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The Amish Voice 14
made on a hard heart. A hardened heart is
one in which the conscience is dull and
insensitive. A hardened heart will
scarcely be moved by circumstances or
the warnings of other people. And of
course, a hard heart will not sense that
still small voice in the inner man.
We must be moved by the voice of God
speaking to us in our heart. It must cause
us to change our course of action. To
believe is not enough, even
the devils
believe and tremble
.
Our beliefs must
affect our actions or it is not real belief,
and we have been deceived.
Harden not
your hearts.
So, the idea here is that the heart is
hardened by the refusal to listen to and
obey the voice of God. I will give you a
good illustration.
My husband has to get up every morning
at 5:00 am, and I don't have to get up
until later. His alarm clock is set to go off
at 5:00 am, but I hardly ever hear it. The
loud buzzing does not wake me up any
longer, and most mornings I sleep right
through it. The repeated action of
ignoring the alarm clock has caused me
to be unable to hear it. That is how a hard
heart is created: the repeated choice of
refusing to heed.
It seems to me there are three kinds of
hardness of heart that we have to deal
with and be on guard for. First, there is a
natural hardness of heart that we are all
born with. It is from the old nature of
Adam and does not necessarily come by
our choices, but by the sin of Adam.
Because of Adam's sin nature,
all have
sinned and come short of the glory of
God
and
ye must be born again.
Being
born again of the nature of God is the
remedy for this one.
Second, there is a hardness that can come
because of offense (someone hurts you),
especially to Christians, and I want to
address this one very briefly.
A. We must not become bitter or
unforgiving when we are wronged. If
it is another Christian who sins
against us, we must confront him
according to Scripture in Matt. 18
and hold him accountable.
B. If we are wronged by way of
persecution, we are to rejoice that we
were counted worthy to suffer for
His Name's sake, and we are to pray
for those who persecute us.
The third kind of hardness of heart is the
one referred to in Hebrews 3:12 when the
author writes to the Hebrew Christians,
Beware lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief in departing from
the living God.
This is the one I would
like to address at length. A "departure"
from someone or something comes in
taking small steps or in making small
choices, if you will. A departure from the
living God would look something like the
following steps I have outlined.
Step 1.
Consenting to, in the mind, or
agreeing with sin. (Verse 13 tells us that
sin is deceitful, so this first step, or the
very foundation of this "departure," is to
join ourselves with a liar).
Step 2.
Doing or committing the sin.
The more times this step is taken, the
harder the heart becomes.
Step 3.
No longer seeing the wrong of
your sin and past the boundaries of
believing what God has to say about it.
Step 4.
Openly defiant to the truth as
given to us by God, in both your speech
and your actions.
Step 5.
At some point, you become no
longer reachable by God or man, grieving
the Spirit so that He leaves, with the end
result being a seared conscience and a
reprobate mind.
Praise God! Those who have known the
Father and have "departed" because of
sin can reverse their direction and come
back to Him. This reversal is called
repentance, and God the Father will be
waiting with open arms to forgive and
cleanse them. They can and will be
restored as if they had never departed
from Him. The mercy of God is extended
to us, and we can come to Him boldly
and without shame when we need His
help to overcome and forsake sin.
For those who have not yet known the
Father, the same is true.
He is not willing
that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance.
Come before
the Lord and pour out your heart to Him,
surrender your whole life to Him, and
purpose to obey Him no matter the cost.
Confess and forsake your sin and receive
Jesus as your Lord and Savior and follow
Him. Today is the day of salvation, and
the Lord Jesus is calling out to you.
So, let us
exhort one another daily
. It is
our duty to exhort each other in this way,
and so much the more as we see the day
approaching.
To exhort means to speak
to, to address, to admonish and warn. No
doubt, many people have been severely
wounded by the so-called "exhortation"
of others, and much evil and damage has
been done to the Body of Christ. This
will, unfortunately, likely continue to
happen, but is that a sufficient reason to
disobey this command to exhort one
another? I don't believe it is. Does this
mean we should look for the faults in
others so that we can be the best
"exhorter" in the church? Of course not!
Love does not look for faults; love is not
easily provoked and thinks no evil. We
need to grow up and learn to walk in the
Spirit. The reason the Holy Spirit will
lead a person to exhort another is for the
glory of God and for His Kingdom, not to
tear someone else down or to exalt
yourself.
Now, let’s look at the
deceitfulness of
sin
.
Sin is from the devil. He is the father
of lies, so sin is a liar. The person who
commits sin is always under a delusion.
Sin promises much but gives little,. It
will give pleasure for a season, but that
season is very short. It appears to be fun,
but is actually filthy. It presents itself as
pleasant, but is very destructive. It
assures us of pleasure and
fulfillment that it will
Hardened Heart,
cont. from back cover
Continued
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