In Hebrews chapter 3 and verse
15, the writer quotes these words, While it is said, Today, if ye
will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. While it is said, Today, if ye
will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, Indeed, the writer quotes this
phrase several times. This is the second time he quotes
this in this chapter and then again in chapter four. Verse
seven, today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts
as in the provocation. Verse 15, today if you will hear
his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation. chapter
4 verse 7 again he limited for a certain day saying in David
today after so long a time as it is said today if you will
hear his voice harden not your hearts today today today if you
will hear his voice harden not your hearts today. The message of God to man in
the gospel through Jesus Christ is immediate. It is spoken and
preached and declared today. Throughout time, ever since it
began to be preached and throughout time to the last day on earth
that it is preached, it is preached to its hearers today. It's not a message from the past
and it's not a message merely concerning the future. It's not
a message you can hear or read one day and consider I will come
back to that at another day. I will think about it another
time. It is not a message you can put off till you're older. You may never hear it again. It is preached today. And the
message comes today and the message demands a response today. It
comes to us today, not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today. And it demands in its phrasing,
in its words, in its appeal, in its declaration, it demands
the response of your heart today. Today, if you will hear His voice, Harden not your hearts. As with Zacchaeus, when Christ
came his way, when he passed Zacchaeus' way and spake unto
him in Luke 19, we read, and when Jesus came to the place,
he looked up and saw him and said unto him, Zacchaeus, Make
haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house. Today I must abide at thy house. There was no, this may be, or
tomorrow, or when you're ready, or when is a good time, Zacchaeus.
Jesus appeared to him that day and said unto him immediately,
today I must abide at thy house. And if Christ comes to us in
the gospel, and preaches unto us on high by his Spirit, and
says unto us today, he means today, Today, I must abide at
thy house. Today, I will meet with you. Today, you will hear my voice. Today. This phrase, as we've
noted, is quoted from the Psalms, quoted from David. It is a quote
from Psalm 95. And that Psalm opens in this
manner. O come, let us sing unto the
Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence
with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For
the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the deep places of the earth. The strength of
the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship
and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord,
our Maker. For he is our God, and we are
the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. today
if ye will hear his voice. Harden not your hearts. This cry of David by the Spirit
of God comes unto those whom God the Creator has made. The great God, the great King,
whose hands hold the deep places of the earth. He is the strength
of the hills. The sea is His and He made it.
His hands formed the dry land. And David cries out, O come,
let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord
our Maker. He is our God. and we are the
people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand, today, if
ye will hear his voice. Today, if you will hear his voice. Do you want to hear his voice? Those who are brought to know
that this God is their God, and they are the people of his pasture,
the sheep of his hand, want to hear his voice. They need to
hear his voice. He is their shepherd, he is their
Lord, their God, he is their life, he is their all in all. He is the one that came to them
when they were lost, when they were dead in trespasses and sins. when they were in the ditch,
cold, lonely, lost in darkness, when they were lost in their
sin, full of iniquity, without strength, and when they were
brought to see it, to see their depravity, to see their emptiness,
to see their rebellion, to feel the wrath of God burning against
their sin. to feel the fear of death and
they are brought to understand that they're worthy of death.
