Don't Harden Your Hearts

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.

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Last week, our passage talked about the faithfulness of Moses to God and how Jesus was even more faithful than Moses. At the end of the service, I asked each of us to consider our own faithfulness to God. Are we following the example of our Savior? Are we actually taking up our cross to follow Jesus? Are we willing to sacrifice our comforts, our security, our friendships, to be obedient to Jesus above all others?

Today’s passage continues this same theme by giving a warning not to stray from our faithfulness to Christ. We will see the example of how Israel strayed from God, allowing their hearts to be hardened, which led to the destruction of many Israelites.

Big Idea: Do not harden your hearts to God

Hebrews 3:7-10

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 generationand said, “They always go astray in their hearts,and they have not known my ways.”

After speaking of the faithfulness of Christ in our passage from last week, the author of Hebrews quotes from Psalm 95 to give a warning to his readers not to harden their hearts. This psalm begins with worship. The Psalms were the hymnal of the Jews. Many Protestant churches still use a psalter today, or a hymnbook that is completely made up of the psalms and put to music.

Here is what the beginning of Psalm 95 says:

Psalm 95:1-7a

Come, let’s shout joyfully to the Lord,

shout triumphantly to the rock of our salvation!

Let’s enter his presence with thanksgiving;

let’s shout triumphantly to him in song.

For the Lord is a great God,

a great King above all gods.

The depths of the earth are in his hand,

and the mountain peaks are his.

The sea is his; he made it.

His hands formed the dry land.

Come, let’s worship and bow down;

let’s kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For he is our God,

and we are the people of his pasture,

the sheep under his care

This psalm starts with glorifying the God of the universe because he is mighty, he is our salvation, he is the greatest King, the valleys and depths of the seas fit in the palms of his hands, for he created them!

This psalm is a call to worship the Lord. When we worship God, we are pointing to the Creator of the universe who deserves all glory, honor, and praise. Last week, we looked at the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Question 1: What is the chief end of man?

Answer: To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

If we call ourselves Christians, this is what every aspect of our lives should entail. Every night that Emily and I pray with our kids before they go to bed, every night as Emily and I pray together before bed, every morning as I pray over the day for our family, I petition God to help us so that every action, every thought, every word that comes from us would glorify God.

Before every sermon that I write, I ask God to give me His words, His understanding, and His grace to proclaim His truth and not my own ideas of what the Scripture should say. If my sermons are not directed to God’s people to show God’s glory alone, they are fruitless.

We should have such awe and reverence for the glory and holiness of God that we want to honor him with all that we do. When we don’t have honor and reverence for God, when we don’t have a sense of awe and wonder for God, having him and his glory on the forefront of our minds, three things happen: (three points from sermon notes in Emily’s Bible on this passage)

A lack of awe hinders evangelism

If we are not fully in awe of God and how he has rescued us from our sin, we are not going to share that love and grace with others. If my salvation does not cause me to fall down at the feet of Jesus, thanking him for saving a wretched person like me, who deserves to be cast aside from him and his glorious presence because I have nothing inside of myself that is worthy of God’s love, grace, and mercy, if I do not have that kind of awe in the God of the universe, is it really worth sharing with someone else?

Salvation should completely transform us to where we want to shout from the rooftops how glorious God is, so that everyone who hears our voice will come to hear more about our Savior and his Amazing Grace.

A lack of awe produces faithlessness.

After all of this worship, we get to the part of Psalm 95 that the author of Hebrews quoted, where it points back to Exodus 17, where the Israelites had seen God provide sweetened water for them (Exodus 15), as well as quail and manna to eat when they were hungry (Exodus 16).

God provided this food in the midst of the people complaining that it would have been better to die in Egypt, where they were slaves, but had meat and vegetables to eat. They were slapping God in the face for his provision because it wasn’t how they wanted him to provide.

How many parents here have made something for dinner that you thought would be a special treat for your kids, like spaghetti (which you know they love to eat and ask for all the time), but they complain and whine and don’t want to eat dinner because you didn’t make macaroni and cheese instead? This is what the Israelites are doing with God.

