My Ear You Have Dug
PPT 1 Series Title: Words
PPT 2 Tongues of fire
Speak life, don't injure with our words, last week we talked about the good confession which is standing up for the truth even if it brings pain.
PPT 3 Can you Hear Me pic
How many can relate to that picture? Have you ever thought God sometimes feels like the woman in that picture? Intro we have been talking about speaking for the last several weeks, it's only natural that we should give attention to listening and hearing also. We live in an age where there are more means of communication than ever before, and there is more miscommunication than ever before today our focus will be on hearing the words of God, and so our message is entitled:
PPT 4 My Ear You Have Dug Psalms 40:6
My favorite course in college was speech and communication, and not because it helped me be a better speaker, but because it helped me be a better listener.
The bible can't tell you if you are called only the Holy Spirit can, the bible can't tell you who to marry, it can give you general guidelines, only the Holy Spirit can tell you the exact person. The bible can't tell what your career should be, or if you should have lasik surgery, or should you sell your home. Only the Holy Spirit can give that type of specific direction. My whole Christian life I have been a student of listening to the voice of God. If you want to hear God better, study communication.
What is good communication?
I speak, you hear what I said, you respond, I hear what you said.
Sounds simple? It never is
Some errors creep in because I can't fully articulate what I want you to hear, you hear more than my words, my body language, all our past interactions, you filter everything I say through your life experiences, culture, and level of understanding. Lot's of room for error.
How many times in our life have we failed to hear the importance and or depth of hurt someone we were in conversation with? Miscommunication in marriage...
She says you are not hearing me, he is only hearing what he disagrees with in what she is saying.
We also do this with kids, we don't have hearing ears to understand how important something is to them, and they don't have hearing ears to understand how important something is to us.
I want to go out and stay out late. I got in trouble as a teen when I did that, I want to keep you from that.
PPT 4 communication process
Hindrances to good communication:
Stress
Hurried listening
My past, my culture
Physical issues hearing/fatigue
Distracted
Life issues
Attitude to speaker
Let me illustrate:
A chaplain at a home for people with dementia and other cognitive problems shared this story:
It was a beautiful day outside, and the staff took many patients outside to enjoy the weather including a woman with dementia. There are bushes and flowers and it was a lovely spot on a lovely day. The orderly rolled the woman near a bush. Usually she sat slumped over in her chair. But she roused for a second, straightened up, and shouted, "Snake!" People turned their heads for a moment and when they saw who shouted, they shook their heads and went on about their business. A few minutes later, she straightened up and shouted again: "Snake!" More eye-rolls and head shakes from the staff. Sure enough, she did it another time. An orderly sighed, "I guess I better go check on her and move her someplace else." When he got to her chair, he looked down at the bush and shouted, "Snake!"
Because of her dementia nobody listened to her.
She spoke but no one really heard, that happens all the time.
God sends a perfect signal and it often doesn't get through because of our inability to hear.
PPT 5, 6 text
Job 33:14 "Indeed God speaks once, Or twice, yet no one notices it.
Job 33:15 "In a dream, a vision of the night, When sound sleep falls on men, While they slumber in their beds,
Job 33:16 Then He opens the ears of men, And seals their instruction,
Job 33:17 That He may turn man aside from his conduct, And keep man from pride;
Job 33:18 He keeps back his soul from the pit, And his life from passing over into Sheol.
This is one of Job's friends named Elihu (Eleehoo) who tells Job that God speaks, and after several attempts God uses tragedy and trouble to get people to slow down and listen and turn their lives around. He is wrong in applying that to Job, but He is right in saying what God sometimes does when people won't/don't listen
Pay attention to your dreams, I prefer the bible, but God can often say things in dreams that really help.
Let's look at another text:
PPT 7 text
Psalms 40:6 Sacrifice and meal offering Thou hast not desired; My ears Thou hast opened; Burnt offering and sin offering Thou hast not required.
God is not all that interested in sacrifice in this one verse which is about Jesus he says that twice, but what is God interested in? Hearing ears.
The Hebrew word that is translated into, "thou hast opened," is kawrah and this is what Barnes' commentary tells us about the meaning of that word:
The Hebrew word Kawrah means "to dig" as, to dig a well, Ge 26:25, dig a grave; Ex 21:33 dig a pit, It means to make an opening in the ground. As used here this would properly mean, "mine ears hast thou digged out" that is, thou hast so opened them that there is a communication with the seat of hearing; or, in other words, thou hast caused me to hear this truth, or hast revealed it to me.
When a man or a woman comes to Christ the ear is dug for the first time, and they hear God's truth in a way they never have before. Something special happens at conversion, grace creates the conditions necessary to hear. Without God's help we would never hear.
