How blessed is the man who fears always,
but he who hardens his heart 
will fall into calamity.

Proverbs 28:14

What does it mean to harden one’s heart? What is the underlining reason for a person to choose, yes choose, to harden their heart? What is the calamity that awaits the one who willfully hardens their heart against God? 

We’ve been on a mini discovery expedition in the Bible to find the answers to these questions. We now find ourselves in Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews (no one really knows for sure who wrote this book) wrote to Jewish Christians whose faith was faltering because of powerful Jewish religious authorities and unrelenting persecution. It is little wonder that this New Testament writer used the Old Testament Scriptures to build his case for a living Messiah and Savior and a personal, not just religious, relationship with Him! 

Hebrews chapter three revisits the bleak history of those ‘first-generation Hebrews’ [the adults who walked out of slavery in Egypt and then willfully hardened their hearts] with direct references to Psalm 95, which we discussed on Day 29. 

The first six verses in Hebrews chapter three discuss Moses and the foreshadowing of Jesus through the work and many trials Moses endured, especially with those ‘first-generation Hebrews’ he lead out of Egypt. It is very important to realize that this chapter is not preaching we can lose our salvation and have to constantly work at not hardening our hearts with evil and sin. Rather it is encouraging the Jewish Christians of that day and to us today, to search our hearts that we do, indeed, have the new creation heart given to us when we heard Jesus’ Voice and responded in faith…in hope…in belief. And when we do search our own hearts and find that new heart still there (as Jesus promised) then we can hold fast our confidence and hope of all God’s promises until the end of this age when Jesus will come again and take us to The Eternal Promised Land! Take a look at the progression. Remember, all caps mean the writer is quoting from the Old Testament., in this case Psalm 95. 

Hebrews 3:5-6

Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. 

Hebrews 3:7-9

TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS, WHERE YOUR FATHERS TRIED ME BY TESTING ME AND SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS.

Hebrews 3:12-14

Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end. 

To finish today, I want to share a direct quote from Matthew Henry’s Commentary on this idea of hearing God’s (OT) and Jesus’ (NT) Voice and the hardening of one’s heart. He said so much better than I can. It is long, but I do hope you will linger here a bit to take in all the truth.

“The duty required of all those that are the people of Christ’s pasture and the sheep of his hand. He expects that they hear his voice, for he has said, “My sheep hear my voice,” [John 10:27]. “We are his people”, say they. Are you so? Then hear his voice. If you call him Master, or Lord, then do the things which he says, and be his willing obedient people. Hear the voice of his doctrine, of his law, and, in both, of his Spirit; hear and heed; hear and yield. Hear his voice, and not the voice of a stranger. If you will hear his voice; some take it as a wish. O that you would hear his voice! That you would be so wise, and do so well for yourselves; like that, if thou hadst known [Luke 19:42], that is, O that thou hadst known! Christ’s voice must be heard today; this the apostle lays much stress upon, applying it to the gospel today. While he is speaking to you, see that you attend to him, for this day of your opportunities will not last always; improve it, therefore, while it is called today. Hearing the voice of Christ is the same with believing. Today, if by faith you accept the gospel offer, well and good, but tomorrow it may be too late. In a matter of such vast importance nothing is more dangerous than delay.”

“The sin they are warned against, as inconsistent with the believing obedient ear required, and that is hardness of heart. If you will hear his voice, and profit by what you hear, then do not harden your hearts; for the seed sown on the rock never brought any fruit to perfection. The Jews therefore believed not the gospel of Christ because their hearts were hardened; they were not convinced of the evil of sin, and their danger by reason of sin, and therefore they regarded not the offer of salvation; they would not bend to the yoke of Christ, nor yield to his demands; and, if the sinner’s heart be hardened, it is his own act and deed (he hardening it himself) and he alone shall bear the blame forever.”