S8 || Will Truth or Sin Shape Your Heart || Hebrews 3:7-15 || Session 8

A single word carries urgent weight across centuries: today. Hebrews chapter 3 calls back to Psalm 95 and the turning point at Kadesh Barnea to expose how unbelief hardens even when people have seen God at work. We walk through that wilderness moment to uncover what it reveals about our own hearts, our habits, and our hope in Jesus. The warning is not abstract; it is pastoral and practical. Don’t harden your heart. Don’t drift from the person and work of Christ. Don’t let the deceitfulness of sin rewrite the story of your life.

The heart of the remedy is surprisingly ordinary: encourage one another day after day. We talk about the practical power of Christian fellowship—how stories, prayer, correction, and care soften our hearts and interrupt sin’s lies. Isolation makes compromise easier; community makes hope believable. If you’re feeling the pull to withdraw, this conversation offers a map back to tenderness, truth, and rest. Join us, and then reach out to someone who needs courage today.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review so others can find the conversation. Your voice helps more people hear His voice—today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Hebrews 3 Sets The Stage
• 1:13 Psalm 95 And Christ’s Voice
• 4:32 Kadesh Barnea And Unbelief
• 7:20 Stay With Jesus Under Pressure
• 11:29 Warnings To Believers Explained
• 16:43 Hard Hearts And Doctrinal Drift
• 18:52 Deceitfulness Of Sin
• 19:58 Daily Encouragement As The Antidote
• 22:09 Fellowship, Evidence, And Perseverance
• 25:52 Isolation Risks And The Word Today
• 27:30 Closing Exhortation And Blessing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:17

So far in the book of Hebrews, we've been soaring through the lofty heights of the theology of Jesus Christ. We've learned that He is God. We've learned that He is better than the prophets, better than Moses, that He submitted Himself to come down and serve us. Because of that, He can be our high priest. How wonderful that is. As we've been soaring through the heights, he occasionally gives us some warnings. And that is like a steel cable that ties us down to the ground and makes sure that we don't drift away. Starting in chapter 3, verse 7, as we found, the writer of Hebrews is very adept with the Old Testament, and he regularly brings out passages where he mentions Christ in the Old Testament. That's what we're going to see today. Steve, can you read Hebrews 3, verses 7 through 11?

SPEAKER_00: 1:13

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.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47

Here, the writer of Hebrews is quoting the last part of Psalm 95. And as we just said, we can find Christ in the Old Testament. Many places in the Old Testament support critical New Testament doctrines. Too many times, I think, we focus on the New Testament to the exclusion of the Old Testament, thinking that the New Testament doctrines are only in the New Testament. My friends, the Old Testament supports many of the New Testament doctrines. In fact, it's one book of the Bible that is put together with from one author and it's one teaching. So it all fits together. And it's to our detriment that we ignore these passages in the Old Testament. I myself have been guilty too often of not spending enough time in the Old Testament and finding the great New Testament truths that are brought out there. Those who ignore the Old Testament do so at their peril. I'm reminded of on the road to Emmaus when Christ was raised, and there were two of the disciples there. And it says as they walked along, Christ took things out of the Old Testament and demonstrated his presence there. Here, the writer starts quoting Psalm 95 in Hebrews 3:7. Today, if you hear his voice, that phrase is the last section in Psalm 95. What's very interesting is the passage that's really the sentence where Hebrews starts quoting. Then it says, Today, if you hear his voice. So the writer of Psalm 95 is speaking about God. And we are in his pasture. And if we hear his voice, therefore, when the writer of Hebrews takes this passage out of Psalm 95, it's demonstrating that once again, his voice is God's voice, which is Jesus' voice. When Hebrews speaks about hearing his voice, the his that is being talked about is the same he as he is our God. Hebrews 3 quotes Psalm 95 about Jesus, and Psalm 95 is speaking about God Almighty. We can find Jesus in the Old Testament. Then it gives warnings from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit says, therefore, the Holy Spirit is a person, because the Holy Spirit can speak, and only persons speak. So Steve, looking at verse 8, what is the warning that he gives us?

