is the chief guest at every ordinance

10:44 of God. The heart is the chief guest at every ordinance of God. And as God is pleased to address us from His word to our understanding, it is never to the end that our heads may simply be swelled in their understanding. The scripture says, Knowledge blesses our minds, that He might affect our hearts, and that He might transform our lives. And that is God's ordained method of carrying on His

11:27 work in the souls of men. In Acts chapter 2, what are we seeking to do? Simply to substantiate this principle, that we must hear the word, determined to render this to God. And that is the word that has to be taken from our hearts.

The Day of Pentecost: A Model of Heart Response

11:44 The word demands of us the appropriate responses to be directed from the heart, which the word demands of us. On the Day of Pentecost Peter was not trying to convince the Jews who slew the Son of God that He was a nice guy, and they weren't too bad a bunch after all. He wasn't telling a bunch of jokes to ingratiate Himself to them. He didn't bring around in his entourage of drum bangers and guitar twangers.

12:13 groups to somehow gather the crowd. God gathered the crowd by the rushing mighty wind, by the tongues of fire that were over the heads of all, and by the God-given ability to speak the mighty works of God in languages not acquired in an ordinary manner. And when God got their attention, then he raised up a man to preach. He didn't raise up a band to play. He didn't

12:44 raise up Satan and to speak the word of the living God. And when he spoke, he spoke what seems to be, in some reform, a relatively dull, unattractive sermon. Verse 14 of Acts 2, Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice. Well, don't you know it's offensive to say that? Don't you think people will be turned off by this loud preaching? He said

13:27 it in a manner that people were arrested. By the fact that this man has something to say and is determined to be heard. He said, you men of Judea and all that dwell at Jerusalem, be it known unto you, give ear to my words. You see what he says? Listen, pay attention, fixation of the mind. You see? So he started.

13:56 He said, get your heads in this direction and listen to what I have to say. And then he started to preach. And what he did was give them an explanation of what was going on. And he explained it in terms of the Bible. Imagine quoting large sections of the Old Testament in a street

14:17 preaching situation. That's exactly what he did. He explains what happened in the light of the promise of God through the prophet Joel. Then he turns and begins to declare that the Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of all that God had promised. Verse 22.

14:36 And then as he is preaching, he then goes on to indict these people with the crime of putting God's Messiah to death. And though they had put him to death, he says, God has exalted this one and put him at his own right hand. Verse 36. Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly God has made him both Lord and Christ.

15:06 Now notice. Now he gets in the last lick. This Jesus whom you. I mean, Peter, if you ever had gotten their attention and were beginning to win them over, surely don't drive them away by calling them the murderers of Messiah. That's not politically correct. That's not ecumenically

15:34 acceptable. But the problem is it was the truth. And until they own that reality, they could never be saved. And when he heard what happened, verse 37. Now, when they heard this,

15:56 they were in their heart. It's the only place in the New Testament where this verb is used. They were in their heart. They were stung sharply in their hearts. It's used in the

16:11 Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures out of Hebrew into Greek. In Genesis, it's Genesis 34, 7, the reaction of the brothers of that young woman who was violated by one of the pagans in the land. And it says that they were grieved when they heard of it. The anger of these brothers when their sister, when they knew their sister had been violated sexually. That's the word that's used here. They were pricked in their heart. They were

16:44 stung sharply. And what did they do? They gave an appropriate response. And they said, Peter, and to the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? We own the excitement. You've charged

17:03 us with murdering. The sons have been pricked as our ears have heard the convincing message. What must we do? And Peter gives them, as it were, a band-aid response in verse 38 and 39.

17:21 In Revelation, there's also a kind of incredible dobry now that a Matean community would be going to the resuref hounces earning from miracles. Peter touched it. That's the second thing that's going to happen. Cua, spend, no more for the powerful is a thousand sips on someone's whole life.

17:38 There's a great garment we're going to die in today when God can accomplish. Amen. If that were what I experienced, my life would be a procession of Beau and my sense of sake that is taking me up over all of a hundred. Stuck.

17:51 Dead. Correct. Done. Anyway, the word comes into the outer vestibule of the ear, it registers in the mind, it makes some inroads into the heart, and there is a disruption in the seat of a man's being, a woman, boy or girl.

Felix: The Danger of Rationalizing Delay

18:10 But instead of giving that appropriate response, what do they do? Well, some give a rationalizing response of delay. Look at Acts chapter 24, a rationalizing response of delay, rather than an immediate response of grief and repentance and humiliation. Paul is preaching in the presence of a heathen potentate.

18:41 Certain days, Acts 24, 24, Felix came with Drusilla, his wife, who was a Jewess, and sent for Paul, and heard him. He heard him concerning the faith in Christ Jesus, and as he, that is Paul, reasoned. You see how he's attacking the mind. He's not up there just trying to make a direct assault upon the emotions and the will.

19:03 He reasoned of righteousness and self-control and the judgment to come. Felix was treasoned. Felix's mind fixed upon his line of reasoning. In spite of himself.

19:24 He began to sense that what was registering on his brain was sending tentacles down into his heart, and was exposing what he was before God, and what he had to do in the light of God's standard of righteousness that he had wantonly broken. God's standards of self-control, which he had totally disregarded in his pagan Roman heathenistic lifestyle, As he thought of the judgment to come when every act of lack of self-control, every deed and thought of unrighteousness would be unfolded by the living God, this man was terrified.

20:09 Being terrified, what should he have done right then and there? He should have fallen upon his face and cried out, O God, who has a standard of righteousness imposed upon all of your creatures, a standard that is reasonable and right and good and holy, a standard that I have violated and thereby provoked you to wrath and to anger. You, the God who commands your creatures to have their faculties and passions and appetites. You, the God who commands your creatures to have their faculties and passions and appetites under self-control according to the norms of your word, and I have abandoned myself to my passions and appetites.

20:51 O God, before whom I must stand in judgment, will you not for the sake of this Jesus whom Paul has preached to me, pardon all of my unrighteousness, cleanse me of all of my deeds and thoughts and acts of lack of self-control?

21:10 O God, before whom I must stand in judgment, will you not for the sake of this Jesus whom Paul has preached to me, pardon all of my unrighteousness, cleanse me of all of my unrighteousness, cleanse me of all of my unrighteousness, cleanse me of all of my unrighteousness? So what did he do? look at the passage. Felix was terrified and answered, go your way for this time,

21:54 and when I have a convenient season, I will call you unto me. There's no record he ever felt another twitch of conscience. There's no indication in the Bible or secular history that that man ever caused him to be terrified. What was his problem? He didn't take heed how he

22:29 heard. He didn't take heed how he heard. He may have listened with fixation of mind to the point that what he heard stirred that he could not deny the truth. It's so filtered down into his affection that he was terrified, but he was not humbled and he did not repent, and as far as we know, he's in hell. When the sin-exposing, convicting word demands an immediate response

Call to Immediate Heart Response

23:06 and repentance, that response ought to be forthcoming while the word is even preached, as you are having dealings with your God. Oh, may God help that in taking heed how we hear, we will not only come with that determined fixation of mind while the word is preached, but that we will come determined to render the appropriate responses of the heart, which the word demands.