February 22, 2018 Show with C. Matthew McMahon on “The Lord’s Voice Cries to the City: A Biblical Guide For Hearing the Word of God Preached”

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 22nd day of February 2017.

I want you to mark your calendars for tomorrow and I actually want you to pray for me because I have a subject that I'm dealing with tomorrow which involves a very sensitive and delicate matter and a matter that is sure to get people angry at me and some people may even stop listening to this program.

I don't know what kind of reaction for certain I will get but we are going to be doing a program focusing on the legacy of Billy Graham who just went home to be with the

Lord on Wednesday at 99 and the discussion is not only going to be highlighting the wonderful things that Billy Graham did indeed bless the world and the church with through the gifts that God had given him but we're also going to be talking about some of the less biblical and quite frankly some of the disturbing ideology, theology, and issues of practice that that Mr.

Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association have been involved in for decades and one of the reasons

I think this needs to be done is that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is at a crossroads now and they could have a revival among them and and return to the early roots of Billy Graham which were solidly biblical or they could remain as they are and which as we will discuss tomorrow involves some very confusing and dangerous matters theologically or they could get worse they could go even further to the left but we will have this discussion with Brad Zell who's an elder in the

Bible Presbyterian Church of Charlotte North Carolina which is actually I believe the congregation where Billy Graham was raised and he's also the president of the

International Council of Christian Churches, president of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, editor of Redeeming the

Time, a quarterly magazine, member of the executive committee of the American Council of Christian Churches, and stated clerk of Faith Presbytery Bible Presbyterian Church.

That's tomorrow 4 to 6 p .m. on Iron Trump and Zion Radio. But today I am delighted to have back as one of my favorite returning guests

Dr. C. Matthew McMahon and it's always encouraging to receive the emails from a number of you in the listening audience who love

Dr. C. Matthew McMahon's appearances on Iron Trump and Zion Radio. I don't know if appearance is the correct word for a radio show because nobody can see him other than people in his own studio there or his own study but he has returned today.

He is the founder of a Puritan's Mind and today both of us are pretty certain this is the very first time we are addressing a book that he wrote.

All the books we have discussed previously have been written by Puritans and he did indeed edit those books.

Is that your wife that edits those with you? Yes, my wife Terese helped greatly in that particular department and she's the one that makes everything sound nice.

And also bringing the works of the Puritans into modern contemporary

English. That's a redundancy, modern contemporary, but an English that most folks can understand easily.

But today we are addressing his book, that means Dr. C. Matthew McMahon's book,

The Lord's Voice Cries to the City, A Biblical Guide for Hearing the

Word of God Preached. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trump and Zion Radio, Dr. C.

Matthew McMahon. Well, I appreciate very much being here, excited to talk about this particular subject matter and such.

You know, as much as we publish many of the Puritans and such, which now,

I believe even this year in 2018, we've hit our 20 year mark. We started in 1998, but every so often one of my books kind of slip into our editing process or come about as a result of some kind of good providence, and in this particular case, this work is a bit unique in that it's not really a book that is on homiletics or on hermeneutics for, let's say, a minister.

The book is really about hearing the Word of God boldly, plainly, and faithfully preached.

So it's particularly aimed at the Christian who's sitting in the pew, who is required by God to hear the

Word of God preached with spiritual profit to their soul. So, you know, one might think that a book on preaching is generally about hermeneutics or exegesis or something like that, or maybe on homiletics, not generally directed towards the

Christian, but this particular one is directed at the Christian hearer.

And, you know, in thinking about that, you know, the listeners, just think about it this way.

The preacher who gets up on the pulpit should act and demonstrate a certain demeanor and a certain aspect and a certain set of qualities and skills when he's up there on that Lord's Day for you to hear him bring

God's Word to you. You know, the calling to the ministry in general has certain characteristics, you know, obviously should be a matter for a candidate to exemplify certain aspects in his life.

First Timothy 3 and Titus 1 tell us about all the marks of biblical leadership. We won't talk about those, assume that you've read those, but he's to be a certain way.

But when you're sitting in the pew and such -and -such a man gets up into the pulpit to preach, what do you expect that should happen?

What should happen? The pulpit in and of itself is really a place that's a place of dread, it's a place of worship, it's a place of eternal significance, eternal things occur and are talked about in that place.

It's also a place for the privileged, you know, you have certain kinds of people that are required to have certain skills in order to be there with certain qualifications that are non -negotiable.

And all of this should be done for God's glory. So when you sit there in the pew and you see this person up there, ask yourself, what do

I expect? What should I expect happen as a result of this person gaining my attention for the allotted time?

One minister said to me, the pulpit is the most dreadful place on the earth. And we ask the question, why is that?

Why is it so dreadful? Well, you know, it's just a place where a man, twice a week or so, you know, gives a short address to the people from the

Bible, maybe some spiritual lesson might help them make better decisions in life or something like that.

And that's generally what people have as their view of the pulpit across the planet.

And yet if it is, it's infinitely more than that.

The pulpit is the place where the voice of God is heard.

And that in and of itself is a very odd thing, because God decided to use men to communicate his

Word, to communicate the rational biblical message, which has been burning in the preacher's heart day and night, all week long in his study.

That pulpit is the place where God speaks to his people in a very unique manner.

And usually on this program, when you have been speaking about preaching, you have been speaking with alarm and dismay and rebuke toward those filling pulpits globally that have sadly and tragically failed very often in their duty to preach biblically.

But today, we are really focusing the attention on the responsibility and the accountability of those who are sitting there listening, because you very often, and I'm not even saying that I'm innocent of this,

I am probably guilty of this far more than I would care to admit, but people will blame the preacher all the time, or nearly all the time, when they are not edified or when they are not moved in a positive way or in a biblical way to respond to the message.

They are very often just blaming the preacher alone, and sometimes

I will hear people strongly, severely criticize, if not mock, a sermon that I actually thought was an excellent sermon.

So obviously, people listening are to be held accountable when the

Word of God is preached, are we not? Absolutely. We're just finishing up, which is probably a book we should talk about at some point, we're just finishing up Jeremiah Burroughs' Gospel Worship in a more modern version, make it a bit more readable.

And he has a very large section of the book that's just dedicated to the preparation that people should have in coming to hear

God's voice, because generally people are not thinking of it in that particular way.

Just think of it in general. Everybody who's listening to our conversation right now, just think about this last

Lord's Day. Did you and everybody else in your church and the minister all feel as though, and I'm using the word feel on purpose because I'm talking about the extensive congregation of everybody, that everybody was aware and felt as though God was speaking to you, to the congregation on that day.

Because generally that isn't the case. You know, we kind of throw that into the, well you know, the

Lord, I felt, was speaking to me today, but everybody at large sometimes doesn't get that feeling like we might get, like the preacher just crawled into the back of our mind and spoke directly to us, and you know, certainly sometimes that is the case.

But generally speaking, when you look at the biblical examples of preaching and such throughout

Scripture, there are certain characteristics and traits that go along with that, with these men being heralds on behalf of God, and as a result of that, we should have that sense that it's the

Lord's voice that we're listening to in that particular manner. And so God uses men to be able to do that.

