Good morning. Good to be with
you again. If you will open your Bibles with me to Proverbs 20.
Proverbs 20. Our text this morning will be
Proverbs 20 verse 12. Proverbs 20 verse 12 says, The
hearing ear and the seeing eye the Lord hath made, even both
of them. The hearing ear and the seeing
eye, that's the title of my message. The Lord hath made both of them. And that's true physically as
well as spiritually. Obviously I'm here to talk to
you about the spiritual ear and the spiritual eye, but first
let's quickly consider the physical hearing ear and seeing eye. Just
over two months ago we had a little baby girl born into this world.
And we know that God gave her life and we're so thankful. And
I'll just share this with you. Moments after she was born, my
eyes saw the most beautiful thing that they've ever seen. They
saw my baby's eyes look into the eyes of her mother. Physical
sight is truly a wonderful thing. And not only that, I'm so thankful
that as our daughter goes through this life, she has the ability
to see. I wouldn't want her to not have
that ability. Not everybody is born with that ability. And as
we get older, that ability gets a little worse and worse, don't
it? Well, on the second day of her life, a nurse came in and
performed a hearing test, and I had no idea they did that so
soon. But it took about 30 or 40 minutes,
and then we received the good news that our daughter not only
could she see, but she could hear. I don't know how they could
know that so soon, but again, it blessed my heart to know my
baby girl can see, And my baby girl can hear. What a blessing.
That's a physical blessing. Now, as wonderful as that is,
to have those physical abilities, neither one of those is necessary
for physical life. Many people are born blind. Many
people are born deaf. Well, maybe not many, but some
or both. Right? You don't have to have
those abilities to be able to live in this world. Now, spiritually
speaking, that is just not the case. Spiritually speaking, the
hearing ear and the seeing eye are necessary for spiritual life. We will not have spiritual life
if we do not have the hearing ear and the seeing eye. Turn
with me to Romans chapter 10. I want to show you this. Romans
chapter 10. V. 13 Romans 10.13 says, For whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then
shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how
shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And
how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring
glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed
the gospel. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath
believed? I report. Verse 17 So then faith
cometh by hearing. and hearing by the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing. It says,
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
I'll tell you what that looks like. Lord, save me. If You will,
You can make me clean. Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. And we're not going to call on
Him in whom we have not believed. And we're not going to believe
in Him of whom we have not heard. We must hear. Faith comes by
hearing. That's the only way faith comes.
And we won't be saved without it. That's why this is so important. Salvation is by grace. It's the
free sovereign gift of God. And it's through faith. It's
the means God has ordained. Believing God. Believing His
Word. We must hear the Word of God. And that does not just happen
with these physical ears. You don't hear God with the physical
ear. God doesn't speak to man like
that in our day. There was a time when He did,
but He does not. God speaks through His Word. And if we're going
to hear God speak, here's how it's going to happen. We're going
to hear God speak to the heart. to the heart. I heard this said,
salvation is roughly 18 inches. You know, people believe things.
You can believe certain doctrines. You can agree with things. But
salvation does not take place in the head. Salvation isn't
knowing facts. It's knowing Christ. Salvation
is believing on Christ. With the heart, man believeth
unto righteousness. And with the mouth, confession
is made unto salvation. True faith occurs in the heart.
And true faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Hearing in the
heart. I love this. When our Lord saved 3,000 people
at Pentecost, it says they heard Peter preach the Gospel. They
heard him preach the Word of God. This same Jesus whom you
crucified, God has made Him both Lord and Christ. And what it
says is they heard this and they were pricked in their heart.
That's what I'm talking about. The hearing ear that we must
have is a new heart. that hears God's Word, truly
hears God's Word. And the seeing eye is faith that
comes by hearing God's Word. Turn with me to Isaiah 55. Isaiah
55. Verse 3. Incline your ear and come unto
Me. Hear and your soul shall live. Now we're all commanded to hear. We're all commanded to come to
Christ, believe on Him. And if we don't, God says we
shall not live. Hear and your soul shall live.
Come unto Me. That's why this is of utmost
importance. He that believeth not the Son
of God shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."
We must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn back just a few
pages to Isaiah chapter 45. Isaiah 45 verse 22 says, and be ye saved, all the ends
of the earth. For I am God and there is none
else." If we do not look to Christ, we will not be saved. Faith looks
to Christ. Faith does not look to self.
