John 8:44-45

They had ears to hear, but that is not what He meant. They heard the sounds and the sounds formed themselves into words and words that they comprehended to some degree, but they did not really relate to what He was saying. It just did not hit the right chord so that they could make the right use. And I can almost see Jesus saying in exasperation, "Why do you not understand?" Then He goes on to explain why.

I could turn around what Jesus said and paraphrase it. Because what He said was, "You are unable to hear what I say." He is implying that the problem is inherent. It was as if He was speaking in one language and they were hearing in another language so that what He said was totally incomprehensible to them.

You see, Jesus was speaking one thing, but they were comprehending it in an entirely different way. He was speaking within spiritual parameters and thinking about the Kingdom of God; they were hearing in political parameters, and thinking about the here and now. So it just did not jive.

They became this way in the same way that you and I did, in that they lived and operated in a world of lies. That is why Jesus mentioned Satan was a murderer and a liar from the very beginning. And all the ways of this world, which seem to be so right carnally, are really nothing but founded upon lies, distortions and falseness, and the truth of God to somebody reared in that kind of circumstance, situation, comes out to them as so much 'gobble-de-gook'. The mind simply does not relate.

John 8:42-47

Now please turn over to John 8, verse 42. As the conflict grew nearer, Jesus says it shows the difference between what He had seen with His Father and what they had heard from theirs. And when they protested, He declared that God was His Father and that the Devil was their father.

Jesus told the Jews that because they were children of their father, they did not know what truth was. They lived in a world of lies and distortion and falsehood. In a sense, truth was a foreign language to them; their native language was lies.

John 8:44-45

The solution has to be a change of mind and the pure word of God. The unleavened bread plays a very large part in this. We can learn from John 8 that truth shall make us free. We also find, in John 8:44-45, that Satan was a murderer and a liar from the beginning. He was the one who instigated the sins of Adam and Eve and we can understand from that that our bondage is very directly tied into lies and deceit.

John 8:42-47

Truthfulness requires that we never alter the truth in words or actions to deceive others, whether for pleasure, to benefit others or ourselves, or even for the best cause.