Exodus: "The Cure For A Hardened Heart"

we are currently in a series on the book of Exodus which is the second book in the Old Testament and and we're also looking at the central character of this story we're looking at the life of Moses and last week we saw how that God spoke to our man Moses through a burning bush a bush that would just would not be consumed and and called him out of 40 years of obscurity and commanded him to confront Egypt's came the great Pharaoh and demand that he released the Israelites from 400 years of slavery God had been preparing Moses for 80 years up until this moment and now God wanted to draw him out of his obscurity and to use this very ordinary man for an extraordinary purpose to be God's instrument to deliver his chosen people not a slavery and bondage but as we saw last week Moses gave God every excuse in the book for why he needed to pick someone else to do this job he talked about his insecurities he talked about his fears he talked about his lack of knowledge his age his doubts and his abilities his his inability to speak clearly and so he just gave God every excuse in the book now here's a fact God is still wanting to draw God still wants to draw ordinary people like you and like me out of our fears out of our insecurities out of our doubts out of our just thoughts that were just incapable of doing things so that he can draw us in to experiencing the extra extraordinary plans that he has for our lives he wants to use you this morning for his glory well this morning we're going to look at one of the most well known stories in this book but also one of the most well known stories in all of the Bible it's the story of Pharaoh and the ten plagues now what is a plague well the plague is not just a disease or an epidemic but it's any event or thing that afflicts or troubles or harasses and whereas we're about to see these ten plagues they lived up to their Billings they afflicted they caused trouble and they harassed not only Pharaoh but the people of Egypt now before they actually happened I want you know that God predicted that they would happen he predicted the plagues God knew the condition of Pharaohs heart he knew that this man's heart was was it was arrogant he was stubborn and he had a heart that was it was hardest stone and he knew that that Pharaoh was going to reject Moses his request to let the people of Israel go and he also knew the only way that he was actually going to be able to grab Pharaoh's attention was through these terrible plagues nothing else was going to break through to this man's cold callous heart now if you've been reading through Exodus with me remember that God told Moses back in Exodus 3 in verse 19 and 20 said but I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by my mighty hand so God says I will stretch out my hand and strike to Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it and after that he will let you go then we get into Exodus chapter 4 and as Moses was packing his bags to go back to Egypt the Lord reminded Moses of what the outcome would be and verse 21 he says 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 then God says I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go now this is one of the most interesting interesting and even I would say controversial verses in scripture that leads to other scriptures that are just like it and the question that that you have to ask yourself when you look at this is did did did did God hardened Pharaoh's heart or did Pharaoh choose on his own too hard in his own heart and what you believe about that really is going to determine some of your theology and it's going to determine in some ways what you really believe about God and His character but but I want to I want you to see that there's a progression there's a progression that takes place in the story okay first God predicts that he will harden Pharaoh's heart before it actually ever happened and then out of grace and mercy God gives Pharaoh several opportunities to submit to him to repent - to stop the plagues before they they even took place but but the Bible tells us on several times here that Pharaoh actually hardened his own heart and then we see God stepping in and actually hardening Pharaoh's heart now I'm gonna unpack this a little bit more in just a moment okay but here's what I want you to know okay you-you-you need to know this right now a hardened heart is not something that happens overnight okay it'sit's actually a subtle progression that takes place over time and very few people wake up in the morning and you know and just go you know god I declare I'm hardening my heart before you right now they don't do that a hardened heart is it's not something that just happens to evil kings like a pharaoh or men who betray Jesus Christ like Judas no hardened heart can happen to anyone and even though God says that is not his will than anyone perish there are people all over the world that have hardened their hearts towards God's offer of a forgiveness and salvation that has been made available because of the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made on our behalf on the cross God has given every person a free will to accept or reject his son Jesus god never forces anyone to receive salvation and the Holy Spirit never forces himself on any individual and at the same time as followers of Jesus we can also choose to choose to harden our hearts we can harden our hearts towards the things that are on the heart of God we can harden our hearts towards other people we can harden our heart