What is the meaning of, "Today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your heart" in Psalm 95:8?

Psalm 95 summons Israel to come with joyful songs and thanksgiving before Jehovah (verses 3, 4 describing His excellency above the gods and as Creator). But Jehovah is Israel's Maker, his God also; and now they may look for rest even after so long time and continued failure. Till power comes in to judgment, while it is called to-day — for in that great to-morrow no evil and no rebellious will be allowed — they are called upon not to harden their hearts as of old in the wilderness, when God sware that they should not enter into His rest. But now, after all, grace says To-day, and invites to come before His presence who is the rock of their salvation. 158

No one ought to harden his heart; but this word is especially addressed to Israel, and that until the day when Christ shall appear. In speaking of it, the author returns to the word that had formerly been addressed to Israel; not now in order to warn them of the danger they would incur by neglecting it, but of the consequences of departing from that which they had acknowledged to be true. Israel, when delivered out of Egypt, had provoked God in the wilderness (it was indeed the case also of Christians in this world), because they were not at once, and without difficulty, in Canaan. Those to whom he wrote were in danger of forsaking the living God in the same way; that is, the danger was there before their eyes. They should rather exhort each other, while it was still called to-day, in order that they might not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. This word "to-day" is the expression of the patient activity of God's grace towards Israel even unto the end. The people were unbelieving; they have hardened their hearts; they have done so, and will alas! do so to the end, until judgment come in the Person of the Messiah-Jehovah, whom they have despised. But until then God loves to reiterate, "To-day, if ye will hear my voice." It may be that only a few will hearken; it may be that the nation is judicially hardened, in order to admit the Gentiles; but the word "to-day" still resounds for every one among them who has ears to hear, until the Lord shall appear in judgment. It is addressed to the people according to the long-suffering of God. For the remnant who had believed it was an especial warning not to walk in the ways of the hardened people who had refused to hearken — not to turn back to them, forsaking their own confidence in the word which had called them, as Israel did in the wilderness.

You will notice the transition when the psalm speaks of the Shepherd, and they the sheep of His hand. It is simple and happy work to praise, when we are occupied with the Shepherd; but when we turn to the sheep, there is need of exhortation. And so it is: "Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness." You see the thought, then, that so long as God in His love and grace fills the soul there can only be praise? but when the eye turns from God to man, there is need of exhortation not to harden the heart, not to be careless or forgetful, as Israel was in the day of provocation in the wilderness. In other words, if we are to enter into our rest, we must go on. It is not enough for a man to say, "I was converted ten years ago." How is it today? Are the things of God of continued interest, or is the heart absorbed in the things of the world? Why talk of a conversion of ten years ago, if it has no present effect on the life? There is no sadder spectacle than a heart that is hardened by grace neglected or despised — people who boast in what God has done for them in the past, and whose present shows no power of divine life. God keep us, dear friends, from a hardened heart, from despising the pure grace of His love. If we rejoice in His love it will always make us tender, and obedient. "The Holy Ghost" — mark, he does not even say David — "the Holy Ghost saith, Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart."

That is the substance, briefly, of what we have in this portion. In the twelfth and thirteenth verses, the apostle applies this to the Hebrew Christians: "Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." He is not warning against falling into some outward sin. Sin, as occasionally mentioned in this epistle, is not immorality, not overt acts of wickedness, but the radical sin that produces all other sin. It is that evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Unbelief is the source from which flows every form of sin. So in speaking to professors, what he warns them against is turning away from the living God and giving up Christ. This is the sin into which they are in danger of falling. He says, Take heed, if you want your praises to continue, if you want to go through this wilderness journey with joy in your soul, that you do not depart from the living God; but rather exhort one another daily while it is called today. "Today," is whilst the Spirit invites, and continues to this present time. It is always "today" until we enter the bright "tomorrow" that is before us; and "while it is called today" we are to exhort one another lest any of us should "be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."

Then they are exhorted again to do Him homage, and His loving relationship to them as their Shepherd is put before them as what may well incite them to this. But there is added as the necessary condition to the continuance of this, "today, if ye will hear His voice! " Apart from such obedient hearing there could be no walking together, of those not agreed. Grace only fulfills — not sets aside — such conditions.

