Today Is The Day

Today Is The Day!

Hebrews 3:7-19

Today is the day. No, I'll do it tomorrow. You better get it while you can! Don't hesitate! Don't wait! Don't procrastinate! This is a deal you can't pass up. Get it while you can. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Hurry, for the next twelve hours we're letting 'em go at a price you can't refuse. Call now for your special reduced price. We've only got three of these priceless gems left. Don't let this opportunity pass you by! Call now! Stop what you are doing and head on over right away! Send in your registration today! Today! Today! Today!

You've seen them before coming across your television screen. You've seen their ads in the newspapers. You may have met them at the car lot. As a matter of fact, you may run into them just about anywhere. They are the tightly wound, fast-talking, urgent sounding, slicked-up, never laid back town criers hocking their wares as fast as they can, anywhere they can, and to whomever they can as the clock ticks on, as time winds down, as time runs out. They are seeking to convince you and me that what we need, we need now. We can't let a day go by. We can't live without it for another minute. We must act while the opportunity presents itself or we will forever miss out on the chance of a lifetime. An opportunity that could forever change our life and bring us everything we've ever longed for in life. Who knows what devastation and despair will visit our house if we fail to act today?

With so much on the line we rush out and get it, whatever "it" happens to be at the time, whatever "it" is fashionable that day, and we get it while we can so that we can experience whatever has been promised. We don't want to delay. We don't want to hesitate. We don't want to miss out on the best things in life so we go get it - however we must, whatever we have to pay, whatever we must sacrifice. Lay away, pay today, the installment plan, hand me your credit card man! We simply must have it.

There is an urgency that is present in our society today. There is electricity in the air. There is expectation waiting around every bend. Every ten minutes on the television, programs are interrupted in order to inform us about "new" and "improved" items that will revolutionize our lives. Everyday in the newspapers we read ads extolling the excitement that these items will bring to our lives. Everyday on the radio we hear things lauded and applauded for the potential that they could unlock in our lives. We must act now! I've got an idea! Let's let church out early so that we can rush out and get it now, before the Baptists get out and it's all gone!

Speaking of church, every Sunday preachers around the world, Sunday school teachers in millions of classrooms, evangelists traveling the globe, and passionate Christians from every walk of life seek to invite their friends, neighbors, and co-workers to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Those who hear the plea, those whose ears are filled with the cries of God's people, they sit back and say, "Not today. Not until I get my life together. Not now. The time is not right. I don't feel like it is the thing to do. I want to do a few other things first. I'll get around to it. Not today, but maybe tomorrow."

"Not today, but maybe tomorrow." Those are absolutely the saddest words spoken by any individual today. While God continues to call us into His glorious grace and mercy, while He offers us salvation for our sin sick souls, while He desires to deliver us from our slavery, while He longs to bless us, lead us, and use us to bring glory and honor to His holy name - so, so many of us are turning a deaf ear to God and putting off until tomorrow what God is desiring for us today.

This morning we are continuing our study of the Book of Hebrews. "Today" is the key word for our study this morning and my prayer for you is that if you hear the voice of God calling you this morning that you will respond to His great voice and offer your life to the King. Let's take a look at Hebrews 3:7-19.

7So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9 where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. 10 That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.' " 12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." 16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. (Hebrews 3:7-19 NIV)