Forgiveness and a Hardened Heart

Well, that song was a sermon in itself, wasn't it? Very good job, Ed. I forgot to welcome those who are listening to us on the web. And to those who are listening on the web, I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to hear that. So, it was a beautiful, beautiful song. Those on the web and those here in the audience, because of YouTube regulations, we cannot broadcast, if you will, the special music that we sing. So, we do have to mute that during that time. I hope the web visitors are back with us and didn't give up on us while they heard nothing for a few minutes there. Well, then I want to open with a story. I first heard of this, I think it was back in the early 1980s, and it was a play that was written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. His name is Michael Christopher. And it's inspired by a true story. And the story, when the play opened, it got very good reviews, but mixed reviews from the public because it was disturbing to a number of people. And it's an incident in life that occurs, and that occurred for this person, again, with him taking a little bit of literary license in it. But let me tell you what the story was. We all know the horrors of World War II. We know the atrocities that were wreaked on a lot of people during that time. And there were two men. There was a German, subject to the story, or a German general by the name of Herman Engel, and then a Frenchman by the name of Moreau.

And Engel was, of course, a general in the Nazi army, and as part of his job, he would march through the areas that he was assigned to do and simply obliterate villages. And you know the stories about the Nazis. They could be cruel. They could be heartless. They didn't leave anything in their wake, and they were often merciless in what they did. So when they marched into the French town where Moreau lived, he saw them murder his family and everyone in the village. He happened to be standing by, and they didn't see him, but he was standing there as he watched all of his family members be executed, as he watched them tear the town apart, and do things that he could just never get out of his mind. And he purposed that day that he would get vengeance on the man who was leading that army that did that to his family and did that to his village. And so he took a job in journalism so that he would be able to follow this man, Engel, and be able to tell what happened with him and where he was going so he could keep track of him the rest of his life. And the Nuremberg trials came, and Herman Engel was convicted, and he spent 30 years in prison for his crimes. Moreau kept track of him the whole time. As he was moved from prison to prison, he knew exactly where he was. He didn't think 30 years was enough. He thought the man should pay with his life for what he had done. So the day came 30 years later for Herman Engel to be released. And, of course, Moreau, as he was sitting in his newspaper office, saw that come across, and he was not at all pleased. This was the day he was dreading that the man who committed such atrocities would be able to walk free again. But he noted where he was, and he noted where or that he was going to be released, and he noted what the plan was. Somehow he was able to find out that Engel would not go back to Germany, but he would actually settle in a small village in France. And he would find a home somewhere remote, outside of the village in the country, where he could just live his life in peace with his wife the rest of his days. By this time, he was an older man. Older man may have had, I don't remember if he had any illnesses, but he was older, and he just wanted to live his life out in peace.

Well, that wasn't good enough for Moreau. He decided he was going to go to the village, and when he went there, he decided he was going to incite the people of that village. He kind of told them everything that Moreau did, in his own flavor. The hurt that he had rendered on people, the type of man he was, what he had done as he marched through his village in France and other places as well. And he was successful. He was successful in getting that people riled up. They hated him as much as he did, after he was there just a few days. And they devised a plot that what they would do was one evening go out to his home, set the home on fire, and as he and his wife fled, they would shoot them dead. That was the plan, and then that way Moreau would have his vengeance that last on, something that had happened 30 years ago. But it wasn't enough. Even though the plan was set, even though he had the group of people that were ready to do that, it just wasn't enough for him to just have the man killed. He wanted to look him face to face. He wanted to see who he was, what he was about, and he wanted to ask him some questions. So he went over to his house, posed as a neighbor to welcome him, sat down with him, spent the afternoon with him, and he asked some questions. And a surprising thing happened as he sat there. The man was direct in his responses. He acknowledged that he had done wrong. He was sorry for what he had done. He had gotten caught up in the moment, like so many people do, of the flair of Nazi Germany. But Moreau was taken a little back. He actually found himself liking the man. Yet he had put this plan in motion, and he knew there was no way. No way to undo it, because the people were all riled up, and there's no way he could go and call it off. But he wanted to. He wanted to save his life. And so, after he left, he came back a little bit later, and he talked to Mr. Engel, and he told him what he had done. How he had hurt, that he was the one who was there, and how he had felt about him murdering his family, and what had happened to his village.

