Harden Not Your Hearts

Harden Not Your Hearts

Mark 3:1-5 And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. 2 And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. 3 And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. 4 And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. 5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.

Heb 3:8, 13, 15, 4:7 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: . . . 13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. . . . 15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. . . . 4:7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

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I read recently about a boy named Steele Smith from the state of Wisconsin. To see him on the outside, you would have thought that he was a normal and active, six-year-old boy. But looks can be deceiving because unfortunately Steele Smith's body was at war with itself. Within the inside of this seemingly normal little boy were five extremely rare diseases all fighting to take his life. The rarest of these diseases -- and the most deadly -- was a calcium build up in Steele's heart. It first appeared in his right ventricle when he was one years old. By the time that he was four, the calcium had almost completely encased his heart. It is such a rare condition, that there is no other case known similar to it. The calcium build up was unlike anything that doctors had ever seen, and they attributed it to a combination of rare diseases and the effects of attempted treatments. It was quite a tragic story and a horrific one: Steele Smith's heart was literally turning to stone. What should have been a young, healthy, and tender heart was becoming hard as rock, and it was only a matter of time, until Steele's hardened heart would cease to support life.

The doctors searched frantically for some way to treat this condition, but they found that medical science is woefully inadequate when it comes to treating a hardening heart. As they frantically searched for a cure and something that could possibly work, Steele's heart continued it's stony transformation. He would die just a few days beyond his sixth birthday in the Christmas season of 2000. His parents were in their grieving, heartbroken yet also grateful. Grateful that they he had lived to see his sixth birthday. Grateful that the Make-A-Wish foundation had paid for a trip to Disneyland. Grateful for the lessons that this brave young man who never complained and always said "I'm fine" had taught them. Not long before Steele's passing, his parents had talked to him about death only being the passing from one life to another. They had told him: "When it's time to go, you'll see Jesus... run to Him." There was some solace in the fact that this innocent little boy who never got to experience life, would have eternity to enjoy in the hand of a loving Savior!

"What are you trying to say, preacher?" I guess ... that young Steele Smith is probably the only person who could ever make it to heaven with a hardened heart!

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God has a different definition of the "heart" than your medical dictionary. Time and time again throughout scripture we read of the issues of "the heart." The word in the Greek is kardia where we get such words today as cardiology. In Hebrew, the most common word used for "heart" is lebh. In both languages, it means more than just the blood-pumping organ within your chest. In scripture and even in today's cultural lingo, your "heart" is your source of living. It is the real "you." It refers to the completeness of your inner man. It's who you are when all the masks are pulled off. It's who you are when no one else is looking. It's what causes your thoughts and dreams and motives to be what they are. It's the reality not the reaction. It's your very core of being. I'm talking about your "heart." We understand this today, because in every culture of the world, they use the "heart" to refer to the core of the inner man. And in scripture, we find that the most important part of man to God, is this "heart."

When the prophet Samuel was sent to the house of Jesse to pick the next king from among his many sons, God told the prophet:

1 Sam 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

God's not primarily concerned with how tall or short or big or skinny or pretty or ugly that you are. He's not primarily concerned with how much self-confidence or insecurity that you exhibit. He's not concerned with the color of your skin, or hair, or eyes, or even your dress. Because if you present the perfect image of a Godly human being on the outside and if you have model looks and a dynamic personality, but your "heart" isn't right, then you're not going to be able to live spiritually! God will not be pleased; you're not going to make it into eternal life.

Understand what I am saying. It's okay to comb your hair, and you need to dress modestly and you need to improve your personality and shyness and insecurities, we need all of that. But if you have no flaws in those areas and yet your heart is not right before God; if your inner man is not as it should be in serving God, then you are in great danger of dying a spiritual death. What is true in the natural is true in the spiritual: if the heart of a man isn't right, then no matter how good the outside looks, eventually there will be problems.

We could outline any number of spiritual heart problems that people face today. The scriptures give us many different such conditions but, in this message, I want to focus on the major source of such ills. Let's talk about the worse possible heart condition of the soul. And the greatest danger of the heart in scripture; the greatest spiritual "heart disease," is the hardening of the heart. It may be rare in the natural as with the case of Steele Smith, but it is THE most common problem of the spiritual heart. This world is full of people that, spiritually at least, have a heart that is no longer tender toward God and each day they make deposits that cause it to grow harder and harder!

