Overwhelming Guilt 🎭

Hebrews 3:8 (KJV) Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: Today if you will hear God’s Voice?

 “Harden not your hearts” then this word, I really didn’t know the meaning of “provocation” so I looked it up.

Provocation “Any thing that excites anger; the cause of resentment.” Then “temptation” and “wilderness”  Is this another word picture? I believe it is. When we read this how do we perceive what we read? If we have no understanding of the wilderness we have no idea what is being taught here. What is the wilderness? God answers the prayer of His Children and delivers them from bondage in Egypt. Opens the Red Sea and destroys their enemy by burying them all as the water rushed over them. Now they are free from bondage as they see and know it's the Work of God. In Exodus 15 they sing praises unto God and rejoice over the great victory. They began to travel but 3 days later they found themselves without water. They came to Marah but the water there was bitter and undrinkable. They began to complain not waiting to see what God will do. It only took 3 days to forget what God had done at the Red Sea. If only they could see what’s ahead on their pathway. But no, all they could see was the present and forgot what God had already done. Did God bring them this far to let them die of thirst? I said all this to bring out this word “provocation” bitter water brought anger and resentment. At the first sign of trouble they get angry and their hearts begin to get hard. Complaining is the first sign of a heart getting hard. If God wants me away from drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling you name it. Then why do these temptations keep coming my way?  Great question. I and neither can you keep temptations away. Just because you quit doesn’t mean the enemy has. The enemy's job is to destroy the opponent and they do that by finding their weakness. Once the weakness is found they work on improving their destruction of the opponent by their weakness. Steve Curington said it well when he said “before you done it you thunk it.” The temptation comes but you don’t let it go, you keep thinking about it until you do it. A temptation is nothing more than a desire driving by, that you won’t let pass. What would you think of a person running in front of a bus trying to out run it? Very soon they would be run over by the bus? That is a picture of temptation. Just keep thinking about it and it will take you over. The fall will be disastrous and the guilt will be overwhelming.