Yet, we should be prepared and we should be thinking, this next Lord's Day coming up, we're going to go sit in the pew and we're going to listen to God speaking to us.

Are we doing that? Are we thinking about it in that way? Because God has chosen a weak vessel. He's chosen feeble frames made of dust to communicate

His message of good news that's found in the Lord Jesus Christ. So in that particular case, how careful, how skilled, how much gravity should the preacher have or be, how responsible a measure that he can take in his work to bring forth the

Word of God, and then how much responsibility is set on the hearer to do their duty, to hear the

Lord's voice crying to them? Now, you know, there's a lot of aspects to thinking about this particular topic, and I only want to deal with a couple of them, just in terms of sake of time, because we want to at least mine out a couple of gems or jewels.

I'm going to assume the first one, which the first chapter of the book deals with the supremacy of God in redemptive preaching.

And the cornerstone of that chapter runs out of Isaiah 52, the beautiful feet of those that bring the good news.

And, you know, God has a supreme purpose in redeeming His people, and when we look at what that message is, when we look at these people who have these beautiful feet,

I mean, if you look at a person, probably the most disgusting part of the person is the feet. Like, realistically, you know, when

Jesus walked into the house, you know, one of the things that he was expecting is that his feet would be washed, and they did, you know, all through hundreds and thousands of years in the

Middle East, feet get nasty walking around all over the place. But these heralds, they have beautiful feet, and they're swift feet, because in the midst of what

Isaiah is talking about in chapter 52, it surrounds the ministry of restoration. It's set in the midst of the mission of the servant of the

Lord, who is the, in this particular case, the Son of Man, the Christ, who is the

Savior, and this servant is God, and this servant sends out his messengers that he might be exalted, and that the hearers might hear whatever that message happens to be.

Now, when you get down to it, it's in verse 7, and the message is, your God reigns.

So, deliverance, salvation, exaltation of God, it all surrounds the supremacy of God in redemptive preaching.

The message is that God reigns. He reigns supreme.

When ministers preach, when heralds preach, when the ambassadors of Christ come into the pulpit, their goal is to demonstrate the supremacy of God in every message that they bring.

God is exalted. It's not good advice. They're not musing from the pulpit or anything like that.

They're bringing God's message, and if they do that, there's the if word, if they do that, then their feet are beautiful in that particular way, according to that passage.

So, the first part of that, in dealing with the herald in that way, is that he must have in his mind, and he must be prepared to demonstrate the supremacy of God in preaching every time he preaches.

Now, the title of the book, The Lord's Voice Cries to the City, that's actually pulled from Micah, and the second chapter of this book, in dealing with Micah 6, 1 to 16, and in particular, verse 9.

Let me just read this, because it's like the cornerstone of what's actually happening. He says in Micah 6,

Hear now what the Lord says. Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

Hear, O you mountains, the Lord's complaint, and you strong foundations of the earth.

The Lord has a complaint against his people, and he will contend with Israel. O my people, what have

I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Testify against me. For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, I redeemed you from the house of bondage, and I sent before you

Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what Balaam, king of Moab, counseled, and what

Balaam, the son of Baor, answered him. For Micahiah groped Gilgal, that you may know the righteousness of the

Lord. With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

Now hear these next two verses. He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the

Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

The Lord's voice cry to the city. Wisdom shall see your name.

Hear the rod, who has appointed it. Now it's really interesting, because Micah, God's prophet, every time you see a speaker or herald anywhere in Scripture, God's prophet,

God's preacher, God's herald, God's ambassador, is God's mouth. So when he speaks,

God is speaking. Just on that particular note, were you thinking that when you were sitting in the pew last

Sunday, God's herald is speaking? This is God's voice speaking to me. Now, as we mentioned, as you mentioned,

Chris, a moment ago, and you said, well, you know, preachers don't always do what they're supposed to do. That's true.

That's part of the reason for the book, and that's part of the reason why the person who's sitting in the pew really has to have a good idea as to what constitutes

God's voice in that way. Because if they're sitting there and such -and -such a person is not acting or doing or skilled or prepared to be

God's voice in that particular way, they're not going to be able to do what's required of them to hear, as their duty, the

Lord's voice. So, you know, Micah, as a prophet, he's

God's prophet, he's God's mouth, and he is uncompromising, and he's bold in what he's saying, and what he's doing is he's delivering

God's message. So, you know, the ministers of God ought to be bold, they ought to be plain, and they ought to be faithful in the communication of divine truth.

Why? Well, it's because they're God's mouth. It's vividly seen all through the book of Micah.

So, the first thing he says to them is, he's like, listen, I've got a case against you, and there's a problem.

Throughout the Scriptures, you know, God continually brings his case against his disobedient covenanters.

And when his covenant is broken by wayward sinners who claim to have allegiance to him, he always acts in righteousness and justice against them.

His judgment is always going to begin at God's house. And they're often stiff -necked, and they don't want to listen, and in this first verse,

God calls the people to make their case to the mountains and the hills, because they'll listen.

The knowing they don't have a case, Micah preaches God's message to the mountains and the hills, because they will more quickly respond than those stiff -necked people, which is exceedingly tragic.

And so God basically has Micah call out to these inanimate creatures and these things, calling them to hear the prophet's voice, which is

God's voice, which is God's case, which is very emphatic in this particular verse.

And so he says to them, you know, I have a saving hand. This waywardness that you're into has gone on for a long time, and you even think of me putting up with you,

God even speaks of a weariness, has God made you weary, and such a sarcastic response that way, mingled with the justice and the righteousness and holiness that Micah is talking about, which actually scares the people, you know, because God recounts his mighty acts of deliverance.

He delivered them from Egyptian bondage, he delivered them from Balak, he delivered them from Balaam, and he uses this word, this is a terrible word, and he uses it of us as well, and we see it all through the scripture, he uses the word, remember.

Remember is always a hearty rebuke, because God's people are often forgetful.

Remember what God has done. Recount those things, you wayward people. Remember the

Passover. Remember the Exodus. Yeah, we very quickly forget things we are to remember, as even is evidence from the

Israelites who were getting sick of the manna that they were given, forgetting what they had just been delivered from.

Right, totally. And so God has to, he has to like remind them of these great things that they physically saw with their eyes.

It wasn't even some kind of mystical idea, it was literally things that he did for them in their midst.

So he then declares in verses 6 to 8, he declares what true worship is.

So though this is God's message, it's spoken in first person by the

Prophet. What should true worshipers say? How should true worshipers think?

And what do true worshipers do? And true worship doesn't come from living carelessly before the means of grace, and that's why he sort of is sarcastic in the way that he's speaking to them.

Are you gonna bring thousands upon thousands of sacrifices, really? Are you gonna bring that many? Are you gonna bring rivers of oil?

Even the highest gift as Molech would have required of your own flesh and blood to sacrifice the very children to God, all of that's just insanity to the

Lord. And all of that really is legal living. Well, people can think that they appease their conscience by some manner of lawful duty that they do, but God's case, it's exceedingly tragic with them knowing that they can never live up to the law's requirement.