towards Authority the authority that God puts in our lives we can harden our hearts to the commands of Scripture to the commands of Jesus but here's the good news there is a cure for a hardened heart I don't care how hard your heart has gotten there is a cure for it and it's the good news of the gospel it's God's offer of grace because of Jesus God can take any heart in any condition that has been hardened and he can receive it he can cleanse it he can wash it he can breathe new life into it he can make it whole once again and he can cause it to be used for his purposes and for his glory God longs to draw you out to draw out your heart your hard-heartedness so that he can draw you into his grace now with your Bibles open I want to impact some of this story to really get us to where we want to land this morning which is in Exodus chapter 7 but I'm gonna go back for a moment and just to talk about chapter five for a moment Moses and Aaron they appear before Pharaoh for the very first time and they they make an appeal they say the Lord the God of Israel says let my people go so that they can go into the wilderness and hold a religious ceremony in my honor and Pharaoh says no some of this I'm going to paraphrase so just understand Pharaoh says is that so and and who exactly is this God that I should listen to him and let Israel go I don't know the Lord and under no circumstances will I let these people go and Moses and Aaron dig in and they persist with their request but once again Pharaoh arrogantly denies their their request so in retaliation against god and moses pharaoh sends this this word down to the Egyptian slave drivers and the foremen who were over the slaves the people of Israel and he says this do not give the Israelites anymore straw to make their brick and at the same time do not reduce their production quota for bricks a matter of fact what I want you to do is I want you to double down on their workload and make life even harder for them well the people of Israel begin to they begin to come complain to Moses and Moses go goes back and he complains to God and God once again repeats the Covenant that he has made with the people of Israel and he recommit to the promise that he made to them to deliver them out of slavery and the promise that he had made to Abraham that he would give them a land of their own but the people refused to listen to Moses and God tells Moses to go back to Pharaoh again and demand demand that he let the people of Israel leave Egypt and once again Moses tells God I cannot do it god I cannot do it these people won't listen to me so why should Pharaoh listen to me and then he says I'm no order God I'm not great of speech you've got the wrong man in an exodus chapter 6 verses verse 13 God now he orders Moses and Aaron to go back to Pharaoh and he demands I want you to tell him to let the people of Israel go I'm not negotiating with you Moses any longer I've given you Aaron I really wish I didn't have to but I'm gonna give you air and to go with you I'm not I'm not negotiating with you anymore I'm telling you to do it I'm come and you know do it so in Exodus chapter 7 verse 10 Moses and his brother Aaron are standing before the most powerful man in the world the king of Egypt the Pharaoh and I want you to remember now at this moment Moses is 80 years old Aaron is 83 years old okay so no matter how old you are God can still use you an Aaron standing before Pharaoh at with God's Direction he takes his staff and he throws it down at the Pharaohs feet and when he does that it turns into a snake and then Pharaoh goes I can I can one-up that he calls his magicians out all who have staffs in their hands and they throw their staffs down on the ground and they all - there's snakes everywhere now okay but Aaron's staff which is now a snake consumes all of the other snakes and he picks up the snake and it turns into a staff again now how did Pharaoh respond to this well the Bible tells us that he hardened his heart verse 13 still Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he would not listen to them as the Lord had said now this point God has had enough God's had enough of this stubborn arrogant hard-hearted man so he gives Moses a directive he says okay this is what I want you to do now go to Pharaoh tomorrow morning and meet with him as he goes down to the river stand on the riverbank with their staff in your hand and say these words to him verse 16 of chapter 7 the Lord God the Lord the God of the Hebrews sent me to you and here's what he wants me to say to you let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness but so far you have not obeyed thus says the Lord by this you shall know that I am the Lord behold with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile and it shall turn into blood the fish in the Nile shall die and the Nile will stink and the Egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the Nile Moses and Aaron do exactly what God commands and Pharaoh snubz's knows at them and at God and the plagues officially begin now I want to throw the first plague up here on the screen and and one of the reason I want to show you something if I could for a moment the first plague is the fact that water becomes blood now you'll notice some words after that many scholars believe that every one of these 10 plagues was directed to expose and defeat a false god of Egypt okay and so the first plague is is this word here I'm not gonna attempt Asura so I guess but is it god of the Nile now if you were to go to Egypt today honestly you can still go into