They've turned against God, they've run astray. They've run afar
off. They've turned their back on
their Maker. They've never served Him. They've
never loved Him. They've never sought Him. They've
never cared for Him. They've shut their ears to Him. They've walked with hardness
of heart all their days. And yet there comes a day when
the voice of God, the voice of Jesus Christ in the Gospel comes
their way and breaks into their hard heart and breaks into their
darkness. and breaks into their captivity. The voice of Jesus Christ comes
in and breaks in, it breaks through the shutters, it breaks through
the bars, it breaks through their hard heart. The wall of their
heart is broken down and they hear His voice. And the voice
brings them to life. And having heard they want to
hear, they know His voice, they need to know His voice, they
need to hear His voice, they need life. In Christ, they find
life. Today, if you will hear his voice,
harden not your heart. Well, do you wish to hear his
voice? Do you care? Do you know this
God is your maker? Do you recognise where you stand
before him? Has God made you aware of the
brevity of your life and your frailty? Has he made you aware
of your morals standing before him? What are you doing with your
life? Where are you heading? When you're young, you think
that you will gain so much, you will go so many places, you will
do this and do that, and you have your life stretched out
ahead of you and you think you will achieve many things. But
soon, that folly of life is made a reality to you. Soon, that
life that seemed to stretch out before you is stretching back
behind you. Time has flown by and you're
no longer young. You're old. And all that lies
ahead of you is old age, ill health, and then the grave, and
then what? It is our wisdom to learn this
when we're young. Today, if you will hear his voice,
harden not your heart. Today, when you're old, maybe
too late, When ill health has taken hold
of you, maybe too late. When your mind is gone, it may
be too late. Do you try to hang on to the
mirage of an oasis in the desert of this world that never appears? For you're walking through darkness,
you're walking through death and all that is before you is
everlasting death. There's nothing in this world
that you can keep hold of. What people call life is a living
death, it's a mirage. It soon passes through your fingers,
it's soon gone. All that matters is to hear His
voice. As is repeated in chapter 4 in
Hebrews, again, He limited for certain day, saying in David,
Today, after so long a time, as it is said, Today, if ye will
hear His voice, harden not your hearts. But you do harden them,
don't you? We do. We shut our ears. We close our minds. We turn our
backs and we go our own way, we harden our hearts. And unless God breaks in and
softens them, and breaks those hearts, hard they will remain.
Pharaoh hardened his heart and God hardened it further. God
hardened his heart to the truth. Despite all that Pharaoh was
shown, when Moses came before him and said unto him, let my
people go, and Moses showed forth the power of God under Pharaoh,
God came down in power and through those plagues sent upon Egypt,
One after the other after the other, supernatural events came
to pass. Pharaoh knew that Moses' God
was real. He knew that Moses' God held
all things in his hands. He knew that God had power to
lift up and throw down. He knew that he was fighting
against God, yet his heart was hardened. He never heard. And he perished. as his soldiers
did. When they pursued the Israelites,
pursued the Hebrews, they perished in the waters. So Pharaoh perished
in his hard heart. There's no life, there's no hope,
there's no rest if we set ourselves against the everlasting God. In this chapter in Hebrews, where
the writer quotes this phrase and speaks of today. And here in the voice of God,
what he sets before us is the rest into which the people of
God will enter. That everlasting eternal rest
of salvation. He's reminding us of what happened
in the wilderness. The Hebrews delivered from the
hand of Pharaoh. delivered, brought out of the
tyranny in Egypt, brought out of captivity, then wandered in
the wilderness for 40 years. And a whole generation of them,
though they had been delivered out of Egypt, though they'd seen
the mighty hand of God and heard his voice through Moses, though
they knew that God reigned. They grumbled and they complained
and their hearts were hardened. They heard these things with
the outward ear. They saw with the outward eye. But they never had faith. They'd
never heard the voice of God and the Spirit of God themselves,
individually, in their own hearts. They, as it were, had sat, as
we do, as you may do now, under the preaching of the Gospel.
They knew the truth, they knew the biblical record, they knew
the facts. We can know of Christ, we can
know of his redemptive work, we can know of election, we can
know of justification and sanctification, we can know of salvation, we
can know of the redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ, we
can know all these things and we can hear all these things.