So as if they could in some way complete or uphold the covenant of works by giving extra to the sacrificial law?

No, they can't do it. It doesn't matter how expensive their outward liturgy is.

So you can't, you just can't pile on sacrifice after sacrifice and bathe them in rivers of oil.

So, he says, how should they come? How should they come and worship me? Well, hypocrites, they always inquire as to how

God might be pacified. So how should we come, then? Well, God's not looking for hypocritical worship.

He's looking for His cared -for and loved sheep to respond in true worship back to Him. So make note, all of these things here, they're all outside themselves.

It doesn't have anything to do with their heart. Should we come with a sacrifice? Should we come with the oil? Should we come with giving a sacrifice of our children?

All outward acts. That's it. Not stemming from them as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is their spiritual act of worship.

Not stemming from love. They're looking to pacify God. So what does God say? Well, super easy.

He gives them a theology of walking, and the Bible's filled with that. The Bible is filled with talking about how people are to walk before Him.

Since the time Adam walked in the garden, or Enoch walked with God, or Noah, or Abraham, or all of them, be imitators of God, walking as dear children,

Paul tells us in Ephesians. So Micah, in this message, says to them, well, justice and mercy, these things equate with walking humbly with God.

God loves those who walk humbly with Him. He loves to see them reflecting back to Him His attributes of justice and mercy in true obedience.

Because this isn't just talking about mere outward action. So the church has to offer themselves first.

Not animals, not oil, not other people. God looks at the heart.

He looks at that one forsaking his sins and ordering his conversation before God in a right manner.

So it's more than just mere superficial worship. So He wants them to perform what's righteous and demonstrate

God's righteous character, which is found in the law. You know, keep the law and you'll be like God, and that's what

God told Adam in the garden. So in this word to the people, the first and the second tables of the law are mentioned.

You've got to love God and love your neighbor. Justice and mercy. Those two things. So it means walking humbly with God to do justice and to love mercy.

That's what He tells them to do. And yet, and this is where I think most ministers miss this particular point in verse 9 of chapter 6, and I think

Christians as well, i .e. again, the title of the book. The focus of this section is the prophet's voice is the

Lord's voice. The Lord is the one crying to the city.

Now it's Micah's mouth, but it's the Lord's voice. It's His word being preached by Micah.

Hear now what the Lord says. So God speaks through the preacher.

God's words are communicated through the preacher. And in this particular passage, the particular message that He has was a judgmental message, because they were wayward.

But aside from that, you know, it's not that God has a literal vocal cord.

He doesn't have that. He doesn't have arms and eyes and nostrils. He doesn't have wings, the psalmist says, under his wings.

He doesn't have a shadow. All of those things are ascribed to God, but He's without passion or part. He doesn't have a mouth.

He doesn't have vocal cords. He doesn't have everything like that. But the intention of the language that's used here in this particular passage is that when the preacher preaches, it is regarded by the people as the

Lord's voice. So it's directed to Jerusalem, the center of worship, the church.

The crying or the cries that God's voice is making through Micah is preaching the truth, preaching doctrine.

And God doesn't whisper. You know, He doesn't whisper in preaching to His people. He cries out to them.

And He talks about being wise. And these particular people, not very wise, because they're not following God's Word, not listening to what the prophet has already been teaching them.

But the Word, as it is in Micah's mouth, is God's Word. It's not

His own Word. But it's not His own Word only insofar as He cries out

God's message. And so this is where it relates directly to the people sitting in the pew hearing the preacher on the

Lord's Day. As long as that preacher is preaching God's Word and God's message in the way and manner that God desires them to do that,

He's the Lord's voice. And pick up right where you left off because we have to go to our first station break.

Okay. And if anybody would like to join us, we already have several people eager to have you answer their questions, and I appreciate your patience.

If you'd like to join them and get in line, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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USA. Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back with Dr. C. Matthew McMahon and the

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We are now back to our discussion with Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, and where we left off was you were saying that Micah was only speaking with the voice of God as long as the message he was bringing to the people was

God's message. Exactly. Exactly. Whenever the preacher or the herald or the ambassador, the crier in that way, is crying out, it's

God's word. Now I'm not using the phrase, you know, it's God's word like the book of Genesis or Exodus or Philippians is

God's word. It's the intent of the prophet that when he speaks, or the intent of the minister, when he speaks and he speaks truth, he speaks

God's message. It's God speaking, it's God's word. So in this particular case, the people needed to be corrected, you know,

Israel, you're in the midst of danger, the rod is coming against you, and here is where it hits the people who are listening.

You have to be wise to understand what's being said, because the one who's threatening this rod, he can bring to pass what he threatens.

He's God, he's the almighty one. And yet equally, which was part of Micah's message, is the one that promises good things can also bring to pass what he promises for the good of his people.

But you can escape. You can escape if you're discerning and you're wise and you hear his voice and the voice of the preacher.

A few understood it in the city, but wisdom, in that verse, wisdom called for the wise people to discern what they heard in the mouth of the preacher, which in fact was the voice of the

Lord crying to the city. So the main meaning of that particular passage is that the voice of the

Lord, by the herald, cries to stir the city up to repentance, and whoever will see and hear the name of the

Lord in that herald and acknowledge him to be his messenger, no matter what the word of the Lord is, there they're seeing

God's voice, they're hearing his voice. Now in this case, again, it was judgment, but it could in fact be any message that God desires to proclaim to his people.

In fact, unless you have a poignant thing to finish that thought, I do want to start taking some of our listeners.

But yeah, no, go ahead. Let's see, we have, I think, a first -time listener,

Patrick, or at least a first -time questioner, I should say, Patrick in Chandler, Arizona.

In fact, he's actually on the faculty of Puritan Reformed Biblical Seminary. And Patrick said, would

Reverend McMahon speak to the commonly used phrase by the layman in discussions,

I am preaching this to you, I preach the fact that the Bible says, etc.

It seems many need a refresher about exactly who were the

Lord's, I'm sorry, who were the intended audience of our Lord's Great Commission.

If everyone is a minister, then no one is a minister. There is a difference between bearing witness to that which we hold dear and declaring ourselves to be ministers who preach without being called, examined, approved, and sent by the

Church. Yeah, assuredly. The introduction to this work deals with specifically the non -negotiable qualifications that the minister must have, biblically speaking, so that you know that person is the

Lord's voice. You know, in dealing with 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, you have to have specific biblical marks that demonstrate a man's capacity to lead others in the

Christian life. It's not up to everyone to be a quote -unquote minister, or a preacher, or a herald.

They have to be commissioned, qualified, and sent out in that particular way.

Paul talks about ordaining those ministers in every church. And it's not even upon the idea of just because somebody desires such things that that instantaneously makes them qualified for the office.

As 1 Timothy 3 talks about, that desire is a noble task, but that's where we then have to go down the road of, is this person a godly, qualified man that desires above all things to be a minister in the duties of public preaching and prayer and exercising pastoral theology?

So he has to be a whole bunch of things. He has to be blameless and the husband of one wife, and vigilant and sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach.

