Another Practical Guide to the Logic, Philosophy, and Thoughts of Christianity

Section 1 - Article 2

Article 2 - Hardening of hearts

Sometimes, when we go through rough patches of life, we find

ourselves hardening our hearts. The angry old man who yells at everyone, or

the mad old crone who tormented her maid or pets are just some extreme

examples of the hardening of hearts. When we get so disappointed and angry

with the world around us, we begin to harden our heart against things in this

world. There are times when in order to deal with the difficulty of the

environment, our ego goes on an all-time high, and everything seems

worthless to the extent that chaos is desired - a variation of schadenfreude.

And in this terrible mindset, we must start to fear for our souls, as it is often

very difficult to wake up from such states by ourselves. What is scarier is

that we are sometimes aware of this hardening of heart, and are consciously

giving in to anger, hatred and chaos.

Occasionally, some may confront the Almighty through prayer,

blaming God for their circumstances, and some would play the passive

aggressive role with the Almighty. This is where the danger of "trodden

underfoot the Son of God" (Hebrews 10:29) and the condemnation of the

damned can happen, where one willfully and knowingly rejects and goes

against the Almighty. It starts from consciously giving in to anger, hatred,

despair, and suffering, and all the time, unaware that it is Ego that sits right

at the top of the source.

Surely, as time progresses, it will lead to the "unpardonable sin" (Matt

12:31) where knowingly, the unrepentant would consciously reject the salvation of the Holy Ghost through willfulness, and instead, credit the devil for the Holy Ghost's work. Falling into being willfully unrepentant, willingly ignoring the promptings of the Ghost, but giving in to hatred, anger, desire for chaos – the epitome of Pride, self-gratification, and self-esteem.

It will end with a journey and feeling so dark, yet hauntingly

enjoyable that it keeps many dwelling in it. Many have gone down this path

and not returned; for very few can help themselves out of this mire. Only the

Lord, in His grace, mercy and love, can one be pulled out once again.

On this, one must be able to see one's own role in one's own

destruction. The circumstances that lead to the hardening of the hearts vould

have been there, and Satan can be there to add salt to wound, but it is one's

own decision whether to harden one's own heart in a conscious manner.

Exodus 8:15 - But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his

heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

Exodus 8:32 - And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither

would he let the people go.

Yet why did God not pull Pharaoh out of the hardened heart as He

could easily do? For this we have Exodus 9:16 and Romans 9:17. It is the

Lord's prerogative for His own purposes and will. There are those that He

elected (Ephesians) for His work (and to be able to serve the Lord is our

honor and blessing). His elected is not elected solely to enter Heaven. That

would be a very very self-centered and self-focused reason for the election.

If we truly love Him, as many of us sing in church about, it is not about us,

but it is about Him. When we have matured in our relationship with the Lord (because we are elected in the first place), we need to acknowledge that it is

our privilege to die in the cruelest of deaths possible, so long it is for His

purpose. It will be difficult to do it, but we must come to know that He is all

that is worth doing anything for - infinitely more than doing anything for

ourselves.

There are probably some believers that are disturbed by the prospect

of the hardening of the heart by the Lord Almighty, and also with the

predestined election mentioned in Romans 8:28 and in Ephesians. Yet, we

must acknowledge that we do not know the whole picture, nor how and what

God thinks. We are finite, sinful, self-centered creatures that cannot possibly

hope to grasp and comprehend the boundless, the infinite, the Holy, the great

I AM. In our understanding, what we can possible begin to grasp, is that the

Almighty is not a computer, working in predictable ways, restricted by rules

and in a box. God is beyond creation, He created all of creation. He has His

wills and ways, and purposes. And as mentioned in Romans 9:20-21, we are

the clay, we know nothing, but can only simply align ourselves with the

Potter.

Here, we must acknowledge that as fallen creatures, we are fantastic

at blaming our circumstances or even God for our decisions, but very rarely

ourselves. In psychology, this is called the Fundamental Attribution Error

(FAE). Although there is no academic or even biblical answer to knowing

how much our circumstances play a role in our actual living and decision

making, we still cannot shirk from the responsibility of our bad responses.

There is really nothing stopping us from making god decisions over the bad

ones on a daily basis. Do not many decide for themselves what they read, eat and do? Is that not a choice? Do we not choose how we would want to react

to this sentence and passage or when something bad happens?

If we cannot surrender our whole being to God in difficult circumstances, then at least, acknowledge that our hardening of heart is our own, and we do have a part to play in our destruction, but only God Almighty can give us salvation.