← The Gospel Truth
The Gospel Truth
Hardness of Heart: Episode 8
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,...
Loading summary
Transcript12 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Gospel Truth with Andrew Wommack, celebrating 25 years of sharing God's unconditional love and grace on television.
- [00:10]
B
Well, Andrew, I want to say thank you. Thank you for being faithful. Everything that, that we see, you know, the Bible school and the conferences, is because of your faithfulness and how you purposed yourself to hear God and to follow through with it. And thank you very much because it's impacted my life and the people around me.
- [00:30]
A
And now here's Andrew.
- [00:32]
B
Welcome to our Wednesday's broadcast of the Gospel Truth. Today I'm in the middle of my second week teaching through a series that I've entitled Hardness of Heart. You know, that sounds like a negative title to a lot of people and they think, well, I don't have a hardened heart. That's what I thought until the Lord spoke to me through Mark, chapter 6, verse 52. They saw Jesus walking on the water and it says the reason they were shocked was because they had a hardened heart. When I saw that, I thought being hard hearted is not just being a person who rebels at God, it's a person who relates to the natural more than they do the supernatural. And I tell you what, that's descriptive of the vast majority of Christians today. The vast majority of Christians are controlled, dominated, limited to just the physical realm. So I've got this book entitled Hardness of Heart. We're asking for a donation of any amount for this book. Whatever you can send. If you could not or would not send anything, I'll send you this little brief summary. This is a 50 page summary of it and we'll send that to you free and postpaid. And then we also have cds and DVDs and this is a USB that will have the audio and the video on it. And we'll give that offer at the end of the program again today. So last week I shared about what is a hardened heart, what are the characteristics of a hardened heart and just describe the crisis that comes to us spiritually because our heart is cold, insensitive, unfeeling and unyielding towards God. That's what the word hardened means. This week I've been sharing about what causes hard this condition of a hardened heart. And basically I've been using this verse out of Mark, chapter 6, verse 52. It says for they considered not the miracle of the loaves. They had just seen Jesus perform a huge miracle feeding over 5,000 men. And that's not including the women and children with just five loaves and two fish. That was miraculous. And if they had Considered, that means to study, ponder, deliberate, examine, think upon, focus upon, meditate upon the miracle and how supernatural this was. They would not have been surprised to see Jesus walking on the water. The fact that they were surprised shows that they weren't focused on God and it wasn't sin that hardened their heart. I did use the verses out of Hebrews chapter 3, verses 12 and 13, where it does say that sin hardens our heart towards God. It doesn't harden God's heart towards us, but it hardens our heart. It makes us cold, insensitive, unfeeling and unyielding towards God. So if you're living in sin, stop it. But I've been focusing on the fact that it doesn't have to be sin. You can become insensitive to God by anything that dominates you. And yesterday I gave a lot of examples of myself how that it's not me going out and living in sin, but sometimes I have gotten so busy ministering to people, praying for people and preaching to people that I didn't have any time for God personally. And my heart began to be cold, insensitive, unfeeling and unyielding. So if the ministry and just being preoccupied with ministering to others can harden my heart towards God, well, then your heart could become hardened towards God through your job, through your sports, through your games, through things that you're doing, through your hobbies. None of those things may be sin, and in their proper place they are. They're all great. But you've got to do things that make you sensitive to God. Anytime you're occupied with anything, even if it's not sin, it can make you insensitive towards God. And so this is what I've been focusing on and trying to make clear that it doesn't have to be just sin and rebellion towards God that makes you insensitive. It's just anything that occupies God your attention. Let me turn over and use these verses talking about Abraham. And I'm going to take for granted that you understand some of the things that the Word says about Abraham. I hadn't got time to teach the whole thing, but in verse 17, Romans 4, 17, it says, as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed. Even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not and as if they were. And that's talking about when he changed his name from Abram, which meant Exalted Father, to Abraham, which meant Father of many nations. He called him a Father of many nations before he even had a child. So in verse 18, it's talking about Abraham, and it says, who against hope, believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And for those that aren't familiar with this, Abraham was given a promise by God that he would be father of many nations, that his children would be as numerous as the sand on the seashore or the stars in the sky. And this is before he had any children. And it says that who, against hope, believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. That's a promise. When he said, count the stars, so shall your seed be. Five words. That's all the Bible he had. He didn't have that written down. That was just something that God communicated directly to him. But he meditated on the word of God. And in the next verse it says, and being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of. Of Sarah's womb. If you've been watching these programs, I was using Mark chapter 6, verse 52 to say that whatever you consider, you become sensitive to. Whatever you consider