Beware of the Hard Heart!
Notes
Transcript
introduction
What types of warning signs or alerts do you get? Do you get an alerts that your phone is going dead? Weather warnings? What about on the streets? School zones, heat indexes at Mt Charleston, slippery when wet, road ends, watch out for falling rocks....
What about all the alarms we have in our homes? Security alarms, fire alarms, alarms that our microwave is done? Our cars have all kinds of alarms.
It can become easy to ignore the alarms that are all around us. Sometimes we ignore them altogether. Talk about the seat belt alarm in the patrol car.
Throughout the book of Hebrews are warnings that are delivered to us. These aren’t suggestions, simple advice or false alarms. These are announcements of real danger that we will encounter in our faith and walk with Christ. All of these warnings echo the same message...BEWARE!
We’ve already seen the first warning in the first couple of chapters. The first was not to drift and in this lesson we will learn about the next; beware of a hard heart. This warning is neglected too many times. We need to hear this from time to time because if we aren’t reminded we may end up veering off the path of Christian faith, love and hope.
Hebrews 3:7–11 (CSB)
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested me, tried me, and saw my works for forty years.
Therefore I was provoked to anger with that generation and said, “They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.”
So I swore in my anger, “They will not enter my rest.”
Carrying on with the “therefore” of the last verses we read, the author moves on to the next point. Given the Jewish background of the audience, the author was always ready and eager to present OT testimony. These people would have been able to draw from their background and upbringing to apply what this person is pointing to.
The language and images would have been immediately recognizable to the Jews unlike the majority of gentiles. Verses 7-11 are taken from the book of Psalms.
Psalm 95:7–11 (CSB)
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep under his care.
Today, if you hear his voice: Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah in the wilderness where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
For forty years I was disgusted with that generation; I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray; they do not know my ways.”
So I swore in my anger, “They will not enter my rest.”
Although we don’t know exactly who wrote this psalm, the author of Hebrews attributes it to the Holy Spirit since He stands as the divine author of all scripture.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,
Since we know the Holy Spirit inspired these words, he pointed the author to the time of Israel’s wandering that was recorded in Numbers.
Who can remember this story? The Israelites were taken from Egypt, went through the Red Sea, and were headed for Canaan to take possession of the Promised Land as God’s covenant people. Had they taken the direct route across the Sinai Peninsula along a well established route, they would have arrived in about 2 weeks. But, their sin hardened their heart against God and this led to 40 years of delays.
insert the map on the slide
Whether they had a map, compass or GPS, the Hebrews would not have made it any earlier. They didn’t lose sight of the road, they lost sight of God. They should have had soft hearts due to all they had been through, but instead they grew numb. Tough, not tender; rough, not responsive; hardened, not humble. This embarrassing memory in the history of the covenant people of God would serve as a painful reminder of the effects of a hardened heart.
Even though this happened centuries in the past, the author of Hebrews felt he needed to remind the current people of the tendency to move towards dullness of hearing and hardness of heart. God knew they needed their faith refined and tested as they traveled through the wilderness towards the promised land.
He showed them time and time again that he saw them through the wilderness and would provide them with everything they needed. Unfortunately, they repeated this failure to trust the Lord. We see this in Exodus 17:1-7.
The entire Israelite community left the Wilderness of Sin, moving from one place to the next according to the Lord’s command. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So the people complained to Moses, “Give us water to drink.”
“Why are you complaining to me?” Moses replied to them. “Why are you testing the Lord?”
But the people thirsted there for water and grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you ever bring us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”
Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What should I do with these people? In a little while they will stone me!”
The Lord answered Moses, “Go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you. Take the staff you struck the Nile with in your hand and go. I am going to stand there in front of you on the rock at Horeb; when you hit the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink.” Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites complained, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Instead of responding in faith and obedience, they grumbled against Moses. Here we see in Moses’ response that the people were not just rebelling against man, but against God (Exodus 17:2).
Exodus 17:2 (CSB)
So the people complained to Moses, “Give us water to drink.”
“Why are you complaining to me?” Moses replied to them. “Why are you testing the Lord?”
Because of their complaining, Moses named the location Massah and Meribah which mean “test” and “quarrel”. It was to this demonstration of hard heartedness that the author of Hebrews referred by quoting Psalm 95:7-8 in Heb. 3:7-8.
Psalm 95:7–8 (CSB)
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep under his care. Today, if you hear his voice: Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah in the wilderness
Another test came when the people set up camp at Kadesh-barnea after receiving the Law at Mt. Sinai. This was when God told them to send spies into the land to size up the people, cities and fortifications. They didn’t need to gather intelligence since God had already told them to take it. But doing some recon was necessary to determine the best way to do it.
However, the spies returned shaking in their boots stating
But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can’t attack the people because they are stronger than we are!”
Although they should have responded with confidence considering all they have been through, they didn’t. They buckled in fear instead of standing strong in their faith. So strong were the words of these cowards that the people began to weep.
Then the whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron, and the whole community told them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!
They rebelled against God because they were more fearful of the people and not their maker.
Only don’t rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land, for we will devour them. Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Don’t be afraid of them!”
What was God’s response to this?
He drew the line in the sand. He wouldn’t tolerate the incessant murmuring, complaining and rebellion. Then they said this.
All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron, and the whole community told them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!
God answered their request and gave them what they wanted.
Tell them: As I live—this is the Lord’s declaration—I will do to you exactly as I heard you say. Your corpses will fall in this wilderness—all of you who were registered in the census, the entire number of you twenty years old or more—because you have complained about me.
They made their bed and hardened their hearts against him and he allowed them to go the way that they wanted to.
The Psalms quoted here by the author of Hebrews is used to drive home a crucial point. When we are faced with trials and tribulations in life that appear as if they may completely undo us, we need to trust God, who alone can give us rest (Heb. 3:11).
