4:6. Seeing therefore it remains that some should enter into it, and they to whom the good news was preached before failed to enter in because of disobedience, (7) he again defines a certain day, today, saying through David so long a time afterward (just as has been said),
“Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.”
Today. Not tomorrow. Not next week, next month or next year. Today. The Word of God always requires that we act upon God’s promises, not that we merely think about them.
Human beings are strange creatures. Many of us choose to live either in the past or the future, rather than the present. Some people are locked to past hurts. They have never forgiven the offender, and hold their grudges tightly to themselves. As a result, bitterness has grown and festered in their hearts, till everything they do in the present is shaded with those long-gone events.
Others are locked to past failures. Whether it was a moral failure or a failure of achievement, they continue to beat themselves up over it, and refuse to believe that they could ever succeed. Their present life is shaped by that failure, and they will never allow themselves to rise above its level.
Sometimes people are even locked to the good times and successes of the past. “The Olden Days” have taken on a rosy glow – probably to a far greater extent than they had in the first place – and they just want to go back there, rather than contend with a present that can be raw and difficult. That is partly what happened with the people of Israel. Egypt had started looking really good to them. They forgot the slavery, abuse and humiliation and remembered the good things – leeks and cucumbers and garlic – and wanted to go back to what had been.
At the other extreme, some live in tomorrow, in the wonderful land of “someday”. Yes, they know what God’s Word says, and “someday” they will get around to acting upon it. There are two great problems with “tomorrow”. The first is that it never comes. It is always there, hovering just out of our reach. The day we called “tomorrow” yesterday is now today: but tomorrow has moved, it is still beyond us.
The second problem with “tomorrow” is that none of us know whether we will have it. We have no way of knowing whether we will wake up again in this life, or whether our eyes will next open in eternity. When we store our intentions in “tomorrow” or “someday”, we are storing them in a very unsafe place indeed.
Our God, on the other hand, is not bound to either yesterday or tomorrow; not to the past or to the future. He is I AM, not “I was” or “I will be”. So He says to us, Don’t put this off! Don’t just think about it! Don’t say to yourself, “Someday I will enter God’s rest.” The door is open now. The promise is given now. We have heard His voice today, therefore we need to act today. If we don’t, we will be like the Israelites, hardening our hearts against God.