stores and you can buy these little relics of these gods and they still in some ways recognize them alright but for an entire week now the entire River the Nile River was nothing but blood now listen for the Egyptians back then the Nile was that was a basic source of life all of their water for all of their needs came from this one River plus with fish was a major part of their diet and so God's first punch was right to the heart of Egyptian life how did Pharaoh respond the Bible says his heart remained hardened he sat in his palace and he tried to get the whole thing out of his mind if I can just not think about it it'll go away and Moses and Aaron go back to him again and say God has said let my people go and we get into plague number two which is frogs cover the land now imagine going outside this building today and I mean frogs are everywhere frogs are in your car frogs are in your house frogs are in your desk at work you pulled the drawer out frogs jump out at you you you open up your refrigerator to get milk frogs you get in your bed tonight you pull back the cover frogs they're everywhere all right and the Lord told the Egyptians he says the Nile rivers gonna be swarmed by them he says you're gonna go into your house they're gonna come into your house you're gonna be in your bedrooms they're gonna be in your beds your kitchens your cupboards are gonna be filled with them you're gonna be overwhelmed by frogs and that's exactly what happened verse 8 chapter 8 then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said plead with the Lord to take away the frogs from me and my people and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord and Moses responds to Pharaoh you you you you set the time big boy you let me know you tell me when you want me to pray for you when you want me to pray for the officials pray for your people and I will pray to God and the frogs will disappear now now honestly Pharaoh has a strange reply to this he says do it tomorrow why not do it today I mean he wants to do it tomorrow I don't he's wanting some frog legs I have no idea what's going on here okay do it tomorrow verse 10 Moses says be it as you say so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God and verse 15 tells us that as soon as the frogs were gone once again Pharaoh hardened his heart now one of the symptoms of a heart and heart is in sincerity I mean you want you want the consequences to stop you want the pain to go away but you don't really want to harass often your heart before God you you you don't really want to fall under his authority and that's where Pharaoh is in the story he wants the pain to go away he wants the consequences to stop but he he doesn't really want to fall under God's Authority so the plagues continue plague number three gnats cover the people and cover animals and I don't know about you I hate gnats I really do I I'd rather deal with frogs than that's any day long any day in Egypt here there's not everywhere even the Pharaohs magicians who have been able to counter every every miracle and every plague with their own magic they now confess to Pharaoh this this right here this is the finger of God now I thought if I'm one of Pharaohs magicians back then at this point I'm hopping on the first available camel and I am getting out of Cairo enough s'en up here I've seen enough but not Pharaoh verse 19 it says but Pharaoh's heart remained hard and stubborn so plague number four comes into play which is flies swarm the land now come on fly tzer's gnats are one thing but flies are nasty right and Moses tells faeries his flies are gonna swarm the land Egyptians homes will be filled by them but this time in the region of Goshen where the Israelites live not one fly will be found here now why is that well because God now to show Pharaoh that he had the power over land he had the power over regions he had the power over people groups he had the power over countries and he can bring flies to one region and caused them not to come to another place and he wants to make it clear he wants to make a clear distinction here between the people of Israel and Pharaoh's people the people people of Egypt so the Bible tells us that the place where the Egyptians lived was thrown into complete chaos because of the Flies and for a brief moment it appears that Pharaoh's heart is softening because he begins to negotiate with Moses a bit and he wants to he want he's talking to Moses but here's the deal he wants to obey God on his own terms which is actually another sign of a hardened heart see we'll obey God but only on our own terms and Pharaoh tells Moses I'll let you sacrifice to your God but you have to do it right here in Egypt you can't go out in the wilderness you have to do it right here and Moses says that won't do so Pharaoh tells him all right Moses I agree to your terms Foley and Moses asked Scott ok remove all the Flies God which he actually does and verse 32 says but Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also and did not let the people go so plague number 5 came in the death of livestock the Egyptians they begin to loose cattle they lose flocks while the Israelites do not lose a thing now think about this for a moment God's already removed the supply of fish for a time he's remove the supply of water and now there's no red meat there's no milk the plague hits goats and cattle and horses and camels sheep donkeys I mean imagine the sight and the smell of dead livestock everywhere you got flies we don't know what we don't know what will happen to the frogs either they