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The Hardest Heart God Can Save · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: What do you despair over a family member or a
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  Speaker 1: friend that you love whose heart feels too resistant to
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  Speaker 1: the Gospel to ever be saved. Today on the as
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  Speaker 1: pestalo On podcast, we see that God's sovereign power is
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  Speaker 1: the only hope for salvation, proving that no degree of
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  Speaker 1: human hardness can stand against his freedom and his sovereign
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  Speaker 1: mercy comes up because we were just reading Exodus ten
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  Speaker 1: and eleven in our Bible reading plan yesterday where this
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  Speaker 1: comes up to human hardness. Amazing two chapters there. And
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  Speaker 1: I mentioned back in episode twenty two twenty that we're
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  Speaker 1: revisiting some of Pastor John's responses in the past to
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  Speaker 1: questions that we continue to get asked again and again
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  Speaker 1: in the inbox, and this is such an example today.
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  Speaker 1: Here's the new question from Rebecca in Nashville, Tennessee. Pastor John, Hello,
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  Speaker 1: I've been wrestling with something in my Bible study group
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  Speaker 1: that's got me confused. We were going through Romans one
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  Speaker 1: twenty four to twenty eight where Paul talks about God
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  Speaker 1: giving them up to dishonorable passions and to debased minds.
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  Speaker 1: My question is about the timing here. Did God harden
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  Speaker 1: their hearts first as some kind of a judgment and
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  Speaker 1: then abandon them to their own sin. Or were these
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  Speaker 1: people already rebellious and hardhearted and God just removed his
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  Speaker 1: restraining hand from them. I'm trying to understand whether God's
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  Speaker 1: giving up is what causes the spiritual hardness, or if
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  Speaker 1: it's more like him stepping back from people who are
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  Speaker 1: already choosing rebellion. Great question. Here's Pastor John answering this
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  Speaker 1: very question in twenty twenty and looking at how this
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  Speaker 1: all plays out in culture.
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  Speaker 2: The first thing I want to say is that there
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  Speaker 2: is no hardness in the human heart against God, either
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  Speaker 2: from God's decree or from human depravity, which is so
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  Speaker 2: hard that God himself cannot overcome it and save the
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  Speaker 2: hardest sinner. This is the very heart of the New
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  Speaker 2: Covenant promise of Ezekiel eleven nineteen. I will remove the
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  Speaker 2: heart of stone from their flesh and give them a
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  Speaker 2: heart of flesh. Nothing is too hard for the Lord
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  Speaker 2: Jeremiah thirty two seventeen. Now I start here because I
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  Speaker 2: know that thousands of people listening have friends and family
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  Speaker 2: who have been resistant to the Gospel for years, and
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  Speaker 2: how easy it is to despair that they could ever
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  Speaker 2: be saved. They're just too hard, so our hearts tempt
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  Speaker 2: us to believe. But what I want to stress here
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  Speaker 2: at the outset is that it is the very omnipotent,
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  Speaker 2: the very sovereignty and freedom of God who says I
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  Speaker 2: will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I
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  Speaker 2: will harden whom I harden. It's that very freedom and
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  Speaker 2: power which is our only hope that the seeming impossibility
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  Speaker 2: of human hardness cannot stand before the mercy of the
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  Speaker 2: sovereign God. That's where I want to start. Now, let's
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  Speaker 2: look at the specific question, namely, did God first harden
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  Speaker 2: these sinners in Romans one twenty four, twenty six, twenty
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  Speaker 2: eight before he gave them up to dishonorable passions. Let
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  Speaker 2: me quote one of those verses, verse twenty eight. Since
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  Speaker 2: they disapproved of having God in their knowledge, God gave
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  Speaker 2: them up to a debased mind to do what ought
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  Speaker 2: not to be done. So it's clear that there is
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  Speaker 2: a sinful, rebellious condition prior to God's giving them over
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  Speaker 2: to a debased mind. In other words, He's removing the
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  Speaker 2: restraints that he often puts on sinners and sinful cultures.
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  Speaker 2: Is not the ultimate origin of their rebellion. That removal
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  Speaker 2: is not the ultimate origin of their rebellion. That was
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  Speaker 2: there before He handed them over to their own rebellion
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  Speaker 2: by removing all restraints. So what was their condition before
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  Speaker 2: this handing over or you could say this hardening? What
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  Speaker 2: was their condition before that? Let's let Paul describe it.
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  Speaker 2: In Ephesians four seventeen and eighteen, it says this, you
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  Speaker 2: must no longer walk as the gentiles do in the
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  Speaker 2: futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding,
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  Speaker 2: alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance
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  Speaker 2: that is in them, due to the hardness of heart.
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  Speaker 2: So Paul traces the condition of gentiles. That's virtually all
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  Speaker 2: of us, and he's going to say in a minute
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  Speaker 2: that includes the Jewish people as well. He traces our
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  Speaker 2: condition back through futile minds, through darkened understandings, through alienation
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  Speaker 2: from God, through ignorance, and finally at the bottom to
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  Speaker 2: hardness of heart. That's the root problem. And Paul makes
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  Speaker 2: plain that this hard spiritual deadness is universal for jew
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  Speaker 2: and gentile, not just gentiles, because he says in Ephesians
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  Speaker 2: two one to three, you namely you, gentiles, were dead
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  Speaker 2: and trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following
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  Speaker 2: the spirit that is now at work in the sons
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  Speaker 2: of disobedience among whom we and these now including Jews,
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  Speaker 2: including himself, we all once lived in the passions of
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  Speaker 2: our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body in
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  Speaker 2: the mind, and were by nature the children of wrass
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  Speaker 2: like the rest of mankind. Now here's a great mystery.
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  Speaker 2: We may not be able to fully explain it, but
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  Speaker 2: here it is in scripture. Namely, what humans are by
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  Speaker 2: nature fits us for God's just wraths. They were, by
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  Speaker 2: nature quote, children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
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  Speaker 2: This is the condition of every human being. We are,
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  Speaker 2: by nature sons of disobedience verse two. That is, by
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  Speaker 2: nature we disobey. It's our nature to disobey. By nature,
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  Speaker 2: we rebel. By nature, we are selfish and God ignoring,
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  Speaker 2: God belittling, and therefore, by nature we deserve God's wrath.
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  Speaker 2: Now how did that come about? That all human beings
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  Speaker 2: are by nature justly subject to the wrath of God
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  Speaker 2: because of our proneness to disobey and rebel sons of
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  Speaker 2: disobedience and Paul's answer in Romans five is that Adam's
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  Speaker 2: sin has infected his race. That is, the punishment that
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  Speaker 2: fell on Adam fell on all who are part of
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  Speaker 2: Adam as his descendants. Here's how Paul puts it. In
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  Speaker 2: Romans five eighteen one trespass led to condemnation for all
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  Speaker 2: by one man's disobedience, The many were appointed sinners. So
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  Speaker 2: the answer to the question did God first harden the
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  Speaker 2: sinners of Romans one before he gave them up to
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  Speaker 2: dishonorable passions, The answer is in this sense, yes, God
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  Speaker 2: passed judgment on the whole human race in Adam. Our
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  Speaker 2: hardness is owing to God's judgment on the whole human
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  Speaker 2: race in our forefather Adam. This hardness or deadness or
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  Speaker 2: futility which we all have from Adam on is basic.
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  Speaker 2: All other texts in the Bible God's hardening have this
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  Speaker 2: as their backdrop, which means that any given case of
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  Speaker 2: hardening may mean that God is giving someone up to
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  Speaker 2: the hardening that God decreed from the beginning. And the
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  Speaker 2: reason I say from the beginning and decreed from the
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  Speaker 2: beginning is that Paul says in Romans eleven, verse five,
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  Speaker 2: at the present time, there is a remnant, namely of
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  Speaker 2: believing Jewish people. There is a remnant according to the
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  Speaker 2: election of Grace, but if it is by grace, it
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  Speaker 2: is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise grace
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  Speaker 2: would no longer be grace. What then Israel failed to
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  Speaker 2: obtain what it was seeking, but the elect obtained it
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  Speaker 2: and the rest were hardened. So Paul traces the deliverance
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  Speaker 2: from hardness back to the election of grace, which happened
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  Speaker 2: before the foundation of the world. He chose us in
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  Speaker 2: him before the foundation of the world. If he's won
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  Speaker 2: four so from the beginning, that is the very beginning
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  Speaker 2: of God's eternal planning, before creation. From the beginning, he
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  Speaker 2: chose to save his people through Christ from this condition
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  Speaker 2: of hardness, which means we should be very, very thankful
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  Speaker 2: that our eyes are open to the truth and beauty
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  Speaker 2: of Christ, and that our heart of stone has been
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  Speaker 2: taken out because we did not bring this about ourselves.
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  Speaker 2: This rescue from hardness was a sovereign work of God,
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  Speaker 2: who chose us before the foundation of the world to
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  Speaker 2: be his soft believing children. Now, with regard to the
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  Speaker 2: other question raised, namely, how does this work in culture? Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I mean that's another world he opens up kind of
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  Speaker 2: at the end, he does throw that one in. Are
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  Speaker 2: you kidding me? Gonna throw that question in here? On
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  Speaker 2: top of this? How does this work in culture? So
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  Speaker 2: let me just close with one observation in view of
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  Speaker 2: Romans one, twenty four, twenty six, twenty eight it is
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  Speaker 2: naive to look at culture sinking deeper and deeper into sin,
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  Speaker 2: which I believe ours is, and to say only that
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  Speaker 2: this culture is ripening for judgment. Well, that's true, but
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  Speaker 2: it conceals another more fundamental truth, namely, the sinking deeper
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  Speaker 2: and deeper into the bondage of sin itself is God's judgment.
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  Speaker 2: That's the point of Romans one eighteen. The wrath of
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  Speaker 2: God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
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  Speaker 2: unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
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  Speaker 2: That suppression is the handing over of God, which is
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  Speaker 2: a manifestation of his judgment and his wrath. So the
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  Speaker 2: sinking of individuals and the sinking of cultures, even the
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  Speaker 2: disappearance of cultures into more and more blatant sin, is
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  Speaker 2: always owing both one to our our natural hardness of
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  Speaker 2: heart against God, and two God's giving us over to
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  Speaker 2: that hardness. There is one hope through the Gospel, because
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  Speaker 2: God promises in the New Covenant, which is a gospel
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  Speaker 2: promise in Ezekiel eleven nineteen, I will remove the heart
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  Speaker 2: of stone from their flesh and give them a heart
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  Speaker 2: of flesh. That's our prayer, that's our cry for our selves,
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  Speaker 2: our friends, our family, and whole cultures, that God would
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  Speaker 2: take out the.
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  Speaker 1: Heart of stone. Yes, the sovereign grace of God can
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  Speaker 1: and does overcome even the most recalcitrant center. Through the
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  Speaker 1: Gospel our only hope, our culture's only hope, the only
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  Speaker 1: hope for our loved ones and our family members who
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  Speaker 1: seem like they could never get saved. God can save them.
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  Speaker 1: God can save the hardest heart. Such a great reminder.
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  Speaker 1: If you have more questions on things like this one,
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  Speaker 1: see the APJ book section on the reprobate on God's
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  Speaker 1: supposed capriciousness or his divine unfairness. There's a whole section
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  Speaker 1: on these matters in the APJ book I put together.
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  Speaker 1: And if you have a question that has not been
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  Speaker 1: asked before, ask Pastor John. Email us at ask Pastor
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  Speaker 1: John dot com. Pastor John returns in the studio with
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  Speaker 1: me to talk about aging and the fears that come
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  Speaker 1: along with it. That's next time. I'm Tony Ranky. See
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  Speaker 1: you on Monday.