Hebrews 3:7-19
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
A few years back Penguin publishers published Cory Arcangel’s book, Working on My Novel. The book is simply a collection of tweets from various people that include the phrase “working on my novel” (with, oddly enough, drawings of kettles interspersed throughout). Arcangel, the compiler, said of the book that it
is about the act of creation and the gap between the different ways we express ourselves today. Exploring the extremes of making art, from satisfaction and even euphoria to those days or nights when nothing will come, it’s the story of what it means to be a creative person, and why we keep on trying.
But Dan Piepenbring, a reviewer for The Paris Review, calls it instead “a sad monument to distraction.” Piepenbring continues:
Arcangel suggests there’s something inherently ennobling in trying to write, but his book is an aggregate of delusion, narcissism, procrastination, boredom, self-congratulation, confusion—every stumbling block, in other words, between here and art. Working captures the worrisome extent to which creative writing has been synonymized with therapy; nearly everyone quoted in it pursues novel writing as a kind of exercise regimen. (“I love my mind,” writes one aspirant novelist…)
The reviewer then makes a devastating observation about these tweets:
But failure is seldom on the minds of these writers, except insofar as it stands, temporarily, between them and inevitable success. As of now, there are 675 of those would-be writers featured on the Twitter version of Working, and yet a rudimentary search shows that the word fail has been deployed exactly zero times. What prevails instead is a kind of Pollyannaish resilience…[1]
In other words the collection of distracted tweets reveals a kind of optimistic naivete on the parts of those who tweeted that there would in fact be time to finish their novels, that there is nothing a bit pitiful about so many comments about doing something one could not be actively doing while commenting on it, and that there was no worse-case scenario where their delays and distractions could result in the, to them, unthinkable: failure.
The scriptures take a decidedly more realistic view. They discourage us from speaking much of tomorrow or of later. They encourage us to make the most important decision—the decision to come to God—now. And they paint a rather chilling picture of the terrible consequences of waiting too long. The latter half of Hebrews 3 paints just such a picture, though, as we will see, the picture it paints is supported by numerous other texts.
God says “Today!” The devil says “Tomorrow!”
It is abundantly clear from our text that God says “Today!” when He is speaking of people turning to Him. We find three instances of it in our text, one of the Lord speaking the word “Today!”, one of the people of God speaking this word, and one of the scriptures speaking it. Consider:
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice…”
13a-b But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today”…
15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
Clearly “Today!” is a kingdom word. But if that is the case the opposite must also be true. And, indeed, we find the scriptures cautioning us about an overemphasis on tomorrow. Consider James 4, in which James cautions us thus:
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Like those who tweeted about writing their novel, we simply assume we can do the great thing tomorrow. But you cannot do the great thing tomorrow if, for you, there is no tomorrow in which to do it!
Jesus makes a similar point in Luke 12 in his parable of the rich man. Listen:
16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Have you turned to Jesus in faith? Have you fled into the merciful arms of God? Have you embraced the cross of Christ? Have you made a total and complete commitment? Are you telling yourself, “Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow!” Then hear again our text:
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice…”
13a-b But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today”…
15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
No, the Lord says, “Today! Today! Today!”
Every tomorrow without a “Yes!” to God presents us a heart that is harder than the day before.
One of the reasons we dare not say “Tomorrow!” when it comes to God is because we do not merely idle in neutral while waiting. No, the longer we wait something frightening is happening to our hearts. Listen closely to our text and see if you can spot the recurring idea.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Did you spot it?
8 do not harden your hearts
10 ‘They always go astray in their heart
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart,
13 that none of you may be hardened
15 “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts
This repeated refrain concerning the hardened heart coupled with the example of Israel’s long wilderness wandering leads us to conclude that waiting to make a decision for God does not mean a spiritually benign idling. It means, rather, an increasing decay. Consider, for instance, how this plays into the way that Jesus spoke of children in Matthew 18.
