What are the causes and solutions for a hardened heart?

That is the substance, briefly, of what we have in this portion. In the twelfth and thirteenth verses, the apostle applies this to the Hebrew Christians: "Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." He is not warning against falling into some outward sin. Sin, as occasionally mentioned in this epistle, is not immorality, not overt acts of wickedness, but the radical sin that produces all other sin. It is that evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Unbelief is the source from which flows every form of sin. So in speaking to professors, what he warns them against is turning away from the living God and giving up Christ. This is the sin into which they are in danger of falling. He says, Take heed, if you want your praises to continue, if you want to go through this wilderness journey with joy in your soul, that you do not depart from the living God; but rather exhort one another daily while it is called today. "Today," is whilst the Spirit invites, and continues to this present time. It is always "today" until we enter the bright "tomorrow" that is before us; and "while it is called today" we are to exhort one another lest any of us should "be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."

And notice that expression "hardened." Sin is a thing that hardens — the heart and conscience becoming callous, less sensitive. In the joy of first love, Christ fills the heart, and any thought of giving Him up is torture to the soul. Oh, who with the joy of first love in his heart would think for a moment of turning from Christ to anything else? But the sin of unbelief hardens. If you turn away from Christ, if you allow the world to come in, or, as these Jewish Christians were allowing, persecutions on one side, and the desire to be identified with Judaism on the other, to come in between the soul and Christ — if these things come into the soul, the heart becomes hardened. The sin of unbelief is a deceitful thing. It detaches one imperceptibly from the object of faith, and, before you are aware of it, the result is grievous dishonor to Christ. If he is a true beliver, like Peter, thank God, he will be brought to repentance. If he finds that he has failed, out of the very ashes of failure and unbelief, God will bring in brightness again. The very overwhelming flood that God permits to come upon us, the crushing sense of humiliation and sorrow because of our failure, will be the occasion used of the Spirit of God to bring out again that faith which was losing its brightness. The very sorrow of our experience will be His means of restoring us to Himself. But as the apostle is speaking of profession, true and false as well, he shows the effect of sin upon the heart to make them careless and coldhearted; then to allow something else than Christ to have a place, until Christ loses value in the eye of the heart and they go back again to that Judaism, — to shadow instead of the substance; it becomes an idol now, in that it displaces Christ: they give up Christ. That is the deceitfulness of sin; and we, as true believers, need to exhort one another, not against doing this or that or the other thing merely, but to exhort one another daily to hold fast to Christ.

In Exodus 7 begins the great struggle, and wonders upon wonders awfully fall on the devoted land of Egypt. Observe, as to the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, that this was in no-wise the case before the pronounced infidelity of Pharaoh. God never compelled a man to be an unbeliever. In short, unbelief in the first instance is never the consequence of judicial hardness on God's part. Is there no such thing then as hardening? Does not scripture mean that there is? Undoubtedly hardening there is. It is an equal error to suppose that God hardens a person when He first sends a testimony as to deny that He does harden after His testimony has been refused. The fact is, both are true, and this is just another instance of the importance of not taking up particular views of scripture, but of being guided and formed in our thoughts by all scripture.

God then sent a testimony to Pharaoh, as He does to everyone in some form or another. But man left to himself invariably refuses the testimony of God. He knows it is God; he has the consciousness that he is doing wrong in refusing it; yet he does refuse because he does not like and dare not trust God, whose word interferes with everything that he likes. Hence man gives himself up to unbelief, and then God may either at that or a later time, according to His own wisdom, seal up a person in a judicial hardness which is a distinct positive act on God's part. I hold therefore most strongly that hardening is not merely on man's side, and in the judicial sense not on man's at all, though no doubt the result of man's sin. God hardens because man refuses His word. Thus the hardening is a judicial act on God's part, which comes in after man has proved himself an unbeliever, and has persisted in it. It was so with Pharaoh, and his is a typical case, the permanent warning in the New Testament, as it is the first specified instance in the Old. It is the one which the apostle Paul quotes for this purpose. Consequently it is the standing witness of this solemn truth. And remember that this is not a mere exceptional fact. It is commoner than people imagine. It will be on a great scale in Christendom shortly (2 Thess. 2), as I have little doubt that it may be in many individual cases now, and has always been so. Thus it was when our Lord Jesus was here, and the presence of the Spirit, instead of preventing, confirmed it. Hence, whether on a great scale or in individual dealings of God, nothing can be more certain than that there is such an action on His part. At the same time it is never God who makes man an unbeliever. Hardening is a judgment which comes when man persists in unbelief in the face of distinct and repeated testimony from God.

Then referring again to Israel in the wilderness, the writer asks three searching questions to bring out the hardness, sin and unbelief of Israel. Firstly, who was it that, when they heard the Word of God speaking of a rest to come, did provoke? Was it only a few of the people? Alas! it was the great mass, “all that came out of Egypt”. Secondly, with whom was God grieved forty years? It was with those who, by reason of the hardness of their hearts, chose their own sins. Thirdly, to whom did God sware that they should not enter into His rest? It was to those who believed not. Thus we learn the root sin was unbelief . The unbelief left them exposed to their sins, and sins hardened their hearts.

