Preaching and listening to sermons

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. I just renewed the website duplexgratia .com. Just renewed it. It cost me 20 bucks. Still haven't used it, but I think it was a good use of $20. I, probably when you hear this, will be headed for Omaha, Nebraska, the Pactam Conference on the Law of God, J. V. Fesco, David Van Drunen, Patrick James Abendroth III, okay, I added the third part, and Michael E. Abendroth.

Big celebrity conference. By the way, I just got the email from Pat Abendroth, who hosts the conference and speaks, and it was written to all the people that have signed up, and it basically called the speakers by their first names, talk to them, hang out with them.

They're just regular people. This is the anti-celebrity conference. And that's kind of easy to do with some Presbyterians. I don't know what Fesco is these days. My guess is, I want to say PCA, but I don't know.

I think Van Drunen's OPC. I'm pretty positive about that. Anyway, this year, the Law of God, and if we all live long enough, next year, the Gospel. Law and Gospel. My two messages are a meeting with, I think, 50 men have signed up.

Men who preach or want to preach, aspire to preach for a little preacher's tune-up. That's on Friday at noon, and then I speak Saturday on legalism and antinomianism, those sinister twins, the dastardly duos.

And then I'm on a speaker's panel on Sunday during Sunday school hour, and I'll just let Van Drunen and Fesco do all the answering, and I'll just try to make a joke every once in a while. All right, enough of that.

People don't like it when you talk at the beginning about what you're eating. And what I ate last was, I had two eggs this morning with some Swiss cheese. I'm not really a Swiss cheese fan, but last night I had some sashimi.

I went to West Boylston Seafood here in West Boylston, 50 miles from the ocean, and they have sashimi-grade tuna. And I bought myself some, sliced it up. I don't know how many pieces it was, 30 pieces, and put some wasabi and some soy sauce on it.

I like a little rice, but can't do that for the carbs, so that's it. Aren't you glad I told you? Then I have to, like, gulp some coconut oil or something, since there's no fat in this sashimi. Interestingly, today, I'd like to read something to you that you may not ever have heard.

The Westminster Catechism on Preaching the Word

Now, some of you, capital R reformed, maybe you've heard it. Maybe you've forgotten it. So I'm going to read it today, and that is the Westminster Larger Catechism. No, I'm not going to read the whole thing.

Questions 159 and 160. Now, I was thinking about these two questions because I'm going to be preaching this Sunday, Lord willing. This Sunday's, I think, pretty busy. We have elder training at 9 a .m.

We're going to talk about hospital visitation and visiting people in their homes. Then I preach in Luke 6, which I might talk about a little bit today. Then, I think, maybe a quick elders meeting, and we have the Lord's Supper.

We have pot providence, pot blessing, pot luck, whatever you want to say. Sometimes our pot lucks are pretty good. Sometimes, maybe not so much. If there's a theme thing, it works better. Not Bob theme, but a theme thing.

Bob theme's an old theologian. Had some wacky ideas. Maybe some of the food there. Bethlehem Bible Church is wacky. If we were in Wisconsin or Michigan or something, maybe we would have, I don't know, some tater tot casserole.

Although a tater tot right now, even though I'm doing low carb, I could eat one tater tot. Salty, greasy, greasy. Wouldn't that be good? Westminster Larger Catechism, 159. How is the word of God to be preached by those that are called there unto?

Put in an Abendroth nomenclature. Abendroth. I had the word and then I mispronounced my own name. I'll switch the words. Abendrothian lingo. How do you preach? Those that are called to preach, how should they preach?

And here's what it said, and I'm going to read it slowly because it's worth thinking about every little morsel. They that are called to labor in the ministry of the word are to preach, now here we go, sound doctrine, diligently, in season and out of season, plainly, not in the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power.

This is all how a person should preach. Faithfully, making known the whole counsel of God. Wisely, applying themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearers, zealously, with fervent love to God and the souls of his people, semicolon.

Sincerely, aiming at God's glory and the people's conversion, edification, and salvation. That's pretty great. That's exactly what pastors are called to do. That's exactly what I desire to do. That's exactly what I've been commanded to do.

And the one that I've been thinking about lately, as I've been preaching through the gospel of Jesus according to Luke, applying themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearers. So, what does that mean, and why would I be kind of intrigued by that?

Well, it's interesting because in seminaries, we are taught to exegete the scriptures, to pull out of the scriptures, not to eisegete, to put things into the scriptures. Out, exit, exegesis, not like J-E-S-U-S.

