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The Soil of the Heart
Written by Dr. Lester Hutson

Copyright - Lester Hutson - 1986
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.

Lesson One

"What Causes Hard Hearts?"

Job 38:38

Today I begin a short series of lessons on The Soil of the Heart, and in this lesson I shall deal specifically with the question of what causes hard hearts. Before I get into this matter of causes, I want to make sure you understand what hard ground is.

I. In Summary, Hard Ground is Clodded Compacted Ground.

A. I've seen lots of hard ground.

1. When I was about ten or eleven years old, I rode a school bus over several miles of dirt road. My home was on the last prong of a crossroad. Rather than ride all the first three prongs, some of us kids down my road would get off at the crossroads and walk on home. We could usually beat the bus by a few minutes, plus we thought walking was a lot more fun.

There was a hill just up one prong of the crossroad. I loved to catch hold of the school bus when it let me off and started up that hill. I'd hold and run just as long as I could till the bus got too fast. Then I'd turn loose. Boy, holding on to that bus as it gained speed made me feel like I was flying.

One day I held on too long. The bus got so fast I was afraid to turn loose for fear of falling, yet, I couldn't keep up with the speed of the bus. As I held on to the rear handle for dear life, my feet flew out from under me. As the bus dragged me along, my knees just dragged the surface of the old dirt road. You talk about a lesson in hard ground! I got it. Both knees of my Dickie jeans ripped right out, and I sanded my kneecaps right down to the bone. Before I finally lost my grip and skidded along that road like a frisbee, I was skinned and bruised all over. My knees got infected, scabbed over, and ran pus and blood for weeks. I still have scarred knees.

That ground on that old country road was like cement. It was literally glazed on top.

2. Down around Beaumont, that gumbo gets like a rock. When it rains, it'll stick to you like glue, but when it's dry you can knock a billy goat in the head with a clod of it.

3. Even good soil gets hard and crusty. As I grew up we had some great soil for a garden. My, when it was plowed and well-tilled it was as supple and loose as washing detergent. But, after a while, if it was not tilled, it would start to harden and crust over. If we just let it go with no attention, it would get so hard nothing would grow there except grass and weeds.

4. Compacted ground is hard packed soil. The harder it gets, the more useless it becomes. Try to plant a seed in it, and the seed will just lie on top of the ground waiting for a bird to gobble it up. It becomes a haven for undesirable grasses and weeds, which in turn often harbor snakes and insects.

Hardened ground is the curse of the farmer. In Matthew 13, Jesus talked about a man who planted seed. He said in verses 4-6,
"And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away."

B. What does hard, compacted ground have to do with going to church and living your life for God?

1. The answer is plenty. In the Bible God draws an analogy or parallel between the ground and the hearts of men. In fact, he uses the condition of the soil to describe and illustrate the condition of hearts.

2. Just as ground can be soft, crumbly and workable, or hard and unworkable, likewise hearts can be soft or hard. Even a soft and useful heart will gradually turn harder and more cynical, if it is not deliberately cultivated to keep it soft and workable.

3. I recall a specific young lady who is indicative of dozens of others I've seen over the years. At sixteen or seventeen years, she was the sweetest, tenderest darling you can imagine. There was such a sweet smile on her face, and she was trusting and loving. You could talk to her and give instructions or corrections and just see the beautiful response. She always seemed so thankful and appreciative and eager to do better.

Then she began to turn. Sarcasm and rebellion crept in. She grew skeptical and rebellious. It was as though the soil of her heart turned to stone: bitter, cynical and automatically against most anything you'd suggest. The soil of her heart turned hard.

4. I'll bet that if I gave you a sheet of paper and asked you to write down the names of the cynical, hard-hearted people you know, you'd run out of paper before you'd run out of names. You probably know lots of people, many of them in church, who are as hard as nails. They bristle at the Word of God that they need change. Truth rolls off them like water off a duck's back. They stand like statues during an invitation. There's never a tear or spirit of humility and contrition. "They don't listen to nobody about nothin'" and they're going to have their own way regardless. Most every word out of their mouth is negative, and you couldn't move them with a stick of dynamite. They seem to take great satisfaction in being stoic and unemotional.

5. I don't have a doubt in my mind that you've seen it in your own self. You've felt your heart grow colder and more skeptical. You know that God's Word doesn't move you like it once did. There was a day when you could cry and feel real compassion in your heart, but no more. You can remember when you felt guilty and condemned in your heart over some things that hardly bother you now.

6. Call it backsliding, coldness of heart, indifference, or whatever you will, but you know what I'm talking about. Jesus said it was hardness of heart that brought about Moses' divorce law in Matthew 19:8. The pharisaical Jews were so calloused and hard of heart that they resented Jesus restoring a withered arm on the Sabbath day in Mark 3. Verse 5 says Jesus was angry and "grieved for the hardness of their hearts."

