Do Not Harden Your Hearts!
How easy it is to let doctrinal truths slip-slide away into the mist as we shovel snow, drive to the shopping malls or shop online, eat, drink and be merry as we celebrate Christmas and the New Year (or the New Year, then Christmas, and then old New Year, if you're an Old Calendarist).
It was most likely St. Paul who wrote in Hebrews 3:8 & 15 - "Do not harden your hearts!" The Israelites had just been delivered from slavery in Egypt and were wandering in the Sinai desert. God had given Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, but the Israelites were caught slip-sliding into idolatry by worshipping a golden calf. Later, after the Lord rebuked them by destroying the leaders of a rebellion against Moses, the Israelites grumbled: "It's not fair!"
How in heaven's name can we ever say that God is not fair? He has created the whole universe and our planet earth precisely the right distance from our sun to give us liquid water, breathable air, a livable climate, four beautiful seasons, plants and animals to feed us and for us to care for, and loving families who care for us and we care for them. But when anything gets just a little bit out of balance, we cry: "God, how can you do this to us? It's not fair!" Mostly it's our own fault that we've messed up the earth, the climate, the rivers and the oceans, and our relationships. But it's our fallen human nature to project the blame on someone else.
God has given us something even greater: His Holy Spirit to dwell within us: see John 14:16-17 - "I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that He may be with you forever, - the Spirit of truth, whom the world can't receive; for it doesn't see Him, neither knows Him. You know Him, for He lives with you, and will be in you." And He will reveal the truth to us: see John 16:12-13 - "I have yet many things to tell you, but you can't bear them now. However when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak from Himself; but whatever He hears, He will speak. He will declare to you things that are to come."
Through creation God has given us this amazingly beautiful world, and through the Law of Moses He has given us rules on how to live in this world. But even greater than all this, through Christ He has given us eternal life in a heavenly home... if we hold fast in the face of temptations and trials:
"Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken, but Christ is faithful as a Son over His house; whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end. Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me by proving Me, And saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, "They always err in their heart, But they didn't know My ways;" as I swore in My wrath, "They will not enter into My rest."' Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God; but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called 'today,' lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end: while it is said, 'Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion" (Hebrews 3:5-13).
There are some who say that a believer can never lose his salvation: "Once saved, always saved." But the consensus of the Church's teaching from the beginning does not uphold this Augustinian doctrine of predestination: see "Augustine" on my Literature web-page. It should be clear from the above Scripture that St. Paul is writing to "brothers," i.e. believers, and yet he clearly says two times - "do not harden your hearts." And "falling away" back into unbelief is a real possibility that we are warned here to avoid.
Yes indeed, God foreknows and in that sense He predestines us. But we do not possess foreknowledge, so from our human point of view we have freedom and thus the responsibility to choose good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, to hold fast or to give in to temptation and give up. Notice something interesting and even rather peculiar in the above Scripture: "we are members of His household (present tense) if we hold fast our confidence firm to the end (future tense)." And again it says: "we have become partakers of Christ (present tense), if we hold fast, firm to the end (future tense)." How can something in the present be conditional ("if") upon something in the future? This illustrates God's foreknowledge: He knows "in advance" (with the eternal God there are no time constraints, so it doesn't strictly make sense to say "in advance" in relation to God), but we time-bound humans don't know "in advance" so we are presented with those "ifs."
Our fallen human nature can be transformed into the divine nature if we hold onto the great and precious promises that God has given us, as St. Peter wrote:
"Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and virtue; by which He has granted to us His exceedingly great and precious promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust. Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge; and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control patience; and in patience godliness; and in godliness brotherly affection; and in brotherly affection, love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be neither idle nor unfruitful to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:3-8).
You might be asking the question - "Whose knowledge?" It's both God's infinite foreknowledge of us, and our finite knowledge of Him... if it abounds to the end.
Recall the story of the Israelites being delivered from slavery in Egypt: several times it says that when the Lord through Moses performed miracles of the plagues, Pharaoh first said he'd let God's people go, but then Pharaoh "hardened his heart" and changed his mind:
"The Lord said to Moses, 'Tell Aaron, "Stretch forth your hand with your rod over the rivers, over the streams, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt."' Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. The magicians did in like manner with their enchantments, and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, 'Entreat the Lord, that he take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to the Lord.'
Moses said to Pharaoh, 'I give you the honor of setting the time that I should pray for you, and for your servants, and for your people, that the frogs be destroyed from you and your houses, and remain in the river only.' He said, 'Tomorrow.' Moses said, 'Be it according to your word, that you may know that there is none like the Lord our God. The frogs shall depart from you, and from your houses, and from your servants, and from your people. They shall remain in the river only.'
Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh, and Moses cried to the Lord concerning the frogs which he had brought on Pharaoh. The Lord did according to the word of Moses, and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courts, and out of the fields. They gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and didn't listen to them, as the Lord had spoken" (Deuteronomy 8:5-15).
Finally, after several more plagues, we read - "The Lord said to Moses, 'Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I may show these my signs in the midst of them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your son's son, what things I have done to Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that you may know that I am the Lord'" (Deutereonomy 10:1-2). God says - "Alright: if that's the way you want it, that's what you will get... permanently. I'm not going to let you flip-flop again: I have hardened your heart forever." Then the Lord sent a plague of locusts and again Pharaoh begged Moses to take them away, so the Lord sent a strong wind that blew them into Red Sea. "But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he didn't let the people of Israel go" (Deut. 10:20).
This is how it will be in the end times: people will see the judgments of God in nature, but they will refuse to believe in Him because their hearts have become permanently hardened. In Revelation 16:8-11 we read - "The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was given to him to scorch men with fire. People were scorched with great heat, and people blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues. They didn't repent and give Him glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was darkened. They gnawed their tongues because of the pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores. They didn't repent of their works." When people's hearts become hardened, they are so locked into their mindset and lifestyle that they simply cannot repent. Instead, they blame God for their own rebellion and blaspheme His holy name.
Whatever might be your compulsive-addictive behavior: overeating, smoking or chewing or sucking on tobacco, sexual addiction, illicit drugs, pornography, Internet addiction, procrastination, making excuses, laziness, crude and hard talk to those you love ...whatever it might be - give it up now, before it's too late! The time may come when your heart will be permanently hardened and you simply can't give it up. Let us all turn away from our sinful, dysfunctional, harmful habits and by God's grace - His transforming power - let us change our lives and be transformed into the divine nature!
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At Christmas time we hear over and over again that December sales make up fully one-third of retail sales and profits: it's make-or-break time for the economy. This year-end mad rush of buying and selling has taken over even in non-Western countries such as Japan and China. It's Christmas-redefined! With hardly any mention of Christ's birth, only a jolly old Santa Claus as a faint reminder of the original, real Saint Nicholas, throw in lots of sappy sentimental songs of jingle-bells and a white Christmas, office parties with drinking in excess, and we have the annual orgy of modern consumerism. So the question is: Who Are You Trying to Impress?
What do church people often say when someone meekly suggests - "Maybe we should try to be real disciples, you know, like the early Christians"? The likely reply is - "We've never done it that way before!" These are infamously known as "The Seven Last Words of the Church." Why the "last words"? Because it's a sure sign that the church in question is stuck in the "same-old, same-old" habitual rut of culture-accommodating Christianity that's leading down the slippery slope to extinction. In reality, we actually have done it that way before: all Christians in the Early Church were real disciples.