SPEAKER_00: 4:32

He tells them not to harden their hearts in the same way that previous Israelites provoked God as when they did at the trial in the wilderness. The background of this is found in Numbers chapters 13 and 14. Chapter 13, Moses, at the instruction of God, sends out 12 spies into the promised land to find out what the conditions were to go into the land. Those spies come back, and 10 of them say we can't take the land. Two of them, Joshua and Caleb, say we can take the land if God is with us. And then chapter 14 relays the anger that God has because the people at the end of chapter 13 cause a revolt to happen, to overthrow Moses, get another leader that's going to take them back into Egypt. So in the exchange with Moses in chapter 14, Moses pleads the case of the people because God says, I'm going to wipe them out and I'm going to start over with you, Moses. And Moses says, Don't do that. What are all the other nations going to say if you do that? And so God pardons the people, but he tells Moses that this is the 10th time that these stubborn people have tested me. They've provoked me. And as a result of this tenth time, they're not going to be able to go into the promised land. Anyone the age of 20 and above would not go into the promised land. Only the 19 years of age and younger, and Joshua and Caleb. That meant Aaron, that meant Miriam, Moses' sister, among all the other generation that didn't go into the promised land because of this stubbornness that the people showed. But that's the backdrop. So here the writer of Hebrews is taking this event that the people would be very familiar with because they're Hebrews themselves, of knowing what happened at Kadesh Barnia. And even though the people repented, whenever God gave them this judgment, you're not going to go into the promised land. It says that they repented and they mourned because they weren't going to go in. It was an irrevocable decision that the people made, and they couldn't control the consequence of it, which was they weren't going to find the rest of going into the land. That's the land of promise and the rest that they would have there. So as we look at this, the writer of Hebrews is giving them a warning. You're under persecution. We know that they are because of the story of Saul that was persecuting the new church, the Christians. He's telling them, stay with Jesus. Jesus is above the angels, he's above the prophets, he's even above Moses. And as you mentioned at the beginning of this session, he's here as a servant to us. He can relate to us. He calls us brethren and all the things that we've talked about in these previous sessions. And he's encouraging them, stay with Jesus, stay with him, and don't make an irrevocable decision like your forefathers did at Kadesh Barnea. There's already an outstanding irrevocable decision of their current generation of the leadership rejecting Jesus Christ. And there's an impending judgment that's coming because Jesus told them in Matthew 24 that there's going to be a judgment that the destruction of the temple is forthcoming at some point. The writer of Hebrews doesn't know when that's going to happen, but it's some type of an impending judgment that's coming. And the writer of Hebrews is encouraging the people that he's writing to stick with Jesus Christ. He is above all, and he you've made the right decision and continue on with him. Don't associate yourselves and put yourselves back under a judgment that's going to happen regarding the temple. Your salvation is secured, but yet there's going to be a judgment that's going to come related to that. So I think that's the backdrop of everything here in these few verses that we've just got through reading.

SPEAKER_01: 8:48

He's been way up in the lofty heights talking about the wonderful person of Jesus Christ, who he is and what he's done. Here he gives two warnings. In verse 8, do not harden your hearts. And then down in verse 12, take care, brethren, that there not be any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart. So he has two warnings here. And it's written to Christians, take care, brethren, it says.

SPEAKER_00: 10:10

There was that big council that was discussed in Acts chapter 15 related to Gentiles. Now, these are Hebrews that he's writing to, but again, the picture is that there's pressure on them to really disassociate themselves with Jesus Christ and come back into the fold, so to speak, of Judaism. And the writer is warning of that. So their individual salvation is not in question. Just like some of the people that didn't get to go into the promised land, there were believers and non-believers that were in that generation that didn't get to go in. But the decision and the consequence of them not believing that God was going to give them the land. In fact, even in at the beginning of chapter 13 in Numbers, God tells Moses, Go and send out spies into the land that I'm going to give you to find out and discover what's there. And of course, that was being done for Moses and the people. It wasn't being done for God's benefit. He knew what the situation was. So we're spending some time here because this section isn't talking about losing salvation. It's talking about staying faithful with your conviction that you've made and your decision that you've made and not fall prey to wanting to go back to the world. In this case, they're buying to be pulled back into Judaism with us as individuals, Gentile believers, and hear that the world that we live in, we're under constant pressure to go back to worldly ways. We're fighting the flesh all the time. So we are to stay convicted with the faith that we have that Jesus Christ is going to get us through any type of situation we find ourselves in, and we stay with him and stick with him and don't go and depend on ourselves or on the worldly ways to try and get us through. Stay with our decision of Jesus Christ. Our salvation is secure, but our travails and travels through this world are much better if we stay with Christ. And that's basically what the writer is telling these Hebrews. Your situation is going to be much better if you stick with Jesus Christ than it is if you go back under Judaism. Don't be like your forefathers, like they had, and harden their hearts to what God's promises were to them regarding the promised land. Stay with Jesus Christ, and your situation will be much better.

