“Why Do You Cause Us to Stray from Your Ways?

”
(Isaiah 63:17)
(Taken Primarily from John Owen, Works, 9:296-307)

Introduction: We have been looking at the fact that the affections of the heart are the
well-spring from which all of our actions flow. Whatever is alive in our hearts will be alive in
our actions. Whatever fills the heart fills our lives, just as our Savior said that our hearts will fill
our mouths, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34). What then
do our actions tell us? When we examine our lives, what do we find? Are our lives filled with
self-sacrifice and service to God? Are they filled with the works which show that we fear the
Lord enough to do what He commands and to hate and turn from all evil? Or are we pretty
much indifferent to the things of God? We do not search His word. We do not take Him
seriously. Do we find that we are so used to His grace that we have forgotten to fear Him?
What do our words tell us? Are our mouths filled with the praises of God? Are they filled with
prayers to Him? Do we delight to talk about the things of God and of heaven, of those things
which will never perish? Or are most or all of our words about the things of this world, the
things which the Bible says are vain, the things that will one day perish? And what about our
thoughts? Do we use our minds to meditate on and contemplate the wonderful works of God?
Are our thoughts upon the things in heaven where our Savior is, as He Himself commanded us?
Or are they on the things below, the things of this world, the things which will perish? If, upon
examination, our affections are stirred up to heavenly things, so that our thoughts, our words and
our actions are all focused on the Lord and His glory, then all praise be to God! He has
certainly been merciful to us and has kept us by His grace, filled with His Spirit. But if instead
they show that we are focused on the world, then we should be grieved, we should mourn! God
has not saved us from the world in order to indulge us with the things of the world. He did not
set us free from sin to become the servants of sin. He did not buy us that we might own
ourselves, but that He might own us. These things are plain in Scripture. But what is wrong
with our hearts, if we fall into this second category? Why are our hearts not stirred up by the
things of God? Why have they become hardened to the things of holiness and of eternity,
especially when we know that the things of eternity are far more important, infinitely more
important, than the things of this world, and that hardness of heart against them is a serious sin
and the sign of a serious condition? And, understanding the sovereignty of God, why has He
left our hearts unmoved? These are the questions which are asked in our text this morning,
“Why, O Lord, dost Thou cause us to stray from Thy ways, and harden our hearts from
fearing Thee?” (Isa. 63:17). Judah was in very similar circumstances, and they sought the Lord
for the remedy. They wanted to know what the cause was and what God’s purpose was in it.
This is what we will want to examine in this passage this morning.
First, it appears from the text, that this is the true church which is represented as
speaking. This is plainly seen in verse 16 where, as an act of faith, they speak of their adoption
by Him, “For Thou art our Father.” Whatever the circumstances are that we find ourselves
in, doubtless, You are our Father. When all the outward signs of God’s grace fail, true faith still
speaks with a still small voice which assures our souls that we are His. Look at 64:6, “For all
of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy
garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”
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They were in a dire situation. And yet there is still a sense within them of their relationship to
God. “For Thou art our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not
recognize us. Thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is Thy name”
(63:16). And if you are a true believer here this morning, the same will hold true for you.
During those times in your life when all the evidences of your grace seem to have failed, there is
still that seed of assurance in your heart that keeps you from absolute despair. Our Lord Jesus
Christ Himself experienced this. When He cried out on the cross, “MY GOD, MY GOD,
WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?” (Mark 15:34), He was still able to say, “MY GOD.”
And this is how it was with these saints of old. All seemed to be lost and gone, yet their faith
still cried out, “Thou art our Father.” When things like these happen to us, when we become
surprised at how wretched and vile we really are, and how our “righteous deeds are like a filthy
garment”, and how our holiness has withered away “like a leaf,” what an assurance it is for us
to have faith which will hold its ground and say, “Though these things be true of me, yet You are
my Father.” May the Lord help us to be able to say this, especially when we depart from this
world into the next, for then it will bring to us a sure foundation of hope and comfort.
But notice second, in our text, the condition of the church at this time. They were both
oppressed and under conviction. They were oppressed by their enemies, “Thy holy people
possessed Thy sanctuary for a little while, our adversaries have trodden it down” (63:18).
Undoubtedly, they were oppressed in many ways. Yet their main concern was for the sanctuary
of God. Their holy assemblies had been disturbed, and the worship of God removed. It would
be good for us, as well, that when we face oppression by the enemy, our main concern would be
for the worship of God, as was theirs.
But this was also a time of deep conviction of sin for them. As their prayer continues
into the next chapter, we read, “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our
righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities,
like the wind, take us away. And there is no one who calls on Thy name, who arouses
himself to take hold of Thee; for Thou hast hidden Thy face from us, and hast delivered us
into the power of our iniquities” (Isa. 64:6-7).
These people of God are faced both with great oppression and conviction of sin. But
what do they do? What direction do they decide to turn? There is really no other place to turn
than to God. They go to inquire of Him why He is displeased, and why He has brought these
spiritual judgments, this hardness of heart, upon them. And this is what we must do as well,
when we find within ourselves an indifference to the things of God. We must go to God to find
out why His is angry with us, and why He has bought this spiritual judgment in causing us to
stray from His paths and in hardening our hearts from His fear.
What I would like for us to look at this morning, and Lord willing, this evening, is First,
what does it mean to stray from the ways of God? Second, what does it mean to have our hearts
hardened from the fear of God? Third, what are some of the ways in which God may cause us
to stray from His ways and harden our hearts from the fear of Him? Fourth, why is it that God
would deal this way with His people? and fifth, what are we to do when this is our condition?

