Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "Today if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me.
Here he's talking about when Moses led the people out of Egypt, and for forty years they wandered in the Wilderness because they refused to take Him seriously and kept complaining.
Take care, brothers, that there not be in anyone of you an evil heart of unbelief that falls away from the living God.
He says that a heart that turns away from God because they don't believe Him is evil. This is a strong word.
We like to see the variations of grey, but God sees good-and-evil in monochrome, white and black. What is good pleases Him and what is not good is evil, with no shades of grey.
But encourage one another day by day, while it is still called "Today,"
We are to be positive, in encouraging each other whenever we have the opportunity, while it is still "Today." Don't put it off until tomorrow.
so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
"Sin" is an archery term that refers to "missing the bulls-eye," and it refers to missing the mark of what God intends for us to understand.
When we try to reason it out in our own minds, we tend to go by our feelings. This gets us in trouble, because our own hearts, our feelings, are not reliable to be true.
I can feel bad when my child disobeys me, and these feelings could cause me to excuse the bad behavior and spoil the child. But my love for my children prompted me to discipline them to teach them to do right. Discipline is redemptive, and looks ahead, while punishment looks back.
God's discipline of us always wants us to learn to trust Him and take Him seriously; to do what is right for the betterment of us all.
For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,
Our assurance here is being sure that God is worthy of our trust and will do what He said He will do.
While it is said,
Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.Today is the only time we really have. Yesterday is gone, and Tomorrow may never come. Today, right now, is when we must decide if we will trust God or not. If we will trust Him implicitly, without reservation. If there's any doubt at all, then face it and decide to believe anyway.
When Billy Graham was a young man, he didn't feel that he could trust everything in the Bible to really be true. He wrestled with this doubt, and finally while he was in a wooded area praying, he set his Bible on a stump and declared to God that he would believe every word, every story, every lesson in it. He settled it in his own mind, and that was the beginning of his ministry of preaching.
If you have any doubts, please get them settled in your own mind; decide you will believe God, no matter what the World says. The mind must lead the heart, and when the decision is made, then the feelings will come along, too.
For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?
Now the writer goes back to the children of Israel in the Desert. By seeing the power of God against the Egyptians, and the parting of the Red Sea, and the quails and the manna, God intended for them to trust that He would meet all their needs if they would only rely on Him, not themselves, and not even Moses.
Moses trusted God because he knew God and respected His power and authority.
By refusing to believe God, the people were "poking Him in the eye!" After all the miracles and good things He did for them and gave them, they still wouldn't trust Him. So they all died while they were still in the Wilderness, and none of them lived to enter into the Promised Land except for Caleb and Joshua. Two men out of six hundred thousand. Not very good odds.
God doesn't depend on "odds," though. He is ready to rescue and redeem every person who wants to come to Him, regardless of their "Yesterdays."
Today is a brand-new Day! Today is when I can do something. Today is when I can decide to trust God and believe what He says, and let Him guide me every step I take today.
O my Father, thank You for giving me Today! Thank You for giving me every moment that I can be alive. Thank You so much for revealing Yourself to me, and for carrying me through all these decades of time, prompting me to trust You at every turn.
Thank You for being such a great, trustworthy, Truthful God! Thank You for Your great patience with us, knowing how weak our flesh is. Thank You for calling Your sheep to faith, drawing us into Your Fold.
Thank You for sending Your Son to fulfill what He said to the Prophets and in the Law so that we can know He is Who He said He is.
Thank You for all the proofs You have given us. Father, I pray for all Your little lambs who are still lost, to find their way; send Your under-shepherds to find them and lead them back to the Fold.
Send Your workers out into the fields so white for harvest. Protect them as they do Your work of sharing Your Good News of Redemption to gather all of Your children into the safety and protection of Your Church.
And may all the goats in sheep's clothing be revealed for who they are; protect Your children in Your Truth, that they not be led into the deception of doubt or explaining away the Truth of your written Word.
Help us, Father, to not trust our own feelings or reasonings, but to trust You in what You have told us. Mold our minds to think Your thoughts, to form Your attitudes, and to accept Your gifts and blessings. And prosper us, Father, to be able to share with one another to meet physical needs as well as emotional and spiritual needs.
Draw all Your children together, Father, and may Your House be full! May every place at Your Banquet Table be filled, and Your Joy be shared all around!
And every eye will see, every knee will bow, every tongue will proclaim in every language, that Jesus is Christ and Messiah, our Lord God Almighty, to the glory of God the Father.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