And he told him about the plan that he had hashed. And that very evening, there would be people come out that would burn his house, and that would shoot him. And he told him, I'm going to offer you your life. Just come with me. Just come away with me. Let it happen. Just let it happen. Gather your things and come with me. Engel paused for a moment. Certainly the only thing that you would think you would do would be to say, thank you, pack his stuff, and he and his wife follow him right out of there. But he looked him in the eye, and he said he realized the hurt that he had done, and how much he had done, and he saw it reflected in this man's life. And he said, I'll come with you, but I'll come with you on only one condition. That you will forgive me. That you will forgive me for what I've done. It was Moreau's turn to stop and think, and he struggled with it. He wanted to save that man's life, but he could not bring himself to forgive him. And he told him that. I'll save you, but I can't. I just can't forgive you. For 30 years, 30 long years, he'd been planning this revenge. For 30 years, he'd been hating this man. For 30 years, he'd been waiting for this day. And he just couldn't forgive. Angle refused to go. Moreau left. That night, the villagers came. They burned down the house, and they shot Angle and his wife. The reviews on that play said that the audience gasped at the ending of it. In Europe, it had one reaction, but in America, people just couldn't come to grips with the fact that someone could just not forgive after all those years, and they would rather see someone die than just simply say the words, I forgive.

And so it was never a big success in America, because it was just too far away from what people's thinking were or was. There's lessons that we can learn all over that play, isn't there? We could spend the rest of the time just talking about the issues that are involved in that play.

They're extreme issues. They're at the outer edge of anything that any of us has ever experienced. But there's a lot that we can learn from the actions of Angle, the actions that we can learn from Moreau as well. This play had no happy ending. It was an unhappy ending from every single person's aspect. The play abruptly ends, never says what happens to Moreau. The audience is left wondering, what was the rest of his life like?

I think we can imagine what the rest of his life was like. Angle and his wife may have died that day, but Moreau died that day, too. He was never too able to achieve something that all of us, all of us, should be able to achieve in our lives. He was never able to forgive. They were never able to come to any kind of reconciliation. And the lack of all that on all parties' parts led to death. A horrible death, and one that you think about and you think about. I heard it and read the play some years ago, and it's always stuck with me. The emotions and what had to be going through people's minds at that time. Well, today I want to look at a few of the issues that are in here. By no means all of them. It would take many sermons to talk about all the issues in here. But if we were going to talk about two or three of them, one that we would certainly look at is the issue of forgiveness, isn't it?

Because at the heart of this play, we have someone who asks for forgiveness, but the other party can't give it.

And there's an unhappy ending as the result of it. Now, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on forgiveness because we've all heard a lot of sermons on forgiveness. You read the Bible like I do. You know the parables about forgiveness. You know the verses on forgiveness. And we'll look at a few of them.

But there's one thing that the lack of forgiveness, I want to have put in your mind, leads to.

Not forgiving leads to death. This play shows that clearly. If we fail to forgive, if we simply refuse to forgive, then we will end up becoming... The next thing I'm going to talk about... And eventually we're going to become bitter. Let's turn to Hebrews 12 and verse 15.

Hebrews 12 verse 15.

Now we'll begin in verse 14 where the sentence begins.

It says, Any root of bitterness. Bitterness begins with a very small seed. Someone offends you, someone says something to you, someone does you wrong. In this case, it was something really big that happened to him.

But it begins with something that you just can't get over. Something you don't want to let go of. Something that you hold dear to your heart. And you just kind of play with it. You roll it around in your mind. You go to sleep with it. You wake up with it. You devise plans. You devise ideas. You imagine the things that can happen. You had your way to repay what has been done to you. Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, cause trouble. And by this, many become defiled. Many become defiled.

The world has no shortage of bitterness. Even among people who love each other, how many husbands and wives will they divorce end up bitter?

I worked with people. We were friends with people.

One time you're having dinner with them and everything's fine. Six months later, they can't stand each other. And they hate each other. And you wonder what went on in there. What went on in there? But it's just kind of the way of the world. Kind of the way of the world. When God says, husbands don't be bitter against your wives, He knew. He knew what He was talking about.

But forgiveness can lead to bitterness. Bitterness leads to death as well.

Let's look at one key verse here on forgiveness.

It's really the only verse that we need on it.

Matthew 6 and verse 14.

The model prayer that Christ gave us is there in verses 10 through 13 of Matthew 6.

And in verse 14, He says, For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father.

Forgive your trespasses.