When I first heard exegesis, that's what I thought. So did you. So do I, as they say in New England, to affirm the positive. I know it sounds negative, but it's not. And I would say to myself, all right, I exegete the scriptures, and it's like I never thought about those in the congregation.

I knew I'd be preaching to them, and when I was up there, I would see their faces, obviously. By the way, when you're sleeping, we can tell, because if you can see my eyes, I can see yours. But we're just here to bless people.

Maybe you had to work a double. Maybe you got twins up all night. And we never really were taught, okay, think about the people. Now, it would be wrong to think about the people first, that is to say, you know what, I'm going to interpret the scriptures and do my exegesis in light of the people, people first.

And therefore, if I get to a controversial passage about homosexuality, or husbands and wives roles, or something like that, or something that, you know, it's a doctrine you don't like, reprobation, the doctrine of hell, anything like that.

You think, well, you know, what would the people like, they won't like that, so I'll interpret the Bible in light of that. I will interpret the Bible in light of modern culture, modern whims and ways, and how we've evolved with our thought, and we're not barbaric like Old Testament things, and, you know, that stuff.

But I think over the years, I lost the idea that I was preaching to real people. Not theoretically, I knew that, but just in a very practical sense, in the sense that I'm working on the message, and then after I'm finished the message, while I'm working on the message, could be either or, or both, I'm preaching to people, I'm preaching to someone that just got laid off, someone that just lost their husband, someone that had the joys of having twins, someone that's in a difficult marriage, someone that is aspiring to ministry.

I mean, on positive things and on negative things, people that are full of joy, people that are full of lament, some weeping, some crying. And therefore, I would think to myself, how am I going to preach to them?

And I think that's good here in Westminster Larger Catechism, applying themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearers. That also means that if it's a young congregation, a newer congregation, and you're a brand new pastor, you ought not to use, as they say down south, a lot of highfalutin words, unless you're going to explain them.

Obviously, there are big words in everybody's job, including the pastor's job, including the Bible. So it's not like we're afraid and we need to water down the words, but we just need to explain to them.

And maybe you live near Cambridge, Massachusetts, where have it is, and maybe you use a few more polysyllabic words. As they say, why is monosyllabic many syllables? And if you're in farmer land, maybe you accommodate yourself to that.

Actually, the farmers I know are a lot more smart. They're a lot more smart than those in Harvard. They're smarter than those at Harvard, at least with common sense. When I did walk onto Harvard campus the other day, I said to myself, I'm the dumbest person on this campus.

But I may be one of the only few that are a few percentages that are going to actually go to heaven, not because I'm smart or dumb, but because I'm sovereign grace. Applying themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearer.

So if you're a pastor, if you're a Bible teacher, if you're a mom or dad teaching, you would say, if you're a mom and dad, especially, I've got a five-year-old and I want to teach them the Bible, thinking about the capacity of the hearer.

If you go to a rest home and you give the rest home message, they have certain capacities. And so you would think I'm going to talk louder, I'm going to pace back and forth to keep their eyes going, I'm going to move in, I'm going to move out, and I'm not going to give a bunch of Greek tenses and nomic aorists and pluperfects and objective genitives, subjective genitives, all those things that you need to know in your study, but you're not going to talk about in the actual message.

Applying themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearers. So as much as we need to preach sound doctrine in season, out of season, to be plain, plain kind of relates to this, just plain. That is to say, simple.

That is to say, you can explain it to a fifth grader. Not like a simple ton, but simple, just straightforward, clear, direct. J .C. Ryle would say, you need to preach like you have asthma, short sentences.

That's why if you're manuscripting your sermons, A, repent, never do it again. B, write short sentences, nice, short, pungent sentences, and write for the ear, not for the page, not for the eye. Now, here on No Compromise Radio, we've just read, I've just read Westminster Larger Catechism, question 159.

Listening to the Sermon as an Act of Worship

Now let me read the follow-up, question 160. What would you think the next question would be? If the first question is about how the Bible is to be preached, what do you think the next question is? Well, obvious.

It's obvious that the next question is, what's required of those that hear the preached word? So question 160 reads, what is required of those that hear the word preached? What is required? Okay, that's good because there's a false notion that worship means praise band on Sunday morning.

How is the worship? It's great when, as you know, here on No Compromise Radio land, duplex gratia land, that there is scripture reading that's worship, prayer that's worship, Lord's Supper worship, baptism worship, singing worship, preaching worship, and of course, listening worship.

Most churches that are like ours, like the ones you probably go to, if you look at simple time frame, most of the worship service is preaching and listening to the sermon. Now sometimes there are, you know, newer churches and they sing songs for 30 minutes and then they preach for 30, so it's about equal.

