James chapter 1. The more the
Lord is pleased to teach me and enable me to learn anything,
the more I've learned the importance of the public worship service,
the importance of hearing God's word. And that is very abundant
in our text this morning. I've titled the lesson, The Urgency
of Hearing. Now begins in verse 19. Wherefore,
my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to
speak, slow to wrath. Now the word swift means to be
ready to hear, to be anxious, to hear God's word preached.
To be swift to hear is to be just afraid that you will miss
a message from God to you. Now our text begins with the
word wherefore. Since verse 17 is true, be ready,
be swift and anxious to hear the word of God, because every
good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down
from the father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning. Now, since every good gift and
every perfect gift comes from our father, then let's be swift
to hear his word. So we might be blessed. so that
he would bless us by being taught of him, being taught who God
is and who we are. The only way God speaks to people
today is through his word. Let's be swift to hear it. And
since verse 18 is true, let's be swift, anxious, ready to hear
from God. Because of his own will begat
he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first
fruits of his creatures. The new birth is a divine creation. It's a birth of a spiritual man
that can only come from the seed of the Word of God. Then let's
be swift, anxious to hear that we might be born again. Since
all of this is true, let's be swift to hear the Word of God. Now, reading our Bibles is good. In private, at home, reading
our Bibles is something we ought to do. I'll tell you where God
blesses the hearts of his people. God is pleased to bless the hearts
of his people through the preached word in the public worship service. That's where God's promised to
meet with his people. That's where he's promised to speak
to his people, not in our private studies, but in the public worship
service. I wish I could stress strongly enough the importance
of hearing the word of God in public worship. Let me give you
four or five things from these verses that I hope will be helpful.
Number one, be swift to hear the word because the salvation
of our souls comes from hearing God's word. There is no salvation
apart from hearing and believing the word of God. Look back at
Romans chapter 10. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
what? By the word of God. Romans chapter
10 verse 13. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now it doesn't end there. How then shall they call on him
in whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? They must hear and believe the
word of God. Remember what Paul told Timothy. He was writing to him and he
said, Timothy, from a child, you've known the holy scriptures.
which are able to make you wise unto salvation, through faith,
which is in Christ Jesus. The only way we'll be wise unto
salvation is through the Word of God. So be anxious to come
hear a message from God. Be anxious to come hear a message
of salvation for your soul. The example I thought of is Cornelius. Look in Acts chapter 10. You
know the story here. Cornelius and Peter coming to
him. Cornelius was seeking. He was anxious to hear from God. Acts chapter 10 verse 30. And Cornelius said, four days
ago, I was fasting until this hour. And at the ninth hour,
I prayed in my house and behold, a man stood before me in bright
clothing and said, Cornelius, Thy prayers heard, and thy alms
are had in remembrance in the sight of God. Send, therefore,
to Joppa and call hither Simon, whose surname is Peter. He's
lodged in the house of one Simon, a tanner by the seaside, who,
when he cometh, shall speak unto thee. Now Cornelius was anxious
to hear. Immediately, therefore, I sent
to thee, and thou has well done that thou art come. Now, therefore,
are we all here present before God to hear all things that are
commanded thee of God. He was anxious to hear, and what
did he hear? He heard a message of salvation
from God. Verse 43, this is where Peter's
ending his message. To him, give all the prophets
witness that through his name, through the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission
of sins. And Cornelius and his house were
saved from that message of the word of God. Look back at Acts
chapter four. Let me give you just a few other
examples of this. I want you to see the importance of hearing
the word of God. This is a message of salvation
for our souls. Acts four verse four. How be it many of them which
heard the word believed and the number of the men was about 5,000.
When were they saved? When they heard the word. All
right, Acts 17 verse 11. These were more noble than those
in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness
of mind. They were ready. They were anxious
to hear and they searched the scriptures daily, whether these
things were so. Therefore, many of them believed
also of honorable women, which are Greeks and of men, not a
few. When did they believe when they
received the word, they were anxious to hear it. All right. John chapter 10. Verse 27. My sheep hear my voice and I
know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal
life and they should never perish. Neither should any man pluck
them out of my hand. When is it they receive eternal
life? When they hear the voice, when they hear Christ being preached. One more scripture, Ephesians
chapter one. Ephesians 1 verse 13. In whom you also trusted. Now
when? When did you trust in Christ?