Nor indeed is this all, for unjudged sin leads to graver evil. Pass on to the eighth chapter, where the Lord inquires, "Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return" (Jer. 8:5). If I do not heed His word and return, I shall get into this awful condition of perpetual backsliding. Well may we heed the word, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God … lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin" (Heb. 3:12-13).

Alas! it was easy to hear with the outward ear only, and to harden the heart, even as Stephen warned. "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye" (Acts 7:51). Sin is in the measure of truth heard and despised; and what testimony can God present to those who refused the voice of Christ not only humbled but glorified, who died for sinners? The very blessedness of the gospel, "so great salvation," marks the desperateness of the need, and the imminence of the danger.

So, but not at all to the same degree, it was with Israel of old "in the provocation, in the day of the temptation in the wilderness" (verse 8). The allusion is to Meribah and Massah which the Septuagint thus translates. Compare Psalm 95:8: The Septuagint, however, in Ex. 17:7, gives not "provocation" as in the Psalms, but "reviling" as in verse 2 also. Elsewhere Meribah is rendered ἀντιλογία, contradiction. Massah is uniformly translated πειρασμός, temptation, and this against God as the strife or reviling was against Moses more immediately. Tempting Jehovah in the desert was saying, Is Jehovah among us or not? This may seem to unbelievers a small offence; in the eyes of God and of faith it is heinous. Had He not broken the pride and power of Egypt on behalf of His poor unworthy people? Had He not brought them out of the house of bondage. triumphantly, their Guide and their Rearguard, to dwell among them and be their God?

Hence the call to encourage, not exactly one another, though this is included, but "yourselves," which seems rather more pointed than the former phrase. They were to encourage each other day by day as long as it is called today (the day of grace), that none should be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. For which of us knows not by humbling and bitter experience its luring character and slippery paths? A little evil allowed is the beginning of very great evil. The heart is hardened as we look off from Jesus, and self-pleasing takes the place of doing God's will; and only mercy's intervention hinders the end from being, according to the way. Truly sin is deceitful.

Further, we are not only exhorted to take heed to ourselves but to “exhort one another” each day, while it is still a day of grace and salvation, lest any be hardened by the deceitfulness of doing one's own will. Here it is not the deceitfulness of committing sins, solemn as this is, for one sin leads to another: it is the principle of sin of which the writer speaks, which is lawlessness. We little think how we harden our hearts by doing our own will. We are thus to take heed to ourselves and care for one another. Love should not be indifferent to a brother slipping away by doing his own will.

"But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you he hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." If in the case of those truly born again, this ex­hortation would stimulate and encourage their faith, it might also, in the case of any who lacked faith, be the means of awakening and bringing them in reality to the Lord Himself, and thus prevent so dreadful a fall. For sin will harden, however innocent its face may at first appear; and those deceived by it will choose eventually to mock at faith. The expression "while it is called today" insists that the present is the time of testing, which may abruptly end at any moment.

You will notice the transition when the psalm speaks of the Shepherd, and they the sheep of His hand. It is simple and happy work to praise, when we are occupied with the Shepherd; but when we turn to the sheep, there is need of exhortation. And so it is: "Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness." You see the thought, then, that so long as God in His love and grace fills the soul there can only be praise? but when the eye turns from God to man, there is need of exhortation not to harden the heart, not to be careless or forgetful, as Israel was in the day of provocation in the wilderness. In other words, if we are to enter into our rest, we must go on. It is not enough for a man to say, "I was converted ten years ago." How is it today? Are the things of God of continued interest, or is the heart absorbed in the things of the world? Why talk of a conversion of ten years ago, if it has no present effect on the life? There is no sadder spectacle than a heart that is hardened by grace neglected or despised — people who boast in what God has done for them in the past, and whose present shows no power of divine life. God keep us, dear friends, from a hardened heart, from despising the pure grace of His love. If we rejoice in His love it will always make us tender, and obedient. "The Holy Ghost" — mark, he does not even say David — "the Holy Ghost saith, Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart."

Before we proceed to analyse these chapters there is one point — inasmuch as it often occasions difficulty to the believer, as well as draws forth the attacks of the enemy — that cannot be omitted. It lies in the words, "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart." (Ex. 7:3.) The doubt that Satan would suggest in connection with this is, Where was the sin of Pharaoh if his heart was thus hardened? Or, How could God righteously destroy one whom He had hardened to resist Him? If the place in which these words occur had been carefully observed, the difficulty would have vanished. The fact is, the practice is so common of citing single verses of Scripture, apart from their context, that difficulties are created which would be dissipated in a moment, if the context were carefully examined. Be it then noted, that this is not said of Pharaoh until after he had contemptuously rejected the claims of Jehovah. He had said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." (v. 2.) He rejected the word of the Lord, placed himself in open antagonism to Him and His people; and now his heart is judicially hardened. And God still acts upon the same principle. We thus read in 2 Thess. of some on whom He will send strong delusion that they should believe a lie. But wherefore? Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. (2 Thess. 2:9-11.) Let the warning sink deep into the hearts of any unconverted ones whose eyes may fall upon these pages. There will be a time even for them, if they continue to refuse the gospel of God's grace, when it will be impossible for them to obtain salvation. God has fixed a limit even to His day of grace, even as He did for Pharaoh; and when that limit is overstepped there remains nothing but judgment. "Today," then, "if ye hear His voice, harden not your hearts." (Heb. 3:15.)