Faith looks outside of self, looks to Him. We sing a song,
My Faith Looks Up to Thee. Faith looks to Christ. We're
not going to find any hope in here. It's all in Christ. Faith beholds Him. What did John
the Baptist come preaching? He said, Behold the Lamb of God.
Quit looking at yourselves. Quit glorying in yourselves.
He said, Who am I? I'm just a voice crying in the
wilderness. I came to make straight the path of the Lord. I came
to preach Him. He must increase. I must decrease. The Father loves Him. He that
hath the Son hath life. You must believe on the Son.
Faith beholds Him. He took all our sin away. He
nailed it to His cross. It is no more. They're all taken
away. Look to Him. Faith looks to Christ and nothing
else. Faith reads God's Word. Faith comes here to hear of Him. From Genesis 1.1 where it says,
In the beginning God, we know that as Christ, all things were
made by Him and for Him. Without Him was not anything
made that was made. It was all made for Him and for
His glory. And all through this book, to the very end, Revelation
22-21, even so, come Lord Jesus. The revelation of Jesus Christ,
He must be revealed. We read it all through the book.
Right there in the garden, when God covered Adam and Eve, He
covered them with skin. What do we see? We see Christ,
our covering for our sin. Mount Moriah, where God said,
God will provide Himself a Lamb. That's what Abraham told his
son. God will provide Himself a land. Christ is that land.
Noah's Ark. That's God's Ark. It's Christ.
God shut them in. He shut the door and they were
saved. It's the only way. And all through this book, it's
Christ on every page. And the natural eye doesn't see
it. We're going to look at that in a minute. We don't see that.
We don't see Christ, but faith sees Him. And faith has interest
in nothing else. Faith is enamored. It's taken
up. It's consumed. Only Him. Faith believes the
Lord Jesus Christ to be the only hope of salvation. Faith says,
I need a hope of salvation. I'm a sinner. I've sinned against
God. Faith calls upon Him for salvation. Faith believes Christ
is all. He's not the most important thing.
He's everything. Christ is all. Naturally, we do not have this
faith. We do not have faith in Christ. We do not have a heart
that hears God's Word. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
2. 1 Corinthians 2, the truth concerning
you and me. I mentioned some people are born
physically deaf and physically blind. Some people are born that
way. But we're all born spiritually deaf and spiritually blind. There's no exceptions. No exceptions. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14. But the natural man Receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him." The natural, carnal man, all of us, by nature, as
we're born into this world, we receive not the things of the
Spirit of God. Now look that up. Here's what
that means. Receiveth not. It means to embrace, to receive
favorably, to approve of, to make one's own, to give ear to."
Now, naturally, we hear God's Word. We certainly do not embrace
it. We do not embrace it. We reject
it. We do not receive it favorably.
We receive it unfavorably. We do not approve of it. We disapprove
of it. We do not make it our own. We
do not buy the truth. We reject the truth. Everything
about the truth, we reject it. We do not give ear to it. What
that means is, the things of the Spirit of God, we will not
give ear to them. We will not hear them. We're
not interested in hearing them. Naturally, we give ear to a lot
of things, but all the wrong things. I know it because I consider
myself. I give ear to the things concerning
the flesh. You tell me something that's going to profit me in
this world, I'm all ears. Now, you tell me the truth, how
often do we not want to hear the truth? Spiritually, none
of us want to hear the truth. We're not interested in it. But
by the grace of God, that's all we want to hear. Natural man
won't hear it. We reject God, we reject His
Word, He sent His only begotten Son into the world, and what
do we do? It says we rejected Him. We went our own way. Every one of us turned to our
own way. We all went astray. He was despised and rejected.
Man, what did we do? Did we esteem Him? Did we highly
esteem Him? Did we accept Him when everybody
else rejected Him? No! He came to His own. They
wouldn't receive Him, and you think we would have received
Him? Oh, let's not be so foolish. We all rejected Him. Say, well,
I wasn't there at the cross. I didn't crucify Him. Yes, we
did. The very men that did it, they
said, His blood be on us and our children. Who do you think
we are? We're the children. We're naturally
the children of the devil, not the children of God. We don't
worship God. We don't believe God. When the
Gospel is preached, what do we do? We say, that's foolishness.
We just read it. It's foolishness under there.