And still have our hearts hardened and never hear the voice of Jesus
Christ in the Gospel. We resist it, we shut our minds
to it. We provoke. And that generation
that provoked, that heard and saw outwardly but never heard
inwardly by faith, they perished in the wilderness. They were
never brought into the rest of the promised land, crossing over
Jordan. They never went in with Joshua. They came out of Egypt with Moses. They came out of captivity, as
it were, under the law. They came with the The lawgiver
Moses. They were under that legal work
of the gospel. They had truth in the letter. They had the outward form. They had the law. They saw the
moral need of what they should be like. But they never entered
into rest with Jesus, Joshua. They never entered into the promised
land. They never heard the gospel inwardly. They had all the outward
form, they had the law, they had their own works, they had
their own righteousness, they had their own obedience. They
heard the gospel outwardly, they saw all the types and figures
and the sacrifices all pointing unto Christ, but they never through
them saw Him. They never heard Him. They never
entered into rest. They never entered into that
eternal everlasting Sabbath rest of which the writer of the Hebrews
speaks here. Which Christ brought in for his
people. This is about entering rest of
being delivered from death, delivered from captivity, delivered from
sin. Delivered from Egypt, as it were,
but also delivered from dead works in the wilderness. Delivered
from being under bondage, under the law. Delivered from an outward
form of religion, the letter of religion, a profession of
religion. Delivered from merely knowing
the truth, in the head, but never in the heart. Delivered from
merely living a life outwardly, which is never a reality inwardly. Delivered from working for our
own salvation, ceasing to work for salvation and resting in
Christ. It's about salvation. and to
be saved, to be truly saved, to enter into eternal rest with
Jesus Christ, we must hear his voice, his voice in the gospel. Today is a day of salvation. Today is a gospel day. We live in the day that when
God has sent unto us His Gospel. And He continues to preach that
Gospel throughout our age. He continues to call and send
forth preachers, taught of God, who know the grace of God, who
speak by the Spirit of God, to preach that Gospel. Christ on
high preaches and His Spirit takes His words and they're put
in the mouths of men to declare unto others and they hear. It's a day of the Gospel. We live in a blessed day in that
sense. We journey through a dark and
a sinful, a lost world but God continues to send the light of
the Gospel into the darkness. As we read in 2 Corinthians 6,
he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day
of salvation have I succored thee. Behold, now is the accepted
time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. It's a day of salvation. It's
a day in which the Gospels preach. It's a day in which we may hear
if our hearts are not hardened. Psalm 118.24 tells us, This is
the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in
it. We will rejoice because the day
speaks of the rising of the sun. It speaks of life. It speaks
of salvation. It speaks of light. This is the
day that the Lord has made. He's brought this day to pass,
His Son. came into the darkness of this
world, He took the darkness, He took the sin upon Himself,
all the sin of all His people throughout all time, and He went
to the cross, and He was plunged into darkness. The light of the
sun was taken away for three hours. He was plunged into the
darkness. He bore the wrath and the judgment
of God against those sins in the darkness. And at the end,
he cried out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me in
the darkness? But in the darkness, he took
away the darkness. He took away the sin, He took
away the guilt, He took away the judgement and at the end
He cried out, it is finished. And very early on the first day
of the week, as the sun rose and they came to the tomb, they
found the stone rolled away and Christ was not there because
He'd risen. The sun had risen and the daylight
shone. The light shines from the risen
Christ today. It shines down from heaven and
it comes unto us in the gospel. Today. Today if you will hear
his voice. Harden not your hearts. Is the light shining? Have you
seen it? Do you hear it? Today. God preaches the gospel today. He preaches it that dead sinners
might be brought out of darkness into light. From sin unto righteousness. From death unto life. He preaches
that his people might be fed. Fed with the gospel, fed with
life, fed with food for today. It comes unto them each and every
day, it comes unto them today. Like the manna that God sent
unto the children of Israel. in the wilderness, when Moses
had brought them out of Egypt, when God by Moses' hand had delivered
his people from captivity in Egypt and brought them through
the wilderness. A picture of this world, a picture
of your sojourn in this world, a picture of the believers pilgrimage
through this world, until that day when he enters glory. As
they went through the wilderness, The people were starving and
said, what shall we eat? Have you brought us out here
Moses to die? What will we eat? And God fed
them. He fed them. He gave them food. He gave them manna. He didn't
feed them on yesterday's food. He didn't feed them on tomorrow's
food. He gave them fresh manna, which lay upon the ground early
in the morning, every morning, and they gathered it up and they
ate it. He gave them, He fed them, He fed them by the living
Word of God, the Gospel. And He does the same today. The Gospel is manna. to the child
of God. It's that which he eats, it's
that which he devours, it's that which sustains him, it's that
which gives him life and sustains life. And it must come today,
fresh every day. That Word, the Living Word, the
manner for today. Today if ye will hear His voice. There's our manner. Hearing His
voice in the Gospel. We must hear it today. It's no
good to look back and say, well I heard the Lord ten years ago
and I was brought out of my sin and brought to life and I rest
on that. I'm trusting in that. I had that
experience. I remember it. When you've got
nothing today, the manna must come today. God preaches the
gospel every day. And just as with the Israelites
of old in the wilderness, they were commanded not to eat of
the manna the next day, but to eat it the day it came. The gospel
is fresh today, the preaching of the gospel by Christ himself
from heaven above. That manna came from heaven above. It was the bread given to Israel
to eat, as we read in Exodus 16. The Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak
unto them, saying, that even ye shall eat flesh, and in the
morning ye shall be filled with bread, and ye shall know that
I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass that at even,
the quails came up and covered the camp. And in the morning
the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was
gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a
small round thing, as small as the hoarfrost on the ground.
