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What the Bible says about Hardness of Hearts
(From Forerunner Commentary)

1 Samuel 8:5

In ancient Israel's saga of rebellion against her Creator, one incident stands out due to its brazenness. When an aged Samuel appoints his greedy and unrighteous sons as judges in his place (I Samuel 8:1-3), the elders of Israel demand that he instead install a king "to rule over [Israel] like all the other nations" (I Samuel 8:5, Amplified Bible; emphasis ours throughout). Grieved by this request, Samuel takes the matter to God, who tells him that the real issue is that the people had rejected God from being King over them (verse 7). In reality, they were demonstrating their lack of trust in God. Though not saying it in so many words, this nation whom God had perfectly redeemed from Egypt found their Sovereign to be untrustworthy.

Samuel gives the assembled people a prophetic glimpse of life under a human king (verses 10-18). Yet, even after this inspired warning, the people maintain that they want "a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles" (verses 19-20). Even though it is not the ideal, and it is not what God would have chosen for them, He gives them what they ask—a government like the nations around them had. Sometimes God's most effective judgment is to give His people what they want and let them suffer for it.

God knew that Israel would someday be influenced by surrounding nations and desire a similar form of government. Knowing His people's hardness of heart, He gives instructions regarding that scenario, such as that He would choose the king, that the king would not be foreign-born, etc. However, His true intention was for Israel to be "a kingdom of priests and a holy [set apart] nation" (Exodus 19:6). Earlier, they had been "a people dwelling alone, not reckoning itself among the nations" (Numbers 23:9). God reminds them: "I am the LORD your God, who has separated you from the peoples" (Leviticus 20:24). The Israelites' great distinction was that they were not like the other nations—and God desired that they remain that way.

The problem was not the king per se, for long before, God had promised that kings would come from Abraham (Genesis 17:6) and that Judah would be the royal tribe from which the King of Kings would come (Genesis 49:8-10). The problem was Israel's desire to be like the nations, as it showed that they did not trust the system God had established or did not trust God to change it if it needed to be changed. God was supposed to be their King (Exodus 15:18; Judges 8:23; I Samuel 12:12).

But during the tumultuous time of the Judges, Israel deteriorated spiritually first, then politically. They did not recognize their spiritual King, and not having a physical one, everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25). During this time, Israel was in constant danger of invasion. God frequently chastened them by allowing a foreigner to rule over them, letting the people experience the contrast between His goodness and the oppression of the profane. Israel's response to this was to seek a physical king to lead them against their enemies. This they did rather than seek the spiritual King who could give them victory but also required their submission. The elders rightly discerned the wretched spiritual condition of Samuel's sons but missed the fact that the leaders God appointed were simply representative of the unrighteous people they governed. Their solution was to borrow a page from the world around them and have a king, while God's solution was for His people to turn back to Him.

Man gravitates toward a system of human checks and balances that allows him to retain a measure of control. He replaces God's instructions with a constitution, which becomes the law of the land. He sets time limits on how long a person can hold authority and develops intricate procedures for choosing a leader. In contrast, those who trust in God rely on His governance without feeling the need to serve in an advisory capacity. They have confidence in His sovereign ability to elevate those chosen at the right time or to remove them at the right time, if necessary. They also have faith that, even when He promotes an unrighteous leader as a means of judging His people, the outcome will still be positive if it causes them to turn back to Him.

For as long as there has been a "world" to eschew, there has also been the great temptation of God's people to imitate it. Yet each time they have given in, it has borne bitter fruit. On the wilderness journey, the Israelites continually compared their circumstances to the world they knew in Egypt. After settling in the land, they compared their situation to the pagan world around them. What they did not do was compare themselves against God's desire for them.

When God's people imitate the priorities, values, and methods of the world, they begin to lose their distinctiveness and holiness. They lose that divine setting-apart that is part of God's grace. They may gain some acceptance from the world, but the terrible cost is an uneasy or damaged relationship with the Creator that results from rejecting His rule over them.

David C. Grabbe
A Government Like the Nations

1 Samuel 8:7-8

This circumstance highlights Israel's insatiable curiosity for variety that continuously revealed their badly divided mind toward God, leading them astray. They did not want a king in Israel like God wanted. God indeed would give them a king; the book of Deuteronomy lays out rules regarding that (see Deuteronomy 17:14-20). God had nothing against the nation having a king, but He wanted that king to be a man who was subject to Him. This was the only real stipulation.

But they did not want a king like God wanted; they wanted a kind of king like other nations had. This is why God says that they had rejected Him. In rejecting the kind of king God wanted them to have, they were also rejecting God. This fits into the pattern they had followed from the beginning of their relationship with God, which is why He mentions what He does in verse 8.

