What happens when God’s Word falls on the Wayside Heart? Jesus says that He finds it IMPENETRABLE, HARD, and INSENSITIVE.
What is a wayside heart? It is a heart that has gotten hard and resistant, living right on the edge of a fruitful field. This is such a portrait of so many of the unconverted. They hear sermons but forget them. They are surrounded by God’s truth, but nothing sinks in; they are resistant and unstirred by God. God’s Word doesn’t interest them. They have no fear of God, no faith, no experience of Christ.
In the Old Testament, this type of person was called “stiff-necked”:
Proverbs 29:1 A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy. (NIV)
The hard-hearted person in the Bible is unresponsive to spiritual things, unconcerned for the fate of their soul, unheeding of warnings from the Lord, and often opposed to the Gospel. The heart becomes hardened by a constant flow of bad thoughts and deeds. Often, secret sins become welcomed and then sought after. There is never remorse, sorrow, or even guilt for sin, and so with each passing action, more of the heart loses all feeling of sin consciousness. With no repentance, the buildup of traffic makes the heart so calloused and stiff that even when the seed is thrown directly onto that heart, it just sits there until eaten off by Satan’s birds of distraction.
A tremendous example of the “wayside hearts” would be the religious leaders of Christ’s day. They often came to attack Him when He was in Jerusalem. But before they came to denounce Him as false and of the Devil, they still kept up their word as Scribes and Priests. Think of what that meant.
One of the most visible of the wayside hearts of Christ’s time was the temple workers, or priests. As PRIESTS, that means that they would be quoting the Word of God regularly during their ministry day; they would know by diligent study the prescribed rituals that Moses had laid down. Serving in the Temple, they would perform the sacrifices, the offerings, and the cleansings. Thus, all day long, they were doing all the activities that demanded recognition of sin, confession of sin, offering of substitutionary sacrifices, and proclaiming the glorious Name of the Lord.
Isaiah 29:13 The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. (NIV)
From KGD-32c – The Hard Heart (040425AM)
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