So he's got to be able to teach. He can't be a pastor and elder unless he's able to do that, you know. It doesn't mean that he is instantly a seminary professor, but he does have to have the quality of being able to do that.

And he has to also silence the gamesayer, as Titus says. So there's all these things that, these qualifications that go into the ability of that man to say, hear now the word of the

Lord. Because not everybody did that. Micah wasn't the prophet. There wasn't 65 different prophets, unless they were false prophets.

God deals quite a bit with that in that way. But in looking at that particular aspect, yeah, we have to have qualified people who are trained rightly to be able to say, this is

God's word, and you should listen to it in that particular manner. And here's one of the interesting parts to that, is the prophet who is doing that knew that.

They knew that that was going on. Like Jeremiah.

Jeremiah said this, and I have this day declared it to you, but you have not obeyed the voice of the

Lord your God or anything which he has sent you by me. So Jeremiah spoke, he equated it with the voice of the

Lord, because he's the voice of the Lord. That was the Lord's word. He was sent by God to do that.

So in dealing with that particular aspect, you have to have a qualified person in order for them to say, that says the

Lord, and you need to listen to that. Certainly, Christians can encourage one another, and we're required by Hebrews to encourage one another while it is still called today, and we want to do that.

But it's the job of the minister specifically commissioned that the

Christian is to hear. God's people should hear the crying voice of the

Lord in the preaching and teaching of true ministers that help answer that question.

Yes, and thank you Patrick in Chandler, Arizona, who's also, as I said, on the faculty at Puritan Reform Biblical Seminary, and also he says he's the founder of Reform Theology Institute.

Well, thank you very much Patrick for your question, and thank you for your mailing address, because you have won a free copy of The Lord's Voice Cries to the

City, a biblical guide for hearing the Word of God preached by our guest,

Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, and since you're a first -time questioner, you are also getting for free a copy of the

New American Standard Bible. We have Brandon in Franklinton, North Carolina, who says,

I have a simple question for Dr. McMahon. Please name the one Puritan author who

I have most likely never heard of or read anything by, that I most need to equate myself with.

There's a little bit of mind reading going on in that one, but can you think of one that that would probably be best answered as a general answer that most of us might not know the name or the writings of a certain

Puritan? I'm going to go with one of my favorites.

Okay. He was a Westminster Divine. I'm going to give you two, but let's go with the first one.

He's a Westminster Divine. He died in 1656. His name was Francis Whitten, and the sad part about Mr.

Whitten was that we only have one work by him, and we have published it, which was one of the most fabulous books for me.

You know, again, sometimes it's subjective, because of when you read something that way, but the book is called

The Golden Topaz, or Heart Jewel, namely a conscience purified and pacified by the blood and spirit of Christ.

That book is a rocking good book. It's the only one that we have of Francis Whitten, and nobody knows about him.

I give you another one, though, and we're actually just working on his works, and it's never been published ever.

He was a Scottish minister, and his name was John Forbes, and the first work that we're going to put out by him is called

The Christians Charge Never to Offend God in Worship, a fabulous book, and he is a fabulous writer and a great help to our soul.

So there's two of them for you, John Forbes and Francis Whitten. Great, and thank you also,

Brandon, because you have won a free copy of The Lord's Voice, Cries to the City by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, and please make sure we have your full mailing address in Franklinton, North Carolina.

So cvbbs .com can ship that out to you at no charge to you or to us, and we thank not only

Dr. C. Matthew McMahon for providing us with these copies of his book, but we also thank cvbbs .com

for shipping them out absolutely free of charge to our listeners who win the copies.

We have Joe in Slovenia. Dear Brother Chris, I'm very interested to hear

Brother McMahon's thoughts on the role of the sufficiency of Scripture in guiding the preacher's approach to preaching.

Brother McMahon, in your estimation, what effect does the continuationist position, meaning the person who is charismatic or Pentecostal or non -cessationist, what effect does the continuationist position regarding the notion that God is still speaking to individuals through direct revelation today have on preaching?

Please address this question from the viewpoint of both the preacher and those hearing him.

Yes, obviously when you titled this book The Lord's Voice Cries to the City, you were not talking about new revelation.

No, yeah, no, we're not talking about new revelation at all. You know, the canon is closed. The problem that the charismania has is there's no safety at all.

I mean, apart from, let's just talk about the practical side of it, apart from it being a non -biblical position in that particular way, if new revelation is actually coming in, it should be written down, and they should continually put it in their

Bibles. But even if you talk with a charismatic person or somebody who really believes that there is a Pentecostal charismatic preacher, they'll tell you, well, it can't contradict the

Word. At that particular point, you've already just kind of exploded that whole idea.

You know, God has already spoken, and he has already laid down what his will is, and that's actually something that I deal with in this very chapter, which we're talking about with Micah, because at that particular point, it is a requirement for the preacher to hold steadfastly to what

God's message is, not something that he makes up on his own. So, I mean, even the charismatic preacher, unless he's way out, he's still going to say to you, well, you know,

I might be led or might be challenged by the Spirit in some way to add into my message this, that, and the other that I feel is coming directly to him, but it can't contradict what

God's Word has already said. Well, I mean, if that's the case, then you don't need it, because you already have God's Word.

It's really almost a defeatist argument overall. And in terms of then, once that person gets up and he starts doing that, and I've seen that,

I mean, I went to a Pentecostal school for four years. I saw it firsthand many times.

They would just get up with no preparation at all, and as much as it pains me to even say it, they would act like buffoons in the way that they dealt with trying to say something, quote -unquote, on behalf of God, because they were waiting, literally, for the

Spirit to tell them something, which in and of itself is completely opposite to the skilled qualifications, the non -negotiable skilled qualifications of the minister that he is to have, is being apt to teach and being able to silence the game -sayer and such, which means he's got to know the

Word, because people are not elders because they're old. They're elders because they know God's Word in Scripture, and they're able to lead others because they, in fact, in that way, become the voice of God, if that helps.

Yeah, in fact, what you said of waiting for a message from God sounds a lot like Quakerism to me.

Very much so, yeah. And we have to go to our midway break right now. This is the longer break that we take between our two hours that Grace Life Radio 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us. They require a 12 -minute break, and so please take use of this time not only to write down the information of our advertisers so that you can patronize them, but also write down a question and email it to our guest today,

Dr. C. Matthew McMahon on The Lord's Voice Cries to the City, a biblical guide for hearing the

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?

Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the

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That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

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Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled

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Pastor Bill is a very dear friend whom I have known since the 1980s, and a really brilliant brother in Christ who is very, very biblically knowledgeable, a member of the

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That's a visit to the pastor's study every Saturday, 12 noon to 1 pm eastern time. And now

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The Lord's Voice Cries to the City, a biblical guide for hearing the word of God preached.

Coming up, special events here conducted by supporters of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

We have the Spirit of the Age and the Age of the Spirit, which is the theme of the

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That is also the email address to send a question to our guest, Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, and again we are discussing his book,

The Lord's Voice Cries to the City, a biblical guide for hearing the word of God preached.

That email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

and we do, Dr. McMahon, have a question from our listener in Rome, New York, Charlie.