SPEAKER_01: 12:50

Why is he warning believers? Again, take care, brethren, that you don't have a hard heart, unbelieving heart. We ask why he would do that. Well, he gave us the answer in verse 10 and said, they always go astray in their heart. What he's saying in this passage, he quotes this passage that's about the 40-year wilderness march, which was caused by unbelief. The people had seen the great works. They had seen my works for 40 years in verse 9 here. And they had seen that, yet they didn't believe. So they could not enter the promised land. So the contrast here is that even though they had seen all these things, they still had a hard, unbelieving heart and couldn't go into the land. And the writer of Hebrews is saying, don't be like that. Now, regardless of what we believe about eternal security, the fact is we look around our churches and we see people that are there one day and the next day they're not. They walk away from the faith because they have an unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. The warning is about not holding to the key teachings that he has told us. It starts off with, therefore. And he says, Therefore, hold fast to these things and don't fall away. Notice the warning is about doctrines about Jesus Christ that have to do with his person. My liberal friend, the warnings here are not about social action. The risk here that he's warning us about is not having to do with feeding the poor or ensuring social justice. We should do those things. And many churches do indeed need some encouragement to do social action. But that's not what this warning is about. This warning is about falling away from true doctrine. He's been giving us almost pure doctrine for the whole book now. And now we've had two warnings. Chapter two, verse one, do not drift away from the truth. And three, seven, do not fall away because of a hardened, unbelieving heart. Verse nine speaks about Israel's time wandering in the wilderness. And remember, Moses, as Steve pointed out a minute ago, sent out the 12 spies. They had seen all the miracles, yet Israel doubted. Right at the point of entering the promised land, the people doubted. So as punishment, they couldn't enter the land. Entering the promised land, yes, it was a picture of salvation, but that's not really the warning here. He's just making this analogy as the nation. He's saying, remember those guys, they all fell away. Don't be like that. With unbelief, there's death in the wilderness. With unbelief, you'll be wandering apart from God. With unbelief, you won't get into the promised land that is God's best, that is God's rest. If you don't trust God, you're not going to enter into God's rest. This warning is about a hard, unbelieving heart, and it's very serious. This teaching here is a great warning to all of us. They fell away, they saw greater miracles than most of us have seen, and yet they fell away. We need to be very sober, very serious about doing what it says there. In this next section, he's going to tell us how to make sure that we don't fall away. Steve, can you start at verse 12 and read down to verse 15?

SPEAKER_00: 16:43

Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, while it is said, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me.

SPEAKER_01: 17:17

So we've had a couple of warnings now. Chapter 2, verse 1 warned us against drifting away. 312 warns us against falling away. The cause of falling away would be an evil, unbelieving heart. And here, unbelief is associated with evilness. God is good, therefore, unbelief in the good results in evil. It's very clear, you're either with God or you're rejected God or said God's not important, in which case you have evil in your heart. Verse 13, sin is deceitful. If we stay in sin, our minds and our hearts will be deceived. And he says here the cause of the unbelief is often sin. And then in verse 13, Steve, what is the solution to the risk of falling away?

SPEAKER_00: 18:13

It says right there at the beginning that the believers should encourage one another day after day. You get this picture that it's not just a one-time action, but it's one that is to be done every day, is to encourage different believers. So in our case, Glenn, if we have particular people that maybe have stopped coming to our small group or our church service or something like that, we should go out and encourage them to come back, but we should also go maybe try to find out why it is that you're not coming to the small group anymore? Is there anything I can help you with? Is there anything I can encourage you about to get you to return back to it? Why would we want to do that? It's because in the small group and in the church service, that's where they hear about the word of God. And they also have fellowship with fellow believers. There's great strength in building up your faith by being around fellow believers. So fellowship of believers is an important thing. And I think it points that out here in verse 13. Encourage one another day after day.

SPEAKER_01: 19:22

The warning was about an unbelieving hard heart, and the solution was the encouraging one another day after day. So why is it that being around other believers helps soften our heart and help people to stay in the faith and continue as believers? What is it about Christian fellowship that helps with that?

