EZEKIEL 3:7
But the house of Israel will not listen to you, because they will not listen to Me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted. [NKJV]
But the people of Israel won't want to listen to you, because they don't want to listen to Me. All the Israelites are strong-minded and hard-hearted. [FBV]
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How To Hear + How To Develop True Hearing/Ear |
[John 15:20 NKJV] — Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
In any of the Bible verse above, the Lord recognized that there would be those who refused to listen to His words and consequently, they would also reject the words of His messengers. This would not be because of any fault in the message or the messengers, but rather because of the hardness of hearts and minds of the people themselves. And the Lord assured His messengers that those who kept His word would also keep theirs.
The degree to which people would listen to the Lord God, is to the degree they would listen to His Messengers whom the Lord sent to them, when the man's messages are the Lord God's messages and the man's doctrine His doctrine.
[Matthew 10:20] — "For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you."
The extent to which individuals will heed God is equivalent to the extent to which they will heed His Messengers. This connection relies on the fact that the messages conveyed by these Messengers are the Lord God's own messages, and the doctrines they teach are His doctrines.
[John 7:16-17] — "Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself."
Why would the Israelites neither listen to God nor listen to the son of man, man of God, sent to them? Because they are hard-hearted and difficult minded people.
HOW TO DEVELOP HEARING
[Luke 8:18] — "Pay attention, therefore, to how you listen. Whoever has will be given more, but whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.”"
Many people do not know how to hear, even though they can hear. The children of Israel had almost every thing but their greatest problem was they don't know how to hear or how to listen. As a result, even the things they had were taken from them.
Faith comes by "Hearing" (Romans 10:17), and those who have "Hearing-Problem" usually fall into unbelief. When the writer mentioned "Faith comes by hearing," the writer was discussing about how Israel or Israelites fell into unbelief and failure of faith in them.
Unfortunately, many among the churches do not have "True Ear" but "Itching Ears."
*1* Having "Itching Ears" makes people to turn away from hearing the truth, into hearing fables, imaginations, false dreams, false hopes, sweet lies and myths, etc, because itching ears want to hear anything except the truth or true doctrine. As it is written,
[2 Timothy 4:3-4] — "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned to fables."
*2* Having "True Ears" makes people to hear what the Spirit of Truth is saying. As it is written,
[Revelation 3:22] — "He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
How do you hear what the Spirit of God? How do you even hear? Look again at the top Bible verse above, and notice how "Hearing One" depended on "Hearing Another," and "Hearing Another" depended on "Softness of the Heart." See it this way:
*** The reason the Israelites will not hear Ezekiel the man of God, will be because they will not hear God Himself. And,
*** The reason the Israelites will not hear God Himself or the Spirit of God, will be because their hearts are hardened or hard.
God informed Moses that He would cause Pharaoh's heart to become hardened, resulting in his refusal to hear or pay attention to the message conveyed by Moses, who is regarded as a man of God. Similarly, the hardness or softness of an individual's heart determines their receptiveness to God and His Messengers.
The error of Israelites was that they had "hard hearts" towards what God or the Spirit of God in His Messengers was saying, unlike those who do not have "hard hearts" but have "itching ears" which are also inimical to hearing what the Spirit is Saying.
Taking heed how to hear? This is how to hear:
[Hebrews 3:7-11 NKJV] — Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”