Spurgeon: Sermons on Proverbs (58 page)

I. We will begin with the first precept which is contained in the word "Hear." Perhaps you will say, "We are all here ready to hear and do not therefore need the exhortation." That you are in this great audience-chamber in the posture of attention is a matter in which I rejoice. So far, so good. But let me say to you this exhortation to hear is not only given in this verse, but it is often repeated in Holy Scripture. "Hear, O Israel!" is the voice of the law and of the prophets. This is not optional: it is a matter of command and promise. "Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live." "Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good." The very existence of a revelation is a call to hear it. You cannot find eternal life through the eye of the body. No actual brazen serpent is to be looked upon. You need not now look for solemn ceremonies, bleeding sacrifices, and smoking incense. These shadows have vanished. The high road of truth to the heart runs through the ear. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." The apostolic word is, "Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken unto me."

The exhortation to hear is a very important one. As I understand it and use it at this time, it means hear the gospel. "Take heed what ye hear." There is only one way of salvation. Mind that you hear the one and only gospel. Be very careful of your Sundays: you will not have many of them. Do not go on the Sabbath to hear whatever comes in your way, or you may hear to your ruin. Go to hear the gospel. "How shall I know where the gospel is preached?" Well, you will not have to enquire long: you may readily judge for yourself. Unless the name of Jesus is sounded out often, depend upon it, you are in the wrong place. Unless you hear the words "grace," "faith," "salvation," you may conclude that you are not on gospel ground. It is true that mere terms may not always be a sufficient guide, but as a rule, as straws show which way the wind blows, so will these terms by their presence or absence be a guide to you. It will not take you long to find out whether the man preaches of works or grace, ceremonies or faith, man or Christ. You can soon discover the gospel sermon or the moral essay, for the very temperature of them differs. Mere morality teaches men to dance, but it does not discern the fact that they have lost their legs. The gospel gives the lame man his feet and then shows him how to use them. You need a Savior: you do not want to be deluded with some theory of saving yourself. Go where you hear about the Lord Jesus and his redeeming blood. If you hear no mention of "the blood," clear out of the place, and never go again.

When you have found out the gospel-house, take care that you hear with the view of obtaining faith in the Lord Jesus. Aim at that blessed thing. "Faith cometh by hearing." It will be idle for you to stop at home and say, "I will try to believe." This is unreasonable and not according to the laws of mind. It is folly to attempt to try to
believe; there is a far better way. Go and hear what it is which you are to believe, and as you hear it, if it be faithfully told out, and if the preacher is in his own person a witness to the truth, you will be greatly helped in the matter of believing. Faith comes of knowledge and evidence, and hearing brings you these. Besides, there is a power about the gospel which tends to create faith, and the Holy Spirit is pleased to use the foolishness of preaching to breed faith and so to save them that believe. If the gospel be allowed to work in its own way, the most unbelieving mind will soon yield itself to faith. The persons who do not believe the Bible as a rule have never read it. Those who do not believe in Jesus Christ our Lord as a rule know nothing about him; while for certain those who know his gospel best find it easy to believe. A frequent hearer is likely to become a fervent believer. Do not fall into the error of some who only patronize the house of God occasionally and think they are doing something very meritorious. If you are often hearing with an earnest mind you will not fail to get the blessing. He that only eats once a month will not grow very strong, and he that only hears the gospel now and then is not likely to be profited. Beware of hearing sermons as a pastime: this is no trifling matter. Hear the gospel with the view of being saved by it.

Next, hear without prejudice. The Word of God does not please some people. That is not at all wonderful, for many people ought not to be pleased. Some have a preconceived idea of what the plan of salvation ought to be. They are in no humor to receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save their souls, but their object is to find fault with the preacher, to pick a hole in his doctrine or in his manner. They must have something or other to criticize or censure. Do you wonder that such folks are not profited? They do not hear, but they sit in judgment. I have read that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth there was a law made that everybody should go to his parish church, but many sincere Romanists loathed to go and hear Protestant doctrine. Through fear of persecution they attended the parish church, but they took care to fill their ears with wool so that they should not hear what their priests condemned. It is wretched work preaching to a congregation whose ears are stopped with prejudices. Are there not many such? The world, the flesh, the devil, the priests, the sceptics, and the down-graders, have stopped their ears, and what good is likely to come of their attendance? If you come to carp at everything how are you likely to be blessed? Hear! Hear! Hear what God the Lord will speak, and there will be a message of peace for your soul. I would say like the old pleader, "Strike, but hear!" Abuse me, but hear me. Do not shut the door of mercy against yourself.

Next I would say, hear for yourself. The great object of a hearer should be to hear what God speaks to him. I am glad that God should speak to my neighbor, but my neighbor must listen for himself and not for me. The Roman orator began-

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." He needs much the loan, for people usually lend their ears to one another and not to the speaker. They will sit and wonder what Mrs. So-and-so thinks of the sermon: it is so pat for her. Leave her alone, friend! Think about what is pat for yourself. Do you not know that in every sermon there is something for yourself, and your first duty is to give heed to that which is for you? Come with me to a house. A will is to be read. A dozen people have come home from the funeral and they are going to hear the will read. Perhaps they cried a good deal at the funeral, but they will not cry now if the person they have buried has left a decent sum among them. They are all ear for what the lawyer has to read. They want to hear that will much more than many want to hear a sermon. See how they listen! There are long ugly words about tenements and hereditaments, and this, and that, and the other; but they set themselves to hear it all as much as if it were a choice poem. Are they going to sleep? By no means. John Smith over yonder, the man's brother, see how he doubles his attention at a certain point! As for the eldest son, how eagerly he drinks in about all the farm and message, and freehold land, and such like, all in the parish of A., in the county of B.! It takes a long time to go through it, but each legatee loves every word which relates to him. He listens and his ears seem to grow longer while he hears. That poor relative who gets nineteen guineas lays the codicil to heart, and can almost repeat it word for word, only wishing it had been five hundred pounds. John Smith does not care so much about the rest of the document; in fact he hopes there are not many more items. The extract which relates to himself he would like to copy out. Will you be wise enough to treat a sermon in that fashion? Please listen to that which concerns you most, take it down, and carry it home. This is the exhortation of the text-- "Hear;" but especially hear that which has most to do with you, whether it be rebuke or promise or command.