And if He doesn't forgive our trespasses, where does that leave us?

So really, all we need to know about forgiveness is if we want eternal life, if we believe God, if we're following Him, we must forgive. Because if we don't forgive, He won't forgive us. And if He doesn't forgive us, then we are all dead men.

Or, as some people say, dead men walking.

I'd rather go through some of the parables. Let me ask some questions. Because we're here in a time before Passover, and there's many things that we're looking at ourselves at. We're asking God to show us any false weaknesses.

How about forgiveness?

Now, forgiveness at one extreme is what Moro couldn't give to Angle. The bitterness had welled up so much that even though he liked the man, he just couldn't let go of the idea of watching him die.

But forgiveness doesn't have to be to that extreme to be deadly. Is there anyone in your life that you simply won't talk to?

That you would just as soon ignore, and that you would just as soon never address you? Someone that maybe did you wrong in the past, whether it's in work, whether it's in the neighborhood, whether it's in the church.

Someone that you just sort of ignore, forget about, wish they didn't exist.

And certainly, if you talk to them, it's only because you run into them face to face.

If there's anyone in your life like that, you might want to examine what your true feelings are. You might want to see where you are with that person. You might want God to shine His light, His Holy Spirit on that, and see if there's some forgiveness that needs to occur there.

Because He is clear to us as we approach the Holy Days, that if there is anything like that, or if any brother has anything against us, we need to leave our gift at the altar and go back and be reconciled to our brother.

Forgiveness can be the first step to reconciliation.

Is there anyone like that?

Let's turn to Matthew 18, verse 15.

Because there will be—we're all human, we're still—none of us are perfect. We're going to say things from time to time, so we may do things from time to time.

Hopefully, at a later time, we realize the errors we've made, and we go back and ask to be forgiven.

But if that's your case, and if someone has sinned against you, God tells us, don't just sit on it, don't just stew on it, don't devise plans, don't just sit there and spend the next month thinking, I wish I had said that when they said that. And we've all done that, haven't we? I wish I had just said that when they said that to me. Matthew 18, 15, Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

Talk to him. Go and talk. Talking can break down barriers. That's what Moreau found to that. If he had just talked to him somewhere in the course of those 30 years, maybe a bad ending to that story would have turned out differently. But if we just cross each other off, if we just don't talk to each other, it's never going to get better. We've got to talk to each other. And if there's someone that you don't talk to, you may want to consider before Passover talking to them, going up and letting them know the issue. You may find, well, as it says here in the verse, that you'll be reconciled, that it'll be a good ending. But if you don't talk, that good ending's not going to occur. It's just one book back from New Testament to Old Testament in Malachi. We read this verse probably, well, if not last week, the week before. I think it was last week. Malachi 3, verse 16.

Those who feared the Eternal, those who revered Him, honored Him, were following Him, believed Him. Those who feared the Eternal spoke to one another, and God listened and heard them. They spoke to one another.

Is there anything that someone has done to you that you think is just borderline unforgivable?

You know, I've heard some stories, lived through some stories, not in the church, where people just simply won't talk. And whatever it is, and in some cases people don't even know what it is, they simply will not talk. Whatever it was, this unnameable thing, is not something I ever plan to forgive.

Is there anything that someone's done to you that's so bad that you just think, you know what, I just couldn't get over it? I can't forgive it, let alone forget it.

Well, if there is anything like that in any of our lives, there's one verse in the Bible that we should refer to. And remember, Luke 23, verse 34. As Christ, who did no wrong in his life, Christ who loved every man he came across, he did all the acts of the kingdom.

He healed, he preached, he loved, he was compassionate, he was merciful, he gathered, he was ready to give his life. And as he hung there on the stake, was his life about to ebb from him after he had suffered so much pain in the hours preceding that? He said this from there. He said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they do. If something has been done to you, more than was done to Christ, then I ask that you email me, talk to me, I want to know what it is.

And then I want you to answer for me, whatever it is that's keeping you from being united or at one with anyone, why it is that what has happened to you is worse than Christ suffered, and why it is that if he could forgive, you or I can't. Nothing. Nothing that we've experienced even compares to that. Some might say, you know, I've forgiven, I've forgiven, and I've forgiven, and I've forgiven, and I've forgiven. And I just can't forgive anymore. I'm just tired of having the same thing done to me over and over and over again.

