Mark 7:33 “And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue;”

Mark 7:34 “And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.”

Hello readers, hello from a wet, rainy, dark, cold, place in Adelaide, South Australia! Today I have a blog which is basically a follow up to “tongue tied Christians” that I did previously. Often I have been tongue tied, spiritually speaking, in my life as a Christian, and I don’t want to be anymore, and through the grace of God, I won’t be.

If you read on to verse 36 of Mark 7 (not quoted above) you’ll see the phrase “so much the more a great deal they published it”… it’s kind of hard to “publish it” if you can’t speak properly. And I think many of us would like to say more or do more for Jesus Christ, but we just… quite… can’t. I’m not sure how you publish the gospel, written or verbal, and how your life speaks to others, but hopefully your life can speak freely, without being impeded by your own sin and frailty… and attest with glorious simplicity to the wondrous works of God in your life through his Son Jesus Christ.

In this blog the question is asked “has Jesus put his fingers in your ears?” and it’s a simple thought really from this great miracle that Jesus did in Mark 7. Why did Jesus put his fingers in this man’s ears? Well how about just put your own fingers in your own ears and see what happens! Done it? What happened? That’s right, you began to tune out some noise, external noise, and that’s why we put our fingers in our ears, maybe if a loud sound is happening, or we don’t want to hear something.

Part of Jesus Christ’s healing of this man who was in a tragic state was Jesus putting his fingers into his ears. It kind of seems redundant doesn’t it… seeing as he was deaf. So he couldn’t hear. So why put his fingers into his ears? Well I believe Jesus is showing us a great spiritual truth here in this miracle. We all struggle with spiritual deafness. We all struggle with hearing God. But before we can hear God, we are going to have to tune out the other voices, the other sounds, the other noises that are stopping us from hearing his still small voice. When we put our fingers in our ears we hear more internally rather than externally, and we are going to have to hear inside, in our spirit first, before we ever start hearing right out there in this world.

Notice how much trouble this world has with hearing really. When we tell them the gospel, they hear that we hate them. When we tell them about the grace, love and mercy of Christ, they hear that we are judgmental, bigoted, self righteous. So yeah… there’s two different wavelengths. But as Christians, we are on a different wavelength, because we are in a different kingdom. I hope you are in the kingdom of Jesus Christ! You only get there by believing in him to save you from your sins!

It is instructive that Jesus took this man “aside from the multitude”. You know, there was a big crowd there, and a lot of noise… you know that crowd noise sound? That humm and buzz. But Jesus got him away from all that. And maybe you need some time alone with God. Many people are scared to be alone with God. But alone with God is when God does his deepest work in our life. Just look at Jacob… he was left alone at Peniel… and that’s where God blessed him… after a long night of fighting tooth and nail with him!

Maybe you need to get aside from the crowd, from the mainstream, from all the other noises and voices and sounds and frequencies of this world, far out, maybe even well meaning Christians, but which are preventing you from hearing God’s voice through his word and the gentle prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit.

And notice how the hearing and the speaking miracles were linked in this man’s life. Before you can speak right, you’re going to need to hear right! Hence, swift to hear and slow to speak! I’ve been guilty many times of speaking first, hearing after… and it’s made me look like a goose, as Proverbs warns. God’s order is hear first, and hear him first, before speaking and doing anything.

You know, there’s going to be times in your life where you are going to have to know when and what to tune out. Evil communications corrupt good manners. Maybe there’s people you’re around who are hurting your spiritual life and walk with God. I don’t know. I know with me though, I need time aside with Jesus Christ so I can starting hearing and tuning into the Holy Spirit in my life. Many people never hear, because they’re so deafened by a life of sin and all the noise in this world which is filling their head with so many frequencies… but they can never get on the frequency of salvation through the grace and mercy of God!

Jesus wants you to tune everything and everyone else out and just follow him. No man can serve two masters. One of my brothers has a dog who really only listens to him, she knows how to tune out everything and everyone else, and maybe we need to be a little more like that with God. Do we know our master, our Lord, our Saviour? Do we know our master’s crib? Do we sheep only hear our shepherd’s voice? We can’t, as Christians, afford to be pulled in all different directions by all the philosophies, thoughts, opinions, expertise of this world and really follow Christ. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. And stability comes from a unity of direction in our life, and that unity comes from God, who is one. Hopefully for all of us today, Jesus can take us aside from the multitude in our lives, so we can hear him clearly for ourselves… tune into his voice, you don’t know what he’s going to open up for you, he will change your life.

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