What is a Hardened Heart? | Andrew Farley

[@blakeclarkson9954]

Hebrews 4, Implies that Hardening your heart can also be when someone hears the Holy Spirit (the voice of God) telling them not to sin before hand, and then they harden their heart choosing not to listen and they sin anyways. This always makes us feel bad and we will always reap the negative consequences afterward. This is something we all have struggled with as believers. Sometimes we don't hear the spirit speak to us before we sin, so we don't get a chance to harden our heart, but when we do, it usually happens as a premeditated decision to not listen to the Holy Spirit, who is speaking to us out of loving protection. The thoughts that come to us in these moments, that rationalize sin and make us feel better about doing it, are simply not of God! But, Its always important to know that when we sin, we have an advocate with Jesus! This is one of the biggest works that the Spirit is doing in us! Teaching us to trust in his voice and helping us, become stronger in battle. Because he understands sin and what we are feeling, he can hold our hand and teach us to trust along the way! When we fall and scrape ourselves up, we ask for help, putting our trust back in the lord and he simply helps us get back up and we keep rolling along, while he teaches us how to be stronger next time. Many times this is how we grow in trusting the spirit of our Lord because we are slow to learn as people. We all have to fall over and over throughout our lives, if we are blessed with enough time to learn. The fall of sin hurts really bad sometimes, but with a forward fall into the arms of Christ, comes wonderful lessons and gifts, which help us persevere. But, if we aren't careful some sins can lead to death and in that case you don't get back up to try again! Our salvation is by faith in Christ alone. If we believe we are saved, but the sooner we learn to trust Gods spirit, the better to help us not get our butts handed to us in this world when we fall! Lord, please help us to learn to trust your spirit sooner rather than later, to lesson the damage of sin in our lives. thank you..for your forgiveness and teaching us to ride. Amen

[@bethanyfehr6500]

Thank you Andrew Farley! You are such an inspiration in my life.

[@MariusVanWoerden]

Romans 9:17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth. 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom He WANTS TO HAVE MERCY, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.… ”Now, what are the evidences in this text that the words “He hardens whomever he wills,” in Romans 9:18 means that God freely and unconditionally and without a previous act of this person decides who will be hardened and who will not? 1. That’s what the words most naturally mean. “He hardens whomever he wills,” says that his will and not our will is decisive in hardening. To be sure, our will rebels and is hard against God. But the natural meaning of these words is that God’s will is decisive beneath and behind our willing without nullifying the importance of our will. 2. The exact parallel with mercy shows that the act of God in hardening is as unconditional as the act of God in having mercy. Verse 18 says, “He has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” So if we believe that God’s showing mercy is unconditional, the most natural way to take the parallel is that the hardening is unconditional. 3. This is in fact exactly what Paul infers from God’s words in verse 15, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.” Paul draws out of this in verse 16, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” If that is what “I have mercy on whom I have mercy” means, then it is probably what “I harden whom I harden” means, namely, “It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who hardens.” 4. The parallel with Jacob and Esau shows that mercy and hardening are unconditional. Paul said in verses 11 and 13, “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad . . . As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” In other words, the context demands that Paul address not just the love and mercy part of God’s sovereignty but also the hate and hardening part of God’s sovereignty. The parallel with Jacob and Esau in verse 13 shows that the hardening and the mercy are unconditional. 5. The objection and Paul’s answer to it in verse 19 show that Paul did not deal with God’s sovereignty the way most people deal with it today. Paul raises the objection: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’” Now at this point most people today say, God finds fault because his hardening is a response to our prior self-hardening. For example, one popular, and usually good commentary says, NEITHER HERE NOR ANYWHERE ELSE IS GOD SAID TO HARDEN ANYONE WHO HAD NOT FIRST HARDENED HIMSELF. THAT PHARAOH HARDENED HIS HEART AGAINST GOD AND REFUSED TO HUMBLE HIMSELF IS MADE PLAIN IN THE STORY. SO GOD’S HARDENING OF HIM WAS A JUDICIAL ACT, ABANDONING HIM TO HIS OWN STUBBORNNESS. (JOHN STOTT, ROMANS: GOD’S GOOD NEWS FOR THE WORLD [INTERVARSITY PRESS, 1994], 269, QUOTING LEON MORRIS) “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” Let me say this calmly and firmly: that is exactly the opposite of what Romans 9:18 teaches. And the fifth reason that I say so is this: Paul could have so easily removed the objection of verse 19 that way, and he did not! The objector hears Paul say, “God hardens whomever he wills,” and he responds, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” How easily Paul could have answered the objection with all the answers of modern man! And he didn’t. Because they are the wrong answer. They turn his teaching right on its head. He said, “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” Indeed he said more - but in a direction exactly the opposite of what people today (or then) expect. 6. Verse 21 shows that Paul sees mercy and hardening as unconditional because he speaks of the objects of mercy and hardening as coming from the same lump of clay: “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump [there’s the crucial phrase!] one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?” The stress is that it was not the nature of the clay that determined what God would do with it. It was the free and wise and sovereign will of the potter. He has mercy on whom he wills and he hardens whom he wills - from the same lump of clay. 7. We read in Romans 11:7: “What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.” In other words, the decisive issue in who is hardened and who is not is election, not some prior willing or running on our part, but God who elects. “The elect obtained it, the rest were hardened” (Romans 11:7). “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated” (Romans 9:13). “He has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills” (Romans 9:18). goo.gl/DDFQXq

[@36742650885]

Please pray for me that God would give me a New Heart I want to be Saved thank you for considering Amen

[@ManJO601]

, love your videos.

[@omc-tk2vb]

Hey brother Andrew, love your videos. Do you believe in a kind of universalism where eventually (all) people will be saved because it is God's will and (all) things will be renewed?

[@edvogt4039]

See Andrew’s video “Is everyone okay?”

[@michaelwarrell5479]

No that is one of the lies he preached on

[@thegracestation3938]

Universalism isn't true, Jesus is our universal saviour but we must call upon his name in order to be saved.

[@1badplayer]

Why are you so afraid of God, God who is sovereign over his own creation. Jesus is in total control of his creation instead of trying to undermine his word you should be rejoicing in the truth. I can not tell you when I chose to invite Jesus into my heart (as if such a thing was possible). But I can tell you The hour I first believed. and the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the LORD said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ Now therefore behold, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the LORD has declared disaster for you.” (1 Kings 22:20-23 ESV) Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the people of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. They took them all in battle. For it was the LORD's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the LORD commanded Moses. (Joshua 11:18-20 ESV) And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. (Exodus 4:21 ESV) For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. (Romans 9:17-18 ESV) So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” (Romans 11:5-8 ESV)