Before

And first, before hearing the Word, men break [the second commandment],

1. In not praying for the speaker.
2. In not praying for themselves in reference to this end, that they may profit by the Word.
3. In not setting themselves to be in a spiritual composed frame for such a work.
4. In not watchfully preventing what may divert them or distract them or straiten their minds when they come to hear, not ordering their other affairs so, as they may not be a hindrance to them in meeting with the blessing of the gospel.
5. In not aiming to have the right esteem of the Word.
6. In not blessing God for it or for any good received before by it.
7. In not coming with hunger and thirst as newborn babes, having laid aside what may hinder its being received with desire (2 Peter 2:1-2).
8. In not denying our own strength as to the right discharge of that duty, that so we may make use of Christ.
9. In not minding that when we are called to hear, it is to tryst [meet] with God in His ordinances.
10. In going to hear with prejudice.
11. In coming without expectation of and longing for the presence of God or of meeting with Him.
12. In not coming from respect to the honor of God, nor out of conscience, but from custom and for the fashion.

During

Second. Men sin against this command when they are come to hear and while they are about this duty of hearing,

1. In not looking to God or not receiving the Word as God’s Word, but as man’s.
2. In extravaging [deviating] and wandering in their minds and thoughts (Ezek. 33:31).
3. In sleeping when they should hear.
4. In letting the Word slip out of their mind and not retaining and laying up what they hear.
5. In not yielding their ears and memories or yielding only their ears and memories, but not casting open their hearts to the Word to let it sink down in them.
6. When, though it be heard, yet it is not understood (Matt. 13:13).
7. When, though understood, it is soon forgotten.
8. When there is not a peculiar trembling and fear in our waiting upon the ordinances (Isa. 66:2, Eccl. 5:1-2 and Mal. 2:5) There is a special fear which we ought to have before His Name.
9. When there is not faith mixed with hearing, giving credit to the Word; it must be a great fault not to believe God’s Word when we hear it (Heb. 4:1-2).
10. When we fret and canker at the reproofs of the Word.
11. When we needlessly stumble at any expression; especially when we carry so lightly as to laugh at what is spoken, to the prejudice of the ordinances.
12. When we are more for knowing than for doing; more for informing the mind than for reforming the heart and life.
13. When there is carping at the Word or censuring of it rather than ourselves.
14. When we make no application of it to ourselves and try not whether we have such a fault or if we perform such a duty, etc.
15. When we are not present, as before God, to hear, as Cornelius was (Acts 10:33).
16. When we itch after novelty of expressions or words or things, rather than “thirst after the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby” (1 Pet. 2:2).
17. When these novelties are more entertained and laid weight on than known duties or truths.
18. When the Word is heard with respect of persons and the same truth or expression or Scripture cited by one is not so respected and received as when spoken by another, contrary to James 2:9.
19. When there are vain looks, as well as idle thoughts.
20. When there is a wanton, light, irreverent carriage.
21. When there is immodest and strange apparel unbecoming that ordinance.
22. When there is speaking or talking, outside of the case of necessity, in time of sermon, though it were by way of prayer, it is sinful, except it were [sudden spontaneous exclamation] in reference to what is at present spoken.
23. When there is reading of something (even though Scripture) unseasonably.
24. When there is insisting on good thoughts that tend to divert from hearing.
25. When men are observing vanities in time of hearing, such as the apparel that others have on or the painting that is on the house or the couplings of the roof or such like.
26. When there is not an intermixing of spontaneous prayer for ourselves and others and the speaker, that God would help him and them and us, to keep such a word to the time when we may have need of it, and when God is not blessed when a word is rightly spoken.
27. When there is any quenching of convictions or the motions or stir.
28. When there is diverting to a doting love of the speaker or the thing as spoken by such a speaker or the manner of expressing and a delighting in these, more than in God or a respecting of Him or our own profiting.
29. When we do not look upon and make use of the preached Word as a means to convert, but only as a means to confirm.
30. When we do not make use of promises offered in preaching and directed by God to us by an authorized ambassador and do not so lay weight on them as from Him.
31. When we reject the many sweet offers of the gospel and come not to the marriage of the King’s Son.
32. When we do grieve God’s Spirit, who presses it upon us.
33. When we tread underfoot Christ’s blood by our little esteem ofit.
34. When we give no credit to, nor lay due weight upon threatenings.
35. When we have not the faith of God’s providence or of the Judgment to come.
36. When there is not an accepting of Christ.
37. When there is not employing of Him.
38. When there is not reverence in removing from our hearing of the Word.

After

Third. After hearing also there are many ways whereby we are guilty of the breach of this command.

1. Forgetting what we have heard.
2. Letting the heart unnecessarily look back again to other objects and follow other thoughts and not meditating on what has been heard.
3. Not comparing what we have heard with the Scriptures.
4. Not following the Word with prayer for the watering of it.
5. Needless falling to other discourses immediately after hearing of the Word.
6. Casting it all aside as to practice (Ps. 50:16-23).
7. Fretting at some things that have been spoken.
8. Spreading censures.
9. Or commendations of the thing preached or of the instruments that preached, as if that were all.
10. Not following the Word with self-searching, prayer, and fruits suit-able, endeavoring to practice what is required.
11. Not trembling at its threatenings, nor forbearing what was thereby discharged.
12. Not helping others to make use of it.
13. Not repenting of faults committed in the time of hearing.
14. Little delight in remembering of it.
15. Finding out shifts to put by its directions or challenges.
16. Applying them to others rather than to ourselves.
17. Misconstructing the minister’s end in pressing of them.
18. Misinterpreting his words.
19. Misreporting or misrepresenting them.
20. Not being troubled or fruitless in hearing, without any use, but being as a stone without sense or feeling.
21. Leaning on hearing as if having been in the church were a piece of holiness, though no fruit follow it.
22. Profane abusing words of Scripture or phrases used in preaching, in men’s common discourse, much more than when they are mixed in wanton and profane sports or jests and gibes.

James Durham, A practical exposition of the Ten Commandments (Dallas, TX: Naphtali Press, 2002), 61-63.