“Take heed what ye hear.” (Mk. 4:24)
The Lord Jesus cautions us to be careful what we hear. We are responsible to control what enters through the eargate, and equally responsible to put what we do hear to proper use.
We should not listen to what is blatantly false. The cults are spewing out their propaganda in unprecedented volume. They are always looking for someone who is willing to listen. John says we should not receive cultists into our house or even greet them. They are against Christ.
We should not listen to what is deceitfully subversive. Young people in colleges, universities and seminaries are often subjected to a daily barrage of doubts and denials concerning the Word of God. They hear the miracles explained away, the Lord Jesus condemned with faint praise and the plain meaning of Scripture watered down. It is impossible to sit under subversive teaching and not be affected by it. Even if the student’s faith is not destroyed, his mind is defiled. “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Or can a man walk on hot coals, and his feet not be scorched?” (Prov. 6:27, 28 NASB). The obvious answer is “No.”
We should not listen to what is impure or suggestive. The worst form of pollution in today’s society is mind pollution. The one word that describes most newspapers, magazines, books, radio and TV programs, movies and human conversations is filth. Through constant exposure to this, the Christian is in danger of losing his sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. And that is not the only danger! When we receive vile and suggestive stories in our minds, they have a way of coming back to haunt us during our most holy moments.
We should not fill our minds with things that are worthless or trifling. Life is too short and the task too urgent for that. “All must be earnest in a world like ours.”
Positively, we should be careful to hear the Word of God. The more we saturate our minds with the Word of God and obey its sacred precepts, the more we will think God’s thoughts after Him, the more we will be transformed into the image of Christ, and the more we will be separated from the moral pollution of our environment.
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His more than over eighty-four works published in North America are characterized by a clarity and economy of words that only comes by a major time investment in the Word of God.
MacDonald graduated with an AB degree from Tufts College (now University) in 1938 and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1940. During the 1940's he was on active duty in the US Navy for five years.
He was President of Emmaus Bible College, a teacher, preacher, and Plymouth Brethren theologian alongside his ministry as a writer. He was a close friend and worker with O.J. Gibson.
MacDonald last resided in California where he was involved in his writing and preaching ministry. He went to be with the Lord in 2007.