Hebrews: Do Not Harden Your Hearts
Hebrews 3:7-11; Psalm 95:7-11; Luke 19:1-10; Numbers 14:26-33 - TODAY is the day of reckoning! Don’t wander for 40 years expecting God’s mercy at the end.
“Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me,
As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me,
And saw My works for forty years.
Therefore I was angry with this generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways’;
As I swore in My wrath, ‘
They shall not enter My rest.’ ””
Hebrews 3:7-11 NASB1995
Another warning to the readers starts in this passage in Hebrews 3 and continues into Hebrews 4. This part of the warning comes from the obstinate behavior of the people of Israel after they were released from Egypt. They tested Moses and God persistently and with great hardness of heart. The author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95. Here is the text for comparison (both are from the NASB1995):
“For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you would hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
“When your fathers tested Me,
They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
For forty years I loathed that generation,
And said they are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not know My ways.
Therefore I swore in My anger,
Truly they shall not enter into My rest.””
Psalms 95:7-11 NASB1995
I often see Scripture that makes me shudder, thinking about the stupid years that Steve and I spent wandering in a secular wilderness. Deep down inside, I know I still believed in those days, at least a little bit (just ask me what my thoughts were during severe turbulence when landing in an airplane or if there was a close call on the highway or if illness occurred). But I was “hard-hearted”. Science had all the answers and belief was for the weak-minded and ignorant. I was the brave one, rejecting superstition in my unending arrogance. I shudder because I think of all the risks we took traveling and driving around and doing other stupid things without the eternal benefit of His redemption and protection. He saved us both in December, 2006. And I know now looking back at my young years as a church-goer that I was not truly born again but just went through the pretenses and was seduced by my first hard science class in college.
The Holy Spirit says that TODAY when you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. It means NOW, not at some future date or on your deathbed (if you get a chance to be cognizant on your deathbed - there are no guarantees and your death could just as easily happen instantly on a busy road or while in the throes of advanced dementia as you lay dying).
Enduring Word commentary is quite good:
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: The Spirit of God (speaking through His Word) told us that Jesus the Messiah is much greater than Moses. This truth should lead someone to action, and now the writer to the Hebrews will encourage those actions.
Do not harden your hearts: If those who followed Moses were responsible to surrender unto, to trust in, and to persevere in following God’s leader, we are much more responsible to do the same with a greater leader, Jesus the Messiah.
The point is clear. As the Holy Spirit speaks, we must hear His voice and not allow our hearts to become hardened. We hear the Spirit speak in the Scriptures, in the heart of His people, in those He draws to salvation, and by His works.
Just as the Spirit speaks in many ways, there are also several ways we can harden our heart.
Some harden their hearts by relapsing into their old indifference.
Some harden their hearts by unbelief.
Some harden their hearts by asking for more signs.
Some harden their hearts by presuming upon the mercy of God.
Today: There is urgency to the voice of the Holy Spirit. He never prompts us to get right with God tomorrow, or to trust in yesterday – the Holy Spirit only moves us to act today.
The Holy Spirit tells us today because it is a genuine invitation. We know that the Holy Spirit really wants us to come to Jesus because He says, “today.” If someone asks me to come over their house for dinner but they give no day or time, I know it isn’t a firm invitation yet. But when they say, “Come over on this day at this time,” I know it is a firm invitation, that they want me to come, that they are ready for me to come, and that it will be prepared for my coming. The Holy Spirit gives you a time for His invitation – today.
Charles Spurgeon pointed out one reason why the Holy Spirit is so urgent: “Besides, he waits to execute his favourite office of a Comforter, and he cannot comfort an ungodly soul, he cannot comfort those who harden their hearts. Comfort for unbelievers would be their destruction. As he delights to be the Comforter, and has been sent forth from the Father to act specially in that capacity, that he may comfort the people of God, he watches with longing eyes for broken hearts and contrite spirits, that he may apply the balm of Gilead and heal their wounds.”
We must also have great urgency about today. “Select the strongest man you know, and suppose that everything in reference to your eternal welfare is to depend upon whether he lives to see the next year. With what anxiety would you hear of his illness, how concerned you would be about his health? Well, sinner, your salvation is risked by you upon your own life, is that any more secure?” (Spurgeon).
