Well, do you despair over a family member or a friend that you love, whose heart feels too

resistant to the gospel to ever be saved? Today on the Asbestos John podcast, we see that

God's sovereign power is the only hope for salvation, proving that no degree of human

hardness can stand against his freedom and his sovereign mercy comes up because we were

just reading Exodus 10 and 11 in our Bible reading plan yesterday where this comes up to

human hardness. Amazing, two chapters there. And I mentioned back in episode 2220 that we're revisiting some of

Pastor John's responses in the past to questions that we continue to get asked again and again

in the inbox. And this is such an example today. Here's the new question from Rebecca in Nashville,

Tennessee. Pastor John, hello. I've been wrestling with something

in my Bible study group that's got me confused. We were going through Romans 1, 24 to 28, where

Paul talks about God giving them up to dishonorable passions and to debased minds. My question is

about the timing here. Did God harden their hearts first as some kind of a

judgment and then abandon them to their own sin? Or were these people already rebellious and hard-hearted

and God just removed his restraining hand from them? I'm trying to understand whether God's

giving up is what causes the spiritual hardness or if it's more like him stepping back from

people who are already choosing rebellion? Great question. Here's Pastor John answering. This is

very question in 2020 and looking at how this all plays out in culture. The first thing I want to

say is that there is no hardness in the human heart against God,

either from God's decree or from human depravity, which is so hard that God himself cannot

overcome it and save the hardest sinner.

This is the very heart of the New Covenant promise of Ezekiel 1119.

I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.

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