Another opportunity to be able
to meet together. Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me to the book of Proverbs chapter 20. Proverbs chapter
20. Last time, last Sunday, I looked
at four verses in Proverbs chapter 20 and I ended with verse 12,
but I made not very many comments. And I want us to look tonight
for just a few minutes before we observe the Lord's Table at
verse 12 of Proverbs 20. The Scripture declares the hearing
ear and the seeing eye, the Lord, hath made even both of them. Let's pray together. Our Father,
we thank you this evening for another time to come and to call
upon you and, Lord, to look into the Scriptures. We pray that
you'd bless them this evening. help us to worship, forgive us
for Christ's sake. Amen. The natural senses of hearing
and seeing, now those are gifts given by God to every man in
general. But the spiritual sense, our
senses of hearing and seeing, to hear the voice of the Lord,
to hear it heartily. And this is something that you
can't explain to an unbeliever. You just, to tell them about
hearing the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Spirit of
God opens your heart to hear the scriptures and to rejoice
in them. You can't explain that. To hear
His voice, to see Him by faith, to see Him in His beauty, to
see Him high and lifted up, to do that, God's going to have
to do something for a man or a woman. Now, hold your place
right there. Turn to Acts 22. Acts 22. The
Apostle Paul is rehearsing what had happened
to him on the road to Damascus. Acts 22 verse 6 to 9, he says,
It came to pass that as I made my journey and was come nigh
unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great
light round about me, and I fell unto the ground, and heard a
voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And
I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he said unto me, I am Jesus
of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest." Now I want you to notice, he
said, I was going down the road and I heard a voice and he spoke
to me. And he called me by name, Saul,
Saul. And then look at verse 9, And
they that were with me indeed saw the light, and were afraid,
but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me. Here
was Paul, he was going down, he's an unbeliever. And God Almighty
spoke to him and he heard. Now, Paul actually heard the
voice. Did he hear it in his ear? Did
he hear it in his heart? He said, I heard it. I heard
the voice. They didn't hear it. When Almighty God speaks to His
people, they hear. Man is born deaf and blind to
the things of God. Carnal man's understanding of
the truth of the living God is a mockery. His understanding,
before God calls him out of darkness, it mocks him. His deaf ear and
blind eye says to him, you hear God. You hear. You hear the preacher. And you understand. You understand
the words. I've told you my daughter, Becca,
you know, telling me, she said, Dad, I grew up hearing you. I
knew what you were saying. I understood it. I understood exactly what you
were saying, but I didn't have a heart for it. They were just
words to me. I understood the words. I perceived
what you meant. I could make an argument between
Calvinism and Arminianism, but I didn't care. I just didn't
care. But one day, the Lord gave me a heart to care. A hearing ear, a seeing eye.
Man, until God regenerates him, cannot hear. He just doesn't
see. The Lord explained His manner
of preaching in parables to His disciples. He said, Therefore
speak I to them in parables, because they seeing see not,
and hearing they hear not. Neither do they understand what
is concerning the spiritual things. You hear, but you don't hear.
You see, but you don't see. Man's natural ear, natural eye,
and I'm not talking about this corporal thing here. I'm talking
about the natural eye and the natural ear of a man's ruined
nature. is religious. And he's got a
natural ear and a natural eye for religion. And he can hear
natural religious things. He understands moral doctrine. He understands that. I mean,
don't steal, don't, you know, do this, don't do that, don't
covet. I understand that. But to hear
the gospel with a receptive heart, and to understand and perceive
that glorious message concerning the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,
he just can't do it. John 8, 41. John 8, 41. I'll read this to
you. Scripture says, You do the deeds
of your father, And then said they to him, we be not born of
fornication. We have one father, even God.
