Beware The Consequences Of Hardening Your Heart

The spiritual condition of persistent unresponsiveness to God and His Word, which can rise to the level of rejection and hostility. Apart from divinely granted repentance, this condition can harden to a permanent and unchanging state, leading to condemnation.

hard=being incapable of change

Jesus warned us in Mark 8:17, 'Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?' A hardened heart can blind us to God’s work in our lives and the needs of those around us. It’s crucial to regularly evaluate our hearts—are we receptive to His voice, or have we grown calloused from repeated disobedience? Remember, God desires a heart that is soft and willing to respond to His grace.Hardness of Heart Ex 4:21–14:23 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. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son,…

2 Ch 34:27 because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before me and have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord.

Ps 95:8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,

Is 6:9–10 And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and…

Je 13:10 This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.

Jn 12:37–41 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Therefore they could not believe.…

Ac 7:51–60 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed…

Ro 11:25–26 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The…

Heb 5:11–14 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for…

Hardness or dullness of heart is regularly expressed in a number of equivalent phrases, metaphors, and other figures of speech, including obduracy, blindness, deafness, moral insensitivity, foolishness, unbelief, stubbornness, stupidity, brutishness, deficiency in understanding, darkness, and stiffness of neck. According to the Bible, humans bear the responsibility for this condition because it demonstrates willful unbelief in the face of God’s clear message and works. At the same time, in a number of passages God confirms a hard-hearted individual in that state by a further hardening (Deut 2:30; Josh 11:20).

First, Exodus tells us that Pharaoh’s heart became hard (Ex. 7:13). Second, Exodus declares that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex. 8:15). Finally, Exodus reveals that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 9:12)

Anthony T. Selvaggio

Today if ye will hear His voice harden not your hearts.” Yes, man can “harden” his heart: God says so; and God calls to you: “Harden not your heart.” That is something you do yourself—not the devil—you do it.

Arthur Walkington Pink

Finally, the plagues were a means for hardening the heart of Pharaoh.

Iain D. Campbell

One of the great mysteries of Scripture is the coexistence of God’s sovereign preordination and man’s personal accountability. God’s judicial hardening of a man’s heart is never separate from that man’s hardening of his own heart.

John F. MacArthur

If you harden your heart with pride, you soften your brain with it too.

Anonymous

The parables test the heart of the listener. They act as a spiritual examination, prompting a response from the listener that will indicate whether the person’s heart is open to Jesus’ message or is hardened.

Michael J. Wilkins

The most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men.

John Owen (Puritan Divine and Statesman)

Truth resisted hardens the heart.

Robert H. Mounce