Every time I let the person back in, they do something else that's offensive, that hurts, or whatever it is. The question is, how many times do I have to forgive? I'm just giving up. Well, that same question was asked of Christ, Matthew 18, verse 21. His disciples must have had someone in mind, or maybe they were part of a relationship, or somewhere along the line, someone just kept sinning against them or offending them or doing the same thing over and over and over.

Verse 21, Peter came to Him and said, Lord, how often shall my brothers sin against me, and I forgive Him? Seven times? Do I have to forgive Him seven times? And Christ said, I don't say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. As often as it takes, your job is to forgive. Your job is to give that person the benefit of the doubt. Your job is to do the same thing to them that God has done to us.

How many times has He forgiven us? If I go back in my life and I see the mistakes and the sins that I've done, all I can say is, thank you, God, for forgiving me and for being patient, because time after time after time after time after time. And I'm sure there's somebody who's looking at it thinking, when are you going to get that one through your thick head?

That's not the way to do that or whatever it is. And when it finally dawns on you, that's wrong. You throw it out of your life. God has forgiven us more than we can ever imagine. So who are we to ever say, I've forgiven enough. I'm not going to forgive anymore. Now, would you want God to say that about you? I've forgiven enough. I'm not going to forgive you anymore. Is there anyone in your life you've just written off? You've just written off and you really don't care what happens to them?

I'm not talking about someone in the church. It can be someone outside the church. It can be someone from childhood. It can be someone who really has done you wrong. Is there someone you've just written off? 2 Peter 3 and verse 9. Breaking into Peter's thought here, he says, The Lord isn't slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but He is long suffering toward us.

He suffers long with us. He's patient with us. Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Not willing that any should perish. Even the people that might shake their fists at Him today, even the people that say there is no God, and He's an antiquated God, and He's a cruel God, and who wants to pay attention to Him, or the very many worst things that people have done or said, He's not willing that any should perish.

If God's not willing that any should perish, if He wants all the people to be in His Kingdom, who are we to write anyone off? Who are we to say, I don't really care what happens to that person? Something to think about. When we can't forgive, or if we determine our hearts that we can't forgive, it can be an indication of spiritual pride, or just pride.

If we can make a decision, and if we can make a judgment on someone and say they're not worthy of forgiveness, we'd better look closely. Spiritual pride has a lot of symptoms, and it comes in a lot of forms. One of them can be the inability to reconcile with people or the inability to even desire to reconcile with someone. Because in essence, what we're doing is esteeming ourselves better than them, and that we really have no need for them. You might say, I'm willing to forgive.

In the story, Engel was willing to forgive. He recognized what he had done. He was willing to forgive, but it was Moreau who said, I can't. I can't forgive you. What do we do in that case? It takes two to forgive, right? The other person's unwillingness to forgive is no excuse for us. We always have to have the attitude of forgiveness. No matter what has been said, no matter what has been wrong, no matter if they will never talk to us again, if they were to come and ask for forgiveness, we've got to be ready to give it.

So God, who knows our hearts, who knows our minds, He knows what attitude is there. He's looking for an attitude of forgiveness, the same attitude that He has for us, because Christ died for everyone. You and I both know not everyone has come to Christ and asked Him to forgive their sins.

But He's willing to forgive everyone who does. We have to be the same way. Before I leave forgiveness and move into another topic, you know sometimes we have to forgive ourselves as well. Sometimes we make really big mistakes in our lives. And sometimes we can carry those around and we can feel guilty and we can feel awful, and it can hinder us, it can weigh us down.

God didn't want us to be weighed down with our past. He didn't want us to go around the rest of our lives because we ate some huge mistake and say, you know, I'm not worthy and have it hold us back from everything He wants us to be. Jesus Christ came and He died for our sins. He died that we might be forgiven. When we accept His sacrifice, when we ask Him for forgiveness, He sets us free. Free from those sins. In those baptismal waters when we're baptized, those sins are washed away.

God says it's as if they didn't ever happen. He forgets them. We can't forget them. There may be people we've affected that can't forget them. God forgets them. There are some people in the Bible who did some major, major league things wrong in their lives. David, murder and adultery.

I doubt if any of us in here can say that that's on our list. He could have spent the rest of his life saying, I can't be forgiven. I can't be forgiven. But He gave it to God. God used Him and He went forward from there and He gave God His heart, His mind, His soul. And God said, He's a man after my own heart. Peter. Peter, when you look at what Peter did, I mean, there he was with Christ on the night that he was going to be arrested.

