Miracles are happening all the time, but if your eyes aren't open and your ears aren't open and your mind's not open and your heart's not open - then even though the miracles are there - you're not!

Dullness of hearing" is hearing without faith and without the moral fruit of faith. It's hearing the Bible or the preaching of the Bible the way you hear the freeway noise on I-94, or the way you hear Muzak in the dentist's office or the way you hear recorded warnings at the airport that this is a smoke-free facility. You do but you don't. You have grown dull to the sound. It does not awaken or produce anything.

If they had more grace to hear, they would receive more that the writer has to give. But they are becoming hard and dull, and in danger of throwing away the little they have.

Because we approach the gospel with preconceived notions of what it should say rather than what it does say, the Word no longer falls like rain on the parched ground of our souls. It no longer sweeps like a wild storm into the corners of our comfortable piety. It no longer vibrates like sharp lightning in the dark recesses of our nonhistoric orthodoxy. The gospel becomes, in the words of Gertrude Stein, … a pattering of pious platitudes spoken by a Jewish carpenter in the distant past.

Today's churchless adults are not remarkably less favorable toward churches in their community; if anything, there is simply a growing "yawn

The mind becomes accustomed to things by the habitual sight of them, and neither wonders nor inquires about the reasons for things it sees all the time.

Most things disappoint till you look deeper.

People love sin. Sin hardens their hearts. Therefore, they will not receive the gospel of the kingdom of God when it is preached to them.

If, when God speaks to us in his word, we are deaf, when we speak to him in prayer, he will be dumb.

You can force the people to obey; you cannot force them to understand.

Not all who listen, believe. If you call the Gospel a crazy fairy tale, a far-too-good-to-be-true myth, an insane extension of wishful thinking, or even a blasphemous lie, I will respect you and argue with you. But if you call it a platitude, I can only pity you, for that means you have never listened to it.

Christian's attempt to help remedy the perilous condition of these three sleeping pilgrims is met with indifference, indolence, and intolerance. Christian, troubled by the lack of spiritual concern in the religious world, does his best to bring about a change, but all his efforts are scorned and rebuffed. Lesson one for the new Christian-many a careless and indifferent traveler will not survive the pilgrimage. 6.