Tap, tap, tap. . . hello, hello??

Recently I was watching news of the aftermath of Hurrican Irene. They had switched from the main office to a reporter on site who was to talk about the damage and show pictures where he was and as they’d asked him to start his report there was this long pause. I’m sure we’ve all seen those. Usually there’s something wrong with the equipment or the man for some reason doesn’t hear in his earpiece that he’s now on air.  So there’s this embarrassing (for them) long pause and then likely someone from the network is probably shouting in their ear to “TALK !!!!”    But the signal isn’t yet getting through to them so they don’t speak up until that time.   But all of a sudden when they do you can just imagine what they have just heard, ha ! 

The writer of Hebrews warned his readers that they had become “dull of hearing” (Heb.5:11). He went on to say they, by then, should be mature enough to be teachers but instead, due to their unwillingness to listen well, still needed to be taught the basics needing as he put it “milk, and not of strong meat.” (vs.12).   Sometimes, we older Christians suffer from a spiritual malady that newer ones don’t. We hear but we don’t hear, we listen but we don’t apply it, we get used to the sermonizer but fail to utilize what is preached into our very own life ! We’re like that technologically challenged reporter. We’re being spoken to in one way or another by God and we just stand there rigid and inactive not realizing that the world is still looking at us expecting some appropriate action from us, some biblical response but we are stuck in the idle position, “awaiting God to signal us” while all the time He’s been screaming in our ear ! We, like those first century Hebrew Christians, can and maybe we already have become, “dull of hearing” !  We like to think not but if they became so, we can too.

So what do we do?  You read and listen to the Word and you do so for YOU. Because He is speaking to YOU. He is trying to mature YOU.  Yesterday a person spoke to me about the sermon I’d just preached, tears were coming down this dear saint’s face, apologies were made for sinful behavior in the past. There was no dullness of hearing in this Christian, quite the opposite – they had allowed God to penetrate their heart and do His work, He had spoken, they had listened !!  Simple as that !!!!    This was also Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3 for his friends there, “For this cause I bow my knees. . .that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to COMPREHEND with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. ” (vss.14-19).   Has it been a while since you raised your hand to make a spiritual decision ?  What about after reading the Bible, have you made some application into your life?   You’re on deck, the world needs you to report for Christ. He’s communciating. But are you listening well?