Mount Wade Missionary Baptist Church

Mount Wade Missionary Baptist Church

Dr. P. Randolph Hamilton, Sr., Pastor-Teacher

“A Spiritual Examination Of The Heart”

Hebrews 3:7-15

“Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end; While it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, hardennot your hearts, as in the provocation.”

Introduction: According to the Centers for Disease Control, 610,000 people in America die of heart disease every year. That is 1 out of every 4 deaths. The highest rate of heart disease in the country happens to be right here in the South. That could be due to the fact that we deep-fry everything from chicken to Oreo Cookies. The medical term for hardening of the arteries is arthrosclerosis. The word “sclerosis” is from a Greek word we find in Hebrews chapter 3. It is translated there as “harden”. The Spirit of God gives us this important warning in verse 8,“Harden not your hearts…” The “heart” the scripture refers to here is not the physical muscle beating inside your chest. The text is not issuing a medical warning; it is a spiritual one warning. The heart that is mentioned several times in these verses refers to that spiritual part of you that responds to and relates to God.

The heart is the organ God created in man for holding fellowship with Himsef. It is the ear that hears the voice of God, [and] the eye that…see[s] Him. Your spiritual heart is the part of you that keeps you alive to God. Through it, the Spirit of God pumps in the faith and grace that you need to live day by day. The sobering challenge of this text is that if something should be wrong with your spiritual heart, the result would be as disastrous for you as a physical heart attack could be. That is why we need to have what you might call a “bibliocardiogram”; that is, a biblical view of what is going on with our heart. We need to check our heart using the Word of God as a sort of heart monitor.

Ultimately, the Great Physician, the Lord Jesus, is the only one who can transform our hearts, and His grace is the only treatment for the heart. The word of God is the medicine designed to help make the heart stronger.

1. THERE IS AN EXAMPLE YOU NEED TO CONSIDER

If you visit the doctor these days, alongside the 127 pages of insurance information you’ll have to fill out, there will also be a lot of questions regarding your medical history, andthe medical history of your family. In Hebrews 3, we are reminded of the heart-health history of some of those who came before us in the Word of God. Beginning in verse 7, there is a direct quote from Psalm 95. In this quote, we get to view a spiritual cardiology report on the Children of Israel when they journeyed through the wilderness. Their example serves as a warning to us about the kind of thing we want to avoid in our own hearts: a hard heart that provokes the judgment of God. Consider their example with me, and notice:

1. The diagnosis of that generation: In Exodus, God saved His people out of slavery in Egypt and led them to the land He had promised to give them. In the process, He destroyed their enemies, parted seas for them to cross, fed them bread and meat from heaven, kept their clothes and shoes from wearing out, and miraculously provided for them everything they needed to survive in the middle of the desert. Yet, rather than being grateful to God, and living in dependence upon His ongoing grace, many of the people started griping and grumbling, rebelling against God and Moses. This sinful and ungrateful behavior is referenced in Psalm 95 and in Hebrews 3. Verses 8-9 say, “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.”

1. In spite of all they had seen God do for them, there were times when that generation would say things like, “Hey Moses, we miss Egypt. We miss the food we ate there. Man it’s to hot out here in the desert.” They were essentially saying, “We had it better back there under Pharaoh than we do out here under God.”
2. They would rebel against the salvation God was giving them, ignoring His provision for them and hardening their hearts toward Him. In verse 10 God said,“Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.” In spite of all they had seen from God, they still didn’t really know His ways, and they erred (went wrong) in their hearts.
3. Can this happen to us? Could we follow Jesus for a while only to find our heart turning away from Him and turning back to the very things He saved us from? Was this heart condition just a problem in the past with Children of Israel, or is there a danger of this sort of things coming up in the genes of their New Testament descendants?

1. The death of that generation: In verse 11, God says of that hard-hearted, rebellious generation in the wilderness, “So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.” The Israelites whose hearts hardened toward God and turned away from Him, did not get to go into the Promised Land. Verse 17 of this chapter vividly says that their corpses fell in the wilderness. Rather than enjoying the milk and honey of Canaan, they died out in the desert. The heart condition of that generation that rebelled against God kept them from receiving the promises of God.

1. It is as if the Spirit of God, like a wise and honest doctor, holds up the case study of these people and says to you, “If your heart is like theirs, you will die like they died. You will die without receiving all the things that are promised in the gospel.”
2. Someone might ask, “Are you saying I might lose my salvation? Are you saying that I’m not ‘once saved always saved’?” The issue is not one of losing your salvation, but of whether or not you have it in the first place. In the case of the Children of Israel who died in the desert, their hearts were not right from the beginning. They did not really know God, and their hard hearts only proved what they never really had genuine faith in their God. There are some people whom the Lord did not lose because He never had them.
3. Their example warns us of thinking our heart is one thing, when in reality it is not. It is a warning against living with a hard heart, while thinking you have a healthy one.
4. You may be sitting just like you’ve done a thousand days before, thinking that your heart is right with God. All the while, there may be something dangerously wrong with your spiritual health.

