Core Scripture
— “Do not harden your hearts as [your fathers did] in the rebellion [of Israel at Meribah], on the day of testing in the wilderness.”
Hebrews 3:8
This is the first teaching in our Hardened Hearts series — walking through what it means to have a hardened heart, how it happens sometimes all at once, sometimes one small forgotten mercy at a time, and what it looks like to ask God for a heart of flesh again.
Hebrews 3:8
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Do not harden your hearts as [your fathers did] in the rebellion [of Israel at Meribah],
On the day of testing in the wilderness,
Deuteronomy 6:12
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then beware that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Psalm 95:8
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Do not harden your hearts and become spiritually dull as at Meribah [the place of strife],
And as at Massah [the place of testing] in the wilderness,
Have you ever thought that you were nothing like the Israelites in the wilderness? Or maybe you thought you were more like them than you would like? Maybe there was some disbelief that they could actually act and behave the way that they did after hearing God, after seeing Him work in their lives, after witnessing miracle after miracle. I know there were times I couldn’t believe they were complaining again; I couldn’t believe that while Moses was up on Mount Sinai, they were making an idol and celebrating that idol.
Yet, I only needed eyes to take a look at my own life. Maybe you are thinking of your own life now. Think about how many times God has worked in your life: you knew it was Him working, you could feel His presence, His love, His compassion, His grace? Now, think about how long it took for you to forget all of that. We, quite honestly, are not any different than the Israelites were. Even thousands of years later, things remain the same.
Psalm 106:7-13
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Our fathers in Egypt did not understand nor appreciate Your miracles;
They did not remember the abundance of Your mercies nor imprint Your lovingkindnesses on their hearts,
But they were rebellious at the sea, at the Red Sea.
8 Nevertheless He saved them for His name’s sake,
That He might make His [supreme] power known.
9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up;
And He led them through the depths as through a pasture.
10 So He saved them from the hand of the one that hated them,
And redeemed them from the hand of the [Egyptian] enemy.
11 And the waters covered their adversaries;
Not one of them was left.
12 Then Israel believed in [the validity of] His words;
They sang His praise.
13 But they quickly forgot His works;
They did not [patiently] wait for His counsel and purpose [to be revealed regarding them],
Psalm 78:40-42
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How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness
And grieved Him in the desert!
41 Again and again they tempted God,
And distressed the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember [the miracles worked by] His [powerful] hand,
Nor the day when He redeemed them from the enemy,
We may not have idols that we create by hand as they did then, but we have idols. Our children, our jobs, our homes, our families, our volunteering, our games, our books, our … fill in that blank. There are times when we get so caught in the storms, the busyness, the everyday tasks that we “forget” all that God did for us. I do realize this is not exactly a new topic for us, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I bring it up again. I keep getting “reminded,” as I spend time in God’s Word, how often and how quickly Israel or someone in the Bible forgets God. They forget what He did for them, how He saved them, how He provided for them, how He shielded them, how He heard their cries, how He took care of their enemies. Time and time again, they turn back to worldly things, they turn back to the evil one, they turn back to man-made idols, they turn back to Baal.
Judges 3:7
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And the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.
Judges 8:33-35
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Then it came about, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the Israelites again played the prostitute with the Baals, and made Baal-berith their god. 34 And the Israelites did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hand of all their enemies on every side; 35 nor did they show kindness to the family of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good that he had done for Israel.
Isaiah 17:10
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Because you [Judah] have forgotten the God of your salvation
And have not remembered the Rock of your Stronghold—
Therefore you plant lovely plants
And set the grounds with vine slips of a strange god,
Jeremiah 2:32
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“Can a virgin forget [to wear] her ornaments,
Or a bride her attire [that identifies her as a married woman]?
Yet My people have forgotten Me
Days without number.
Psalm 106:13
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But they quickly forgot His works;
They did not [patiently] wait for His counsel and purpose [to be revealed regarding them],
Can you relate to any of this? Can you recognize times when you have forgotten God? When you have forgotten what Jesus did for you? That takes us in a whole other direction; we will get to it later, but think about it.
The author of Hebrews reminded people what forgetting God does in Hebrews 3:7-19 as it recites Psalm 95:
Hebrews 3:7-19
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Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts as [your fathers did] in the rebellion [of Israel at Meribah],
On the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 Where your fathers tried Me by testing [My forbearance and tolerance],
And saw My works for forty years
[And found I stood their test].
10 “Therefore I was angered with this generation,
And I said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways [nor become progressively better and more intimately acquainted with them]’;
11 So I swore [an oath] in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest [the promised land].’”
The Peril of Unbelief
12 Take care, brothers and sisters, that there not be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to trust and rely on the Lord, a heart] that turns away from the living God. 13 But continually encourage one another every day, as long as it is called “Today” [and there is an opportunity], so that none of you will be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [its cleverness, delusive glamour, and sophistication]. 14 For we [believers] have become partakers of Christ [sharing in all that the Messiah has for us], if only we hold firm our newborn confidence [which originally led us to Him] until the end, 15 while it is said,
“Today [while there is still opportunity] if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your heart, as when they provoked Me [in the rebellion in the desert at Meribah].”
