TO-DAY.
Hebrews 3: 7 Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost said, To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
Continuing with THE SECOND WARNING
Hebrews 3: 7- 4: 13.
Not to come short of the promised Rest.
BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY
13th September 1894.
These words are generally applied to the unconverted; the Psalm in which they occur, and the context in which they stand in this Epistle, both prove that they are meant for God's people. In all the dealings of the Holy Ghost with believers, be they weak and erring, or strong and glad, His great word to them is, To-day.
The Holy Ghost said, To-day. What does this mean? God is the Eternal One. With Him there is no yesterday or to-morrow; what we call past and future are with Him an ever-present Now; His Life is an ever-Blessed, never-ending To-day. One of the great words of this Epistle in regard to Christ and His Salvation is the word Eternal, For ever. He has become the Author of Eternal Salvation--- that is, a Salvation which bears the character of Eternity; its chief mark is that it is an ever-present Now that there is not a moment in which Christ, who ever Lives to pray for us, is not able to maintain us in it in the power of an endless Life.
Man is the creature of a moment; the past has gone from him, and over the future he has no control; it is only the present moment that is his. Therefore it is that, when he is made partaker of Christ, a High Priest for ever, and the eternal Salvation He imparts, God's great word to him is To-day. In Christ all the Blessedness of the great Eternity is gathered up in an ever-present Now: the one need of the believer is to know it, to respond to it, and to meet the To-day, the Now, my child! of God's Grace with the To-day, the Even now, my Father! of
his faith.
If you would understand the meaning of this Divine To-day, look at it in its wondrous setting. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day. Satan's word is ever To-morrow, man's favorite word, too, To-morrow. Even with the child of God the word of unbelief is too often To-morrow; God's demand is too great for to-day; God's Promise too High; we hope it will come easier later on. The Holy Ghost says, To-day. That means that He who is the mighty power of God is Himself ready to work in us all that God Wills and Asks; it is He who is each moment pleading for immediate surrender, for a present trust, because He bears with Him the power of a present Salvation.
To-day! It is a word of wonderful promise. It tells that To-day, this very moment, the Wondrous Love of God is for us it is even now waiting to be extended into your heart; that To-day, all that Christ has done, and is Now doing in Heaven, and is able to do within us--- this very day, it is within our reach. To-day the Holy Ghost, in whom there is the power to Know and Claim and Enjoy all that the Father and the Son are waiting to bestow, to-day the Holy Ghost is within you, sufficient for every need, equal to every emergency. With every call we find in our Bible to full and entire surrender; with every promise we read of Grace for the supply of temporal and spiritual need; with every prayer we breathe, and every longing that rules in our heart, there is the Spirit of promise whispering, To-day. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day.
To-day! It is a word of solemn command. It is not here a question of some higher privilege which you are free to accept or reject. It is not left to your choice, O believer, whether you will receive the fulness of Blessing the Holy Spirit offers. That To-day of the Holy Ghost brings you under the most solemn obligation to respond to God's call, and to say, Yes, To-day, Lord, complete and immediate submission to all Thy will; To-day, the surrender of a present and a perfect Trust in all Thy Grace. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day.
To-day! A word, too, of earnest warning. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day, if you shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts. They shall not enter into My Rest. There is nothing so hardening as delay. When God speaks to us, He asks for a tender heart, open to the whispers of His voice of Love. The believer who answers the To-day of the Holy Ghost with the To-morrow of some more convenient season, knows not how he is hardening his heart; the delay, instead of making the surrender and obedience and faith easy, makes it more difficult. It closes the heart for to-day against the Comforter, and cuts off all hope and power of growth. O believer, Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day, so when you hear His voice, open the heart in great tenderness to listen and obey; Obedience to the Spirit's To-day is your only certainty of power and of Blessing.
To all Christians whose life has been one of feebleness and of failure, who have not yet entered into the Rest of faith, into God's own Rest, this word To-day is the key to all their disappointments and to all their failures. You waited for strength, to make obedience easier; for feeling, to make the sacrifice less painful. You did not listen to the voice of God breathing through every word. He speaks that wondrous note, even through the Living Word, Jesus Christ, that wondrous note of hope, To-day. You thought it meant for the sinner a call to immediate repentance; you did not know that it means for the believer, each time he hears the voice, immediate, whole hearted submission to all God says, immediate trustful acceptance of all He gives. And yet just this is what it does mean. (A change from a simple believer and follower to that of a trusting child a receiver of all that God is, as a disciplined disciple a son of God. Emphasis added)
In the Epistle to the Hebrews we have a very wonderful exhibition of what Christ, as a High Priest at the right hand of God, can do for us in the power of an endless Life. The entering into the Rest of God, the perfect cleansing of the conscience in the blood through which He entered into the presence of God, our access within the veil into the presence of God, the being brought close to the very heart of God, the being taken up and kept in Christ in the Love of God, these Blessings are all ours. And over each of them is written the words, Now is the accepted time. Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day.
1. Brother, let you and me bow in great stillness before God to hear this wonderful message: the Holy Ghost whispering, To-day, To-day. Let our whole heart open up to take it in. Let all fear and unbelief pass away as we remember: it Is the Holy Ghost Himself, the giver of strength, the dispenser of Grace, the revealer of Jesus, who says To-day.
2. Let our faith simply listen to God's voice, until it rings through our soul day by day, and all the day. We shall take God's word To-day, and make it our own. We shall meet this wonderful To-day of God's Love with the confident To-day of our faith. And it will become to us a foretaste of that eternal To-day In which He dwells.
3. The Holy Spirit's To-day, accepted and lived in, will be within us the power of an endless Life, the experience of an eternal Salvation, as an ever-present, never-ceasing reality. "Even as the Holy Ghost says, To-day."
4. Just yesterday I heard a servant of God testify that at his conversion he was led to say: I am going to do the Will of God to-day, without thinking of to-morrow; and he found the unspeakable blessing of it. Let anyone begin to live a whole-hearted life, by (in) the Grace of God, for one day; for to-morrow will be as to-day, and still better.
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