In our text, the writer of Hebrews made an impassioned plea that four times warned against the hardening of our hearts. We read these verses in our text:

The writer is describing the children of Israel after they were led out of Egypt. He's describing people who were purchased from slavery with the blood of a pure and spotless lamb. He's writing to people who have been given the Word of God and a revelation of who God is and how real He is, like no other nation. He's writing about people who have anointed leadership and whose every day needs are supplied continually to God. He's writing about people who were firmly on their way to the Promised Land, and yet they hardened their hearts against God. The writer of Hebrews is telling the church people of his day that "you are no different!" "If they hardened their hearts then you can too." And so four times -- FOUR TIMES -- he warns a people who would consider themselves Christians, "harden not your heart." If the Early Apostolic Church needed to be on guard against their hearts hardening, then so does the Apostolic Church of the End times! It may be ordinary in the world to have a heart that hard, but we must be alert lest this dreaded disease infiltrate our spiritual lives on a Pentecostal pew. It's possible, it's possible, for everything to appear normal on the outside, and yet deep down inside, there is a gradual loss of tenderness toward the things of God.

And the most common source of this spiritual disease is ourselves! It's not something that you are going to catch from someone else. The writer of Hebrews warned "harden not your hearts." In other words, "it's your choice what condition your heart is in." What you do or don't do, determines the state of your spiritual heart. Six times in scripture we read that "God hardened Pharaoh's heart," and yet SEVEN times we read that "Pharaoh hardened his heart." More times than not, if there is a heart that is hardening, it is our own doing. It is a condition inflicted upon ourselves.

It's a dangerous place to be, no longer as sensitive as we should be to the presence of God. Dangerous enough that the writer of Hebrews FOUR times also mentioned that TODAY is the time to start checking your hearts. Today, is the time to make sure that you have not hardened toward God. Why the urgency? Why the NOWness of it? Because it is the most dangerous place to be as a Christian. To be no longer moved as we once were by the things of God, with calluses on the areas were God desires to move. It leads to heartless worship and heartless prayer. It leads to unconcern about the kingdom of God and the Word of God in your life. It leads to a lack of response to the preached Word of God. It leads to distances and guards between those of your family, both natural and spiritual. And eventually, eventually it will lead to a spiritual death. I've know people whose spiritual heart just stopped beating. I've known people who were worshipping in church one Sunday and the next back to what they were delivered from. They were breathing praises one day and it seemed the next that they had lost the energy or desire for such breaths! I'm here to tell you that it doesn't happen overnight. Your heart does not go from God's tender mercies to stone in just one day. But if a person's spiritual heart toward God ceases to beat, then it is the result of a gradual process of a tender inner man turning to stone. It begins very subtle and even in a very advanced stage of hardening, everything on the outside can appear normal. I can't think of any disease of the spirit worse than the hardening of the spiritual heart!

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So that we can avoid such a horrible spiritual death, the Bible gives us some very specific "hardening agents" that bring on this dreaded spiritual disease. There are several things that contribute and cause a spiritually-hardened heart and the Bible clearly identifies them for us so that we can guard against them. Some of them may surprise you.

Religious Tradition of Men

We read about this in our other text in the Gospel of Mark. The Pharisees were the religious leaders of their day, but they had added to the Word of God and developed their own traditions that were not based upon scripture alone. One of these things was that before a meal, you had to take a bowl of water and wash your cup and plate and hands to symbolize your holiness. Will get to that one in a moment. Another tradition of "men" that they had devised was it was unlawful to heal on a Sabbath day. They, of course, have never healed anybody themselves, and so it was a great tradition to cover up the fact that God was not using them in these areas. They could invent this law, and then point to it as why nothing ever happened at church under their ministry and why the Spirit didn't move.