We serve a gracious God. Psalm 95 says that God was provoked to anger because the Israelites continually complained to God. God’s anger was justified. Israel rebelled over and over again. Their hearts went astray, and God said that they did not know his ways. There is a difference between knowing what God says and seeing his miracles take place, between that and understanding why God says and does those things.

The Pharisees and Sadducees saw Jesus perform miracles before their very eyes, and yet still saw Jesus as a threat, a demon-possessed person that they needed to destroy.

Over and over, the Israelites had seen God move in miraculous ways from the time they were in Egypt to the time they arrived at the doorstep of Canaan. They saw God perform the 10 plagues of water turning to Blood, Frogs infesting everywhere, Lice coming in after the frogs cleared out, Flies then taking over, Livestock dying off, Boils all over the Egyptians and their animals, Hail destroying everything, Locusts eating what little bit was left of the crops, Darkness covering the land in which you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and the Death of the Firstborn in all of Egypt.

After all of that led to them being released from slavery in Egypt, God led them on their journey with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. As the Egyptian army was catching up with them, God then splits the Red Sea apart, allowing Israel to go through on dry ground, and closes the sea back up on the Egyptians trying to follow. We also mentioned earlier about God telling Moses how to turn bitter water into sweet water, and provided manna for them to eat because they were complaining that God had brought them out into the desert to die.

They had lost their faith in God.

How often do we forget the amazing ways that God has worked in our lives before and think, “God can’t help me here,” or, worse yet, we think like the Israelites did and say, “God, how could you lead me here just to abandon me when things get hard?”

Since they no longer believed God was taking care of them, they went their own way. Psalm 95 says that the people did not know the ways of God and instead went their own way.

Hebrews 3:11

So I swore in my anger,

“They will not enter my rest.”

Those who refuse to understand why God says and does the things he does will not enter his rest. The reason that the Israelites spent 40 years in the desert was not because they were really bad with directions. If you go onto Google Maps and type in the city of Rameses in Egypt, which is just outside of Cairo, get directions to the ancient Israeli city of Kadesh Barnea, and add a stop that goes around the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, taking the possible route that Israel did coming out of Egypt, you can walk that in 9 days.

The Israelites got to the Promised Land in a short amount of time. However, after sending spies into the land to scout it out, these spies said the land was extremely fertile, but the land was full of giants. Ten of the twelve spies said, “Nope, we cannot take this land.” Those 10 spies convinced the people that they would be killed if they followed God’s orders and went into the Land God had promised them.

A lack of awe produces sin

The people of Israel forgot about all the ways that God had provided for them. God split the sea open for them to walk through and then closed the sea back up on the Egyptians as they tried to follow. But Israel said, “God can’t deliver us. He can’t give us what he promised.” So they disobeyed God.

You can read in Numbers 14 how God told the people that everyone 20 years old and older, except for the two spies who went into Canaan to scout the land (Caleb and Joshua), would not enter the Promised Land. They would be stuck in the desert, not allowed to enter for 40 years, a year for every day the spies scouted out Canaan.

So what did Israel do? Instead of accepting the discipline of the Lord, they further disobeyed by saying, “We have disobeyed God, so lets arm up and go take the land of Canaan like we were originally told to!” By trying to make up for their sin of disobedience, Israel responded to God’s punishment by further disobedience. The people took up arms to take on the people of Canaan and were swiftly destroyed.

You cannot make up for your sin.

This is why we need to repent of our sins to God. We can do nothing to make up for our sins, for our rejection of God and his laws. But God offered Jesus to take the punishment for our sins. Jesus is the only way we can be saved from the punishment we deserve for our rebellion against God.

Last week, we brought up the concept of “types and shadows” and how different people or events are just a veiled view of what Christ would do in the New Testament. Though the Old Testament passage is referring to the Promised Land of Canaan, the author of Hebrews is showing us that this is another “type and shadow” of the rest of heaven when we leave this world. God’s anger against sin must be satisfied. For those who do not put their hope in Christ, who endured God’s wrath and anger for the sins of those who would submit their lives to him, they will have to endure that anger and wrath of God themselves for their rebellion against him, just as those Israelites who rebelled were not allowed to enter the land of Canaan.

Hebrews 3:12

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.

