THE HEARING EAR AND THE SEEING EYE

 

“The hearing ear and the seeing eye,

The Lord has made them both” – Prov 20: 12

“The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God has opened my ear; and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away.” – Isa 50: 4-5

In the Old Testament, the hearing ear and the seeing eye are the primary equipment of the office of a prophet. Prophets were the spiritual guides to the nation of Israel. They were the eyes to the nation and the ears to the nation; what they see and hear from Jehovah God, they declared to the nation. God often raised prophets in the time of moral and spiritual declension to awaken the conscience of the nation and turn them back to God. They seemed to have the monopoly of spiritual faculties which were apparently missing in the lives of the rest of the people. They were the major medium of direction, warning, instruction, and communication from God to the people.

“the great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders. Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.” – Deut 29: 3-4

 

REASON FOR THEIR DESTRUCTION IN THE WILDERNESS

As we see in this passage, Moses alone had the monopoly of these spiritual faculties; this qualified him to lead the nation. Heart to perceive, eyes to see, and ears to hear were lacking in the people he was leading; Moses said it was the Lord who didn’t give it to them. God actually gave them but they rejected it; they begged God not to speak directly to them anymore but to speak through Moses. This fundamental spiritual deficiency summarizes the reason the majority that left Egypt were destroyed in the wilderness.

In the New Testament, these fundamental requirements of the office of a prophet have not changed, except that they are no longer the exclusive equipment of the prophets. Heart to perceive, eyes to see, and ears to hear are now the spiritual faculties and privileges that all of God’s children share with the prophets and apostles; except that prophets and apostles may have them in higher proportion than the rest of the body because of their leadership role.

 

THE CARING AND THE TALKING FATHER

To avoid verbosity in this article, Old Testament and New Testament shall henceforth be referred to by their acronyms OT and NT respectively. The office of a prophet in the OT is not the same in the NT. In the OT, prophets were the major guide to God’s people; but in the NT, Holy Spirit is the Guide of the church.

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” - Romans 8: 14-16.

God doesn’t want to guide his people primarily by the prophets anymore; he wants to guide them primarily by the Holy Spirit. This doesn’t mean that God cannot use prophets to confirm what He has spoken to you that you doubted or probably didn’t recognize it was God. Therefore, one of the major assignments of the NT prophets is to teach and train the church to hear the voice of God and not to become another mediator between God and man.

God is a Father who is caring, He loves to talk to his children; and he does not need an intermediary or an interpreter to talk to his children. By this I am not ruling out the need to train God’s children who are still babes to hear the Father’s voice. The Lord didn’t continue to speak to Samuel until he recognized who was talking to him. It was Eli who trained him to recognize God’s voice. I believe the NT prophets should provide a conducive atmosphere for the development and activation of the spiritual faculties of God’s people.

“Now the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation. And it came to pass at that time, while Eli was lying down in his place, and when his eyes had begun to grow so dim that he could not see, ³ and before the lamp of God went out in the tabernacle of the Lord where the ark of God was, and while Samuel was lying down, that the Lord called Samuel. And he answered, “Here I am!” So he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” And he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” And he went and lay down. Then the Lord called yet again, “Samuel!” So Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” He answered, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.”  (Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor was the word of the Lord yet revealed to him.)  And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. So he arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you did call me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord had called the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and it shall be, if He calls you, that you must say, ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant hears.” Then the Lord said to Samuel:…” – 1 Sam 3: 1-11

 

THE BLESSING OF THE NT CHURCH

In the OT, God didn’t give them heart to perceive, eyes to see, and ears to hear, which eventually spelled their doom. In the NT, God has given us eyes that see and ears that hear; this is one of the blessings of the NT church. When we were born again, we were born with those spiritual faculties. We only need to develop our spirit man and activate our spiritual faculties.

“He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.”  

“But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” – Matt: 13: 11, 16-17

 

THE TRAGEDY OF A DISTRACTED CHURCH

“For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it.

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men,

While slumbering on their beds, Then He opens the ears of men,

And seals their instruction.” – Job 33: 14-16

 

It is clear from this passage that God delights in speaking to his children but his children have hearing problem. God speaks again and again, but his children are too distracted or busy to hear. It is like calling a telephone line that is busy; if you call it a hundred times, it will keep giving you the busy or engaged tone. No matter how urgent and important what you want to pass across, you won't get through, because the line is busy. It is the same with this busy generation. God loves to talk to us, but we are too preoccupied; a number of things have crowded out God’s voice. As a result, the only option God is left with is the channel of dream or vision. God waits till the night time when deep sleep falls upon men. Then he opens the ears of men to hear.

I don’t think this is the best, when my Father will have to wait till I sleep before he can speak for me to hear. God speaks through dreams and visions no doubt, but I believe we need to train our ears to hear God at any time of the day.

 

GOD IS A SPIRIT

We must never forget that God is a Spirit, and it will take a spiritual person to hear God. Carnally minded believers will always struggle to hear God. God speaks to our human spirit, and it is our responsibility to fine tune our spirit to the frequency of the Holy Spirit.