I. First, What Does It Mean to Stray from the Ways of God?

A. His Ways Are the Ways in which He Has Appointed Us to Walk towards Him, How We
Are to Live.
1. His paths are clearly those of righteousness. They are revealed in His Word.
2. And as we have seen on Sunday evenings, they are nicely summarized for us in the 10
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Commandments.

B. The Ways in which We Can Stray from His Paths Are Two: Inwardly, in Our Hearts,
and Outwardly, in Our Actions.
1. The principle of life and holiness which the Lord puts in our hearts can decay. It can
“wither like a leaf.” It can dry up and almost be extinguished, although it will never
be fully extinguished. The grace of God sustains it, so that ultimately it is
indestructible.
2. But it can wither, and when it does, it has a tremendous impact on the way we live.
We begin to fail in our duty both to God and man. We drop off walking in obedience
and holiness.
3. Both of these go together. They are either strong together or weak.
4. But the first of these principles, the inward grace, is the mainspring from which the
other flows. If grace declines in the heart, then it will diminish the power to live a holy
life.
5. To stray from the ways of God, then, is to have our hearts weakened and
spiritually disenabled, so that we turn from walking vigorously and powerfully
with the Lord, to a dull and indifferent walk, a walk in which the things of the
Lord do not have an overriding influence in our lives.

II. Secondly, What Does It Mean to Have Our Hearts Hardened from the Fear of God?
There Are Two Ways in Which the Lord Hardens the Hearts of Men from the Fear of
Himself: 1. He Hardens Them Totally, or 2. Partially.
A. First, There Is a Total Hardening.
1. The best example of this is seen in Isaiah 6:10, where the prophet writes, “Render the
hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, lest they see
with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and
be healed.”
2. This is the kind of hardening which the Lord brought upon the Jews at the time of
Christ, when they rejected Him as their Messiah.
3. It is the complete absence of all holy affections toward God and His Christ. They had
affections all right, but not holy ones. They did not love Him, but wanted to destroy
Him.
4. This is not the kind of hardening which is mentioned here in Isaiah. Those who have
been given over by God to this kind of hardening would never humble themselves
before Him or plead with Him to soften their hearts.
5. If we are not in this condition, we should thank the Lord. If He should harden us in
this way, we would completely and totally abandon Him forever.