The author now warns us not to have unbelieving hearts like those in Israel who were not allowed to enter the Promised Land. This again points back to the beginning of Hebrews 2, where the author warned his readers not to neglect such a great salvation.

Hebrews 2:1-3

For this reason, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away. For if the message spoken through angels was legally binding and every transgression and disobedience received a just punishment, how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

Neglect starts with drifting from God’s Word. The ministry started by RC Sproul, Ligonier Ministries, does a survey every two years called “The State of Theology.” In this survey, they ask every day Americans and Evangelical Christians a list of questions to get their opinion on various theological topics.

They list Evangelical Christians as those who confess all four of the following statements:

The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.

It is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin.

Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.

Here are some of the results for Evangelical Christians (not the everyday American who does not believe the 4 statements above) that just came out for the 2025 Survey that they conducted:

Everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God - 64% Agree

Psalm 51:5 - Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

I just want to say, that if you agree with this statement, I am not mad or disappointed in you. This simply shows an area of theology that we as a collective body need to study and understand together. I want to help this church understand the truth of the Word of God.

(New Slide)

Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature. 53% Agree

Romans 3:10-11 - There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. (vs 12) All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

(New Slide)

God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. - 47% Agree

John 14:6 - Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

“Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.”

One of the main verses of Scripture that is a basis for all that we do here at Living Word is 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

That means that what Scripture says about how we should live is actually how we should live. If Scripture says something is a sin, we should take that literally as doing that thing is a sin.

Lying is a sin. Adultery is a sin. Looking at a person lustfully is a sin. Looking at pornography is a sin. Stealing is a sin. Not helping others when you have the means, opportunity, and ability to do so is a sin. Celebrating the death of an image bearer of God is a sin.

The problem is that the idea of “sin” is being stripped down and corrupted by people who claim to be followers of Christ. What they do is they twist or add to the words of Scripture to get it to mean what they want it to mean. And I am ashamed to say that much of this twisting and corruption of Scripture has come from the pulpits and from the academic institutions. This isn’t happening just in America either, its a worldwide problem. Paul warned the Colossians about this.

Colossians 2:8

Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ.

Academics, even in schools that have historically been faithful to Scripture, are telling students that what the Bible says is wrong because we live in a different time, those were just ancient traditions of how people conducted themselves; those things do not apply to us today. This is happening in Evangelical seminaries like Wheaton College in Chicago. This is the school that Billy Graham graduated from. And now the Graham family has taken Billy’s library out of the Billy Graham Museum on campus because of how far away from Christian doctrine the school has veered.

What those people are trying to tell you is that we are more civilized and more enlightened than the people who wrote the Bible. This is what we see throughout the progressive church. This is what the most popular church in town tells people.

Here is what Paul says to those who listen to people preaching something contradictory to the Word of God, and what will happen to those who preach such lies.

Galatians 1:6-9

I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him! As we have said before, I now say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him!

Paul then goes on to say that those who distort the gospel do it for their own gain. They know that preaching the truth of Christ is not popular.

Galatians 1:10

For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Those who distort the word of God, turning people away from the truth of who God is, leading them down a path of destruction, are just like those 10 spies led Israel astray. The philosophies of this world do not lead us to truth outside of God. (Textbook analogy from Worship sermon)

Hebrews 3:13

But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.

The way to prevent falling away from the faith is to be encouraging one another in the faith, pointing each other to Christ. We must do this “Today” while it is still “Today,” before it is too late.

Speak the truth to each other! Point each other to the truth of Scripture. Don’t water it down. We should speak the truth in love and grace, understanding our own faults and frailties, not condemning others, but showing them that if they continue down this path, it will lead to destruction. If someone walks away from God because you exposed them to the truth of what God says, that is not on you.

While this gets thrown out there a bunch, even in the church, I need to stop the spread of lies.

Disagreement is not hatred.

Just because I can see that Scripture has very clear guidelines for morality, sexuality, and conduct, and I believe that everyone should live by those precepts, that does not mean I hate everyone who disagrees with that. If my child disagrees with a rule that I have set up to protect them, does that mean that I hate them? No! I love my children, and so my wife and I are going to set up rules that will help to care for them, guide them, and protect them!

