A WARNING AGAINST HARDNESS OF HEART

“But exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”

Hebrews 3:13.

1

THE children of Israel, in their coming out of Egypt, and in their 40 years’ sojourn in the wilderness, represented the visible Church of the living God; not the secret and elect body of the redeemed; but the professing company of the outward church. They were very prone to the great sin of unbelief. They believed in God after a fashion while they saw His wonders, but the moment they were brought into straits or difficulties, they at once began to doubt the power of Jehovah, and to cast off all reverence for His authority. Therefore, they fell into another sin which at last fastened on them so as to become a part of their nature—they became stiff-necked, obstinate, rebellious, perverse, and hard of heart. They would not learn, although their lesson-book had miracles for its pictures. Their hearts became so hard that albeit they saw all the great things which God did for them, they despised the pleasant land, and were ready at times for the sake of the flesh-pots of Egypt, to wear again the yoke of Pharaoh, and to die the inglorious death of slaves. Such, too, are the great sins of the Christian Church, unbelief the root, and obstinacy the fruit. Brethren, if we know our own hearts, we must confess that unbelief is a sin which does very easily beset us, and that our obstinacy may well provoke the Lord to anger. We rejoice in God while the rocks run with rivers, and while the daily manna drops about our tents; but when the fiery serpent bites us, or the wells are bitter, or our comforts are in any way interfered with, we begin to distrust and to suspect the faithfulness of God; and as the result of this, there is an obstinacy about us which often inclines us to stand out against the plain precepts of God, because, in the judgment of our unbelief, obedience might lead us into trouble and disobedience might make our path smooth.

2

It seems, dear friends, that it is really necessary to warn God’s people, although they have received the new nature, and are partakers of the adoption, against being hardened in heart through the deceitfulness of sin. But there is machinery provided by which the saints may be preserved from this great evil.

“Exhort one another daily, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”

I. First, then, dear Friends, THE HARDENING CHARACTER OF SIN.

The first sin which came into the world hardened man’s heart in a most terrific manner, so that he dared to excuse himself, and even to charge God as being indirectly the author of his sin, by giving him the woman. No sooner had Adam tasted of the forbidden fruit, than a stony hardness came upon his moral nature; the heart of sensitive flesh was suddenly petrified, and became hard, unfeeling stone; he no longer shrank from the thought of sin, but tried to hide himself from the presence of his best Friend. He felt his nakedness in some degree, but that which made him naked he did not lament or even confess before his God. He would never have been content with an apron of fig leaves, if he had known the full measure of his degradation. His unborn children in that dread hour participated in his fall, and are now born into the world with a stone in their hearts. Man’s heart, naturally, is like that of Leviathan, of which the Lord says, “It is as firm as a stone, yes, hard as a piece of the nether millstone”—the lower stone of the two in the mill was always chosen on account of its peculiar hardness. Still, hard as the heart is by nature, it may grow harder by practice and by association with sin, even as Zechariah writes of sinners in his day, “Yes, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the Law” (Zech 7:12).