Dull of Hearing - Jeremiah 43-45 and Hebrews 5
People can hear things, but not hear them. There is a condition called dull of hearing. It is the result of ignoring the truth for a long time. It is the result of being out of fellowship with the Lord. We can come to the point where we hear the truth, but it has no effect on us. When that happens, we are in serious trouble. We can think we are doing the right thing by rejecting the truth. We begin to make excuses. We begin to do the opposite of what we know to be the truth. It is all because we allowed ourselves to become dull of hearing. The solution to this trouble is to take the truth seriously, and to ask the Lord to open your spiritual ears. Then, once we have heard the truth, we must do something about it. If we act on the truth, He will show us more truth, and the voice of the Spirit will speak out to us loud and clear.
In Jeremiah's day God had sent many prophets. The people ignored them and worshiped idols anyway. The result was that they told Jeremiah, "We will not listen to you." What a blatant statement! However, that was not the end of it. They linked their problems to the fact that they had stopped worshiping the Queen of Heaven, not that they had disobeyed God. In other words, they heard the truth, but they came to the opposite conclusion. They convinced themselves of a lie, because they had become so dull of hearing. Has that ever happened to you?
The writer of Hebrews explained to the Jewish people how Jesus was the high priest, but they did not want to listen, because Jesus was not from the tribe of Levi. He told them that God had called Jesus to be the unique High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, but they did not understand or want to understand. They were dull of hearing. They were set in their ways. They were going by their old traditions. They did not want something new. All of these things cause us to be dull of hearing, too. Many times we hear what we want to hear. That is a terrible problem for us. We need to listen to everything that God says very carefully. Jesus told us that man should live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We need to hear the whole counsel of God, not just what we want to hear. I pray that if you are dull of hearing, you will repent of that serious sin and ask God to open your spiritual ears to hear all of the truth.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Jeremiah 46-47 and Hebrews 6.
In Jeremiah's day God had sent many prophets. The people ignored them and worshiped idols anyway. The result was that they told Jeremiah, "We will not listen to you." What a blatant statement! However, that was not the end of it. They linked their problems to the fact that they had stopped worshiping the Queen of Heaven, not that they had disobeyed God. In other words, they heard the truth, but they came to the opposite conclusion. They convinced themselves of a lie, because they had become so dull of hearing. Has that ever happened to you?
The writer of Hebrews explained to the Jewish people how Jesus was the high priest, but they did not want to listen, because Jesus was not from the tribe of Levi. He told them that God had called Jesus to be the unique High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, but they did not understand or want to understand. They were dull of hearing. They were set in their ways. They were going by their old traditions. They did not want something new. All of these things cause us to be dull of hearing, too. Many times we hear what we want to hear. That is a terrible problem for us. We need to listen to everything that God says very carefully. Jesus told us that man should live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We need to hear the whole counsel of God, not just what we want to hear. I pray that if you are dull of hearing, you will repent of that serious sin and ask God to open your spiritual ears to hear all of the truth.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Jeremiah 46-47 and Hebrews 6.