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The Gospel Truth
Hardness of Heart: Episode 5
00:28:31
A hardened heart isn't just found in those living in sin—even those closest to Jesus sometimes struggled with it. When His disciples saw Him walking on water, they were amazed because their hearts were hardened (Mark 6:45–52). Learn how distractions,...
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Welcome to Gospel Truth with Andrew Wommack, celebrating 25 years of sharing God's unconditional love and grace on television.
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I'm glad about Andrew and his ministry because he unscrewed the religious top off my head with his words and how he teached the word of God. So I'm grateful that Andrew didn't give up years ago when that man hugged him and said, hold on.
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And now here's Andrew.
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Welcome to our Friday's broadcast of the Gospel Truth. This week I've started a teaching entitled hardness of heart. And this is a teaching that the Lord gave to me 45 or 50 years ago. And it's a foundational truth. And I tell you, this has been powerful. It's a negative title in a way, but this is just the way that the Lord spoke it to me. From Mark, chapter 6 and verse 52, after he had walked on the water, to the disciples stilled the storm, the boat, and the disciples were translated to the other side of the sea. When the disciples saw all of that, it says they were sore, amazed in themselves beyond measure and wondered. And I was feeling really good about feeling the same way about how what a great miracle this was. But then in the 52nd verse of Mark, chapter 6, it says, for they considered not the miracle of the loaves, for their heart was hardened. A hardness of heart is what made them shocked to see Jesus walk on the water. And from this, the Lord began to speak to me that it was my hardness of heart that kept me from seeing the supernatural power of God manifest better than it was in my life. So that's what I've been talking about all week. And some people would think, well, I don't have a hardened heart. One of the things the Lord began to show me that just being more sensitive to or relating to the natural realm more than you relate to the supernatural realm is an indication of a hardened heart. These disciples weren't committing, you know, some type of sin as they were in that boat. They hadn't been watching pornography. They weren't lying, stealing. They weren't planning to rob something. They were just totally consumed with. With the natural realm and everything that they could think of to try and save their life. And that hardened their heart towards God. Then in Mark, chapter eight, there's a second instance where the Lord talked about their heart being hardened. And in Mark, chapter eight, and in verse 17, he said, why reason ye because ye have no bread? Perceive ye not yet neither understand have ye your heart yet hardened. So here he's discussing a hardened heart. And he's saying that not being able to perceive spiritual things, not being able to understand what he was saying unto them, is a evidence or a characteristic of having a hardened heart. And then he goes on to say in the 18th verse, having eyes, see ye not and having ears, hear ye not and do ye not remember. Did you know? An inability to remember spiritual things is an indication of a hardened heart. You know, I've had many people come to me and basically express frustration. They say, I just can't remember Scripture, and then they will talk about me. And they say, you can quote thousands of scriptures. You must have a photographic memory. If you were to talk to any of my staff. I've got entire people on staff that al. Their only job is to help me remember things. I do not have a photographic memory. But you know what it is. When your heart is sensitive to God, you can remember things that you are committed to, things that you are focused to. For instance, that some of the same people who will criticize me and say, you must have a photographic memory. I just can't remember Scripture. I can't remember, you know, the. The address where it's found and things like that. You're just different than I am. Those same people can remember the major league batting averages of all of the baseball players. They can remember the football teams, the scores, the statistics. They can play this fantasy football, and they know everything about which player is doing the best. They know all of the stats about, you know, movies and things and who did this and this person, what movie they were in. Did you know? I've watched movies, I've watched sports, I've listened to songs, but I just can't remember those things because my heart's not there. I. I'm. I. It's not that I can't think. You know, I've seen the Super Bowl. I. I don't think I've watched a Super bowl in a number of years, but I have watched Super Bowls in the past. And you know what? I. I couldn't even tell you who played in them. I couldn't even tell you what teams play, and I watched them, but I couldn't even tell you which teams played, much less who won. And people think, well, boy, you aren't very smart. It's just because that's not where my focus is. Your heart is sensitive to what you're focused on, and your heart is insensitive to what you neglect. Like, you can remember facts, like right here, after he had said all of