“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 To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:12-13). We enter the world innocent and pure children (Matthew 19:13-15); however, through our choices we may become thoroughly corrupted. God destroyed the entire human population with the exception of Noah’s family because man had become hardened by sin and “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).
The people of Judah in Jeremiah’s day went into exile in Babylon. God gave them opportunity time and again to repent of their sins but they “made their faces harder than a rock” (Jeremiah 5:3); they were so unashamed they could no longer blush at sin (6:15); they “hardened their neck” (7:26) and were bent on “perpetual backsliding” (8:5). They had so hardened their hearts by sin that repentance became impossible for them as indicated by the question: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” (13:23). Sin was indelibly etched on their hearts: “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart” (17:1). Since they rendered themselves incapable of repentance their only option was punishment from God. God told Jeremiah not to pray for them (7:16; 11:14; 14:11). Even if righteous individuals like Moses and Samuel stood among them and pleaded for them to God, His mind would not be changed; they were to be cast off (15:1). Yet, God promised that He would make a new covenant, different from the covenant Israel had transgressed (31:31-34).
The Lord Jesus Christ fulfills this prophecy and is the mediator of a better covenant based on better promises (Hebrews 8:6-13). However, if a man despises this greater opportunity provided by Jesus and hardens his heart then sorer punishment awaits him (Hebrews 10:26-29). While it is possible for those who fall away to be pardoned if they repent (Acts 8:13-24), if one’s heart reaches such a hardened condition that it is incapable of experiencing godly sorrow then repentance becomes impossible (2 Corinthians 7:10). One’s conscience can become defiled (Titus 1:15), seared with a hot iron so that it is callused and past feeling (1 Timothy 4:2; Ephesians 4:18-19). Such a state is described in Hebrews 6:4-6:
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
These who were once Christians had grown so hardened and hostile to Christianity that they exhibited the same attitude as those who crucified Christ. They had reached the point where repentance was impossible. Let us not head down that road. Beware, brethren, and “harden not your hearts” (Hebrews 3:8, 15).
-Mark Day
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