Malachi 3:16 NIV
Then those who feared
the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of
remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord
and honored his name.
How Important Is Listening?
The other day I went to get my haircut and after
getting me seated in my chair, the hairstylist took a look at what she had
before her and told me I had great hair.
Now, I know that I am an old man with gray popping up everywhere and I
have been shown how my hair is thinning in the back of my head but I must admit
I kind of strutted a bit after I heard that comment. I felt younger, handsomer and more impressive
yet nothing about me had changed. I was
the exact same person I was before I got my haircut with the same list of
accomplishments and failures, the same talents and abilities and the same looks
but on this day I heard that I had a “great head of hair” and it made a
difference.
What is it that you love hearing most? Is it a compliment? Would it be the sound of laughter or a baby
cooing? How high on your list would be
jazz music or classical music or rock or rap?
Do you love the sound of wood crackling in a fireplace or popcorn
popping just before it is ready or the gurgling sound of a mountain stream? Maybe it’s the roar of the ocean, a good
story or a podcast? Perhaps it is the
sound of birds singing or the Bible being read aloud. Do you love the sound of your children’s
voices, of your husband or wife on the phone?
Do you like to hear the sound of thunder or rain drops or the quiet stir
of snow falling? Do you recall hearing
the sound of your baby’s heartbeat for the first time or the interviewer
telling you that you got the job? Do you
have a favorite sound of all time? How
important is listening to you?
The Bible often speaks of God hearing. The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the
Lord accepts my prayer. (Psalm 6:9 NIV)
Again in the Psalms we see, In my distress I called to the Lord; I
cried to my God for help. From his
temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. (Psalm
18:6 NIV) And in Psalm 40: 1 is the
declaration, I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my
cry. (NIV) Because God is Spirit, it
is perhaps a bit strange to think of God hearing as a person hears but we must
remember that all the language of the Old Testament that gives God the same
characteristics as humankind possess are prophetic of what is to come; that one
day God would indeed have the very features of people because our Lord was to
become flesh and dwell among us.
(Consider John 1: 14)
When our Lord did become flesh, His ability to hear
was human in every way. Just a few
examples will illustrate what we mean here.
A Roman centurion approached Jesus begging him to heal his ailing
servant. Jesus offered to go with the
centurion and heal the servant at the centurion’s home but the centurion
responded to this offer in a stunning way.
The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come
under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed…When Jesus
heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you
the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” (Matthew
8:8.10 NIV) Jesus, just like you or I
heard the centurion’s reaction to Jesus’ offer and reacted to what He
heard. Another example and we will make
our point regarding our Lord. In John 9
is the interesting account of a man born blind who was healed by Jesus. The religious leaders in Jerusalem were not
happy with how the man who had been healed answered their questions regarding
Jesus and the miracle and would not let the man have access to the
synagogue. Jesus heard that they had
thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son
of Man?" (John 9:35 NIV)
In both cases and in every example we can find of
Jesus hearing something said, He heard just like we do. There is no evidence, as far as we can find,
that Jesus had any supernatural power to know in advance what was going to be
told Him. He reacted just like we do to
news we hear. It was in real time as it was
happening. Jesus was astonished, just
like we would be at new news He received regarding the spoken faith of the
centurion. When the man He healed was
thrown out of the synagogue and Jesus heard about it, our Lord went and found
him. Like us, Jesus heard for the first
time a wide range of statements and ideas and accounts and when He heard them,
He had to process like we do what He heard.
He did not have ten thousand years to think about what He already
knew. It was for Him as a man fresh
every time, the words He heard. God
experienced what it is like for us to hear something, be shocked by it, excited
by it, amused by it, saddened by it, appalled by it and then have to think
through what He heard. That is an
amazing revelation of Scripture. God had
ears just like us, a mind just like us and He had to process what He heard just
like we process it. We know how hard it
is to figure out what to do with what we hear when we hear it. God also knows how hard it is because He has
faced the struggle Himself to take what He has just heard and decide what to do
with the new information He has gained.
