(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)
“This is the interpretation, O king, and it is the decree of the Most High, which has come on my lord the king: You will be driven from men and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field. You will be made to eat grass as oxen, and will be wet with the dew of the sky, and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will. Whereas it was commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be sure to you after you know that Heaven rules. Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you, and break off your sins by righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps there may be a lengthening of your tranquility.” All this came on the King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking in the royal palace of Babylon. The king spoke and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?””
(Daniel 4:24-30)
“But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom and continues, not being a hearer who forgets but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.”
(James 1:22-25)
Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. A warning from God. It wasn’t his first communication from the Lord. And Daniel gave him a faithful interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar heard it. The ball was in his court. The problem is, he didn’t DO anything. He heard the word, the warning, and even Daniel’s recommendation on how to stave off the bad event. But Nebuchadnezzar didn’t follow up his hearing with action. He heard, but did not do. He didn’t let the warning change him.
We hear the Word of God in many ways. We can read it, listen to it, hear it taught, and hear it preached. But do we DO anything with what we hear? Do we humbly submit to what we find in the Word, or do we let it roll off our shoulders? Are we weekend warriors or are we faithful and obedient children? Hearing is not enough. We need to actively listen. We need to HEAR hear. Jesus was adamant about it and it was one of His favourite phrases: let he who has an ear, let him hear. Don’t just hear, show that you hear by following up with action. Hearing a teacher explain to you how two plus two equals four is no good at all if you write ‘yellow’ on the test. We need to follow up our listening by letting it inform our actions. Hearing, but also doing.
Summary
Repenting is the perfect example of this principle. Repenting is not just saying ‘sorry’ or feeling remorse. It is changing our direction, turning around and walking away from the ungodly behaviour, changing our thinking on it so that we never feel comfortable participating in it or seek it out again. That is hearing the Lord about something and doing something about it. We need to change our behaviour when we hear something from the Lord. Changing our thinking changes what is in our heart. That changes our behaviour because what is in our hearts is what comes out. We cannot change on the surface. That is deceit. We can only truly change by changing what we put inside ourselves. We do that by hearing the Word, studying it out, changing our thinking, and altering on the inside which changes our actions on the outside (Romans 12:2).
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