And he was pounding his chest, saying, I'm never going to leave you. I'll never leave you. And yet Christ looked at him and said, before the rooster crows three times, you'll deny me three times. And Peter did just that. And when he realized what he did, he felt awful about it. Just like you and I would feel awful about it. He could have spent the rest of his life saying, I can't forgive myself. How could I have done that? I told him, I know who he is.

I know he's the Son of God. And yet I denied him three times. But he didn't let it weigh him down. He accepted the forgiveness God gave and God was able to use him the rest of his life to do a mighty work. Paul did some horrible things to Christians. He rounded him up. He persecuted him. He was glad to see them dead. He wrote them off. And yet when Christ called him, when he stopped him on that road to Damascus, and he asked for forgiveness, God forgave him.

All those men remembered who they were. They remembered what they were like. And you and I remember who we are without God's Holy Spirit. We remember who we were before we were baptized. We know probably a pretty good idea of who we would be if God hadn't called us. But they used that to motivate themselves because they knew without God's Spirit, without him leading them, they were nothing. So don't ever not forgive yourself. Believe that when God says he forgives you, he does. And don't let it hold you down. Don't let it be a millstone around your neck. But let his Holy Spirit live in you. So forgiveness. We've heard sermons on forgiveness. We talk about it. The Bible talks about it. Do we really hear what God has to say, though? Do we really hear it? Or is it one of those topics that we've heard so many times that we just think, okay, that's great. We need to have a sermon on that every once in a while. So go ahead and run through the verses and tell me about it. And let's get on to something else more interesting. Let's go back to Matthew 13, verse 15. Matthew 13, verse 15. Christ, speaking to his disciples, then speaking to his disciples, us, as we read his words today, he says in verse 13, quoting from Isaiah 6, breaking into the middle of verse 13. I guess it's in the middle of verse 14. It says, Hearing you will understand, and hearing you will hear, and shall not understand, and seeing you will see, and not perceive. For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing. Their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they could understand with their hearts and turn, that I could heal them. God wants to heal them. He tells them the words that they need to listen to, but what he's saying is, I'm talking, but they're kind of just not listening. They're not getting it. Over the course of time, their hearing has become dull. They know what to say, but when words are said, they just go right past them.

Now, every once in a while, less and less, I hope, Debbie will tell me, you're not listening to me. And most of the time she says that she's right. Because she usually asks me to say what she just said, and I try. And a lot of times it's the same thing, you know, it's like something. I mean, nothing major, you've all been through that. But you know, our ears can grow dull of hearing. When we hear of a topic over and over again, we can kind of just begin to discount it, can't we? And it's one thing when we do it at home, and it's not good when we do that. And wives, you have everyone's permission to remind your husband. Knock on their heads and say, listen. And husband's the same thing if your wife's not listening to something you say over and over.

But boy, we need to have our ears open when God talks. We need to hear what He has to say when He gives us some of the spiritual principles because our life depends on what we do. God's not looking for someone who's just willing to follow Him 75% of the way. He's looking for someone who's going to dedicate their life to Him.

And none of us are perfect. None of us are where God wants us to be. But year by year, decade by decade, we should be getting a little bit closer if we're listening and if we're hearing.

Dullness of hearing can be something that is deadly.

Engel knew he had hurt Moreau. Moreau couldn't forgive, even though he liked the guy. Why couldn't he forgive?

Something had happened to him. Something that's akin to dull of hearing where we just kind of shut it off and it doesn't sink in.

He had done something what the Bible would call, he had hardened his heart. He had hardened his heart against Engel.

It had become such an issue with him that over the years, those 30 years, he hated and he hated and he hated and he hated. And even when all the evidence was right in front of him that he was wrong in what he had done, he had hardened his heart and he could not go back.

He hardened his heart. Now, medically speaking, you've all heard of hardening of the arteries, right? What happens when our arteries harden?

The plaque, the cholesterol, whatever it is, builds up in our arteries and as it continues to clog, pretty soon the blood stops, well not pretty soon, over a period of time the blood stops flowing.

When the blood stops flowing, the heart stops, life ends. Hardening of the arteries, if not checked, if not a change in diet, a change in lifestyle leads to death.

And if we keep on doing the same thing, we've always been done if the doctor tells us your arteries are hardening or the term today, I guess, is atherosclerosis.

