by Robert M. Smith
I have fond
memories of my six year sojourn in Edmonton, Alberta. My wife and I
headed west from Ontario to spend a couple of years at Mount Carmel
Bible School. As young Christians, we longed for the solid grounding
that this extraordinary institution could provide and we were not
disappointed. With the likes of Robert Taylor, Bill Gurnette, Nelson
Annan, Stan King, John King and Gary Inrig as instructors our time was
extremely well-spent. Since we were also in our mid-twenties at the time
we had innumerable opportunities for fellowship with many other young
believers in this burgeoning western city. There were a great variety of
things to do as a Christian “young peoples’ group” … including [to
remain in context] playing games. On a number of occasions we’d try the
“listening game” where 15 or more people would line up or sit in a
circle. The person designated to start this experiment would whisper a
sentence into the ear of the individual beside him or her. From that
humble beginning, the sentence would be whispered into neighbour after
neighbour until it reached the last person in line, who would then
recite, out loud, what he or she heard. Thus, a simple statement like,
“I fed the pigeons in Stanley Park last Wednesday.” would come out of
that human pipeline sounding absolutely nothing like that! It was a
simple and yet most informative experiment in the communication
processes that we humans tangle with every single day.
I’m sure that we
have all seen sit-coms and jokes about men and their “selective hearing”
problems but I’m here to say that selective hearing is a universal
problem. Sometimes all of us hear only what we want to hear; we tune
into what we like and we tune out what we disdain … and we’re never
wrong, are we? It matters little what is being said and it matters
little who is saying it; if it does not meet with our approval it gets
dispatched to the circular file of our minds. This malady can be
witnessed through the example of Old Testament Israel. Time and time
again accounts of this wayward nation reveal that they would readily
listen to the wrong messages delivered by false prophets and reject the
right message given by the true prophets of God. Why? Well, there are
numerous answers to that question. Impure and false desires, pride and
irresponsibility come to mind but it actually boils down to the age-old,
global-wide longing of all humanity: man would rather have sin reigning
than God reigning. Jesus called it serving the master that we loved
dearest; it comes naturally to a selfish creature. And in Israel’s case
we have a most distressing testimony of how far they pursued this
strategy of rejecting God by rejecting His messengers: “Some were
tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a
better life. Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and
imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed
with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute,
afflicted, ill-treated – of whom the world was not worthy – wandering
over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”
(Heb 11:35-38 RSV).
This rejection got
so bad that by the time the Old Testament was drawing to a close the
people were incapable of hearing God when He spoke directly to them.
Upon entering the New Testament era this listening problem grew worse.
On one particular occasion, in speaking openly about the purpose of the
Father and His own purpose, Jesus said, “Now My soul has become
troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father save Me from this hour’? But for
this purpose I came to this hour. Father glorify Your name.”
(Jn 12:27-28a NASB). In response to this public declaration of the holy
plan of God, it is recorded, “Then a voice came out of heaven: ‘I
have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.’”
(Jn 12:28b NASB). One would expect that those present would have been
stunned by this revelation, perhaps falling to the ground in reverential
fear. But no such reaction is given. Instead we find excuses foisted as
rationale – indeed, the very same themes we are likely to raise in the
North American church today: “So the crowd of people who stood by
and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, ‘An
angel has spoken to Him.’” (Jn 12:29
NASB). How true is the testimony of Isaiah, Jesus Christ, Luke in the
book of Acts and the writer of the book of Hebrews when they state that
the people had grown “dull of hearing”; unreceptive in their desire to
be unrepentant.
To pursue this
problem further, we should consider why Jesus spoke through parables to
the masses. His explanation acts as an encouragement to us now as it did
to His inner core of disciples then:
“And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in
parables?”
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. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have
abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken
away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing
they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:
‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears Bare hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.’
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 13:10-17 NKJV)
Though this
delineates the favour of God to the faithful it also exposes the
magnitude of the apparent deafness of both the Pharisees and the worldly
in that day. They were blinded and deafened by many things, but like
Pharaoh before them, their hardness of heart stemmed from a lack of
trust in God and an inordinate pride in themselves. The Apostle Paul,
who knew this sin firsthand, would later tab it as the devil’s sin (1
Tim 3:6). To shed even more light on this subject and to see this game
played out in its finest, we shall have to visit the eighth chapter of
John’s Gospel. Jesus had just humiliated the Sanhedrin, who in an
unabashed lust to disgrace the Son of God, fabricated an adulterous
liaison between a man and a woman for their purposes. If ever there was
a total disregard for the law of God, this exemplified it … above and
beyond the act of the supposedly disreputable couple! But herein was
Jesus challenged; and in response to that challenge, He set the entire
group, “beginning with the older ones”, to flight from His holy presence
with His unexpected assessment.
Immediately after
this failed attempt by the Sanhedrin Jesus boldly declares that He is
“the Light of the world”, whom to follow is to avoid the pitfalls of
groping in darkness. With this proclamation Jesus established an
extraordinary contrast: 1) that the Sanhedrin and all the restrictive
religious bric-a-brac that they represent is epitomized with darkness;
2) that He, the Messiah, not only dwells in light but is – as is
appropriate to the very nature of God – Light itself. In this regard,
the Psalms reveal several visages of the Divine attribute known as
light: Psalm 104:2 states that God is light in essence; Psalm 43:3 tells
us that spiritual light and truth, alike, are given as Divine guidance;
Psalm 37:6 states that spiritual light is righteousness; Psalm 36:9
declares that only through Divine light shall anyone ever see and
approach the light needed in this life. Since these attributes were
readily recognized by the religious authorities as an attestation to the
Divinity of Christ they launched into an unprecedented assault here, in
John chapter eight. And in order to grasp the depth of their problem and
to see the listening game at its worst, we shall look at their comments
exclusively. At this point, still stinging from their encounter, they
simply want to attack Jesus. They no longer care whether they appear
morally and theologically right or wrong … they just want to show that
they are not aligning themselves with Him. They were determined to make
the pedigree of Jesus the issue rather than the message. So, in a
complete and utter dismissal of Old Testament truth – where God’s truth
was delivered by sheep herders, goat herders and farmers – they decided
to concentrate their attention on our Lord’s background. As a side note,
here, we should also comprehend that the pedigree of the messenger is
never the issue with God: He has utilized academic failures like
Spurgeon and mere shoe salesmen like Moody … men who proved God’s
strength through what the world considers weakness.
Understanding none
of these spiritual truths, the religious authorities begin their ad
hominem arguments, seeking to de-legitimize their Opponent:
Verse 13: “You are bearing witness to Yourself; Your testimony is not true.”
Verse 19: “Where is Your Father?”
Verse 25: “Who are You?”
Verse 33: “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been in bondage to anyone.”
Verse 41: “We are not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.”
Verse 48: “Are we not right in saying that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
Verse 53: “Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets who died?
Who do you claim to be?”
It is obvious that
the Jewish authorities would do, say and believe anything to show their
contempt of Jesus. If we were to translate all of these comments into
the jargon of our day, it would come out in the sarcastic question: “Who
do you think you are?!” At the very heart of the listening game, this
derogatory remark lies coiled, ready to lash out when we don’t like what
we hear. This is a very old tactic. It has been utilized for thousands
of years. The Pharisees were the perfect practitioners of this
condescending, satanic attitude. Both, Jesus and John the Baptist were
subjected to this interrogation. Greek philosophy introduced the ancient
world to what is called the “Socratic method” where one questions his
way to the truth of a matter. Unfortunately this same methodology can be
used to avoid truth: case in point, note Pontius Pilate’s conversation
with Jesus in John chapter eighteen … particularly his conclusion in
verse 38 [“Pilate said to Him, ‘What is truth?’”].
Taken the wrong way, the “Socratic method” fosters an air of
self-superiority and self-sufficiency which disdains God-sufficiency.
