Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13)
You know the experience. Someone in your church or among your friends says something distasteful, does something concerning. A little alarm bell goes off inside you, but you decide not to say anything. Surely it’s an anomaly.
But then it happens again — and maybe again. Another gossipy comment. Another Sunday gathering missed with a weak excuse. Another snap at her husband or jab at his wife. Another apparent compromise with sin.
Now you’re pretty sure you should say something. But you’re also busy. Or you think someone else might be in a better position to bring it up. Or you hate uncomfortable conversations. (Or all of the above.) So you convince yourself to stay quiet.
Meanwhile, however, your brother’s or sister’s sin does not stay quiet. It goes on speaking and tempting, alluring and deceiving. And ever so slowly, your friend’s heart becomes harder.
Anatomy of an Exhortation
I know the experience. As I think back on my years as a Christian, I remember too many concerns unspoken. Too many hard words held back. Too many times when I stayed quiet from comfort instead of heeding the words of Hebrews:
Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13)
That verse, familiar to many of us, repays careful observation. “Exhort one another,” it tells us. What does that mean?
The word suggests speech that rouses and stirs. When we exhort, we urge others to action — sometimes away from sin (Hebrews 3:13), sometimes toward good works (Hebrews 10:24–25), always nearer to God. “Pay much closer attention” (Hebrews 2:1). “Lift your drooping hands” (Hebrews 12:12). “Do not refuse him who is speaking” (Hebrews 12:25). Such is the language of exhortation.
If we take our bearings from Hebrews as a whole — which the author calls a “word of exhortation” (Hebrews 13:22) — the anatomy of an exhortation becomes even clearer. Exhortations deal with the specifics of a person’s sins and temptations. They rely on God’s word as their authority. They wisely weave comforts, promises, and warnings together. They hold sin as the enemy and God-pleasing obedience as the aim.
Most importantly, exhortations set forth the supremacy of Jesus. “He’s better,” Hebrews says, over and over again (see Hebrews 7:19, 22; 8:6; 9:23; 10:34; 11:16; 12:24). And that’s what we echo to one another. “Brother, he’s better”; “Sister, he’s better” — better than gossip and slander, better than anger and lust, better than anything we need to give up.
Power to Protect
A well-offered exhortation holds tremendous spiritual power. But many of us still hesitate, finding any number of reasons not to exhort. So along with the what of exhortation, Hebrews also presses upon us the who, when, and why.
WHO
Exhort one another . . . that none of you may be hardened.
Later in Hebrews, the author will sound the same sweeping note: “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God” (Hebrews 12:15). Hebrews casts a vision for Christian community where everyone is ready to exhort anyone so that no one falls away. We are our brother’s keeper — and we have many brothers.
True, some Christians (like those in our family or small group) lie more immediately within our sphere of responsibility. But if we see a Christian we know wandering, and if we see no one else going after him, then we know who should take the first step: us.
WHEN
Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today.”
The “today” in this verse (quoted from Psalm 95:7) refers to all our days on this side of heaven’s rest (Hebrews 4:1). Like pilgrims in the wilderness, we haven’t yet reached our promised land; we haven’t yet crossed our Jordan. And until we do, we live embattled lives.
If we were already home, if we were already out of our enemy’s reach, then warnings and exhortations would be odd. But dangerous lands still lie between us and our Father’s house; as John Bunyan puts it, we “are not yet out of the gun-shot of the devil” (Pilgrim’s Progress, 101). We need exhortations, then, if we’re going to avoid making an early grave in the wilderness. And we need to give them.
The more we grasp our present endangered position, the more normal exhortations will seem, and the more we will realize why Jesus and the apostles so regularly spoke this way. On this side of heaven, exhortations are not strange; they are everyday.
WHY
Exhort one another every day . . . that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Under God, the loving, wise, courageous words of a fellow Christian protect our hearts against hardness. They are one of the main ways God helps us hold fast till heaven.
Do you see the potential that God has placed in your words? Your brother may seem entrenched in disobedience. But by God’s design and the Spirit’s power, your words can break the spell of sin’s deceit. Your words can humble destructive pride, dispel lustful passion, keep a heart soft amid suffering. And in some situations, your words may be the main means God intends to use in a person’s life. As the apostle James said about prayer (“You have not because you ask not”; see James 4:2), so we might say about some exhortations: That person changes not because you speak not.
Dear brother or sister, God means to use you to keep others from falling away.
Who Needs to Hear?
So think for a minute about the Christians in your church or among your friends. Whose sin have you been avoiding? Whose heart seems harder than it once was? Who needs to hear your exhortation?
By all means, pray and consider the best approach to take. Ponder how to apply God’s word wisely and how to set forth Jesus as better. Plan a good time to talk. And then, in the actual conversation, perhaps ask questions about what you’ve observed — why he’s been acting like this, why she’s said words like those.
But then open your mouth and speak. Name the sin you notice. Honestly share your concern. Commend the Christ who satisfies. And see if God doesn’t take your words and use them to melt the hardness from this brother’s or sister’s heart.
Desiring God