The mistake many Christian people make, is they never get their ears cleaned out again. Hebrews 5 speaks of those who have become dull of hearing. The writer is speaking to people who have been believers for quite a while, and complaining they are not moving forward as they should. He blames that in part to dull spiritual hears. He is saying they need their ears perked up or cleaned out.
As a child because of continual ear infections I would go to the doctor on a regular basis and he would force water into my ear canal and I could hear better for a while, but before too long I would need it done all over again. This is the natural teaching us about the spiritual.
Here is a wonderful illustration of the danger of becoming dull of hearing:
A Pastor by the name of Erwin McManus shares this story from his life, that has to do with spiritual hearing:
My son, Aaron, was five or six when he began asking me, "What does God's voice sound like?" I didn't know how to answer. A few years later, Aaron went off to his first junior high camp. In the middle of the week, I went up with another pastor at Mosaic to see our kids. Aaron, I learned, had started to assault another kid but had been held back by his friends. He was unrepentant, wanted to leave camp, pulled together his stuff, and shoved it into the car. I asked him for a last talk with me before we drove away. We sat on two large rocks in the middle of the woods. "Aaron," I asked, "is there any voice inside you telling you what you should do?" "Yes," he nodded. "What's the voice telling you?" "That I should stay and work it out." "Can you identify that voice?" "Yes," he said immediately. "It's God." It was the moment I'd waited for. "Aaron," I said, "do you realize what just happened? You heard God's voice. He spoke to you from within your soul. Forget everything else that's happened. God spoke to you, and you were able to recognize Him." I will never forget Aaron's response: "Well, I'm still not doing what God said." I explained to him that that was his choice, but this is what would happen. If he rejected the voice of God coming from deep within and chose to disobey His guidance, his heart would become hardened, and his ears would become dull. If he continued on this path, there would be a day when he would never again hear the voice of God. There would come a day when he would deny that God even speaks or has ever spoken to him. But if he treasures God's voice, however it comes to him?-through the scriptures, through his conscience-?and responds to Him with obedience, then his heart would be softened, and his ears would always be able to hear the whisper of God into his soul. Aaron chose to stay, I'm grateful to say. If he had chosen differently, he would have begun the path toward nominal discipleship. Perhaps he never would have rejected the faith overtly. He might have even chosen to be a faithful attendee at a church and been by everyone else's estimation a good man, but he would no longer be a close Jesus-follower.
Wow! That is in part what is meant by dull of hearing. You plugged your ears to God, so He doesn't speak much anymore. That can be that can be turned around with a little repentance and hunger to hear God speak again.
I want to show you an interesting verse of scripture and something about it you would have never gotten, if all you ever did was read your bible, and not dig deeper, into commentaries and the original language.
PPT 8-10 text
2 Samuel 23:20 Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel, who had done mighty deeds, killed the two sons of Ariel of Moab. He also went down and killed a lion in the middle of a pit on a snowy day.
2 Samuel 23:21 And he killed an Egyptian, an impressive man. Now the Egyptian had a spear in his hand, but he went down to him with a club and snatched the spear from the Egyptian' hand, and killed him with his own spear.
2 Samuel 23:22 These things Benaiah the son of Jehoiada did, and had a name as well as the three mighty men.
2 Samuel 23:23 He was honored among the thirty, but he did not attain to the three. And David appointed him over his guard.
When I read this text I think about the mighty men of valor. I want to be known as a mighty man of valor.
Look at verse 23 thrown in there, David put him over his guard. His personal bodyguard. Good choice. Let's dig in a little, I wonder what the Hebrew word for guard is? There is nothing special there, we know what a guard is, right? Well.... Maybe we can learn something?
Yes, the word translated over his guard is mishmahath and it means his hearing, and relates to the fact that the bodyguards, hearkened to his orders, commands, and obeyed them.
1 Chronicles 27:34 tells us that Benaiah replaced Ahithophel as David's counselor. Of Ahithophel it is said that his council was almost as if you talked to God. (2 Sam 16:23) Benaiah was hearing for David both as an obedient follower, a careful listener, and as a counselor.
Let me tie that in with something in the New testament:
Luke 8:18 "Therefore take care how you listen; for whoever has, to him shall more be given; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away from him."
How do you think David's guards listened:
"Dude I just sat down. = dull of hearing"
Can God call you "His hearing?"
Close:
What does God want to open your ears to this week?
Something He is saying to you.
The pain in someone else's heart. Listen to your spouse, your children, your coworkers
I need to hear better. I need my ears dug. I need Christ.