After that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation. In whom also, after that you
believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
All that came from hearing the word of God, a message of salvation
for your soul. Now always be anxious to hear
that. All right, secondly, be anxious
to hear a message of salvation, and be slow to speak against
the word of God, because that brings destruction. Now, hearing
it and believing it brings eternal life, but speaking against it
brings destruction. You know, the only way we're
going to hear from God is if we keep our mouth shut and listen. Isn't that right? Jan and Sabrina
both told me this about teaching three-, four-, and five-year-olds.
They get a three-year-old come into that class. You did it a
number of years. Sabrina's been doing it for years.
They say, the first thing I got to teach every single child that
comes in that class, the first thing, be quiet. You've got to be quiet. You can't
listen if your mouth is flat. That's what they tell me. And
they got to say it over and over. By the time they get ready to
leave her, by the time they've talked to him, be quiet. They
go on to terror. And they got to start the whole
lesson all over again. You and I need to become little
children. We're going to be taught to keep
our mouth shut and our ears open to listen, to hear from God.
I got this quote from a man named Dr. Mann. I don't have any idea
who he is. I found this. Matthew Henry quoted
him, so I'll quote him to you. He says, if we were as swift
to hear as we were ready to speak, there would be less of wrath
and more of profit in our meetings. And that's so. Now I know we
don't talk during the preached word, but you know, don't be
thinking contrary to it either. That's just negative internal
dialogue. It's just another way of speaking. You're speaking
to yourself in your mind, speaking against the word of God. Don't
do that. And afterward, don't be speaking
against it. Don't be questioning the word
of God, but submit yourself to the word of God. It's the only
proper relationship we have before God is to submit to him. Look
at Ecclesiastes chapter five. Solomon, well of course it's
wise counsel, gives us some wise counsel here. Ecclesiastes chapter
five. This is being swift to hear,
slow to speak. Ecclesiastes five verse one. Keep thy foot when thou goest
to the house of God and be more ready to hear than to give the
sacrifice of fools. For they consider not that they
do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart
be hasty to utter anything before God. For God is in heaven, and
thou upon earth. Therefore let thy words be few."
You know, the sacrifice of fools are words that are offered without
any wisdom, that are offered just as rash opinions without
any thought or wisdom. God's in heaven. He's God. We're on earth. We're the creature.
It's just natural. Let your words be few. Look back
at Proverbs chapter 17. Let your words be few. Be slow
to speak against the word of God because only a fool speaks
against God's word. Proverbs 17, verse 27. He that hath knowledge, spareth
his words. And a man of understanding is
of an excellent spirit. Even a fool when he holdeth his
peace is counted wise. And he that shutteth his lips
is esteemed as a man of understanding. Even if you just keep your mouth
shut, people will think you're wise. Now salvation comes from
hearing the word of God, but destruction comes from speaking
against it. Look back at Proverbs chapter
13. Verse three. He that keepeth his mouth keepeth
his life, but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction. Look over at Malachi, last book
in the Old Testament, Malachi chapter two. If you will not hear, and if
you will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name, saith
the Lord of hosts, I'll even send a curse upon you and I'll
curse your blessings. Yeah, I've cursed them already
because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will corrupt
your seed and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of
your solemn feast, and one shall take you away with it. Be slow,
be slow to speak against the word of God. It brings destruction. Thirdly, be slow to be angry. Be swift to hear, slow to speak,
and be slow to be angry about the message of the Word of God,
because you can't fight against God and win. So be slow to anger. This is a necessary instruction
for us because our nature is opposed to the way of God. It's
opposed to God's way of salvation. Our flesh is opposed to God's
way of ruling upon this earth, particularly the way He rules
my life. Now our flesh is always going
to be opposed to that. So we need to pray that God will
give us a new nature that will submit to him. If you listen
to me, God's not going to change on account of us. He's not going
to change himself to fit what we want. No, we're going to have
to be changed aren't we? The only way that's going to
happen is he gives us a new heart. Now to be angry about the message
of God's word and to speak against it, is to say, well, if what
you're saying is true, my dear old mother, dear old grandmother
is not saved. You know, you're saying my experience
of salvation is not valid. I'm not saying anything of the
sort. I'm not saying anything of the sort. I'm just telling
you what God's Word says. You apply it. You apply it. And
we'd be wise, and I'll get to this in just a moment, to apply
it to ourselves. To apply it to ourselves, not to somebody
else. When God's Word, His way, crosses our flesh. Pray for the
grace to submit, submit. I'm going to give you a couple
of examples. Look back at Leviticus chapter
10. Now there's an article about this in the bulletin about submitting. I hope that you'll read it carefully
this afternoon, but this is what I'm talking about in that, in
that article. When God's way, his word crosses our flesh, let's
keep our mouth shut and submit. Leviticus 10 verse one. And Nadab
and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer
and put fire therein and put incense thereon and offer strange
fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. And there
went out a fire from the Lord and devoured them. And they died
before the Lord. Then Moses said unto Aaron, this
is it that the Lord spake saying, I will be sanctified in them
that come nigh me. And for all the people, I will
be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. God just destroyed his two sons. God's going to be glorified in
this matter of coming before God in the sacrifice, in this
matter of offering incense before the Lord. The issue here is,
who's the mediator? Huh? God said, I'm going to be
glorified in this. And Aaron held his tongue. Now
you know that crossed his flesh. But he held his tongue. He submitted,
didn't he? Look over at 1 Samuel. These are deep waters I'm not
worrying right here. Eli. You know the story here. Young Samuel came to him and
he heard the Lord call to him. He kept thinking it was Eli.
