THE HARDENING OF HEART

Heb. 3:8

Morning Meditation 3/5/17

Verse 8 says, “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness.”

This is an imminent danger for Christians. Christians are being warned in this text not to make the same mistake that Israel did in the past. They provoked God through the hardening of their hearts and the penalty was that they did not enter into the land of promise. The land of promise here does not stand for salvation but the fulness of salvation. It does not stand for heaven because there are enemies there and they had to fight to obtain the land. Heaven is not a place where enemies exist or warfare is exercised.

The word “harden” is found six times in the New Testament and translates “skleruno” and means, “to make hard, harden; to render obstinate, stubborn.” We get our English word Scleroderma from this Greek word and means in our language, “a pathological thickening and hardening of the skin” This is what used to happened to the bottom of my feet when I was a boy and took off my shoes for the summer. The only time I wore shoes was on Sunday and possibly when they dressed me a little more formal when they took me to Conway, AR to shop. When I first took off my shoes the bottom of my feet were tender and I walked carefully. In a week or two I stepped on just about anything that was in my path without the lease amount of pain. God has so made us that if our tender skin comes into constant contact with an offending surface the skin thickens and hardens so that it does not hurt.

Something like this happens when one resists God in his heart. It happened to Israel in the wilderness. God dealt with them over and over again so that it became easier to resist God in favor of their own views and fears. Of course, unbelief is the root of any rationalism that rejects God’s infallible revelation. God always promises and acts in a way that is difficult for the natural man. Therefore we are to “Walk in the Spirit” that we should not “fulfil the lusts of the flesh.”

A PERSONAL CHOICE

This warning in our text is a warning against wrong decisions when confronted by the Holy Spirit of God. Hardening of the heart comes when we are confronted by the Holy Spirit with truth to which we do not want to obey. We hear it but we either say no to it or not now. Now as Christians we are born into God’s family with a tender heart. It is sensitive to the Holy Spirit as He guides us into all truth. But there comes a time when what He says is going to put us at odds with our friends. It may be something that will cause us to act against the wrong advise of another. So rather than obey what we know is right, we choose to go our own way in the matter. The next time the Holy Spirit speaks to us and we do not agree it will be easier to reject what He wants in favor of what we want. And whatever pain it caused us in the beginning becomes less and less and we harden our hearts over and over again. Do you get the idea of the meaning of this word “harden” and Paul’s warning against making the wrong choice?

The Hebrew Christians were under pressure from their unsaved family members because they had been saved and embraced the teaching of Jesus which led them away from worship in the temple. They had the assembly called “the church” where they worshipped and heard God’s word. Even today if a Jew converts to Christianity he sometimes suffers the loss of family. In some cases the family has his funeral and treats him as dead. This is not easy for some Gentiles to understand. Most Jewish families are very close. One of the things that draws them together is their religion. For a Jew to convert to Christianity is a betrayal of the family and apostasy from the faith of their fathers. If you know a Jew who has converted to Christ, you should ask him about this. He will gladly tell you and you will learn from his testimony. And especially be his friend. You are the only family he has left. I weep as I write these words. It is an awesome trauma to have to decide between your family and eternity. But this is the truth of it. For a Jew to remain in the Jewish faith and reject Jesus as his Messiah and Saviour is to be in the same condition (lost) as a Gentile who rejects Jesus. We are living in a day when men live by compromise. It is hard for a man who lives by compromise to accept the truth that there is no compromise with God. He will deal justly in the judgment. There will be no talking oneself out of final and eternal separation from God. There will be no excuse for the man who refused to repent and accept the only way God can save and remain God in the process (Rom. 3:26).

A POWERFUL EXAMPLE

The words, “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation . . . When your fathers tempted me . . .” The Jews to whom the author speaks knew well the story of the provocation. They knew that the cost of this provocation was the death of all the men twenty years old and above with the exception of Joshua and Caleb. They all died in the wilderness. This is capital punishment on a national scale. It is one thing to give a warning against hardening ones heart against God but it is quite another to use this example and suggest that the same thing can happen in the spiritual lives of Christians who choose to do the same today.

Thousands of Jews died out of Egypt but in the wilderness. They were not only promised deliverance from Egyptian slavery but also Canaan rest. The condition to getting out of Egypt was faith in the blood of the sacrificial lamb. The condition to entrance into the land was faith in the power of God against all enemies. Colossians 2:6 says, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” We received Christ by faith and our daily walk is by faith.

I am afraid I know Christians who will never know God’s best for their lives. They are God’s children. They will go to heaven when they die. But there is no victory in their lives. They live a hum drum life and are too worldly to be thought of as a Christian and too Christian to be able to really enjoy the world with a guilt free conscience. They really talk like a spirit filled Christian when they are in a waiting room in a hospital and some of their loved ones are seriously ill. They know the language. But if you could follow them home and observe their conduct, the life and language is that of the world. Israel is an undeniable example of what happens to those who harden their hearts. Then next we see,

THE POTENTIAL DANGER

Hardening of the heart can be permanent. We can be so calloused that we are without feeling. When the loving sensitive Holy Spirit caresses our souls to get us to obey, and we resist, we build up scar tissue on the soul, so that we become more insensitive to His dealings with each occasion.

There is only one way for the believer to go. We must be completely surrendered to His will. If we have to decide each time He deals with us about whether we will obey or reject His leadership, there will be scar tissue building all the time. It won’t be long until it will not hurt and cause fear to reject the work of the Holy Spirit within. Paul says, “Quench not the Spirit” in 1 Thess.. 5:19. The word “quench” translates “sbennumi” and means, “to extinguish, to quench and speaks of quenching things on fire.” The Holy Spirit is a fire within us to do God’s will and to refuse to obey that inner voice is to quench Him. To quench Him is to begin the first stages of the callous that builds up and desensitizes us to discern His will.

The hardening of the heart is a danger. If we have allowed our hearts to become hard, we need to come before Him and ask Him to remove the callous even if He has to do it surgically. “O Lord, Make us sensitive to your will and remove any callous that we have allowed to build so that we feel pain when we even momentarily resist your will.”

May the Lord bless these words to our hearts.

In Christ

Bro. White