The Rest Were Hardened - Part 3

...of that food, that table, that fellowship, so that it becomes a snare, a trap, a stumbling block. And you don't have to think very long, from your own experience, how that works. Food a problem anywhere? Sixty percent of the people in America are overweight. Food's a huge problem. Camaraderie can be used for good or ill. And you don't have to leave it at food. They're just the generalized good gifts of God. Food's a good thing. Sex is a good thing. Success in business is a good thing. And on and on the list of common graces go. And what hardening means is that we take them and they become our idols, our passions, the pleasures that we get from them, replace the pleasure we should be getting from God, and we stumble over them. That's part of the hardening experience. Verse 10, Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever. These are God's inspired curses on the enemy of David and then the son of David. This is a foreseeing of what the hardening would look like. And here, the hardening repeats. Yes, it will involve blindness. We've seen that already in verse 9. But here's this new phrase, Bend their backs forever. What's that? What would a bent back signify? Probably a heavy burden. A load to carry. Some weight that you are cursed to bear forever. Now, there's a connection between this back in chapter 9, where Paul says that Israel did not attain what it sought for. Why did they not attain it? Because they sought for it as though it were by works. When it was not by works, but by faith. And so if I bring that in as an analogy of how they missed it here and think works, I think this is very interesting. You have two pictures. You have a very simple table setting with lots of pleasures, a normal life, all misused and turned into idolatry as you take more pleasure in God's gifts than in God. And then you have another picture of a man bent over trying to carry a heavy load. And I hope I'm not pushing it too far to say there are two ways that you can be hardened against God. Two ways you can experience rebellion against God. One would be a sensuous and sensual way, and the other would be a legalistic way. This person over here, he looks like he doesn't go to church, and he looks like he's outside the religious influences. This person over here is squeaky clean and hell bound because he's working for God, carrying a heavy load, thinking that he could turn grace into a list of do's and don'ts, which if he performs them, God will be indebted to put him right, and that'll bend your back forever. So whether the hardening expresses itself in lechery and sensuality and lawlessness, or whether it expresses itself in nice moralism and squeaky clean religiosity and rule keeping, all to impress God while you exert your sovereign willpower to commend yourself to Him, either way, it's hardness. It's hardening. So that's my answer to the question, what is it? It's spiritual numbness, it's blindness and deafness spiritually, it's turning God's good gifts into God replacing pleasures, God replacing, not God giving, but God replacing pleasures, and it's God's law turned into self-reliant labor to commend yourself to Him by works, and that will bend your back forever. Now, here's the second question. When did this happen, this hardening? The key answer is in verse 8, and it's in the phrase, "...down to this very day." God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day. In other words, it's been going on for a long time and is still going on in Paul's day. This is a quotation from 1,400 years earlier. Moses said this, let me read you Deuteronomy 29:4, "...to this day," so it's going on earlier than 1,400 years ago, "...to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear." In other words, He has, in Moses' day, left the people to their deafness and blindness. "...to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see." Deuteronomy 29:4. So, to Moses' day and now to Paul's day, it's been happening. Now, there's another interesting step in this. Turn with me to chapter 11, verse 25, if you want to ask, how long is this going to last? Romans 11:25, how long will the rest of Israel be hardened? Verse 25 of Romans 11. He's talking to us Gentiles here and oh, how important it is for us to be rebuked like this repeatedly. "...lest you be wise in your own conceits," because you've been grafted in where Israel once was. You're benefiting from all the covenants and promises. "...lest you be wise in your own conceits." I want you to understand this mystery, brothers. A partial hardening, now there it is, a partial hardening has come upon Israel. And then here's this awesomely hopeful word, "...until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." And when we get here, I'm going to argue that until means the hardening will be taken away. There's coming a day when this statement, the rest will be hardened or the rest are hardened, will no longer be able to be spoken. That day's coming. So the answer, when did it happen, is at least this. It's been happening all the way along, it seems, in Israel's history. There's always been a remnant and there's always been those who have been hardened. And it will be so until the full number of the Gentiles come in. That means until world evangelization reaches the point that God means for it to reach. Which is why, by the way, among other reasons, we are such a mission-driven church. There's a plan that's unfolding.