Read His Lips Mark 7: 31-37

My Dad thinks he is getting old.... He had to get hearing aids. He did not have to be he needed to. The doctors convinced him. Hearing happens in the brain. In fact hearing loss can contribute to dementia.

In regard to your eyes .. if you close one eye your brain can only see that field of vision.

you can be totally deaf in one ear and they still put a hearing air in the deaf ear and send it to the other ear. Because the brain can separate them and create stereo in your mind.

Most of hearing happens in the brain.

Mark connects physical deafness and spiritual deafness. Also Mark connects physical blindness with spiritual blindness.

When was the last time you felt like you heard a word from God? How easily are you hearing from Him these days.

The People Confess Jesus

Verse 32

The initiative for this healing miracle did not come from the deaf man himself. It was others who brought Jesus to him. It was these people of good will who “begged him to lay his hand on him”. Perhaps we should remember that many of the good things that happen to us come from the good will and prayers of others on our behalf.

μογιλάλος Mogilalos Speaking with difficulty. Only used here and in Isaiah 35:6

Isaiah 35:6 CSB

Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy, for water will gush in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;

Are you begging Jesus to work in other people’s lives as much as you are begging Him to work in your own life?

Verse 33 Jesus sometimes deals with us one on one. Are you receptive to when God is working one on one in your life. Do you hear Him and respond to Him.

Verse 33: By touching the man’s ears with spit and then touching His finger to His tongue Jesus identified with the Man.

Verse 34: By looking up to Heaven Jesus showed His connection to Heaven.

Apparently the Aramaic word Ephphatha could easily be lip-read by a deaf person.

Jesus sighed deeply because He was probably in a intense spiritual battle.

Matthew and Mark Notes

his tongue was freed. The Gr. metaphor is hard to render in English. It says, “The bonds of his tongue were loosed.” His tongue was “unshackled”

The Bible Knowledge Commentary (7:33–35)

He could speak clearly. Defective speech usually results from defective hearing, both physically and spiritually.

That is if you are not hearing God i.e. reading your bible and praying, walking in the Spirit. You will most likely say unspiritual things.

The disciples were not hearing Jesus spiritually and thus they were not saying spiritual things.

In the same way for us at times we need to ask the question. Our ears are open but do we hear? Our tongue is loosed but do we praise God?

I love our Sunday School teachers and our Children’s Church teachers and the man on Wednesday night. They have pored into these kids lives and now the kids are speaking good things. A little girl prayed to close Worldview Wednesday and it was moving. To hear them quote bible verses too.

We all should be listening to God’s word and speaking God’s truth.

The more you hear from God the more you can tell others about Him.

In verse 37 of chapter 7 the people confess Jesus before the disciples do which is at verse 27 of chapter 8

Why could the disciples not understand?

Matthew and Mark Commentary

Mark’s point is that only people with closed eyes and hearts could fail to appreciate that Jesus was working by the power of God.

In his book Directions, author James Hamilton shares this insight about listening to God:

Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer. One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn't find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch. Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. "I closed the door," the boy replied, "lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking."

We all have the capacity to be deaf and dumb. Can we let Him take us from the crowd and have us hear “Ephrata” in our hearts?

When we can’t hear God speaking we can always read His lips.

Romans 10:17 (CSB)

So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.

I can hear, you the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

God needs no megaphone but we still have difficultly hearing Him.

When we feel like we can’t hear God speaking, we can always read His lips.

God wants us to hear Him, He wants us to listen and understand Him.

Just as physical hearing happens in the brain, in the same way spiritual hearing happens in the heart.

Once my dad got his hearing aid Roseanna can up and talked to him and he could hear everything she could say. He could only understand half of what Cyrus was says but not he hears him clearly as a little man. The hearing aids tuned his brain to hear them.

Have you turned your heart to hear God? Are you listening to what he is doing in your life?

If you feel like you cant hear God, try to read His lips. God will make it possible for you to hear Him. He is after all a God who reveals Himself.

Truly Jesus sometimes does deal with us one on one! Have you heard the story about the man who dared God?

ONCE THERE WAS A MAN...

Once there was a man who dared God to speak.

Burn the bush like you did for Moses, God. And I will follow.

Collapse the walls like you did for Joshua, God. And I will fight.

Still the waves like you did on Galilee, God. And I will listen.

And so the man sat by a bush, near a wall, close to the sea and waited for God to speak.

And God heard the man, so God answered.

He sent fire, not for a bush, but for a church.

He brought down a wall, not of brick, but of sin.

He stilled the storm, not of the sea, but of a soul.

And God waited for man to respond.

And he waited. . .

And he waited. . .

And waited.

But because the man was looking at bushes, not hearts; bricks and not lives, seas and not souls, he decided that God had done nothing.

Finally he looked to God and asked, ‘Have you lost your power?’

And God looked at him and said, ‘Have you lost your hearing?’

- Max Lucado in his book, Gentle Thunder