And Eli told him, the third, he said, you go back and you
listen. This is the Lord. When you hear
them speak, you say, Lord, your servant listens. This is what
the Lord told him, verse 11. 1 Samuel chapter 3. And the Lord said to Samuel,
behold, I will do a thing in Israel with which both the ears
of everyone that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform
against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his
house. When I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told
him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which
he knoweth, because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained
them not. Now Samuel got that message from
God. Well, he didn't want to go tell
Eli God's going to kill his sons. But Eli insisted on hearing what
God said. Look at verse 17. And he said,
What is it? What is the thing which the Lord
has said unto thee? I pray thee, hide it not from
me. He's anxious. He's swift to hear from God,
isn't he? God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide anything
from me of all the things which he said unto thee. And Samuel
told him every wit, and he hid nothing from him. Now, what's
his response? It's the Lord. Let him do what
seemed to him good. Submission. Job. The Lord took almost everything
that was precious to Job away from him. Took away his whole
family, except for his wife, all of his children. He took
away all of his earthly possessions. And when Job spoke, what did
he say? The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed
be the name of the Lord. No matter what God did with me.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's submission. And don't be angry when we hear
corrections from the word of God. God uses his word to correct
his children. I know it stings. It stings to
have our sin and our bad attitude exposed. But you know, that's
what God does with his word. And we're corrected. Nobody's
saying, oh, you're not a believer. You don't get offended and angry.
God only corrects his children. Be thankful that you feel corrected. God only corrects his children.
So when God corrects, don't get angry, but seek grace to submit
to him and to learn. And take heed how you hear. Don't be angry about it. Be swift
to hear. Anxious to hear. Take heed how you hear. And take
heed what you hear. What you hear. Don't go off looking
for something that matches your theology. Don't go off looking
for something to make you feel better. Find out what God says
in His Word and pray for the faith to believe it and the grace
to submit to it. A great deal of salvation has
to do with submitting. Submitting ourselves to the righteousness
of God. Submitting ourselves to the will
of God, to the way of God. Don't go off seeking something
that's just going to match your theology. Nobody will ever be saved by
hearing a lie. I don't care how good it makes
them feel or how firmly they believe it. Nobody will ever
be saved by hearing a lie. So be swift to hear. And fourthly,
this is, look back in our text, James 1 verse 20. Here's some
awful, awful good advice for us. Be slow to wrath against
those who do not believe the gospel. Verse 20. For the wrath
of man worketh not the righteousness of God." Don't be angry at somebody
who doesn't believe the gospel and they hear a priest. Don't
be angry at them. Any more and you'd be mad at
a blind person for not being able to see colors. You wouldn't
do that because they can't see. Well, don't be mad at them. I
know it's frustrating, but don't be mad at him. Don't show him
your anger. Don't think you can shake him
into faith by your anger, because man's anger and man's emotion
cannot make somebody believe. Only God's goodness can do that.
Our anger will never convince a sinner to believe on Christ.
