Hearing and seeing are two of our senses that I value most out of our physical senses. Hearing and seeing can help us to determine when danger is near. It can also help us to enjoy those things that are pleasing to us. Such as the sound of a child’s laugh and the sight of their smile. Physically, as we get older our seeing begins to dim. Things that were clear and easy to see up close begin to get fuzzy and suddenly our arms aren’t long enough to hold a book far enough away for the words to be clear. Now is the time we usually begin to wear glasses for reading. Our hearing also changes as we age, sometimes we begin to hear a low “frying’ in the ear, or certain sounds are just not as clear. Spiritually speaking, this should be the opposite of what happens to us spiritually. The older we become in Christ, the better our spiritual seeing and hearing should become.
In Isaiah 6:9-10, God is telling Isaiah to go and preach to the Israelites. This is God’s response to Isaiah’s declaration that he is available to do God’s will. In verse 8 God speaks to Isaiah “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” God responds to Isaiah’s desire to obey and gives him a strange mission. He is to go to His people and preach a message they will not understand. He will tell them of their ruin to come, and by their abuse of the message, it would bring death to them. This was exactly the state of the Jewish church in the days of the Messiah. They rejected the gospel and therefore they were rejected by God. The commentator Matthew Henry says “these verses were quoted in part, or referred to six times in the New Testament, which intimates that in gospel times these spiritual judgments would be most frequently inflicted; and though they make the least noise, and come not with observation, yet they are of all judgments the most dreadful.” It is death to our souls for God to speak and us to turn a deaf ear to him and not be able to see how, where, and what, He is doing.
If Isaiah is to be obedient to God, he must go and tell all that God has said. We are no different. God has given us a message to share about repentance unto salvation. While we tell lost people over and over that judgment is coming if they don’t repent and seek Christ, most will turn a deaf ear to us. We should be able to look around in our world and see the results of sin, and yet, most will not comprehend what they see as a judgment from God on sin. Only a few will listen and stay true as is expressed in verse 13.
Isaiah 6:9-10 “And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.”
We must continue to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, and God as the Father of grace, love, and judgment. We know there will be multitudes who will not listen but there will be few that do. None of those we speak to will ever remain the same. If they hear it positively, they will respond with obedience and will receive Jesus as Savior and Lord. Those who are already saved will grow in grace. Those who reject the message we tell will become cold and indifferent to the word. Their hearts will harden and become calloused and cold to the truth of the word. Their spiritual eyes become dimmer and dimmer, and their hearing gets weaker and weaker when it comes to spiritual things.
As a Christian, we should always welcome whatever the Bible teaches if we wish to become more like God’s Son, Jesus. If we want to please Him, we must listen, look, and heed. Otherwise, we die a slow spiritual death as we grow further and further away from God.
In II Thessalonians 2:10-12, we are presented with the facts of what will happen to those who reject the truth and those who also take pleasure in those who are living the unrighteous life. We need to heed this warning for ourselves and continue to obey and tell so that our ears don’t become dull of hearing and our eyes dim to the truth.
II Thessalonians 2:10-12 “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
