“Itching Ears?”
Amos 5:18-24
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
2 Timothy 4:1-4
Matthew 25:1-13
The Story 30b
From Paul’s 2nd letter to Timothy, chapter 4, verses 1-4 (among his last words … these to a pastor):
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and he dead, and by
His appearing and His kingdom: preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove,
rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not
endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit
their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”.
Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Bridge
“Itching ears” … symptoms of this disease:
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“Itching ears”, Paul said, seek that which is outside of “sound doctrine”. Whatever else people
want different than that he called “myths”. Sound doctrine is what, he knows, fuels eternity. No myth
can. So important was this fact that it was almost the last thing he wrote down. What sound doctrine
was, it still is … and if the world is graced with another 2,000 years, sound doctrine will still be
exactly that sole fuel of eternity. The only variable for this life is, then, a person’s position in
relationship to what sound doctrine is. Itching ears chase myths. In that pursuit, they show that they
don’t care about the truth … and people who don’t care about sound doctrine Jesus warns about a
deadline at-which that position can be disastrous.
Text
He told a parable about being always fueled and ready for eternity. Lamp oil He used as a
synonym for sound doctrine, it illustrating the same material for preparedness. None of us would go
far putting water in our car’s gas-tank … and we ought not ever try such a thing as mixing sugar into the
tank to sweeten it. The content of an improper mix won’t shoot through the injectors right … nor will it
combust like it’s supposed to so pistons won’t be moved so as to turn the drive-shaft and wheels. Even
just spinning wheels won’t, even, do that if we don’t have what it takes to, at least, get them spinning.
The parable talks about virgins keeping their lamps filled with oil, and being constantly prepared for
the Bridegroom’s arrival (it’s Him of whom they’re to be waiting anyway). The ones He called “wise”
were ready from the beginning … staying, then, ready even when others were tempted toward some
other interests. Because they were properly fueled for eternity, Jesus called the wise ones into the
wedding feast (or “Heaven”). For the lazy / asleep / or, just, ill-prepared ones (ears, I guess, regularly
itching, so scratched), Jesus called them “fools” saying about Heaven: “I don’t, even, know you”.
What itching ears are as the disease, sound doctrine is as the remedy.
Application
So, what is it that we can be so well-supplied in it? The answer is that God’s Word makes claim
for itself on that. “All Scripture is God-breathed”, and not, just, some of it … and the adding or
subtracting even a mark to, or from, that Book promises curses to the one doing it. What’s called
Christendom is tragically divided on that these days. Most pastors and people (pollsters say) aren’t
willing to claim any kind of a doctrinal soundness, only nice suggestions, sound only if we think them
(what’s the word?) “relevant”. I, by the way, am willing to accept that Scriptural doctrine is sound. I
think that the surest sign of itching ears is the unwillingness (by, apparently, most) to stand for the
soundness of doctrine.
Since I do, I’m willing to tell you that what Paul calls “sound doctrine” is knowable. It’s given,
written, interpreted-by-itself, and discern-able by anyone who’d bother to be faithful in the exercise of it.
In other words, our lamps can be filled with the oil that makes us ready for Heaven to open to us. Caring
about that oil of sound doctrine, and exerting appropriate and consistent efforts under its control (and not
the other way around) can keep us filled with what it grants.
What sound doctrine includes are (for instance) 10 specific commandments. It’s not 20 (with extras
of human origin), or just 1 (of tolerance which the world calls love).It’s 10, and God gave them to the
world Himself. His command to “have no other god’s” insists that ears ought never itch toward an
end that’s not correctly Him. There’s only one Name that’s Holy and it’s God, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit … another name or a different definition of god isn’t really Him (it’s, just, myth). All that’s His
as “Sabbath” remembered means that what’s most owed God is to not be fickle about Him.
Everything else that’s “sound doctrine” in commands gets clarified by number 4 onward from God’s
list. The rest of the 10 dictate how we can deal with each other, doing so as an extension of how we
allow God to deal with us. “Itching ears” prevent one from knowing morality as useful, really only
under God’s control.
And what’s most under God’s control is something called “Gospel”: that He (and He alone) made
the heavens and earth, that He, for us and for our salvation, sent His Son (the second person of that
Trinity) to be born of a virgin, suffer, die, be buried, then rise again from the dead to ascend into Heaven
and return, again, as that Bridegroom of the parable for whom we’re to keep our lamps filled with oil in
preparation for. We’re given to know that the Gospel also includes the Spirit Who’s the Giver and
Maintainer of life through baptism and faith (the One Who makes people to be made alive and know
forgiveness of sins and a place in communion among saints).
Let’s pray that we might not desire beyond sound doctrine:
“Holy and merciful God, You’ve given us Your Word and presented to us the way of your
Commandments. We ask you to make Your grace poured out from within our hearts. Cause it to bear
fruit in us that, being ever mindful of what You’ve made us to know, we might always be directed to do
Your will, daily increasing in love for You and one another. Enable us to resist all temptations to wander
so that we might live a Holy life and be prepared in You. Help us to follow the example of our Lord,
Jesus Christ, and walk in His steps until we’re welcomed into the kingdom prepared for us in Heaven;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”