not or fail to consider, you become insensitive to, hardened to. So plug that back into this verse. Be not weak in faith. He considered not his own body now dead, Neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. Did you know if you were 100 years old and the Lord told you you were going to have a child? Most of us would not look at that as a blessing to have a child when we were 100 years old. But let's just say that you had been believing for this your whole life and this is exactly what you wanted, and you were receptive to it. If God spoke to you at 100 years old that you were going to have a child and Your wife was 91 years old, she had already been through menopause, it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women, is what the King James Bible says. What would you do if you got a word from God that you were going to have a child this time in the next year? Did you know? Most of us would either go to a doctor and we would get checked out. We would ask them, is this possible? Or we would go to the Internet and we would look up and say, what is the oldest that any person ever had a child? What was the oldest male that ever gave birth to a child? What was the oldest woman that ever gave birth to a child? And we would look at these things in the natural and through those negative things. The doctor would tell you, you're too old. The Internet would say, no, nobody who's 100 years old has ever given birth to a kid. And we would assume all of these things. And in the same way that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17. Unbelief comes by hearing anything that's contrary to the word of God. So if God had told you you're going to have a child at 100 years old, most of us would go, listen to other people. Those words would bring unbelief to us. In the same way that faith comes by hearing, Unbelief comes by hearing. So we would hear. We would get all of this unbelief. And it would just be so impossible. Like, we've lo. We've checked it out, and it just can't happen. So then we would go back to the Lord and say, God, are you sure? And of course he's not going to change. He would say, yes, that's exactly what I said. And then we would say, why is it so hard to believe God? It's because you consider everything else. But this says that when God told Abraham that he was going to be giving birth to a child when he was 100 years old, it says he considered not his own body. And the word consider means to study, ponder, deliberate, examine, think upon, focus, meditate on. So I'm not saying that Abraham knew. It's not like he didn't know that this would be a miracle and that this is certainly abnormal. After his wife had ceased to be able to have children, for her to just miraculously conceive. And I'm not saying that he didn't know that, but he didn't consider it. He didn't focus on it. He didn't meditate on it. That's not where his focus was. And that's the reason that Abraham was able to have a child when he was 100 years old and his wife Sarah was 91 years old, he considered not the deadness of his own body, neither the deadness of Sarah's womb. Did you know if. If somehow or another you could take Abraham and Sarah and put them in a time capsule or something, time machine, and if they could somehow or another be zipped into our day and age, and if Abraham and Sarah had the same routine that you have, where they sat down and they spent five or six hours a day on the phone, reading and listening to things to where they come home and they just sit in front of a television set and they watch lying and stealing and adultery. And they hear the news, which a lot of the news, it's not news at all. It's just propaganda. And you hear all this negative stuff. And if you could somehow or another just take them and put them into your routine, did you know Abraham wouldn't have had any more results, better results than what you have. But on the other hand, if you could take you and put you into a time machine and put you back into Abraham's lifestyle, to where you were just like him, and you didn't have all of these other distractions, and all you did all day long was just keep your mind stayed upon the Lord. And, you know, I think the reason that the Lord gave him these two examples in Genesis 13 and in Genesis 15, one of them says that your children would be as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore. The other one says, count the stars in the sky, and that's how many children you're going to have. I think the reason he used those two examples for Abraham is because during the day, he didn't have boots like I do. He had sandals. His feet got dirty. Every night he had to wash the dust off of his feet. So all during the day, he was constantly seeing dust and thinking, this is how numerous my children are going to be. And then at night, he didn't live in a house the way that you and I do. He didn't live in a big city where you couldn't see the stars. He was out in remote areas. He was a nomad, and he could see millions of stars. And so God says, that's how numerous your children are going to be. I think the reason he chose those two examples is because day and night, every waking moment, he had something that was constantly focusing his attention on the word of God and the promise of God. He was meditating in these things day and night. And whatever you consider is what your heart becomes sensitive to. Whatever you fail to consider, it becomes hardened to. So we can see through these scriptures that one of the keys to Abraham, it's not that Abraham had greater faith than you and I have. Did you know, if you were to tell Abraham again, if we could just somehow or another go back to his day, and if I was to tell him that God himself is going to become a man and he's going to live for 33 years, and then he is going to become a lamb, and he's we're going. God's going to put our sin upon Jesus and he's going to kill him and he's going to punish his son so that we can go free. He's going to bear our punishment. If I would have somehow or another just be able to go back to Abraham while he was still alive on this earth and tell him those things, I think it would have just overwhelmed Abraham. There's no under, there's no nothing in scripture that shows he had the full revelation of what salvation is. You and I know things about God. We have such a greater salvation today than what Abraham had. That in comparison, it says in 2 Corinthians, chapter 3 that the glory that they had had no glory compared to what you and I have. What we have is infinitely greater than. And yet Abraham was able to do things and receive things from God that many of us struggle with. Not because he had greater faith. It's because he had less unbelief. It's because he didn't consider anything that was contrary to God. Day and night, he was focused on the promises of God. And whatever you consider, your heart becomes sensitive to, dominated by whatever you fail to consider, your heart becomes insensitive to, hardened towards. And so, just by reason of use, Abraham saw the power of God flow through him in a way that many of us don't. Not because he was better. Our covenant is much better. We have God himself living on the inside of us. He's not on the outside talking to us. He's on the inside living through us. And we should have much greater results than what Abraham had. And yet in many ways, Abraham is outperforming all of us. And it comes down to this deal about the sensitivity of our heart. Everything that we have is better than what Abraham had. But he was so committed to it, so dominated by it. He didn't have the distractions. You know, I praise God for the technology we have today. I'm sharing with you by television. Abraham didn't have television. And so there are good things that have come through this technology, but there's a lot of bad things that have come too. You know, I actually read a thing one time that they said that the average child by the time they're 18 years old has seen in excess of. And I forget the number, but it was multiple things. Thousands of brutal murders, not to include all of the lust, the adultery, the lying, the stealing, the wrath, the prejudice, and on and on and on. And we're piping these things into our house. And so the Average kid has seen like, I don't know, 1800 brutal murders by the time they reach 18. And we wonder why things are hard today, that people are insensitive, that they've lost their civility, and that people are feeling justified to go out and kill people and, and hurt people. It's because we, we've presented all of these things, we've become sensitive to it by exposure. We need to turn this around. I think it was Paul said, I would have you to be wise concerning that which is good and simple concerning that which is evil. The word for simple, right there is the word we get simpleton from to where you just, you know, you aren't totally there, you aren't normal. You don't think clearly God wants us to be retarded, simplistic, a simpleton when it comes to sin. And yet the sad fact is most of us have been well versed in sin. We have seen that when something happens, that boy, people get mad and they go kill somebody, they hurt somebody. We've had this portrayed in front of us, not only in real life, but on the screen and so many things. And it just has exposed us to it and it's made us so that that's an option. Did you know that shouldn't be. Abraham didn't have any of those distractions. Let me just say that somebody's watching this and thinking, well, man, if what you're saying is true, we ought to just all become monks. We ought to go live in a monastery someplace. No, I believe we are the salt of the earth, and for us to salt the earth, we have to get out of the salt shaker. God doesn't want us to just live a secluded life. But I do believe that we need to separate ourself from so much of the evil. People today are just thinking, well, this doesn't do anything to me. I can watch people commit adultery. I can watch murder, lying, stealing. I can do all these things and it doesn't bother me. I'm strong enough. I, It's. I recognize that's just a movie. Did you know 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, be not deceived. Evil communication corrupts good manners. If you think that you can. Communication here is not just talking about words, but it's talking about anything. Movies communicate things, music communicates things. And if you think that you can just sit there and listen to things that are inspired, birthed by the devil and it doesn't affect you, then you are deceived. So I don't think that we have to go live in a monastery. We are in the world and. But we don't have to be of it. But we certainly don't need to go to the same filth and wallow in the same stuff that the ungodly do. This is hindering us. And again, as I've made the point over in Hebrews chapter three, this isn't just talking about blatant sin where you just are in total rebellion towards God, but your heart can become hardened by things that aren't sin. Hobbies, movies, songs, children, family, business. You can be a workaholic and you can just be so dominated by these things that in themselves aren't sin. But you have to make time. You have to deliberately get to where you keep your mind stayed upon God regardless of what you're doing. And if you can't keep your mind stayed on, then you don't need to be doing it. I've already addressed some of these things about the same part of you that worries is the same part of you that meditates. And you can do anything and be worrying all day long about some situation you've got. If you can do that, you could also keep your mind stayed on God all day, regardless of what's going on. The scripture says we can bring every thought into captivity and under obedience to Christ. So I've got some other things to share. Tomorrow I'm going to share with you what I consider to be one of the most radical things that God ever taught me. And it's based on the life of Abraham. And so I'm going to be sharing something with you that I promise you, if this doesn't light your fire, your wood is wet. This is powerful