It's foolishness unto all of us. We say, what do you mean
God only loves the elect? What do you mean God only loves
His people? God loves everyone. God loves you. Jesus died for
you. God's waiting for you to accept
Him, believe Him. That's a lie. That's lying on
God, lying to the souls of men and women. I know by nature it's
a hard saying and we can't hear it. I know that. But that's the
only message that's going to save. It's the only message of
hope. It's the only message that will
do us any good. The Gospel is so offensive to the flesh, we've
created the offense of the cross. When we see ourselves in light
of Christ, in light of God's holiness, we see ourselves to
be nothing but sin, enmity towards God. It's offensive. It takes the Spirit of God to
truly hear it. It's the only way we're going
to receive it. Look at verse 14 here again.
It says, "...the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned." Not only will we
not give ear to God's Word, we can't hear it. We don't have
that heart. We have a filthy, evil, corrupt
heart of stone, cold, sinful heart that will have nothing
to do with God. Nothing to do with Him. We don't
have the ability to believe God. And that's the truth. That's
what we must declare. We must declare God is holy.
We're sinful. We're contrary to God. To be
carnally minded, that's us, says death. And that's what we deserve. The wages of sin is death, but
to be spiritually minded is life and peace. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. I'm not getting any better. I can't save myself.
That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. We must be born again. That's what our Lord told that
religious man, Nicodemus. If you want to have anything
to do with the Kingdom of God, you must be born again. You must
be born again. And until we're born again, we're
totally lost. Totally lost. Totally separated
from God. We have no spiritual knowledge. I didn't show you,
but in Isaiah 45 verse 20 it says, they have no knowledge
that set up the wood of their graven image and pray unto a
God they cannot save. That's what religion does. Didn't Aaron take some gold and
made a calf and they started dancing around that calf? God
was not pleased with that. They weren't worshiping God.
This world does not worship God. They worship a God of their imaginations,
a little g God. Psalm 115 says, Their God has
a mouth, but it speaks not. Eyes, but they see not. Ears,
but they hear not. Noses, but they smell not. Hands,
they handle not. Feet, but they walk not. Neither
speak they through their throat. He said, They that make them
are like unto them. So is everyone that trusted in
them. It breaks my heart to think about how many people, I know
it's a lot of people because it's all of us by nature, how
many people pray, how many people are praying right now unto a
little deep God that can't be saved, a God that can't do anything
for them. I'm here to declare unto you
like Paul, the unknown God, the God of heaven and earth. In Romans
10, Paul, he said, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer
to God for Israel is that they might be saved. He said, for
I bear them record. They had a zeal of God, but not
according to knowledge. They were as religious as they
could be, I know, because I was right there with them. I was
their leader. We must have true spiritual knowledge. That's the knowledge of Christ.
Knowing Him. We must know Him. It doesn't
matter how much religion we have if we don't know Him. Religion
is not salvation. Christ is salvation. It's all
my salvation. Man in his ignorance tries to
work his way to heaven. A song I remember growing up,
I'd hear it on the radio, Working hard to get to heaven, where
I come from. That's where we all came from. We deny the fact
that we try to work our way to heaven. We're lying. That's what
we all do by nature. But if God doesn't stop us, we
will be rejected in that day. Many will say unto me, Lord,
Lord, Have not we?" Insert all your wonderful words. He said,
I'm going to say unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye
that work iniquity. Whether we like it or not, we
must accept the fact that judgment is coming. When you think about
the judgment and the justice of this world, it's far from
good. It's far from true judgment and
justice. But the judge we're going to
stand before is the God we've sinned against. We better be
careful how we approach Him. We better realize the fact that
this judge is a holy judge. He's going to judge righteously.
Let me show you something in John 9. Turn with me there. John 9. John 9 verse 39. And Jesus said, For judgment
I am come into this world, that they which see not might see,
and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the
Pharisees which were with him heard these words and said unto
him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were
blind, ye should have no sin. But now ye say, We see. Therefore,
your sin remains." Our Lord had just given sight to a blind man.
He did it on the Sabbath day. And these Pharisees, these religious
men, they tracked that man down. They kept questioning him. Were
you really born blind? Did he really give you sight?
