Do Not Be Spiritually Deaf!

We’ve seen that it’s with our heart that we hear the voice of God, not with our physical ears.

Previously, I gave a rather vivid example of a bank that has a safe which is programmed electronically to open only at the voice of the bank manager. His voice, like every voice, is unique. There’s no way to copy that voice. So, the only one who can open that safe is the bank manager when he says certain words in his voice. I believe that your heart and my heart are like that. The heart is the safe. It’s the place where we keep the things that really matter to us.

Proverbs 4:23, the words of Solomon again: Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. What you have in your heart is going to settle the course of your life. So, your heart is a safe that keeps things much more precious than those that are kept in a bank safe. And I believe that every child of God should have a heart that is a safe that is programmed only to open at one voice, the voice of the Lord.

You remember what Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, they follow me.” He said they will not follow a stranger because they don’t recognize his voice. How important it is to have a heart that will open to the voice of the Lord and will not open to the voice of an alien or a stranger. What kind of a heart is that? It’s a hearing heart. We have ears to hear not physically, but in our spirit. In the innermost depths of our being we have a heart that responds to the voice of the Lord.

I’ve been talking about having a heart that hears God. Now I want to talk for a moment out of Scripture about the opposite condition, spiritual deafness. The Bible, both the Old and the New Testament, have much to say about people who are spiritually deaf. Jesus said of those who could not understand His parables in Matthew 13:13-15 that they were spiritually deaf. This is how He expresses it.

This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’”

There is a picture of people who have no heart to hear the voice of the Lord. They’ve become inwardly deaf. And there’s one word which I think is very significant. It’s a frightening word. “This people’s heart has become calloused.” Their heart doesn’t respond. It’s not sensitive any longer.