hopped away or they're just smashed up everywhere I mean this is a stinky place here ok but Pharaoh's heart remains hardened and so number 6 comes in boils now the Egyptian people the Bible says they broke out in boils whatever animals will were left you cat your dog your gerbil your hands they all had boils even the magicians that had not gotten out of town had boils on themselves as well anyone in here I mean let's be I if you ever had a boil before anyone it's one of the most painful things I have ever experienced in my life and I have a crazy gross story about a boil then I'm gonna save for rush camp because you can't handle it okay but but the high school middle school kids they'll be all over it but I got to tell you something this is a terrible plague terrible but notice something else that happens in Chapter 9 verse 12 here's what the Bible says but the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh and he did not listen to them as the Lord had spoken to Moses now understand this God predicted four different times that he would harden Pharaoh's heart then four times we see Pharaoh making a choice on his own to harden his own heart and then ten times starting right here in chapter nine verse 12 God hardens Pharaoh's heart and then there's six other times in the Bible here that states at Pharaoh's heart was hardened but it but it doesn't give the cause now I don't I do not purposefully throw around a lot of Greek and Hebrew words up here I just think sometimes they just go right over our heads but this is one of those moments where I just think it's necessary and I just want to throw some words up if I could but there are three different words that are actually used in in all of these verses here that that describe they're used for the words hardened or hardening okay the first one is the word huzzah and it means to to be firm or strong and there's actually another word that's similar with a different variation you changed some like a little thing on it and it changes it and then there's kavod which means to be heavy or dull and then there's kasaa which means to be difficult or or obstinate the majority of the time when God is hardening Pharaoh's heart it's the word hoseok and God is literally coming alongside of a heart that has already been hardened and he's making his heart he's making Pharaoh's heart strong and courageous to be able to express what is already in his heart which is a heart of defiance against God okay his hearts already been hardened God's just coming alongside and he's making him firm and courageous to express what's already inside there but Pharaoh had also made a choice by his own freewill to harden his heart and three times it's the word covet and once it's the word kasaa okay now some of you are going wow that's just going right over my head I don't care for some of you you're like wait a minute now you're messing with my theology a little bit here okay listen I want to tell you some things about the Bible that we just go we agree upon these things these are things are non-negotiable you know salvation is a free gift it's offered to us by grace we receive it by faith alone it's only through Christ the Bible is inerrant Word of God and we there's other things like that that we just go there's a non negotiables but listen I would say some as I go through this okay I would be arrogant to think that I have this whole thing figured out and I have chosen after years I just to live in the tension of that okay and I know for some folks they but know their I have a hundred percent figure I think that's just arrogance and I just want to warn you against that okay because there's good people in this church on both sides I have staff members or disagree with me on some of this stuff but we we choose to live somewhat in the tension have unity on those things and you know what at the end of the day we're all out there supposed to be you know serving God and sharing the gospel but here we are God God gives fair a chance after chance after chance to repent of this hardened heart God extends grace to fair on more than one occasion God's heart for Pharaoh was the same as it is for every one that has ever lived he does not want anyone to perish and in time and time again in this story we see this prideful arrogant Pharaoh willingly rejecting God and choosing to harden his heart and every time Pharaoh rejected God's commands his heart became more callous than it was before and finally because God is righteous because God is also just just as much as he is loving he does exactly what he says he would do as a judgmental as a judgment against his continual rejection of God's mercy and his offer of deliverance and grace from these plagues God takes what is already a hardened heart and he makes it even harder so Pharaoh and the Egyptians would what what what verse 16 chapter 9 says so that they would see how powerful God really is and that God's name would be spread throughout the earth when Moses first came to Pharaoh with a word from from God Pharaoh's response was this right from the very beginning who is this Lord that I should obey Him puffed his chest out and God offered him grace after grace after grace until God finally said Pharaoh let me just show you who I am and let me show the rest of the world just how powerful I am and the plagues continued plague number seven was just hail it was thunder it was lightning hail was coming down destroying everything and in verse 27 chapter 9 it says then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them this this time I have sinned