B. But There Is Also a Partial Hardening Which is Mentioned in Scripture.

1. In Hebrews 3:13, we read, “But encourage one another day after day, as long as it
is still called "Today," lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
2. It is the same thing that the Psalmist is seeking to avoid where he prays, “With all my
heart I have sought Thee; do not let me wander from Thy commandments” (Psa.
119:10), “Incline my heart to Thy testimonies, and not to dishonest gain” (119:36),
and, “Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness
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with men who do iniquity; and do not let me eat of their delicacies” (141:4). Our
Lord taught us to pray, “And lead us not into temptation” (Matt. 6:13).
3. The Lord tells us that there is a partial hardening which can come to our hearts through
sin. Any hardness in you would be a great encumbrance in the race that you have to
run. It would be a great disadvantage to you. You are to run the race that you might
win! Have you ever seen a runner compete wearing a winter coat, long pants, boots
and a backpack? No. If he is to have any chance of winning, he must take off all
excess weight and any clothes which will slow him down. If you are to run the
Christian race that you might win, you must also remove everything which hinders.
4. This partial hardening hinders. And this is the kind of hardening that is mentioned
this morning in our text.
5. And this is not a strange idea to the Reformed Faith. Our Confession recognizes that
this can happen, where it says in 17:3, “Nevertheless, they [true Christians] may,
through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption
remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous
sins; and, for a time, continue therein: whereby they incur God's displeasure, and
grieve His Holy Spirit, come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and
comforts; have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and
scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves.(9).”
6. There were times when the disciples’ hearts were hardened in this way. When the
disciples were amazed at Christ’s stilling of the wind and the waves, Mark says the
reason was that “they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but
their heart was hardened” (6:52). And later, after He had risen, and they had refused
to believe the testimony of those who had seen Him, He appeared to them “and He
reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not
believed those who had seen Him after He had risen” (16:14). This can happen to a
true believer, although it cannot be the pattern of his life.
7. We will look later as to exactly what this hardening is.

III. But Let Us Go Thirdly to How It Is that God Causes Men to Stray from His Ways and
Hardens Their Hearts.
A. First, God Hardens the Heart by Not Restraining Sin in His Creatures.
1. If God does not act upon the human heart to keep it soft and humble, then its own sin
will harden it.
2. This is how God deceived the false prophets.
a. In Ezekiel 14:9, we read, “And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a
thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand
upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.”
b. God does not deceive him by telling him a lie, but by not restraining his wickedness
to the point where he would not be led astray. He uses the evil which already exists
in the prophet’s own heart.

3. This is, I believe, the same way that He hardened Pharaoh’s heart. He did not inject
evil into his heart, but simply removed His restraint from him so that his own evil
would have free course. God is the One who is said to do the hardening, because it is
by His act of removing that restraint that Pharaoh’s heart grows hard. God does it, but
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Pharaoh is responsible for it, because it is his evil.

B. Secondly, God Hardens Men by an Act of Judgment.

1. This is a total hardening, as we saw before. It is God judicially hardening the hearts of
men in order to destroy them for their sin. And this is something which others, who
know of God’s ways, can see.
2. There is a series of stages in this hardening. The Bible tells us that when God is
bringing men into judgment, He first gives them up to their own lusts.
a. We read in Romans 1:24, “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their
hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them.”
b. He removes the restraints as we saw earlier, so that they will further indulge in their
sins, and bring wrath upon themselves.
c. Isn’t this something that we see today? God has taken away the shame for sin and
the fear of it. He is giving men over to their lusts.

3. He secondly gives men up to Satan to blind them, to darken them, and to harden them.
a. Satan is the god of this world, who blinds the eyes of men (2 Cor. 4:4). God allows
him to do this for His own purposes.
b. The primary way that he blinds is by being a lying spirit in the mouth of all of his
false prophets, who cry “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.
c. Satan was a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets of Ahab who enticed him to go
up to Ramoth-Gilead in order to fall.
d. Satan is the lying spirit in the mouth of all of his false prophets today who advocate
his doctrines of abortion, homosexuality, drug abuse, adultery, fornication, you name
it.
e. He is also the lying spirit in the mouths of many so-called Christian preachers who
lead the people of God far away from holiness and righteous zeal, to self-indulgence
and worldliness.
f. Can these things be seen in our nation? Yes!

