https://youtu.be/sDOIXd6Mjxc
In our verse-by-verse study of Romans we finished Rom 2:5. Our expanded translation is "Because of your hardness and unrepentant heart, you store up and accumulate for yourself wrath against the day of wrath, even disclosure of just judgment from the God."
The words translated heart, hardness, unrepentant, and judgment in this verse brought up some doctrines to look at and we are presently looking at the doctrine of the heart.
Last time we concluded our study of the heart that is translated from the Greek word "kardia."
Next we have the word stubbornness in the NASB that is translated hardness in the KJV the Greek word is "skletotes" that is used to describe scar tissue that develops into a callous in the heart that causes the heart to become spiritually "hard" and resistant to God's Word of truth.
"Hardness of heart" comes from ideas and concepts that refute, reject, resist and contradict God's Word of truth
Believers are commanded to persist in learning doctrine from God's Word but there are attitudes and moods that can affect the heart that hinder persistence or cause the believer to become antagonistic toward persistence in learning doctrine.
These attitudes include disillusion, boredom, discouragement, self-pity, loneliness, frustration, bitterness, and jealousy.
It is not unusual or abnormal for believers to have an attitude that is an enemy of positive volition.
The abnormal and unusual thing is to cater to the bad attitude, and believers cater to them by reacting to them with a frantic search for happiness in all the wrong places because true happiness only comes from God's Word.
The frantic search for happiness always upsets the balance of the soul, and during this upset emotion can take over the thinking processes of the heart causing the heart to become hardened because the emotion reacts and rejects truth instead of responding to it.
Remember the analogy that describes the heart of the soul as the right man and the emotion as the right woman, and if the heart initiates and the emotion doesn't respond but instead reacts and takes over, the heart becomes hardened.
The emotion reacting is described as emotional revolt of the soul. Emotional revolt of the soul adds intensity to the frantic search for happiness in all the wrong places that contributes to the change in attitude toward God's Word.
The changed attitude can be apathy, indifference, or antagonism resulting in negative volition.
Negative volition toward doctrine creates scar tissue in the soul but in addition it creates a vacuum in the soul. The heart is already been hardened and now in addition there is a vacuum.
This vacuum sucks in doctrines of demons described in 1Tim4: 1; that is how the cup of demons at the devil's communion table is described in 1Cor 10:21. The cup of demons refers to reversionism from demon influence not demon possession.
Demon influence causes a blackout of the soul. The hardness of the heart shorts out all the systems of the soul that causes an inversion of the priorities in the spiritual life called reverse process reversionism.
Under the hardening process the believer begins to reap what he sows. Starting as self-induced misery that is followed by divine discipline. Scar tissue is the source of the "hardening of the heart," and it is initially accumulated on the left bank or "mind" of the soul through negative volition toward doctrine.
Negative volition in the mind then enters into the heart or right lobe causing it to become "hardened" and therefore in opposition to God and His Word of truth
Because of this the believer has no capacity to love God. This opens up a vacuum in the soul that the Greek calls "mataiotes." The vacuum sucks satanic concepts into the mind (1Tim. 4:1; Eph 4:17-19;)
We see from this that scar tissue must be accumulated in the "nous" or the left bank of the soul before it begins to plug up the "kardia" the right bank. There are certain sins that will put scar tissue on the right bank if you have scar tissue on the left bank.
These sins include sexual perversion, promiscuity or adultery (Prov 6:32; Eph. 4:19; Eph 5:3; These are overt sins that destroy capacity for category two love that can only exist between a biological man and a biological woman in marriage.
Mental attitude sins (1John 2:9-11) such as, pride, envy, jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, fear, worry, anxiety also create scar tissue that also hinders all categories of love.
All scar tissue accumulated in the soul of an unbeliever is removed instantaneously at the point of salvation (Isa 43:25; Isa 44:22). For the unbeliever the only solution for sin and recovery from sin and evil is to believe in Jesus Christ.
After salvation a believer can develop new scar tissue on both banks of the soul. The issue then becomes how is scar tissue removed in a believer.
The first factor is rebound; however, rebound does not remove residual scar tissue. Rebound forgives sin and recovers the filling of the Spirit. So a believer can be filled with the Spirit and still have residual scar tissue and as a result be resistant to doctrine,
While the filling ministry of the Spirit that occurs with rebound prevents the development of additional scar tissue in the believer, it is only the first step in getting rid of residual scar tissue and resistance to doctrine.
The second factor is the use of God's GASP (grace apparatus for spiritual perception) system. In order for a believer to remove residual scar tissue after rebound the believer must switch from negative to positive volition toward Bible doctrine.
For the believer the first step in positive volition is rebound, that enables the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the filling of the Spirit makes it possible for the believer to learn doctrine.
At this point, the apertures of the soul are not entirely blocked by scar tissue but it is much more difficult to learn doctrine if there is any scar tissue in the soul, because the scar tissue causes doctrine to come at you under pressure like a power washer.
The power wash of doctrine is hard to take but it is the only way to remove the residual scar tissue. Positive volition toward doctrine resulting in the daily function of God's GASP system is the crash program that removes scar tissue.
Remember, under GASP, after doctrine is taken into the perceptive lobe of the mind, it must then be transferred by faith (or by believing it) into the human spirit where it becomes "epignosis," or residual spirit taught doctrine that is then available for recall.
The actual mechanics for the removal of scar tissue is the transfer of "epignosis" doctrine from the human spirit out the left and right banks of the soul, in the application of doctrine to experience.
As the doctrine is transferred a spiritual ''building,'' is simultaneously being constructed that is called and edification complex.
The erection of the edification complex in the soul is your protection against the development of additional scar tissue because the edification complex provides momentum for the recall and application of doctrine.
The edification complex and scar tissue cannot coexist. One of the signs of spiritual maturity in a believer is that he has no scar tissue on either bank of the soul because of they have a large spiritual "edification complex."
At any given time believers are either building scar tissue in the soul through negative volition or building an edification complex in the soul through positive volition.