A warning against hardness of heart

‘But exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.’ Hebrews 3:13

Suggested Further Reading: Titus 2:1–10

This duty belongs primarily to the pastor and to church officers. We are set in the church to see after the good of the people, and it is our business both in public and in private, as far as we have opportunity, to exhort daily; and especially where we see any coldness creeping over men, where there begins to be a decline in the ways of God, it is our duty to be most earnest in exhortation. The duty belongs to you all. ‘Exhort one another daily.’ Parents should be careful concerning their children in this matter. You act not the part of a true father unless you see to your son whether he be in church membership or not, that upon the slightest inconsistency he receives a gentle word of rebuke from you. Sunday school teachers, this is peculiarly your work with regard to your own classes. Watch over your children, not only that they may be converted, but that after being converted they may be as watered gardens, no plants withering, but all the graces of the Spirit coming to perfection through your care. Here is work for the elders among us. You whose grey heads betoken years of experience, and whose years of experience ought to have given you wisdom and knowledge, you may use the superiority which age affords you to offer a word of exhortation, lovingly and tenderly to the young. You can speak as those of us who are younger cannot speak, for you can tell what you have tasted and have handled; perhaps you can even tell where you have smarted by reason of your own faults and follies. All of you without exception, whether you be rich or poor, see to each others’ souls; say not, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ but seek your brother’s good for edification.

For meditation: The exhortations God gives us in his Word (Joshua 1:6–9; Hebrews 10:19,22) should be the pattern for our mutual exhortations (Joshua 1:18; Hebrews 10:24–25). Beloved, if God so exhorts us, we ought also to exhort one another.

Sermon no. 620
19 March (1865)