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Transcript 206C — "He That Hath an Ear" [Rev 2 & 3]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening. In Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation Christ repeats seven times the words, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit sayeth unto the churches." Would you comment on how this is being fulfilled during our time? And I'll take the answer over the air.
HC: All right. Fine. Thank you for calling. Good night.
The question is raised concerning a verse that is found quite a number of times in Revelation 2 and 3: "He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying." Now what is God talking about here?
You see, back in Isaiah 6, maybe I should go all the way back there, God has commissioned Isaiah to bring the Gospel. Isaiah was a prophet who prophesied to Israel in about 700 BC. And after He had commissioned Isaiah, then it says, "Then Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said [that is, Isaiah], Here am I. Send me." And notice the strange language that God uses in Isaiah 6:9, "And He said, Go and say to this people, Hear and hear, but do not understand. See and see, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed."
Now what's God saying here? You see, Israel of old was typical of those who had been the custodians of the Gospel, or the ones who have heard the Gospel for many many years. But Israel had not responded to the Gospel. Israel had gone its own sinful way. And they in fact were not ready to go to the Lord by faith. They wanted a gospel that they could feel, that they could look at. It was easy for them to go after Baal worship. And so today there are many who go to the Bible, not by faith, but they go trying to analyze everything, and make everything come out logically. And therefore they go to the Bible and discover that it's got a lot of contradictions in it. They discover that there are a lot of statements that don't appear to make any sense at all.
What has happened? God has blinded them. They have eyes, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. They in their stubborn, egotistical arrogance are going to come to God their way, rather than God's way. But there and there in the nation of Israel of old, as well as in the population, or the peoples of the world today, there are those who hear the Gospel and they are exercised by it to the point where they come broken before God and admit their spiritual bankruptcy. And they begin to cry out to God for mercy. They begin to place their trust, they find they have a trust in their heart that Christ is their Savior, and how desperately they want Him to be Lord of their life.
What has happened? God has given them ears to hear. God has opened their spiritual ears, as they have come in faith to God. And so now the Bible becomes the living Word for their lives, that guides them into all truth. And so when this statement is offered repeatedly in Revelation 2 and 3? ''He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches," God is saying, effectively, are you one who has had your spiritual ears opened? Have you come to the Bible by faith? Have you come to God with a broken and a contrite heart, with no pretensions of your own, no personal ego of any kind, ready to just implicitly trust and be obedient to what God declares in His Word? Then you're going to hear what God says. You're going to hear how the Holy Spirit has information for you from the Word of God.
But if you come to the Word of God like you come to any book, that you're going to analyze it and try to discover where God has made His mistakes, you're going to find that there's no truth there that satisfies your soul. You're going to find that it's an offensive book, as it talks about a blood theology, as it talks about eternal damnation, as it talks about the fact that man is nothing, that he's a sinner that deserves the wrath of God. You're going to be offended, and you're going to remain in your blindness.
So there is the question, you see. Those who have ears to hear are those who come to the Word by faith.