What to do with the sermon you heard yesterday.
Robert Murray MCheyne in a letter to his congregation –
Many among you, I fear, are like the hard wayside, so that, when the seed falls, it cannot get into your hearts, and the devil plucks it all away. Is it not true that some of your hearts are like the footpath, trodden all the week by wicked thoughts?
Now, when you come to the church on Sabbath, your heart is like a footpath ; the seed cannot fall in, it lies upon the surface. You do not understand the minister. You feel it to be a dry subject, and turn your head away. Perhaps he is preaching of the love of Jesus, in tasting death for every man; and that he will in no wise cast the vilest sinner out. Still, you feel no interest. O you are the wayside hearers—the devil plucks all the seed away. When you turn your back on the church, you turn your back on divine things; and before you have got half way home, the devil has carried off every word of the sermon.
Yea, often, I fear, before you have got in sight of your own cottage, or the trees before the door, the devil has filled your hearts with abominable worldly thoughts, and your tongue with evil talk, unworthy of the Sabbath.
O Satan, Satan ! what a cunning fiend thou art! Even when the hard hearts will not receive the word, thou wilt not suffer it to remain; lest it should come back in a time of sickness or danger, thou carriest all away.
Dear believers, pray that it be not so with you, nor with your friends ; pray for a soft heart and a retentive memory : and often speak together of the sermons you hear, and get them harrowed into your hearts, that Satan may be cheated, and your soul saved.