“Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing
they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In
their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; For the heart of this people has become dull,
With their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes, Otherwise they would see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears, And understand with their heart and return,
And I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes, because they
see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many
prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and
to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” (Matthew 13:13–17, NASB95)
In 2 Chronicles 7 we read about the completion of Solomon’s
temple—called the house of the Lord. Upon its completion Scripture tells us that
the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night. Among the things said is a verse
which has frequently been used to call people of even this nation to repentance,
“if my people who are called by my name
humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
(2 Chronicles 7:14, ESV)
God had made a promise to Solomon that while He had accepted
the temple as a place where He would accept sacrifices and to which He would
pay special attention to the prayers made there, that the real healing of
Israel would not happen apart from real change in the people. Building a temple
would not cover their rebellion. As we know from Scripture and from history the
people of Israel did not come to mass repentance and turn to God. In large
part their hearts remained hard and they continued to seek after their own
desires. Even in 2 Chronicles 27 when King Jotham took the throne and did right
in the eyes of the Lord, Scripture records, “But the people continued acting
corruptly.” (2 Chronicles 27:2, NASB95) This path of destruction eventually led
to the land being taken away, the temple being destroyed, and many of the
people being taken into Babylonian captivity as Chronicles ends. From then on
we had the prophets who God raised to call the people to repentance.
Isaiah was one of those prophets, and it was Him who Jesus
quoted in today’s passage. In response to his willingness to be sent by God,
God gave Isaiah a very difficult message of coming destruction with a thread of
hope woven into its core. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom
shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” He
said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive; keep
on looking, but do not understand.’ “Render the hearts of this people
insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with
their eyes, hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, and return and
be healed.” Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered, “Until cities are
devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people and the land is
utterly desolate, the Lord has
removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the
land. Yet there will be a tenth portion in it, and it will again be subject to
burning, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains when it is felled. The
holy seed is its stump.”” (Isaiah 6:8–13, NASB95) Just as God had told Isaiah, the
hard hearts of the people persisted. And it will not be until mid-way through
the Tribulation period when their eyes will begin to open culminating at the
end of the Great Tribulation when finally all of Israel will be saved as Christ
returns to rule for 1,000 years. Later in Isaiah we read, “Then the eyes of the
blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.” (Isaiah 35:5,
NASB95)
It was a people in this state of rebellion that Jesus spoke
of whose ears were deaf to understanding that He was indeed their sent
Messiah. They looked upon Him, listened to Him, and watched Him do miracles, but
they still did not get the truth of His coming as the God-man who came to
redeem the lost. God knew what it would ultimately take, and He was working His
plan. But in the process, while the nation did not turn, many Jews did hear
understand and see and perceive and were saved. And beyond that the gospel of
salvation was to be brought to all the nations of the world. This is the
fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that through him all of the nations
would be blessed. While the Jews at large stood in stiff necked rebellion
others were coming to Christ for salvation. This was a mystery that God
revealed clearly in the New Testament, speaking specifically to Peter and
calling Paul to this ministry to the Gentiles.
Paul shared of his calling in a hearing before King Agrippa
testifying, “And I [Paul] said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am
Jesus whom you are persecuting. ‘But get up and stand on your feet; for this
purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not
only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will
appear to you; rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to
whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness
to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by
faith in Me.’” (Acts 26:15–18, NASB95)
Just as Jesus spoke of the eyes and ears of His disciples
with Him in these verses being able to see and hear, as we read of others who
Jesus encountered who also came to understand, and as we read of Paul’s own
calling and of thousands of others in Scripture
responding, so we read that we who have had our eyes also opened and who have
received God’s gift of forgiveness are truly the beneficiaries—knowing God in
Christ and the riches of His kingdom.
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