Deuteronomy 29:4

The Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive.

Men without heart, sight, or hearing

Feeling, sight, hearing! What wonderful things these are! If we could exist without them, what a wretched condition ours would be! The outer world would be unknown to us if the gates of the senses were shut, and the soul would be famished, like Samaria when it was straitly shut up, and there was no going in nor coming out. When any one of the senses is gone it involves great deprivation, and subjects the person enduring it to the pity of his fellows, but if all were absent what wretchedness must ensue! Transfer your thoughts now from these external senses by which we become conscious of the external world to those spiritual senses by which we perceive the spiritual world, the kingdom of heaven, the Lord of that kingdom, and all the powers of the world to come. There is a heart which should be tender, by which we perceive the presence of God and feel His operations, and even behold the Lord Himself, as it is written, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” There is a spiritual eye by which the things invisible are discerned; blessed are they to whom the Lord has given to see the things of His kingdom, which to the unrenewed remain hidden in parables. There is a spiritual ear by which we hear the gentle whispers of the Spirit, which frequently come to us internally, without the medium of sounds that can affect the ear. Blessed are those who have the ear which the Lord has purged, and cleansed, and opened, so that it listens to the Divine call But there is no blessedness in the case of men devoid of spiritual feeling, sight, and hearing. Theirs is a miserable plight.

I. We shall think upon a mournful fact. Here was a whole nation, with but very few exceptions, of whom their leader, who knew and loved them best, was obliged to say, “The Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, unto this day.”

1. The mournful part of it was, that this was the nation that had been specially favoured of God above all others.

2. Note again, that not only were they a highly favoured people, but they had seen very wonderful acts performed by the Lord Himself.

3. In addition to this, these people had passed through a very remarkable experience.

4. In addition to all this sight and experience, the Israelites had received remarkable instruction.

5. One thing else is worth notice, that these people had been associated with remarkable characters. They were not all blinded, there were a few among them who were gracious, and so were made to perceive. Caleb and Joshua were there, and Aaron and Miriam; but chiefly there was Moses, grandest of men, true father of the nation

II. Let us note the mournful reasons for all this.

1. The reasons for their incapacity to see and perceive lay, first, in the tact that these people never believed in their own blindness. They had no heart to perceive, and they did not perceive their absence of perception; they had no eyes wherewith to detect their own dimness of vision. They were such fools as to dote on their own wisdom, so poor as to think themselves rich, so hypocritical as to profess to be sincere. Pride is the great creator of darkness; like Nahash, the Ammonite, it puts out the right eye. Men seek not the light, because they boast that they are the children of the day and need no light from above.

2. More than this, these men never asked for a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear. No man hath ever asked for these things and been refused; no soul has cried in its blindness and darkness, “Open Thou mine eyes,” but what a gracious answer has always come. It is the prerogative of the Lord Jesus to open the blind eyes; but this He is ever ready to do whenever men call upon His name. Then, moreover, what little light they did have they resisted. When they were forced to see, it was only for a moment that they would be instructed, and then they shut their eyes again.

III. What was the mournful result of these people being so highly favoured, and yet not seeing their God?

1. The result was, first, that they missed a happy portion, I can hardly imagine how happy the children of Israel might have been. They left Egypt with a high hand and an outstretched arm, their ears were hung with jewels, and their purses were filled with riches, while around them manna dropped from heaven, and cool streams flowed at their side. They might have made a quick march to the promised land, and at once entered their rest, for their God who had sent the hornet before them would soon have driven out their adversaries. They would have known no invading enemy, and felt neither blast, nor blight, nor mildew; in fact, they would have been the happiest nation under heaven: “He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.” They flung all this on one side: they would not have God, and so they could not have prosperity. They walked contrary to Him, and He walked contrary to them; they would not obey Him, and therefore His anger smoked against them.

2. Think, moreover, what a glorious destiny they threw aside. Had they been equal to the occasion, by God’s grace they might have been a nation of kings and priests, they might have been the Lord’s missionaries to all lands, the light-bearers to all peoples.

3. Another result was that while they missed so high a position, they went on sinning. As they did not learn the lesson God was teaching them, namely, that He was God, and that to serve Him was their joy and their prosperity, they went from one evil to another, provoking the Lord to jealousy.