1. THERE IS AN EXAMINATION YOU NEED TO CONDUCT

Spiritual heart disease is a real problem, and a dangerous one. That is what the example of the Children of Israel dying in the wilderness teaches us. If we don’t want to die as they died, we have to check our own hearts to see if what was wrong with them might be wrong with us. In verse 12 it says, “Take heed…” One translation renders it, “Watch out.” The call is for us to carefully examine our own hearts. What does this examination involve? The Scripture tells us…

1. What you’re trying to detect? Verse 12 says, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief…” Mark that phrase “evil heart of unbelief”. What you’re trying to detect as you examine your own heart is a heart that is still evil because of unbelief. Is your heart still cling to sin (certain sins) and turning away from God and His truth because you have not completely believed and accepted the call of the gospel to turn to Jesus and be saved. Most people will say they are they believe in Jesus, but many believe “on Him” more than they believe “in Him.” They believe on God to help them when they call, but have not accepted the call of God to be saved.
2. What you’re trying to deter: Why must you do this current examination? It has to do not only with what you are trying to detect, but more importantly what you’re trying to deter. Look again at verse 12. It says, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”We check our hearts for unbelief, because an unbelieving heart will cause you to “depart from the living God.” That word “departing” has the idea of deserting and walking away. There is a danger that if your heart is not really resting and relying upon Jesus, you will somewhere walk away from Him in order to follow after something else.
3. Have you ever seen someone who claims to have believed the gospel, but in time, their hard hearts pull them back to something else (out in the world)? Someone who once professed faith in Jesus, but now they do not want to follow Him anymore, and they return to a life lived without Him. The truth is, they are not really disciples of Jesus.
4. If you have that kind of heart lurking inside of you, deal with it today so that you will not find yourself deserting the Lord Jesus and become deceitful. Deceitful by pretending to be with God when you know He is not in your heart.

1. THERE IS AN EXERCISE YOU NEED TO CONTINUE

One of the main things the American Heart Association recommends to improve your heart health is physical exercise. According to their website, they recommend a 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week.That helps the physical heart. Is there anything we can do for our spiritual hearts? What can we do to prevent a hard heart which we are warned about in this text? Thankfully, there is an exercise we can continue that will keep our hearts from becoming what verse 13 calls, “…hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Notice with me that this text points us first to…

1. Who this exercise involves: The writer of Hebrews is going to point us to what must be done to prevent a hard heart, but before he gets to that, notice verse 13. It says, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called today…” The exercise you need to continue in order to keep your heart tender is something that is to be done in the context of other people who provide daily encouragement. In other words, you need workout partner. Who are your work out partners? They are your brothers and sisters in the church. Your spiritual heart-health is maintained partly by your interaction with others who are working on the same things you are.

1. Over and over again the Word of God points us to the need for other believers around us who will keep us accountable. Your heart is probably not where it should be if you have little or no connection and interaction with the church.
2. Take for example a heap of glowing coals in a fireplace. If you pull one of those embers out and separate it from the others, it will quickly stop glowing, cool down, and grow cold. The exercise you need to keep your heart warm and glowing is one we need to do together. We need each other!
3. What this exercise involves: Verse 14 is the key verse in this passage. It says, “For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” By God’s grace, through faith, we are made participants and partakers in the life and salvation of Jesus. That is the wonderful promise of the gospel! When we see Jesus living the perfect life we cannot live, dying the awful death on the cross we should have died, and rising again in the victory we desperately need, and by faith we turn to Him and believe; God lets us share in the work He has accomplished and the Kingdom He is building. But the verse does not stop there. It says those things are true of us, “…if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” The idea is that the same kind of faith we began with, we must continue with all the way to the end.
4. How do we keep our heart soft? How do we prevent the kind of spiritual heart disease that brought down the Children of Israel in the wilderness?

a)It is by continuing everyday to come to the Lord Jesus, humble and dependent upon His grace.

b)It is continuing to know that you are a sinner in need of His forgiveness.

c)It is continuing to cast the full weight of your life upon Him, and relying on Him and Him alone to get you from where you are to where you need to be.

d)It is going on in ongoing obedience to the gospel, listening to Jesus, looking to Jesus, and living for Jesus.

1. In Matthew 7:14, Jesus described salvation as both a gate you go through, and a way you go on. At some point, you must enter through the gate. But, once you enter through the gate, there is a way on which you must continue to go. Jesus is both the gate and the way! We come to Him at the beginning, and we cling to Him till the end. The fact is, we need Jesus no less today than we did the day we first called upon Him. And, if we continue to cling to Him with the same kind of dependence we had when we first called upon Him, our heart will always be soft, and our soul will surely be saved.

Conclusion:Today, do you hear His voice? Do you hear Him who loved you and gave Himself for you calling you to lean on Him and live your life with Him day by day? If so, turn your heart to Him afresh, today, and every day, until the day when we who have encouraged one another in the faith will together see Him face to face, and know that He who began a good work in us, has performed it all the way to the end.