16 For who were they who heard and yet provoked Him [with rebellious acts]? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dead bodies were scattered in the desert? 18 And to whom did He swear [an oath] that they would not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed [those who would not listen to His word]? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter [into His rest—the promised land] because of unbelief and an unwillingness to trust in God.
Look at v8: do not harden your hearts in rebellion. How often has your heart been hardened to God in general? Often a hardened heart is the result of rebellion. We close ourselves off to God in so many ways. We don’t want to draw close to Him; we don’t want to spend time in His Word; we don’t want to spend time in worship; we don’t want to surrender ourselves to Him anymore; we don’t see His purpose anymore either. How have you hardened your heart towards God? What did it look like? What did your life look like? What did you do instead? Did you start relying on yourself? Your family? Friends? Mentors? Books? How different were you? Did God’s peace leave? Was there a lack of confidence in life, or maybe the opposite, full confidence and reliance on yourself? Is this where you are now? Is your heart hardened towards God? Is it rock solid yet? Or maybe it is still clay, maybe it is still moldable, not quite solid yet. Maybe it is just the beginning of turning to rock.
Sometimes it is a major event that begins the process of hardening our hearts; sometimes it is many small things that do it, like a slow leak that results in a flood.
Have you experienced something that hardened your heart? Did you expect God to work in a certain way and He didn’t? Did you believe fully that God was going to work in a specific way, only to find out that the opposite happened? Was there a death in the family when you believed for healing? Was there an injury that refuses to heal, though you seek God about it regularly? Was there a division in a relationship that you thought and believed God was in? What happened or what is happening in your life, big or small, that is creating little hard spots in your heart? What are you doing or focusing on that is building up those hard spots?
Really, sit and ask the Holy Spirit where your heart is. Ask Him for help to understand why your heart is the way it is, and pray.
When we think about hearts, we think of this fleshy, beating organ. It is a soft and kind of squishy muscle. Now, what if every time something happened, every time something hurt or caused pain, a piece of that soft, squishy heart calcified, becoming hard and stone-like? Then, before you know it, it is all calcified and rock-hard.
But it is not just experiences, like hurt and pain, that can cause those calcified spots. Every time we forget God, every time we forget what He did and what He does, we find more of those calcified, rock-hard spots on our heart.
And if we look a little further in the scriptures we shared, v12-13 to be exact, we can find what else creates a hardened heart towards God…
Hebrews 3:12-13
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The Peril of Unbelief
Take care, brothers and sisters, that there not be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to trust and rely on the Lord, a heart] that turns away from the living God. 13 But continually encourage one another every day, as long as it is called “Today” [and there is an opportunity], so that none of you will be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [its cleverness, delusive glamour, and sophistication].
There are a couple of things here. The first is a continuation of what we have been discussing; it states that refusing to trust in and rely on the Lord is one of the things that hardens the heart. It causes us to turn away from God. For whatever reason. Sometimes we turn away because we blame Him; sometimes we turn away because Satan has us so convinced that we are shameful, damaged people, so we feel as though we can’t turn to God. That we are too far gone for God’s help, that we are unworthy to go to Him, or guilt builds a wall. So ask yourself if you trust God, if you feel as though you can rely on Him. How do you feel about that? Is there any hesitation in your answer? If so, maybe that is where you begin. Cry out to God and ask for His help in trusting; ask for His help in learning to rely on Him.
Just as the dad with the boy that Jesus healed did. He cried out and asked Jesus to help his unbelief. And Jesus did! He healed that boy!
Jesus didn’t dismiss him and say he was on his own; he didn’t say, “Sorry, I can’t help you”; he didn’t say, “Well, you did x, y, and z, so that is why your son is the way he is.” He didn’t say, “Because you don’t believe enough, I can’t heal him.” What did Jesus do? He healed the boy; He helped the father believe. The father, witnessing what Jesus did, helped his belief.
Are there or have there been times in your life when you have witnessed God working, times when you knew without any doubt that God answered that prayer, or times when you felt the hand of God in a situation, times when something occurred that you had not even prayed for yet, or a time when you felt God’s love? Did that help you believe? Did that reconfirm for you what Scripture says? Did that remind you that God loves you and cares for you? Or do you miss seeing those things? Do you miss seeing the ways God is intervening for you in your life? Are you so focused on the large things that the small ones get missed and you think God just doesn’t care? Do you see unanswered prayers and automatically assume God isn’t hearing you? In regard to that, how many times have you realized that unanswered prayers were indeed answers to prayers?! I know I have had the pleasure of realizing that in my life. Do you believe His Word? Do you believe the promises that are noted in His Word? Do you doubt that God is truth? Do you doubt that He is full of grace and mercy? Are you allowing Satan to build up a case against God in your mind and in your heart?
