“Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: ‘You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.’ For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” Matt. 13:13-16
Devotional Thought For The Day
As young children we are interested, perhaps even demanding, to hear the rationale that requires our doing certain things that our parents insist on, and the reasons why we cannot do things that we really want to do. The reasons presented show us negatives and positives of various courses of action, and we learn values and logic in the process. All of this is very important, skills and knowledge that will guide us numerous times in the course of a lifetime. Truly, this guidance and training that we receive from our parents is invaluable and priceless. When we head to school we follow the same protocol of logic and reason. We learn about getting the right answers and suffer for the wrong answers. We come to realize that a great deal of our future is dependent upon this kind of learning, observation, hypothesizing, testing, and applying reason and logic to the results. We learn language skills to help us avoid uttering and writing “non-sense” and to reduce ambiguity, confusion, and misinformation. We speak and write, utilize verbal communication – precisely because we believe without doubt that language is a tool of conveying truth, reality, and wisdom. And the rest of humanity does the same, so we assume that the rest of the world plays by these same rules.
However, when it comes to Christianity, these same rules are not in play among non-Christians. They act as if they are willing to look at evidence, scientific and historical, and they pretend to be linguistically honest, but as soon as the case [discussion] trends against them, they begin breaking this “social contract” that we have all been trained in and have accepted for the normal discourse of human life. They retreat back into their cave and accuse us of trying to convert them [one of the terrible modern sins, to try to convert someone to Christianity, and even threatening and frightening to some], but when we remind them that they have been presenting evidence and argument against Christianity, and that this surely constitutes an effort to “convert” us to join them in rejecting Christianity, they are aghast, but without any sentient rejoinder or rebuttal. The problem is not with their intellect or training in logic and language – that is working just fine; the problem is inward, of the heart, and moral, and their intellect is put into the service of trying to find justification for rejecting God, His call to repentance, His gracious love, and His friendship. The consequence is the kind of blindness described by Isaiah and encountered by Jesus, in the people who were eyewitnesses of His miracles and His gracious preaching of the Gospel. This is not sentient, but irrational and insane. The same affliction continues in people to this day, and it is perpetrated and encouraged by those sworn to do otherwise – educators, and especially professors, who are not free to present Christian arguments [and don’t really want to] but are free to promote anti-Christian arguments, indeed are required to.
So, we have progressed a long way as a human race. We now build skyscrapers and enormous cities, have an abundance of universities, have invented mind-boggling communication technology, have sent people out into space, and explorer ships deep into outer space, and have created horrific weapons of war, but we still have the same blindness and dullness of heart that has afflicted unbelievers from the very beginning. And this is why your reasoning and encouraging of others does not move them to know God and His love – they have determined not to see or hear, so that God might heal them in Christ. And they are determined, just as determined as Jesus’ detractors were in rejecting Him to His face. So there is solace in these verses, that when we tell people about Jesus and get the “run-around” and ultimately rejection, that even Jesus suffered the same. Of course, all of the prophets suffered this rejection, as did all of the apostles of Christ in the early church. And none of it was their fault; the problem is with the fallen sinful nature of mankind which rejects God and His goodness, and hardened hearts that are absolutely and incorrigibly determined to remain as they are.
This solace enables us to continue doing what we need to do – joyfully bearing witness to Christ and God’s love whenever we have opportunity. Knowing that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God,” and that people are born again “not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God,” we continue to speak and urge and compel people to be reconciled to God, Who is already graciously reconciled to them [2 Cor. 5:19]. This is the only way God breaks through to them – through His Word, verbal communication, that given to us through Holy Scripture, the Bible. Whether they are turned or remain adamant in mental and spiritual confusion and darkness, we do what we can, just as prophets, apostles, and Jesus Himself did. And we marvel – along with God – that anyone would refuse to join the real party, in God’s house. But we remain compelled to invite them!
Prayer For The Day
Dear Lord Jesus, I marvel that You have broken through my sinful heart and mind to bring me to faith. I’m certain it was a great miracle. I thank You for Your Word which provides us with comfort, peace, confidence, guidance, and wisdom to clearly see what is going on in hearts and minds that reject You. Increase in me a willingness and eagerness to have even more open eyes, ears, mind and heart, that I may be blessed to have even more of Your wisdom, greater grasp of Your love. Bless others similarly, that Your church may truly grow. Amen.