And Jesus said unto them, if God were your father, you would
love me. For I proceeded forth and came
from God. Neither came I of myself, but
he sent me. Why do you not understand my
speech? Even because you cannot hear
my word. Here He was talking to them about
Him coming from the Father. And they just got mad. They just
didn't perceive. They didn't understand. Not until
the Spirit of God, in regenerating grace, comes to a vessel of God's
mercy and imparts what's referred to as a hearing ear and a seeing
eye. What does a seeing eye? perceive? What does a seeing
eye perceive? Well, I'll tell you the first
thing I know it perceives. It sees the sinner as a helpless
sinner against God. Before the Lord called you out
of darkness, did you perceive yourself to be a rebel, a helpless,
a spiritually helpless rebel against God, did you? And secondly, it sees the glory
of God Almighty in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ as being
the sovereign Savior of sinners. So a seeing eye sees two things. A hearing ear hears the voice
of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Spirit of God blesses it through
the preaching of the Scriptures. A hearing ear, a seeing eye,
sees myself for who I am and sees the Lord. for who he is. So that hearing ear and seeing
eye. But if somebody were to ask me,
when you say a hearing ear and a seeing eye, I mean, I can see
this and I understand this. I can see this and I understand
this. But spiritually speaking, what
is a hearing ear and a seeing eye? I'll tell you, it's nothing
less It's nothing less than a new heart. It's the importation of
a new nature. It's that which is born from
above, that which is, by faith, perceiving and grasping hold
of what Almighty God has said is so. It's that new creation
that should be born again. You cannot see the Kingdom of
God. You can't see it. What is that
hearing ear and seeing eye? It's a new heart. It's a new
nature. Now that seeing eye and hearing
ear, that is fearfully and wonderfully made. And it's according to the
Lord's promise to His people. Listen to what God promised to
His people through the means of the Apostle Paul to write
down this scripture in Philippians 4.19. But my God shall supply
all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Does God's people need to hear from the Lord? Yes. What does
He do? He gives them a hearing ear.
Do they need to see him by faith? Absolutely. He gives them a seeing
eye. You know, little Samuel was brought
by his mama, Hannah, and she came and she placed him in the
watch care of Eli, the prophet. He's in the temple. And the scripture
says that Samuel was not a believer. He was a little boy, just a little
boy. I don't know how old he was, but he was a young boy,
and the scripture says he knew not yet the Lord. One night,
the Lord called him. Called him by name, Samuel. Samuel
got up, went into Eli. He said, you called me? He said,
no, I didn't call you. Go back to bed. Went back to
bed and the second time the Lord called him, Samuel. He got up
and went into Eli again. He said, you called me, didn't
you? He said, no, I didn't call you. Third time the Lord called
him, Samuel. And the scripture said that Samuel
got up, went into Eli, and it says that Eli perceived that
the Lord had called the child. Therefore, Eli said unto Samuel,
Go, lie down, and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt
say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Samuel heard the voice
of the Lord. Was it actually a voice that
he actually heard with this ear or did he hear him with the heart?
The scripture says that he heard the voice of the Lord. What do
you say to a believer who hears the voice of the Master and the
scripture comes alive to him? And it just, joy wells up in
his heart and he just, there's times in you that know him, you
know what I'm talking about. There's times you read scripture
and you can't contain yourself. You just, you just bust out crying. Have you ever done that? You
know, I know, surely you have. I mean, it's just, I mean, you
just hear it and you think, oh, that's the sweetest sound I've
ever heard in my life. I love that. What happened there?
God spoke. Spirit of God just blessed it.
And you saw by faith and you heard. Do we need to see Him
by faith to behold His wondrous grace to us? And He gives that
seeing eye, Psalm 27, verse 4. One thing have I desired of the
Lord, and that which I will seek after, that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold, listen,
to perceive with intelligence. We come together, service after
service after service. And we hear the message preached
out of different scriptures, and it's always the same message.
It just doesn't change. An unbeliever will end up saying,
you need to get some new material. And a believer says, don't ever
get off of this subject. Don't ever get on to something
new. Tell me the same thing. To behold the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in His temple. David said in Psalm 63, 1 and
2, O God, Thou art my God. Early will I seek Thee, my soul
thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and
thirsty land where no water is, to see Thy power and Thy glory
so as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary. People in this congregation have
actually seen the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, you've looked
at Him. You know, I've had people tell
me that they woke up at night and Christ was standing at the
foot of their bed. No. But I tell you this, those
that know Him have seen Him by faith. You know Him. You know
Him. And you've heard Him. You've
heard His voice. Now right now, believers possess that hearing
ear and that seeing eye. But right now, that truly seeing
eye and hearing ear, it's hindered because of the presence of sin. I'm talking about truthfully
seeing and truthfully hearing. 1 Corinthians 13.12 says, For
now we see. That is, we discern and have
understanding. Now we see through a glass darkly. That is, through the mirror of
the gospel. But even then, it's with an obscured
view. We see through a glass darkly.
