Hard Hearts and Unbelief
Ps 95: 7 For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice: 8 “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, 9 When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work. 10 For forty years I was grieved with that generation, And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’ 11 So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
Having graphically shown that our Lord Jesus Christ is the great Prophet and Teacher of His Church Hebrews now emphasises our duty to listen to Christ’s voice and to obey Him. A lesson that we still find it hard to put into practice!
Today if you will hear His voice v7
Today! Now! At once! This is not something that we can put off until it is convenient! God’s commands are for the present. He does not tell us to repent or to obey tomorrow, next week or next year. One reason is obvious. We are not promised another day’s life, only this moment. Life is like a candle that is easily snuffed out in a moment.
We can see a second reason in the parable of the sower (Mathew 13) Jesus described the seed that fell on the well trodden pathway. It sat there for a while and might have germinated and born fruit, but the birds came along and eat up the seed. Jesus said that was how the devil deals with us. If we procrastinate with God’s word then Satan will make sure that it is taken away before it puts down roots in our hearts. Truly the road to hell is paved with good intentions - ones that we planned to do something about tomorrow, but never actually got round to.
Almost persuaded now to believe;
Almost persuaded Christ to receive;
Seems now some soul to say,
Go, Spirit, go Thy way,
Some more convenient day
On Thee I’ll call.
Almost persuaded, come, come today;
Almost persuaded, turn not away;
Jesus invites you here,
Angels are lingering near
Prayers rise from hearts so dear;
O wanderer, come!
Almost persuaded, harvest is past!
Almost persuaded, doom comes at last!
Almost cannot avail;
Almost is but to fail!
Sad, sad, that bitter wail—
Almost, but lost!
My motto tends to be: Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can put off till the day after! Is this your tendency too? Procrastination is like playing Russian Roulette with your eternal destiny if you are not saved. Nor is it the way for a Christian to live. Procrastination is not only a thief of time, but also of fulfilment and contentment.
Today if you will hear His voice 7
If we want to listen then we need to know where we can find God’s voice. We can find it in:
• His written word;
• faithful preaching;
• our consciences;
• the circumstances of every day life;
• the advice of Christian relatives and friends.
Of course all but the Bible may be mistaken or misleading and even Scripture can be misinterpreted or taken out of context, so we need to be careful with what we hear. (Acts 17:11 The Bereans searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.) Hearing God’s voice is 99% to do with our attitude and that is where the passage focuses. There are two sides to this:
If you will hear
If we don’t want to hear then we won’t listen and if we don’t listen then we won’t hear! God does not force Himself upon us, remember how Jesus drew alongside the disciples on the road to Emmaus but He gave the impression that he meant to go on further, 29 but they stopped him with the words, “Do stay with us. It is nearly evening and the day will soon be over.” So he went indoors to stay with them. Lk 24 (JB Phillips)
Do we expect God to speak to us as we read His Word or as we listen to preachers in Church? It is so easy to switch off and not to listen. God does not normally shout and it is easy for His voice to be drowned out by the business of our lives and all of its distractions.
Do we want to hear His voice? Are we paying attention or planning our next shopping trip or job for work tomorrow? If we expect nothing from God, we’ll never be disappointed! On the other hand we have His promise seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. De 4:29 Are we seekers for God?
Do not harden your hearts
Repeatedly saying No, or Not yet to God hardens our hearts and makes us deaf to His voice. Pharaoh hardened his heart repeatedly (Ex. 7:13, 14, 22;8:15, 32, 19; 9:7, 34, 35) and then God hardened it for him. (Ex. 4:21; 7:3, 13; 9:12, 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 8, 17)
How did the Jews harden their hearts in the wilderness? Verse 9 tells us they tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. Time after time they complained, rebelled, tried and tested God. As many times He performed miracles to meet their needs and sometimes to judge them too. How did they react? God’s verdict was They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways. V10
This is not just something from OT days. The Disciples didn’t understand the significance of the Lord’s power demonstrated in the feeding of the 5,000 because their heart was hardened. Mk 6v52
Mark 16 links unbelief and hardness of heart Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. v14 This is similar to Heb 3:12 which indicates that the problem which resulted in the hardening was unbelief.
John Owen said that the most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men. If so we are seeing this judgement in our society today, for the hearts of men and women in the Western world are truly hardened against God and His word.
The deceitfulness of sin v13
What about us today? We have seen far more evidence of the power of God that they ever did in the OT and our understanding of God’s plan and purpose is greater than that of the disciples because we have the whole Bible. How do we respond? Do we walk with God, believing and obeying Him, or are our hearts full of unbelief? v12 Are we lead astray and hardened through the deceitfulness of sin? v13
Sin promises much more than it delivers. It promises pleasure, but brings all sorts of problems with it. It leads us in deeper one step after another, until we become hardened. Who would become a drunkard or a drug addict, if they realised where it would end and the damage that it would cause to their lives, bodies and families? The damage caused by other sins may not be so obvious, but it is real none-the-less. Selfish ambition, envy, jealousy, unbridled sex and the rest cause tremendous damage to our society as well as the individuals involved and their friends and families.