That's their liturgy. Okay, that might be an exception. But most of the time, for those of us that are listening today and for myself, the sermons range between probably 40 to 60 minutes. Now I could talk a lot about sermons that are too long.

If the sermon length starts with a five, that is 50 minutes plus, I think you've preached too long. Don't do that. We're going to talk about that maybe another day. But for now, what's required of those who hear the word preached?

Question 160, here's the answer to that question. It is required of those that hear the word preached that they attend upon it with diligence. Interesting that 159 to the preachers, diligently, that's how you should preach.

Here now, you attend upon it with diligence. Preparation, prayer, examine what they hear by the scriptures, receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind. As the word of God, colon, semicolon, excuse me, meditate and confer of it, hide it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.

All right. What do you think? And confer to have a discussion, to consult, that's what confer means. Now, I find it really insightful that it talks about with diligence, preparation, and prayer. And so there's a little work to be done on Saturday night and or Sunday morning.

I mean, you could do it any night that you wanted, but praying for the pastor, praying for the congregation as they receive it, praying for the pastor's study, helping him to understand the passage and to show forth Christ.

Maybe not staying out till three in the morning on Saturday night, which is technically Sunday morning. You know me, I'm no legalist, but just getting ready. Most of the time on Saturday nights, especially the first 20 plus years of ministry here, Saturday night was a non-negotiable short of somebody bleeding, suicide, something like that, suicidal thoughts.

I just needed to settle in and I might have a game on. I might just be reading. Most likely I'm just mulling over my sermon and I just didn't want to be out late. Now, as you know, most pastors don't sleep very well on Saturday night.

And I don't think it has to do with guilty consciences. It's just, that's the way it is. Pastors have rough Mondays, wonderful Sundays, and sleepless Saturday nights. And so regularly, you don't sleep as well, but you should go to bed at a reasonable time.

I, to this day, have my suit put out, sports coat usually, slacks. I put everything out from the white t-shirt that goes under my regular work, you know, dress shirt, the tie that matches. Nothing worse than getting up in the morning, can't figure out which tie matches.

I mean, come on, first world problems. Shoes, socks, my shoe shiner, everything, it's all done Saturday night. I mean, I start wanting to do it on Friday. Today is Friday when I'm recording. And I start wanting to do that now, but I'll wait until tomorrow.

So that's a preparation. So Pastor Mike, what's the point? The point is, it's a grave responsibility to preach. You can look at James 3, 1, if you'd like, and other passages, 2 Timothy 4, verse 1 and following, when you think about how, just what a lofty thing this is and how important it is.

The Solemn Charge to Preach and Hear the Word

Matter of fact, I'm going to read that because there's hardly anything in the New Testament like this. It appears a couple times, but when it does, it is really, I mean, could you think of anything more serious than language like this?

2 Timothy 4, 1 and 2, maybe a little farther. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching or doctrine.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

As for you, Timothy, and anybody who's brave enough to pick up a Bible and teach it, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. I mean, that language in the presence of God and even Christ Jesus, or and of Christ Jesus, judge the living and the dead, the judge by his appearance in kingdom, he's coming back, that is a solemn, sobering charge.

And in the past, I've preached that passage to Bible teachers, to myself, but then I flipped it around as well, and I think you could do this as an application. The text doesn't say it, but you could infer it.

If this is how I'm to preach, I'm supposed to preach the word, then if I'm listening, I should say to myself, that's all I'm here for. Not stories, not illustrations, not Aesop's fables, not moralism, I'm here for the Bible.

Be ready in season, not a season, when you want to hear it and when you don't, right? The pastor is supposed to preach it when people want to or not. It's a season for the Bible, it's a season not like we're in right now.

Well, no matter what, I want to hear the Bible, even if I'm not feeling like it. And you can work through the text like that, reprove, rebuke, exhort. This is sin, all right, Lord, show me my sin. This is rebuking, that's my sin, I don't want to do it.

Reprove is more, this is sin, rebuke, that's my sin, and exhort or come alongside, that's the positive side, comforting side, where we get Holy Spirit, paraclete. With complete patience, and I say to myself, I just keep hearing the same message over and over and over and over again, sin, salvation, Savior, or sin, Savior, salvation.

With patience and doctrine, I don't need to want fluff, I don't need to want just watered down gruel, I need sound doctrine and sound teaching because the temptations in my life are big, I better have doctrines that are even bigger.

And even though other people want to endure sound doctrine, Lord, may I have sound doctrine. Other people want their ears to itch, and for the pastor to scratch their itch, exactly what they want, informed by the world, Satan, flesh, who knows what else.