Even Jesus' blessed apostles were at times hard hearted as Mark says in Mark 16:14. Paul wrote that men and women who are so hypocritical as to judge others when their own lives are ladened with similar sins, are hard hearted. In fact, he said in Romans 2:5 that people of such hard and impenitent hearts treasure up the wrath of God against themselves.

II. What Causes the Hearts of Men To Become So Calloused And Hard?

A. I think the number one reason is lack of cultivation.

1. I know that lack of cultivation will harden good soil. Just let it alone and it will turn crusty. Rain sort of melts it together and the hot sun bakes it like a cake. After awhile, clods form, and what was once soft, crumbly soil becomes hard and crusty. When soil gets that way, seeds sown just lie there on top with little effect.

2. Mister, lady, if you don't cultivate your heart, it will grow hard on you. By cultivating your heart, I mean applying the truths you hear like a plow to the soil of your life. Those who do not cultivate their hearts are the ones who either do not expose themselves to God's truth or who do nothing with the truth to which they are exposed. They just hear it, then basically ignore it. They don't apply it to themselves.

Truth without application does nothing for your heart except harden it. Paul said in I Corinthians 8:1, "Knowledge puffeth up." Some of the most cold-hearted, crustiest old coots I've ever known have been old heads in the church. They knew the doctrine and could straighten any young buck out in a minute. They knew the Bible like the back of their hands and had an answer for everything. Yet, this type often manifests no evidence that the truth has gotten out of the head and down into the fabric of the soul. Their lives are completely lacking in patience, longsuffering, meekness, love, humility, the spirit of Christ in business deals, compassion and a servant's heart. Folks, these qualities are evidences that truth has penetrated the heart and not just the head, that it's being applied and not just heard, that it's cultivating, not just lying there on top of the heart's soil.

The Bible says, "Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves," in James 1:22. That's another way of saying, "Let the truth cultivate your heart." Apply the messages of truth to yourself. Do not think as did the Pharisee of Luke 18:11 that what you're hearing is for somebody else. Say with the old spiritual "It's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer." Let the plow of divine truth personally break up your selfishness and ingratitude. Let it get hold of you about arrogance and an unforgiving heart, laziness and irresponsibility. Apply what it says about humility, unselfishness and neglect. Don't shrug off the truth about soulwinning, tithing or tenderness. Turn its searchlight upon your attitudes, your lack of Godly separation and holiness and your spirit toward others. Let it probe your lack of zeal, your prayer life and your real attitudes toward God.

I'm talking about truth cultivating your heart and keeping the compacted ground broken, the hard clods crushed. I'm telling you that if you don't make truth personally apply to you and you do not do what it says, your heart can become hard and stony as a brick. It can do it while you're sitting in church almost every service right under the sound of solid Bible preaching. Folks, God's truth is not to just be heard. It's to be practiced, applied and used. If it's not used, your heart will grow hard and very cold.

I knew a young man once who gave a good testimony of his faith in Christ. He had been to Bible college. One day he told me he'd studied the whole Bible, knew all the stories of the Bible, and knew both sides of all the doctrinal issues of the Bible. He asked, "Bro. Hutson, what's left for me?" I told him to start practicing what he knew to be taught in God's Word, but he didn't. He never got settled and faithful in church. He never separated himself from the wrong crowd. He never practiced consistent, holy living. He seldom dressed like a Christian, used his money or talents like a Christian, or really valued the things of the Lord. The humility, love for souls, tenderness, compassion and zeal for the Lord just never was there.

I've never seen a young man as hard as he was, and he just seemed to grow even harder with every passing week. He was bitter and grew ever more critical of Christians and churches, particularly of those in leadership. He would stand off and cast stones, and pick nearly any effort for good to pieces. Today his body is in a grave and his soul is in eternity.

3. Jesus said, "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them," in John 13:17.

James wrote, "But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed," in James 1:25.

Lack of cultivation of the heart, failure to personally apply truth will harden your heart and make it a spiritual wasteland. You'll get to where you are miserable with yourself and you'll make everybody around you miserable. You'll find your life very barren and of very little value to the cause of our God. Chances are, you'll think everybody else is the problem, not you.

Compacted, hard spiritual ground, folks, is what we are discussing. It's no good. It ruins good men, and one of the main causes of it is lack of personal application of truth to the heart.

4. Let me add a closing footnote for you who are not saved. The longer you hear the truth of salvation and do nothing with it, the harder your heart will become, and the less likely the odds will be that you'll ever be saved.

ll of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."

Oh, the inconsistency of legalism! The exactingly correct exterior with the woefully depraved interior! The tyrannical insistence on perfect performance with the wholesale lack of tenderness, patience, forgiveness, understanding or a concern for what's in a man's heart! Truly legalistic people have some of the hardest spiritual soil in the world. They can crucify you without blinking an eye, if you don't do it just the way they think you should.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"