Why, O LORD, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes that are your inheritance.
According to the prophet, God MADE them wander from His ways and HARDENED the hearts of His people, the Israelites. Why? Because He is sovereign, and making them wander and hardening their hearts was part of His plan. And of course, when He hardened their hearts, they did NOT get saved and I say again, went to Hell. As Paul wrote in Romans 9:14-15:
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all!
15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
God CHOOSES upon whom to have mercy and compassion, and He chooses whom to harden. It has nothing to do with what men do first, i.e. believe or repent. Keep reading in Romans 9:
16 It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
You can’t say God did it because they would not believe. Men CAN’T believe in their lost state because it is the natural state of men NOT to believe God. A man CAN’T believe until God GIVES him belief (John 6:29, Philippians 1:29). ALL men are conceived as sinners and headed for Hell (Psalm 51:5), God chose some to save and He chose whom to save - they receive mercy. If God didn’t choose someone, they will never believe because they are not able, and they will “receive” justice. No one receives injustice.
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