God provided mankind with this natural curiosity. However, by nature, it is undisciplined, so it needs to be wisely managed. It is here that the underlying problem between God and man lies: We have a powerful tendency not to believe Him, and thus we will not willingly listen to His counsel, creating division. This strong need for variety, mixed with prideful stubbornness, keeps telling us that we know better than He does. Therefore, humanly we are often driven to ignore Him and His wise principles.

Despite our age, we are frequently like children—particularly like teenagers. Those in their teen years begin to think that they know more than their parents, and rebellion and hardness of heart begin to come to the fore. They start believing that their parents are awfully dumb, or not really with it, not aware of what is going on. It is almost as if they think parents have no brains.

In I Samuel 8, Israel believes that the solution to their national and personal problems is to have a despotic king like the other nations, a monarch who would rule with iron-fisted control. They apparently never stop to think that the real problem resides in each one of them, because they have divided themselves from Him. As the beginning of the chapter relates, Samuel's sons had separated themselves from Samuel, and the Israelites are just like Samuel's sons, having separated themselves from Samuel and from God.

All of us have divided minds to some degree. Some have quipped that this is why all of us are insane to some measure. By way of contrast, God's mind is totally undivided. This points out why Paul writes in II Timothy 1:7: "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." We need to be less like these Israelites and more like God.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Knowing God

Jeremiah 32:35

Over the course of just a few decades, this nation has allowed tens of millions of little lives to be snuffed out. Will it ever end?

There are indicators that momentum is gaining against abortion. Recently, even the Washington Post—not exactly the embodiment of pro-life discourse—admitted as much in its coverage of the annual March for Life in Washington, DC. "Protestors See Mood Shift Against 'Roe'," the headline said. While the newspaper still couched its reporting in slanted language, the essence was plain enough: The next generation is more pro-life than the preceding ones, and is quite willing to make itself heard.

Ryan McAlpin, a nineteen-year-old from Chicago who participated with his friends, declared, "This is the beginning of the end. We'll look back at some point soon and won't believe that people were ever killing babies like it was nothing." Joe Giganti, a spokesman for the National Pro-Life Action Center, commented, "I'd say the mood has changed significantly just in the past year. We're going to see the overturning of Roe." A Family Research Council vice president, Charmaine Yoest, told a morning gathering, "Consensus is building that we are moving into a post-Roe future, and we need to be ready."

Of course, the streets of Washington were not exclusively filled with the defenders of the unborn. The usual counter-demonstrators were ready with their famous mantra: "Keep your hands off my body!" This slogan would be most effective when used before conception is even a possibility. In fact, a great many scourges of modern life would be eradicated if boys and girls—and men and women—would keep their respective hands off the bodies of any and all members of the opposite sex to whom they are not married. It would certainly preclude having a masked-murderer in a lab coat put his hands on the body of a pregnant woman. Yes, it is a fine thing to chant, but the timing makes all the difference between a moribund motto and a strategy that will actually improve life for this generation and the next.

Ever so slowly, it is dawning on the collective consciousness that perhaps it is time to rethink this newfound "right." The law of unintended consequences is beginning to exact its fee, and the resulting charge is often not in line with what abortionists are willing to pay. For example, abortion in developing nations such as India and China has taken a decidedly unequal tack. Sex-selective abortions are becoming the choice that really rankles the pro-choice crowd. Much to the dismay of feminists, when given the choice these societies are predominately aborting females.

On the other hand, one of the achievements the abortion crusade is sure to take pride in is the "affirmative action" aspect. That is, minority women are vastly overrepresented in abortion clinics, so much so that it makes one seriously consider whether abortion may actually be a tool of racism and genocide being disguised as a "right."

In this nation, the abortion movement is declining because of what has been named the "Roe Effect." This proposes that since children tend to absorb the values, political views, and lifestyle of their parents, abortionists are actually damaging their cause through its very practice. They are destroying the individuals in the next generation who would be most likely to support abortion.

It does appear that the tide is turning in this country, but the battle is far from won. Even if Roe were to be overturned tomorrow, and each of the states found enough vigor to ban this grisly practice, and perhaps even a Constitutional amendment was thrown in for good measure—all monumental undertakings—the real battle would just be starting.

As with ancient Israel in the wilderness, the problem is not with the laws, but with the heart. What is in the heart of a people that has killed tens of millions of its own? How many tens of millions of men and women will have Roe defiling their consciences even in a post-Roe world? What percentage of the populace has come to the sick conclusion that an unborn child should be punished for the mistakes of its parents? Laws can only do so much; such malignant selfishness is sure to manifest itself in other ways.

