B (3:11)
And outside of natural things, they would have been expecting it if their heart would have been sensitive to God, but their heart was just totally focused on the natural, and they were doing everything in the natural that they could do. And, you know, there's a balance here, man. I. I've got so many things I would like to say and just a short period of time in one program to get it said. But let me real quickly just say that in the 17th chapter of Matthew, the tax collectors came to Peter and said, doesn't your master pay taxes? And he says, of course he does. And so when he came to Jesus, before he could even tell Jesus what happened, Jesus prevented him. And he says, go to the sea and cast in a hook and take up the first fish that you find, and in his mouth you'll find a coin that will pay the taxes for you and for me. So that was totally miraculous. But it's a. It's an illustration that you have to have the miraculous and the natural. Did you know it? God didn't create the money. It's not like he just put this money in the fish's mouth. This money, it was a Roman coin. It was minted by the Romans. Somebody dropped it. All that was natural. This fish found it. It was supernatural how God had that fish find that coin and swallow it. It's supernatural how that that fish came and took the very first hook that was thrown in. It didn't say that there was bait on the hook. He said, just cast in a hook. So there was a lot of supernatural involved. But did you know if. If Peter hadn't have gone and done something in the natural and taken a hook and a line and thrown it in the water, even though there was the supernatural, that the Lord had that fish there and the very first fish that he caught, that was supernatural how all that worked? There was also a combination of the natural. It. God didn't just automatically make this money fall out of heaven and put it in Peter's hands, there was some natural things that he had to do. But God did the super and he did the natural. And you put them together and you get the supernatural. Well, it's the same thing with everything, these disciples. It's not that they trying to keep themselves alive and deal with the storm and stuff. There were things they needed to do in the natural. But you've got to go beyond the natural. And sad to say, most of us, just because of training and our own experience, we limit God to only the natural. Did you know I am not against doctors. There's people that think I am because I emphasize the supernatural, miraculous healing power of God all of the time. But I'm not against doctors. And there are some things. Like I prayed for a guy one time who was driving a nail, a concrete nail in concrete. And as he hit it with his hammer, and the nail broke and it bounced off that concrete and it stuck right in his eye. And he came to me and he was bleeding and he was having terrible pain, and I prayed for him, and instantly the bleeding stopped and his pain left. And I mean, he was just totally normal, but he had a nail sticking out of his eye. And I said, I believe that God has healed you, but we got to get that nail out of your eye. Do you want me to pull it out, or would you rather go to a doctor and let somebody who knows what they're doing pull it out? And he said, I think I'll go to a doctor. So that was the supernatural power of God. But there was some natural things that had to be done. I am not against doctors and just the natural way of trying to deal with things. But what I am against is people that can't go beyond the natural. And I mean, if something happens, the first thing they do is go straight to a doctor and. And they will not believe God unless it's something that the doctors just say that there's no hope. They. They totally give up. And it's like they've never exercised their muscles. They've never believed God before. And so they wait until something goes beyond the natural realm, and then they're going to start trying to believe God. If you don't believe God over your toothache, over your cold, over a little pain, and if you don't start exercising yourself with these relatively small things, it's like lifting weights. If you can't lift five pounds, you can't lift 100 pounds. If you don't exercise and begin to start seeing supernatural deliverance from toothaches, and things like that, well, then when you come to something that's beyond the ability of man and they say it's cancer and it's stage five cancer and you're done for, well, then you are going to just be too little too late anyway. I believe that there is a combination of the natural and the supernatural. But there are many people that they just cannot believe anything is going to happen beyond natural means. You know, if they prayed for somebody who had cancer and if they go to the doctor and if they get surgery and if they get radiation and chemo and stuff and they get over it that way, man, they're fine with that. But you tell them that I'm just believing God and operating in the miraculous and they can't handle that. We actually had one of our executive assistants that had stage four cancer and she went to the doctor and the doctor diagnosed it. But rather than go through the treatment, she had seen how bad those are. She just decided to believe God. And some of my senior leadership got on her case and condemned her. You are not using wisdom. You need to take advantage of everything that the doctors can do. And they actually came to me and said, you need to talk to her. So I went and talked to her and she says, look, I'm not against those things, but God told me not to do it. So what was I going to do? Tell her, well, don't obey God, you just go to the doctors. No, I supported her and I said, look, if that's where your faith is, I'll agree with you and some of my leadership. I mean, my CEO at the time, he just freaked out and he said, she's going to die. But you know what? Within, I don't know, maybe six months or a year maximum, she was right as rain, totally healed and over it without any of the medical treatments. And she would go to the doctors every once in a while to let them check her and see what her cell count were and stuff. It's not like she ignored the problem, but she just decided to believe God. Now there's people watching this program that you would never do something like that. And