1 Samuel 16, Jeremiah 18, Luke 13:1-17, Hebrews 3:7-19, Psalm 52: Do you know people that once attended church and seemed to be believers yet over time they have just walked away? What happened? I wonder if some of it could not be what Hebrews 3 records today. It begins by setting the stage talking about the people who came out of Egypt and saw the signs and wonders God did to save them and set them free. But it goes on to say that over time their hearts were hardened because they did not believe God. Their testing whether it was food, water or even direction revealed their lack of trust in God. Then the writer of Hebrews writes this,
12Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
15As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
The scripture is a warning to not allow evil and sin to set up an unbelieving heart within you causing you to fall away from the living God. Some may ask are these people saved who were falling away. I don’t believe their were because they were considered unbelieving. However even if they were of the faith their hardened hearts toward God would make them into a category some in the old days would have called backslidden or far from God. One in that place doesn’t hear God’s voice because sin and unbelief blocks their way. The hardness of their heart is much like a callous. It makes that heart so that it is not tender to His voice and hear and obey.
Something else we need to note is that we the church are instructed to exhort or encourage one another so that we won’t get hardened heart due to sin. That means as believers we are to help those who are being tempted and fall into that temptation. We are to love them enough to speak truth to them. We are to be their friend and run with them toward God. It doesn’t mean we join them in any disobedience, but we are close enough to them we can see when they are headed in the wrong direction and encourage them back into the right way. May we all have tender hearts toward the Father and other believers who are in need of encouragement and strength.