FBC Morning Light – October 3, 2022

Well, a good Monday morning to you. I hope your week's getting off to a good start today, and I hope you had the opportunity to take some time to read a few sections of God's Word today, perhaps. You're following along in the Bible reading chart, and we are into the last quarter of that, or I should say the last eighth of it.

We have been working our way through a reading of the entire Bible over a period of two years. We started that at the beginning of 2020, and here we are entering into the last quarter. And today, we're in chapter 33 of Ezekiel.

Hearing the Word Without Living It

And there's a section at the end of chapter 33 that reminds me of an interesting relationship. Let me explain. So verse 30 and following, the Lord says to Ezekiel, his prophet, he says, As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses.

And they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother, please come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord. So they come to you as people do. They sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them.

For with their mouth, they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed, you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument. For they hear your words, but they do not do them.

So this was the way it was with Ezekiel. He's a prophet of the Lord, and he's given the word of the Lord. And people would come to hear him more out of a sense of entertainment, just for something to do and because they enjoyed hearing his voice or something of that nature.

George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin

Well, this reminds me of the relationship between George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin. Yeah, that Benjamin Franklin, the founding father, Benjamin Franklin, the one whose picture shows up on five dollar bills and the one who's greatly admired as one of our founding fathers.

Well, Franklin was at best a deist. He was not a Christian. He did not profess faith in Christ. But interestingly, he had quite a relationship with George Whitefield. Now, George Whitefield was the evangelist of that era and very instrumental in the Great Awakening in the United States and in England.

And he was very well liked, Whitefield was, very popular. People thronged to hear him by the thousands. And Franklin was one of them. Ben Franklin would love to go hear George Whitefield preach. He was just spellbound by his communication skills, by the power of his voice, that from a great distance, his voice could be heard very, very plainly, very clearly.

And even though there were thousands of people thronged around him, this was an era, of course, with no amplification systems or anything like that. And Franklin was just mesmerized by Whitefield's ability to communicate with people and to preach.

And the two of them actually had quite a friendship between them. And yet, Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, never trusted Whitefield's Christ. Never. He just couldn't do it. There's one incident where Franklin talks about the fact that Whitefield was so adept at getting people to do what he wanted, basically, that he wasn't going to put any money in his pocket because he knew if he did, when it came time to giving for the orphanage that Whitefield was funding, that he would end up giving everything he had.

Because he'd done that so many times before. Well, here's the thing. That does Franklin no good whatsoever. It did him no good whatsoever to go hear Whitefield preach as an entertainer. That's not what he was.

He was a preacher of the gospel. His purpose in communicating the gospel was that men and women and boys and girls would come to faith in Jesus Christ. And he preached powerful messages. But for Franklin just to go and attend and be wowed by his oratorical ability and the power and strength of his voice and his ability to persuade people without himself bending the knee before Christ and coming to faith in Christ as his own personal savior, all of that did Franklin no good whatsoever.

Hearing the Preaching of the Word with the Right Attitude

So the thing about all of this for us is we need to ask ourselves the question, what's our attitude when we go to hear the preaching of the word? Do we go just because we're enamored of the preacher? We just love to hear this particular preacher, like the cadence in his voice or whatever?

Or do we go because we want to hear what God has to say so that we might live and change accordingly? As we say here at Faith A Lot, we want to find out what God is like and what God likes so that we might love him more deeply and live for him more faithfully.

That's the effect. That's the outcome. That's the expectation of going to hear the preaching of the word, that we might love him more deeply and live for him more faithfully. I hope you don't go to church or turn on a TV preacher or radio preacher or whatever just from an attitude of, I want to be entertained.

That's unhelpful to you. In fact, it can be quite destructive. So let's be sure our attitude is right in going to hear the preaching of the word.

All right.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this new week that you have given to us. We pray that as we go through the course of the week, we would be faithful in our walking with you. We also pray that our attendance at your word, when we hear it preached and taught, we would have the right attitude about us as we go.

Pray it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right.

Well, have a good Monday. Hope your week gets off to a great start.

Good day.