"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part XXII

ON HEARING- THE VOICE OF GOD.
Hebrews 3: 7-11 Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, like as in the day of temptation in the wilderness, wherewith your fathers tempted Me by proving Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore I was displeased with this generation, and said, "They do alway err in their heart: But they did not know My ways; As I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter into My rest.'"

THE SECOND WARNING
Hebrews 3: 7- 4: 13.
Not to come short of the promised Rest.
 
BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY
13th September 1894.

The writer has such a deep impression of the low and dangerous state into which the Hebrews had sunk, that, having mentioned the name of Moses, he makes a long digression to warn them against being like their fathers and hardening themselves against Him who is so much more than Moses. From Ps. 95. he quotes what God says of Israel in the wilderness, hardening its heart against Him, so that He swore that they should not enter into His rest. The words of the quotation first point us to what is the great privilege of God's people; they hear His voice; then, to their great danger, hardening the heart against that voice. Not to the unbelieving Jews, but to the Christian Hebrews are these words of warning directed. Christians in our day have no less need of them. Let us take more abundant heed to the word: "Even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day, "if" you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts."

When God spoke to Israel, the first thing He asked of them was a heart that did not harden itself, but that in meekness and gentleness, in tenderness and docility turned itself to listen to His voice. How much more may He claim this, now that He speaks to us in His Son. As the soil must be broken up by the plough and softened by the rain, so a broken, tender spirit is the first requisite for receiving blessing from God's word, or being in truth made partakers of God's Grace (Acts 16:14). As we read in Isaiah, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite heart, and trembles at My word." (Isaiah 66:2) When this disposition exists, and the thirsty  heart truly waits for Divine Teaching, and the circumcised ear opens to receive it, God's voice will bring real Life and Blessing, and be the power of living fellowship of intimacy with Himself. Where it is wanting, the word remains unfruitful, and we go backward, however much head and mouth be filled with Bible truth (we remain spiritually dead and undiscerning,1Corinthians 14). Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, "If" you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.

It is not difficult to say what it is that hardens the hearts. The seed sown by the wayside could not enter the soil, because it had been trodden down by the passers-by. When the world, with its business and its interests, has at all times a free passage, the heart loses its tenderness. When we trust too much to the intellect of  religion, and very great care is not taken to take each word as from God into the heart, into its life and love, the heart gets closed to the living voice of God. The mind is satisfied with beautiful thoughts and pleasant feelings; but the heart does not hear God. When we are secretly content with our religion, our sound doctrines and Christian life, unconsciously but surely the heart gets hardened. When our life does not seek to keep pace with our knowledge, and we have more pleasure in hearing and knowing than obeying and doing, we utterly lose the meekness to which the promise is given, and, amidst all the pleasing forms of godliness, the heart is too hard to discern the voice of the Spirit. More than all, when unbelief, that walks by sight, and looks at itself and all around in the light of this world, is allowed to have its way, and the soul does not seek in childlike faith to live in the invisible, as revealed in the word, the heart gets so hardened that God's word never enters it. Yes, it is an unspeakably solemn thought, that with a mind occupied with religious truth, and feelings stirred at times by the voice and words of men, and a life apparently given to  religious works, the heart may be closed to the humble, direct intercourse with God, and a stranger to all the Blessing the Living word can bring. Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, "If" you hear His voice, harden not your heart.

Let all who would seek the blessing to be found in this Epistle, beware of studying it simply as an inspired treatise on divine things. Let it be to us a personal message, the voice of God speaking to us in His Son. Let us, under a sense of the spiritual mystery there is in all Divine Truth, and the impotence of the human mind rightly to apprehend spiritual things, open our heart in great meekness and docility to wait on God (by receptivity sitting under God listening). The whole of true religion, and the whole of true Salvation, consists in the state of the heart. God can do nothing for us, in the way of imparting the Blessings of Redemption, but as He does it in the heart. Our knowledge of the words of God will profit nothing but as the heart is opened to receive Himself to fulfill His words in us. Let our first care be, a meek and lowly heart, that waits on Him. God speaks in His Son, to the heart, and in the heart. It is in the heart that the voice and the Son of God must be received. The voice and the word have weight according as we esteem the speaker. As we realize the Glory and the Majesty of God, His Holiness and perfection, His Love and tenderness, we shall be ready to sacrifice everything to hear what He speaks, and receive what He gives. We shall bid all the world around us, all the world within us, farewell to be silent that we may hear aright the voice of the Divine Being speaking to us in the Son of His Love.

1. Salvation will be found In these two things--- God speaking to me In His Son, and my heart opening to hear His voice. It is not only in order to Salvation, as a means to an end that is something different and higher, that He speaks. No, His speaking gives and is true Salvation, the Revelation of Himself to my soul. Let the work of my life be to hearken with a meek and tender spirit.
2. The Lord opened the heart of Lydia to give heed to the things which were spoken. This is what we need. God Himself will draw our heart away from all else, and open It to take heed. Let us ask this very earnestly.
3. Nothing so effectually hinders hearing God's voice as opening the heart too much to other voices. A hear too deeply interested In the news, the literature, the society of this world, can not hear the Divine voice. It needs stillness, retirement, concentration, to give God the heed He claims.