In Genesis 2 and 3 we have the first descriptions of
hearing occurring. Some sort of hearing
is discussed in Genesis 2. The Lord
God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of
it. And the Lord God commanded the man,
"You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat
from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you
will surely die." (Genesis 2:15-17 NIV) It would seem that because everything in this
passage is physical and not spiritual: Adam put into a physical garden and directed
to do the physical work there of taking care of the garden and then given a command
about the physical act of not eating fruit from a particular physical tree that
the talking that takes place was also physical but we cannot say for
certain. It certainly seems like God was
speaking to Adam in a normal physical way and Adam heard Him in a normal
physical way. Later in chapter 3 a
physical being spoke to Eve, a serpent.
That physical creature asked Eve a critical question that Eve
answered. "Did God really say,
'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1 NIV) Eve knew what the serpent said and responded
to what she heard. "We may eat
fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit
from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it,
or you will die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3 NIV)
This is precisely what God did say to Adam and so
Adam had to have repeated this to Eve who heard it. The conversation ends with the serpent insisting
that God was wrong about them dying if they ate from the tree in the middle of
the garden and that what they didn’t realize was that the fruit from the tree
would make it so that like God they would know the difference between good and
evil. Eve of course did eat the
forbidden fruit and so did Adam and immediately their eyes were opened but not
as they hoped. It was horrible for
them. Sin completely wrecked their
personalities and they were ashamed of their nakedness. The way Adam and Eve
processed information was ruined by the Sin they committed and no longer could
they think how God built them to think.
They were broken people. How they
processed what they heard next is telling.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was
walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God
among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where
are you?" (Genesis 3:8-9 NIV)
There is in this a fascinating admission in
Scripture. There was a time when God
allowed Himself to be physically heard by people. Adam and Eve heard God rustling about in the
garden like all of us hear. The way they
processed this hearing is critical because it clearly was not in the same way
as before they sinned. The two hid from
God; they now were afraid of Him.
Whereas before, the sound of God made them happy; after they sinned it
paralyzed them with fear. From this
point forward, people began to no longer physically hear God. After He sent them out of the garden, God
would make Himself heard in a physical way only a few times. The Bible says that God spoke to Moses face
to face as one person speaks to another.
He spoke physically to Abraham before that and Jacob but almost never
did He give people the opportunity to hear Him speak through the normal process
of ears to brain. Satan became completely
cut off from man’s ears. Never again in
the Old Testament do we read of Satan speaking in a physical way to people;
Satan could only talk directly to God
Demons spoke and speak but not Satan.
What were we to do though if God stopped speaking to
us physically? Something amazing
happened when Jesus Christ came as a man and became a part of human
society. Satan was given his voice and
allowed to speak physically with Christ but only with Christ and the Father
spoke physically with Jesus too and let the Disciples hear Him speak. A rip in the barrier between the physical and
spiritual realms occurred with the coming of Jesus. Both the horrific evil of Satan could be
heard physically as well as the perfect love of God. In this great moment in time, salvation came
to us. Jesus Christ put us back in touch
with God by letting Satan do every possible terrible act in the physical realm
to Him; let Him arrange His beating, scourging and crucifixion. Upon His death, the power of Satan was broken
in humanity and Sin could no longer keep us from God. In that instant, when Satan tried to destroy
Christ and every single link between God and His people, Christ rose
victoriously.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ brought to all who
put their faith in Him for salvation the magnificent new way for God to speak
to us. The Holy Spirit joins with us in conversations
that are in a completely different manner than anyone has ever spoken with us
in the past; in a supernatural way. But
like babies, we don’t realize when He is talking with us, understand what He is
saying or try very hard to make sense of God’s way of getting through to
us. It is humiliating at times,
frustrating often and sad to admit how little we recognize the Holy Spirit’s
communication with us but it will not always be like this. By reading the Bible we learn how God really
speaks to us…how to tell the difference between our own thoughts and the Holy
Spirit breaking through our thoughts to talk to us…Spirit to spirit… Take a week to practice listening for the
Holy Spirit speaking to you. Every
opportunity you get, invite God to guide you, show you what to do, how to
respond to what you face. The Holy
Spirit will bring Scripture to mind, past experiences to mind and point out
ways you can make the most out of the opportunities God gives you to be loving,
generous and kind.
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