God's power can. God's goodness can. It's the
goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance. And besides
that, An angry, combative attitude does not adorn the gospel of
grace. Don't be angry at those who don't
believe. Now, don't kowtow to them, you
know, preach the truth to them, but do it in love. When we find
those who oppose themselves by not believing the gospel, refusing
to believe it, how should we react? We should patiently and
faithfully preach the word to them. Faithfully. point them
to Christ and wait on God to give them an understanding. How
did God give you an understanding? Huh? Somebody patiently, faithfully
preached the word. That's how. Let's do that for
others. Don't be angry at them, but be
faithful. Right here's the fifth thing,
verse 21. Here, be swift to hear, hear God's word and act on it. Verse 21. Wherefore, lay apart
all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with
meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
Now the word filthiness here means dirty. It's something that
stains. That's what sin is. It sins filthy. It's something that stains. It's
the filthiness of the sin that we commit outwardly. Now naughtiness,
that's our nature. The word means depravity and
wickedness. That's our nature of sin. And
Paul says, or James says here, cast it away, lay it apart, just
cast it away. Now we know we're never going
to be rid of sin as long as we're in this flesh. We're never going
to be rid of sin, but the believers to strive to be holy. to be constantly
casting away, putting these things away from us with the same urgency
with which you'd throw away a rag, that you'd get a rag away from
you that's been defiled by human waste. Cast it out. Get rid of
it. And this filthiness, it's on
the outside, but I'll tell you where the real problem is. It's
the filthiness and the depravity, the naughtiness of our attitude. That's what we've got to get
rid of. be constantly casting away this attitude of self-righteousness,
an attitude of pride. Get rid of this attitude of hatred
and a judgmental attitude. Be casting it away. That kind
of attitude is unbecoming to a child of God. So we're constantly
to be casting that away from us just as much as we are the
sin we commit outwardly. Brother Henry calls that, I like
the way he calls this, weeding our own gardens. Let's hear the
word, hear the word of God, be swift to hear it and act on it. Hear the word of God and weed
our own gardens. Hear the word and make every
effort not to be a thorny ground hearer. The thorny ground here
heard the word, didn't it? But those weeds and those thorns
got in there and choked the word out that became unfruitful. That's one of my greatest fears.
I fear that so much. Let's weed our own gardens that
the word we hear be fruitful. The word superfluity means something
that's not needed. Well, that's our sin. It's not
needed. Let's cast it out. That's our sinful, prideful attitude. Nobody needs that. Let's just
cast it out, get rid of it. And instead, meekly receive the
engrafted word. That's the attitude we need is
a meek and humble attitude. Receive the engrafted word of
God. Being born again is not just
memorizing verses from the Bible. Now, I'm a strong proponent of
that, memorizing verses of the Bible. I'm a strong proponent
of giving our children memory verses and those things. I remember
when I was young, pretty young, and I would substitute and teach
my dad's Sunday school class, the older Ladies and they would
tell me, oh, I cannot memorize a verse of scripture anymore.
But though I wake up at night, I can remember those verses.
Somebody made me memorize when I was a little girl. I'm a strong
proponent of memorizing the word of God. This is this is his word. But that's not salvation. It's
not memorized. It's not even having some understanding
of what those verses mean. Being born again. being saved
is having God engraft His Word into us so that it becomes part
of us. So that new man born of the seed
of the Word of God is part of us. Every believer has two natures
and they're both really me. That old man, that man is filthiness
and naughtiness and depravity. One with a bad attitude, that's
me. That's really me. But thank God
that new man The one of faith, the one who loves God, the one
who believes Christ and clings to Christ and will never look
away from Him. That's me too. Both of them are really me. God put that new man in me. So
receive the engrafted word with meekness and with joy, with joy. This is how God gives life. This
is how he makes us partakers of the divine nature. If you
don't receive that, it's going to be meekly, isn't it? It's
going to be with joy. Receive the Word of God from
God meekly, submissively, just like a branch is grafted into
a tree. If you're going to graft a branch
into a tree, there are going to be some cuts made. You've
got to cut off the branch, don't you? And you've got to make a
cut in the tree to receive that branch. We'll receive that with
meekness, that cutting of the flesh. When God cuts that to
engraft His Word into you, And by that, I mean meekly receive
the instruction from God's word that's offensive to the flesh,
that cuts at the flesh, that tells us we're nothing but sin. Jonathan told me something the
other day. He said, every time you preach, you offend me. And
I first thought, what's he saying? But that's what he said. The
gospel must be offensive to the flesh. It points out our sin.
It points out our depravity. It tells us we can't do anything
to save ourselves. We're so sinful. Somebody else
has got to do all the saving without any help from us because
we can't help. Any help from us would just defile
it. We will always be dependent, completely dependent upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's offensive to the flesh.
Hope you receive it. Hope God gives you the grace
to receive it. Receiving the word being cut into you and grafted
into you means God's given you eternal life. All right, now
in closing, let me give you four words of advice here on how to
hear the word of God swiftly, readily, and anxiously. Number
one, don't come to the service just to hear your favorite preacher.
