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The Gospel Truth
Hardness of Heart: Episode 7
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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Andrew Wommack
Welcome to Gospel Truth with Andrew Wommack. Celebrating 25 years of sharing God's unconditional love and grace on television. It's his faithfulness that was able to.
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Help us so many people. So I really am thankful for Andrew Wommack and obeying the voice of God. I did keep you on the screen because you sat down and talked to me like a friend. You were talking to me like I was an equal sister with you in Christ. I don't have words to say enough thank yous for what you're doing, for what you have done and you're continuing to do.
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And now here's Andrew.
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Welcome to our Tuesday's broadcast of the Gospel Truth. Today I'm in the middle of my second week teaching on hardness of heart. And I tell you, this is, this is an awesome, awesome teaching. This is something that the Lord showed me nearly 50 years ago. It has just become a foundational truth that I use every single day of my life. And I've got this little booklet or this book rather that we're offering for a gift of any amount. We just ask you to do whatever you can and we'll send it to you. It has a suggested donation, but we'll send it regardless of whether it's that suggested donation or not. If you couldn't or wouldn't send anything, we'll send you this little 50 page brief summary of it, free and postpaid. And then we have cds, DVDs, and this is a USB that will have the audio and the video on there. And so please take advantage of this. I've already covered so much that I can't go back. I, I spent my first week talking about what is a hardened heart and what are the characteristics of it. Or you could say the crisis that comes when you have a hardened heart. And then this week I've been talking about what is the cause of a hardened heart. And I started back in the very first verse I used in Mark, chapter 6, verse 52. And it says the reason that the disciples were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure and wondered, or the way, or you could say it this way, the reason they were shocked to see Jesus do something that was supernatural was because they didn't consider the miracle of the loaves. If they had been considering how supernatural it was, what Jesus did by taking these little five loaves and two fish and feeding at least 5,000 men, not including all the women and children, if they had thought about how supernatural that was, if they had let that soak in about how he was Just, you know, not limited by physical things the way that a mere human being is. If they had focused on that, or as this word says, considered it. The word means to. The word consider means to study, ponder, deliberate examine or meditate on. If they had considered the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, they would not have been shocked to see Jesus walking on the water. But what happened was they got their attention taken away from what he had done at the feeding of the 5,000 because they were just captivated with this storm, and it looked like that they were going to drown. And so they. Their attention was just totally focused on the natural. It wasn't focused on sin. It wasn't focused on some demonic thing. It was just their attention was on the natural. And this is one of the points that I really want to make when we're talking about a hardened heart. Let me turn over here to Hebrews chapter 3. I already read these verses once, but In Hebrews chapter three and beginning, I believe, with verse 12, it says, take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called to day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. So in that verse 12 and 13, it mentions an evil heart of unbelief. It talks about your heart, be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. And so here's one of the points that I want to make, is that when we're talking about what a hardened heart is, I've already discussed what the characteristics are. Now we're talking about what causes it. This says your heart gets hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. And so I'm not trying to minimize the effect that sin has on hardening our heart towards the Lord. If you are living in sin, stop it. That's just about as plain as I could make it. If you are wanting God's best in your life, you need to quit living in sin. Not because God is going to reject you over that sin. He's already forgiven you of all sin, past, present, and. And even sin that you haven't committed yet. If you got born again, you didn't just get forgiven up until the time you got saved. And then every time you sin as a Christian, it's somehow or another hindering your relationship with God. And you got to get born again again, or you got to get that sin confessed and under the blood. No, as far as God's concerned, you've been sanctified and perfected forever. Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 10 and 14. I've been teaching on those things, and, and I'm not going to spend the whole program on that. But sin is not going to affect your relationship with God. But there's more than just God that you're dealing with. You're also dealing with the devil. And the Bible says in Romans 6, 16, Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey his servants? Ye are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. So if you go yield yourself to sin, and you are yielding yourself to the author of that sin, which is the devil, and he only comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. John, chapter 10, verse 10. So even though God's not going to reject you over sin because he's forgiven you, and once you accept that forgiveness, you're forgiven forever, sanctified and perfected forever. But you aren't just dealing with God, you're dealing with the devil. You're also dealing with people. And you know what? If you go out and rob a bank, if you go out and do all of these kind of things, God is going to still love you if you were truly born again. You know, I don't want to spend the whole program talking about this, but I know that not everybody watches every day. And so these things need to be said to clarify what I'm saying, that if a person just was to take what I'm saying, well, man, I can just go live in sin then because God's forgiven me of all sin. I doubt seriously if you were ever truly born again. Because when you get born again, you become a new person. Your desires change, as it says over in 1 John, chapter 3, verse 3. Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure. If you are truly born again, you are not looking for an excuse to go live in sin. You want to overcome sin. And the truth will set you free so that you can live beyond sin. It won't set you free to sin, but it'll set you free from the guilt and the penalty attached to sin. And so I'm not saying that you, you know, sin doesn't affect you, but it doesn't affect your relationship with God. God loves you because he is love and not because you are lovely. But Satan will take advantage of sin. People will persecute you because of sin if you don't do a good job at your job, if you don't do a good day's wage, and if you don't give a a good effort to it, you're going to be fired and stuff. There are consequences to you living in sin, but it's not God that's going to reject you. But here's one of the great things about this right here. It says that your heart will become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. God's heart doesn't change towards you if you are a Christian. If you have been born again, you've been forgiven of all sin, past, present and future. So God's heart doesn't change towards you. He loves you because of what Jesus did. And when you accept Jesus, you get accepted because of what Jesus did and not what you do. But your sin will harden your heart towards God. It will make you cold, insensitive, unfeeling and unyielding towards God. So if you are living in sin, quit it. I'm making that just as clear as I can. And I could keep amplifying on that, but I'm going to move beyond this because basically this is what religion has taught, that if you are in sin, nothing in your life is going to work. And I believe that they've mistaught it because they say it won't work because God's not going to answer your prayers. God won't relate to you. God is going to separate himself from you. I don't believe that's true. If you were truly born again, God's never going to leave you nor forsake you. I don't care what you do. God loves you because of what Jesus has done. There's nothing you can do to make him love you more. There's nothing you can do to make him love you less. So I disagree that if you're living in sin, God's not going to answer your prayer. God won't move through you. God won't love you. God will leave you. I disagree with all of those things. But I will say that if you are living in sin, sin doesn't change God's heart towards you, but it changes your heart towards God. So by observation, it is a true statement that a person who is not seeking God and they're just living in sin and they are going against everything that God says. It's true as far as you can observe that their life is not going to manifest the blessing of God, not because God turned off the spigot and quit giving the blessing.
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It.
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It's because they turn their back on God and they are limiting what God can do in their life. So I believe that religion has correctly recognized that people who are just given over to sin and they aren't even trying to live for God, it is going to keep God's power from manifesting in your life. But it's not because God has turned off the spigot. It's because you turned off the spigot. It's not because God's heart was hardened towards you. It's because your heart was hardened towards God. So according to these verses, sin will harden your heart toward God. It'll make you cold, insensitive, unfeeling and unyielding. So again, I'm saying if you are living in sin, if you are deliberately, knowingly going against something that God has told you, you need to quit doing that. And as much as you possibly can, you need to conform to following God and doing what God tells you to do. But here's what I want to major on. I'm not saying that sin doesn't affect your heart. It does. But in this instance over here in Mark, chapter six, when the disciples were shocked to see Jesus operate in the supernatural, it says the reason their heart was hardened was because they considered not the miracle of the loaves. It wasn't because of sin. They weren't sinning in that boat. It wasn't that they were in rebellion. So here's the. One of the major points that I want to get across is that it's not just sin and rebellion that hardens your heart towards God, but just being preoccupied with this natural world will harden your heart towards God. Now that's a huge statement right there. And I think this is something that most Christians have never considered. Did you know that when you get married and when you start having kids, and I remember when my boys were young that we lived way outside of town, about 30 miles outside of town. And to drive them into school every day and come home and then drive back and pick them up and do this. And then we took them to work before they got to where they could drive. And then I had to drive. Jamie and I were putting 3,500 miles a month on two vehicles. So that's 7,000 miles a month. We were putting on vehicles for over 10 years. And I mean you just get busy and lots. A lot of my friends, their kids are involved in these sports things that are, you know, I was in sports when I was in school, but it, it was basically local. Some of my staff ha. They, their kids are, I mean, teenagers, 12, 13, 14 year olds are traveling to Washington state, to Texas, to Arizona, from Colorado and Places like this, and they have to go and they have to pay their own way and do all of this. And I mean it is time consuming. So those things aren't sin. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you aren't careful, you can get to where you are spending so much time with job, with things, family, with your sports, with the games that you play with, you know, the crossword puzzles. And there's nothing wrong with any of these things in their proper place. But anything taken to an extreme can harden your heart towards God just because it occupies your attention. And like this verse says, they considered not the miracle of the for their heart was hardened. The word consider means they didn't study, ponder, deliberate, examine, think upon, meditate upon, focus on the supernatural thing that God had just done. And their lack of considering that supernatural thing hardened their heart towards God. You know, I actually remember a time that I had ministered in Kansas City. I think it was for a solid week and I was ministering three times a day. And then I immediately left Kansas City and went to Phoenix, Arizona and, and I was holding three services a day, morning, afternoon and night. And I remember that I was teaching through the book of Romans there in. It was actually in Mesa, Arizona and I was teaching. And yet I remember having the thought that I, if I wasn't the one preaching, I would get up and leave this meeting. I was just worn out, I was tired and I had been giving out. And I wasn't doing anything sinful. It wasn't that I wasn't seeking the Lord. I was ministering the Word of God three times a day for week after week after week. And did you know what? It hardened my heart towards God because I was talking about the Word. I was talking about. But there's a difference in giving out the Word and ministering to other people and then sitting there and soaking it in and, and letting the Lord minister to me. I think it was over 1000 hours worth of new programming that we produced in just a few months, just a couple of months. I went from one 30 minute program a day, which what you're watching right now, to I have five daily television programs and three of them are hour long programs. And I just. When we were building up all of this inventory of our programs and stuff, I mean I was going 10 and 11 hours a day, five days a week, and I was in the Word. It wasn't like I was doing something sinful. But did you know, I actually had to come to the people that were putting all of this together. And I said, look, I just can't do this long term. I said, I've got to sit and soak and receive, not just give it out. And so it's not the fact that I was doing something wrong, but I. The ministry can actually harden your heart towards God. I know that may come as a shock to some people and think, well, how could that be? You were talking about the Word. You're with Christians, you're constantly praying with people, but anything that occupies you to the point that you aren't just sitting there and receiving from God and worshipping and fellowshipping directly with God, even if it's good things, it can. It can harden your heart. You know, I ministered to a group of ministers for many years on a Tuesday morning, and I was talking along these lines about how we've got to keep our heart sensitive to the Lord and we have to put our priority on our relationship with the Lord. And it's not just sinful things, but the ministry can actually choke your relationship with God. You can become so busy ministering to other people that you don't let God minister to you. And I shared that in one of those ministers groups. And I actually had one of the pastors there get so convicted by this that he went to his church and he told them, he says, you know, on Saturday is when I'm preparing for Sunday. And then on Sunday I have Sunday morning, Sunday night. And he said, because of that, I don't take weekends off. And then during the week, I'm always here for the people in the church. And he said, I've just been convicted that I need. Like Jesus told his disciples, come yourselves apart and rest awhile. Even Jesus needed to withdraw and sent the multitudes away. And so this pastor told his church, he says, from now on, Monday is my day off. And he says, if you die, you're going to have to die on some other day than Monday. He says, I've got people on staff that will pray for you. And he'll go over and help. But it says, I am turning the phones off. I'm not fellowshipping with anybody. I'm not doing anything. Monday is my day off. And he got up and made that announcement to the church. And he had one of the women in his church come up to him after the service and say, pastor, the devil never takes a day off. And man, he had a word from God. He just turned around to her and he says, well, then if I don't take a day off, I'm going to be just like the devil. And you've got to get to a place to where you put the priority on the Lord. So what I'm saying is, if the ministry, if doing good things, praying with people, preaching God's word, if your heart can become hardened, insensitive, cold, unfeeling and unyielding towards God because you are just so busy giving out that you never let your batteries recharge, if that can happen with ministry, that can happen with your job, that can happen with your children, that can happen with you doing anything. It can happen with sports, it can happen with anything. It's not that it has to be sin. That verse that I used over in Hebrews chapter three about our hearts become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin is true. If you're living in sin, stop it. But you need to realize it's not just sin. You have to just be laser focused on God all of the time. Verses that I quoted yesterday out of Joshua, chapter one, verse eight, this book of the law. And, and we would say today, this word of God will not depart out of our mouth, but we shall meditate therein day and night, that we may observe to do according to all that is written. For then when we've meditated in it day and night, then we shall make our way prosperous, and then we shall have good success. You've got to be committed to this day and night. Psalms, chapter one. Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate, day and night, day and night. This is talking about quantity as well as quality time. So to put all of these things back together, this is saying that the reason these people didn't relate to the supernatural, the reason they were shocked to see Jesus walking on top of the very thing that was about to kill them, was because they hadn't considered, studied, pondered, they hadn't been focused upon the supernatural thing that Jesus did when he fed the 5,000 because they were focused on the natural. Whatever you focus on is going to dominate you. Proverbs 23:7. As he thinks in his heart, so is he. If you think like a mere human being, if you think like a person who doesn't know the Lord, then you're going to get the same results as a person that doesn't know the Lord. It's amazing that a lot of Christians are praying for different results. They're praying for miraculous prosperity. They're praying for healing and. And yet they're watching and meditating on and thinking on the exact same thing that their unsaved neighbors are thinking on. And then they wonder why they aren't getting different results. Because they believe God can do something different. But it's going to be according to the power that works in you. Ephesians 3:20. He's able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think according to the power that works in us. If there isn't any power working in us, we're where we are considering the supernatural. And if we aren't sensitizing ourself to the supernatural and we're just living in this natural world doesn't have to be a sinful thing that you're doing, just totally dominated by natural things. Your heart will become hardened, cold, insensitive and unyielding towards the supernatural things of God. For you to walk in the supernatural, you are going to have to be a person who meditates in the Word day and night. Because Jesus said this in John chapter 6, verse 63. He says it's the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing. The word flesh here isn't just talking about like skin on your, on your body. It's talking about this natural realm, the natural you, your natural way of thinking, your. Your five senses. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. If you want to live in the supernatural and see the supernatural function in you, you're going to have to get to where you live in the supernatural, where you don't just visit there, you don't vacation there. This is where you dwell. You dwell under the shadow of the Almighty. Psalms chapter 91. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide in under the shadow of the Almighty. It didn't say you visit there, you go there occasionally, that you have a devotion there every day, and then the rest of your day is just spent in the flesh. No, you have to abide under the shadow of the Almighty. The just live by faith. They don't visit there. This is where they live. It's where they dwell. And so basically, whatever you consider what you focus your attention on, you become sensitive to and dominated by what you fail to consider. You don't have to reject it, just fail to consider it. Don't make it your focus. And you will become hardened towards that. And so by neglect, we have become hardened towards God in some areas, just because we are so occupied with everything else. I've got a lot more to share on this, but I'm going to have to continue it on my program tomorrow. I've got this book that we're offering for a gift of any amount. If you'll just send whatever you can, we'll send you this larger book. If you could or would not send anything, we'll send you the smaller booklet that is a brief summary of this. And then we also have cds, DVDs and a USB with the audio and the video on it. And I encourage you to please get this teaching. This is just so foundational. Every person needs this. So listen to our announcer as he gives you information about how to receive these products and call or write today.
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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 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, 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 website@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 website. 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. Do you want to dive deeper into God's word Now? You can with Andrew Wommack's Living Commentary.
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I would like to encourage you to get this link Living Commentary. We call it a living Commentary because I'm still writing it. And I've written footnotes on over 27,000 verses in the Bible. And I promise you, this is powerful. It's not only got my commentary and experiences and revelations that God has given me, but it's got Greek and Hebrew words defined, it's got references and just all kinds of things here. It would be a tremendous blessing to you. So check it out. Our Living Comment the Living commentary includes.
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Two dictionaries, four commentaries and 12 versions of the Bible, plus atlases and biblical maps. Grow in the Word With Andrew's Living Commentary software, you can enjoy the Word of God wherever you are on your phone, computer or tablet. Download the Living commentary today@awmi.net LC.
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Announcer
You were created with a purpose, written in the heart of God long before you were born. He is calling you to find it. You were born for such a time as this, to be a disciple, to leave this world behind and follow Him. You were designed for a destiny, one that only you can fulfill.
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Andrew Wommack
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the world.
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Announcer
We want to help you to know God, experience His unconditional love, to be equipped and empowered to become a world changer.
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Andrew Wommack
We now have two of our student dorms finished, one for men, one for women. And I would like to encourage you if you want to come and be a part of Charis Bible College and live on campus, this is a great way to do it. So we've got information there on the screen. Please check it out and come join us in one of our student dorms for Charis Bible College Music.