I could, of course, go on and on with examples of the degree to which our culture has shifted over the years so that we hear things without really hearing, or see things without really seeing. The words and responses we encounter in our culture have lost their meaning, and so we become detached from even attempting to “make any sense of it all.” Meanwhile the Enemy (Satan) and the entire “seed of the serpent” deepen our dependence upon “the party line” in every area of life. But I want to focus your attention upon something that I believe to be an even more dangerous line of Enemy attack, something far more insidious than all of these cultural shifts combined.
Recently I have come to the realization that Satan, the great Enemy of the Truth, has employed a similar strategy in the churches.[1] He has induced generations of church members [and among them actual Christians] to move into a position of what might be called “passive hearing” when they read, or hear the Truth from the Bible [or from messengers of God]. I will refer to this as “God Speak.” In this state [and I have encountered it emphatically in myself] we read or hear the words of God, but because they are so familiar to us, we hear them without really hearing them. And we therefore see the Truth without really seeing it.
This is one form of something spoken of several times in the OT.
Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:
Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.[2]
It is also clearly suggested in numerous places in the NT where the Lord Himself says, “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”[3]
Over years of hearing the words of scripture we become dull of hearing, just as the Jews had. We hear the Truth, but habitually turn off our deepest receptors to it, as though there is really nothing further for us in any given passage. We have “heard it all before,” that kind of thing. It isn’t a conscious decision. We are not thinking, “I already know all of this; therefore, I can just shift into neutral.” We do it without thinking about it. It doesn’t really matter if the passage we are considering is familiar or not. In any passage we are encountering words and phrases similar to those we have seen and heard so often previously. Our sub-conscious mind just assumes that we already know and understand what we are encountering. No real need to actively choose to engage with the passage.
Added to this hazard of becoming dull of hearing is the fact that multitudes of so-called messengers of God [pastors, etc.] do not really seek to give the fullness of what any given passage or passages actually say, but coopt the passage or passages to support some particular thing they have chosen to preach. Bill Gothard, Rick Warren, and all of the “prosperity preachers” were/are masters at redefining scripture to suggest that that it supports their error. But this practice extends far beyond the “known” false teachers of any given period. The ordinary pastor in most churches is much more likely to misrepresent[4] the truth of any given passage when he is standing before a congregation than to actually present what the passage is intended by God to convey. This entire atmosphere of Truth mixed with error overwhelmingly fosters dullness of hearing.
But that is not all. As it was in the days of the prophets of Israel, so it is among the churches today. The faithful congregations continue to assemble and “listen” to their speakers, but do they really hear the Truth? Consider this passage from Ezekiel 33.
30 Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the LORD.
31 And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.
32 And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.
After generations of hearing partial truth mixed with extreme man-centeredness, church members [and among them actual Christians] do not come before their preachers without expectations. In fact, they have become prone to do as the Lord tells us in 2 Timothy 4:3-4.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
These two verses really sound like they come from one of Israel’s prophets, describing the dullness of hearing rampant among them, though they continued to practice their dead religiousness. Hear these powerful words from Isaiah chapter 1, indicting Israel for its selling out to dead religiousness.
10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
This was the LORD’s description of the dead religiousness of Israel nearly eight hundred years prior to the coming of Christ. How much worse did they become over those next centuries? They were so dead to the Truth of the scriptures they held dear that they could not see nor hear the LORD Himself when He came among them!
How is it in the churches at the present hour? We need only return to the words the LORD gave through Timothy, as we have seen. They [we] heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. But the ultimate result is that we are hard-of-hearing. What is put before us is just a part of a greater body of God Speak. We are aware that it is God that is speaking to us, but because it is all too familiar, we are no longer open to receive what may very well be staggering new revelations of Truth. We just react to it with a nod of the head, do not take its deeper significance personally, and just move on, content to have had contact with God, so to speak. We are oh so glad to hear speakers that say what we want to hear, and that continually sustain us in our dangerous slumber!
[1] Working among us to deepen our ‘hearing without hearing’ and ‘seeing without seeing.’[2] Jeremiah 5:21, Ezekiel 12:2.[3] For example: Matthew 13:9-43. This passage is all about hearing without hearing.[4] Either knowingly or unknowingly.