HEAR OR BECOME DEAF

Psalm 58:1-5

 ^“Justice—do you rulers know the meaning of the word?  Do you judge the people fairly?  No! You plot injustice in your hearts. You spread violence throughout the land. These wicked people are born sinners; even from birth they have lied and gone their own way. They spit venom like deadly snakes;  they are like cobras that refuse to listen, ignoring the tunes of the snake charmers,  no matter how skillfully they play.”

People can harden their hearts, close their ears, blind themselves and then curse the darkness they have brought upon themselves. Refusing to “hear” they become deaf to the voice of God and justice dies in the streets. But, God speaks; He reveals truth; He gives guidance and correction and offers forgiveness and a new way of being.

Proverbs 2:1-8

“My child, listen to what I say   and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom  and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord and you will gain knowledge of God. For the Lord grants wisdom!  From His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest.  He is a shield to those who walk with integrity. He guards the paths of the just   and protects those who are faithful to Him.”

To the Hebrew mind and heart, when God speaks, “Hear, O Israel…” hearing was not simply the picking up of sound vibrations interpreted by the brain as language. Hearing meant doing. Jesus said over and over in His teaching of the Kingdom of God, “You who have ears to hear, then hear!”

There is a danger of becoming spiritually deaf, for when God speaks to our heart and mind and we are aware that something of import has been communicated to us and we refuse to hear, to act on it, to ignore it, we can become more and more “hard of hearing.” I’ve heard people say, “I just can’t hear the Lord.” I have asked more than once, “When was the last time you heard Him? Did you respond in faith doing what He asked? If not, recall what He said, repent and do it, asking Him to open your ears once again.”

When the Lord has a passage of His Word come alive to you by the Holy Spirit, listen with the intent of hearing what He is saying and, in the Holy Spirit’s power, doing what He has said.