Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day 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 alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware 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. Hebrews 3:7-12
God was grieved with those who had heard Him and had seen His miracles and wonders and yet had hardened their hearts. They saw His work, but did not know His ways.
God does things uniquely, His way. If we are not pliable, humble before Him, we may miss what He is trying to teach us. Every lesson requires humility before Him. Every single lesson.
God takes hearts of stone and makes them hearts of flesh:
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26
Jesus mentioned soil unable to produce:
A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Luke 8:5-8
The parable of the sower has many lessons in it. Did you notice that Jesus cried when He had said these things? If only all of us would be as the last heart mentioned there.
Jesus did not want them to understand:
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. Luke 8:10
The disciples, after they had seen the miracle of the loaves and fishes allowed their hearts to be hardened with unbelief:
For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened. Mark 5:52
He rebuked the remaining disciples because they did not believe:
Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. Mark 16:14
God is constantly looking for hearts perfect toward Him:
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.
2 Chronicles 16:9a
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Acts 7:51
I’m not interested in being one of those. Keep me humble, Lord in the event I start to harden my heart toward You. Let me be pliable, like clay that you can work with. Show me the best way to keep my heart clean and pure and softened before You that I may believe. In Jesus’ Mighty Name, Amen.
But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. Isaiah 64:8