TWO SORTS OF HEARERS – Charles Spurgeon
TWO SORTS OF HEARERS
“But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if any is a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was. But whoever looks into the perfect Law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” – James 1:22-25
James has no speculations. “By their fruits ye shall know them” seems to have taken possession of his mind, and he is always demanding practical holiness. He is not satisfied with the buds of hearing—he wants the fruits of obedience! We need more of his practical spirit in this age. There are certain ministers who are not content with sowing the old seed, the same seed which, from the hands of Apostles, confessors, fathers, reformers, and martyrs, produced a harvest unto God. Instead, they spend their time speculating whether the seed of tares, grown under certain circumstances, might bring forth wheat—whether, at any rate, good wheat would not be better with just a sprinkling of tare seed!
We need someone to take these various theories, put them into a cauldron, boil them down, and see what is the essential practical product of them. Some of you may have seen a recent article that caught my attention, regarding the moral state of Germany. The writer, a German himself, said that the skepticism of the professed preachers of the Word of God, the continual doubts raised by scientific men and more especially by professedly religious men concerning Revelation, have now produced the most dreadful consequences on the German nation. The picture he paints makes us fear that our German friends are treading on a volcano that could explode beneath their feet. The authority of the government has been so severely exercised that men are starting to weary of it, while the authority of God has been pushed aside to such an extent that the very foundation of society is being undermined.
I need not base my remarks solely on that article, for the French Revolution at the end of the last century stands in history as an enduring warning of the dire effects of philosophy when it casts suspicion upon all religion and creates a nation of infidels. I pray God that the same does not happen here, but the party of “modern thought” seems resolved to repeat the experiment! So greatly is the just severity of God ignored, and so trivial is sin made out to be, that if men were to do what they hear and carry out what has been taught from certain professedly Christian pulpits, anarchy would result! Free-thinking always leads that way. God keep us from it!
While preachers too often toy with preaching, how much of the same happens among hearers? Hearing is often reduced to a critical exercise. The question after a sermon is not, “How was that Truth of God fitted to your case?” but, “How did you like him?” as if that had anything to do with it! When you hear music, do you ask, “How did you like the trumpet?” No, it is the music—not the instrument—that your mind thinks about! Yet many persons always consider the minister rather than his message. Many contrast one preacher with another when they should contrast themselves with the Divine Law. Thus, hearing the Gospel is degraded into a pastime and judged to be little better than a theatrical entertainment.
Such things must not be! Preachers must preach as for eternity and look for fruit—and hearers must carry out what they hear. Otherwise, the sacred ordinance of preaching will cease to be a channel of blessing and become an insult to God and a mockery to the souls of men!
I shall not speak at great length, but I hope with much earnestness, of two classes of hearers—the unblessed class, and the blessed class, who, according to the text, are blessed in their deeds.
I. First, THE UNBLESSED CLASS.
They are hearers, but they are described as hearers who are not doers. They hear—some of them pretty regularly, others only now and then just to pass an hour—and they hear with considerable attention because they appreciate good speaking. They are interested in doctrine, perhaps having a little knowledge of the Christian system, and they like to discuss a point or two. Moreover, they are anxious to say that they have heard a certain renowned preacher, of whom the world speaks. But as to doing what they hear, that has not entered their minds. They have heard a sermon on repentance, but they have not repented. They have heard the Gospel cry, “Believe!” but they have not believed. They know that he who believes purges himself from his old sins, yet they have had no purging and remain as they were.
Now, if I address such people, let me say to them—it is clear that you are and must be unblessed. Hearing of a feast will not fill you! Hearing of a brook will not quench your thirst! The information that there is gold in the Bank of England will not enrich you—you need cash in your own pocket. The knowledge that there is shelter from the storm will not save the ship from it. The information that there is a cure for a disease will not make the sick man whole. No, gifts must be grasped, blessings must be appropriated and made use of if they are to be of any value to us.
O Sirs, you know what you should do, but you have not done it! You have been half-inclined to attend to eternal things, but you have let them go, and so you remain among those unblessed hearers who hear in vain!
Next, these hearers are described as deceiving themselves. “Deceiving yourselves,” says James. What are they deceiving themselves about? Why, probably they think they are considerably better for being hearers—much to be commended and sure to receive a blessing! They would not be happy if they had not heard the Word of God on Sunday, and they look with disgust upon their neighbors who make nothing of the Sabbath. They, themselves, are very superior people because they are regular Church-goers or Chapel-goers. They have a seat, a hymnbook, and a Bible—is not that a good deal? If they stayed away from a place of worship for a month, they would be very uneasy. But though they do not believe that going to a place of worship will save them, it quiets their conscience and makes them feel at ease.
