Be Careful How You Listen

Be Careful How You Listen

So the Lord said to Moses: "Pharaoh's heart is hard; he refuses to let the
people go." —Exodus 7:14

When is the easiest time to get a hardened heart? The answer may surprise
you. It is not while hanging around godless people, doing godless things.
The
easiest time to get a hardened heart—an attitude of indifference toward the
things of God—is when you are hearing the Word of God. Of course that also
can be a place to have your heart softened. But as I have said before, the
same sun that softens the wax hardens the clay.

If you have an attitude that says, "I don't want it. I am not hearing it,"
then your heart will grow hard. The Bible says, "He who is often rebuked,
and
hardens his neck, will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy"
(Proverbs 29:1). The idea being that the person who gets a hard heart is
someone
who hears the truth and rejects it.

A good illustration of this is Pharaoh. He saw miracle after miracle
performed by the hand of Moses. And what do we read? Pharaoh hardened his
heart. He
saw a rock turned into a snake, and he hardened his heart. The Nile turned
to blood, and he hardened his heart. God sent plagues of lice and flies and
frogs, and Pharaoh hardened his heart. Ultimately, we read that God hardened
Pharaoh's heart. Some people are confused by that detail. How is it that
Pharaoh
hardened his heart and then God hardened his heart? The answer is that God
waits for us to make our move, and then He will confirm us in it. Pharaoh
hardened
his heart, and God strengthened him in that decision, even though it was
wrong.

So be careful. You can get a hardened heart while hearing the Word of God.
It is all in how you listen. Don't let it happen to you.

Copyright © 2011 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas
Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

For more relevant and biblical teaching from Pastor Greg Laurie, go to
www.harvest. org