these things. Don't you remember then in verse 19, this is Mark, chapter 198 and verse 19, he says, when I brake the five loaves among 5,000, how many baskets full of fragments took you up? And they said 12. When the seven among 4,000, how many baskets full of fragments took you up? And they said seven. They remembered facts, they could remember details, but it had no bearing on them. It didn't make any application to their life. It's just like spiritually, they. There was no perception whatsoever. And he said, how is it that you do not understand so you can remember things that you want to remember. Like, for instance, a person can sit there and. And you could say, well, do you have a scripture to stand on for healing? And they might even be able to quote 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 24, that he who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. But yet it isn't making any impact on them because their heart is hardened. You know, I heard T.L. osborne one time talk, and he was being interviewed on a Christian program, and they were talking about all the miracles. Some of you may not know who he was, but man, he was a powerful, powerful minister. He's now gone on to be with the Lord and he saw millions of people born again. He would see great miracles, especially over in Africa, India, places like that. He ministered outside of the US with even greater results. And as he was being interviewed, they were talking about the lame walking blind eyes open, all these great things. And then they asked him a question. Why don't you see the same degree of miracles in the U.S. and anyway, basically he was saying that it's because those people don't have all of the distractions and all of the other things, like, for instance, over in some of these foreign countries, if you don't, if you are sick, if you're lame or something like that, and you can't work, they don't have handicap ramps, they don't have wheelchairs. You are just desperate. And there. There aren't any ways to cope with it. And so they are more committed and looking for healing and more than people in the US because we have ways to be able to cope with stuff. He even said that overseas, he seldom ever got through with an entire message because as he was preaching about Jesus and what Jesus would do, people would just start getting healed and healings would start happening and the crowd would go wild and he would just have to start accommodating these people coming forward who wanted a healing touch or wanted to get saved. But he said in the United States, he h hardly ever got interrupted because people here just didn't have the same desire, the same commitment. Their heart was hardened. It's not because God treats people in foreign countries better than he does in the United States. It's because lots of times our sophistication and the way that we are just so consumed with stuff 24 hours a day, if you ever have a. A down moment, you pull out a phone, you pull out something and you start looking at something. And we just never sit there and listen to God. You know, Psalms 46, 10 says, be still and know that I am God. And so anyway, we need to recognize that it's our hardness of heart that is the problem. So let me go back to what I said on Monday. On Monday, if you didn't get this, I encourage you to please go back and you can go to our web site and you can watch Monday's program. But one of the things that started me on this journey about trying to learn what a hardened heart is, what causes it, and how to cure it, the thing that started this was I was in Omaha, Nebraska, and I pulled a man out of a wheelchair, totally expecting him to be able to walk. And he was quadriplegic and he fell over on his face and. And I did not see the healing manifest. And man, I felt like a fool. And all of the people in the place, man, there was so much unbelief and fear and hurt and pain and things like that. It just affected me. And for about a year or two, I was God, what's wrong? How come I'm not seeing things happen? And so the Lord showed me those scriptures in Mark, chapter 6, verse 52, and started showing me about a hardened heart. And as I was trying to discern what is a hardened heart and how does that affect me, I read a book by the son in law of Smith Wigglesworth. And it was about Smith Wigglesworth and about the miracles that he did. And he told this one story about how Smith would start his meetings by saying the first person to come up here on the stage would be healed. And then he would see them healed. Then he would preach about how that worked, how healing works. And then at the end of his meetings, he would invite other people to come up, but that's the way that he typically did his meetings. And because of it, these people knew that he was going to do that. And so he said the first person to come up here on the stage will be healed. These two ladies had a friend of theirs, and she was an elderly woman, and she was real frail, and she had a tumor in her stomach. It made it look like she was nine months pregnant. And so when he said, the first person to come up here on the stage will be healed, they immediately grabbed her and. And they put her on the stage. And they were standing there on the stage holding her up because she was so weak she couldn't stand on her own. And so Smith, he just looked at them and he said, let her go. And these ladies said, we can't let her go. She can't stand on her own. And