The Causes of Hardness of Heart

The sermon discusses the causes of hardness of heart and how a person can reach a state in which he no longer responds to God’s work or to the call of the Holy Spirit within him. The sermon emphasizes that one of the most important causes of this hardness is the sweetness of sin; when a person becomes attached to the pleasure of sin, his concern for God’s love becomes weaker and he becomes less sensitive to His voice.

Spiritual Message

Pope Shenouda explains that the sweetness of sin causes a person to experience an inner struggle: the Holy Spirit urges him toward God, while sin pulls him in the opposite direction, and through repeatedly responding to sin, the heart loses its sensitivity to God’s voice. He gives biblical examples such as Eve, Samson, the rich young ruler, Pharaoh, and Lot’s wife to show how attachment to what a person loves can cause him to reject God’s voice or delay responding to it.

Another cause of hardness of heart is delaying repentance; a person may know that what he is doing is wrong and hear the voice of his conscience, but say, “Not now” or “Later.” Through repeated postponement, the influence of God’s voice in the heart becomes weaker. Thus, a person gradually moves from having a sensitive, tender, and responsive heart to having a heart that hears but is no longer affected or concerned as it once was.

Educational Lesson

The sermon warns against bad company, because it can influence a person’s principles and make him take lightly what he previously rejected; a person is influenced by those with whom he associates and by the ideas to which he listens. New ideas and rationalizations can also be used to silence the voice of conscience and weaken one’s response to God’s voice.

The sermon also points to obstacles and excuses that a person uses to postpone prayer, fasting, reading the Bible, or other spiritual practices. An obstacle itself can become a permanent excuse, and through repetition it can harden the heart. A strong heart, however, holds firmly to the love of God despite obstacles, while a weak heart allows obstacles to prevent it from responding.

Practical Application

The sermon warns that becoming accustomed to sin makes it something familiar, causing a person to lose his awareness of its danger, so that the conscience no longer objects to it as it did at first. Likewise, becoming accustomed to spiritual practices without genuine life of the heart can cause them to lose their effect on a person.

Therefore, the practical message is not to delay responding when one hears God’s voice, but to respond promptly and preserve a sensitive and tender heart toward the work of grace. A person should also be careful about his friends and the ideas he accepts, and should not allow sin, excuses, or wrong habits to become a competitor to the love of God in his heart. The goal is for the heart to remain responsive to God’s voice and concerned with His love and with pleasing Him.

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