I'm saying this in love, but it's because you are hardened towards the supernatural. You only can believe for things to come through natural, normal means. And that's a hardened heart. So it's not only people that are in, in rebellion. You know, one of the classic examples of a hardened heart is, is Pharaoh. And I forget if you were to get my living commentary, I've got this all. I figured it out But I just don't remember the exact figures, but it's somewhere around 13 or 15 times in the book of Exodus the scripture talks about Moses, I mean about Pharaoh having a hardened heart. And I think that there's 12 of them or something like that, all but just two or three of them where it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Now God is not unjust to harden our heart. He wouldn't just make a person hard hearted to where they can't perceive spiritual truth and they're limited to things he wouldn't do that without them. Already have mating made a decision. Pharaoh had proclaimed himself as God. And I can guarantee you that the spirit of God had borne witness and told him he's not God. At one time he knew this wasn't true, but he just was hardened himself because of the advantage of it and stuff like this. And he rejected the con conviction of God. And so God was not unjust to just take his decision where he rejected God and just hold him to it. And so Pharaoh hardened his heart first, but then God just amplified on it. And you can read in all of these plagues in the book of Exodus, like for instance this plague of the frogs. This is in Exodus chapter 8. And in verse 1 it says, and the Lord spake unto Moses, go to Pharaoh and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, let my people go, that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs. And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house and into thy bastard, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people and into thy ovens and into thy kneading. And the frog shall come up both on thee and upon thy people, and upon thy servants. And the Lord spake unto Moses, say unto Aaron, stretch forth thy hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt. And the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. Boy, get a picture of this. I mean, frogs were in their food. It says they were in their kneading troughs, in their bedchambers. They wore sandals, they didn't have boots like I do so man, when they walked they were squashing frogs between their toes. This was a terrible plague. And it says in verse eight it says, then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, entreat the Lord that he may take away the frogs from me and from my people. And I will let the people go that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord. And Moses said unto Pharaoh, glory over me. When shall I entreat for thee and for thy servants and for thy people to destroy the frogs from thee and from thy houses, that they may remain in the river only. And in verse 10 it says, he says, tomorrow, you know, here he is, he's got this terrible plague where frogs are everywhere. And Moses says, when do you want them to leave? Just name the time and it'll be done. And he says, tomorrow. He could have said, right now. Amen. This is what a hardened heart will do to you. It takes away logic, it takes away reason. And if you go on through here, if you go into the 14th chapter of the Book of Exodus, like I said, he either 12, 13, 14 times he, his heart was hardened and he would come to the end of himself when the boils hit him and were over him. And where fire came out of a clear sky, and where there was darkness over the land for three days, the sun didn't shine. And yet there was sunlight, not artificial light, in the houses of the Israelites. And when the murrain came, this plague upon all of the cattle, just when you could go to the Egyptians and all of the cattle were dying, but. But over here where the Israelites were, there wasn't a single one of their animals that were bothered. All of the locusts came and ate all of the crops except where the Israelites were. I mean, all of these things to anybody with any normal amount of reasoning, they would be able to recognize that this was God. And Pharaoh would come to the end of himself time after time and say, I've sinned. Entreat the Lord, take away this plague and. And I'll let your people go. But then as soon as the plague was over, it says the Lord hardened his heart and boom. It was just like he never remembered anything. A hardened heart takes away your ability to understand and to reason. It makes you spiritually retarded. And in the 14th chapter, this is after the Israelites had left the land of Egypt. And the Lord told them to encamp in a place where there was the Red Sea on one side and. And then there was mountains on the other side. And so it was like a box canyon. And the Lord told Moses, he says, I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart that he will pursue after you. In other words, the nation of Egypt had just been devastated. The mightiest nation on the planet had been overcome by a Prophet with a stick in his hand, and they had overcome him. And he said, let the people go. And he even asked Pharaoh, he says, pray for me also. Pharaoh had been totally defeated. And yet when God hardened his heart, it's just like he lost all memory of what happened. He lost all reason and against all logic. He took all of his armies and pursued after the Israelites. And God told Moses, I'm going to put you in this place and it will entice Pharaoh to be able to come and fight against you. And I'm going to destroy Pharaoh and all of his host. And so they came down and they had a pillar of fire that followed them by night and a cloud by day. And as the Egyptians came down, this pillar of fire came and it blocked the entire valley so that there was just fire blocking so that the Egyptians couldn't come. And the fire was light to the Israelites all night long as they crossed the Red Sea. This is Exodus, chapter four. And they crossed the Red Sea. The Lord split the Red Sea and they walked across on dar dry ground all night long. It took all night to cover that distance. And this cloud of fire gave light to the Israelites, but it was darkness to the Egyptian. There was fire. And yet it wasn't producing light