he raised his voice and he said, let her go. And they let her go. And she fell over on top of that tumor and let out a moan. And you could hear all of the groans and. And people in the audience. Now, how did Smith respond? Did you know that really there was no difference between what Smith did with that woman and what I did with the man pulling him out of the chair? Both of us did something that did not produce the desired results immediately. But see, when I did it immediately, fear hit me. Immediately I started thinking about, what's everybody else going to think? Immediately I started thinking about, is he going to sue me? And I was sensitive to all of these other things. You know, the difference. Smith, just when this woman fell over, he said, pick her up. And so they picked her up, and he said, let her go. And they said, we can't let her go. And he raised his voice, said, let her go. And they let her go. And the second time, she fell on top of that tumor, and he said, pick her up. So they picked her up. And the third time, he said, let her go. And they said, we will not let her go. And he yelled, said, let her go. And finally a man in the audience said, you brute, leave that poor woman alone. And Smith just turned to this guy and yelled at him, says, you mind your business. I know my business. And he yelled at these women, let her go. And they let her go. And this tumor on her stomach just fell out of her dress on the platform, and she walked off healed. And you know what I saw through that? I saw that I had faith. When I pulled this man out of the wheelchair, you can say, oh, no, you didn't, because look at the results. But look at Smith. When he first told them to let this woman go, she fell on that thing. It didn't work. The very first time, I had faith just as much as Smith Wigglesworth had faith. And you may sit there and disagree with that, but I can tell you that I would not have gone and pulled a quadriplegic out of his wheelchair if I didn't have faith that he was going to walk. There's no way I would have done that. I had faith but when, when things didn't work out the way I expected them to, I was sensitive to what other people said. I was sensitive to what they were thinking. I was sensitive to the shame and the embarrassment that this was bringing me and the Lord. And I was sensitive to these other things. But Smith wasn't sensitive, he was hardened. Matter of fact, in this book that I read, written by his son in law, his son in law said one of the biggest criticisms against Smith Wigglesworth was that he was hard and it was because he would just make them let this woman go and she would fall. He took a baby one time that had a water on the brain and I mean this was a little tiny baby, about a year old baby or something. And he took that baby and drop kicked it off the stage into the front row. And did you know by the time it landed it was totally healed. And Smith was just wild. He would hit people and people would say, you're hard and you're mean, you don't have compassion. He says, I have compassion towards those people, but I'm angry at the devil. And he says I, I'm just fighting the devil, I can't help it if their body gets in the way. That's what he used to say. And so I saw through this that, you know what, I had faith when I went and pulled this man out of the wheelchair. But I was sensitive to what other people said. I was more sensitive to them. I was in a sense sensitive to people and their rejection and criticism more than I was to what God's word has to say. God's word says, I lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. And so if you believe that it's God's will to heal and if you do something, but if you don't see the right results, are you going to be hardened towards the negative and towards the natural realm and towards people's criticism and sensitive towards God, or are you going to allow yourself to become hardened towards God and more sensitive towards people? You know, Jesus said it this way In John chapter 5 and verse 44 he says, how can you believe which receive honour one of another and seek not the honour that comes from God alone? If you are a people pleaser, if you have to have people constantly affirm you and confirm you to feel good and for your to stroke your ego. You'll never be a real faith person because I can guarantee you God is going to lead you to do some things that are not popular. It's not popular. The majority of people are never going to be going with God. The majority of people are going to be standing in unbelief and standing against the supernatural power of God. And if you have to have other people to validate you and to make you feel good about yourself, you'll never be a strong faith person. You're going to have to get to where you are so focused on God that all you want to do is please him. And if you get a word from God, it doesn't matter if it harelips the devil or whoever else it upsets, you are not going to respond to anybody or anything else. And you are going to have to become hardened towards the devil, hardened towards all of the people that are being inspired and speaking by the devil, hardened towards anything that comes against what God tells you. And you're going to have to be sensitive, dominated and controlled totally by God and his word and the promises that he's given you. So, man, this, this is what God spoke to me like 45 years ago. And I began to see the problem was it wasn't that God