Charlie in Rome, New York, says, I agree that there is no more revelation in regards to the entire body of Christ, but isn't it possible for God to give specific instruction to a

Christian, such as in Acts, with the Apostle Paul being sent to the

Ethiopian eunuch? No. The answer to that is no.

Revelation has ceased. Everything that we have in the scripture, as Peter tells us, he's given us everything that we need for life and godliness.

So everything that you need for life and godliness is found in the scripture. Now a lot of times people don't like that, who want to go into the touchy -feely zone, and the reason they don't like it is because it requires you to know what

God's word says, which means that you've got to study it and you've got to be like those Bereans who studied the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what

Paul said as the Lord's voice was true. So no, we don't get to exercise ourselves in the office of the evangelist, as Philip was, who received some direct revelation from God to go talk to the

Ethiopian eunuch. And even in that case, think it through, the

Ethiopian eunuch could have, he could have been sitting there and God, instead of zapping

Philip, could have just zapped him. Here's what Isaiah 53 means, zap.

Well no, he didn't do that. What he did is he wanted the Lord's voice to go up to the chariot, to get in there, and to teach him what scripture specifically stated.

So for us, now that the canon is complete and we have what we have that pertains to life and godliness, no, we don't run around at the whim of the

Spirit speaking to us, because that's a real dangerous, charismatic place to be, where, you know, your word against mine.

Well God just told me that I need to go do this. Well God just told me that what he just told you wasn't right, he's telling me to tell you what's right.

And then you get into all sorts of messes inside of that zone and you don't want to be there. It's still going to rest squarely on God's revealed word that he's already given us.

That's actually part and parcel of what the Christian has to do in the pew. That's what makes this particular message that we're talking about a little bit difficult, and have a little bit of a bitter taste to most

Christians, because God's people should hear God's voice. His voice crying in the sermons of all true ministers who are preaching.

You know, so like in this case, this is a good segue, in this case with Micah, it was a message, you know, hear the rot, there's judgment coming.

It was corrective. But that might not always be the case. So ministers preach and teach God's words to the people on varied occasions, with many different messages.

Maybe they're impressed with something that the Lord is dealing with them on as they study the scripture and guides them to that.

Yeah, I'm all for that. But no matter what the occasion is, if the minister is faithfully heralding the word of God, well, then

God's people should hear those sermons as if it is the voice of the

Lord Himself speaking to them. They have to hold a very high regard of scripture in that way.

And when we get into the airy -fairy zone, and the feeling zone, we get away from that.

That's why people, they want short sermons and longer worship times, because that's easier, because you participate in the feeling of whatever it is that you gain from whether or not, quote -unquote, you've worshipped

God or not. But realistically, that's not what scripture teaches.

Scripture teaches that God's people are to discern, to be wise, to hear the voice of the

Lord God Himself when the preacher preaches. Do Christians really do that? Do ministers really perceive themselves in that way?

Because the voice of the Lord is in all faithful sermons given by all faithful ministers.

The Lord's voice could be found there. As a matter of fact, as Micah says, it's crying in such preaching.

You know, and it's a, there's a really famous passage of scripture that complements this one in Micah, where Paul says in 1

Thessalonians 2, 13, this is what he says, for this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you receive the

Word of God, which you heard, they were teaching, heard from us, you welcomed it not as the

Word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.

So preached Word, that which is God's Word. What was God's Word for Paul?

He was opening up his Old Testament, that was his Bible, and teaching how Christ is seen all through that, and now realized that's what they were preaching to them.

All the, the New Testament hadn't been written down yet, so to speak. Paul wasn't carrying around, you know, the

New Testament Psalms and Proverbs and some kind of Bible that way. No, he was carrying around the Old Testament. That's what he was preaching,

God's Word. And so when it's preached by prophets and heralds and messengers and interpreters and elders and pastors that way, preachers, those who are qualified, called, set apart for that particular office, well, then

God's voice is in that. And so, I mean, just on that one particular note, there's a great importance to discern those who are called, those who are appointed, those who are qualified in that commissioned office.

I mean, that should be, like, at the top of the most grave and important ideas and thoughts that the

Church has today, because the harvest is plentiful. Jesus said that 2 ,000 years ago. Now it's still plentiful, but the workers are few.

We need to make sure that they're true workers, you know? And so when God's Word is preached, the listener, the hearers, they're to discern

God's voice when it cries. And where does that happen?

That happens in the voice of the preacher, you know? The Lord's voice is a very powerful, commending, bold, plain voice.

You could look all through Scripture and just look up that term, the Lord's voice, and you find, like, for example, in Psalm 29, the voice of the

Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars.

When you were sitting in church this last Sunday, did your minister break the cedars, so to speak?

Did sermons do that? Psalm 29, 29 says, the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness.

Is that how you perceive the Lord's voice in that way? I mean, it's tender in certain aspects, yet at the same point, it says that the

Lord sat enthroned at the flood, and his voice echoed, and the Lord sits as a king forever.

Psalm 29 is awesome in that particular way, because it's an almighty voice. I mean, can

God's voice be anything other than almighty and authoritative? And if the preacher's doing that, what does he sound like?

God's word is authoritative. Now, if someone is always leaving a worship service filled with happiness, and if that's what they're actually insisting upon, they get upset if they hear, say, a friend or a loved one invites them to church, and they are filled with guilt and sorrow, and they say,

I don't like that guy. He really bothers me because he makes me upset. I mean, are we always to walk out of a worship service just happy?

Well, no, it's not about happy. It's about being instructed, right? Michael was the

Lord's voice. It was a threatening message. I'm sure it didn't go over very well, and even in the people that were stiff -necked hearing it, and that was part of God's case against him.

It's like, listen, preach it to the hills and the mountains, because they're going to respond quicker to my message through you than the people will.

So it's not about going into a worship service just to come up to feel happy. I mean, you want to have a happy thought.

Have the happy thought that you went to the worship service and in some way you were sanctified, and your sin was mortified, and you heard

God's voice to you that particular day. And you could be rejoicing over the consequences of sin that you have been rescued from.

Absolutely. And even the bondage of sin. Totally, but the whole point is the supremacy of God in preaching and being the

Lord's voice and putting God supreme in that way, you know, we're to esteem

God's Word in such a manner in which we're hearing and we're receiving the light of Christ in his gospel and all the various messages that that occurs.

Because everybody always thinks, okay, this is another point that we don't have time to talk about extensively, but everybody always thinks, well, the gospel is only

Jesus came, died on a cross. No, that's not just the gospel. The gospel is everything.

It's all of it. And all of it has to do with the Lord, the

Lord of glory who came and died and gave himself and rose again and such. But the gospel is not just that people think, well, the gospel is a gospel message.

The gospel message is going to be specifically a good gospel message about Jesus dying on the cross.

Well, I mean, that's only part of the gospel. And there's much more to the gospel than just that.

So it's all of God's Word. Paul didn't say in that scripture that we just read that when we just preach the gospel to you, no, no, we preach the

Word of God to you because the Word of God, all of the Word is the good news. That is where God's supreme, your

God -willing message is in the midst of all that. And the gospel is the capstone to everything that God has told us.