THREE LEVELS OF HEARING PROBLEM

1. Not hearing at all – This is spiritual deafness. This is experienced by people who are not born again; they are spiritually dead, because they have not come to know the Lord. Carnal believers can also suffer hearing loss.
2. Hearing but no understanding – This is experienced by believers who are still carnal, those who are living in spiritual rebellion and disobedience.  “Hearing you will hear and shall not understand” – Matt 13: 14
3. Hearing but no recognition – This is the type of hearing problem that Samuel had before Eli helped him to overcome it. This hearing problem is often associated with spiritual immaturity, a sign of spiritual babyhood. People in this category will greatly benefit from prophetic mentoring and apostolic discipleship.

 

REASONS FOR HEARING PROBLEMS

No truly born again child of God suppose to suffer spiritual deafness, but most spiritual deafness could be traced to the following reasons.

1. Hardness of the heart – “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness” – Heb 3: 7-8. Hardness of the heart simply means rebellion or disobedience to the voice of God you are hearing. No child of God is born again deaf, but deafness sets in when THEY begin to disobey God’s voice because of trials of faith. You are blessed enough to be hearing God’s voice, but if you don’t obey what you are hearing; it is a matter of time; you will soon lose your hearing ability. God stopped talking to king Saul because of disobedience. Saul eventually consulted the witch of En Dor in order to know the mind of God.  (1 Sam 28: 6-7; Eze 33: 30-33).
2. Carnality – To be carnal simply means to listen to the voice of your emotions and reasoning more than you listen to the voice of God. This often leads to spiritual deafness and eventually, spiritual death (Rom 8: 5-8).
3. Crowded heart – If your heart is always crowded with worrisome and anxious thoughts, you won't hear God.
4. Idols in the heart – When your mind is often set on what you want to do, whatever God wants to say doesn’t matter to you anymore. This is the reason many people don’t hear God. This is the problem with the elders of Israel (Eze 14: 1-4)
5. Spiritual laziness – When people are lazy to pray, study the word of God, and engage in spiritually profitable exercises, they soon become dull and unable to hear what God is saying.
6. Grieving the Holy Spirit – God talks to us by His Spirit, but whenever you make the Holy Spirit sad by your behaviors and choices, there is bound to be communication breakdown.
7. Sin – Sin casts a veil upon the heart of man, it blocks the ears of the spirit.
8. Closed heavens – When heavens are open, people hear the voice of God; conversely, when heavens are closed, people don’t hear God (Eze 1: 1-3; Matt 3: 16-17).

 

WAYS OF ACTIVATING YOUR SPIRITUAL FACULTIES

Hearing ear is a function of grace (Acts 22: 12-15). We don’t earn a hearing ear; we simply receive it by grace through faith, it is inherent in the new birth. Hearing God effectively requires that we fully consecrate ourselves to God and learn how to be in the Spirit (Rev 1: 10). To be in the Spirit means to be wholly in union with the Holy Spirit and be fully yielded to him. The terms of our consecration may vary from an individual to an individual; as a result, you must know how God expects you to consecrate yourself to him and abide by it. Your consecration activates and enhances your hearing faculty. We may consecrate ourselves through the following ways or even more:

1. Meditation on the word of God (Josh 1: 8)
2. Dwelling in the word environment – where the word of God is taught, preached, and practiced (Acts 19: 20).
3. Praying in the Holy Spirit – This builds up the spirit man; anything that builds up the spirit man will activate and tune in your spiritual faculties to the frequency of God (1 Cor 14: 2, 4).
4. Train your heart to be quiet
5. Submit under a prophetic or an apostolic ministry – Because of the peculiar spiritual atmosphere that these ministries carry, they make it easy for people to hear God’s voice. Most times, they do this through prophetic activation and apostolic impartation (Isa 30: 20-21).
6. Worship – Atmosphere of worship is the atmosphere of God. When you worship God who is a Spirit, in spirit and truth, it is easy for your spirit to hear from God. Worship tunes a believer’s spirit to the frequency of God (John 4: 24). It takes the presence of God to still a noisy and anxious mind (Psalm 46: 10)
7. Visit unusual places – Jer 18: 1-2. For example, when you visit places like hospital, prison, beach, etc, you will hear God’s voice.

 

GATEWAY TO ALL SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL BLESSINGS

Hearing ear is the gateway to all spiritual and material blessings; therefore develop your ears to hear what the Spirit of God is saying. In addition, train your ears to filter out what the devil is saying or else you will lose. Blessings are transported into our lives through the media of hearing and seeing. What you hear is what you become and what you see is what you possess.

“and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)” – 1 Pet 2: 7-8

Lot was completely messed up by what he saw and heard for a long time; therefore be careful what you give your ears to hear. Jesus gave the disciples this very important warning:

“Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.” – Luke 8: 18

Great lesson we can receive from this warning is the correlation between what we are hearing and our portion in life. What you are hearing is directly proportionate to what will be given to you or what will be taken from you. What you are hearing will either take from you or add to you. What you are hearing will either build you up or tear you down. What you are hearing will either cleanse you or pollute you (John 15:3). What you are hearing will either bless you or curse you. What you are hearing will either give you life or give you death. What you are hearing will either encourage you or demoralize you.

THE SOURCE OF TRUE BLESSING

“And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!” But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” – Luke 11: 27-28; Deut 28: 1; John 10: