CALLED OUT OF THE WORLD

DAY 248 OF 365 IN 2021

Mark 7:33, 34 And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.

If you have used headphones with noise cancelling capabilities, you would have experienced the utter isolation from the outside world. Bar the sounds intended to pass through the headphones, nearly every other external sound is filtered out. For someone who is deaf, that is the extent of isolation from the world around them.

In addition to this, the man brought to Jesus also had a speech impediment and thus could neither speak to or about the world. Therefore, with the opening of his ears and loosening of his tongue, Jesus not only restored him to health, but also to the world. His connection to the world through sound and speech were restored.

We notice something in the run up to his restoration, “he was taken away from the crowd”. Not that he could even hear any of the hustle and bustle going on, he was deaf. However, to be rightly restored to the world, he first had to be taken out of the world. He had to be away from the myriad of voices, solely into the presence of the Lord such that when his ears opened, and his tongue loosened, the first sounds through them would be the voice of God.

“The world would love you if you belonged to it; but you don’t—for I chose you to come out of the world, and so it hates you (John 15:19).” God is therefore working on us to draw us away from the noise in the world to a place of silence. To a place where He can speak gently to us, a place where His voice will resound and resonate in our ears, and his Word becomes the first thing out of our lips to the world.

#sly