And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another,
It is manna, for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto
them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.
This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded. Gather of it
every man according to his eating, an omer for every man according
to the number of your persons. Take ye every man for them which
are in his tents. And the children of Israel did
so, and gathered, some more, some less. And when they did
meet it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over,
and he that gathered little had no lack. They gathered every
man according to his eating. And Moses said, let no man leave
of it till the morning. Notwithstanding, they hearkened
not unto Moses. But some of them left of it until
the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was rough
with them. It was given for the day. It was that bread given to the
people from heaven. It was a picture of Christ. He
is the bread of heaven. In the gospel, he is our food,
our life. There is nothing else. And God
will bring the child of God to see this, that there's nothing
else. In Numbers 11, verse 6, we read
the people's reaction. They're brought to see they've
got nothing but this manna. There's nothing else. They cried
out, but now our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all
beside this manna before our eyes. There is nothing at all
beside this manna before our eyes. Their soul was dried away. They had nothing but the manna. And if you're brought to see
that spiritually, you're brought to see that you've nothing but
Christ. If your soul is dried away, it's
a blessing from God himself. If he strips you of confidence
in the flesh, if he strips you of all hope, if he strips you
of all feeding on man's knowledge and man's wisdom and man's religion,
if he strips everything away so that your soul is dried up,
your soul is dried away and you see and say there's nothing at
all, there's nothing in religion, there's nothing in the churches
except this gospel, this Christ, this manner who is set before
our eyes. That's all we have. Everything
else is worthless but this manner. Oh that God should strip all
away and bring us to see nothing but this manner and hear nothing
but this voice. There's nothing else at all they
said. Our soul dries away All we have,
the believer cries, is Christ, our manna. All that is left before
our eyes is Christ. He is all. Deuteronomy 8, 3 tells
us, And he humbled thee, and he suffered thee to hunger, and
he fed thee with manna. says unto the children of Israel,
God humbled thee, he suffered you to hunger, he fed thee with
manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know.
You'd never encountered this manna, you never knew what it
was. That he might make thee know that man doth not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of the Lord doth man live. Your life, your bread is the
word of God. The word. of Jesus Christ. And the house of Israel called
the name thereof manna, and it was like coriander seed, white,
and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. This manna was white, it was
perfect, and it was sweet to the taste like honey. Is Christ
your manna, your all? Is He your perfection, your righteousness? Is He white like coriander seed
to you? Is He sweet to the taste, like
honey? Is He all you desire? Is His
gospel, His preaching, His word, that which makes you sing, that
which makes you rejoice, that in which you set all your hope?
Is He life to you? Is He manner to you? Is He honey
to you? Is he the bread of heaven to
you? Is he your righteousness? White like coriander seed. Or are you still resting in some
righteousness of your own? Still resting in some works of
your own? If you rest on your own works,
if there's something that you're looking to of yourself that you
think you need, you will perish in the wilderness. Your heart
is hardened to the gospel. You must be brought to nothing. Your soul must be dried away
because there is nothing at all beside this manna. Christ is
all. The manna is Christ, the word,
he is the living word, our manna for today. He comes unto us in
the gospel today, not yesterday. Yesterday's message won't save
you, it's like the manna that came up with worms and stank. What you knew yesterday, what
you experienced years ago is not enough. You need the Gospel,
you need His Word today. If He's yours, if you're alive,
then you will walk with Him and He will walk with you and He
will speak unto you and He will lead you each and every day.