They even tracked his parents down. Is this your son? Was he
born blind? They said, you go ask him. He's
old enough to tell you. And then our Lord declared this
about judgment. And He said, I came to give sight
to the blind. And I came to expose the hypocrisy
of religion, those who think they see. These Pharisees, they
thought they saw, they thought they could see just fine. They
thought, and other people thought, if anyone's saved, if anyone
knows God, it's them. And what our Lord told them,
He said, you think you see. The truth is, you're yet in your
sin. It's a blessing when God reveals unto us our lost condition. If God's never revealed that
to you, I pray He will. It's a blessing when we learn
we're lost. If you're not lost, then you
haven't been found. You can't be found until you're
lost. The Pharisees never knew. They
never knew they were lost. They never knew they were blind.
Had they known, they would have begged the Lord for sight. They
would have begged the Lord for mercy. And the point here is
we must come to God as needy, helpless beggars, not self-sufficient,
self-righteous. It's what we all are by nature.
Isaiah prophesied. Our Lord said, concerning the
Pharisees, seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither
do they understand. I can't help but wonder when
we sing Amazing Grace, How many people sing that song who've
never known themselves to be lost? I once was lost, but now
I'm found. Never knew themselves to be blind,
I once was blind, but now I see. It takes the Spirit of God to
make us see. It takes the Spirit of God to
hear this, to hear God's Word, hear the Gospel preached. Turn
with me to Revelation chapter 3. Revelation 3, 17. Because thou sayest, I am rich
and increased with goods and have need of nothing, and knowest
not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind
and naked. That's all of us. And he's talking
about people lost in religion. They have no idea that that wretched,
miserable, poor, blind, naked, lost death. Verse 18, look what
he said. He said, I counsel thee to buy
of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich. That's
Christ. He became poor to make us rich.
He was tried in the fire of God's justice, God's wrath. It goes
on, it says, in white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed,
and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear. That's the righteousness
of Christ. We must be robed in the righteousness of Christ,
or we won't be accepted. It says, and anoint thine eyes
with eye salve, that thou mayest see. We need to see Him. We must see Christ. I urge you,
may God cause us to hear the Word of the Lord, believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. If He does, if we find ourselves
believing on Christ alone for salvation, all our hope before
God, this is certain, we will know God did it. The hearing
ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made both of them. And I
love how it tells us that He made both of them. He didn't
make one and the other was up to me. He made both of them. See, God gives the heart to hear,
and God gives the faith to believe. He gives them both. He does it
all. I love this. Jeremiah 24 verse 7 says, I will
give them a heart to know Me. Praise God. That I am the Lord,
and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. That
new heart. Praise God, He's been pleased
to take out that old stony heart of flesh and give us a heart
of flesh that believes God. Hebrews 12.2 tells us that the
Lord Jesus Christ is both the author and the finisher of our
faith. That means I didn't start it
and He finished it. Or He started it, but then I
finished it. I made it effectual. I added
this. No. It means by grace are you saved
through faith and that not of your sin. From start to finish,
it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man, me included,
me especially, should boast. God starts it and God finishes
it. What do we say? Salvation of the Lord. From start
to finish. Can't say it enough. Turn with
me to Psalm 100. This is a glorious verse. Psalm
100 verse 3. Psalm 100, verse 3. Know ye that the Lord, He is
God. It is He that hath made us, and
not we ourselves. We are His people. and the sheep
of His pasture." Don't you love reading that? He made us. He saved us, not we ourselves. It's the only way it could be.
A saved sinner is God's creation. He said in Ephesians 2.10, we're
His workmanship. God began the good work in us
and He shall perform it until the day of the day of Jesus Christ.
Look back just a page at Psalm 98. Verse 1, it says, Oh, sing unto
the Lord a new song, for He hath done marvelous things. His right
hand and His holy arm hath gotten Him the victory. He hath done
marvelous things. He told that gathering man possessed
by demons. He saved him. He said, You go
home and tell everyone what great things the Lord hath done for
you. I'm not here to tell you what you must do. Without Him,
we can do nothing. Nothing. I'm here to declare
the marvelous things God hath done. Christ, God's right hand,
His holy arm, the strength of the Lord, hath gotten Him the
victory. Praise God. Look at verse 2. It says, The
Lord hath made known His salvation. His righteousness hath He openly
showed in the sight of the heathen. In Isaiah 53, Isaiah said, Who
hath believed thy report when you preach the gospel? Who believes
it? They answered it with the very next question, to whom is
the arm of the Lord revealed? God reveals His salvation. It's the arm of the Lord. It's
Christ. He is God's salvation. We just read this. He's God's
righteousness. God has revealed His righteousness.