hadn't given me power, because like I said when I started this, the reason I was so bold to go pray for this guy that was a quadriplegic and pull him out of his wheelchair is because I had just seen a man raised from the dead. And if you could see a person raised from the dead, you should be able to see anything. And so I had faith and I. And I acted on it. But when something contrary to my faith happened, I immediately caved and I related to the natural more than I related to the supernatural. I tell you, this is a real key. You can change your heart. So that the same way that it seems like we are just locked into this natural realm and people think, well, how can I believe? Even though I, you know, the word says, by his stripes, I'm healed. The doctor says I'm. How can I overcome that? How can I get to where the word is more real? I'm going to be sharing that with you and showing you how it happens, but you can do it. You know, I had a situation where my board made me go for a test to get a insurance policy as a key man policy. And they made me go for this thing. And it was right after my son had been raised from the Dead in 2001. And so I was telling the doctor and the nurse about this miracle of seeing my son raised from the dead. And they were just amazed. And they didn't totally reject it, but they didn't totally embrace it either. And so anyway, they wanted to shave the hair on my chest and put these electrodes on there, these six elect things. And you know, they hooked me up to this machine and I did this treadmill test. And so I told them, I said, this is virgin hair, don't shave the hair off my chest. So they put these things on without shaving my chest. And I got to sweating about 11 or 12 minutes into this thing and those things started falling off because they didn't have the proper adhesion. And so I was holding two, a nurse was holding two, the doctor was holding two of them as I was still jogging on this thing. And I finished the 15 minute treadmill test. And then the doctor got to reading the printout. And when he got to the 11 minute and something close to 12 minutes, he, he started looking at me and then he grunted and he took a piece of paper and he wrote down a name and address. And he said, this is a cog colleague of mine. You go over there, we're going to test you, we're going to put you in the hospital and we're probably going to do open heart surgery on you before the day is over. You've got a serious problem. Now if that was to happen, what would, how would you respond? For about five or 10 seconds, I just kind of looked at him, trying to process what he was saying because, man, I finished the test. I felt great and everything, but, you know, I just finally said, that's a lie. I don't accept this. And he was just shocked. He looked at me. I guess he wasn't used to somebody telling him. He, he lied. And I said, you look at that piece of paper and tell me that that says I got a serious problem. He, he started backing up and he says, well, you just were off 100th of a percent in one spot. He says, everybody's heart's different. You could be okay, but I think we ought to go get you tested. I said, that's not what you told me. You told me I had a serious problem. You said you were probably going to do open heart surgery before the day is over. I said, you lied to me. And I just lit into this guy. And anyway, you may think that that's not the way to do it. I'm not saying I did everything perfectly. But it's like Smith Wigglesworth. I was hardened towards anything contrary to what God's word says. God's word says that by his stripes I'm healed. And I wasn't going to accept something that told me anything differently. And so this doctor, he finally just tore up this piece of paper and told me, he says, leave. And he flunked me on that test. And I have a doctor that's on my board. He lives in Shreveport, Louisiana. He took me down there and he put this dye into me and then did a treadmill test and I let them shave my hair on my chest. Then I think that probably what caused that test to be abnormal is because those things were falling off. But anyway, he tested me, this doctor on my board, and he says, you got the heart of a 17 year old. He said, don't ever accept the results of those treadmill tests by themselves. He says they're wrong as often as they're right. He says you always have to get further testing. And so anyway, my point is that, see, you can get to a place to where I was just so focused on the word of God. I'm more sensitive to what God says about me than I am what a doctor says about me. And yet I would suspect that the majority of people watching this program, if a doctor was to tell you you got a serious heart problem and we're going to do open heart surgery on you before the day's over, the majority of people watching this would take the word of the doctor more than you take the word of God, of God. Now, am I saying that you ignore doctors and stuff? That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying you need to get to where God's word is more real to you than the word of a doctor, the word of a lawyer, the word of anybody else, or you could say it in the terms of what we're talking about. You need to get sensitive to where God's word dominates you. And you need to be hardened, cold, insensitive, unfeeling and unyielding towards anyone or anything that contradicts God's word. God's word says you're above only and not beneath. Your circumstances