So if I preach a message that's from Micah 6, and I'm talking about preaching, and I preach a message about preaching, that's part of the gospel.

All of that is part of the gospel. The communication of the Lord's voice to his people.

It's good news that God reigns in such a way that he can mortify your sin and sanctify you in such a way that you can hear his voice.

And he does that for you, and he doesn't have to do that. He's blessed whether you're sanctified or not.

He's eternally happy whether you're changed or not. It's not about leaving... Now, just to clarify something, because someone may run away with the wrong idea of everything in the

Bible being the gospel, I have heard cultic preachers, evangelists, even

Harold Camping, who would say similar things, and what he meant by that is if you disagreed with his understanding of eschatology, you were damned.

You were not among God's people. You were living in rebellion against God. There are people who would say, if you disagree with anything that is being taught by me or this congregation or this group, including things that we would view as secondary or tertiary matters, you are, you know, you're in violation of the gospel.

Your gospel is false, and therefore you're damned. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, no, no, no. Whenever you get into the zone of the islands to themselves, you've already departed.

Because Jude tells us that God has delivered once his will, his word, his truth to the saints, which we are to contend for.

Everybody in the of the Church that are God's people at whatever time period has received the fullness of God's communicated will at that particular time as he's progressively unfolding all of that to culminate in Christ.

But you don't get to go off and go on an island by yourself and think, this particular teaching is new.

It's a new teaching. I've got nobody else in the history of the Church has ever believed it, but we're going to believe it, and if you don't believe it, then you're not part of the elect.

That is, that's what Paul tells Titus. Those are the people that are divisive.

The word heretic actually means the one who divides and the divider, and those people are the ones that the minister is supposed to be skilled enough to be able to silence the gainsayer or silence the heretic in that particular way.

Paul actually gives an admonition that says, you know, after one or two admonitions to them, you depart from them because they're divisive people.

Now we have a question that I want to read to you, and you can answer it when we return from our final break.

Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island wants to know, what can we who are the hearers of sermons do to better be prepared to hear

God's Word preached to us in the hours before and even days before we are sitting in that pew listening to the sermon?

And I think that's an excellent question, and we're going to have you answer it when we come back from our final word from our sponsor, and if anybody wants to get in line and ask your own question, do so now or forever hold your peace because we're running out of time.

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Now we are back with our final half hour of our interview with Dr.

C. Matthew McMahon, founder of A Puritan's Mind, and we are addressing The Lord's Voice, Cries to the

City, A Biblical Guide for Hearing the Word of God Preached. If you'd like to join us with a question of your own, do so now quickly because we're running out of time.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And as I said before the break, Dr. McMahon, a Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, basically wants you to tell us how we can best prepare ourselves to be more effective hearers when the

Word of God is preached ahead of time. Well, that's a great question. That in and of itself deserves a week's worth of interviews to deal with that topic.

However, first is thinking about what it is that you're going to do when you go to corporate worship in that particular way.

One is not you're going to get something. That's not why you go. You're going because you're supposed to.

That's not why you go. You're going to sanctify the name of God in all of the ordinances that he has for you on that day.

You're going to regard him as holy because the creature owes homage to the creator. When you go and do that, one of those ordinances is hearing the

Word. And hearing the Word is part of God's worship. There's a number of different forms that it takes because it could be from a scripture reading or from the sermon or in something that you sing and such.

But in thinking about that ahead of time, the first thing that has to come into our mind is that we're professing our dependence on God for knowing his mind.

We depend on understanding the Word to know what

God means in it for our good. And when we go to hear, we wait on God because this is an ordinance in which he requires us in our duty to hear well without distraction.

And so you have to have some kind of preparation for that. We're hearing God's Word as the

Word. That should be in our mind. I'm not going to hear a preacher. I'm going to hear

God's voice, i .e., this is the reason why I think this particular topic is extremely important in that way.

Because we often think we're going to hear the preacher. I'm going not to hear such and such a preacher. Do you want to come? No, no, no, no.

You're coming to hear God's voice to you. And so we want to prepare to hear the

Word as the Word. And we're going to prepare our heart and our mind in being watchful and in prayer because we know that in some way

God is going to speak to us and we're going to want to change, be changed in some way, either mortifying our sin or being sanctified in some way.

And we need to be resolved to yield to every truth that is revealed to us and ask that God would help us to yield and be resolved to do that.

We also want to pray and ask that the Lord would help us to have a desire after the

Word so that when we go, we are hearing God's Word in the way that He so requires.

And then we want to pray. We maybe pray that night, pray that morning for all of these things, preparing our heart and mind to receive what it is that God is going to tell us.

Now, here's where the sticking point comes in. You might be listening even right now, and you might be saying, as what

I think Chris, you had said at the beginning, you know, my preacher isn't that good. And so I kind of go, and it's kind of okay, and so I'm not receiving.

Listen, even a broken clock is right twice a day. By the way, I was not saying that from personal experience.

I know you were. My preacher is phenomenal. I just want to make that clear. Excellent, excellent.

Some peoples are not. I have a number of friends that go, it's kind of okay. But listen, if they're preaching the

Word, it is apart from them. It is your responsibility to discern

God's mind in what is being preached to you. And one friend used to say, eat the meat and throw away the bone.

But you need to, the soul has to be prepared to do that, and you have to have careful attention to it, and there are means to help you do that.

Your heart needs to be open to receive whatever it is that God is going to bring your way. So if you're not preparing yourself, if you think that you can just waltz into the worship service on the

Lord's Day morning, and you're ready to go without any preparation, it's never going to happen. That will never happen for you to be one in a million shot that something's going to come through.

You might even say, oh, you know, that was a pretty good point. But that's not the same thing as having a careful applying of the

Word of God to your heart and to your soul mixed with faith and how that actually occurs. Now, like I said, we've been talking about that for a really long time, but hopefully that at least gives you an idea to prepare yourself the night before, the morning before you go to receive whatever it is that the

Lord has for you that particular day. And Ronald, you have won a free copy of The Lord's Voice Cries to the

City, a biblical guide for hearing the Word of God preached by C.

Matthew McMahon. Please make sure we have your full mailing address. Also, I think I forgot to tell Charlie in Rome, New York, who had the question prior to that, you also won a free copy of The Lord's Voice Cries to the

City. So please give us your full mailing address in Rome, New York, so that can be shipped out to you.

Compliments of Dr. C. Matthew McMahon and also compliments of CVBBS .com.

We have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, is it proper to ever call a pastor or preacher a prophet when you are speaking about him using the

Word of God alone to deliver a message? Not that he is receiving new revelation or anything like that, but I have heard some use the term prophet in regard to such men.

Is that correct? Good question. When we talk about the mode of what's going on, the mode can be applied to the prophet or the interpreter or the herald or the elder or the pastor or the bishop or in all of those various terms.

Should we say, hey, I'm going to such -and -such a church and my prophet, you know,

Prophet Smith is such -and -such? William Perkins, in his book

The Art of Faithful Preaching, talks about what it means to prophesy, and there are different aspects to that.

One is where you foretell something, so many of the prophets in the

Old Testament foretold, which was specific to their office as a prophet in that particular way.

