The Deaf and Stuttering

Once upon a time a deaf and stuttering man was brought to the Lord. Then, the Lord did something unusual: he took him apart from them and did a strange ceremony: he put his fingers in the man's ears, and after spitting, he touched his tongue. Then he prayed with a groan, and gave the healing command (Mark 7:32-35).

This man represents all of us in our condition with respect to God. The man is deaf, he cannot hear God; he is a stutterer, he cannot speak clearly with God. All he manages to say are some hypothetical ideas, some presuppositions.

Man can hear many voices. He can say beautiful speeches, but neither in one nor in the other is God present. Jesus came for this: to heal our ears and be able to hear God; to touch our tongue and be able to speak to God. Our powerlessness was absolute; our attempts, vain; it was all useless talk.

Now, in Christ, by the miracle of the new birth, we have heard from God, and we have been enabled to speak with him. But there is still a second action of God that has to operate in us, so that we can hear what he has to say to others, and so that we can speak what God has to say to others.

The first miracle enables us to stand before God, to hear him and to speak to him. It is a one-time miracle that blessed our own lives. This second miracle occurs all the time, and it consists of God awakening our ears each morning to hear like the wise, and then allows us to speak like the wise to speak words to the weary (Isaiah 50:4).

Here the objective pursued by God's action is to bless, through us, the burdened man and woman. After we have received the Word from God, we can put it before others, so that they too can be healed.

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