We do not, or perhaps will not, see the fearful results of our indulgence. We are so easily deluded by the promise of pleasure. We convince ourselves that we will be careful and will give it up before it does us any harm. Yet so soon the heart becomes hard and the conscience seared and have no remorse. We are totally hooked - slaves to sin.
Jas 1:15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
It is no coincidence that the Bible tells us that The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked Jer 17:9. As v10 puts it we have a tendency to go astray. The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. As Jesus said in Mt 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Where are our hearts focussed? On the things of this world or on those above?
We have an amazing ability to con ourselves that what we want to do is right, even when it is obviously not. Jesus condemned the scribes and Pharisees because they made themselves out to be super-spiritual because they paid tithes of the herbs that grew in their gardens, but neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Mt 23:23
Going to Church once, or even 3 times a week and living moral lives does not make us super-spiritual or put God in our debt. God is far more concerned that we love Him and live in a way that honours Him and benefits others.
Mt 13:15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal (see also Acts 28:27)
The answer
Have you ever put up some shelves or a fence and then later you noticed that it was all wonky. The reason is that you didn’t use a plumb-line or level to check. It looked all right, but it wasn’t until you compared it with something horizontal or vertical that you saw how bad it really was. God’s standards are like a plumb-line. When we see ourselves alongside His perfection we can see how far out we really are.
Amos 7:7 Thus He showed me: Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. 8 And the LORD said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said: “Behold, I am setting a plumb line In the midst of My people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore.
Putting it another way the answer is the mirror of the Word of God Jas 1:23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. Do we look deep into His word and see our dirty, pock marked reflection? If so do we act on what we see, or just cover the mirror over?
Another related answer is found in verse 13. We are told to Exhort one another daily. God has not left us to face the challenges and dangers of every-day life on our own, but has put us in families and churches so that we can care for one another and build one another up. An isolated Christian is in a vulnerable position
Ec 4:9 Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labour. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up. 11 Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? 12 Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
v12-13 tells us Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily. We are all to take note of each others spiritual condition, not as busybodies, but in loving concern. We are a body and the weakness or sickness of one part diminishes the whole. (1Cor 12)
We are to exhort one another. What does that mean? The Greek word is parakaleo if that sounds familiar it is because it is the same base word used to describe the Holy Spirit the Comforter who comes alongside to help. We are to be to other Christians as the Holy Spirit is to us. We should encourage and urge one another to turn away from sin and distractions and to focus on walking with God.
We should exhort when we notice a loss of zeal or a degree of backsliding and we should encourage those who are going on with the Lord to greater heights. Do we have a concern for the spiritual health of our brothers and sisters indeed are we close enough to recognise problems early on?
Years ago the gospel was preached to a number of tribes in Central Africa. Many people responded to the message and received new life in Christ. Since they had no church building where they could gather for a time of prayer, they cleared a central spot in the jungle for that purpose. Soon individual trails from many different directions converged there as Christians regularly trudged through the brush. Whenever a convert seemed to be losing his first love and enthusiasm, other believers would admonish him by saying, ‘Brother, the grass is growing on your path.
We don’t like to interfere in the lives of others. After all we are not to judge one another are we? There is a fine line between helping and interfering, between warning and judging, between exhorting and bullying. We must not sit idly by; wringing our hands; while a brother or sister heads towards the cliff edge. We must seek to help them and restore them.
Gal 6:1 Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.
1 Corinthians 10:12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
Pr 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
Our response
If our hearts have become hardened so that we expect nothing from God and attempt nothing for Him, if our belief is more in our heads than in our hearts, the question is what we are going to do about it. Indeed are we willing to listen and act?
If we are, then we have to act today. It was the same when we were saved. We must not delay when we hear the Holy Spirit speak or we are hardening our hearts. As surely as someone becomes hardened to the claims of the gospel when they listen week by week and do not respond, so do Christians become hardened when the Holy Spirit speaks to us and we do not respond.
Let us cry out to our God and acknowledge our sin of unbelief. We constantly need to come to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing. Let us beg Him to visit us, soften our hearts and grant us faith to believe as He did at the start.
Isaiah 64:1 Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! That the mountains might shake at Your presence … 6 But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away. 7 And there is no one who calls on Your name, Who stirs himself up to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us, And have consumed us because of our iniquities. 8 But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand. 9 Do not be furious, O LORD, Nor remember iniquity forever; Indeed, please look—we all are Your people!
Ezekiel 11:19 “Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, 20 “that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.