But then you also have the heralding of the Word, which is set to the office of a pastor, teacher, elder.

So foretelling and forth telling. One is setting the groundwork for inspired scripture, as many of the prophets, like Isaiah and Micah in this case, or Jonah and some of those.

But then you have others, like Timothy, who is a pastor who is foretelling what's already set down.

So you want to make a distinction between prophets who are foretelling and pastors and elders, those offices in the

Church which are set and continual until the Lord comes back as foretelling or preaching the

Word. Thank you, Christopher in Suffolk County. Please give us your full mailing address so that we could have

The Lord's Voice, Cries to the City shipped out to you by our friends at cvbbs .com.

And we also have Robert in Westchester County, New York, who says,

I understand that we are not to be expecting God's voice to tell us to do this and not to do that, other than from the

Word of God. But is providence ever a guide in such matters?

Absolutely. My, oh, my. To discern God's providence is a duty of Christians, to be able to do that, to look at circumstances in which he providentially brings you away.

All of that is bound up in discerning God's will. Now, you know, there are certain wise exceptions to that, that you don't want to take things to an

X degree where it might be radical in some way because you're in a certain spot at a certain place.

God, you know, you think that God may want you to do this, that, or the other. You just have to be careful in discerning what providence is, because it's very subjective.

So in taking circumstances and yet harnessing them by Scripture, that generally will lead you in a right way.

You know, somebody might say, I want to go to seminary and I want to be a pastor. Okay. The desire is good,

Scripture tells us that, but there are a lot of other factors that go into that. And, you know, whether or not, you might even ask a certain person, you know, do you feel like you're a good teacher that way?

No, I don't really feel like I have the gift of teaching. Well, if you don't have the gift of teaching, yet you're thinking about being a pastor, those two things don't come together.

Well, somebody told me the other day that I might make a good pastor because I was giving them some good advice. Well, that's not the same thing.

You want to discern God's providence in the right way, harnessed with Scripture, and work those things out with wisdom, which would include talking with your pastor and being in the midst of counselors where plans are firmly established, as Proverbs tells us, because we're not islands to ourselves.

Well, thank you, Robert, and you have also won a free copy of The Lord's Voice, Cries to the City, a biblical guide for hearing the

Word of God preached. And in the less than 20 minutes that we have left,

I really want to make sure that our listeners know that there is likely things that they need to correct in their own habits of life, even myself, to improve our being better hearers of the

Word of God. If you could continue on that thought. Sure, sure. Discerning what's happening, that's the entire point of the book, to be able to discern what should be going on.

It's a duty of the Christian to seek the truth of God in the mouths of faithful preachers.

It's a duty. It's specifically commanded of them to specifically do that.

And it's like in Malachi 2, 1 -9, he's talking about the priests there, and that they are to seek for the lips of the priest, seeking his lips, seeking his mouth.

The lips of the priest should keep knowledge, and the people should seek the law from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the

Lord of hosts. So there are a lot of different aspects to what it means to take that and to press that into what it is that our duty is as hearers.

But if we're sitting and we don't know what to expect, and we don't know that this is what should be done, because this is what this book actually came out of, being able to take a group of people that didn't necessarily know what should be happening in the pulpit, for them to be able to look at that and say, okay, this is what should be happening, but it's not happening, or it is happening and I'm not responding to it in the way that I should be, this isn't a high priority on my list, is an exceedingly important aspect to the way that we view how pulpit discourse actually happens.

We just think of the word cries, the Lord's voice cries, the text says.

What does it mean to cry aloud, to make a noise in that particular way? Does that mean that everybody talks the same?

It doesn't mean that everybody talks the same, it doesn't mean that every preacher preaches the same. But when you think about what it means to be a crier, how did

Christ sound when he preached? Did he sound timid? John the Baptist, when he cried in the wilderness as a herald, prepare the way of the

Lord, do you think he was just kind of, you know, shy and mumbling and you can barely hear him? No, he was a crier, you know, there were no speaker systems in their day, they shouted aloud for all to hear, and I think this is an important aspect to it, with gravity and severity in that particular way.

John the Baptist didn't share his thoughts, and Jesus didn't share, that's not what they did, they preached, and then they were a saver of life or death.

So what is it to hear the Lord's voice in the sermons of true ministers in that way?

Well when you're hearing, you're discerning that preaching is not sharing, because it's not using in the pulpit, it's not just people thinking about stuff, it's not a theological lecture, it's not a chain of family illustrations that take up 20 minutes to bolster some proof text that they're pulling out that generally sits somewhere in the sanctuary that's never explained or never expounded, or never applied because time got wasted on things that weren't

God's word, or preaching isn't Bible drills, hopping to and fro throughout the scriptures, and thinking that just because you quote or the preacher quotes 25 verses on prayer that suddenly by osmosis you're going to know what prayer is, because you've read those 25 verses.

God commands, and we are to be wise to, that preaching is done to the ears and to the hearts and to the souls and the consciences of the hearer.

So it commands and invites us to closer communion with God, so that the hearer might experience not only the power of God and salvation in Christ, which is where that supremacy of God in preaching is going to aim at, that God reigns, and he reigns over sin and he reigns over death, but that we have also the immense love of God in Christ for our spiritual transformation.

So it all focuses in on Christ, the whole of scripture focuses in on Christ and presses men to have a closer communion with God through him and the power of the

Spirit. William Perkins, who's a very famous Puritan, I think we've talked about him once or twice, said that preaching is to preach one

Christ by Christ to the praise of Christ. That in and of itself is the supremacy of God in redemptive preaching, so how do we hear that?

How do we discern hearing that? Because not only does the minister have the job of discerning what

God's voice is in the text that he's dealing with to deliver to the people, but also the people have to discern what it is that that person is saying, so that not only are they going to hear when it's applied to them what

God's will is for them in it, because in that preaching, it has the ability to bind the conscience if it's

God's word, because it's the very voice of God, because out of the mouth of the preacher himself, saver of life, saver of death.

So every time we go into the sanctuary, we should be thinking to ourselves, we're going to come, one of two things is going to happen, he's either going to draw us closer to the

Lord, we're either going closer to heaven or closer to hell, one way or the other. And the preacher has that dreadful job of being both of those savers to those who are hearing, and God's attached to his word so that where in one, sovereign grace might be sent, and yet in the very same work of preaching, his wrath might be sent to someone else who's sitting there and listening, so what are we discerning when we hear that?

We should be thinking, listen, this guy's up there and he's preaching, it's not the guy anymore, now it's

God's voice. Think about the way that you would have been if you were an

Israelite that was just called to the mountain, right, next day is going to be the mountain, and God is going to speak from the mountain to you.

Did the Israelites hang on every word shouted down from the mountain by God's voice?

I mean, it was so frightening to them that they begged Moses to intercede and then tell them what God said, because it was so frightening.

And you know, at the base of the mountain there, there was no cappuccino bar, there was no water fountain, no restroom, right, nobody was fiddling about.

They came there to hear intensely the seriousness of what God's word was talking about.