But I don't want my ears tickled, I want them boxed. I was boxing one time with a friend, I didn't do much boxing when I was a kid, probably because of this incident. But we didn't have really big boxing gloves, we had the smaller versions, and he hit me in the ear.

We were just not even trying to go full blast, but he hit me in the ear and it hurt so bad I cried. Man, that hurt. My dad was a boxer, but he never really taught me how to box, I don't know why. He was a great boxer, and I've always wanted to learn how to box.

I guess I've wanted to know how to beat somebody up or protect myself. These days, it's the latter. Haven't gotten in too many fights in my life, but the fights I've gotten into, it should have been nice to know how to box, I'll tell you that.

And anyway, a few weeks ago, I started, a couple months ago, started taking boxing lessons, Muay Thai boxing lessons. Anyway, I usually walk away from practice just tired because leukemia anyway, COVID stuff, bad knee.

And I try not to make excuses with my professor, my instructor, but sometimes I say, I can't do that. And I'm not sparring yet, which is good. I said, I'm not even going to get a mouthpiece because I can't spar because with my leukemia medicine, I bleed easily, both externally and internally.

My wife said, oh, so now you get to go to boxing class, but you just get to hit other people and they don't get to hit you. I said, I'm not dumb. So boxing the ears. And of course, if the pastor does that with a convicting message, pray without ceasing, how's your prayer life?

Well, if he does that, then of course, I hope he gives you the balm of forgiveness upon confession, 1 John 1 and 2. I hope he gives you some motivations to pray, some encouragements to pray, directing to the Lord Jesus who prayed, directing to the spirit of God.

And when we don't know how to pray, he prays for us, Romans 8 and more. So it's just not boxing the ears. If you've got a pastor that all he does is box your ears, that's a bad pastor. He's a scolder.

He's kind of a, you know, maybe he wants to be like Paul Washer or something and you know, on the circuit, but he's got, he's got his own congregation to encourage. Tend my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my lambs.

And sometimes we forget how as pastors and teachers, we forget how the Lord has taken care of us and been patient with us and come alongside of us and been our shepherd and not just always spanking us as it were, not only disciplining us by teaching, but also coming alongside after for that soothing balm.

After all, Matthew talks about bruised reeds, uh, not going to break and smoldering wicks, Jesus isn't going to snuff out. And so pastors, you want not to do that either. If I was going to amend the Westminster Larger Catechism, you ought to run.

But I would like to put in there somehow how so we're to be preached. I want to put in there, don't scold, exhort, sure, reprove, rebuke. But I mean, I saw one guy online, he got after me, uh, you know, reprove and rebuke is scolding.

I don't really think so. I think it has to do more with an attitude of the pastor and the demeanor of the pastor. And if he, like a father, wants the son or the daughter who's been disobedient to learn their lesson and to learn the right way and to come alongside in the correction process, that certainly involves, this is wrong.

Then I think that's different than just scolding. I guess I could qualify it even further by saying, if your pastor preaches sermons and you walk out thinking, I walked in as a Christian, I don't know how I can be a Christian today.

That's bad preaching. It was Rome that took away assurance. That needs to be on a t-shirt. That is Pat Ebendrost's new t-shirt. It is Rome that took away assurance. Why is he not doing that? Why is No Compromise not doing that?

I need people to design t-shirts. I need that. And then just people can, I'll okay the click, uh, the design and we just click on it. And the designer, I don't know how much, how does this money work?

The designer gets a dollar and I get a dollar. I don't know. How does that work? And that's, that's why we don't have t-shirts. I can't figure it out. I need help. Please help. Today on No Compromise Radio, we talked about preaching and listening.

I've even, I think my friend, Ken Ramey even wrote a book called Expository Listening or something like that. I think he did. I don't know how Ken Ramey is. He's, I think from Connecticut originally. He was my first, uh, kind of roommate when I went over to India 15 years ago or so to teach.

And Ken probably doesn't want me to tell the story, but he doesn't listen to the show anyway. So it doesn't matter. I would wake up in the morning in India, like jet lagged, supposed to be there at nine.

So I'm waking up at, you know, 950 just to take a quick shower, brush my teeth, put on my clothes that I set out the night before. And I'd wake up in the morning and Ken's over his message, literally over his message, on his knees, praying through his message.

And I thought, that's the kind of guy I want my daughter to marry. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. Today we looked at Westminster Larger Catechism. How's the word to be preached? Question 159.

And question 160, what is the requirement, requirement of those who preach? My name is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry.