The Hard Heart

by John Greene

In ministering behind prison walls for 6+ years, I am never more amazed then when people talk about their lives and the complicated scenarios are revealed about them. I have often wondered how so many Christians (many are Christians before the sin that caused them to be there) could make such stupid mistakes and believe they are right with God!

How do hearts get dull, calloused, and hard? Why this question? Because, this must be the basis because in right minds common sense does rule, otherwise the Lord is a liar which we know can't be true. The classic case for many to prove their weird definition of predestination is Pharaoh! Pharaoh's heart was hardened by God, and this is the fact that leads into a wrong understanding of predestination, but that is another subject.

Look at Ex 9:12, But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh; and he did not heed them, just as the LORD had spoken to Moses. On the surface of this one Scripture it might be understandable to say that God walks around and as a dictator decides who are to be the bad guys, and places that mantle on them! I thank the Lord that He gave us the WHOLE Bible to rightly divide Scripture. We must do a proper exegesis of the passage, the chapter, the Book, and the WHOLE Bible. Since most people could care less about being accurate and would rather feel good so they may justify themselves in their own eyes, live the way they want to live, we have too many IGNORANT Christians running loose!

What do we say when we read Ex 8:15? "But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not heed them, as the LORD had said." How about Ex 8:32? "But Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also; neither would he let the people go." The IGNORANT Christian quickly reads these and says nothing. The lost person who wants to prove God wrong and is a cult like Islam or Mormon or Jehovah Witness uses this to prove the Bible contradictory! And again, the IGNORANT Christian is stymied and ignores the apparent problem.

One says Pharaoh hardens his heart and the other says the Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart. Can this be possible? If one would take the position that Jehovah is perfect, just, and right, then the question must be answered from that perspective, God is right and would never contradict Himself!

Mark 6:52, "For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened." This then leads us to ask what causes the heart to get hard? The disciples see Jesus walking on water, and this statement reveals that earlier, when Jesus had taken 2 fish and 5 barley loaves and made 5,000+ people have enough food until they were full, He was revealing His Lordship, and the Father.

Mark 8:17, "But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, "Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened?" This then leads us to ask what causes the heart to get hard? After seeing Jesus for all this time, they still have hardened hearts.

John 12:37-40, "But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: 'Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?' Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: 'He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.'" Quoted about the people of the day, Pharisees, Saduccees, lawyers, scribes, and common people, all had hard hearts! This then leads us to ask what causes the heart to get hard?

Speaking in a synagogue for three months, Paul experienced what he usually ran into, hard hearts! Acts 19:9, "But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus." Here some were hardened! This then leads us to ask what causes the heart to get hard?

The answer is revealed in the wilderness trek the Israelites took for forty years! A great deal of information comes from the writer of Hebrews! He 3:12-13, "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called 'Today,' lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." Barnabas (my personal conviction about the writer of Hebrews) reveals several factors about the heart:

    1) any of us can get an evil heart
    2) the evil heart is of unbelief
    3) unbelief leads us away from the living God
    4) daily exhortation (humility) to be aware or on the look out can stop unbelief
    5) going away from God is sin
    6) unbelief is sin
    7) sin is deceptive and deceitful
    8) the final result is a hardened heart
    9) the bottom line is we don't want to obey God


Furthermore, it says in He 3:14-19, "For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: 'Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.' For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief."

Barnabas goes on to say in He 4:2, "For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it."

Concluding the 40 years in the Wilderness was a walk of unbelief on top of unbelief resulting in hard hearts that caused them to NOT enter the Promised Land! They heard the gospel and rejected it! The gospel or truth received without faith does not profit the hearer, but what it does do is so common today! It hardens the heart! Faith is that belief, no matter the size or depth, faith is that belief that God is the I AM or YHWH that He told Moses! In YHWH we shall do valiantly (Ps 60:12)!! It is in Him that faith comes from, originates from, is defined because faith is in God. Faith must be described as the calm assurance and belief that God is who He says He is and nothing is too hard for Him. Therefore, if He says it, I believe what He says, period! Faith quite simply is believing God! It is child-like and totally accepting of who He is and what He says.

When we hear the truth, if it is not received in faith it hardens our heart. This is what happened to Pharaoh! Look at what the context of Exodus is all about. A new Pharaoh who didn't know Joseph arises and there is no connection to God whatsoever! Joseph was Pharaoh's faith connection to God. It was through Joseph that the land of Egypt vanquishes the famine that Pharaoh had dreamed about. Joseph is gone and so the connection is done away!

The Egyptians were a poly-theistic culture which the Israelite nation had adopted! They were in sin of compromise and the Lord was going to deliver them by revealing Himself through Moses and Aaron and the destruction of the idols from Egypt in their hearts. This explains why God tells Moses that YHWH sent him! Ex 3:14-17 And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.' " Moreover God said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: 'The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.' "Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, 'The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, "I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt; and I have said I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey." '

The Israelites did have a godly background that allowed them to receive the truth from Moses and mixed with their faith produced some positive results. Pharaoh did not have anything to draw from that was of faith so when he heard the truth, his heart was hardened.

Hearts get hard from God because God honors men's decisions! God respects the choices that man makes and allows them to have the results that are brought about by those choices. Therefore when God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it was because he rejected the truth of who God is! Ex 5:1-2 Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.' " And Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, nor will I let Israel go." Pharaoh had no faith and thus he did have unbelief which is exactly his response to Moses and Aaron! Remember that truth received not in faith causes a hard heart! So Pharaoh's heart, because of this cause and effect, is hardened!

God honored Pharaoh's unbelief and rejection of the truth of whom He is, and let his heart grow harder! The Lord is loving enough to allow one plague after another in an attempt to reveal Himself, but unbelief, sin in Pharaoh's life, a desire to be his own god caused the laws that God had set in motion to take his heart and make it harder and harder and harder!

God desires to make a difference from idols that are not gods yet are none the less trusted, and Himself who is God and not trusted! Ex 10:1-2 Now the LORD said to Moses, "Go in to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, that I may show these signs of Mine before him, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your son's son the mighty things I have done in Egypt, and My signs which I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD." Revealing idolatry to someone with a hard heart will only cause the heart to grow harder! However, this is the gospel! AND the gospel must be preached! Pharaoh and the rest of the Egyptians would have a chance to repent and accept the LORD, but they rejected Him and their hearts grew harder until in anger and hurt they drove the Israelites out, the very ones who had the truth that could set them free!

The tragedy of this event would be compounded by those who never left Egypt and would reject their Promised Land and be sentenced to death, never ever able to enter God's rest! The Egyptian idols and way of life was so desired by so many that they tossed the Lord aside and were judged accordingly. In all these things, the Lord was merciful allowing judgments and plagues to come upon them in the wilderness in hopes they would repent and their hearts be softened! This did not happen! Joshua and Caleb entered the Promised Land and all those who were under 20 years of age during the hard hearted rebellion in the wilderness.

Unbelief, pride, and rebellion to the truth will cause the Lord to allow the heart what it wants, to be hardened! This is the deceit of sin as we think that we're okay, but our hearts are growing hard. We reject the truth, then we cover-up, justify, and make excuses. The heart grows harder or as Jesus tells us, the love of many waxes cold!

The conclusion of all this can be stated from He 4:6-7, Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a long time, as it has been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts."

Email me! John Greene