The Hearing Test

Every so often my optician – who I thought was only there to test my eyesight and prescribe spectacles – invites me to come in for a hearing test. I am not sure what would happen if I went, but I can imagine a number of the checks that would be applied. The audiologist would see how far my ears could pick up noise on a range of frequencies. As likely as not, they would also be interested in how far I could filter out background noises so as to hear what was important.

I noticed an interesting spiritual hearing test in John MacArthur’s notes on Psalm 12, and thought I would share it with you. The psalm is typical of King David’s writing and has some very raw emotions:

Help, LORD, for the godly are no more; the faithful have vanished from among men.

Everyone lies to his neighbour; their flattering lips speak with deception.

May the LORD cut off all flattering lips and every boastful tongue

that says, "We will triumph with our tongues; we own our lips – who is our master?"

"Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise," says the LORD. "I will protect them from those who malign them."

And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times.

O LORD, you will keep us safe and protect us from such people for ever.

The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honoured among men.

(NIV 1984)

MacArthur points out that men’s words hurt, but the Lord’s words heal. As the Psalm goes on, “David provides a model for passing a spiritual hearing test, in that genuine disciples listen to and properly respond to two radically different sources of speech”.

The first speech source that comes screaming into our ears is the voice of the wicked: lying, flattering, deceiving, boasting, triumphant and self-important. This voice clamours to be heard above all else and is very disconcerting. It has no apparent competition, for the faithful and godly have died out from the land.

How do we blot out this raucous din? Your task and mine is to recognise how twisted and unjust it all is and to pray, despite all the distraction it causes. “Help, Lord!” the psalmist cries out. He appeals to God’s prevailing power. God is the ultimate key to cutting off the claims of false tongues.

Then the psalmist strengthens himself with the fact that God answers him with a voice of His own that rises above the hubbub. God has not overlooked the troubles of His suffering ones even though the only voices they have heard up till now are hostile ones. God resolves to protect the oppressed. His words are pure and clear and He will persevere.

The psalm-writers are realistic, level-headed people. David does not suggest that the wicked ones with their unnerving bluster simply go away as soon as you and I think about God. “The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honoured among men”, he laments. That is a fact of life that we have with us until God’s kingdom is finally established in His Son Jesus Christ, and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. But with His guidance we are at least tuning in to the right voice.

Name That Plant

I love seeing natural places with plenty of trees, grasses or wild flowers. The trouble is, something occasionally spoils the experience for me: not being able to put a name to whatever specimen I am looking at.

It was very rewarding to do a walk on the Great Orme in North Wales recently with a couple of ladies who obviously knew their wild flowers. “That’s a scabious,” one remarked. I was grateful to be enlightened, given that I thought scabious was a disease that made your skin itch. It was satisfying to think that, next time I saw one, I would be able to Name That Plant.

Someone once became very frustrated with my lament about not knowing more botanical names. “You don’t need to know all that!” she protested. “Just enjoy the scene!” And I have to admit that something of the wonder is lost if you are forever fretting about not being able to define what you are observing.

This passion for defining is a relatively recent urge in human history. The Age of Enlightenment was all about men of science examining huge numbers of samples – be they of rocks, animals, plants, languages, viruses, stars or anything else observable – and cataloguing, codifying, classifying them until everything could be put in its place. Clearly this process has brought untold benefits. Medicine has advanced by leaps and bounds because of researchers’ patient analysis of vast amounts of data, spotting connections that may indicate an approach to treating damaged areas of the body more effectively.

Indeed, naming and defining creation has God’s endorsement. We are told in Genesis 2:19, “So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (ESV).

Yet, whenever the gaining of knowledge becomes entirely a matter of classification and analysis, other discoveries can be missed. For instance, there is the valuable deduction that man the classifier and analyst is not above God.

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour.

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,

all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8 ESV

Fallen angels and men pretend they know better than God. Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, never went down that road. God the Father crowned Him with glory and honour. He also crowns those who trust in Jesus with reward, because that route is the way to an infinity of new and exciting discoveries.