But when Jesus came along, He cared less for man's traditions. He was the healer -- as He still is the healer -- and so He healed people on the Sabbath just as on the other days. And in our text, we find that Jesus, knowing that the Pharisees were watching, confronted them with their traditions that were limiting the power of God. He points to a man in the synagogue with a withered hand and commanded him to step out of the crowd. After asking if it was alright to heal on the Sabbath according to "scripture," Jesus then healed the man to prove His point. The interesting thing about the story, though, is what is said about Jesus immediately before the healing. It is stated:

Mark 3:5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts,

Jesus got angry! Why? Because of the hardness of their hearts. I can only find two reasons in scripture that Jesus Christ, the perfect man, got angry during His ministry. The first was over making the house of God a merchandise store and using religious commandments to take advantage of people. The other is when people had hardened their hearts by holding on to traditions of men that in effect was to excuse the lack of God moving but also succeeded in a lack of God's power being displayed!

When Peter preached about the Holy Ghost in the book of Acts, He said that this experience of receiving the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance was not just for the Jews of that day, but was a promise unto "you and to your children and to those that afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call" (Acts 2:39). There is a tradition of men that has been invented to explain why so many churches do not see people receive the Holy Ghost like the Apostles that states that the outpouring of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues was only for the Jews that day. But that is not scriptural. It was not a one time occurrence. In Acts chapter 8, for example, we find the mixed race Samaritans receiving the Holy Ghost. In Acts chapter 10, years after the Holy Ghost was first given, we find that Gentiles -- non Jews -- received the Holy Ghost and when they did, they spake with other tongues (Acts 10:45-46). In fact, when Peter went back to Jerusalem to report on what had happened, he stated that they have received the Holy Ghost just like "we did" (Acts 11:15-17)! Even further, we find years later Paul is preaching the same message and people are still receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues in Acts 19. And it was so important that Paul asked the group of believers "have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?" (Acts 19:2) Jesus said that "speaking in tongues would be a sign of a true believer (Mark 16:17). We believe in the divine healing, and the power of demonic activity, and the divine protection that He spoke about in those verses, but what about receiving the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues?

The truth is, people who preach such things like "tongues aren't for us today" and "you don't need this experience" are preaching a tradition of men that was created to excuse their lack of having people filled with the Holy Ghost under their ministry. Could it be that the reason that no one in their church receives the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues is because they have changed other important doctrines too?

Water Baptism is not optional according to scripture. It is optional for salvation according to many of men's traditions and denominations though. But JESUS said "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). He commanded His disciples to preach water baptism in Matthew 28:19. Peter commanded it in Acts 2:38 as something that we should do to "save ourselves" (Acts 2:37-40). Philip preached it to the Samaritans in Acts 8. After the Gentiles got the Holy Ghost in Acts 10, Peter "ordered them to be baptized in the name of the Lord!" Paul rebaptized the disciples of John the Baptist in Acts 19 because they had not had the name of Jesus called over them in baptism. Paul also later called water baptism a "spiritual circumcision" or a sealing and sign of a covenant with Almighty God (Colossians 2:11-12). Peter said on the Day of Pentecost that it was for "the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38) and later wrote that just like the water covered the sinful earth in Noah's day and elevated them on the ark higher at the same time, in the like manner "baptism doth now save us" (1 Peter 3:21). Jesus, Himself, said that "ye must be born of the water and of the Spirit." Any religious belief that says that you don't need to be baptized by full immersion to be saved and that you can still receive the gift of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues is a tradition of man created to explain the lack of the spirit moving in their services. But it also creates a tradition that limits the power of God in their services. And it is the result of a "hardened heart." And it makes God very angry! What's the condition of your heart today? Is it tender toward the scriptures and the things of God and the drawing of the Spirit of God today, or are have you believed in man's traditions so long that your heart is hardened toward the scriptures and the experiences that I have just outlined to you from the Word of God?

The problem with people who don't believe that God will feel people with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, is their unbelief. They have a hard time believing that God can do that, when in reality it was God who chose the speaking in tongues to accompany the infilling of the Holy Ghost! After the miracle of the five loaves and the two fishes feeding the five thousand, we find that Jesus sent His disciples on alone across the sea of Galilee and then came walking on the water to them in a storm. Listen to what the scriptures say when he finally came into the ship:

Mark 6:51-52 And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. 52 For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened .

Notice verse 52? They were stuck in believing that God could only do what they had seen before and they didn't consider that the God who could do one miracle, could certainly do another! The God who could feed multitudes with a few bits of food could also certainly calm the waves and walk on them! But their heart was hardened by their tradition. They didn't really believe that God could do anything! And so I bring to you, if God could confound man's tongues at Babel in judgment and instantly cause people to speak a new language completely, then He can do it for a moment when people yield to and receive His Spirit within them! And Jesus Christ is still the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8)! What He did back then, He can still do today! But you can't afford to have your hearts hardened by man's tradition. Pull off the mask and believe God's Word for what it really says!

Ungratefulness

In our text in Hebrews, the writer says several times "harden not your heart, like Israel in the provocation." He's referring to how Israel acted in the wilderness after Moses had led them out of Egypt. What was it that best characterized Israel's attitude in the wilderness? If we could sum it up in one word, it would be "ungratefulness." They showed very little gratitude for what God had done for them. They allowed their temporary discomfort in the wilderness to make them forget about the horrors of slavery in Egypt from which God had delivered them! They griped about every thing, from Moses, to the food, to the places they were headed. I've often wondered in my Bible readings how such a people who had experienced such awesome blessings of God could become so unthankful and ungrateful for what God had done for them. How can people who have witnessed the mighty Egyptian army fall in the Red Sea and who have seen the glory of God descend upon the mountain of Sinai harden their hearts!?

The answer becomes clear when you realize that after the Red Sea rejoicing, we find very little praise and worship in the Wilderness. In fact, after Miriam grabbed a tamborouine and began to lead the ladies of Israel in dance after their deliverance from Egypt, I can't find another little praise session like that! They became ungrateful, and therefore hardened their hearts, because they never got a revelation of praising God in the wilderness! If you find yourself in the wilderness and in a dry time and in a time where you feel as if you are battling to just live for God day by day, remember that your heart will harden and you'll die in the wilderness unless you get a revelation of praise and worship! Because someone who is a praiser, will rarely be ungrateful! It's hard to be ungrateful while you are praising God for what He's done for you!! It is true that there are two types of Christians those who endure till the end and those that fall away. It is also true that the difference between the two is that those that make it get a revelation of the power of praise and worship, even in the wilderness and therefore their hearts are not hardened by a lack of gratitude toward God!

Disobedience (text in Hebrews)

Sin and failure to do the will of God and obey the Word of God always hardens the heart. The scriptures say that after the judgment of God had come upon Egypt that:

Ex 9:34 And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart , he and his servants.

There are four things that I would like to point out from this scripture that resulted from a hardened heart that continued to willfully sin.

1. It resulted in light views of the evil of sin.

Because Pharaoh's heart was hardened, he was willing to live with the consequences of his sin. He learned to live with heartache and pain, not realizing that the longer that he stayed in sin, the worse it would get. For instance, when Pharaoh finally got sick of the plague of frogs and begged Moses to remove them, when asked by Moses when he wanted them gone, Pharaoh replied "in the morning." He was willing to spend just one more night in his sin. To stay in his disobedience as long as possible even if meant discomfort and another night of misery! And this attitude ignored that the plagues were just going to get worse. And eventually, because of his desire to stay in his sin, he eventually lost his first born son to his disobedience. What started out as "light" became heavy when Pharaoh refused to repent!

2. Pharaoh's hardened heart resulted in a more frequent commission of sin.

The scripture said that "he sinned yet more." The ability to continually go back to willful sin and keep doing things that you know is wrong, only comes through a hardened heart.

3. Pharaoh only partially acknowledged and only half-way confessed and admitted his sin.

When confronted by Moses, Pharaoh would finally admit that he had erred by not obeying God's Word in that particular area but he never truly repented and began to serve the true God of Israel with all of his heart. If it came down to it, he would admit that he was wrong, but he refused to truly repent and turn from his wicked ways, choosing instead to cover his sins as much as possible. The scriptures say:

Prov 28:13-14 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. 14 Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.

A refusal to repent unless directly challenged and proved guilty and a refusal to devote one's life to a holy lifestyle come from he that "hardeneth his heart!" But the result will only be trouble!

4. Pharaoh's hardened heart came from stifling the convictions of conscience and refusing to listen to the man of God's correction and instruction.