God was speaking from the mountain, so they went to go hear God's voice, and so the voice of the Lord cries to the city in the mouth of the minister.

And so, for God, there's no practical difference between speaking from the mountain and speaking from your pastor.

So how do you hear that and thinking about it in that particular way? The messenger is one who's sent and commissioned to bear, it's like bearing the message that God desires to be preached.

I mean, you can look through Scripture and try, really try really hard to pull out something trite, or light, or jolly, or something like that.

But you know, when you think about what God has done in the history of the Church in doing things like, for example, effecting revival, because that's what we need.

We need revival. The last time revival occurred, let's say we deal with the

Great Awakening and Edwards, it occurred under Edwards, and God was converting hundreds of people, whole towns of people.

And it started with, and we don't just even have to go with sinners in the hands of an angry God, we don't have to go there.

Read any of Edwards' sermons, any of them, read all of them.

You will never find one joke, one jollity, one light, anything.

There was a gravity about his preaching in that particular way, and ministers have to be thinking,

I'm bearing the burden of God's Word, God's message, that God desires to be preached in a certain way.

You know, preach the Word, be ready, in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

It doesn't say anything about jokes, and triviality, and lightness. So when we sit in a pew and we listen to those men talk, you know, whoever they are, we should be listening intently and patiently with what they're speaking, because it is the voice of God, if they have done what their job is.

So when bold, faithful ministers herald God's Word, it's a true saying, it's the voice of God and not of men.

If they're holding steadfastly to that Word, and they're not deviating, it's the voice of the

Lord that cries to the city, cries to the church in that way. So when we think about that, we've got to think about what then they can't be, because they can't be merely, you know, advisors.

They're not just advisors that they give good advice, they're not, you know, church speakers, getting up there just for, you know, the sake of speaking.

They are specifically up there to herald what God desires His people to understand.

So they're not musers, you know, we should be thinking thoroughly about whatever our sermons are in that particular way, but they're not just lecturing, though they present the gospel, they have to be thinking in their minds that they're the voice of God.

Because hearing God's Word is part of worship. And so if they're not doing what they're supposed to do, then the people in the pew are never going to be able to do what they're supposed to do, you know, the people are going to be hindered in that particular way.

Because if they're not exercising themselves as the constituted voice of God that morning, then they're being a hindrance to the worship that the people in the pew are trying to do as their duty before God, even if they're thinking about it in the right way.

You know, many ministers in the world believe that they simply enter the pulpit because they have the position of the minister that Christ is speaking through them, like with some kind of spiritual default, you know, there are people to hear,

I have something to say, and so in this way, Christ must be speaking through me to them.

Now that's a complete fallacy, because Christ speaks through them when they preach

Christ's Word as a responsible herald. And let's say, let's say that they do that.

Let's say that you've got that preacher. Be blessed to be thinking that you have that preacher. And so you go, and you listen to the voice of the

Lord. You only have 3 ,750 sermons to hear, and that's if you attend church every day for 70 years.

That's how many sermons that you're going to hear in the course of that particular time. And that's regarding whether or not they're speaking as God's voice, and they are stellar in it, and that you're prepared in hearing

God's voice each time. Do you imagine, you know, how sinful we are, and what it is that we do in not being prepared and not doing what we should, and we go to church and we're tired because we're up late and we shouldn't have been the night before because we're doing things we shouldn't have been doing, we should have been preparing, or whatever that happens to be, and yet we have a limited amount of time to be sanctified before we get to heaven.

3 ,750 sermons is not a lot in thinking about the full orbit. That's your whole life, and not a lot of people actually even live that long.

When you go back in time and you look at some of the Reformers and Puritans, some of them lived 25 years, 30 years, 35 years, 40 years, that's it.

They even got less in that way. So preachers shouldn't be engaged in just throwing together a sermon simply to have something to say, because if it's not thoughtfully set down word for word, line for line, prayed over and pondered, then they're going to be doing a disservice to the people in the pew who want to hear what

God's voice specifically is in that particular message that God's man is supposed to be preaching to his people.

In fact, I want to just squeeze in one more anonymous question from a listener. Let's see, we have an anonymous listener in Pennsylvania who says,

I have a friend who's a pastor and he said something that troubled me. He said that it is not his job to evangelize the lost in a worship service, that his function is to build up, edify, instruct, and correct and rebuke the flock, and not to evangelize the lost, that is their job when they leave the doors of the church.

I happen to think that although expository preaching involves much instruction to the church that doesn't necessarily involve evangelizing the lost, that evangelizing the lost should at least have a part of that sermon, at least, especially in the close of the message.

What are your thoughts on this? Well, that's another topic that is kind of a lot of things to cover.

You can read, let me give you an example, you can read Jeremiah Burroughs and read a number of his sermons right in a row on various topics and not hear

Jesus mentioned one time. And yet, as you read through his sermon, they're filled with the supremacy of God.

They're filled with the gospel. Yet, it might not necessarily be a gospel message. Maybe the message has to do with, like in this case, with preaching.

And yet, yes, there is a segue in which responsible ministers will address the various people in his congregation, but we're not talking about an altar call or things like that.

That whole evangelistic idea is foreign to what the Scriptures talk about. What would be rather smarter to talk about is what the

Puritans would call cases of conscience. You have different kinds of people that need to hear different things in a particular sermon that you may be giving.

So it's important that the preacher think through who his audience is in all of those ways.

And that's just part of being a wise and discernible preacher. So in a certain way, both sides have a certain merit to it without making the pendulum swing too far to one way or the other.

Because you can read some of Edward's sermons, for example, that sound extremely evangelistic, and then you go in the other direction, and it doesn't have anything to do with that at all.

It's something completely different, and so there isn't any quote -unquote evangelistic message in it.

That's because all of these guys that were preaching in history that way were thinking, when we preach, we are preaching the whole counsel of God, and we can't say everything that needs to be said, so to speak, every time we say something, because otherwise we would never stop speaking and we'd have to speak from now until Jesus comes back.

It doesn't work like that. Sermons don't work like that. However, the preacher should be thinking, you know, he who insults is wise.

So his job is to bring people to heaven, and he should be doing that in his sermons and instructing people in that particular way.

But there is a balance to how that actually occurs. He's not saying every single time, you know, you need to repent, you need to come to God, you need to believe.

A lot of times preachers will do that, and I see them do that personally, irresponsibly, because they'll have a 40 -minute sermon, and then right at the end, because they think that they have left something out, they'll throw in a minute of, you know, repent and believe, you people who are...that's

irresponsible. That is not the way, if you read any of the prophets or read Paul's preaching, they never did that.

It was always well thought out in the way that it was communicated. Maybe there needs to be a particular message that's specific to evangelism for that particular church, but it's going to take the discerning pastor to think through that.

So I don't think you can just go, it's one or the other. It has to be a wise pastor to deal with both of those at the same time in the way that his audience is, and that's one of the skills that he needs to have in dealing with homiletics.

And we are out of time, and I know that your website is apuritansmind .com, apuritansmind .com,

and also puritanpublications .com, puritanpublications .com.

Thank you so much, Dr. McMahon, for being our guest today. I look forward to your return to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater