RPG Adults
NOT A HARDENED HEART (I)
FRIDAY, JUNE 25
Proverbs 28:14
Romans 2:1-11
“Happy is the man that
feareth alway…”
NOT A HARDENED HEART (I)
A “hardened” heart is one that is not responsive to God. The thought here in Proverbs 28:14 is particularly that of unresponsiveness to God’s judgment. One thinks immediately of Pharaoh, who again and again, having witnessed the great power and wrath of God, and trembling before it, yet hardened his heart as soon as the plague was lifted. His foolishness became proverbial even among the heathen, so that the Philistines much later argued among themselves, “Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?” (1 Sam 6:6).
Often God shows patience and longsuffering in His dealings with mankind, and the foolishness of a hardened heart is well expressed by the Apostle Paul: “despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Rom 2:4). When, instead of repenting, we respond to God’s longsuffering by continuing in our sins, we are but treasuring up to ourselves “wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom 2:5).
“Happy is the man,” rather, “that feareth alway” (Prov 28:14). We may perhaps think of fear as a detriment, and constant fear as disabling; we may have a conception of courage as a lack of fear, but this is not true. It may perhaps, with greater accuracy, be said that courage is about knowing what to fear: “fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). This kind of fear will lead us to be “happy” or blessed in life, for those who are “in the fear of the LORD all the day long” (Prov 23:17) will be preserved from all thoughts, words, and deeds that will bring His wrath down upon them.
Dear reader, when God’s wrath is revealed to us, it would be well for us to fear, and repent quickly! Let us not delay, but be sensitive to the spiritual danger of sin and the reality of divine judgment. Let not a hardened heart keep us from blessedness, and doom us to a just destruction.
THOUGHT: The fear of God preserves life.
PRAYER: Father, give me a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone!