Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone
The disease and cure of the hard heart
A man does not become profligate or altogether wicked at once.
One vice makes way for another. The people in Zechariah’s time had arrived at such a prodigious height of vice, that it is said, “Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone.” Adamant is the hardest of all stones: it is found by the best chemists to be indissolvable. The similitude is proper to exhibit the real state of the human heart; which cannot be melted, or reduced to the genuine image of Jesus, by human art or power.
I. The disuse of the hard heart.
1. Of the symptoms or nature of it. It discovers itself in a wayward temper, a pride and stoutness of heart against God, particularly the calls of His providence, and the admonitions of His holy Word. This is the genuine character of wicked men. God is not in all their thoughts. They extinguish the remains of natural conscience. In an inflexibility against the word of truth, and the ordinances of religion. The inflexible adamantine heart defeateth the gracious designs of the Gospel. It is inflexible to the motions of God’s Holy Spirit. And this is the crowning sin. He knocks by the motions of His Holy Spirit, yet the hard heart refuseth to give Him admittance.
2. The different kinds of this disease.
(1) There is a natural hardness: a part of that natural corruption, that original guilt and inbred poison of our nature.
(2) There is an acquired hardness of heart. There are those who voluntarily strengthen themselves in their natural disobedience, and reject the counsel of God against themselves. How careful we should be to form our hearts for the Redeemer; to open those gates that the truths of the Gospel may be admitted.
(3) There is a penal hardness of heart. There is a degree above voluntary hardness, as voluntary hardness implieth something above natural. In Scripture God is said to harden men’s hearts in two ways--by leaving them in their natural state; and by giving up to a reprobate mind.
(4) This hardness is either in part or in whole. Some complain of hardness and insensibility, as the present frame and temper of the soul. What contributes so much to hardness of heart in believers is, their giving too great scope to carnal delights. These may be tasted, but a large draught intoxicates.
(5) This hardness of heart is severely felt by the genuine disciples of Jesus. It is neither felt nor complained of by carnal and wicked men. But to be past feeling is a sure symptom of death, as well spiritual as natural. There is no life without feeling.
Learn--
(1) From this view of the human heart, the character of the real Christian.
(2) That nothing short of the teachings of the Holy Spirit have ever proved sufficient to affect the heart with a practical sense of the vileness of sin and its own hardness.
(3) Learn what that sacrifice is which is most acceptable and pleasing to God.
3. The causes of this spiritual malady.
(1) Ignorance. The blind mind, the obstinate will, and hard heart, inseparably accompany each other.
(2) Unbelief. The most powerful arguments and most engaging motives of our holy religion are brought from things unseen. Unless we feel the powers of the world to come, neither the joys of heaven nor the terrors of utter darkness will properly work on our fears or encourage our hopes.
(3) Custom in sinning hardens the heart.
(4) Hypocrisy. This dangerous character appears to consist of two branches: dissimulation, by which we deceive others; and formality, by which we deceive ourselves.
(5) Pride. As in the case of Pharaoh. Pride is at the bottom of every vice.
(6) The deceitfulness of sin. Sin deceiveth by general invectives. By delays. By coming plumed in the feathers of profit, or pleasure, or honours, or preferments. By presenting herself in a coat of many colours, especially in making her address in all the charms of sensual pleasures. She attacks the soul in Jacob’s voice, and in an angel’s form. Sin, by continuance, increases upon the soul. In hardened sinners, vice prompts men to presume upon impunity.
II. The cure of this spiritual malady.
1. Serious and frequent mediations on the perfections of the Divine nature, especially His glory and power.
2. Faith in the great doctrines of the Gospel is a sovereign remedy for the most inveterate disorders of the soul.
3. Faith in Gospel ordinances is another sovereign remedy.
4. Faith in the great atonement made by our exalted High Priest is another absolutely necessary ingredient in the cure of the adamantine heart. The dignity and infinite excellence of this sacrifice will appear from its Divine appointment; from the nature of the sacrifice itself; from its noble and infinitely precious fruits; from those vast multitudes who have been saved by this sacrifice.
5. Another ingredient towards the cure of the hard heart is a proper knowledge of the guilt and demerit of transgression. The smallest deviation from the Divine law is entailed with the curse. (J. Johnston.)
The guilt of hardness of heart
There are periods in the life of every person who hears the Gospel in which his attention is called, in an especial manner, to the subject of religion; and one of the most common discoveries made at these times is this--that the heart is insensible,--that there is in it no corresponding emotions to the magnitude, or to the admitted importance of the great truths which have now become the subject of special attention. Insensibility upon the subject of religion is inexcusable. Notice that you are not destitute of sensibility and susceptibility. You are not incapable of feeling. Religion does not indeed consist in emotion. It consists, first, in a right belief, then right feeling, then right purpose, then right action. You are not destitute of those susceptibilities to which the truths of the Gospel make their appeal. Nothing is so adapted to excite these constitutional susceptibilities as the great truths of religion. Consider the subjects of immortality, the being and character of God. God is love. Then why do you not love Him whom you should love supremely? We are capable of reverence, and God is the most venerable being in the universe. There is in Him independence, eternal existence, majesty, power, dominion, sovereignty, the terribleness of wrath, greatness of mercy, all of which qualities are capable of inspiring the soul of man with the profoundest feeling of reverence. “Fearful,” said Moses of God, “fearful in praises.” Consider the great work of redemption. God from His holy throne looking down upon a lost race. God meeting the demands of His own justice, and in order to sustain the principles of His moral government, condescending to be Himself the victim of the law, and a sacrifice to its penal demands. Will you tell me, you who confess to this charge of religious insensibility, will you tell me why you have never sympathised with the Divine compassion? You have looked upon that scene of the Father giving up His only begotten Son to save a lost race, and you never felt that, you never admired, never loved, never thanked, never praised Him for it! It is not that God has made you so, not that religion is not calculated to enlist your feelings on its behalf, there must be some other cause. Your hardness of heart is the result of apostasy. It is the issue, the fatal issue of a process, directly and completely adapted to the end, and incessantly practised up to the present moment. Who is it that is now complaining of moral insensibilities? Is it that person who has cherished the teachings of maternal kindness, and the sentiments inspired from time to time by the solemn admonitions of providence, and the more solemn warnings of life? Oh, no! I apprehend a fair review of your life will take away your surprise at any present hardness of heart. You have the power of commanding your thoughts, of fixing your attention on any subject. You can then command your thoughts, control the current of your thoughts, and the attention of your mind, keep your mental eye fixed upon all that is pure, lovely, noble, vast, glorious, upon God, the human soul, immortality, redemption, the great, the vast interests of the human race. Keep your thoughts up, and your soul will go up; keep your thoughts high, and your character will be elevated; keep your thoughts high, and your hopes will be pure, elevating, high. I am not speaking of this life only, I go beyond that. You will notice, in regard to your own mind, that some subjects approve themselves to you, by the operation of the passions. The passions have their own objects, and when they are at work in the soul, they bring into the imagination those thoughts and visions which are apt to feed themselves. Bodily appetites have their passions, and they control the trains of thought. What I wish to observe is, that the passions, the appetites, the senses, the general conversation of life, the character of the literature of the day, all tend to make you worldly and sinful and not religious. They do not suggest the great truths of religion, nor tend to keep them before the mind. Spiritual subjects must be kept before you by an effort of your will; your thoughts must be raised by meditating upon the Divine will. The hardness of heart which you may be feeling tonight, runs back through the history of your life, and could be traced to a period quite remote from the present. The text is true, “You have made your heart as an adamant stone.” What a comparison this is to make! Like an adamant stone all moral culture is lost upon it. (E. N. Kirk.)
Gospel hardened
I was on a visit lately at a country village. The first morning I was there, I was awakened very early by the sound of a horn blowing, which continued for about a quarter of an hour. It disturbed me every morning, at the same hour, and on speaking of it to my friends, they assured me that I would soon get accustomed to it, and it would then cease to disturb me. And so it proved. I could soon sleep on undisturbed, though the horn blew as usual. In a spiritual sense I think this is the most dangerous state into which a man can fall. When they hear the Gospel preached to them at first, they seem to waken out of a sleep, and get disturbed and uncomfortable; but if they do not take advantage of what they hear, they get accustomed to it, and by and by can listen to any Gospel sermon without being moved by it. Such a man’s state is worse than at the first, for God’s Spirit has ceased to strive with him. (Christian Herald.)