Even the great
beloved chapter of Scripture [John chapter 3] has an undercurrent of
this selfishness in it, evidenced through Nicodemus. Too long have
Christians misinterpreted his questions as the musings of a kindly old
man … when they are actually nothing of the sort. He came to Jesus at
night in order to avoid detection. Something was bothering him enough to
cause this late night rendezvous but upon meeting Jesus, he adopted the
long-held, ingrained Pharisaical approach to issues. He started with
flattery [“Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a
teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with
him.” NASB] which neither he nor the
Sanhedrin believed. This introduction was designed to simply get a
hearing and Jesus, not fooled, completely ignored every word of it. The
Lord cut to the chase while the Pharisee did what Pharisees do … after
all he had been a Pharisee for an awful long time and it is truly hard
for an old dog to learn a new trick. So upon hearing that he needed to
experience rebirth, Nicodemus responded the way every Pharisee would:
“How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second
time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” (Jn 3:4 NASB).
With this he was not trying to understand as much as he
was trying to avoid, and there’s nothing cute about that. In “debating
terms” this is called “Reductio ad Absurdum” – making something absurd
in order to deflect it; it is also called “Faulty Syllogism” – drawing
faulty conclusions in order to evade an issue; these days we might call
this “putting words in other peoples’ mouths”. Jesus did not let him get
away with these things and, as the record shows, Nicodemus’ evasive
tactics failed in the long run (Jn 19:39). His self-induced listening
problem was eventually remedied. The question remains, however: Will
ours?
Jesus does not
provide us with easily assimilated words and, as seen in Matt 13:10-17,
they were difficult to swallow for a very important reason. Many people
who heard Jesus, even disciples (Jn 6:66), turned away when He got too
deep for them. Some like the Pharisees refused the message because of
the Messenger; others refused the message because of its content. To
borrow a theatrical phrase, they couldn’t “handle the truth” so two
strategies were implemented: 1) Jesus’ followers ran away from it; 2)
the Sanhedrin tried to kill it. And, believe it or not, these two
strategies are still utilized – even by Christians when they are
confronted with a message from God. So often our meetings are “opened”
with the plea, “May we hear a message from You, this day, oh Lord our
God?” … and yet when a message from God arrives without our stamp of
approval on it, those two age-old strategies kick into high gear: 1) we
run from it in our minds, hearts and spirits – even while sitting in a
pew; 2) we try to kill it in our minds, hearts and spirits with a bevy
of rationale – poor rationale being as good as any other at this point.
When pricked in our hearts we often become Pharisaical, responding with:
“Who do you think you are? Have you any idea of who you’re talking to? I
have nothing to learn from the likes of you!” That is the central theme
of the listening game and it happens far too often in North American
Evangelicalism. Our error is as Tozer describes it: “Whoever will listen
will hear the speaking Heaven. This is definitely not the hour when men
take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not
today a part of popular religion. We are at the opposite end of the pole
from there. Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size,
activity and bluster make a man dear to God.”[1]
We Christians are a
peculiar lot: we decry abortion and euthanasia in secular society but we
condone and conduct “spiritual euthanasia” when we dismiss messages from
God because of our selfish desires. Selective hearing has thus become a
plague and only Jesus can heal such a problem, just as He did in Mk
7:31-37:
“Again
He went out from the region of Tyre, and came through Sidon to the Sea
of Galilee, within the region of Decapolis. They brought to Him one who
was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they implored Him to lay His and
upon him. Jesus took him aside from the crowd, by himself, and put His
fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with
the saliva; and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’
that is, ‘Be opened!’ And his ears were opened, and the impediment of
his tongue was removed, and he began speaking plainly. And He gave them
orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely
they continued to proclaim it. They were utterly astonished, saying, ‘He
has done all things well; He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to
speak.’” (NASB)
Take note that the
man with the hearing problem also had an accompanying speech problem. It
is well attested that deafness affects one’s tongue in the physical
realm but we, as believers, must recognize that by playing the listening
game we will influence both our hearing and our speaking abilities in
the spiritual realm. We tend to think that the listening game will
remain unnoticeable to those around us but the tragic reality is that
true disciples of Christ are not duped by this. How we listen to the
Word of God and messages from God will always be mirrored in our
conversation and deportment. This has nothing whatsoever to do with our
intelligence; it has everything to do with who we listen to. And when we
shut God out as Confidant, there aren’t many other options left open to
us! We become ineffectual in output because God has been allowed limited
input … and when that happens the stinging commentary of Francis
Schaeffer is our inheritance: “Unless people see in our churches not
only the preaching of the truth but the practice of the truth, the
practice of love and the practice of beauty; unless they see that the
thing that the humanists rightly want but cannot achieve on a humanist
base – human communication and human relationship – is able to be
practiced in our communities, then let me say it clearly: They will not
listen and they should not listen.”[2]
To put it bluntly: if we, as believers, don’t listen properly to God
why, on earth, should any non Christian listen to us?