If you've got that, you need to change your lifestyle. Something needs to change. Now, all too often they just want to prescribe a pill, but a lifestyle change will do as well.

Hardening of the heart is the same way. If we just keep clogging our mind with, I won't forgive, I won't listen, I'm just counting that, that doesn't apply to me, I hate that person, he doesn't deserve to be forgiven, I don't want to do that.

What we're doing is hardening our heart. And if we continue to harden our heart, if we don't hear, if we don't change, if we don't recognize the signs of it, there's an inevitable result. And that's death.

Hardening of the heart leads to spiritual death. In the case of Engel and Moreau, both of them died that day. One physically, the other one likely was never able to enjoy life or appreciate it again.

Now, when you think of hardening of the heart, you probably think of Pharaoh, right? One of the places that we read about hardening of the heart is with Pharaoh in Egypt. And God talks about Pharaoh and he says, let's turn back, let's turn back to Exodus 8.

Exodus 8. By this time, seven or eight plays have gone by. God sent Moses to Pharaoh and said, let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.

Every time Pharaoh was willing to let them go, but then he changed his mind. Kind of like he hardened his heart every time. Okay, I'm going to resist what Moses' God has to say to me.

Chapter 8, verse 15.

When Pharaoh saw that there was relief from this latest plague, he hardened his heart and didn't heed what God had to say.

And that's exactly what God said would happen. Later on, in future chapters here, it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. The only God who hardened Pharaoh's heart? Pharaoh hardened his heart. He's the one who refused his mind. He's the one who refused to listen. God just knew what the pattern was, and the Pharaoh was going to continue to not pay attention to him until the ultimate resulted there in Egypt.

He resulted in the end of the Egyptian Empire and the Pharaoh. The heart of Pharaoh is God. He simply wouldn't listen. He wouldn't take any kind of admonition. And Pharaoh was a very prideful man, because he thought, I'm the coolest guy in the world who can stand up against me. And he learned there is someone more powerful than him. Over in Hebrews 3, there's an admonition to God's people. Israel, as they wandered through the desert, as God worked the miracles for them, as they heard him speak, as they saw him perform the wonders that he did, they continually hardened their heart. They would just discount what he had done. When the neighboring tribe came along and they were worshipping their God in some way, they were just all too willing to forget what God had said and just follow them. And over time, that people became very dull of hearing. They just didn't listen anymore to what God had said. They didn't see themselves as God saw themselves. Hebrews 3 and verse 7. Speaking to us, and this is also quoting from the Old Testament, Those are some harsh words. Don't harden your hearts, God says. Don't harden your hearts. None of us want to do that. We all want to enter into what God has prepared. We all want to enter into his kingdom. It's such an important concept that down in verse 15, it's repeated again. Today, if you will hear his voice, don't harden your hearts, as in the rebellion. Pay attention. Engel and Moreau were an extreme example, Moreauas, of a cardening your hearts. Pharaoh is an extreme example of hardening hearts, his heart. I hope. Well, you know what? If any of us had gone to where Pharaoh had gone, we wouldn't be sitting here today. But you know, we can harden our hearts in a lesser degree, and it has the same result. We can be in the process of hardening our hearts and not even knowing it. And then one day, the blood just stops flowing. One day, there's no more life left. Somewhere over the course of time, people who used to sit here with us, hardened their hearts against the teachings, hardened their hearts against any admonitions that they had, hardened their hearts against the Bible. And not the first day, but later on, you just don't see them anymore. It's just not important to them anymore.

There's something better out there than what God has to offer is what they come to think. The kiss of death, the hardening of the heart, how can it happen?

Well, one way can happen, we learn back here in Proverbs 29. And there's many. If you go home and you think about these things, you can think about how the heart could be hardened, how we become dull.

So, we might have someone tell us, you know, what you're doing isn't the correct way to do that. Or maybe there's a better way to do that. And none of us like criticism. None of us like to be reproved. If we're really reading the Bible, we know that we get reproved many times. If we're really listening to what the words have to say, because all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and just profitable for reprove among the other things that are listed there.

And we could be told something, and we can think, you know what, I just don't agree with that. I don't think I did that. I don't think that people take it that way. I don't need to change.

And that can be a difficult thing to do. You know, there's one thing I've observed over the years, both outside the church and inside the church.

