Disbelief.
Getting comfortable with the world. The world has values, God has different ones.
“How does a heart hardened?”
What?
When I was in third grade, I went to a Catholic school. Actually, it was my last year in a Catholic school, my parents put me into public schools from fourth grade on.
One of my strongest memories of that year was from Religion class. One of the priests came to teach the class occasionally, and I liked him. He was interesting, and made me think.
In one of the classes he told us that there actually was an unforgivable sin, a sin that God would not forgive.
Now this came as a real surprise to me because we had been told over and over again, since Kindergarten, that God would forgive any sin, as long as you confessed and repented sincerely and asked Him to forgive you. To find out that this statement had an exception was very thought provoking to me.
The priest was very clever. He said that he would not tell us what the unforgivable sin was that day. Instead, he would tell us during the next class, which my it is my recollection was to be taught the next week; the class in which he introduced the idea of the unforgivable sin was held on a Thursday or a Friday, so we had all weekend to think about this idea.
And I did. I really obsessed over it all weekend long. What could be the unforgivable sin?
When the time for the next class came, I was burning with curiosity to find out the answer to this question. And the priest did not disappoint. After re-introducing the question to us all, he gave the answer: the unforgivable sin is to harden your heart against the truth.
Now I have looked this up using Google, and I have found many instances of the phrase "to harden ones heart against God," or near variations of it. When I look again today, right now, I find only one instance of the "... against the truth" variety, and it is this:
The call to the reader of Hebrews is not to harden ones heart against the truth of the gospel as their ancestors had hardened their hearts in the wilderness wanderings with Moses, and so be lost.- Hebrews 3
But the priest left off the words after "truth" in the above phrase, I'm quite sure of that.
Anyway, that day, that lesson, those words, have stayed in my mind for more than fifty years, as clear as if I'd heard them only yesterday. I believe they're the truth, and I've seen a number of people who harden their hearts against the truth come to bad ends. In fact, I'd say that most of the cases I've known of where people go down a path of hopelessness and loss involve the hardening of the heart against the truth, and the indulgence of the human tendency to self-pity.
Foremost is “indifference”, ....
....”apathy is running a high pitch fever today and leaving a wake of emptiness in its path.... The Bible calls it apostasy.”
The neglect we see comes from apathy, a cold heart. Which the Scripture does predict will become ‘the norm’.
Our nation is being transformed into something it’s not..which trajectory is the goal of bringing us further away from absolute truth, not toward it.
....If God’s word is not our source to trust in for matters of life then one does not have faith but some other type of belief.
‘This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the LORD their God nor receive correction. Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.” (Jer. 7:28)
Can somebody translate this strange grammar into actual English?
I’ll be back . . .
I’ll tell you how a heart can hardened, my friend....
Nobody can selectively build walls to protect their heart.
When you build that wall, it keeps everyone out, including God.
Forgiveness goes a long way to softening your heart.
Sin also hardens your heart to God. Every time we resist Him and His correction, we harden it a little more, just like pharaoh did.
Thanks for posting this.
It’s a very good and relevant topic and addresses what is probably a huge reason that many people don’t come to Christ.
The parable of the sower gives us the 6 types of people and Ezekiel 11:20 which was not quoted in the article ( eze 11:20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them; and they shall be my people and I shall be their God) is telling because this writer misses the reason the heart needs softening.
Ezekiel in 36:26-27 and Jeremiah 31:33 tells us why a heart must be softened.
That is where His law goes in the new covenant..to walk in His ways .
And the parable of sower tells us only three types of people get in to the Kingdom- 30fold,60fold, 100 fold.
When one understands what each of those folds mean/represents, they can understand why the 30 fold would be called ‘least’ in the Kingdom.
It has to do with His Commands that are to be written on one’s fleshy,softened heart..and 30 fold havent received His law, in their ears or in their hearts.
And that study begins in Israel’s Exodus.
Is the writer of this headline new to English?
By pumping blogs.
One thing God does is the hardening of hearts to bring about His greater purpose in fullfilling his promises.
Count yourself blessed to lean toward the right in these days I say. Cheeers.
We all have witnesses to our violation of Moral Law. Conscientia, or surface conscience is a moral belief derived from foundational or First Principles. We also have Syndersis or deep conscience which is the interior witness to the foundational principles of the Moral Law. We can fool an observer, but you (the real you, your soul) will not allow you to go without true knowledge of your violation of the Moral Law. The Syndersis is designed to tell us truth by someone wise enough to do so (God). The knowledge of God belongs to all of us already. But we may choose to suppress for self. Jesus said, "deny self, take up the Cross and follow me". The burden of the unbeliever is that they have no explanation for why such feelings should exist....why is it wrong to torture an infant? They must try to attach those feelings to something other than God.
I think God allows the ungodly to simply suppress those obvious feelings and hearken their hearts.