TODAY IS THE DAY
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TODAY IS THE DAY
Heb 3:7-19
"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…." (v.7)
"TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST of your life." I once saw these words on a poster hanging above the bed of a friend in his hostel room. Every day as he wakes up, that dramatic declaration reminds him of the glorious today. He has better made full use of it!
But today does not last forever. In strict time, it lasts only 24 hours. But in Hebrews, the reference is not so much to a literal today as to a figurative today. Even then, it does not go on indefinitely. The today is the day we hear the voice of the Lord (v.7). God speaks. We must obey. Or else, He may stop speaking to us since we have chosen not to listen to Him.
The readers are reminded of what the Israelites did in "the rebellion" and during "the time of testing" (v.8). The terms are actually two place names in Hebrew, Massah and Meribah respectively. At these places, the Israelites rebelled against God by their ingratitude and unbelief. They did not think God could provide for them in the wilderness (see Ex 17.1-7; Num 20.1-13), despite God's explicit promise to do so for them.
It is a grevious sin to disregard God when He speaks to us. Jesus had nothing to say to Herod because he had refused to listen when God spoke through John the Baptist (Lk 23.9; Mk 6.17-18). If we do not listen, why should God speak? When we hear nothing, it is not God who is dumb but we who are deaf.
This corresponds with a law of human nature. C.S. Lewis puts it thus, "We have a tendency to think, but not to act. We have a tendency to feel, but not to act. If we go on thinking and feeling without acting, we soon are unable to act." The today is over for us. When the heart hardens, when the clay is set, it is difficult, impossible even, to change.
The Israelites who failed to make it to the promised land and died in the desert had heard God speaking. It is not that they had not known. But they "heard and rebelled" (v.16). So the Jewish Christians were in danger of beginning the journey and failing to complete it. To return to Judaism after hearing the gospel is to fall in the wilderness. May God give us an attentive ear and an obedient heart, to follow Him all the way.
Is there something I must do while it still today?
