‘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’ (Hebrews 3.7-8).
Don’t fail to govern the thought life
The fifth antidote to backsliding is seen in the words (verse 10) – ‘They do alway err in their heart.’ In their innermost desires and thoughts the wilderness generation roamed and strayed. The word translated ‘err’ refers to hesitating, wavering or wandering. It suggests a vague, uncontrolled imagination easily diverted from the right path. It could describe a ship with no rudder, or a person with no controlling principle restraining his desires. Perhaps covetous desires, self-serving desires, or worldly desires flit into the mind to be seized upon by the imagination.
This tendency was particularly grievous to God, displacing spiritual and wholesome thoughts and goals. To err in our daydreams, reflections, hopes and aims soon develops into the complaining and murmuring that characterised the Israelites, bringing about hardness of heart and backsliding. The imagination must be dedicated to God and monitored with earnest prayer, as a precaution against backsliding.
Value the special ways of God
A very significant antidote to hardness of heart and backsliding, also in Hebrews 3.10, comes from the description of the Israelites as not having known God’s ways. The language is striking. What is meant by God’s ways? Our minds naturally go to the ten commandments and the necessity of holiness, but the text refers not to our duty, but to God’s distinctive ways, such as his giving great promises, his unwavering kindness to the faithful, and his inflexible justice to evildoers. We could add to these God’s distinguishing acts, such as bringing strength out of weakness, or his resisting of the proud and giving grace to the humble. We think of the apostle Paul in later times declaring, ‘When I am weak, then am I strong.’
The Israelites had not grasped or learned the basis on which God blesses and helps, and this is often true of believers today. Modern evangelicals say, ‘We need people who have unusual gifts, who can make an enormous impact. We need choirs of 5,000, or stylish bands and groups operating at maximum decibels. We need strobe lights to make a great show to attract attention and make an impression.’
But God says, ‘They have not known my ways.’ In the corporate work of churches or in individual Christian lives the only way to serve the Lord and triumph in all the trials of life is to know and honour the distinctive ways of God. The proclamation of the Word with earnest prayer is everything, and to align ourselves with God’s ways remains the only basis for undiminishing faith in his power to bless. May we know more and more of God’s ways as life goes on. Here is a key antidote to coldness and backsliding.
. . . to be continued