may tell you something different, but you can get to a place to where God's word dominates you more than what you see, more than what you're experiencing. And as you do that, I guarantee you it will make a huge difference in the results that you're getting. So today is the end of my first week Where I've just been talking about what is a hardened heart? What are the characteristics, the symptoms of a hardened heart. And then next week I'm going to start going into, alright, what causes your heart to become hardened? And I tell you, this is a tremendous teaching. The third week I'll be talking about what the cure for a hardened heart is. We're asking for something, a gift of any amount for the larger book. If you could not or would not send anything, I'll send you this 50 page summary of this teaching. And then I also have cds and DVDs where I go into more detail. And then we have a USB that will have the audio and the video on there. And as I've said a number of times this week, this is foundational teaching. This is something that every person needs. If you aren't in a crisis situation now, you will be someday. And you need to learn these things before the storm hits. So listen to our announcer as he gives you information about how to receive all of these products. And then please call are right today.
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The doctor simply said, these blood tests are never wrong. Your child will have Turner syndrome. And then he proceeded with the options. You can decide to keep the baby.
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Or you can abort the baby.
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And Greg looked at him and said, oh, we're keeping her. We said, you know what, this isn't what God said. This is what the doctor told us. God told us that she is going to be healthy and whole in mind, body and spirit. We're not going to believe the blood test, we're not going to believe the doctor, we're not going to do genetic counseling.
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So we just said no.
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Because of what we had been learning, we were able to choose to speak life. We didn't look up anything about Turner syndrome.
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We never entertained the idea of, oh.
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Well, what if she has this?
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We simply decided she's going to be healthy because God says she's fearfully and wonderfully made. All of those years of waiting and waiting and our joy was made full. And it was just one of the most amazing moments of my life that I'll never forget. At midnight, the pediatrician finally came into our room and he had done his whole checkup of Airlie. And I said, they told us that she would have Turner syndrome. Is that true?
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And it was almost laughable to him. He just kind of looked at us like we were crazy.
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And he said, turner syndrome is marked by very specific physical characteristics. Your daughter does not have Turner syndrome. And we said, okay, thank you. And he left. And that was that. I still tell people, go to this website, go to this link, click on this, read this book, do this, do that, and it's free. And it's amazing to me that we were so impacted by a gift from someone who didn't even know us. And yet that gift of his teaching at no cost to us is what truly changed our lives. We'll never be the same. We can't give back enough to Mr. Andrew and his ministry. We can't say thank you enough.
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Music Learn how to keep your heart yielded and responsive to the Lord when you get Andrew's series Hardness of Heart Andrew is offering his booklet An Introduction to Hardness of Heart as his free gift to you today. This offer is limited to one free booklet per household and is available in the us, uk, Canada and Australia. Contact us today to receive your free booklet. Andrew's complete series Hardness of Heart is available as a book and as a newly updated CD album or DVD album made from our daily television broadcast. You can also receive the full teaching on a USB that includes both the audio and video. Each of these valuable resources are available for a gift of any amount. When you contact us for a limited time. You can also receive the book and USB together as a special bundle Bundle for just $25. Scan the QR code on the screen or go to awmi.net to see all the ways you can get these products. We would like to say a special thank you to the Grace Partners of Andrew Wommack Ministries. Your gifts make it possible to put free ministry materials into the hands of many people in need. If you're not already a Grace Partner, we ask you to pray about becoming one today. You can become a Grace Partner through our web site@awmi.net while there you can discover more product details and download additional free resources. Also, our products and additional resources are available in various languages through our web site. You can also order resources or receive prayer by calling our helpline at 719-635-1111. Our helpline is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To write us, use the address on your screen. We appreciate your generosity and hope to hear from you today.