You can grow up in the Seattle area, live your entire life in the PNW, and never root for the Mariners because you think the Yankees or the Astros are the only teams ever worth rooting for. You can absolutely believe that. And I will absolutely disagree with you. But disagreeing over that does not mean I hate you. I may think you are misinformed. I may think that you have fallen prey to the peer pressure of rooting for whoever is winning at the moment. I will disagree with your stance. But I won't hate you.

Agreement is not love.

The world says that if you don’t accept me the way I am, you do not love me. People in the church say this as well. But Jesus does not love us just the way we are, no matter how many motivational preachers and songs on Christian radio try to tell us otherwise. If Jesus loves us just the way we are, that means that there is something in us worth loving and saving. If there is something in us that God should love, other than his own image in which we are created, did Jesus actually need to come to this earth to die for us?

Jesus loves us in spite of who we are. He loves us and saves us, knowing our sins and faults. One of the most encouraging things I have heard lately concerning the love of God is this, “When Jesus called me his child and told me to follow after him, he already factored in my stupidity.” Can I just tell you what a relief it is to know that Jesus calls me his own, even though I constantly disobey him?

Saying that God loves me just as I am leads people to believe that the sinful lives they are living are no problem at all. If we believe that, it will lead to our destruction! As your pastor, as a servant of God, called to preach his truth, I cannot condone sin and say, “Yeah, you’re good!” especially if I know that something you are doing is sinful.

If you are standing in the middle of the road with a semi truck barreling down the road, and I see it, but you can’t see it or hear it, is it loving for me to let it hit you? To tell you that you are fine and that nothing is coming? Or to see you walking toward the edge of a cliff and not warn you, but instead to tell you, “Yeah, its a straight path. Keep going.”?

We must be bold and tell others about the love of Jesus that can save them from the destruction that all their sins are leading to.

Now, I also have to understand that just yelling at you may only make you mad, confused, and not want to follow me out of danger. I need to learn to speak with truth, yes, but also love and grace, just as Christ did. That is how we truly show love to others. When you help a young child and try to get them out of danger, you should know that yelling at them is only going to confuse them. You must lovingly, tenderly, and truthfully point them in a different direction.

As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, if we speak the truths of God, if we have all the wisdom about this world, but do not have love when we share and declare that truth, we are a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. We are just making noise. Telling people that “Facts don’t care about your feelings” may be true, but all it is good for is a soundbite. It does not actually advance grace-filled conversations.

Let us speak the truth to each other in love and grace, just as Christ spoke to those he came in contact with.

For those of you who have been struggling with your Christian faith, I pray that you will not let your hearts be hardened to the truth of Scripture. I implore you not to turn away from the Savior who gave his life to free you from your sins and give you everlasting life. Maybe you have hardened you heart to the Lord but you know he is calling you back to himself. Heed that call.

Next Step: I will soften my heart to the Lord’s call.

This may mean planning out time to pray, read your Bible, or meet with other Christians to encourage you in the faith.

If you are here, devoted to Christ, wanting to share his truth with others, and you know friends who are not Christians, their worldviews and ideologies are antithetical to the truth that we find in Scripture, I would encourage you to ask the Lord to help you to be bold, to speak the truth, but to do it in love and grace. Christ had grace on you and me. We must show that same grace to others.

Next Step: I will ask for God’s help to share his truth in love and grace.

I will be honest…this one is a next step for me as well. I struggle to provide grace and love when speaking the truth. As a person who is wired to be more logical that emotional, getting emotional because others can’t see the logic, I have to ask for God’s help daily to share his truth with love and grace.

If you are here and you are not a Christian, I want to tell you that I am so glad that you are here. I pray that through conversations with believers in Christ, you will see the beauty and love that can be found in a life submitted to Jesus. Perhaps you know that you need Jesus. You need him to work in your heart and mind. You have tried to do everything on your own, and it just leaves you tired, ashamed, and unfulfilled. Today is the day to let go of your life. Allow God to show you his love and grace by submitting your life to him. Call out to Jesus! Ask him to change you, to transform your life in a way that frees you from guilt and shame.

Next Step: I will submit my life to Christ.

Let us pray.

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