the Lord is in the right and I and my people are in the wrong plead with the Lord for there has been enough of gods thunder and hail and I will let you go and you shall stay no longer and Moses says to him as soon as I have gone out of the city I will stretch out my hands to the Lord the Thunder will cease and there will be no more hail so that you may know that the Lord that the earth is the Lord's and then he says this as for you and your servants I know that you do not yet fear the Lord Moses says Pharaoh there's conviction here but but you still refuse to repent of your pride and your stubbornness and in verse 35 so the heart of Pharaoh was hardened and he did not let the people of Israel go just as the Lord had spoken through Moses which leads us to number eight lots of locust I mean locust everywhere locust covers the whole earth I mean these little grasshopper things are like look they're these little critters are destroying everything all the vegetation is completely destroyed and at this point it appears that fair is ready to let the Israelites go but God makes his heart strong and courageous to show his true intentions and his heart is hardened which leads us to number nine darkness covers the earth the darkness is so thick you can feel it not even a lantern can penetrate it but where the Israelites were living in Goshen the Bible says there was light and then finally the last and the most famous of plagues the death of all firstborn sons in Egypt now I want you to hear this because of one man because one man decided to defiantly shake his fist in the face of God and to blatantly disobey him over and over and over in again God sends his death angel into the land and he kills every firstborn son of every Egyptian family including the firstborn son of Pharaoh and when Pharaoh's heart is finally broken he agrees to let the Israelites go and we're gonna see next week that it's not quite the case now I want you to understand what I really believe about this story I know sometimes we look at foreign nations and we look at this and then we go God kill them strike them you know this story is a tragedy it really is I mean these are people these are people with kids and it's a country that people a lot of people died here and suffered it's a tragedy there's so much that we can take away from this that I think applies to us today I want to give you some of those takeaways here's number one every time we choose to harden our hearts we build up more and more callous layers between us and God we we all know people we all know people who have placed themselves in this situation they reject Appeals they ignore warning signs they scoff at God's Word they arrogantly stiffen their necks at God and they go their own way and they just build up layer after layer after layer until almost to get to the place they just can't hear you they cannot hear god any longer because it's just their hearts are so hardened a few weeks ago as you know I was I was in Scotland with some of our staff where I'm planning a pastor's vision triptych for July we're also planning an upcoming missions trip that we're gonna announce really soon and you know I got up early Sunday morning and and I decided to go through a prayer walk through the streets of Edinburgh and I was praying for the people of Scotland I was praying for wisdom but I was also praying for our church and I was praying for our community and community was going through some tough times tough moments that dealt with some racist stuff I'm a few weeks back and I was praying for our community and our leaders and so I got to this place I was there's actually a street that goes down through the old part of Edinboro called the Royal Mile it starts at the end borough castle and ends at the the Palace of Mary Queen of Scots and I got to this place in the street as I was praying and I took a picture because it just spokes so clearly to me of where the nation of Scotland has landed and I want you to see it for a moment this is really early in the morning I just want you to know pretty much in January February it looks like that about 4:00 in the evening as well but in the background of that picture you just see that beautiful cathedral and it's a cathedral from the 1500s it's John Knox was who the great Scottish reformer who had been influenced by Calvin and he was the one who who brought the Reformation to Scotland back in the 1500s and out of that Reformation thousands of people in Scotland were saved there there were missionaries that were sent all over the world that impacted places like India and China and different places I have relatives that came over from Scotland into Canada and in different places who who were followers of Jesus but I mean for a long time the nation of Scotland this little nation impacted the world for the with the gospel in the 1700s there was a guy who who was born as it became a very famous Scottish philosopher and so on one side of that Street you see that kind of that that that the st. Giles Cathedral the the place where John Knox preached and the Reformation happened but then you see that statue right there on the other side of the street and that's a statue of a guy named David Hume who in the 1700s was probably Scottish his greatest philosopher and I want you to know something about that picture that you probably don't know if you just were looking at it but in one hand and is in his right hand he's holding up one of the tablets of the Ten Commandments and if you notice it's empty as a symbol too say that these tablets basically mean