I should like to feed you for a month on your theory. I would rattle the plates in your ears and see whether you would be fed. I would not accommodate you with a bed at night. Why should I? I would preach a discourse on the benefit of sleep. Nor would I give you a room to occupy—I would read you an eloquent dissertation on domestic architecture and show you what a house should be! You would very soon call me inhospitable if I gave you music instead of meat! And yet you deceive yourselves with the notion that merely hearing about Jesus and His great salvation has made you better men!
Or, perhaps, the deceit runs another way—you convince yourself that the stern truths of God which you hear do not apply to you. Sinners? Yes, certainly—the preacher addresses sinners, and they may benefit from it—but you are not a sinner, at least not in any special sense, so why should you be concerned? Repentance? Most people should repent, but you see no reason why you should. Looking to Christ for salvation? “Excellent doctrine,” you say, “excellent doctrine!” But, somehow, you do not look to Him for salvation.
Here is the Scriptural verdict on this opinion of yours—“Deceiving yourselves.” The Gospel does not deceive you! It tells you, “You must be born again, you must believe in Jesus Christ or be lost.” The preacher does not deceive you! He never said half a word to support the notion that coming to this place would be of any service to you unless you yielded your hearts to Christ! No, he has learned to speak plainly about such matters. You deceive yourselves if, being hearers and not doers, you derive comfort from what you hear!
According to our text, these people are superficial hearers. They are compared to a man who sees his natural face in a glass. Now, even a casual hearer will often find the preaching of the Gospel like looking in a glass and seeing himself. When a glass was first exhibited to some newly discovered tribe, the chieftain, seeing his own reflection, is astounded. He looks and looks again and cannot make it out. So it is with the preaching of the Word of God—the man says, “Why, those are my words! That is how I feel.” I have often known hearers exclaim, “Why, that is the very expression I used as I was coming along.” They feel like she of old who said, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did.”
Such a person reads his Bible and says, “Come, see a Book which tells me all things that I ever did. Is not this God’s Book?” The Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It opens up a man to himself and makes him see himself. He is quite astonished and cannot make it out! I have no doubt that many of you here, unconverted, have felt this under a searching sermon. When you have read the Scriptures, you have been amazed at how well they reveal your condition—but it is superficial work. If a man looks at himself in a mirror and then puts it down and goes his way, he has made poor use of it. The mirror was meant to lead him to remove spots and improve his appearance by washing.
Looking in the mirror and noticing a black mark on your forehead is child’s play if you do not wash the spot away! To see yourself as God would have you see yourself in the glass of Scripture is something—but you must go to Christ for washing, or your looking is very superficial work. God grant that if you are made to feel the revealing power of the Word of God, you may immediately go to Christ and “wash and be clean.”
The text accuses these persons of being hasty hearers—“He beholds himself and goes his way.” They hear a sermon and immediately they are off! They never give the Word time to operate—they are back to business, back to talk and idle chatter the moment the service ends. Enquirers’ meetings are often useful because they allow people the opportunity to think about what they have heard—while much of hearing is not followed by thought, making it ineffectual. We get much more from meditation than hearing. Like cattle, we must chew the cud if we would get nourishment from spiritual food, but few do this. It is a great mercy for us, considering the nonsense in the world, that we have two ears so that we can let idle words go in one ear and out the other! But it is a great pity that we should use those two ears in such a way in reference to the Word of God. Let it have a home, dear friend! Don’t let the Gospel come in one ear and out the other! How can you prevent it? Let it come in both ears! Let it have two roads to the soul, and shut your ears when the Truth has thoroughly entered in, compelling it to abide in your soul’s chamber.
How much blessing would come if men carried the Word of God home with them! How much blessing they would receive if they took the text apart, weighed it, considered it, and prayed for personal application! Then they would become spiritually wise by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. But, alas, they are hasty hearers—they look in the mirror and go their way.
One other thing is said about them—they are very forgetful hearers. They forget what manner of men they are. They have heard the discourse, and that is the end of it. You know the story of Donald coming home from church earlier than usual and his wife asking, “What? Donald! Is the sermon all done?” He replied, “No, no, it is all said, but it has not begun to be done yet.” But while it has not begun to be done, it often happens that the sermon ends with many hearers. They have listened to it, but it runs through them like water through a sieve, and they remember no more of it until the Judgment Day.