There are a couple
of solutions to this dilemma and the primary starting point is, as it
should be, with the preachers of the land, for if the listening game can
be stymied upon the platform first it will have greater effect in the
pews. A preacher is obligated to be a student before becoming a teacher
and students with hearing problems are of little value to God as
teachers of His word. At times the truth of a preacher’s ability to
listen to God can easily be deduced by the content of his message.
Oswald Chambers gives us an indication of how rampant the hearing
problem is as he cites a rather common, modern methodology that has
swept, and continues to sweep, this continent: “The average type of
preaching emphasizes strength of will, beauty of character – the things
that can be easily noticed. The phrase ‘Decide for Christ’ which we so
frequently hear is too often an emphasis on the thing our Lord never
trusted. Our Lord never asks us to decide for Him: He asks us the
yield to Him – a very different matter.”[3]
But, of course, it
is decidedly difficult to teach “yeildedness” when one has not practiced
it. And the engagement of it is shunned because there have been too many
other longings taking up space in many a preacher’s heart. I am
particularly fond of Vance Havner’s assessment of what a true preacher
[he uses the term “prophet”; and quite accurately I might add] ought to
be like. Cutting through trendy notions and leaving only the Scriptural
he writes: “The true prophet has slight regard for forms and ceremonies.
He belongs to no boards or committees. He courts no favors and never
runs for office. He is disconcerting to the System and irritates those
who seek only to maintain the status quo. He does not fit into the neat
little patterns of swivel-chair strategists far removed from the actual
conflict. He is hated by all Ahabs and Herods and Amaziahs and Jezebels
and Queen Marys, the Pharisees and politicians, who resent any
disturbance in institutional religion. He does not fawn upon notables
nor seek the favor of either mob or monarch. He is not remotely
interested in being ‘in’ with the rich, wise, mighty or noble. He is not
a guest in Herod’s palace but may be a prisoner in Herod’s jail. Like
Savonarola, he may offend the Medicis and end up a martyr. Prophets are
still beheaded, not in the gory original way, but with more finesse.
The prophet is
essentially a rebel. Rebellion may be either bad or good. Satan was a
rebel against God and was cast out of heaven for it. Today he heads up a
vast host of demons – all rebels – who war against God. But rebellion
can be good. Jesus was a rebel against the lifeless established religion
of His day. So were Paul and Luther and Knox and Wesley and all who
clash with the established order of their time. When religion becomes a
performance instead of an experience, when the living faith of the dead
becomes the dead faith of the living, prophets are needed. To equip such
men, God usually endows them with a streak of stubbornness and a
disinclination to follow beaten paths. This makes them unpopular with
the prevailing set-up of their day.”[4]
Clean up the
preachers and the church will follow suit. And how is this done? With
three simple concepts:
1) Be sure to have a right
relationship with God as expressed in John 10:1-5 and 11-16.
“Truly, truly, I say to
you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but
climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters
by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and
the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads
them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the
sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply
will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the
voice of strangers.”
“I am the good shepherd;
the good shepherd lays down His life for he sheep. He who is a hired
hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the
wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them
and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not
concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and
My own know me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I
lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of
this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they
will become one flock with one shepherd.”(NASB)
In this allegory
Jesus identifies Himself as the Good Shepherd and His followers as His
sheep. It is abundantly clear that no one will be able to hear the Good
Shepherd’s voice unless he/she is indeed one of His sheep. Hearing and
listening are, therefore, entirely dependent upon “relationship” and we,
as Christians, ought to recognize that this relationship is the “number
one issue” in the life of every man, woman and child on this planet.