We find the same attitude of Pharaoh in young king Zedekiah in 2 Chronicles:

2 Chron 36:11-13 Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. 12 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the LORD. 13 And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the LORD God of Israel.

Someone who refuses to accept the correction of the man of God and refuses to submit to the authority that God has placed in his life, is someone who is stifling their conscience and whose heart is hardened. And let me say this: you can appear to accept the Word of God and correction on the outside and yet your heart still be not right on the inside. Some Christians are like the little boy who said to his mother who had punished him by sitting him in the corner, "I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside." We are not talking about lip service here today. We are not talking about what you APPEAR to be doing on the outside. But what about your heart? Even as you obey the Word of God on the outside, are you really rebelling on the inside? You can appear obedient outwardly and yet be letting sin and rebellion and disobedience destroy your heart! But hear the commandments of God today: harden not your hearts!

Selfishness

Selfishness will harden a heart almost as fast as man's traditions. In 1 Samuel, we find a story of a brutish, selfish man named Nabal. He is a wealthy man and David, who is running from King Saul for his life, has repeatedly guarded this man's shepherds in the field from raiding strangers and helped them with their flocks. Now David and his men are hungry, and it's sheep-shearing time which was a time of feast where the entire shepherd and herdsmen would be treated to a glutton fest of food because of the abundance of their flocks. David asked for some leftovers to eat, and would have taken anything that Nabal offered, but this man Nabal (which means fool) refused to share with David and proceeded to stuff himself and get so drunk that he passed out until the morning.

David was so angry that he was going to wipe out the entire group of men, but Nabal's wife, Abigail secretly intervened and gave them food. The scripture then says this:

1 Sam 25:37-38 But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 38 And it came to pass about ten days after, that the LORD smote Nabal, that he died.

"His heart died within him." And in the Hebrew it literally reads "and his heart became as a stone." Now we know that a heart doesn't turn to stone overnight, so we see in Nabal the end result of a gradual hardening of his heart from selfishness and boorishness. The man who had the attitude that "I'll eat anything I want and drink all I want, but I could care less about sharing it with others," died with a heart of stone. God made sure of that.

And so now you know why I've preached to you so fervently about the Holy Ghost and the true Word of God. The scriptures command us to:

Eph 5:18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

It is true that wine is symbolic of the Holy Spirit in the scripture. When Peter and the other 120 received the Holy Ghost in Acts chapter 2 and stumbled out in the streets speaking in other tongues, some of the bystanders mistook them for drunk men. I've tasted and seen that the Lord is good! I've partaken of this Holy Ghost wine and I've consumed the revelation of the Word of God. And again, there is a banquet spread even here today, for you to come and dine upon! But if I didn't invite you and I was content to have the finest food of the Word of God and the finest wine of the Spirit of God and I refused to offer to you, then I would be like Nabal, a selfish man who died of a stony heart!

I've know saints of God like Nabal. They experienced the wine of the Holy Ghost themselves. They feast regularly on the Bread of Life, God's Word. But they refuse to share it with anybody! They keep it all to themselves, and service after service they feast again and drink again and yet never offer it somebody else! Such are the traits of a fool like Nabal. Such are the traits of someone with a hardening heart! A blessed man who is selfish with what he has, is a man with spiritual heart disease!

And so I'm not going to be like Nabal today. God still fill people with the Holy Ghost because He filled me. God still washes people sins away in the waters of baptism because He washed mine away. God still heals people because He has healed me. God still does miracles and puts families back together because He's done that for me. I've tasted and experienced the life changing power of what the Holy Ghost can do with a tender heart! And so I'm not going to be like Nabal, but I offer the same experience and the same power to you! God is real and alive and desires to work in your life!

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The doctors of the tragic case of Steele Smith found to their dismay that man doesn't hold the cure for a hardened heart. But what man can't do, the Great Physician can! The prophet Ezekiel prophesied of a spiritual surgery that would happen when people received the Spirit of God:

Ezek 36:26-27 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

The Holy Ghost can reverse the hardening today! Come allow God to put a "new spirit" within you! It's one thing to have to deal with something for which you can do nothing about, but it's another to live with a condition for which there is a cure. The Holy Ghost can cure the hardened heart today! Come let God restore a tenderness to Him and His Word. Why would you choose to live with a heart of stone?