So I swore in my anger,
“They will not enter my rest.”
The point in the beginning verses is that God hates a hard heart. The picture is clear, as I have said before, God does not change. He disciplined the OT people for their lack of faith just as he does today. If we harden our hearts and turn away, God will allow us to be turned over to the desires of our hearts (Romans 1:21-32).
For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
Hebrews 3:12–19 (CSB)
Watch out, brothers and sisters, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception. For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start. As it is said:
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.
For who heard and rebelled? Wasn’t it all who came out of Egypt under Moses? With whom was God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
In this appeal and application, the author highlights the first and last words from Psalm 95-today and rest.
Today underscores the urgency of the warning he is issuing to the audience. Those who are reading this, both through the eyes of the Jewish people who have lived through this before and now through the eyes of the new believers who may not know about these stories, need to consider this warning and learn from the examples given from the past, today! Not tomorrow, not next week. Not after we have weighed the pros and cons and compared God’s word to todays cultural relevance. The moment we hear God speak, we should respond. When we delay this, we allow our hearts to grow hard towards God.
This hard warning comes in verse Hebrews 3:12-13. Like the OT counterparts, they ran the risk of nursing an evil heart that falls away from the living God and is hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
God’s word comes to us fresh each day, but so does the opportunity for hardening our hearts against it. Although turning away from God and towards a hard heart starts with the individual (Hebrews 3:12), the cure for this is found in the corporate body, or the church (Hebrews 3:13). This is what partakers of Christ are (Hebrews 3:14). We do trust individually as sinners the moment we believe, but we are also baptized into His body and become members of one another (1 Cor. 12:13-14).
For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink. Indeed, the body is not one part but many.
The relationship of our true relationship with Christ is seen in verse 14 (Hebrews 3:14).
For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.
On the surface of this statement, we think that staying strong and remaining firm in our faith until the end of our lives is the part we play in maintaining our relationship with Jesus, as if to say that if we don’t, Jesus will kick us out of the family. But, it’s more likely that this statement is the same as what we read in Hebrews 3:6. The idea there and here, is that the outcome of our lives validates the claim: Continuance of faith is the ultimate proof of the reality of faith or you live what you believe until the end. You walk the walk and talk the talk and stay true to it.
We can’t be spectators in this christian life, we must be participators. Like a football player who is tackled to the ground, our eyes must remain on the goal line. If we focus on the author and finisher of our faith then we will come out on top and those around us will want finish strong with us. This is where the Israelites went wrong in the wilderness. They lost their grips on his promises and abandoned him. They died in the wilderness of Sinai, and their outcome is a constant warning of the effects of a hard heart. With these examples, we should be examining our hearts for signs of hardening (Hebrews 3:15).
As it is said:
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.
For who heard and rebelled? Wasn’t it all who came out of Egypt under Moses? With whom was God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
In Hebrews 3:16-19 the author draws the parallel between the OT people and the NT ones. For anyone to think “I will never leave God and that will never happen to me” verses Hebrews 3:16-17 proves that it can happen to anybody. The Jewish people were brought out of captivity in Egypt, the walked through the waters of the Red Sea, they saw all the things God was doing for them and had a mediator through Moses! They had everything directly in front of them and they still rebelled and hardened their hearts. How much more are we susceptible to doing the same thing if not quicker than they did?? These people after seeing all this, provoked God and turned away which lead to their punishment in the wilderness.
The warning in these verses against hard heartedness is simple but sobering. Unbelief has serious consequences for the non-Christian, who resists their opportunity to trust Christ alone for salvation until it’s too late. It is also serious for the Christian who fails to obey the voice of God in his word and grows hard of heart.
For unbelievers, unrepentance and rejection of the gospel bars them from entering eternal rest in heaven. For the believer, hardness towards the things of the obedient christian life shat the gates to a joyous res of intimate fellowship with their savior.
Just as the salvation from sin that comes through Christ is superior than the rescue from Egypt that came through Moses, so also is Christ’s offer of spiritual and eternal rest is far superior than the temporary rest offered to the Israelites in the promised land.
As the author of hebrews pointed the readers to the OT story of the covenant people turning from God and becoming hard hearted, he also pointed out that it was them who made this decision, not him. He won’t make them love him or else that wouldn’t be love. Look at this in human terms. Can I force anyone to love me against their will? No, that isn’t love. We make that choice and so did they and he let them go their way but there was a consequence. In the same way, the author is urging his readers to evaluate themselves so that they don’t go down the same route.
This isn’t a disease that only affected the early church and OT people. This is why it is so important that we guard from this problem.
end (length)
Backward Glance, Inward Look, Upward Call
When it comes to preventing heart disease, what do we do?
Avoid smoking, exercise regularly, eat sensibly and monitor our cholesterol.
But what can we do to prevent spiritual heart disease?
WE NEED A DAILY DOSE OF MUTUAL ENCOURAGEMENT
But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.
We must encourage each other day after day. When was the last time you did this for someone or allowed someone to do this for you? This is more than a simple phone call or sending an email or text. This requires time with the other person, the kind of fellowship that you would find in a tight-knit church community. You get to know the struggles and temptations of others may be the same that you are dealing with. Only then, once you discover that you aren’t that much different from others, that you can begin to exhort and encourage one another to keep the faith.
WE NEED THE DAILY DISCIPLINE OF PERSONAL PERSEVERANCE
For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.
We show the evidence of our faith when we “hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.” The perseverance of our faith in times of trouble demonstrates our readiness to enter God’s rest. When we encounter the hard times that seem no way around, we should fall to our knees and see refuge in God. He alone can give us peace which surpasses all understanding (Phil. 4:7).
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Only then can we understand what it means to enter his rest.