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Do not harden your heart. In the Bible we learn
that Pharaoh hardened his heart. Pharaoh said, in effect, "I have my
idols, I have my Egyptian g-ds, I don't need your Hebrew g-d." Then
ominously we are told something very frightening: that G-d hardened
Pharaoh's heart. You say, "What does that have to do with me?" Read the
book of Romans. There we find that some who claim to be Jews harden
their hearts against the Good News. Then ominously we learn that G-d
hardens whom He wills and has mercy on whom He wills. Now think about
this. Here is the great Pharaoh of Egypt and here are the pitiful, weak,
poor Jewish people in slavery under this great Egyptian king. But Pharaoh
hardens his heart against faith. So G-d hardens his heart. At the same
time, however, there are poor, weak Hebrew slaves who have faith. Then we
get to the book of Romans and we look at the nation of Israel in Rav
Shaul's day. If Pharaoh was rich materially, look how rich the Nation of
Israel is in spiritual resources. They have the Torah and the worship and
the Avot and the covenants and they are as rich as Pharaoh, when compared
to the ignorant non-Jews that lack possession of or knowledge of the Word
of G-d. Yet many of Children of Israel hardened their hearts against the
Good News that was being preached in the shuls at the time. And when they
hardened their own hearts in resisting faith, forestalling obedience, then G-d
hardened their unbelieving hearts. This happened while under their noses
non-Jews in great numbers came to saving faith. So G-d hardened whom He
willed and He had mercy even on these non-Jews. But keep reading. In
chapter 11, Rav Shaul warns the non-Jews in his ministry to beware.
Because the tables will turn. The day will come when Jewish people are
turning in faith and non-Jews are hardening their hearts. Because if G-d
cut off the natural branches, He can certainly cut the non-Jews off. So we
see the need to guard our hearts and pray every day, "Do not lead me into
tempation, but deliver me from evil and from my own iniquity. Yes, deliver
me from a hardened heart, lest I be hardened through the deceitfulness of
sin (MJ
3:13)."
There are Orthodox Jews who know in their hearts
that Yeshua is or may very well might be the Moshiach, but because of the
cost attached to believing such a thing, the rejection entailed and the
terrible price such faith would cost them as far as this world is
concerned, they continue to harden their hearts. Some rabbis are so
jealous as they see more and more messianic Jews among their congregations
that they are trying every kind of blasphemy and other extreme measures to
try to stem the tide. There is nothing new about this. See Yo 12:37-50). But take heed, for
when an individual hardens his heart he does the greatest injury to
himself, making it impossible to receive what the Holy Spirit would woo us
to receive, namely a softened heart, convicted and contrite, desireous to
receive Hashem's forgiveness of
sins through the Moshiach's kapparah. When you ridicule
the signs and wonders and
other evidentiary mercies of the L-rd, when you take a militantly hard
attitude of rejection and scoffing, when you look for loopholes to go your
own way, where is the way of escape (MJ 2:1-4)? When we attempt
to see how far we can go with G-d, when we put Him to the test, to see if
we can revile His Ruach Hakodesh and get away with it; when we see how far
we can go in doing what is wrong, in not listening to our conscience, in
deliberately flying in the face of what the Bible says, here is what
happens: every day we continue to grieve the Holy Spirit, and with each
passing day the hardening of our hearts sets in harder and harder, like
cement freshly spread out in a repaired sidewalk, getting harder and
harder with every hour that passes. The more we harden our hearts, the
more our hearts are hardened by the L-rd. We are then like Pharaoh,
scoffing at the signs
and wonders of that Jewish Pentecostal Moses. When we make fun of Pentecostals and mock the miracles, every day
the hardening continues. At this point, all of us should be convicted and
want very much to
pray, "L-rd, don't let me be guilty of such a thing. Don't let me
harden my heart. O, L-rd, keep my heart tender and soft and contrite and
moved to tears by the Holy Spirit as I hear preaching that convicts me of
my sins, that I would never harden my heart against the Spirit of Truth." Isn't it time
to come back to our spiritual
home?