Without it we shall not acquire the salvation God offers and – not to be
underestimated since it is a significant part of this scenario from
Jesus – we shall not hear God. We erroneously assume that rationale and
mental acuity are the means by which we hear God and many a preacher has
adopted this philosophy. But this hearing of the voice of the Good
Shepherd is a spiritual component, not a physical/mental one. “The Holy
Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, not to our reason. Jesus said
‘My sheep hear My voice,’ not because it is argued to them, but because
they have His Spirit.”[5] Giving “relationship” the primacy it
deserves, we must also conclude that, not only will we not hear God
without a right relationship, we cannot respond to God in love without
it either – drawing attention to the most important commandment of a
Holy God, according to Jesus Christ our Lord (Matt 22:36-38).
2) Be Berean with the Scriptures.
“The brethren immediately
sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they
went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more noble-minded
than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great
eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things
were so.” (Acts 17:10-11 NASB)
The Bereans
mentioned in this account were Jews who, upon hearing the Gospel from
Paul and Silas, decided to do an unusual thing. Compared to their
kindred in other places (Acts 9:23; 13:45; 13:50; 14:1-7; 14:19; 17:5;
17:13; 18:6; 18:12-13; 20:3; 21:11; 21:27; 23:12; 25:6-8; 26:21; 28:19;
28:29) these Jews were willing to search the Scriptures. But let me
point out, because it is so incredibly important, that these Berean Jews
examined the Scriptures in a specific way. Their intention was not to
launch into debate by myopically looking for excuses and arguments in a
vain attempt at attacking the Apostle Paul. They poured through the
Scriptures objectively “to see whether these things were so”. Their sole
purpose was to clarify and ratify, not repudiate and denounce
impulsively. They heard some earth-shattering things from the two
disciples; things that would only be understood through surrender to
God; things that far-exceed any Biblical radicalism of our day within
ecclesiastical walls. The only ears that work properly are the objective
ears of the virtuous … the ears that seek God for Who He is and not what
we want Him to be. Such ears are rare … such ears do not play listening
games.
3) Don’t play.
Many years ago I
watched a movie called “War games”. Since it was produced in 1983 the
computer technology of that time appears quite antiquated but the plot
was certainly conceivable. A bright but lazy young high school student
was searching random telephone numbers across America in order to tap
into other computers – one of the earliest renditions of a modern day
“hacker”. Because of his fun-loving nature this young fellow, however,
was innocently trying to find computer games to play with and after an
extensive search he found – unbeknownst to him – the main computer for
NATO. The “W.O.P.R.” [pronounced “whopper”] was programmed with both
simulated and real-time responses to any perceived enemy assaults on
North America during the age that we have called “the cold war” era and,
through a sequence of interactions with the young student, the W.O.P.R.
initiated a thermonuclear response program. Throughout the movie no one
is sure whether the W.O.P.R. is preparing for war or not because NATO
headquarters was certainly taking all of the on-screen data very
seriously. To make a long story short, however, we get to the end of the
film where the W.O.P.R. is finally simulating a nuclear war instead of
starting one. And once all the maneuvers had been made and all of the
horrific results were tabulated the great computer goes quiet. After a
long pause – of systematic reflection no doubt – the mechanical voice of
the great computer breaks the silence, to the relief of everyone
present, saying: “Strange game! The only winning move is not to play!”
Brothers and
sisters in Christ, we too, are playing some strange games … and we are
playing them, not against some meager and menial computer, but against
the God of the universe. We must, however, come to the same conclusion
that this imaginary story comes to: we must see the futility of playing
and the fatuity of playing any sort of game with God who loves us and
gave Himself for us. God deserves better from us and we, through the
life that He has instilled in us, can indeed do better. Don’t play
around with God!
[1] A. W. Tozer, The Best of A.W.
Tozer – Volume 1, Christian Publications Inc., Camp Hill, PA, Page 25
[2] Francis A. Schaeffer, The Curch at
the end of the 20th Century, Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 1970, Page 40
[3] Oswald Chambers, The Complete
Works of Oswald Chambers, Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids, 2000, Page 661
[4] Vance Havner, Three-score & ten,
Fleming H Revell Co., New Jersey, 1973, Pages 68-69
[5] Oswald Chambers, The Complete
Works of Oswald Chambers, Discovery House Publishers, Grand
Rapids, 2000, Page 698