Lost Our First Love?

Any time we are listening to a sermon, and we find ourselves critiquing the preacher we must recognize that we are critiquing the voice of Our Master. He has appointed the foolishness of preaching as a way for us to hear His voice. Not that we are to listen without discernment or to ignore Paul's command to be like the Bereans, that is certainly NOT what I am saying. However, all too often our own pride rears its ugly head and we can sit through an otherwise profitable sermon but instead of listening with ears hungry for the voice of Christ, our own selfish arrogance stifles and ruins the sweet words meant for our good. Like a naughty child smashing and stomping his destructive way across a table spread with a lovingly prepared banquet table, all is spoiled and sullied and our souls starve. In short, when we fail to be fed by a sermon, the fault lies with us, not the preacher.

I found these words from C.H. Spurgeon very useful on the topic:

"There was a time when every bitter thing was sweet; whenever you heard the Word, it was all precious to you. Now you can grumble at the minister. Alas! the minister has many faults, but the question is, whether there has not been a greater charge in you than there has been in him. Many are there who say, "I do not hear Mr. So-and-so as I used to,"—when the fault lies in their own ears. Oh, brethren, when we live near to Christ, and are in our first love, it is amazing what a little it takes to make a good preacher to us. Why, I confess I have heard a poor illiterate Primitive Methodist preach the gospel, and I felt as if I could jump for joy all the while I was listening to him, and yet he never gave me a new thought or a pretty expression, nor one figure that I could remember, but he talked about Christ; and even his common things were to my hungry spirit like dainty meats. And I have to acknowledge, and, perhaps, you have to acknowledge the same—that I have heard sermons from which I ought to have profited, but I have been thinking on the man's style, or some little mistakes in grammar. When I might have been holding fellowships with Christ in and through the ministry, I have, instead thereof, been getting abroad in my thoughts even to the ends of the earth. And what is the reason for this, but that I have lost my first love."