Three times Paul repeated these words in the book of Hebrews. “Today if ye will hear His voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness.” Hebrews 3:7–8
Who is pleading with us not to harden our hearts? Paul said in verse 7, that the Holy Ghost said it to Israel’s people. But yet they did harden their hearts and for this reason, only two of the adult men could enter into the Promised Land. Whose voice are we to hear without hardening our hearts? It is the voice of God; He is speaking to us. We read in the book of Job, “Why dost thou strive against Him? for He giveth not account of any of His matters. For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.” Job 33:13–14. It does not say that God will speak to us a third time. The first two times we hear His voice, but if we harden our hearts and do not obey His voice, then we do not hear it any more.
The chief priests and elders asked of Jesus many things, but did Jesus answer them? “And when He was accused of the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing.” Matthew 27:12
The first two times we hear the voice of God clearly, and if we obey His voice, He will continue to speak to us. But if we put our obedience to a later time, and we say that at a time when it is convenient to us, then we will obey Him, we may not hear His voice anymore, because our hearts have been hardened. Paul did not write, “tomorrow, or next week,” but “today,” if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
Many people came to listen to Jesus as He was speaking the words of God, but in the end, only few accepted them and obeyed them. At one time He had 70 disciples, but after a while they hardened their hearts also and left Him.
“The promise of obedience they appear to fulfill when this involves no sacrifice; but when self-denial and self-sacrifice are required, when they see the cross to be lifted, they draw back. Thus the conviction of duty wears away, and known transgression of God’s commandments becomes habit. The ear may hear God’s word, but the spiritual perceptive powers have departed. The heart is hardened, the conscience seared.” –Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 278
“He who deliberately stifles his convictions of duty because it interferes with his inclinations will finally lose the power to distinguish between truth and error. The understanding becomes darkened, the conscience callous, the heart hardened, and the soul is departed from God.” –The Great Controversy, p. 378
Jesus spoke the parable of the sower. Some seeds feel on the wayside, others on the stony ground, and some seeds feel among the thorns. None of these seeds produced a harvest. Then some seeds fell on the good ground and started to grow and produced fruit. Jesus was the sower, and He came to sow the seed among His church, the chosen people, but almost everybody hardened their hearts against the voice of God.
This also happened in the time of Noah. For 120 years he preached to the people about the flood and invited them into the ark to save their lives, but only his own family believed him and entered the ark of safety; all others hardened their hearts and did not believe him.
God’s people travelled in the wilderness for forty years, and during this time Moses was teaching them the way of God. He was, as it were, the voice of God to them. But with the work of forty years, he was able to save only two men out of 600,000 who left Egypt with him; all others hardened their hearts in the day of provocation.
In the book of Revelation, we read in chapters 2 and 3, seven times the words, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Only a few people have the ear to hear the voice of God. Jesus said, “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of learning, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” Matthew 13:15
Jesus also said, “But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” John 10:26–27
On the Day of Pentecost a mighty power of the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles. The people heard them speak in their native languages, calling them to repentance and to be baptized. Different reactions took place among the people. “And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.” Acts 2:12–13
Then others had an ear to hear the voice of God. “Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?” Acts 2:37
These hearers heard the voice of God, and they did not leave their obedience to a later time, but that same day they were baptized into the church.
Many times, Lot had been speaking to his sons-in-law to obey God and save themselves. Then at the last day before the destruction of Sodom he went again to them, calling them to come out of the city, but they had hardened their hearts so much that the words of warning of their father-in-law seemed as a joke to them.
When children are born into this world, they all have a conscience, which is one of the voice of God, telling them to do what is right and not to disobey their parents and not to commit sin. But if they do not obey the voice of their conscience to do what is right, the voice gets quieter and quieter until they do not hear it any more. Then they can disobey God and continue to do sin without feeling bad about it. The Holy Spirit is grieved, and finally leaves them alone, never to return. Then their salvation is forever too late. They still can be religious and even be members of God’s true church, and yet in a lost condition. The brain understands the truth, but the heart is not in it. For selfish reasons they want to escape the hell fire and have eternal life, but they do not love God, neither their fellow men.
The Pharisees were very strict in the outward ceremonies but they hated Jesus and His followers. They did not love the truth. The same deception that Satan used on the Pharisees, scribes, and the high priests 2,000 years ago, he is using today, with great success. Many Christians are so hardened in their hearts that the strongest and most impressive appeals of the Holy Spirit do not have a lasting effect on them.
“I know the danger of those who refuse to walk in the light as God gives it. They bring upon themselves the terrible crisis of being left to follow their own ways, to do after their own judgment. The conscience becomes less and less impressible. The voice of God seems to become more and more distant, and the wrong-doer is left to his own infatuation. In stubbornness he resists every appeal, despises all counsel and advice, and turns from every provision made for his salvation, and the voice of the messenger of God makes no impression upon his mind. The Spirit of God no longer exerts a restraining power over him, and the sentence is passed, ‘He is joined to idols; let him alone.’ O how dark, how sullen, how obstinate, is his independence? It seems that the insensibility of death is upon his heart. This is the process through which the soul passes that rejects the working of the Holy Spirit.” –The Review And Herald, June 29, 1897
Examine your heart with the help of God to find out if it is hard as the way side—without feelings and impressions by the Holy Spirit—or if it is as the stony ground, so hard, and so shallow; or could it be as the thorny field where the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word?
If your heart is in the good ground, then it will produce fruit for eternity. When you hear these words, do not harden your heart. We are nearing the end, and soon, very soon, it will be forever too late to prepare ourselves for eternity. AMEN
Timo Martin