And then dear friends, hear when the sermon is done. "How can I hear when it is all done?" This is a very important point. I went to see a poor woman in the hospital one day and she said to me, speaking of the sermons she had heard, "Sir, you seem to talk to me all day and all night while I am lying here." I said, "Well, I hope I do not keep you awake." "No," she said, "but as I am awake I hear you talking to me through everything I see. You have used so many things as illustrations that everywhere I have you in my memory." I was pleased and inwardly wished that I could always preach in the way which she described; and I should do so if I always had hearers such as that sick woman had evidently been. Ah, dear friends! the way to hear a sermon is to hear it when you get home. Pray, remember my sermon of this morning, "Be in the fear of the Lord all the day long." I want you to hear that word when you are dressing tomorrow, when you are taking down the shutters, when you are dealing across the counter, and when you are among the children. If you are tempted to do a dishonest deed, I would have you hear a still small voice saying to you, "Be in the fear of the Lord all the day long." A sermon ought to be like a musical box: we wind it up when we preach it, and then it goes on playing till its tune is through. It should be said of a good sermon, "It being ended still speaketh." Hear what you hear in such a way that it shall be like a seed which will grow in the garden of your heart.

Above all hear the gospel as the voice of God. When a man hears the preacher not as a man speaking on his own account but as God's servant, and when the truth spoken is not measured by its oratory, nor weighed by its logic, but is judged of by the Bible, as to whether it is the very truth of God or not; then it is that men hear to profit. Those who compare sermons with Scripture are noble like the Bereans of old. If you can say, "I hear the word, not as the word of man but as the word of God," it will have its effect upon your heart. Oh that the word may come to you with demonstration of the Spirit! You will never lose the good effect of gospel preaching if the Spirit of God seals it on your mind. Is it so or not? Do you come here to listen to me? Yours is a poor errand. If you come to listen to what God the Lord shall speak, however poorly I may interpret his mind as I find it in the Scripture, yet you will find a blessing in what you hear. A good many things are sold nowadays by means of pretty wrappings, and in the same way worthless doctrines are spread by the fine style in which they are done up. But as you do not want the wrappings but the goods, so in sermons the manner is not the main concern. If we should set a thing before you with all the grandeur of oratory and it did not come from God, it would be a gaudy nothing. Though we spoke falsehood with the tongues of men and of angels we should not be so good as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. But though we give you the gospel of the blessed God in great feebleness and trembling, yet it is what you want, and through it the blessing will come to you. He that hath an ear towards God will find that God hath an ear towards him.

Thus have we dwelt upon the first exhortation. Hear often. Hear the gospel. Hear for yourself. Hear attentively. Hear with a holy purpose. Hear the gospel as a message from God.

It means first try to understand what you hear. Get to the bottom of it. Look it up, look it down, look it through. Look over it, but do not overlook it. When you have heard the words of the gospel say to yourself, "I would know what this gospel is. With the ins and outs of it I am going to make myself acquainted if the Lord will teach me. I will know what I must do to be saved, and why I must do it, and how it will save me." How much I wish that a sacred curiosity would seize upon my hearers so that they would say, "We must know the soul and spirit of this Word of the Lord. We want to know each one for himself who the Savior is and how he can be ours"! God give you thus to be wise by getting an understanding of the gospel! I should not wonder, if I were to come round the congregation, if I found many here who do not know the gospel, simple as it is. I will not come round so do not be frightened, but I sadly fear that some of you who have been for years to places of worship are still ignorant of the elements of the faith. Should it be so? Do try to know saving truth. Whatever else you do not learn, do learn the answer to that question, "What must I do to be saved?"

Next, "Be wise": that is, believe the gospel as it comes from God. You will not be wise to doubt it but you will be wise to believe it, for it is true and sure. This is an age of doubt; it is in the air. No man is nowadays thought to have any sense if he does not doubt even the best established truths, and yet I do not think that it takes any great quantity of brain to be a doubter. With a very strong effort I might manage to doubt--to doubt my father's word (I have never done it mark you!); to doubt my brother's faithfulness; to doubt my wife's love to me. By such efforts I should doubt myself into an abyss of misery and should become a glorious fool. To turn the power of doubting upon spiritual realities would be even more fatal, for that would take away my hope beyond the grave and plunge me in despair. Doubt is sterile; it produces nothing; it destroys, but it cannot create. I have long been a believer, and I find that my joys all come to me by the road of believing, and none of them by the wretched lane of doubting. I have believed this Bible to be God's Word; and after all the destructive criticism which I have heard I still believe it. I have believed Christ to be my Savior; and after all the doubts of his Deity and atonement lately vented and invented, I still believe it; ay, and believe it none the less. I have believed God to be my Father, and though I have seen his Fatherhood dragged in the mire, I still believe it. I believe heaven to be my home; despite the insinuations of Satan, I still believe it. I have never yet gained health, joy, comfort, holiness, through doubting; nay, I have never gained a piece of bread or a drop of water through doubting. So many are doing the doubting, and doing it very completely that I need not trouble myself to assist them, but may quietly go on believing and enjoying the sweet results of faith. Our experience proves that it is wisdom to believe the Lord. He is God that cannot lie. Why should we doubt him?