on the Egyptian side, it was producing light on the Israeli side. But this is a great miracle. And then in the morning, after the Israelites had gotten to the other side, it says that the Lord took away the cloud, took away the fire, and he hardened Pharaoh's heart. And with a hardened heart. Now think about this. If you had gone through the 10 plagues, if you had had your son killed the firstborn, and if all of these things had happened and somehow or another you were dumb enough to go ahead and chase the Israelites. And then this pillar of fire comes. And for 12 hours, this wasn't just some brief emotional thing that just in the moment he had his emotions rise up. I mean, for about 12 hours they just sat there watching this supernatural fire of God protect their enemies and give light to them and darkness to the Egyptians. If you had seen all of that, seemed like somebody could have figured out that this isn't working. And yet when the fire left, they went right into the midst of the sea. And it says that God took off their chariot wheels. And finally one of those lightning fast minds said, the Lord fights for the Israelites. I think I could have figured that out before that. But see, this is what happens when your heart is hardened. You just, you just can't think straight and brothers and sisters, let me tell you that there are a lar. There are a lot of people in our world today that we wonder about. How is it that people can't figure out whether they're a male or a female, what restroom to go in today. And they can't figure out that opening up the borders and letting in 10 million illegal aliens, and many of them will like in Venezuela, they emptied all of the murderers and the rapists and they emptied their jails and sent them into the US People can't figure out that that's going to increase crime. And then they wanted to disband the police, they wanted to defund the police. And because of it, and these blue states, the ones that are run by liberals, they are having increased crime. And people can't figure this out. People can't figure out that it's wrong that two men can't be a husband and wife and two women can't be a husband and a wife. They can't have children. And you just look at things that are going on, you wonder, how can people do this? It's because of a hardness of heart. And this is exactly what happened to Moses and Pharaoh. Pharaoh is a classic example that it. They're like 10, 15 times that. It says God hardened his heart and all of a sudden all reason left him, all logic left him, all common sense, and he just did crazy, stupid things. And so finally God took their chariot wheels off the water, came in upon them and killed all of the Egyptians. And all of that happened because of a hardened heart. I'm going to share some other scriptures with you. I'm running short of time today, but we're going to get into the eighth chapter of the Book of Mark. And that's a second instance where the Lord fed another multitude with a very limited amount of food. This time he had seven loaves and a few fish. Previously he only had five loaves and a two. Two fish. Previously he had 5,000 people. This time he had 4,000 people. So this time he had more food, less people. But nonetheless it wasn't enough to feed them. And he fed the multitude with 4,000 men. And he had seven baskets full of food left over that time. And when all of that happened, he came to his disciples and he said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod. And they thought when he used the word leaven that he was talking about bread. And they didn't bring any of that bread with them. And so they were thinking that somehow or another he it was him commenting on the fact that they should have brought some bread with them. And he turned around and he says, how is it that you. You don't understand and you don't perceive? He says, is your heart still hardened? And he. He begins to show you that an inability to perceive, an illibi. Inability to understand, is a characteristic of a hardened heart. And he goes on to say, and do you not remember a lack of perceiving, a lack of understanding, a lack of remembrance are conditions of a hardened heart. And on our program tomorrow, I'm going to amplify on that and just begin to start describing this. You know, you cannot prescribe a treatment for something until you know what you're dealing with. If you just went to a doctor and if he didn't examine you and find out what was wrong, and he says, well, let's give you c. Chemotherapy. Let's cut some part of your body off. And yet, you know, you didn't have anything that. That helped. You have to diagnose what the problem is, and that will prescribe what the treatment is. And so until you understand what a hardened heart is, until you understand why it is that you can't perceive, that you can't understand, that you can't remember that having eyes you can't see and having ears, you still can't hear the voice of God, until you understand the problem and recognize that the problem is a hardened heart, then you can't solve it until you understand what it is. And so on my program tomorrow, I'm going to get into some of those things. But I really encourage you that even though this may not be something that makes you stand up and want to shout, you need to recognize the damage that a hardened heart is doing to all of us and how it makes us cold, insensitive, unfeeling, and unyielding towards God. That's the definition of being hardened. So I've got this book on hardness of heart. We're offering this for a gift of any amount. And I promise you this would really, really help you. And if you could not or would not send anything, we'll send you the little booklet as a free gift. Free and postpaid. And the booklet's good, but the book is much, much better. If you can, I encourage you to please get the book. And then we also have cds and DVDs, or you could get a USB that will have the audio and the video on it. And I promise you this teaching, if it does for you what it's done for me, this is something that you will use every single day of your life once you understand this and it'll make a huge difference in your relationship with the Lord. So please listen to our announcer as he gives you all of this information about how to receive these products and then please call or write today.
