HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS by Grant Priddy

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 8, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 36.

“HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS.”

By Grant Priddy

A great many people are not Christians, not because they do not believe the Bible, but simply because they are putting it off until what they think will be a more convenient time. They reason that they can go through life casting all their influence on the side of Satan, and then when they get old and find they are about to die, turn to God, repent, and be saved. This is a fatal delusion. The Bible is against it. The Bible says: “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.” “To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”

Dear reader, if you are not a Christian, doubtless the thought has come to your mind that you ought to be one, that you ought to do differently; this is the voice of God speaking to your soul, and the Lord says, “To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” To neglect to heed the voice of God, to resist the drawing of His love, is one way of sinning against the Holy Ghost; and of such Christ says that they have no forgiveness, neither in this world nor the world to come. The Spirit of God persistently resisted is at last withdrawn, and the sinner is left to the way he has chosen. O, terrible condition!

“Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all My counsel, and would none of My reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me.” Prov. I:24–28.

“O, where is that mysterious bourn By which our path is crossed, Beyond which God Himself hath sworn That he who goes is lost?”

“How far may we go in sin? How long will God forbear? Where does hope end, and where begin The confines of despair?”

“An answer from the skies is sent: Ye who from God depart, While it is called to-day, repent, And harden not your heart.”

The exhortation, “Harden not your hearts,” comes with as much force to the professed Christian as to the open sinner. God is now sending light to the world. He is having the fact proclaimed that Jesus is soon coming, and that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Many are receiving the light, but many more are rejecting it. Dear reader, what is your attitude toward this great question? It may be that the Lord has impressed your mind upon this subject.

Now we beg of you do not resist the light that God has been pleased to send you. But if you do, what may you expect? Will not the same result follow as with the open sinner who rejects light? If not, why not? Is God a respecter of persons?

“Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 7:21.

“Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets: Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in nowise believe, tho a man declare it unto you.” Acts 13:40, 41.

GRANT PRIDDY.

Bastrop, Louisiana.