Do Not Harden Your Hearts

I. EXORDIUM:

Do you have hardened hearts?

II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:

Believers

III. OBJECTIVES:

To show that we no longer have wilderness experiences and no hardness of hearts.

IV. TEXT:

Hebrews 3:8 (Amplified Bible)

3:8 Do not harden your hearts, as [happened] in the rebellion [of Israel] and their provocation and embitterment [of Me] in the day of testing in the wilderness,

V. THESIS:

I don't have hardness of heart.

Hebrews 8:10 (Amplified Bible)

8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will imprint My laws upon their minds, even upon their innermost thoughts and understanding, and engrave them upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

VI. TITLE:

Do not harden your hearts

VII. EXPLICATION:

A. Date of writing: Before AD. 70

B. Style of writing: Best Greek style

C. Authorship: Not specific, but generally attributed to Apostle Paul. Can be also ascribed to Barnabas, Luke, Apollos

D. Audience: Hebrew Christians

E. Theme: Christ is superior to the prophets; Christ is superior to angels—J. Vernon McGee's Thru The Bible

F. Purpose: The chief doctrinal purpose of the writer was to show the transcendent glory of the Christian dispensation, as compared with that of the Old Testament.—Thompson Chain - Bible Book Outlines

G. Keyword: better

VIII. MAIN BODY:

A. Like in Israel's rebellion

"Do not harden your hearts, as [happened] in the rebellion [of Israel] and"

Harden means render stubborn.

Notable hardness of heart in the Bible:

Pharaoh of Egypt hardened his heart.

Exodus 8:15 (Amplified Bible)

8:15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was temporary relief, he made his heart stubborn and hard and would not listen or heed them, just as the Lord had said.

The Israelites hardened their hearts.

Jeremiah 7:26 (Amplified Bible)

7:26 Yet the people would not listen to and obey Me or bend their ears [to Me], but stiffened their necks and behaved worse than their fathers.

The 12 Apostles

Mark 6:52 (Amplified Bible)

6:52 For they failed to consider or understand [the teaching and meaning of the miracle of] the loaves; [in fact] their hearts had grown callous [had become dull and had lost the power of understanding].

The Pharisees

Mark 8:17 (Amplified Bible)

8:17 And being aware [of it], Jesus said to them, Why are you reasoning and saying it is because you have no bread? Do you not yet discern or understand? Are your hearts in [a settled state of] hardness?

The Jews

John 12:40 (Amplified Bible)

12:40 He has blinded their eyes and hardened and benumbed their [callous, degenerated] hearts [He has made their minds dull], to keep them from seeing with their eyes and understanding with their hearts and minds and repenting and turning to Me to heal them.

The Israelites

1 Samuel 6:6 (Amplified Bible)

6:6 Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When He had done wonders and made a mock of them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?

Hebrew Christians

Hebrews 3:13 (Amplified Bible)

3:13 But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery which the delusive glamor of his sin may play on him].

Hardness of heart under grace has no place for CHRISTians because we now have a new heart.

B. Like Israel testing the LORD in the wilderness

"their provocation and embitterment [of Me] in the day of testing in the wilderness,"

Wilderness means solitary, lonely, desolate, uninhabited

1 Corinthians 10:9 (Amplified Bible)

10:9 We should not tempt the Lord [try His patience, become a trial to Him, critically appraise Him, and exploit His goodness] as some of them did—and were killed by poisonous serpents;

Psalms 106:14 (Amplified Bible)

106:14 But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted and tried to restrain God [with their insistent desires] in the desert.

Psalms 78:18 (Amplified Bible)

78:18 And they tempted God in their hearts by asking for food according to their [selfish] desire and appetite.

Wilderness is not a place for CHRISTians, but the place for us is Heaven. We are not lonely, solitary, desolate because we have CHRIST in us, and we're not uninhabited because we are the temple of the HOLY SPIRIT. We don't tempt the LORD because we come to the LORD by faith to please Him.

Hebrews 11:6 (Amplified Bible)

11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].