Prophetic Significance of The Hunger Games - Part 3
The last newsletter was on the topic of how we can hear God’s voice more clearly. It concluded by saying that you can be as close to God as Moses was! You can hear God as clearly and as often as Moses did! There is nothing stopping you. It is within your control. It is all up to you. As someone has said, “You are as close to God as you want to be.” And as God’s Word tells us, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8 NKJV).
Just a couple of hours after I published the last newsletter, I received this encouraging message in an email from Christian leader, Doug Addison, who sends encouraging messages to thousands of people each day:
“Take time to draw near to God and listen as He reveals prophetic mysteries and secrets.”
Doug Addison had no idea that I was writing anything on this topic, but his message could have been the concluding statement in my last newsletter! Isn’t it good when God orchestrates events with precise timing to emphasize a message that He wants to be heard? God longs for us to listen to His voice, value what He says, and respond to Him with prompt obedience. He knows that this is a key to us enjoying the best life that we could ever experience.
The 28th chapter of Deuteronomy contains a detailed list of blessings that we will receive from God if we will respond with obedience to His words.
“And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.”—Deuteronomy 28:2 (ESV)
But this same chapter also contains a detailed list of negative consequences that will be inescapable if we chose to neglect God’s words and fail to respond to the messages that God speaks to us.
“But if you don’t listen to what the Lord your God tells you—if you don’t obey all his commands and laws that I tell you today—then all these bad things will happen to you:”—Deuteronomy 28:15 (ERV)
Losing All the Good Things That God Wanted Us to Experience
One of the greatest tragedies of ignoring God’s voice when He speaks—or of intentionally disobeying His messages—is that we can lose the wonderful things that God had planned for us. Sadly, this is not a rare occurrence. It happens often in the lives of people who fail to respond in prompt obedience to God’s voice.
God’s own chosen people experienced this. After they had witnessed the ten terrifying plagues that were unleashed on Egypt in order to free them from slavery; and after they had experienced the plundering of their captors, miraculously escaping from Egypt with great wealth; and after they witnessed the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction of their enemies, they still chose not to listen to, or obey, God’s voice.
As a result of this, they lost the glorious future that God had planned for them! They never experienced the inheritance that God had waiting for them. They died in the wilderness, never reaching the promised land. God tells us in Hebrews 3:7-11 (NIRV) that it was their stubborn refusal to respond in obedience that caused them to lose everything:
The Holy Spirit says, “Listen to his voice today. If you hear it, don’t be stubborn. You were stubborn when you opposed me. You did that when you were tested in the desert. There your people of long ago tested me. Yet for 40 years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with them. I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray. They have not known my ways.’ So when I was angry, I made a promise. I said, ‘They will never enjoy the rest I planned for them.’ ”
And just in case we think that their experience was an isolated event that does not apply to us, the Apostle Paul assures us that all of the things that happened to them serve as examples for us!
“Brothers and sisters, I want you to know something about our people who lived long ago. They were all led by the cloud. They all walked through the Red Sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food. They all drank the same spiritual water. They drank from the spiritual rock that went with them. That rock was Christ. But God was not pleased with most of them. Their bodies were scattered in the desert… Those things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us.”—1 Corinthians 10:1-11 (NIRV)
How to Lose the Ability to Hear God’s Voice
When we choose to close our eyes and ears to what God is trying to share with us, we will also begin to lose the ability to see and hear God’s messages. We will become spiritually dull. A spiritual deafness and blindness will set in.
“Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts and become spiritually dull as at Meribah [the place of strife], as at Massah [the place of testing] in the wilderness, “When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, even though they had seen My work [of miracles].”—Psalm 95:7-9 (AMP)
In addition to losing out on so many wonderful things that God had intended for us to experience, we could also lose the ability to even see or hear about anything else that God has for us. This happened to Israel, and it could just as easily happen to us.
”What then [shall we conclude]? Israel failed to obtain what it sought [God’s favor by obedience to the Law]. Only the elect (those chosen few) obtained it, while the rest of them became callously indifferent (blinded, hardened, and made insensible to it). As it is written, God gave them a spirit (an attitude) of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear, [that has continued] down to this very day.”—Romans 11:7-8 (AMPC)
Disobedience to God’s instructions inevitably leads to spiritual blindness and deafness. It seems to be unavoidable unless we change our ways and respond to God’s instructions with prompt obedience, and it can happen just as surely to those who believe in Jesus as it can to those who don’t.
“But whoever hates their brother or sister is in darkness. They live in darkness. They don’t know where they are going, because the darkness has made them blind.”—1 John 2:11 (ERV)
“So this I say, and solemnly affirm together with the Lord [as in His presence], that you must no longer live as the [unbelieving] Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds [and in the foolishness and emptiness of their souls], for their [moral] understanding is darkened and their reasoning is clouded; [they are] alienated and self-banished from the life of God [with no share in it; this is] because of the [willful] ignorance and spiritual blindness that is [deep-seated] within them, because of the hardness and insensitivity of their heart.”—Ephesians 4:17-18 (AMP)
In the book of Revelation, Jesus admonished an entire church who had descended into spiritual blindness:
“You say you are rich. You think you have become wealthy and do not need anything. But you do not know that you are really miserable, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.”—Revelation 3:17 (ICB)
But there is hope for all of us! God has made a way for us to be healed of spiritual blindness and deafness! Healing and restoration is available, as we are told in John 12:40 (NLT):
“The Lord has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts—so that their eyes cannot see, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and have me heal them.”
Jesus made this plea to the church in the book of Revelation:
“I advise you to buy gold from me—gold made pure in fire. Then you can be truly rich. Buy from me clothes that are white. Then you can cover your shameful nakedness. Buy from me medicine to put on your eyes. Then you can truly see.”—Revelation 3:18 (ICB)
God has provided healing for any spiritual blindness or deafness that we may have experienced so that we can see and hear clearly. It is God’s desire for all of us to be able to see and hear His messages clearly.
“You who are deaf, hear me. You who are blind, look and see.”—Isaiah 42:18 (ICB)
Moses, who was faithful to do everything that God instructed him to do, never lost his eyesight or his natural strength. It was a physical sign of the fact that his spiritual sight stayed sharp until the end of his life.
“Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyesight was clear, and he was as strong as ever.”—Deuteronomy 34:7 (NLT)
In order to overcome spiritual blindness and deafness, and to get the maximum benefit from messages from God, we must receive His messages with an attitude of humility, because God resists the proud. We must have an eagerness and a hunger to hear what God wants to speak to us, and a willingness to immediately act upon His messages and to obey what God instructs us to do through each message. We may not thoroughly understand all of God’s messages to us, but for the parts of the messages that we do understand, we are responsible to act upon them in obedience.
“Who among you will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come?”—Isaiah 42:23 (NKJV)
If we are diligent to listen attentively for God’s voice, and to respond whole-heartedly in obedience to what we understand that God directs us to do, not allowing other things to distract us from responding in full obedience, then we will be blessed by God to hear Him more clearly, more often, and to understand more of what He speaks to us. As Jesus told us:
“So be careful how you listen; for whoever has [a teachable heart], to him more [understanding] will be given; and whoever does not have [a longing for truth], even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.”—Luke 8:18 (AMP)
