Got Your Ears On?

Got Your ears On?

Matthew 11:15 NKJV
He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

Mark 4:9 NKJV
And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

   During the CB radio craze of the 70’s and 80’s you heard this a lot.  “Got your ears on?  Come back.”  The caller was asking if someone was on the air and listening.  Basically, Christ is asking in these verses if the people were listening to what He was saying and paying attention to Him.  This seems like a strange thing to say to people who were there listening to Him speak.  They obviously had ears because they were listening to Him, so what did He mean?
  This is not an occasion where He was referring to deaf people, who have ears but can’t hear.  No one doubts that physical deafness happens, so would you accept that there is also a spiritual deafness people get where some cannot hear spiritual truths at all, or only hear a little bit?  They have ears, but they do not hear.  I’m not talking about a willful deafness, but it does start with willfully not hearing truth.  When a person refuses to hear the truth, they do become more and more “hard of hearing” in a spiritual sense.  Remember what God told Isaiah in Isaiah 6: 9-10, (NKJV)?
And He said, “Go, and tell this people:
‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ “Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy,
And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart, And return and be healed.”

God was not being mean to the people of Israel, He was pointing out that they had refused to hear His words for so long that they would not hear them again.
   Paul talks about this in Romans 1:28, (CJB)
“In other words, since they have not considered God worth knowing, God has given them up to worthless ways of thinking; so that they do improper things.”

   God will call to you with great patience and grace, but there is a time when you have turned away from His words so often you will not be able to hear them anymore.  Every time God’s Word is proclaimed it changes all of those within its hearing. No one ever remains unaffected by God’s Word.  To those who hear it and listen to what He says, they grow in grace and in knowledge of God.  To those who reject it or are indifferent to it, they hear less and less and their heart grows colder and colder.  Truly, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
   Our greatest hindrance is that our minds are naturally carnal; our human reasoning is self-serving.   No matter how hard we may try, no matter how hard we may think that we want to try, we cannot understand the Spiritual Truth of God without the help of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to "hear" what God is actually saying.  Without His help, we may read the Bible, and even become great teachers and scholars of the Bible and still not really understand what it says or what is in the heart of God the Father.  This is not what God wants, but this is what He allows to happen to those who will not hear His words.
   God gives all of us "ears to hear."  He gives us His Holy Spirit to be our Helper and Teacher.  If we fail to heed His Words, whose fault is it?  So why did Christ speak in parables so often?  Matthew 13: 10-11 Amplified Bible
10 Then the disciples came to Him and said, Why do You speak to them in parables?
11 And He replied to them, To you it has been given to know the secrets and mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

   I used to think that passage was so unfair.  I passed over this verse many times reading Matthew because I wasn’t sure why Jesus was being so hard on the people.  But as I’ve learned more about Him, I know His heart is love and He would never exclude anyone who did not want to be excluded.  If you do a search of verses that mention Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes, you will see hard hearts and willful attempts to exclude the common person from God’s Presence.  Christ goes into the streets and interacts with the common person.  He walks the highways and brings His teachings to everyone.  So why did He say it was not for “them” to know the secrets of the Kingdom?
   After that big build up, you expect me to give you that answer, don’t you?  But I can’t, I can only give you my opinion.  I feel it comes down to who listens and who doesn’t.  Remember, we think “Disciples” and think “12 guys.”  But remember that in parts of the Gospels we read that there was a large following who heard His teachings.  The Disciples, who traveled with Him step by step, mile by mile and shared meals with Him had such a hard time understanding Him, how hard was it for those who did share that same intimacy with Him?  And then, in my opinion, there were those who may have followed and listened to Him, but never opened their hearts to His words.  I offer Judas, and the above mentioned Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes as proof of that.  It’s not hard to think that there must have been more, many more, which also listened but did not hear.
   So listen and pay attention when reading your Bible.  If you are fortunate to have a Pastor or Bible Teacher who preaches / teaches the Word with truth and boldness, then put your ears on and hear what they say.  The more you listen, the more truth you will hear.  The more you shut out God’s Word, the harder it gets to hear the truth.  “Got your ears on? “

Stephen Cram                           September 9, 2012                          Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8