When I've had to mention to an employee that something just wasn't up to par, and something needs to improve, I always prayed about those, that people would take it the right way and realize it's because we want them to become the best employee they can become. In the church, if there's ever reprove, it's not because someone wants to hurt you, it's because we want everyone here to be in the kingdom. When God reproves us, it's not because he's mad at us or just likes to see us spin our head around a few times. He wants us to become perfect.

So when I've had to do that, in the church and out of the church, I always kind of wait and see what the reaction is. Now, more times than not, outside the church, people would get angry. They would be very defensive. They would say it makes no difference how it gets there or where you get it, as long as the end result is the same. And sometimes they would take it very well and just say, sorry, won't happen again. Those were always very pleasant times when someone would say, sorry, it just won't happen again.

In the church when it's happening, when someone readily sees it, even though they might not agree with it and accept it, or they accept it, and they just start doing what you ask them to do, I know the Holy Spirit does it work.

I know the Holy Spirit does it work. And most of the times I'm happy to say, I see the Holy Spirit at work. And it hasn't happened to life.

But sometimes, you know, the response will be okay, but then the same behavior occurs over and over and over again.

Can you step back and you think, well, has the hearing become dull? Has it been said a few times and so now it's just we're not going to pay attention to it?

Because, you know, if God keeps telling us something, if He keeps showing us something that's not right with us, something that needs to change, or if we hear something in the sermon, read it in a magazine, read it in the Bible. And we always think, that's not us, that's not us, that's not us, that's not me. We become dull of hearing and we discount it.

And somewhere along the line, we hear our conscience and think, that doesn't apply to me.

That can become a hardening of the heart. You know, it happened to the disciples. Let's go back to Matthew 16. Matthew 16, verse 20.

Christ is speaking with His disciples. He is saying some things to them that aren't pleasant, but He was telling them what was going to befall Him at the end of His physical life. And here in chapter 16, where He talks about beginning the church, in the same chapter that Peter says, when Christ asks, Who are you? The same chapter that Peter says, You are the Son of God. And Christ says, Blessed be you, Simon Bar-Jonah. For it is a man that's revealed this to you but God.

And later on in that chapter, verse 20, Christ commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ. And from that time He began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised the third day.

Nothing that anyone wants to hear, they love this man. They didn't want to hear that he was going to be killed and raised the third day.

And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this will not happen to you. That's not going to happen to you. Now we know Peter's sentiment here. He didn't want to see that happen.

Look what Christ said. Christ turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan. You are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.

How do you think Peter took that? Those are some pretty hard words. Get behind me, Satan.

What you're saying is an offense to me. Be mindful of the things of God, not the things of men.

That could have been a turning point for Peter. He could have thought, What? All I'm trying to do is defend you. I don't want you to die. I don't want you to go through this. He could have had a retort back, like many of us might have had.

But Peter didn't let it deter him. He knew from that time forward that Christ, what was going to happen to him, was going to happen to him. It would be God's will that would happen. He would become what God wanted him to be. Not his idea of what it was to be a disciple, but what God's idea of what it was to be a disciple. The same thing you and I have to learn. Doing things the way God wants it done. Not holding onto our own ideas and thinking, That doesn't apply to me. It applies to everyone else. You know the same thing happened to Peter in John 13. We'll read that on Pass overnight when the foot washing. When Jesus began to wash the feet of the disciples. And Peter said, You're not going to wash my feet.

Christ said, If I don't wash your feet, you have no part with me. Peter didn't hesitate to say, Fine, wash all of me. He learned. He listened. And he recognized when Christ said something to him, when the Bible says something to us, we change. We don't just check it off, ignore it, get on with life and think, It's not that important.

This is the way I've always done it. This is who I am. If we do that, our hearts are hardening. You know I was told long ago, I think this was early on, the best way to know about yourself is to listen to what other people say about you or to you.