stuff. And these are things that God has shown me. And for the last 40 to 50 years, I mean, I have been trying the best that I have to follow this and to be just focused on, meditate, cons, focus all of my attention upon the things of God. And to the degree that I do that, it makes me more sensitive to God. It makes God flow through me with less resistance and I'm seeing greater results. This has been a major turning point in my life. And if this does for you half of what it's done for me, I can guarantee you this will make a huge difference in your life. I really believe that. So I'm trying to encourage you to please get these materials. You can go to our web site and you can see all of our archive programs here, but you can also get this book we're asking for a donation of any amount for this book. And when we say that if you send just a small amount that's less than the suggested donation, we'll send it to to you anyway. But we do ask you to give we'll put out 50 to, I don't know, 60, 70,000 of these books and if nobody gave, we couldn't do that. So we ask you to do what you can. If you would not or could not do anything. I'll send you this little brief summary, this booklet free and postpaid and then we also have cds and DVDs and USB that has the audio and the video on there and I encourage you to please take advantage of it. And if the Lord has spoken to you and if you recognize you do have a hardened heart and you just say, oh man, I need help. Somebody pray with me. We've got people standing by 24 hours a day, seven days a week that are there to pray with you. The number's on the screen and you can call. We not only have a phone center in the US but we have one in South Africa and the UK and, and Uganda and just many different places around the world. So again, ask for this book for a gift of any amount. The booklet is a free and postpaid gift. Listen to our announcer and please call or write today.
- [22:14]
A
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 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 also want to remind you of Andrew's Living Commentary software. The Living Commentary includes more than 50 years of Andrew's Bible study notes and personal encounters with God and is available as a web based software that you can access by computer or any mobile device. Get Andrew's Living commentary today for $120 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 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.
- [24:30]
B
You know, we've really been blessed here at Andrew Wommack Ministries and Charis Bible College and we have the best partners. We have 65,5000 partners who allow us to do what we're doing. But one of the ways that people have been giving is what we call legacy giving. This is an end of life gift. We partner with some other ministries where you can go there and get your will done absolutely free. And you don't have to designate Andrew Wommack Ministries or Charis Bible College, but many people do. And we've actually had hundreds of millions of dollars pledged towards our ministry as an end of life gift. And so I would encourage you to check it out. We'll have some information there on the screen, but this is a way of you just continuing your giving even after you've gone to be with the Lord. You can still be a blessing to all of the people that we're ministering to. So check out the information on the screen and become a part of our legacy giving.
- [25:31]
A
Colleen could not understand God's love. Her past mistakes left her sin conscious and ashamed.
- [25:39]
B
I was just in my own self pity, in my own pain, in my own hurt. It was all about, well this was your sin. This was your sin. You did that wrong. You made that mistake. Look at that poor choice.
- [25:51]
A
Colleen's daughter and son in law began to show them the truth that would set Colleen free.
- [25:57]
B
I just remember I listened to a teaching and immediately I felt like the Holy Spirit said, you need to send this to your mom. God is good and he loves us because he is loved, not because we are lovely. It is because of who we are in the spirit that we have a relationship with God, not our performance. God loves you. God loves you. He loves you unconditionally. He died for you while you were a sinner. He's not going to give up on you now that you're his child. When she began to believe that this love and this grace that she walks in is unearned and undeserved. It's only through the acceptance of the gift of what Christ has done. I really believe that's the beginning of when her complete healing took place. Am I a mistake? Did God overlook? Why do I still deal with depression? I need direction.
- [26:55]
A
Why does life feel meaningless?
- [26:57]
B
Have I wasted my psychoto? Why don't I know what to do? Have they blown it? God's people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. If you've got any problem in your life, it's really because you don't understand fully what God has done. This Word is a good greatest gift that God has ever given us because this is how we know Him. I'm promising you preparation. Time is never wasted time. Regardless of what you feel that God has called you to do, you need to be prepared. At Charis Bible College, you will be transformed by the Word of God. You will develop your relationship with God and ability to hear his voice. That is what is going on, going to transform your life, your vision and your future. It's not too late. Stop disqualifying yourself. No matter who you are or what you've done, God still has a plan for you. Learn more@charisbiblecollege.org I want you to know that we want to pray with you and help you any way we can. And we've had people call in praying for others who had died and we've seen multiple people raised from the dead. We see miracles all of the time. We see people receive salvation, baptism of the Holy Spirit and just anything that you need. The Bible says if you have a need, call for the elders of the church and we will pray with you and we will help you. So it's available to you 24 hours a day, seven days a week.