Matthew 13:19
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When anyone hears the word of the kingdom [regarding salvation] and does not understand and grasp it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.
2 Corinthians 11:3
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But I am afraid that, even as the serpent beguiled Eve by his cunning, your minds may be corrupted and led away from the simplicity of [your sincere and] pure devotion to Christ.
Acts 13:10
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and said, “You [Elymas] who are full of every [kind of] deceit, and every [kind of] fraud, you son of the devil, enemy of everything that is right and good, will you never stop perverting the straight paths of the Lord?
Satan certainly does try to steal, kill, and destroy our relationship with God. He wants to be our focus; he wants to be the one that we listen to, the one that we pay attention to, the one that we obey. The reason he tries repeatedly to bring doubt into our thoughts, doubt about who God is, doubt about God’s love, doubt about what God actually says. He tries to tempt us with what he believes we need, we yearn for, we desire, and we thirst for.
Satan is the father of lies,
John 8:44
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You are of your father the devil, and it is your will to practice the desires [which are characteristic] of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks what is natural to him, for he is a liar and the father of lies and half-truths.
What is Satan lying to you about? What ways is he tempting you and leading you away from God? What ways is he distorting the Word of God, the promises of God, and the love of God? What things are you listening to him about? How is he interfering in your devotion to God, to Jesus, and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit? How is he distorting your disbelief? How are you allowing him to do these things? What are you paying attention to and meditating on? Is it the lies of Satan or the truth of God? I don’t ask these questions to condemn; I ask them to convict. For the Holy Spirit to convict you, to open your eyes, your heart, and your mind. I know I need these questions; I need to sit and take stock of my own life. Take stock of any hard spots that I may have in my own heart. Remember, God already knows what is going on with you and in you. God knew where you would be today, just as He knew that Israel would forget Him; He knew that they would forget His wonder-working miracles, because he warns them, just as He warns us, over and over again, to remember Him, to remember what we have seen, what we have witnessed, what we have felt.
Deuteronomy 4:9
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“Only pay attention and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your grandchildren [impressing these things on their mind and penetrating their heart with these truths]—
Deuteronomy 8:2
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And you shall remember [always] all the ways which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart (mind), whether you would keep His commandments or not.
1 Chronicles 16:12
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Remember [with gratitude] His marvelous deeds which He has done,
His miracles and the judgments from His mouth,
Isaiah 46:9
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“Remember [carefully] the former things [which I did] from ages past;
For I am God, and there is no one else;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
I encourage you to remember what God has done. Remember how He has answered prayers, remember how He has supplied for your needs, remember how He has sheltered you, protected you, and saved you.
When you start to feel a hardness towards God, when you start to have doubt, start to worry, start to have unbelief, or waver in your faith, remember Who God is! As Isaiah states: there is none like Him! Ask Him to help your heart, to make your heart a heart of flesh again.
Ezekiel 11:19
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And I will give them one heart [a new heart], and put a new spirit within them. I will take from them the heart of stone, and will give them a heart of flesh [that is responsive to My touch],
I just love the end of that verse! Cry out to God and ask Him to make your heart one that is responsive to Him, responsive to His touch, His Word, His love! Next time we meet, we will continue to dig into Hebrews 3:7-19 and learn more about what creates a heart of stone within us. During this time, seek God, spend time with Him, and meditate on His Word.
Psalm 95
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Praise to the Lord, and Warning against Unbelief.
O come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord;
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before His presence with a song of thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with songs.
3 For the Lord is a great God
And a great King above all gods,
4 In whose hand are the depths of the earth;
The peaks of the mountains are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it [by His command];
And His hands formed the dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [in reverent praise and prayer].
7 For He is our God
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you will hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts and become spiritually dull as at Meribah [the place of strife],
And as at Massah [the place of testing] in the wilderness,
9 “When your fathers tested Me,
They tried Me, even though they had seen My work [of miracles].
10 “For forty years I was grieved and disgusted with that generation,
And I said, ‘They are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not acknowledge or regard My ways.’
11 “Therefore I swore [an oath] in My wrath,
‘They absolutely shall not enter My rest [the land of promise].’”
Reflection Questions
- Can you think of a time God clearly worked in your life — and then think honestly about how long it took you to forget it?
- What are the “idols” in your life right now — not carved images, but the things you turn to instead of God?
- Is your heart hardened toward God in any area right now? What does that look like day to day?
- Was there a specific event — a loss, an unanswered prayer, a wound — that started hardening a part of your heart?
- Pray: “Lord, take from me my heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh that is responsive to You again.”
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