Harden Not Your Hearts – Part I
HEBREWS 3:7-19
“HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS” IS A WARNING, THE SECOND WARNING OF THE BOOK OF HEBREWS. The first warning was found in chapter 2, verse 1…
NAS Hebrews 2:1 For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.
“DO NOT DRIFT!” DO NOT DRIFT AWAY FROM YOUR FAITH IN JESUS.
THE BOOK OF HEBREWS IS, IN GREAT PART, A BOOK OF WARNINGS.”
GOD WARNS US IN HIS WORD BECAUSE HE LOVES US.
FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION THE BIBLE IS FULL OF WARNING signs from God, meant to deter men from sin and thereby keep them from having to face His holy, wrathful judgment. The Old Testament tells us that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked …
NAS Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’
THAT IS A WARNING FROM A LOVING GOD WHO DOES NOT WANT people to ruin their lives through sin and rebellion to Him…
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT, AS WELL, TELLS US THAT GOD does not wish for anyone to perish but wants everyone to repent…
NAS 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
GOD DID NOT CREATE MAN TO DOOM HIM TO HELL… God loves the people He created…
NAS John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
GOD LOVES YOU AND ONLY WANTS THE BEST FOR YOU…
BUT BECAUSE OF MAN’S NATURE, HE IS PRONE TO SIN…
KJV Job 5:7 Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
SIN IS DESTRUCTIVE… It will ruin your life. Sin leads ultimately to death…
NAS Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
BECAUSE GOD LOVES US AND BECAUSE SIN IS DEADLY, HE WARNS US… The warnings God gives us concerning our relationship with Him are serious warnings; we are to take them with the utmost seriousness…
THIS WEEK THE WARNING WE WILL LOOK AT IN HEBREWS 3:7-19 IS “HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS”…
THE WRITER OF HEBREWS, AS WE HAVE SEEN, IS VERY MUCH A PREACHER… One thing preachers do as they deliver their message is to give an example, an illustration. The writer does that here in our passage. He begins this passage with an illustration from the Old Testament, a prime source of information and instruction his audience would have been very familiar with…
LET’S LOOK CAREFULLY AT HEBREWS 3:7-11…
NAS Hebrews 3:7-11 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, And saw My works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; And they did not know My ways’; As I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.'”
THIS ILLUSTRATION ALMOST WORD-FOR-WORD COMES FROM PSALM 95:7-11. It is obvious that the preacher/teacher/writer of Hebrews loved the Old Testament Scriptures. Already in the first three chapters he has quoted numerous times from the Old Testament…
NAS Psalm 95:7-11 For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness; When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways. Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest.”
THE PSALMIST HAD USED THIS STORY TO WARN THE JEWS against hardening their hearts in disbelief. A thousand years later the writer of the book of Hebrews used the same Psalm for the same purpose. Two thousand years later, today to you and me, God is sounding the same warning…
HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS AGAINST GOD…
GOD HAD BROUGHT THE NATION OF ISRAEL OUT OF SLAVERY IN EGYPT and was leading them through the wilderness to the Promised Land in Canaan. Instead of obediently and thankfully following God’s leading, they grumbled and murmured against Him. They had seen clear manifestations of God’s power on their behalf. They had seen how He lovingly provided for them while they were in the wilderness, and yet they were rebellious…
SOUNDS A LOT LIKE PEOPLE THAT LOOK LIKE WE DO, WEAR THE SAME CLOTHES AS WE DO, AND LIVE IN THE SAME HOUSES AS WE DO…
THE O.T. IS THERE FOR OUR LEARNING…
NAS 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
WE READ THE STORIES OF THE O.T. CHARACTERS AND EVENTS AND LEARN not to make the same mistakes they did. If we do not benefit from the O.T. Scripture, brothers and sisters, we are fools…
WE LOOK AT THE STORIES OF WILDERNESS WANDERINGS OF THE JEWS and understand that they represent to us “the experiences of believers who will not claim their spiritual inheritances in Christ, who doubt God’s Word and live in restless unbelief. To be sure, God is with them, as He was with Israel; but they do not enjoy the fullness of God’s blessing. They are ‘out of Egypt’ but they are not yet ‘in Canaan.’” – Warren Wiersbe
THE NATION OF ISRAEL IS NOT THE CHURCH, BUT THERE ARE UNMISTAKABLE SIMILARITIES…
THE ANCIENT JEWS HARDENED THEIR HEARTS… They didn’t want to go on…
CONTINUANCE IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS THE REAL TEST OF THE REALITY OF OUR FAITH, of the genuineness or our commitment to honor God with our lives…
“HARDEN” COMES FROM THE GREEK WORD σκληρύνω (skla-ru-no)… You will recognize the English word we get from σκληρύνω: sclerosis. Sclerosis is the hardening of the tissues or cells of the body. It can lead to death…
“TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE” has the exclamatory force in the original language of the Old Testament: “Oh, that today you would hear His voice.” The writer prophetically interprets “today” to mean the Christian present, both then when he wrote Hebrews, and now for us…
“TODAY” MEANS TODAY. It really means “now,” that is, this very moment. There is a definite urgency in God’s commands; they are to be done now. Men and women typically put off God and spiritual decisions that relate to Him until “tomorrow,” but no one can determine when God’s period of grace for his or her life ends. If God is speaking to our heart, we must not delay; we must respond now…
NAS Hebrews 3:12 Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God.
“TAKE CARE” COMES FROM THE GREEK WORD βλέπω (blep-o) The word literally means to see. The NIV and the NET Bibles translate it “See to it.” We might say, “perceive,” to perceive with the mind. It is an expression of caution. The NKJ Bible translates it “Beware.” The ESV and the NAS both use the words, “Take care.” May I ask you as I’ve asked myself, “Are you taking care with your heart?”
THERE IS AN OLD SAYING: “THE SAME SUN THAT MELTS THE WAX HARDENS THE CLAY.” We might paraphrase that to fit our context by saying, “If your heart is soft, it will be melted in faith; if it is hard, it is hardened more in unbelief.” A soft heart believes; a hard heart does not.
HARDENING USUALLY OCCURS GRADUALLY, like clay being hardened by the sun.
– Professor Thomas A. Rohm