It's a living pathway, a living Word. The letter, the form, knowledge
on its own won't save you. You need it today. And it comes
unto us in the gospel, the preaching of the gospel, the preaching
of Christ, preached by Christ himself from heaven above. It comes down from heaven. The
manna came down from heaven. And this gospel came down from
heaven. like Christ who came down into
the darkness of this world and rested upon this world. So the
gospel comes down. The gospel declares what Christ
did to bring life to his people when he laid down his life on
the cross for them. When he laid down. his life on
the cross for them. Consider that cross. Consider
that death. Consider the one that hung on
the cross. Consider that day he hung. In Luke 23 we read, one of the
malefactors which were hanged railed on him saying, if thou
be Christ, save thyself and us.' But the other malefactor answering
him rebuked him, saying, Does not thou fear God, seeing thou
art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due rewards of our deeds, but this man hath done
nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord,
Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said
unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today thou shalt be with me in
paradise. And it was about the sixth hour,
and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent
in the midst. And when Jesus had cried with
a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave
up the ghost. This sinner, this thief, this
malefactor that was dying upon a cross next to Christ did not
rail against him as the other one did. Today, if you will hear my voice,
harden not your heart. He was brought to see who Christ
was. He was brought to see that salvation was there beside him. His soul was dried away, he had
nothing at all except the manna that was before his eyes, except
Christ who hung next to him. His hope was in him. Lord, remember
me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto
him, verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in
paradise. Today. He heard the voice today. Jesus answered, today thou shalt
be with me in paradise. He entered into rest, into paradise,
eternal life with Christ, that day, that day. He did nothing. Until that day
he'd been a malefactor, a sinner, a thief. He'd done nothing good. He had no time to do anything
good. When he heard the voice of Jesus
Christ, when he was there and heard the Gospel, when he was
given faith to believe, he had no time to do anything except
cry out for mercy and look unto Christ with faith. He was not
saved because of his works. He was not saved because of his
religion. He was not saved because of his
law keeping or obedience. He'd done nothing but sin. He
was saved by grace. He heard the voice of Jesus Christ
and hearing he believed, Christ died for him. Christ hung in
the middle in his place for him. Christ endured hell in those
three hours in the darkness for him. That he, the sinner, the
thief, the rebel, like you, Like me should be with Christ that
day. Today thou shalt be with me in
paradise. Today. Did Christ suffer on that cross
that day for you today? Has he come unto you in the gospel
today? Has he spoken through the gospel
today? Will you hear his voice today? That day when that sinner heard
his voice and heard that promise and heard that great hope set
before him, today thou shalt be with me in paradise, that
day Christ went into the darkness of hell, rejected of all, abandoned
by his father, enduring the wrath of God. What a day Christ endured. But when it was done, he rose
victorious from the grave. He rose with a great shout. He
rose with everlasting life. And God says of him elsewhere
in Hebrews, So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high
priest, but he that said unto him, Thou art my son, today have
I begotten thee. Christ rose from the dead. He was brought to life. His Father
begat Him, He lived. His Son lives forevermore. Today have I begotten thee. Yes,
He died, but He rose again. Yes, He suffered, but now He's
victorious. Yes, He was rejected by all His
enemies, you and me included. who hardened their hearts against
Him and said, away with this man, crucify Him, crucify Him. But He rose again from that cross,
from that death, from that crucifixion, from the grave, He rose again
triumphant, glorified, and on the third day He rose again out
of the grave and ascended today, today. Thou art my son, today
I have begotten thee. And it's because he rose, that
is why that thief, and all like him, entered paradise with their
saviour, today, that day, victorious with him and in him. Have you? Will you? Hear the words of Moses, as the
people of Israel were brought out of Egypt. And they had the
Egyptians pursuing, ready to put them to death behind them.
And they had the Red Sea in front of them. They couldn't go forwards,
they couldn't go back, they were left with nothing else. Certain
death was upon them and Moses declares unto them, unto a broken
people, unto a lost people, unto a people with no strength themselves,
they were trapped, they could go nowhere. Moses says unto them,
fear ye not. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord, which he will show you today. For the Egyptians
whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. Where are you today? We live
in a strange day, in strange times with much trial, with much
trouble, with much to bring to the knowledge of the world, in
this year, in these days, that death is just around the corner. That there is no hope to be found
in man. No hope to be found in the strength
of man or the wisdom of man. If anything tells you anything,
it should remind you that life is brief, that death is but a
moment away. And man can do nothing for your
soul. But God, through all things,
in these times, in these events, and most of all, in the preaching
of the gospel. God, through the preaching of
the gospel, comes unto us today. Today. And says unto us, today. Today, if ye will hear his voice,
harden not your heart. Today, if ye will hear his voice,
harden not your heart. Oh may God have mercy upon our
hard hearts and break them and melt them and though we harden
them may he soften them by the grace of his gospel may he melt
our hearts by his gospel and cause us to cry out for salvation
like that thief cried out and may he in mercy say unto us who
cry who look, who hope, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. Amen.