nothing these words are empty words the other tablet as you can see is under his left foot as a defiant stepping on God and saying your words are no longer valid here they've never have been valid they mean nothing and so as a result of just his philosophy secularism humanism naturalism naturalism it just began to spread slowly over time into the hearts of the people of Scotland it made its way outside it impacted Darwin who impacted our country and the world and and and as a result of this one man all of a sudden people's hearts in Scotland became divided we're all of a sudden we're everything used to be spiritual now we had the secular and the spiritual and and we're like we can have a secular and a spiritual which is a lie it's a divided heart and slowly over time this nation hardened its hearts towards God and today as I mentioned before now today 52 percent of this country claim to be atheist less than two percent actually go to a church less than one percent of the people of Scotland actually claim to know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and I want to tell you something I stood at that statue and I prayed for the nation of Scotland I thought Lord this is exactly what's happening to America it's exactly what's where we're going where we have separated out the secular from the spiritual that we put them in different boxes we compartmentalize them in our hearts and slowly over time we're becoming just like that where we are taking the Word of God we're taking the things of God and we're putting them off to the side without we're not putting the Bible under our foot but we're doing it with our words and our actions and our thoughts and our deeds and we're holding up and in so many now are holding up their fists to God and saying we defy you you mean nothing to us anymore we're gonna do our own thing and I believe now Scotland is it a place where especially the younger generation where they're crying out and saying this doesn't work and it makes me sad that I feel like as a country that's where we're heading Chuck Swindoll says the longer you harden your heart the more the call it is to let God's light break through and the more you heart in your heart and you allow the secular to seep in and you separate the two you become set you become hardened the second thing is there's always consequences when we harden our heart and disobey God now I want you to hear this today we live under a covenant of grace Jesus assured in a covenant of grace when this was written it was the Abrahamic covenant but listen there's a lot of preachers and people out there that believe that God's taken hurricanes and he's directing them towards Nations to punish memory he's allowing famines to happen to punish people groups and and he's bringing disease upon people groups because no to punish them for a particular sin no the Bible says in Romans 8 that the earth is suffering from the consequences of sin it groans for Christ to come back and make things right the guy's not I mean I listen when you hear a pastor stand up and say God's God's putting punch he's pouring his wrath out on these people good for this that's not happening it is not if God's will is that every man every woman have a chance to receive the gospel listen when Jesus came he ushered in a covenant of grace and while God is still a righteous and just God his character never changes and he's now chosen to deal with mankind in a very different way okay but but there are still consequences for making sinful choices and there are still consequences to rejecting God's Word and there are still consequences to hardening our hearts towards God and oftentimes God will actually allow us to face those consequences let me give you a Justin let me put this in perspective if the speed limit okay is 55 degrees or 55 miles an hour okay help me Lord all right it's not there to restrict you from having fun it's not there to keep you from experiencing all the joy that your car could bring you okay no it's there because Road engineers who are smarter than us have determined that that that is the safest speed for you to travel on that road why because they want us to avoid terrible wrecks and fatalities however if I'm if I'm going 80 miles an hour and I get pulled over by a police officer and he gives me a ticket listen God's not punishing me I've brought punishment on myself in the form of a fine there are consequences okay that are written down that if I do that I'm gonna get a fine for speeding and probably my insurance rates are going to go up those are consequences for speeding and the same is true for the commands of God none of these commands that are in this word that come from Jesus they're there they're not there to make our lives miserable they're not there so God can control us like puppets no they're there because God loves us and he knows what's best for us and he wants us to avoid all of those things that will cause us to ruin our lives and ruin our futures and he knows that there are consequences for those things when we choose to disobey these commands and when we choose to sin and just like Pharaoh the consequences of our sins can cause us can cause innocent people to suffer for generations lately some of our staff and and I have been dealing with some really tough marital issues inside the church and outside the church and it shouldn't surprise any of us with the past few months we have dug in to I think doing some of our best work with with marriages we started this thing on Monday nights called reengage and man we've just heard so many