Don't Close Your Eyes
Acts 28:23-27 NKJ
So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening. And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word: "The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying,
'Go to this people and say:
"Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand;
And seeing you will see, and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them."'
Paul finally arrived in Rome. He did have a run in with a snake on the island of Malta after the ship was destroyed. Paul swims to shore and is gathering sticks for a fire when a poisonous snake comes out and bites him on the hand. Paul shakes the snake off into the fire and goes about his business, causing the natives of Malta to judge that he was a god. Paul was not a god, but he was a son of the living God and wound up having a small healing revival on the island.
Now Paul is staying in his own rented house and invites the Jewish leaders from Rome to come and listen to what he had to say about Jesus. Paul presented Jesus from the Old Testament scriptures from morning until evening. Talk about an extensive knowledge of scriptures and how they all pointed to Jesus. Paul knew his stuff, to say the least. But even with a scholarly expert laying out the case for Jesus, the results were still the same everywhere Paul went. Some believed, and some did not believe. And then Paul cleared everyone out of his house with a word from the Holy Spirit through the prophet Isaiah. Notice the verbiage Paul uses: it was the Holy Spirit through the prophet Isaiah. Paul knew that Scripture was inspired by God, and Isaiah was not speaking on his own.
Paul was quoting where Isaiah said that the people would hear but not get it. They would see but not see it. Because their hearts have grown dull and they are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed. God did not cause them to become hard-hearted and hard of hearing. God did not close their eyes; they closed their eyes. So the end result was that they didn't see, they didn't hear, and they didn't understand with their hearts. This spiritual condition causes them to not turn toward God and He is not able to heal them. At first blush, this seems harsh, and it must have landed hard with the Jewish leaders because it cleared the party out of Paul's house. But the word did not apply to all of them. Verse twenty-four says that some did believe. Some did not close their ears to the truth of the scriptures. Some were tender in their hearts and opened their eyes.
This was pretty much the same pattern everywhere that Paul went in terms of reaching people. Some were open and received, and some were closed and rejected the truth and the salvation that is in Jesus alone.
Application
We would not be wise to assume that the spiritual condition that the Holy Spirit referenced through Isaiah has passed away. The same heart conditions still exist today. We must make sure that we don't close our ears and our eyes and become dull in our hearts. It is our choice to remain open to what God is saying. The challenge for believers who have walked with the Lord for some years is thinking we are immune to becoming hard-hearted. We must stay tender-hearted and open to what the Holy Spirit is saying to us today. We never retire from doing heart maintenance. We never arrive at a place where we assume we know it all and can't be taught anything. Advanced age may produce deficiencies in physical hearing and eyesight, but our hearts can remain tuned in, and our spiritual eyes and ears can be sharper with each passing year.
Prayer
Lord, help me stay tender and tuned into You in my heart. I want to hear what you are saying and see what you are doing.