That's Christ in the sight of the heathen. That's us. Useless
sinners. And praise God, when God purposes
to reveal Christ, when He reveals His salvation, that revelation
cannot be stopped. His grace is greater than all
my sins. I can't stop God. We don't let
God, He's God. And when He purposes to do something,
it's done. It's done. My counsel shall stand,
I will draw my pleasure. The Apostle Paul said concerning
his conversion, he said, but we didn't please God. He said,
I was lost in religion, the Pharisee of the Pharisees, the Hebrew
of the Hebrews. Touching the law of Lambeth, he said, I was
so self-righteous, nobody could stop me. but God. When it pleased God, who separated
me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace to reveal
His Son in me that I might preach Him among the heathen, immediately
I conferred not with flesh and blood. I didn't have to go home
and pray about it. I didn't have to stop and think
about it. Well, let's see here. Is it really worth it? What did
Christ tell him when He spoke to him from heaven? He said,
I'm going to tell him what great things he must suffer for my
name's sake. He said, when God called me,
there was no stopping it. God calls you, you're saved.
He calls us with a holy calling. My sheep hear my voice. I know
them, they follow me. When he called his disciples,
they were out fishing in the boat and he said, follow me.
I suppose he had been a stranger to them until that point, had
no reason to think otherwise, and he said, follow me. Immediately
they left the ship and everything in the ship and they followed
him. That's how it works. Praise God for His calling. It
can't be stopped. Not even I can stop it in all
my sin. My sin is not too great for Him. Praise the Lord. How does God call His people? He says, follow me. How does
He do that? By the preaching of the Gospel.
By the preaching of the Word of God. That's why we preach
the Word of God. In 2 Thessalonians 2 we read,
I am bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren
and beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth, whereunto He called you by our gospel. That's how it
goes. To the obtaining of the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ, He calls us by His gospel. And when
He calls us, we come. Zacchaeus, make haste and come
down. Zacchaeus, make haste and come
down. Today I must abide at thy house. I pray it so for us. Let
me show you one more thing. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
4. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 5. Paul said, For we preach not
ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants
for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. That's why we preach Christ.
That's why Paul said, I'm determined not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The power of God unto salvation.
That's what this Gospel is. The power of God unto salvation. God has been pleased to use His
Gospel, the glorious Gospel of Christ, to call His people out
of spiritual darkness into His marvelous light. And that's Christ. I love what He said in Isaiah
55 concerning His Word. He said, My word shall not return
unto me void. God sends His Word to pierce
a sinner's heart, it's not going to return void. He said, It shall
accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing
whereto I sent it. You mean God would purpose on
any given day, any given worship service, to send His Word to
prick someone's heart for the first time or for the millionth
time? Yeah. That's what He says He's been pleased to do. That's
how salvation comes to a sinner. It's not something we do. We
just sit here and try to distract ourselves and not pay attention
and then next thing you know, God's shining the light. Has
that been your experience? That's been mine. Praise the
Lord. Praise the Lord. Well, why do
some believe and some don't believe? I just said, it's not us. God
commands the light to shine. And we're commanded to believe.
But we're not going to believe until God says, let there be
light. And praise God, when He says, let there be light, there's
light. We see Christ. We hear Christ. This is my beloved
Son. Hear ye Him. We hear Him. We
see Him. We hear nothing else. Don't tell me anything else. If we ever see Christ, we'll
hope in nothing else. Our hope is built on nothing less than
Jesus' blood and righteousness. Christ is all. Has Christ been
revealed to you? Has Christ been revealed to you?
Have you beheld His glory? John said He's full of grace
and truth. Oh, to behold Him. Can we say with David, the Lord
is my light and my salvation? Oh, I pray we can. Can we say
with all Christ is all, for me to live is Christ, to die is
gain, to be with Him, far better. If so, thanks be to God. The hearing ear and the seeing
eye, the Lord hath made both of them. May God be pleased to
do that for us. May God be pleased to open our
blind eyes and unstop our deaf ears. Quicken us and give us
a heart to believe on Christ. Look to Him alone for salvation
complete. Amen.