Hardened hearts

It sure didn’t take long after Adam and Eve sinned for hearts to become hardened to God. Cain tried to worship God on his own terms, and God rejected it.

When Cain got angry, God said,

Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it. (Genesis 4:6-7)

Yet Cain hardened his heart to God and instead murdered his brother. When God confronted him, he didn’t even try to make an excuse like Adam and Eve did. All he said was, “My punishment is too great!”

One of his descendants Lamech was even worse. He murdered a man who offended him, and he wrote a song celebrating that fact.

He boasted in the song, “This man hurt me so I’m going to kill him (or ‘I killed him’). If Cain was avenged 7 times over for anyone trying to hurt him, I’ll make sure I’m avenged 77 times for someone trying to hurt me.”

How can a heart become so hardened?

The key is found in verses 6-7. We are in a constant battle with sin. Either we will conquer it or it will conquer us. But the more we give in to sin, the harder our hearts get.

Often times, when we’re first tempted to sin, God uses our conscience to warn us, and if we give in to sin, we feel guilty.

But if we don’t repent, our hearts become harder. The next time God warns us, he becomes easier to ignore, and we don’t feel so bad when we sin again. And if we don’t repent, our hearts become even harder.

Soon we get to the point where we can’t hear God’s voice anymore, and so we don’t feel any guilt at all for doing this act that once made us feel so guilty.

How do we avoid this? Keep a soft heart. When your conscience strikes you, don’t ignore it. Listen to it. Repent. Keep your heart open to God and his voice.

There’s an old song by Petra that I love. It says:

Don’t let your heart be hardened
Don’t let your love grow cold
May it always stay so childlike
May it never grow too old

Don’t let your heart be hardened
May you always know the cure
Keep it broken before Jesus
Keep it thankful, meek, and pure