Faith Comes By Hearing

NOW the ear is the channel through which God speaks to man, while Satan’s approach seems usually to be through the eye of man. The ear is the portal of faith, while the eye is often the gateway for evil. The experience of Lot when he substituted sight for faith, the eye for the ear, and chose Sodom by sight, is not the only evidence in the Bible that the ear is the organ through which the Lord speaks while the eye is peculiarly the organ of entry for the Devil himself. Paul tells us distinctly in Romans 10:17:

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Faith cometh by hearing, the hearing of the Word, and not by the seeing with the eye.

We might fill a volume to show from the Word of God and from actual experience that the eye is the peculiar organ through which Satan most frequently tempts men, and causes them to fall. We only have to go to the very first temptation in human history:

“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” – Genesis 2:16-17.

This is what God said to Adam as He placed him in the Garden. But now notice how the Devil came. He said, “Eve, you are missing something by just listening to God’s Word. He is holding back something that He does not want you to see.” Therefore he said:

“For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened.” – Genesis 3:5.

The Devil promised to show Eve something. He said, “You’ll see something you haven’t seen before.” God had said, “Believe My Word,” but the Devil came and said, “See and find out for yourself.” We read the dire result in the following verse:

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes . . . she took of its fruit and ate. – Genesis 3:6.

Until the time when Eve saw the fruit of the tree, she had successfully resisted Satan; but when she saw, when Satan’s attack came through the eye, she fell. We know the tragic result.

Look for a moment at the case of Achan in Joshua 7, which resulted in the defeat of the armies of Israel before Ai. Here is Achan’s confession:

“When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment . . . I coveted them and took them.” – Joshua 7:21.

Again it all began when Achan coveted with his eyes the things of which God had said, “Destroy everything.” Achan disregarded what God had said, and what he had heard; rather was he influenced by what he saw.

Jesus also recognized the fact that Satan’s temptation came largely through the eye when He tells us, “If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.” – Matthew 6:22. In the threefold temptation of Jesus, all these temptations were originally through the eye. Satan showed Him the stones and challenged Him to turn them into bread in the desert, saying: “Command that these stones become bread.” – Matthew 4:3. Again it was through the eye when he took Him up to the pinnacle of the temple where He could look all about Him on the city of Jerusalem. Then again from a high mountain, in the third temptation, he showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. But Jesus met Satan’s temptation to the eye by quoting what God had said.

Adapted and modified excerpts from Studies in the Life of Abraham by M. R. De Haan (1891-1964)
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.