Don't think, well, so-and-so's preaching, so I'm not going to
go. You know, that happens a lot.
Somebody told me recently that they got upset because the crowd
was down and the pastor wasn't there. And, you know, she said,
these young fellows are preaching and, you know, we ought to support
them. I said, you're exactly right.
Cecil Roach told me that one time. He wasn't feeling well. I was preaching. It was a night
on a Sunday night or Wednesday. I was preaching. And Cecil came
in. He was sick. He hadn't been feeling
well. And they said, what are you doing here tonight? And he
said, well, Frank's preaching. He said, I want to come support
these young fellas. I wouldn't be if Henry's preaching,
I stayed home. He don't need me, my support. But these young
fellas, don't just come to hear your favorite preacher. Now,
I know we all got men we enjoy to hear preach, you know, more
than others, for whatever reason, a personality thing or whatever.
But don't come to hear me. Come to hear a message from God.
Just be careful. You've got a favorite preacher
or favorite doctrine or whatever. Be careful that Satan hadn't
given you something to entertain you with that keeps you from
looking to Christ. Don't ever be learning and never
coming to a knowledge of Christ. Come to seek to hear a message
from God. Seek to hear it and seek to believe
it. Number two, to be swift to hear. is to come listening for a message
from God for you. For you. And you know what? They all are. They all are. Particularly to this congregation. I never prepare a message thinking
about anybody but you. I really do. I sit in my study
and I just go through. Thankfully, everybody always
sits in the same seat. So in my mind, I can start from left
to right and go through and think about every one of you. Not miss
anybody. Every one of these messages are prepared for this congregation.
This is for you. Forgiveness of sin in Christ
is for you. Righteousness through Christ's
obedience. Salvation by faith, not by works. That's a message for you, for
your heart. Cleansing from all of your sin in the blood of Christ.
Being kept by God through the power of faith. That's for you. A message of Christ that comforts
your heart. That's a message for you, for
you personally. I can't tell you how many times
people say, I felt like you were just talking to me tonight. Well,
I wasn't. God was. You heard a message
just for you. At the same time, somebody over
here heard it. Somebody over here heard a message from God
for them. Heard that was just for them. Come seeking a message
from God for you, for your benefit, for your soul. Thirdly, and this
goes right along with that, hear the message and seek to apply
that message to yourself, not to others. That's what verse
21 told us, you know, seek you to receive the engrafted word.
And verse 22 says, be doers of the word. Don't be hearers only,
deceiving your own selves, but be doers of it. You know, now,
when you hear a message, that message is not telling somebody
else what to do. You, we can't go the whole zone
listening to this. No, I hope I'm listening to it
closely, closely. I told someone yesterday, I performed
a wedding ceremony yesterday and I told them afterwards, I
had words for the groom, words for the bride, and I told them
afterwards, I remember being newly married and Janet and I
would go to the service I remember one evening in particular, Henry
preached on marriage and Janice said, I wish he wouldn't hammer
on the women so much. And I said, huh, I didn't get
that at all. I thought he was hammering on
the men. I just, you know, I heard a message for me. She heard a
message for her. I heard a message for me. I love
brother Nyberg says this, I quote him on this. I try to give him
credit for it. So I think this is wonderful. The Bible never
tells somebody else how to treat me. It always tells me how to
treat somebody else. The Bible never tells somebody
else to come to Christ, to believe Christ, to straighten up, to
weed their own garden. The Bible always tells me, trust Christ. Come to Him. Rest in Him. Lay
aside all your works. It so easily besets you. Look
to Christ. And fourthly, if you'd hear the
word swiftly, and be a doer of it, that it benefits you. Spend
time in prayer. Before the message, pray that
God would be glorified. Pray that God will give us a
message from Him. Pray that God will enable the
preacher to preach it. And pray that He'll give us a
hearing ear to block out all the distractions. And then after
the message, pray that God will graft His word into your heart,
that He'll enable you to be a doer of it. Janet told me when she
was a girl and they would leave the service, her mother would
never let her turn on the radio. Listen, I always did. I turned
on the radio. Listen, American Top 40 on the
way home. Ethel wouldn't let Janet do that. She said, that
just immediately comes, starts plucking away the word. The moment
was right. Spend time in prayer afterward
that God will engraft his word into your heart that something
won't come and pluck it away from you. That's swiftly the
urgency of hearing the word of God. All right, Lord bless you.