We see, but there is such an obscurity, things that we just
cannot grasp hold of perfectly. He says, but then, face to face,
now I know in part, I know in portion, I know in degrees, But
then shall I know, even as I am known." Yes, we do struggle right
now. We struggle and we war against
the law of sin and our members, and we'll readily admit that
the battle rages. But though we see dimly, and
we admit it that we see dimly, we see, I hear, and I hear with
obscured hearing, but I hear. I wish I could retain what I
hear every moment with the clarity even that I was able to hear
when I did hear, which was looking through a glass darkly, but how
quickly I forget. But there's a promise, a promised
day coming when these eyes These ears, by faith, are going to
give way to perfect sight and perfect hearing. Isaiah 33, 17,
Thine eyes shall see the King and His beauty. Now think about
this. Thine eyes. Job says, Though after my skin,
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. And I know that's so. This very
flesh right here, this flesh, what are we going to look like?
I don't know, I don't know, but I can tell you this, it's going
to be me and it's going to be you. It's going to be when they saw
the Lord Jesus after His resurrection. He hid Himself, caused their
eyes to be holding, but when He opened their eyes and they
saw Him, they knew it was Him, it's the Lord. Remember what
John said when he was out in the boat? He told Peter, he said,
it's the Lord. Peter went in, went after him.
Job said, in my flesh shall I see God. And here's what Isaiah 33,
17, thine eyes shall see the king and his beauty and his splendor
and his brightness. And they shall behold the land
that is very far off. Stephen, he said, Behold, I see
the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right
hand of God. I've heard accounts of people
that were dying and acted in a way that you just knew they
saw. They saw. What did they see? I don't know. Can you prove that?
Only by that scripture right there. That's the only one that
I know of. that I can tell you that somebody in the final moments
of their death said, I see the Lord. I see Him. Isaiah said,
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting
upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train filled the
temple. The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made
both of them. He is a faithful, faithful Lord
to His people. Listen to this. Wherefore, let
them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping
of their souls to Him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator. Has He faithfully created the
hearing ear and the seeing eye to you? In closing, I'm going
to verbalize. what I believe everyone in this
room who's concerned about the eternal destiny of his soul would
ask. Do I have a hearing ear and a
seeing eye? Do I? Well, let me ask you this. I'm going to just keep this as
simple as I know how. Do you possess a desire for Him
to save you? Do you possess a longing to come
to Him? He that cometh to me. He that cometh to me. The Spirit
and the Bride say come. Let him that heareth come. Let him that is a thirst come. And whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely. Friend, Do you want to come? Do you want to come by faith?
Do you want to come realizing that according to your ability
or will that you have absolutely nothing to commend you to the
Lord? I don't have anything. All I've
got is a desire to come to you. Do you desire to come to Him
and put no confidence in your flesh, willing to forsake all
former false assurances and cast yourself upon the mercy of God?
Here's the attitude of a believer. When it comes to the day of my
departing, if the Lord doesn't save me, I'm going to perish.
That's all I've got. Carl, that's all I've got. I
don't have anything else. I have nothing else. Lord, save
me. I want to have that attitude
of that dying thief. Lord, when you come into your
kingdom, would you remember me? What did he have to offer to
the Lord? If you have a desire to come,
I'm talking about a helpless sinner, a beggar, a beggar that
offers nothing to the King. The King who has everything and
all mercy and compassion is in His hand. He said, He that cometh to me,
I will in no wise cast you out. I'm telling you, I cannot tell
you how many times When I'm trying to pray, Mark, I say, Lord, I'm
coming the only way I know how. I don't know any other way to
come. If feelings is it, I've heard that feelings come and
feelings go and feelings are deceiving. Lord, I'm coming the
only way I know how. This is all I know. Lord, don't
cast me out. Lord, don't leave me to myself. If you can come like that, I'm
going to tell you this, God's already done something for you.
Because if he had not already given you a new heart, you wouldn't
have wanted to come. You wouldn't have desired to
call. Listen to this. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the
power of God, who has saved us and called us. with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began." When a believer calls, God's already saved him. The
Lord's already given him a new heart. He saves him, and he calls
him. He says, okay, come to me. And
in the day of God's power, he comes. Do you want to come? that you desire to come. The
Lord's given you a new ear and a new eye. May the Lord bless
the word to our hearts for Christ's sake. Amen.