victory stories coming out of that marriage ministry just helping people to take broken marriages and make them whole again taking marriages that maybe are not the best and helping them to become great helping marriages that need a little tweak but at the same time we've been dealing with some tough tough stuff and it shouldn't surprise any of us but it's heartbreaking and I look at some of these things and there's just this listen over almost 30 years of doing there's just a predictable pattern I see over time over time I watch a man or a woman who hardened their heart to God just slowly and then over time they hardened their heart to their spouse and then they begin to dabble in sin about the behavior and they start dabbling in things online and they make it they begin to emotionally cheat on their spouse and their turns into physical cheating and then and then I watch the fallout and the fallout as families are divided friends become divided children are devastated communities are impacted churches are our rock and generations suffer generations suffer and here's a warning for today from Hebrews chapter 3 verse 7 and 8 therefore as the holy spirit says today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts do not harden your hearts why would God give us a warning like that today because he knows the consequences for sin and like a loving father he does not want you to bring those consequences upon yourself and for those around you still he still warns us not to harden our hearts don't do it third thing the root cause of a hardened heart is pride when you look at Pharoah you have to ask yourself how does a man get so many chances after seeing such devastation and yet still choose to harden his heart it's his pride his pride was deep now understand this here's why back in the day the Egyptians made the Pharaoh a god and they gave him the same status as all of all other gods so for this Pharaoh to release control of the Israelites regardless of how horrific these plagues would have been it would have meant that he was recognizing that the God of Israel was more powerful than he was it would have meant that he was confessing that someone was wiser and more powerful than him and up into this moment he's been the most powerful man in the world but listen that's the biggest reason we choose to harden our heart isn't it it's just pride we don't want to give up the throne of our lives to anyone we don't want a hole we want we want to hold on to the illusion that we're really in control when when we're not we're really not we want the freedom to make our own choices and then when we deal with consequences we get mad and blamed God when we have to face those things and what is that it's just all pride but James chapter 4 verse 6 basically offers a solution to this and it starts out this way James says and he gives grace generously as the scriptures say God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble see one of the things that that that is that was true in the days of Pharaoh is just still true to this day God opposes the proud he allows us to face the consequences of our sin which sometimes feels like plagues to us I mean we just feel like we're going through plagues there's so many things I have our sinful decisions they caused our prayer lives to be hindered we can walk away we just literally walk outside of God's will and outside of the covering as well of his will so many things that we bring upon ourselves that God says don't don't do that but praise God there's more to this verse because God says he gives grace to the humble and not just grace he gives grace generously so the cure for a hardened heart is God's grace because because of God's unmerited grace there's not a heart I want you to know there's not a heart in this room or outside of this room that is beyond repair there's not a heart that is beyond God's reach there's not a heart that is too hard and that cannot be softened and the consequences of your decisions may they may make you feel right now like you're just facing one plague after the next but please know that God offers His grace to you at this very moment he doesn't want you to spend another moment in your pain or in your misery the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk cried out to God he said God in Wrath remember mercy and God has done just that Jesus who endured God's wrath to the greatest degree by going to the cross on our behalf now by grace he offers you forgiveness he offers you a chance to bring your hardened heart before him to be made new to be made whole to be made tender once again but God asks you to humble yourself he asked you to repent of your sin repentance means to change your mind it's a change it's so powerful than it actually may cause you to turn and go in a different direction and I want you to know that once you do this because God says a broken contrite spirit I will not deny once you do this I want you know His grace will flood over you again and once again this faithful loving father will embrace you he will embrace you he will not turn you away God longs to draw you out of your hard heartedness so he can draw you into his grace would you bow your heads with me for just a moment I'm gonna ask these guys to lower the lights because I want every one of you just have a moment of privacy and I would just ask that you that you would just forget about everyone else that's around you and then you would just allow yourself to have a moment alone with God there are some of you who've walked into this place and maybe for years