HARDENED HEARTS
Thursday – September 7, 2017
Are we listening, hearing and obeying God or are we like little kids going “la la la” with our fingers in our ears so we can’t hear? Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Welcome back to this exciting Bible Study of Hebrews. God is so good. I hope you enjoy the scenic shot above of a beautiful stream here in Oakland Maine. Wherever you might be there are many beautiful places as well. Each of us has the obligation to recognize that and give thanks to God for this gift to us. Now let’s return to our primary text in Hebrews.
Hebrews 3:6-12 (KJV)
6 But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
7 Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
11 So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
I want to draw our attention to the phrase “To day if ye hear his voice” above in Hebrews 3:7. I want to make the point that the issue is not our capacity to hear Him, or the certainty that we do hear Him, but a matter of obeying when we do hear Him. The ‘if’ here is not signifying that we may hear or we may not hear Him but will we choose to hear Him. When He speaks to us are we choosing to hear? The question for us, is our response. Let’s go straight to the mouth of Jesus.
John 10:3 (KJV)
3 To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
Brother and sister, we are the sheep of His pasture, and Jesus says bluntly that we hear His voice. I don’t believe that Jesus is a liar. If He says I hear Him, then I hear Him. Many people say that they do not know if they have ever heard God speak to them. Most recognize the conviction of the Holy Spirit for salvation or other adjustments in behavior or attitude. Many times, we just plain don’t want to do what He is saying so we concoct all sorts of rational to provide what we think is an acceptable reason but we are without excuse before Him.
Perhaps the enemy has convinced us that “yes indeed that is the will of God” but for whatever reason we just can’t have it. Perhaps he has convinced us that this is just one of the mysteries of God. You know He works in mysterious ways. The enemy tells us that Gods ways are above our ways and just beyond our knowing. Ignorance is a killer, God is light not darkness and Jesus said we were light. The sons of God are led of the Spirit Who will in our obedience (love) give us the victory every time. The enemy tells us that God will work it all out to our good relying upon our partial quoting and understanding of that passage (Romans 8:28). In the meantime, the devil is stealing, killing, and destroying in our lives and in our blissful and willful ignorance we are waiting for this wonderful ending the devil promised. All the while our heart is becoming hardened and the darkness that we embraced as light is becoming darker and darker.
It is clear from Hebrews 3:8 that we harden our own heart. We harden our hearts by rejecting the Truth for a lie and do it repeatedly. When we look at the ten plagues and Pharaoh, we see that Pharaoh hardened his own heart by rejecting the Word of God. Our heart is our mind, our thinking. There is an old saying that if you let the devil in the back seat pretty soon he will want to be driving. When we let in the first lie we increase our acceptance of the next lie which will have agreement with the prior lie(s). Each lie is usually greater adding to our darkness and what we think is light is in reality a growing darkness.
Our thinking becomes opposed to the Truth until we do not even give the Truth consideration. This is why we are to be constantly proving our thought life, the words of our mouth, and what we allow in our eyes, and in our ears. When we can’t prove the information that is come to us in the Scripture we must talk to God about it. This is what Adam and Eve failed to do. They received the lie and acted upon it and they knew they were not talking to God but the Serpent.
We must understand that Mama could be wrong and so could our favorite preacher. Receive the Truth even when it does not make sense, the Holy Spirit will teach, and He will send men and women into our lives to teach and clarify. God is good. God wants us to have a tender heart, one that is eager for Him to speak too, one that is eager to receive the Truth, and one that is eager to do the Word. A hardened heart is a fearful heart, prone to reject the Truth when it does not line up with already established beliefs, and reluctant to prove new information. Frequently the Truth is rejected out of hand and old wrong information (doctrine of devils) accepted without further question. In persons with a hardened heart, one will hear and sense fear from the person, fear will be a theme of the whole conversation. The more fear the harder the heart. An example that I use frequently is when Jesus called Peter to get out of the boat and walk to Him on the water. Peter had a tender heart to the call but then circumstances (walls and giants) of waves boisterous caused him to harden his heart to the Word of God. He rejected faith in the Word of God and adopted faith in the wind and waves. Peter went from faith to unbelief, from love to fear. Love (obedience to the Word) is the power of faith. He rejected the superior reality of the spirit, the highest reality being the Word of God for the inferior realm of the physical.
Hebrews 3:12 (KJV)
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
Let us examine ourselves and repent as necessary.
Until our next publication, I speak blessing into your life right now, receive it in the name of Jesus, confess it, and walk it out with thanksgiving.
Numbers 6:24-26 (KJV)
24 The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
25 The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
26 The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
By: Dr. David Wood, Author, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
CONTACT E-MAIL: pastordavidwood@gmail.com
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