There is no sin in having a bad memory, but there is great sin in refusing to obey the Gospel. If you cannot remember the text or even remember the subject tomorrow morning, I will not blame you. But the remembrance of the spirit of the whole thing, the drinking in and absorption into yourself of the Truth of God—that is the main matter. And the carrying of the Truth into practice is the essence of the business.
That traveling dealer did well who, while listening to Mr. William Dawson, when he was speaking about dishonesty, stood up in the midst of the congregation and broke a certain yard measure with which he had been in the habit of cheating his customers. That woman did well who, though she forgot the preacher’s words, remembered to burn her bushel when she got home, for it, too, had been short in measure! Never mind about remembering the sermon if you remember to practice it!
It reminds me of the gracious woman who used to earn her living by washing wool. When her minister called upon her and asked her about his sermon, she confessed that she had forgotten the text, and he asked, “What good could it have done you?” She took him into her back place where she was carrying on her trade. She put the wool into a sieve and then pumped on it. “There, Sir,” she said, “your sermon is like that water. It runs through my mind, Sir, just as the water runs through the sieve. But, then, the water washes the wool, Sir, and so the good Word of God washes my soul.”
David, in the 103rd Psalm, speaks of those who remember the Lord’s commandments to do them—and that is the best of memory! Mind that you have it.
Conclusion: The Blessed Hearers
Thus I have described certain hearers, and I fear we have many such in all congregations—admiring hearers, affectionate hearers, attached hearers—but all the while unblessed hearers because they are not doers of the work. We have wondered why they never confessed themselves to be followers of Christ, but we suspect they have never made such a confession because it would not be true. Yet they are very good, very kind—helpful to a good cause, and their lives are upright and commendable—but we grieve that they are not decided Christians. One thing they lack—they have no faith in Christ.
It surprises me how some of you can be so favorable to everything that has to do with Divine things and yet have no personal share in the good treasure. What would you say of a cook who prepared meals for others and yet died of starvation? Foolish cook, you say. Foolish hearer, I say! Are you going to be like Solomon’s friends, the Tyrians, who helped to build the temple but continued worshipping their idols?
Sirs, are you going to look at the Table of Mercy, admire it, but refuse its provisions? Does it thrill you to see so many taken from the highways and hedges and brought in, yet you will stand outside and never partake yourself? I always pity the poor little boys on a cold winter night who stand outside a steaming cookshop window and look in, watching others feast, but having none themselves. I cannot understand you! All things are ready, and you are invited and persuaded to come—and yet you are content to perish with hunger!
I pray you think of yourselves, and may the Spirit of God make you doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
II. BLESSED HEARERS
But now, a few minutes for those who are blessed hearers—those who receive the blessing. Who are they? They are described in the 25th verse—“But whoever looks into the perfect Law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
Now, notice that the hearer who is blessed is, first of all, an earnest, eager, humble hearer. Note the expression. He does not look upon the Law of liberty and go his way, but he looks into it. It is the same word used in the passage, “Which things the angels desire to look into,” and the Greek seems to imply a kind of stooping down to look intently into a thing. Thus is it with the hearer who obtains the blessing—he hears the Gospel and says, “I will look into this. There is something here worth my attention.” He stoops and becomes a little child that he may learn! He searches as men do when looking for diamonds or gold. “I will look into it,” he says. “My mother used to tell me that there was something charming in it, and my father died triumphantly through its influence—I will investigate it. It shall not be for lack of examination that I let it slip.”
Such an individual hears intently and earnestly, laying his soul open to the influences of the Truth of God, desiring to feel its holy power and to practice its Divine commands. That is the right kind of hearer—an earnest listener whose senses are fully awakened to receive and retain all that can be learned.
It is implied that he is a thoughtful, studious, searching hearer—he looks into the perfect Law. Just as a man might put an insect under a glass and inspect it again and again through the microscope, so a hearer who desires a blessing looks closely into the Word of God. He is sacredly curious! He inquires. He pries. He asks those who should know. He likes to get with old Christians to hear their experiences. He loves to compare spiritual things with spiritual—to dissect a text and see how it stands in relation to another—and to its own parts, for he is earnest when he hears the Word.
Alas, dear friends, many hearers are too superficial! They listen to what is said, and that is the end of it—they never search for the marrow of the bones. The hearer who gains a blessing first gives his whole heart up to attention and then keeps his heart saturated with the Truth by earnest, diligent, searching study of it! By the Spirit’s teaching, he discovers what is the mind of God to his soul.
Then, this hearer goes further. He looks so steadily that he discovers that the Gospel is a Law of liberty—and indeed, it is so! Blessed is the condition of those who are free from the Law of Moses and have come under the Law of Christ, who emancipates the soul from every form of bondage! There is no joy like the joy of pardon! There is no release like release from the slavery of sin! There is no freedom like the liberty of holiness, the liberty to draw near to God!
