One of the most popular movies of 1999 was The Sixth Sense. It was not a theologically correct movie, as it told a story about a nine-year-old boy who could see and talk with the dead. The boy’s statement to a psychiatrist trying to help him is the key to understanding what happens. He says that the dead don’t know they are dead. He adds, “They only see what they want to see.”

That statement can apply to the living! We have all experienced times when we see things the way we want them to be, not as they are. We can ignore what does not agree with our view of reality. We can choose to hear only what we want to hear.

The Lord’s disciples were like that. He told them that He was the Christ and that He would bring in God’s eternal kingdom. They liked that message. In Mark 8:29, Peter speaks for the group and proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, the King of the world to come. All these words were easy to hear.

But then the Lord told the disciples something they didn’t want to hear, and chose not to hear. He told them that the nation of Israel would reject Him and His offer of the kingdom. The religious leaders would kill Him. Mark says that He told them “openly” (Mark 8:31-32). If they had been willing to listen, the disciples would have understood exactly what He was saying.

But Peter rebuked the Lord. Peter told Him that such a thing was not going to happen. He would gladly hear what the Lord said when he liked the message. But when the King said something Peter didn’t want to hear, he didn’t hear it.

We can be like the disciples. We can read something in the Scriptures and ignore it because we do not like what it says. There are many reasons that can happen. We can convince ourselves that what the Word says does not apply to us. Often, we say we don’t understand it. That was partly what the disciples did (Mark 9:10). We can even decide that we will not do what the Lord says. In such cases, we push the words of the Lord out of our minds. We pretend He didn’t say what He said.

The disciples also did that. In Luke 6:30-46, Christ taught them many things. The things He commanded them to do were often hard. It would have been easy to ignore Him and hear only what they wanted to hear. The Lord warned them that they would do so. He said, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).

As most people over the age of thirty know, the psychiatrist in The Sixth Sense was dead. But he didn’t know it. Throughout the movie he listened to the nine-year-old boy and tried to help him. He heard and saw only what he wanted to hear and see. It wasn’t until the end of the movie that he realized his situation and could see things as they were.

The movie is not a good place to go for theological truths. But it does provide an illustration. Even the living can hear only what they want to hear. Believers can do that. Let us ask the Lord to open our eyes and ears when we are guilty of hearing only what we want to hear in His Word.