It can’t be any clearer than this admonition. But be advised that the enemy also works overtime on those who have repented and accepted Jesus as their Savior. Old habits seem comfortable, old sins seem trivial, old friends seem so persuasive in their disbelief. God’s call is urgent, as we learned in the story about Zaccheus, who gladly complied:
“He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly. When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.””
Luke 19:1-10 NASB1995 (my emphasis added in bold).
The book of Numbers has the story that was repeated in Psalms and again in Hebrews:
“The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are making against Me. Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will surely do to you; your corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. Surely you shall not come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. Your children, however, whom you said would become a prey—I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness. Your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the wilderness.”
Numbers 14:26-33 NASB1995
The people of Israel over a certain age were not to know the promised rest of the promised land, due to their inability to be humble and stop grumbling and rely on God. He provided for them over and over and over again (many signs were given) and all they could do was complain and then jump on the bandwagon of false gods the minute Moses disappeared for a period of time. They hardened their hearts. Even the 12 spies sent to the land of Canaan painted a grim picture (except for Joshua and Caleb), denying the providence of God. Here’s a quote from Brian Bell about those naysayers, from Precept Austin:
“What kicked off the 40 yrs wandering was the 12 spies, 10 of which could only see giant problems rather than a giant God. The 10 were like Robert Fulton’s critics. When he tested his steamboat they stood along the shore yelling, “It will never start, never start, never start”! Then when it started they said, “It will never stop, never stop, never stop!””
This would not be one of my devotionals without Charles Spurgeon. The first excerpt is from his exposition on Psalm 95, found on Precept Austin:
There can be no rest to an unbelieving heart. If manna and miracles could not satisfy Israel, neither would they have been content with the land which flowed with milk and honey. Canaan was to be the typical resting place of God, where his ark should abide, and the ordinances of religion should be established; the Lord had for forty years borne with the ill manners of the generation which came out of Egypt, and it was but right that he should resolve to have no more of them. Was it not enough that they had revolted all along that marvelous wilderness march? Should they be allowed to make new Massahs and Meribahs in the Promised Land itself? Jehovah would not have it so. He not only said but swore that into His rest they should not come, and that oath excluded every one of them; their carcases fell in the wilderness.
Solemn warning this to all who leave the way of faith for paths of petulant murmuring and mistrust. The rebels of old could not enter in because of unbelief, “let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of us should even seem to come short of it.” One blessed inference from this psalm must not be forgotten. It is clear that there is a rest of God, and that some must enter into it: but “they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief, there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” The unbelievers could not enter, but “we which have believed do enter into rest.” Let us enjoy it, and praise the Lord for it forever. Ours is the true Sabbatic rest, it is ours to rest from our own works as God did from his. While we do so, let us “come into His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.”
And from his exposition for Hebrews:
Oh, that none of us, as professors of the faith of Christ, may be like Israel in the wilderness! I fear there is too much likeness; God grant that it may be carried no further! May we hear the voice of God, as they did not hear it, for their ears were dull of hearing! May we never harden our hearts, as they did, for they kicked against the command of God, and rebelled against the thunders of Sinai! If God has had forty years’ patience with you, take heed, sinner, take heed, lest He swear in His wrath that you shall not enter into His rest. Your entrance into that rest depends upon His good will and pleasure. He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion (Ro 9:15). If, then, you provoke Him to swear that you shall not enter into His rest, into that rest you never can enter, for then the gates of hell are barred upon you, and the gates of heaven fast locked against you. Beware, then, lest you provoke Him. (Spurgeon’s Expositional Comments on Hebrews)
The unbelief here described excludes not only from typical earthly blessings
but equally from the rest in the heavenly Canaan.
“Rest” and its nuances for the believer are a recurring theme in Hebrews, so watch for more of those references.
My next devotional examines Hebrews 3:12-15 - Beware of unbelief!
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - Please help me understand the urgency of the plea from the Holy Spirit. TODAY is the day of reckoning, not some distant day in the future (or tomorrow) when it will be too late. Thank you for the beautiful links between the Old Testament and the New Testament, showing the patience and mercy of our Great God. Amen.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.Lockman.org
Enduring Word commentary by David Guzik is used with written permission. Minor formatting changes have been made to improve readability.
Precept Austin was accessed on 10/27/2025 to review commentary for Hebrews 3:7-11 (and other relevant Biblical scripture).