And if you hear something about you a couple times, even though you might think it's not a problem and it's not anything that you need to worry about, you know, you better take it to heart. Because good managers, good bosses, good Christians listen what's said to them. They just don't think, I don't care what your opinion is. We do care what God's opinion is. We do care about the attitude that we have. We don't want to become dull of hearing. We want to listen to what God has to say. We want to become who He wants us to become. In His shape, in His image, His mind with His heart. What do you say? I sit here in church every week. I hear every word that has to say. I go home and I talk about the sermon. I go home and talk about the sermonette. I read every article and I talk with my family about that. Therefore, I must be doing everything okay, right? Because I can repeat it. It's good what I hear. You heard it in the sermonette. It's not the hearers of the world, word. It's not the ones who can just talk about it. It's the doers. It's the change that God's word has in you. Because if it doesn't change you, if you don't feel compelled to change, if you don't feel compelled to forgive, or whatever else, the thing is. And if you just think, well, then apply to me. I don't need to do that. That's just their opinion or His opinion. We better look. We better be looking at how God looks at us through His eyes. Let's look at Nehemiah 9. Here in this chapter, Nehemiah is recounting everything that has happened to Israel in their history. In verse 13, he tells their history. And the history that they have is very similar to ours. When we look at it, when we compare our lives and what God has done with us and how He's brought us out and He's working with us to what He wanted to do with them. Nehemiah 9, verse 13, "...you came down also..." He says on Mount Sinai, speaking of God, "...you came down also on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them just ordinances and true laws. Everything you told them to do was for their benefit. If they would just have followed it, life would have been very good for them. Good statutes and commandments, you made known to them your holy Sabbath, and commanded them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses your servant.

You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, and brought them water out of the rock for their thirst, and told them to go in to possess the land which you had sworn to give them.

Everything good, all the promises, just like the promises God has given you and me.

But they and our fathers acted proudly. They didn't want to do it that way. They hardened their necks.

They didn't heed your commandments. They refused to obey. And they were not mindful of your wonders that you did among them.

But they hardened their necks. And in their rebellion, they appointed a leader to return to their bondage.

That's what they did. They just discounted everything that God asked them to do.

He told them what would happen, but they hardened their hearts. They hardened their necks.

And they just wanted to do things the way they wanted to do them.

Over in Ezekiel, we find a similar set of verses.

Speaking of Ezekiel and Israel of that day, some of them at least were going to church, hearing God's word.

Over in Ezekiel 33.

And verse 30. Ezekiel 33 verse 30.

As for you, God says, Son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses. And they speak to one another. Everyone is saying to his brother, Come here. Come and hear what the word is that comes from the eternal. So they come to you as people do. They sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they don't do them.

Or with their mouth, they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. They listen. The words are good, God says, but they don't let them sink in. They don't let them affect the change that God is looking for.

Indeed, verse 32, You are to them is a very lovely song, the one who has a pleasant voice and complains well on an instrument. They hear your words, but they don't do them.

They're kind of falling on deaf ears. They hear it, it might strike a chord, but then life takes over. And we promptly forget what we read in the Bible, what we hear someone say to us.

And we just decide to do things our own way.

I sure hope all of us want to be in the Kingdom. I believe all of us want to be in the Kingdom. I believe that all of us pray for each other to be in the Kingdom.

And God puts us in a body so that we can encourage each other, and so that we can learn from one another, and we can develop as He develops us, and develops the traits that we have, and we learn how to work as a unit, one unit under Him, because that's what He's looking to see. And if we're really serious about His calling, then we wouldn't just have to be told, or just have words go right over our heads and act like they don't apply to us.

Well, there are so many different places I can go with this.

You know, the choice is ours. God doesn't make us forgive anyone. God doesn't make us unharden our hearts. God doesn't make us do what He tells us to do. The choice is ours.

And we can look at our lives, and we can really look at them through God's eyes and ask, Is there anything I'm overlooking? Is there anything, God, that I may be hearing time and time again from you in prayer, from reading the Bible, from other people, wives, children, friends?

Am I just ignoring it and acting like it doesn't apply? We might want to look at that, and we might want to start doing what God says. We might want to start asking Him to wipe away the pride that would make us think that that's okay, that God's okay with us just being like we are, and not yielding all of ourselves to Him.

Aroan-angled, we're never able to get there. They never reconciled. It was an empty and an awful end to the story, but one that happens all the time.

Jesus Christ died so that your sins and my sins could be forgiven.

But He also died that we might be reconciled to God.

Colossians 1.

Colossians 1, verse 19.

The words were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight. If indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you heard, which was preached to every preacher under heaven, of which I, Paul writing, became a minister.

Reconciled to God. Forgiven and reconciled.

And what He expects and what He did for us, He expects us to be reconciled to each other, too. Matthew 5.23 says, if there's anything between you and your brother, go back and talk to Him. Be reconciled to Him.

So as we approach Passover, or any time in our lives, remember the words of Hebrews 3.7. Today, if you hear His voice, truly hear His voice. Don't harden your hearts.