As I read and studied passages that speak of hearing and understanding, and hearing and having no understanding, I thought, “How sad and hopeless it must be, to be able to physically hear the eternal and powerful and most happiest Word from the LORD Most High, yet, have no clue what any of it means. Or worse, to hear the mighty and awesome, sanctifying Word of God, and believe you understand, but turn and twist and misapply the Almighty’s righteous Word.” I’m all too familiar with the gravity of the latter sin, for I’ve done this many times before. And no doubt, will do it again. But by the grace of God my Father and His holy and kind hand that preserves the Good Seed He implanted in me (Php 1:6), the grievous occasion of repeating this sin, decreases as my Father faithfully prunes me.
Is there a greater sadness—to think you have an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus, but have not? Is there anything more frightful in this life or at the end of your days, than to hear, “Depart from Me you worker of iniquity. I never knew you.”? No, there is not.
Whenever Christ our Lord said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” it was always after a statement of the truth of eternal life, found only in Him. This statement of invitation to draw near to Him, in a personal and intimate fashion, is contrasted by what the Lord Jesus says about those whom He has not given spiritual ears to “hear”, the Eternal Word.
And when His disciples asked Him what the parable meant, He said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.”
~Luke 8:9-10, ESV (emphasis mine)
Jesus taught that though a person may be able to physically hear, that does not guarantee that they are enabled by His Holy Spirit, to spiritually hear—to understand and obey the eternal words of the only true and eternal God (1 Cor 2:14). Satan knows all the Bible and can quote it better than most professing Christians, but God has not given the devil the divine ability to actually understand and happily submit to and keep the Word of God. Without true repentance and faith in the Son of God alone, no image-bearer of the Most High God is capable of living a godly and righteous life (Rom 8:8, Heb 11:6). Only the true children and disciples of Christ Jesus, have been empowered from on high, to freely understand and obey God’s righteous decrees.
See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon Him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
~Deuteronomy 4:5-8, ESV
Those whom God has granted spiritual ears, have been granted the powerful freedom and growing desire to happily obey the law of liberty (Js 1:25, 1 Jn 5:3-5, Heb 11:6). The Apostle Paul, by the power of the Holy Spirit, provides us with a stellar definition of what the law of liberty is, and practical “how-tos” of what it looks like, in any generation, in any circumstance, and in any country where God lovingly and wisely places His children.
“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the things of the Spirit is life and peace.
~Romans 6:15-16; 8:1-6, ESV (emphasis mine)
Those who are blessed to live in the law of liberty, are faithfully preserved by God the Father, so that we will (not might) bear distinct, not-of-this-world, holy fruit of the Lord Jesus. Though we may stumble into sin from time to time, we neither love nor live in sin.
But those who neither seek to repent nor seeks to live in God’s peace with others, as much as it is up to them (Rom 12:15), are sadly, self-deceived. And anyone who comforts and provides a safe harbor for such people, are guilty of the same sin, and are also in need of much repentance both toward God and man.
