Physical hearing has a way of failing to some extent as we get older. It is God's grace that we do retain the ability to hear in a physical sense. I am grateful! My wife and I were in the back part of the house, and my ears picked up the sound of the teakettle as the water boiled. She heard nothing, and I watched as she went about her business oblivious to the boiling water.
What a spiritual lesson! What have I done to make my physical ears hear? NOTHING! What have I done spiritually that I have the ability to hear the Lord's voice in truth? NOTHING! I went to hear for years the Bible read and told about, and I was as oblivious to the sound as my dear wife was to the whistling kettle. Oh glorious truth! "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them" (Pro.20:12).
The religious world would have it that everyone has the ability to hear and "decide;" but I am saying that if you ever hear rightly anything from the sovereign God, then HE must work a miracle.
One of the dear mothers in our congregation told me that the school her eight-year-old attended had told her that her daughter had a hearing problem. What a blessing to find out at this early age, for corrective measures could be implemented. We have many children in our church and we labor early to ask the Lord to open their ears, and He is faithful to do so.
Be very kind to those who do not hear. Do I berate and get angry with my wife because she does nothing about that noisy kettle? Of course not! I tell her that I believe the water is boiling, and it would be good if she tended to it. In like manner, we continue to remind the spiritually deaf that the Word of God is working and ready to deliver sinners and, by His grace, they will hear and attend. Above all remember the time that you were without understanding and refused to hear. And do not ever say, "I just don't understand why they cannot hear such plain language." Sure you do understand.