Hearing is Believing

Luke 8:5-8 tells us about a parable Jesus spoke to a great multitude. It is commonly known as the "Parable of the Sower" or the "Parable of the Soils." At the end of the parable we read, "When He had said these things He cried, "He who has ears to hear, let Him hear!" (8:8). I hope we understand the significance of these words.

Christ was not telling the multitudes in so many words to use their ears as they typically used them - as organs that distinguish sounds and pitches. Instead He was asking them to listen carefully and understand. He was inviting them to perceive with both mind and heart the words that could change their lives and save them eternally. In essence, He was pleading with them to open up their hearts to Him and receive God's loving message of hope.

Jesus then explained the parable to His disciples (Luke 8:11-15). He said that, "The seed is the word of God" (v.11). He also revealed to them that the good soil was the soil that accepted the seed, "having heard the word with a noble and good heart" (v.15). In receiving the word the good soil kept it and bore fruit with patience. Putting it simply, those who received God's message with open hearts and obeyed that very message were profitable to Him. All the other soils represented people that either did not have the open heart, or they did not obey and keep the message they had received.

With these things in mind, how then should you and I receive God's message? Isn't this parable just as important for us to understand now as it was for Christ's disciples back then? It all starts with one thing - hearing as Jesus has asked us to hear. Jesus revealed the parable to His disciples because they wanted to understand it. They wanted to hear. They asked Him, saying, "What does this parable mean?" (v.9).

But sometimes people do not want to hear. The Jews in Acts 7 that heard the preaching of Stephen concerning the death and resurrection Jesus "cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord" (Acts 7:57). No wonder why Stephen had said to them, "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit" (v.51). Instead of listening with open hearts and accepting the truth about the Savior, they stoned Stephen and killed him (v.58-60). They were then not just guilty of the shedding of Christ's blood, they were also guilty concerning Stephen, another man sent by God to give them something worth hearing.

I hope that you and I will learn to receive the Bible as God has intended for us to receive it. I hope that we will never close our ears to it, because it is the seed that will plant us firmly into His church and into heaven eternally. Jesus taught us that we must first open our hearts to Him and shed every form of human teaching, past or present. In His words alone we will find truth for salvation, joy, hope, peace, and eternal life.

Won't you hear what the Savior is saying?

"He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (Luke 8:8).