They are darkened in their understanding, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

Between the last verse and this one we have thinking, understanding, and the heart, and not in a good way.

We have talked about futile thinking, meaning a frame of reality that does not conform to truth. And the truth is in Jesus (Ephesians 4:21). And that frame of reality inevitably leads to darkened understanding.

We start with futile thinking; we end in darkened understanding. Whatever frame of thinking tells you that an object carved in stone and wood should be kissed and you should offer sacrifice to it has led you to darkened understanding, and nothing good will come out of that.

Through Isaiah, God gave damning condemnation to Israel for their practice of idol worship, saying:

All who form idols are nothing (Isaiah 44:9)

They do not comprehend or understand, for their eyes are blind and cannot see; their minds do not discern (Isaiah 44:18)

In Romans we read that because humans did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them over to a depraved mind (Romans 1:28)

“Understanding” is the platform on which we justify our actions or correct them. We are constantly running the machine of our mind, judging things as either right or wrong.

A darkened understanding shows itself in the wrong action; it cannot see an alternative, cannot see the good.

It is locked in a darkroom and constantly banging against the law of God, injuring itself and is not aware that anything is wrong until the damage becomes extensive, if ever at all. For example, Esau, who was called a profane man (Hebrews 12:16).

The issue of understanding and sight is so important that Jesus summarized His coming to the world as coming “so that those who do not see may gain their sight” (John 9:39).

Everyone knows that is a good thing. Jesus said that after He had healed a man born blind. And is that not all of us? Are we not all born blind, darkened in our understanding, as David wrote, “I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5)?

And sin and darkness are synonymous according to the words of John, who said the one who continues in sin is in darkness (1 John 1:6).

So from futility in their thinking (Ephesians 4:17), we have darkness in understanding. Next we have the cause.

This is the crux of the matter. It is the unscalable height. It tells us degeneration is inevitable apart from God.

Paul said that our outer man is wearing out, but our inner person is being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16) because we have eternal life.

The point is, it is not about coming to a program to help you think better, or get more education; it is about the life of God; it is about a quality of being, not so much the acquisition of information.

So when we hear the word, we know we are receiving information, but beyond that, we should seek to come into contact with the Spirit.

What I would say is that the words are conduits of the Spirit (John 6:63). What Spirit are your words conduits of? We need to ask.

So you cannot say I can pick and choose what I want from the minister, but you cannot pick and choose to come under the influence of the Spirit flowing in that minister. So watch out!

The point is the ignorant can wear the ignorance like a badge. What Paul calls futile thinking, they call right thinking. What Paul calls "darkened understanding" is seeing with 2020 vision.

Jesus did not mince words when He said that if the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness (Matthew 6:23).

Paul is talking about ignorance as a thing rather than the absence of a thing. It’s like running on fumes, thinking you have oil; it's a crash-out waiting to happen, if you ask me.

Thinking, understanding, these are all functions of the heart. Now, Paul calls the heart hard.

Meaning that the processes running within it cannot be influenced by anything external to it. It is locked in its own self-destructive tendency.

Stephen said some people are “stiff-necked people, always resisting the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51).

It's like water to a duck's back. The heart is hard because it is not penetrable. It cannot be the platform for lasting change. It is hardened in rebellion against God; elsewhere we read that “the human mind is more deceitful than anything else… Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Still we read about the seed sown on rocky ground” (Matthew 13:20–21).

What we want is the right understanding, the right thinking, but a festering ignorance within, founded on a hardened heart, cannot get us there because we are alienated from the life of God, which we need to get us there.

That is why what we need is a new Spirit (Ezekiel 36:26), a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), and a walk in the Spirit so that we would not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).