A loud crackling, snapping sound filled my one good ear. I removed my hearing aid, cleaned it, changed the wax guard, and installed a fresh battery. With hope, I turned it on and stuck it in my ear. No improvement; the hearing aid was dead.

I walked into the living room and announced to my wife that my hearing aid had expired. I could not hear her reply. I could not hear the sound of water running when I washed my hands. I could not hear the coffeemaker brewing my first cup of the day. I had to turn on the annoying closed captioning feature on the TV.

The next day, I took my hearing aid to the VA hospital and dropped it off for repair at the front desk. It’s been over two weeks and I’m still waiting for it to be repaired and returned to me.

The silence is awful. Unless we sit face-to-face across the table so I can see her lips move, it’s impossible to have a conversation with my wife. No one in their right mind would choose not to hear, would they?

Humanity has a long history of refusing to hear. Beginning in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve closed their ears to God’s command, and as a result they suffered the consequences of a broken relationship with their Creator. Centuries later, when Jesus came to announce that the Kingdom of God was near, the people refused to listen. Jesus quoted Isaiah to them when He said;

“For this people’s heart has grown dull,

and with their ears they can barely hear,

and their eyes they have closed,

lest they should see with their eyes

and hear with their ears

and understand with their heart

and turn, and I would heal them.” Matthew 13:15 (ESV)

After He had fulfilled all that the Father commanded, Jesus returned to His heavenly throne, and His disciples began to bring the Gospel message to all people. But the stubborn refusal to hear remained.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV)

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” Heb. 3:15

And still today, maybe more than ever, the people refuse to hear. Like stupid children, they plug their ears when they hear that there is a God to whom they are accountable, a God whose law still stands, and a God who is gracious, merciful and abounding in steadfast love to those who will repent and believe. To those who would hear and respond, Jesus said,

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” Matthew 13:16-17 (ESV)

So I beg you, please open your ears and hear the Good News,

Ephesians 2:1-7 (ESV) And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.