While the momentum against abortion is encouraging, it is still essentially carnal. It does not solve the problem of the human heart (Jeremiah 17:9). The real difference will come when the modern nations of Israel are reminded of who they are, the remnant of Israel and Judah are re-united after the second Exodus, and God gives them a new heart.

David C. Grabbe
Is the Tide Turning?

Matthew 19:8-9

Notice what Jesus did in this instance: He leap-frogged over Deuteronomy 24, which covers divorce and remarriage and sets a foundation of principles from which divorce-and-remarriage decisions can be made. Jesus skipped right over this passage in the midst of Israel's civil law. In fact, He skipped over the whole Old Covenant, reaching all the way back to Genesis 2 for His authority for a judgment regarding marriage and divorce.

There is instruction here. Even though God permitted them to divorce and remarry because of their unconversion (hardness of heart), the higher and greater authority—the standard—where God originally established His intention. This is a clear example from Christ: The higher and greater authority lies in God's originally established intention.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Nineteen)

Mark 3:4-6

Jesus was "grieved" by their hardness or coldness of heart. He was incensed at their hypocrisy in considering their manmade rules to be more important than doing good for a person in need. By healing him, Jesus demonstrated that love, mercy, compassion, and justice trump tradition. This is righteous anger. What are the differences between righteous and sinful anger?

Righteous anger is unselfish while sinful anger is often selfish. Sinful anger occurs when our desires, our needs, our ambitions, or our demands are not met. Sinful anger always focuses on satisfying the self.

Righteous anger is restrained while sinful anger is often uncontrolled. Uncontrolled anger will cause us to say and do things we are sorry for later, things we would never would have said or done had we been in control. Uncontrolled anger leads to sin.

Righteous anger targets sinful acts or unjust situations while sinful anger frequently targets people. In Mark 3, Jesus was angry at the Pharisees' sin and their lack of compassion. Sinful anger lashes out against the people themselves.

Righteous anger seeks to remedy wrong while sinful anger retaliates. Righteous anger contains no malice or resentment, yet sinful anger desires to hurt or to get even with others. People often say, "I don't get mad, I get even." They may not show a passionate outburst of anger but nurse a grudge that takes root and produces bitterness, hatred, and vengeance.

Clyde Finklea
The Wrath of Man

Romans 1:20-21

The apostle Paul is telling us that, when we neglect to be thankful, we begin to change:

  • Our hearts becomes hard and selfish.

  • We forget those to whom we are not thankful. When we fail to appreciate another, we are neglecting to see their worth or value.

  • When we are not thankful for what we have been given, we soon take our blessings for granted.

An unwillingness to thank God for His great love, mercy, and all the other things He provides and does for us will eventually alienate our affections and harden our heart toward Him, causing us to be blinded to all that He is doing in our lives. We can be working to obey God, be receiving His blessings, and approve of God's laws and actions, but if we are not praising and thanking Him, an important aspect of our spiritual development is missing. In a sense, gratitude is the glue that cements our relationship with Him!

This end-time environment can pull us down if we do not take time to consider all that has been done for us. The Passover season annually reminds us of who we are and the price paid for us in great love, so that we can be forgiven and come before the great God of the universe. But we should not relegate this lesson just to the springtime; it is a good idea to remember this fact frequently throughout the year. The late fall and winter is an excellent time to remember why we should have a thankful heart at all times, despite what is happening in the world.

II Corinthians 3:16 tells us that the veil of blindness has been lifted from our minds to give us understanding of spiritual matters that this world cannot comprehend. What God has given us is considered a treasure placed in human vessels (II Corinthians 4:7). Do we value that as highly as we should? Do we thank God for it? Even if it brings us persecution, we are to give thanks for it. Jesus says in Luke 6:23 that we should "rejoice in that day and leap for joy!"

As we see our country founder in confusion, it can be difficult to offer thanks, and yet the giving of thanks to God is of the utmost importance. When we are in a thankful relationship with God, our whole attitude changes toward repentance and obedience, and overcoming takes on new meaning. When we truly thank God, we reflect our love toward Him, and we seek to honor Him.

God, who is capable of far greater feelings than what we can express, highly appreciates our thankfulness toward Him, and it results in blessings toward us, especially those of the Spirit. Perhaps best of all, He draws us closer to Him, and our relationship with Him grows.

We live in an unthankful world, and we in this nation take many of God's wonderful blessings for granted, never considering all the sacrifices that have been made to produce them. Because we live in this greatly blessed country, though we are not truly part of it (see John 17:14-16), we must train ourselves to consider our blessings and give thanks. When we do, it is a win-win situation. We win because we focus on God and His work, and God wins, because in our response to Him in giving thanks, He draws us closer to Him.

John O. Reid
What Is There to Be Thankful for Today?


 




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