4. Hence they frequently suffered. A plague broke out at one time, and a burning at another; at one time they were visited with fever, and anon the earth opened beneath them; one day the Amalekites smote them, another day fiery serpents leaped up from the sand, and they died by thousands, being poisoned by their bites. They suffered much and often, and in all their trials they did but reap what they had sown.

5. At last this evil ended terribly. The Lord lifted His hand to heaven, and swore that the rebellious generation should not enter into His rest, and they began to die by wholesale till Moses cried, “We are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled.” Not one of the men that came out of Egypt, save only Joshua and Caleb, reached the promised land. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

A perceiving heart the gift of God

To complete the sense of the words, we must have recourse to the two precedent verses; which, being compared to the text, present us with a description of such a brutish temper as is not to be found in any people mentioned throughout the whole Book of God, or any history whatsoever.

I. What is meant by God’s giving to the soul a perceiving heart? We have grace here set out by such acts as are properly acts of knowledge; as understanding, seeing, hearing; not because, as some imagine, grace is placed only in the understanding, which, being informed with such a principle, is able to govern, and practically to determine the will, without the help of any new principle infused into that. For grace is a habit equally placed in both these faculties, but it is expressed by the acts of the understanding:--

1. Because the understanding has the precedency and first stroke in holy actions, as well as in others; it is the head and fountain from whence they derive their goodness, the leading faculty: and therefore the works of all the rest may, by way of eminence, be ascribed to this, as the conquest of an army is ascribed to the leader only, or general.

2. Because the means of grace are chiefly and most frequently expressed by the word “truth”; 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful (or a true) saying, that Christ came into the world to save sinners.” And in John 3:33, “He that believeth hath set to his seal that God is true.” And in John 17:17, “Thy Word is truth.” From hence, therefore, I collect--

(1) That to understand and receive the Word, according to the letter and notion, by a bare assent to the truth of it, is not to have a heart to perceive nor an ear to hear: because it is evident, both from Scripture and ordinary observation, that such a reception of the means of grace is not always attended with these spiritual effects: as, for instance, the Jews heard Christ and admired Him, but afterwards they rejected His doctrine and crucified His person. To hear the Word of God, and to hear God speaking in His Word, are things vastly different.

(2) Therefore, in the second place, to have a perceiving heart and a hearing ear is to have a spiritual light begot in the mind by an immediate overpowering work of the Spirit, whereby alone the soul is enabled to apprehend the things of God spiritually, and to practise them effectually: and without this we may see and see, and never perceive, and hear again and again and never understand.

II. Whence it is that, without this gift of a perceiving heart, the soul cannot make any improvement of the means of grace. It arises from these two reasons--

1. From its exceeding impotence and inability to apprehend these things.

2. From its contrariety to them. And there are two things in the soul in which this contrariety chiefly consists.

(1) Carnal corruptions.

(2) Carnal wisdom.

III. Although upon God’s denial of a perceiving heart the soul does inevitably remain unprofitable under the means of grace, so as not to hear nor perceive; yet this hardness, or unprofitableness, cannot at all be ascribed to God as the author of it. In order to the clearing of this we know that God’s “not giving a heart to perceive” may admit of a double acceptation.

1. As it implies only a bare denial of grace.

2. As it does also include a positive act of induration.

IV. How God can justly reprehend men for not hearing nor perceiving, when, upon His denial of a heart, there is a necessity lying upon them to do neither. Now, there can be no just reprehension but for sin, and nothing can be sin but that which is voluntary and free, and how can that be flee for a man to do or not to do which from necessity he cannot do? Application--

1. This doctrine speaks refutation to that opinion that states a sufficiency of grace in the bare proposal of things to be believed and practised, without a new powerful work of the Spirit upon the heart, that may determine and enable it to believe and accept of these things.

2. Is of exhortation; that in the enjoyment of the means of grace we should not terminate in the means, but look up to God, who alone is able to give a heart to improve them. (R. South, D. D.)

Men’s blindness in spiritual things

Consider this complaint--

I. As uttered by Moses against the people of his charge. They had seen with their bodily eyes all the wonders that had been wrought for them. They understood not.

1. The true character of that dispensation.

2. The obligations which it entailed upon them.

II. As applicable to ourselves at this day.

1. By the great mass of nominal Christians the nature of the Gospel is very indistinctly seen.

2. The effects of it are very partially experienced. Address--

(1) Those who are altogether blind.

(2) Those who think they see.

(3) Those whose eyes God has opened. (C. Simeon, M. A.)