Ayin's Meaning: Seeing and Spiritual Perception

So, the letter Ayin means "eye" and it means "to see," meaning to open our spiritual eyes and see what Yah is showing us. Messiah provides us with clarity about Ayin in Matthew 13. As His disciples approached Him to inquire why He spoke to the people in parables, the Master responded that in them the people would fulfill a prophecy of Isaiah: "To keep on hearing but do not understand, to keep on seeing but do not perceive. Make the heart of these people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return and be healed."

My friends, this is a very powerful statement by the King of Kings. And where did Isaiah get this first? Because Yeshua was just quoting Isaiah 6. So, where did Isaiah? He was at the throne room. He was in the throne room. Remember, he got touched by the coal. "I am a man of unclean lips." And the Lord said, "Who shall we send?" Isaiah said, "Here I am, send me." And then that's what He told the prophet to tell them. So, everybody wants to be a prophet out there, right? So, once people do become a prophet, they realize what that does and sometimes they have to say things that aren't so popular. And that's what Isaiah told the people in his days: "To keep on hearing, but do not understand, keep on seeing, and do not perceive, unless you do open your eyes, unless you do open your ears, and you are healed."

So, my friends, this is a judgment. This is not something that you want to be prayed over. This is Isaiah 6. This is a judgment. And guess what? Messiah told His generation the same thing. And guess what? If Isaiah and Yeshua were here today, they'd tell all of us the same thing again. My friends, it's very important to understand what the Master is truly saying here when He says, "Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of these people dull, and their eyes heavy, and shut them. Shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return and be healed."

In this well-known example, we see how profound the Ayin is, both a blessing and also a warning. It is a blessing if we have our spiritual eyes and ears focused on God's Word and truth, as it will direct us in our daily lives. We will be able to perceive and understand God's will and purpose for our lives, as our hearts will not be dull but joyous in our walk with Him. On the contrary, it is a warning to those who do not listen and see what the Lord God is telling them. He explains that those people have dull hearts, heavy ears, and shut eyes.

Just like Yeshua's disciples, we too should have our eyes and our ears open to the truth so that we can understand the secrets to the kingdom of heaven. Instead of speaking out first, we should always use our spiritual eyes and ears to perceive and listen so that we can discern the matter at hand. And I'll say this: someone told me this one time, and I guess I need to start trying to understand it as well, even more so. We have one mouth and two ears for a reason, right? To listen first and then talk. I know myself, I have a problem with that sometimes. So, it's something that I've continued to work on throughout my journey: to zip it for a minute and make sure I'm discerning with my spiritual eyes and my spiritual ears, and then at the right time, then, you know, boom. But I think that's something that we can all work on, and I think we'll always be working on it until He returns: the pruning of our spiritual eyes and the pruning of our spiritual ears. That's why we go through the biblical months, or one of the reasons. Number one, we're commanded to. But number two, because we get the revelation of these things to work on these attributes that He wants us to work on. None of us are perfect; I'm certainly not. But He wants us to keep getting better with our eyesight, keep getting better with our ears, so that we know for sure that we're listening to the Master and not a deceiver out there.

There is a righteous reason the Creator formed mankind with two eyes, two ears, and one mouth. As Messiah continued to teach the disciples, we can receive comfort as He lovingly proclaimed, "But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and for your ears, for they hear. For assuredly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it." How powerful. Certainly, we want to make sure our spiritual eyes and our spiritual ears are open to what the Lord God is instructing us to do on our spiritual purification journey.