Would God that all of you understood it and had a share in its benefits. This is the man who is blessed while he hears!
But it is added that he continues therein. If you hear the Gospel and it does not bless you, hear it again. If you have read the Word of God and it has not saved you, read it again. It is able to save your soul! Have you been searching through one gracious, earnest Book and did it not seem to fit your case? Try another.
Oh, if men would search for salvation as they search for hidden treasure, it would not be long before they found it! I remember, when I was seeking Christ, how I read through Doddridge’s “Rise and Progress of Religion” with an avidity such as I showed when, as a boy, I read some merry tale, for I devoured each page greedily. When I had done with Doddridge, I read Baxter’s “Call to the Unconverted,” which did me good, though it yielded me no comfort. I read each page and drank in every word, though the book was bitter to me. I needed Christ, and if I could find Him and Eternal Life through Him, it did not matter how often my eyes grew weary from lack of sleep while reading!
Oh, if you come to that—that you must have Jesus—you shall have Him! If your soul is brought to feel that you will search Heaven and earth through, if necessary, but you will find the Savior, He will soon appear to you!
The hearer who gains salvation “looks into the perfect Law of liberty” and continues therein.
Lastly, it is added that this man is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, and he shall be blessed in his deed. Is he bid to pray? He prays as best he can. Is he bid to repent? He asks God to enable him to repent. Is he bid to believe? He says, “Lord, I believe: help my unbelief.” He turns everything that he hears into practice.
I wish that we had thousands of hearers of that sort. I remember reading of a certain person who heard of giving a tenth of our substance to God. “Well,” said he, “that is right, and I will do it.” And he kept his promise. He heard that Daniel drew near to God three times a day in prayer. He said, “That is right; I will do it.” And he practiced a threefold approach to the Throne of Grace each day. He made it a rule that every time he heard of something excellent, he would practice it at once. Thus, he formed holy habits and a noble character—and became a blessed hearer of the Word.
Now, dear friends, our text does not say that such a man is blessed for the deed, but that he is blessed in the deed. He who does what God bids him shall not be blessed for it, but he shall be blessed in it. The happy result will come to us in the act of obedience.
May God grant you grace, whenever the Gospel is preached, to stir yourself up with the energy which God’s Spirit infuses into you and say, “I will do it. I will not dream about it, or talk about it, or question about it, or say I will do it and put it off. Now, at once, the act commanded shall be done.”
I finish with this practical suggestion: The remaining portion of life is short for some of you who hear me today. Gray hairs are upon you here and there, and according to the course of nature, you must soon stand before your Judge. Would it not be well to think about another world and consider how you will face your Lord on that Last Great Day?
The Gospel says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” which, in other words, means, “Trust Him.” Repent. Confess your sin, forsake it, and look to Christ for cleansing. That is the way of salvation—“He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.” You know all about the way of life. I am telling you a tale you have heard a thousand times, but the question is, when will it be done?
“Soon, Sir,” you say. But were you not here when this Tabernacle was opened? “Yes,” you say, “I think I was.” You said, “soon” then, and you say, “soon” now! You will say “soon” until that word is met with the heavy sentence—“Too late! Too late! You cannot enter now.”
Take heed that this is not your case before this day ends!
Some men die suddenly. A sister came to me this morning and said, “My father is dead. He was well in the morning. He came home from the shop, seemed a little ill, and died suddenly.” Life is so precarious, would it not be best to immediately seek the Lord while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near?
Do not begin gossiping or talking on your way home today, but get alone quietly for a little while. If you reply that you have no place to be alone, this is not true—you can find somewhere. I remember a sailor who found his prayer closet at the masthead—no one came to disturb him. I knew a carpenter who used to pray in a sawpit. There are many such places. The streets of London, when crowded, are as lonely as anywhere else, and Cheapside may be as good as the mountainside if your heart desires real solitude.
Some of you, I fear, never think at all. As far as thinking goes, if your brains were taken out, many of you would get on just as well without them. The brains of some are only useful as a sort of salt to keep them from rotting by death. Little thinking is done by the great mass of people except the thought, “What shall we eat and what shall we drink?”
Please, I pray you, think a little! Pause and consider what God, the Lord, has set before you. Be a doer of the work. Do what God bids you. Repent as He bids you, believe as He bids you, be baptized as He bids you, pray as He bids you, and accept His grace, God helping you—do it!
Oh, that it might be done at once and to the Lord shall be praise, world without end! Amen.