you have been rejecting God's offer of forgiveness and salvation maybe you have even held your fist up to God or or you have just arrogantly said no no no and today the Holy Spirit is convicting you of that and and in he's reminding you that that offer is still still today still valid for today and and I want to encourage you don't say no to that again don't don't walk out of here and say no to that again because there are consequences to rejecting God it ultimately ends up in hell very real place called hell and so today if this is your day where you want to say yes to God Lord I'm I repent of my sin change my mind I would like to receive salvation by faith the Lord's you offering you grace would you pray with me right now saying Lord at this moment i i i don't want my heart to be hard towards you any longer and so lord because of your offer once again to me to be forgiven to have salvation in my life to be to be freed up from the animosity that that exists between me and you Lord I receive salvation and I I accept I accept what Jesus Christ has done on the cross is payment for my sin lord I cannot pay for these sins you paid you sent Jesus to do it and so I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and I receive salvation into my life and I Lord I ask you to forgive me for every moment I've rejected you and said no to you today would you take this cold callous heart heart and make it new make it new and lord I I want to walk with you I want to know what it's like to be a child of God if you just did that want you to get your kit connected card out fill it out take it to the help center if you can walk it over to me or one of our pastors over here at the end of the service we'd love to talk with you and help you take your next step in following Jesus now you don't have to be completely lost to have a hard heart and some of you in here today you're sitting there going man I'm so thankful that I receive salvation but yet at the same time there's a there's a place in your heart that's hardened towards God you say what do you mean well maybe one of the reasons you're having marital difficulties right now is because there's there's a there's a place in your heart that you've hidden away that's just hard you're holding on to it and it's what's really causing your marital issues today it's that hardness in your heart can I tell you something the gospel can heal that hardened space in your heart for some of you it may be you you you you know you watch the news and you look at people groups on TV and maybe there's just a place in your heart that you're holding on to that racism lives bigotry lives hatred lives bitterness lives and you anytime someone puts something out there something happens it just you just feel it Jesus died for that he wants to cleanse you of that he wants to forgive you of that but you have to bring that to him and repent of that bring that hardness to him let him deal with that today maybe you have some things in your past that you're just holding on to and it's it's just you've faced some consequences and some struggles and as a result of that your hearts been hardened God the gospel can can heal that as well Jesus the blood of Jesus has the ability to take to take that in to soften it and just make all of that new listen I'm asking you today to do a hard exam right now to humble yourself before the Lord to drop your pride every one of us and to say Lord here's my heart I open do some open-heart surgery I open it up to you today and I invite you to go into even the smallest of places and if there is even a just a remnant a speck of of hardness towards you Lord would you deal with that today and may I have the courage and the humility to confess those thing to you as you bring those to my mind Oh Lord would you help us today would you help us today to open up our hearts to you Lord because you say it a broken contrite spirit heart you will not deny and father I want our church to be healthy I want us to to receive forgiveness I want us to be able to to receive all that you have for us today I want us to be able to be used in powerful ways but Lord we got to bring a hardness before you the heart of the hard places in our heart that causes from keeping us from experiencing everything that you want for us in our relationships in our lives in our walk with you do a work today do a work father please do a work in this pastor's heart doing work and there are people's heart in Jesus name now I'm gonna do something that we don't do very often here okay I know every time we start a song everybody stands and visitors and guests are going what just happened right I want to ask you to remain seated and I want you I want to ask you just to listen to this song probably never heard it before and as we as you listen to it and listen to the words would you just open up your heart to God and would you just let God do some heart surgery right now on you okay so I'm gonna ask that we don't move around I'm gonna ask that you don't stand okay I don't want to restrict your worship and I'm just I want everyone around just to have a private moment before God heart open totally open to him humility in front of us and say God would you work right now let's let him work in this place if you want to get up from your seat and come to the steps that you can do that move today in a powerful way Lord in Jesus name amen

Channel: West Ridge Church

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Id: 5tso94nDUmQ

Length: 46min 53sec (2813 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 01 2018