“THEY seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.”
“For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them,” (Matt. 13:13, 1513Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. (Matthew 13:13)
15For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. (Matthew 13:15)).
Read again and again the above words, ponder them, unconverted soul. Eyes, ears, hearts, all closed to Christ, and to salvation. They will not see, they will not hear, they will not understand lest they should be converted. They do not want to be converted, therefore they are determined not to see their true state, nor to hear their sentence, nor to let the word of God into their hearts.
“You shall never convert me,” said a young man to us recently; “I won’t turn religious.” Such was his will! God ready to heal every disease of sin, ready to save, but he resolute in shutting up himself against God.
“They seeing see not.” They are willfully blind, blind to the uncertainty of life, blind to the sudden death of a neighbor, blind to the plain, staring facts of sin and judgment to come.
“Hearing they hear not.” They will not hear Jesus’ voice, “I will in no wise cast out.” They will not hear, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” They will not hear— “After death the judgment.” “Neither do they understand that to be converted and healed is for their own joy as well as for God’s glory.”