I am not an experienced preacher by any stretch, in fact i’m pretty new at this whole preaching ministry. Despite my limited experience of standing on the other side of the pulpit, i have already noticed some things some things that help me when i’m sitting in the congregation. Before getting into some of my thoughts on preaching, and listening to sermons, please would you read Ezekiel 33v1→9.

Hey, listen to the watchman!

In this section God is speaking to Ezekiel, and God uses the analogy of a watchman looking out for attackers in order to warn the people of a city. God compares the job of the watchman to that of the prophet, God gives Ezekiel a stern warning, saying that as a prophet Ezekiel is to accurately pass on the message God has for His people, otherwise Ezekiel will receive the same consequences that the wicked will receive. This is the same warning that rings true for any person who ever gets into a pulpit to preach or takes the responsibility of a teacher (see James 3v1 and Romans 2v17→24). Therefore, any person who desires to preach or teach must be sure of their calling, because it truly is a great calling, and must never be taken lightly.

One more thing on the text, this may not be obvious; in V9 God demands a response from the people that the prophet is speaking to. In the same way as the preacher today is like the prophet, everyone listening to the sermon are like the people that heard the message of the prophet. God demands a response from us every single time we hear a sermon preached. Although we are not to respond the same to every sermon, we have to respond in some way to every sermon.

What does the watchman do?

Preaching is like this; imagine that you’ve seen a sunset, you spent half an hour watching the sun go down. The colour of the sky changes from blue to pink to orange to red and every other colour in between. The trees were silhouetted in front of the sun, animals were calling in the background, and there was the smell of the bush all around you. Then a few days later, you try to explain that sunset to a friend, you may spend ages telling that person what the sunset was like, how the tree’s were silhouetted, the sounds and the smells of it all. You may explain the sunset the best that you can, but you never really know if your friend has actually grasped the beauty of the sunset, in reality you don’t even know if they’re imagining it the way you saw it! However after all of your explaining and describing, you show them a video of the sunset, and then you know that they have understood what the sunset was like. That is what preaching is like!

A person preaching or teaching the Bible can try describing the awesomeness, the beauty, and the wonder of who God is, and of what He has said and done. A preacher who has really experienced God and is pretty good at explaining may do a pretty good job. When a person is preaching or teaching with the help of the Holy Spirit, then it is as if those who hear the preacher see the video! When we hear a message from a preacher (or even when we read the Bible), and we invite the Holy Spirit to show us a glimpse of God through what we hear or read, that is when our lives are changed, that is when we can truly say that we have tasted and seen that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8)!

But how do we respond?

Listening to preaching and reading the Bible are dangerous! If you read the section in Ezekiel again you may notice how the people were called to be accountable for what they had heard from the watchman. Well the same goes for us hearing preaching, we are accountable for what we have heard, and what we know. This is easy when you know that what you’re listening to is solid Biblical preaching, then all that is required is for us to hear it, understand it, believe it, and change ourselves to come in line with it.

But, how do you know if what is being preached is solid and Biblical? Go check it out, look at the scriptures the preacher spoke about and go read them, also read the bit before and the bit after them, and see if what the preacher said about them makes sense with what you read. Compare what the preacher said with what other parts of the Bible says; it should all gel together. Be careful! There is a lot of rubbish preaching out there, 2Timothy 4v3+4 says that people aren’t going to want to hear the truth of the Bible, and that there will be Bible “teachers” out there that will teach stuff that people just want to hear. So be careful, just because the person is teaching from the Bible, the book is in a Christian bookstore, or the website is Christian; does not mean that it is necessarily true! One of satan’s best methods is to tell you half truths, and there are many people who are doing this with the Bible!

Be on your guard against the rubbish that those who claim to be teachers are trying to feed you, stay much in the Bible. It is only in the Bible that we have The Truth, it is there that we hear the voice of God directly. Think about this as a closing point, the words that we read in the Bible are the very words that God spoke! We can at any time sit down and read the very words of our Heavenly Father. God literally spoke everything that is into existence (from no thing), and we can at any time sit down open the Bible and read what He says! But we don’t, we’d rather watch tv, listen to music, or surf the internet (none of which are bad by themselves!) instead of hearing what the God who created us and loves us (more than we love ourselves!) says. God is speaking, will you open your Bible and listen?

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