Can God Abandon Us?

This sermon explores the challenging question of whether God can abandon His people, using Jesus's shift in language from "My house" to "your house is left to you desolate" when addressing the temple and the Pharisees. The speaker connects this shift to the concept that believers are the "temples of God," posing the crucial question of whether God might similarly withdraw His presence from individual souls due to unresponsiveness. Two primary reasons are presented for God's final message of abandonment: first, hardness of heart, characterized by an inability to receive God's three and a half years of loving service and teaching; and second, hypocrisy, which is defined as the unique sin that allows a person to continue sinning while maintaining a beautiful, yet fruitless, external appearance. Ultimately, the combination of these two issues demonstrates a person's refusal to repent, leading to a final message from a patient God who consistently sends messages of love, mercy, and even hardship, urging a change from within.