47. The persistent rejection of light eventually produces a totally-hardened heart which the Spirit can no longer reach.
A man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken beyond remedy. {Proverbs 29:1}
As you might have realized by now, if a person who rejects light hardens their heart, and if a harder heart requires a louder voice to be heard or a more outrageous demonstration to get attention, there can come a point where a person has so hardened their heart that the Spirit is no longer able to penetrate that darkness with light.
This is exactly what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 6 when He said, “If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” In other words, if you have consistently turned all the light you’ve given back into darkness, rejecting again and again the truth the Spirit has brought to you, eventually you will be unable of “seeing” any further light. How great will be that darkness you’ve cultivated within yourself!
That’s also what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 12 when He confronted the Pharisees who had claimed Jesus was driving out demons because He was really Satan. In verse 25, it says, “Jesus knew their thoughts,” which means that He knew they didn’t even believe what they were saying. They were trying to turn people against Him, but they themselves had seen the evidence of His divinity, and they knew He was the Son of God. And He warned them that if they continued to attribute what they knew was the work of God to Satan, then they would eventually cut off the only channel through which the Spirit could communicate with them, leaving them without hope of a remedy.
Later, shortly before He died, Jesus warned them again in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus that if they were unwilling to respond to the light they saw in the Scriptures, seeing someone brought out of the grave wouldn’t make a difference either. And then Jesus went right after that and resurrected Lazarus from the dead, and the Pharisees and religious leaders immediately intensified their plans to kill Him. To them, the light didn’t matter anymore.
If you want to dig deeper—
Proverbs 4:19
Proverbs 28:14
Isaiah 5:20
Isaiah 42:18-20, 23-25
Jeremiah 13:10
Zechariah 7:12
Matthew 6:22-23
Luke 16:27-31