SPEAKER_00: 19:46

Well, the simple answer is that seeing other fellow believers and hearing their stories of their struggles, of their life activities, and how they are interacting with God, Jesus other ways, I think that gives encouragement to people. And it also gives an outlet for people to be able to discuss whatever's going on in their life with fellow believers. If you're a believer and you're trying to discuss things of your faith to a non-believer, there's certain things, most things that they're not going to understand. But a fellow believer is going to understand that. This isn't unbelief of them falling away and becoming non-believers and losing their salvation. This means that continuing along with the faith, as you've just put it so aptly, meaning that it's evidence of their belief. The faith that he's encouraging them not to go away from is the evidence of their faith. Let me give an illustration. One of whenever I receive a driver's license from the state or government, I get two things. I get one that's on the books that says I have permission to drive on the roads of that state and across the United States. And then I also get a little driver's license card as well that is proof that I have a driver's license on the books. And if I'm out driving and I commit an infraction, I get pulled over, and the police officer asks me for my driver's license. If I don't happen to have it with me, that doesn't mean that I don't have a license to drive in the state and across the United States. What it means is I don't have any evidence at the time that I have a license to drive within the state. And so I think that's close to what the writer is encouraging here is that where's the evidence that they have in their faith of continuing on with it? Don't let your heart become jaded. Don't let your heart become hardened, maybe with the situations that you find yourself in, and that you walk away from the faith or fall away from the faith and start becoming somebody that just disassociates themselves with other believers. Salvation is not an issue. He's calling them brethren. Earlier, he's told them that they had been called and that they were sanctified. So he's not discussing salvation, but what he is discussing is their sanctified life, a stories of continuing in the faith so that they can live a prosperous lifestyle and one in which they are happy and much more content living in Christ than they are of one living close to the world, which doesn't really bring satisfaction and contentment. So I think it's very important that we encourage each other to stay in the faith so that we can have a daily life in Jesus Christ and to continue on because we're going to be in a much better situation doing that than we would be if we fall back into the ways of the world.

SPEAKER_01: 23:01

In this passage, he's tying together at least three concepts that are related to each other. One is this idea of an evil, unbelieving, hard heart, then there is Christian fellowship, then there's sin. And the connections here he's making are rather nuanced. At the end of verse 13, it says sin is deceitful and will harden our hearts. So when you see unbelievers with a hard heart, oftentimes the root of the unbelief is a personal sin that they have that they don't want to release. They love their sin and they know that if they go to God, who God's going to ask them to give up their sin. So oftentimes people reject Christ simply because they have a personal sin that they love more than Christ. They refuse to let it go. That is the root of many of excuses or objection. Oftentimes the excuses are just that. The Christian should be very careful. And he I'll even use the word afraid. Christians should be afraid of getting comfortable with sin in their lives. Simply because it says here, sin is deceitful, is the word it uses here in Hebrews. Sin is going to make you think that sin is fun at the beginning. But if you tolerate it and accept it and live with it, it's going to wrap chains around you and enslave you and deceive you, and it will take away your life. The joy of your life will be gone first, and ultimately it'll take away your spiritual and your physical life. And that's what he's warning about. And one of the solutions for that is to encourage each other day after day, as long as it is called today, is the language it says. So encouraging Christians should be an ongoing daily activity. Christians should not be by themselves. Steve, what is the risk of Christians not being in a good local church, but being out by themselves?

SPEAKER_00: 25:16

I think that you just described it when you said that they should be afraid because the world is really strong in a pull it has on them. And you become isolated. The people of the world aren't going to understand you and understand the things that you're going through, not in a spiritual sense. And you just lose that sense of community with fellow believers. So I think the danger is becoming isolated away from fellow believers. It's not a good situation to be in.

SPEAKER_01: 25:46

When you're with other believers, you're going to get encouragement. You're going to see other people that have personal struggles themselves. You're going to care about them, and you're not going to want to destroy your witness in front of your friends. You will get increasing amounts of Christian teaching and Christian ideas from your friends. When you're off by yourself, sins tend to not be corrected. It becomes easier to fall away. The emphasis here in this passage is on the word today. The important things in the Bible are always for today. 1 Corinthians 6, 2, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. And again, in Romans 13, 11, quote, it is already the time to awaken from sleep. The biblical time for trusting in Jesus is today. And it says in verse 14, we are partakers or sharers in Christ. And so Christians should always be looking for other believers. Elsewhere in the New Testament, it says, do not forsake the assembling together of the brethren. So we should all be with other Christians on a regular basis to encourage them so they can encourage us and we can pray for each other. That way we won't get hard, unbelieving hearts and won't fall away. Steve, I find this to be a great help.

SPEAKER_00: 27:09

There's been times whenever I haven't really fallen away from the faith, but I found myself being not associated with a local congregation or a local small group. And then I've had people reach out to me and say, why don't you come join us? And so it's so much better if we're in fellow Christians rather than just being by yourself out there in the world. We'll pull it to the curb for today.

SPEAKER_01: 27:32

We've got still more to do in this chapter and in this book, but we trust that you'll be back here with us next time as we continue to reason through the Bible.

SPEAKER_00: 27:43

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.