The Difficulty of Hearing

TITLE: “The Difficulty of Hearing”

Text: I Timothy 4:1-16

1. Hearing is Difficult:

2. IF THEY WOULD ONLY HEAR!

   1. Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

3. Listening is Difficult: The Difficulty of Hearing 2. Often times, we are “NOT GETTING IT.”: OT Tabernacle, Ark of the Covenant, Priesthood.

4. Israel didn’t hear was MOSES was hearing on that mount SINAI.

5. Judas didn’t hear what Jesus and even what John the Baptist heard at Christ’s Baptism.

6. Nicodemus wasn’t hearing what Jesus was saying: John 3:

7. There are So Many Voices –WE NEED SELECTIVE HEARING.

   1. Paul instructs timothy to command, teach, instruct as if he is commissioning someone with a great military task.

   Galatians 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

   2. Oh be careful little ears what you hear! You will miss God’s voice in the midst of the noise. DISTRACTIONS

   Lu 10:41 And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:

   3. ILLUSTRATION: AT one time, a family destroyed by false teaching. (They were hearing the good Word as Well. But it get’s lost in the multitude of voices.)
   4. We need a singleness of heart, eyes, & ears. (Laura’s cousin trying to fool me on the phone, but so far I’ve known who it wasn’t)—God just doesn’t speak that way!!!

   Mt 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

8. THE IMPERFECT HEART IS ALWAYS --IN VARYING DEGRESS-- DULL OF HEARING.

   1. We can be DULL of Hearing (Heavily dull, A load Abundance) 1. 3 Times this phrase is used: Matthew 13:15; Acts 28:27; Heb. 5:11 2. HEART is waxed gross (TO THICKEN, FATTEN, CALLOUS)—Doesn’t effect me like it use to! 3. It isn’t just the sinner on the street that is dull of hearing, but the servants of the lord 4. Sin not only blinds, it deafens our hearing! I cannot hear properly as long as there is sin in my life. 5. SPIRITUAL Hearing is directly related to the condition of the HEART.

• Mal 1:2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,
• SOME SINS THAT DEAFEN US.
  • Rebellion, Lack of Submission & Yielded to God (Absalom)
  • Pride, Self-Confidence, (Saul)
  • Envy, Covetousness (Judas)
  2. What we Want to Hear
  3. What we Expect to Hear (use to)
     1. Young Samuel WASN’T EXPECTING IT!!! – Speak Lord, for your servant heareth.
     2. Sometimes helps to get a different voice to say it.

4. I Must get the STORMS INSIDE silenced if I am going to hear anything.

• Questions turned into QUESTIONING God. Bitterness, Unforgiveness, **DULL our hearing!**
• Demoniac was in no position for a seminar. He needed deliverance.
• Other times, we need to encourage ourselves in the Lord!
• Ps 42:5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.
• Change the voice I am listening to.

5. God can speak in your language. (So You can Hear)

   CENTURION:

   Mat 8:8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. :9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

DISCIPLES:

Mt 4:19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

PAUL:

1Co 9:22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

CONCLUSION:

• Get in a better position to hear.

• Miriam was busy and Mary was busy. But Mary had chosen the BETTER part.

  READINGS:

  I Tim. 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; ….6 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. 7 ** But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness… 11** These things command and teach…. **13 ** Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. **15 ** Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. 16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.