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
A child has not had time to become overly hardened in his or her heart. Indeed, we are all born in sin, but Jesus points to the child and particularly to the humility of the child as a model for what we and hearts need to be like in terms of our responsiveness to the Lord.
The longer we wait, the harder our hearts get!
In his amazing book, Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday writes:
According to [Robert] Greene, there are two types of time in our lives: dead time, when people are passive and waiting, and alive time, when people are learning and acting and utilizing every second. Every moment of failure, every moment or situation that we did not deliberately choose or control, presents this choice: Alive time. Dead time.[2]
I believe Robert Greene’s categories do not apply to spiritual formation. In spiritual formation and in spiritual life and health the categories are not “alive time” in which we are growing and “dead time” in which we are passive and waiting. Rather, in terms of our hearts, there is “alive time” and “hardening time.” In the first, we have come to God and are being formed increasingly into the image of Christ. In the second, we are delaying and our hearts are growing harder and harder.
Another aspect of delaying our response to God is the growing overcomplication of the spiritual realities at play. Jesus spoke of salvation and damnation in terms of two ways or two groups, as, for instance, in Matthew 7.
13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
It is, to be frank, a simple choice.
The narrow gate or the wide gate.
Heaven or hell.
Sheep or goats.
Inside or outside.
Yes or no.
But it is interesting how the longer we wait and the harder our hearts become the decision looks more and more complicated to us. Kevin DeYoung wrote of the dazzling number of choices we face in our daily life.
In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz tells of a trip to his local moderately sized grocery store. He found 285 varieties of cookies, 13 sports drinks, 65 box drinks, 85 kids’ juices, 75 iced teas, 95 types of chips and pretzels, 15 kinds of bottled water, 80 different pain relievers, 40 options for toothpaste, 150 lipsticks, 360 types of shampoo, 90 different cold remedies, 230 soups, 75 instant gravies, 275 varieties of cereal, 64 types of barbeque sauce, and 22 types of frozen waffles.[3]
But the choice for or against Jesus is not like this. We either say yes or no to Him. And the longer we wait, the easier and easier it becomes to say no.
Today is the day to turn to God!
The conclusion to all of this is simple enough: Today is the day to turn to God! In Joshua 24 we see Joshua challenging the people on this very point and we see their favorable response to his challenge.
14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
“Make your choice,” Joshua says, “and make it now!” And, beautifully, the people respond in faith and repentance.
16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, 17 for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. 18 And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
Do you see? It can be done! You can simply decide to come home to Jesus today, right now.
Time is fleeting. It will not last! It is flying by! Be honest: are you not amazed at how quickly time is flying by?
Stephen Scaer’s poem, “Time Management,” concludes thus:
Today I slept late, took a walk,
sipped coffee on my ragged lawn,
checked the mailbox, saw the clock,
and noticed half my life was gone.[4]
I very much suspect that many of us understand this sentiment.
You know it to be true, do you not: time is racing by. Do not delay to follow the Lord! Do not delay to make that commitment! Do not delay in your “Yes!” to Jesus! Do not delay to say that word He wants you to say, to do that thing He wants you to do, to go to that place where He wants you to go, to serve in that area where He wants you to serve, to forgive that person He wants you to forgive, to speak truth in that area where He wants you to speak it, to study His word, to pray more, to love more, to follow Him more.
Today! Today is the day! We dare not wait!
Paul, in 2 Corinthians 6, writes:
2 For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Yes!
Now!
Now!
Today!
Come to Jesus today!
[1] https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/07/28/working-on-my-novel/
[2] Holiday, Ryan. Ego Is the Enemy (p. 171). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
[3] Kevin DeYoung, Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will or How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Impressions, Open Doors, Random … Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc. (Highlight Loc. 319-322 [Kindle]’
[4] Stephen Scaer, “Time Management.” First Things, no.194 (June/July 2009), 19.