4. He thirdly gives them opportunities in His Providence, to give vent to their lusts.
a. This is one of God’s darker dispensations, when He orders things in such a way that
men have the opportunities to commit sin.
b. There have been wicked men throughout history who have had the desire to do the
evil we see today. But society would not allow it, because of God’s Providential
restraint.
c. Today, there is hardly anything which was considered shameful and wicked, which
is not glamorized by the television media.
d. God has given our society over to judicial hardening!

5. The last step of this downward spiral is God’s giving them over to a reprobate mind.
a. As we read in Romans 1:28, “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God
any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which
are not proper.”
b. A reprobate mind is a depraved, worthless, corrupted mind. It is a mind that cannot
judge or approve of anything good.
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c. You can show such a man the most convincing things for his eternal welfare, you
can show him that eternal destruction is right at the door, and he doesn’t care. He is
unaffected by it.
d. The world is full of such people as this. And brethren, our nation and our churches
are full of such individuals. This is God’s judicial hardening!

C. But the Third Way, in which God Causes Men to Stray from His Paths and to Harden
Their Hearts, Is by Withholding His Spirit and Grace.
1. This is the hardening which our text deals with this morning.
2. It is that hardening which occurs when the Lord removes His gracious restraints upon
sin, even from those whom He loves, so that they are aware of the fact that they have
moved from His ways, and that their hearts are no longer responsive to His Word.
3. If these Jews spoken of in our text had never had the experience of a higher zeal in
their walk and a greater tenderness toward God, then they would not have been aware of
the fact that these things had been lost.
4. Tonight, Lord willing, we will look at what this partial hardening is, why God deals
this way with His children, and what we are to do to recover from it. I would strongly
encourage you to be here, if you are at all concerned for your spiritual welfare.
5. But from what I have said so far this morning, I would exhort you to examine your
heart to determine what state it is in.
a. If you are zealously pursuing a path of holiness and going on in the fear of the Lord,
give glory to God! He is the only One who can work this in you and maintain it.
Take heed that you do not become prideful and fall! My counsel to you is to keep
yourself humble before the Lord and give all of the glory to Him. He has caused
you to stand and only He can continue to make you stand. If you allow yourself to
think that you have done it by your own strength, you will surely be brought low by
the Lord.
b. If, on the other hand, you are so hardened to the things of the Lord that the things
which I have said this morning from the Word of God have little or no affect on you,
then fear! The Lord may have given you over to a reprobate mind. I counsel you
to seek the Lord while the door of His grace is still open. Only God can move your
heart to seek after Him. There is a point at which God gives a man over to his lusts
forever. Pray that it hasn’t happened to you! Respond to His command to embrace
Christ and turn from your sins.
c. If you were not even aware that you were required to walk in faithful obedience in
the fear of the Lord, then I would counsel you to study more carefully the Word of
God. God says in His Word that every true believer makes it his business to know
the will of God and to do it. If you are ignorant of these things, you could have
been deceived by someone who was himself deceived. But if the Spirit of God is
within you, you know that these things which I have said are true, for He bears
witness to them. Seek to walk with the Lord in holiness and righteousness of the
truth, and do not let your heart be hardened against obedience and the fear of the
Lord.
d. If you never have had this zeal for righteousness and holiness, then it is very likely
that you have never been converted. Your experience to this point has not exceeded
that of an unregenerate man. I would counsel you as well t seek the Lord while He
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may be found. Close with the Savior by faith, and run from all your sins.
e. And lastly, if you find that you have had a greater zeal for the Lord and a greater
fear than you do now, if you are aware of the great lack within you of this zeal and
fear, so that you cry out in your heart, “Why, O LORD, do You cause” me “to
stray from Your ways, and harden” my “heart from fearing You?” (Isa. 63:17),
then I would counsel you to come this evening, when we will delve more specifically
into the causes of this hardening, what purposes God has in it, and what we can do to
be delivered from it. Amen.