A sad page of their history is now brought before them, the time of their "strife" with God at Meribah, and "tempting" Him at Massah. And this was but a sample of forty years in which He was grieved by a generation finally cut off in the wilderness for unbelief. They are exhorted not to harden their hearts as did their fathers, when they tempted and proved God, and saw His work, — found Him alike faithful in His promises and in His threatenings. And now the rest of God is so near at hand, and in proportion to the blessedness of all implied in it, is the awful irremediable ruin of being cut off from it.

It will be noticed how Jehovah is worshipped as the Creator but the God of Israel; then a warning is given from the unbelief of their fathers in the wilderness. Their failure from of old will not debar them from His rest tomorrow, only unbelief today.

The exhortation to God's people of old abides for us as much as for them, "Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." All truth speaks with authority which those that are true recognize; and the more precious the truth is, the sadder the consequences of its practical refusal. To trifle with any truth is perilous, and hardening of heart is the necessary result. How many there are with a conscience locally paralyzed (if one may say so) through refusal of that in which the voice of God was once recognized — perhaps in refusing to listen to that in which it fears God might be speaking! For it is a wrong thought that responsibility only comes with the conviction that God has spoken there is accountability easily detected by the question, "Were you truly willing, to have Him speak?" What hearts we have to which such a question should ever need to be put! How sad, above all, that unbelief should in believers produce such a disregard of the One Supreme Voice like which there is no other!

Hence the call to encourage, not exactly one another, though this is included, but "yourselves," which seems rather more pointed than the former phrase. They were to encourage each other day by day as long as it is called today (the day of grace), that none should be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. For which of us knows not by humbling and bitter experience its luring character and slippery paths? A little evil allowed is the beginning of very great evil. The heart is hardened as we look off from Jesus, and self-pleasing takes the place of doing God's will; and only mercy's intervention hinders the end from being, according to the way. Truly sin is deceitful.

Doubtless "today" is a serious and trying time (verse 15). We are in the wilderness, and without God what is there but difficulty and danger for His people, weak as spilt water in themselves? But there especially He speaks in His word; and even when the kingdom comes, the prophetic word calls His own to hear His voice. If they were bitterly provoking, He was patient and gracious. And if there be difference now, as there is assuredly, since Christ accomplished redemption, and took His seat at God's right hand, and sent down the Holy Spirit to be in us who believe, it is still said, "Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation." What He has done and revealed and made ours, so transcending all wrought of old in Egypt and the desert, ought to be the most powerful stimulus, as well as firm foundation, in heeding His revealed will against our treacherous hearts, so sure to grow hard if we slight His word or tamper with sin. "Today" is till Jesus comes, the point so constant in N.T. expectation. Is He your expectation, my brother?

Yet God had revealed His rest from the beginning. Only the Adamic world is spoken of, only those "works" of God which were effected on the six "days." The vast operations of creation in geologic time are outside consideration and have nothing to do directly with His rest. But His works in view of man immediately conduct to it. Therefore it is said in Gen. 2, "And God rested on the seventh day from all his works," as He had in Psalm 95 thousands of years after, "If they shall enter into my rest." The first scripture proves that He had a rest Himself; the second, that even His people had not yet entered into it. Sin came in for Adam and his race at the beginning. God could not rest in sin, nor could sinners as such enter into God's rest. God indeed did not then speak of any entering in. But He did, in thus speaking, imply that the unbelievers who provoked Him in the wilderness should not enter. Preferring self to Christ they, as all like them, must reap the ruinous consequence. And this He records in a psalm which not only recalls the ruin of the rebellious people in the desert, but looks on to the future day of glory when Israel are invited to come with songs of joy and thanksgiving before Jehovah, not only the Creator (as the gods were not, but mere demons and impostors) but their Maker and God. They having believed at length, after ages of judgment because of their unbelief, shall enter into His rest. How welcome and sweet for that people, His people, after such a history of sorrow, shame, and unrest, through sin and the unbelief that barred all escape or deliverance! For "today" will be then, not merely a persevering call of grace (as more pre-eminently in the gospel), but God's power in salvation; "and so all Israel shall be saved" in that day.

"Since then it remaineth that some should enter into it, and that those that had first good tidings borne did not enter because of disobedience, again he defineth a certain day, saying, Today in David after so long a time, even as it hath been said before, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Joshua made them rest, he would not have spoken after these things of another day. There remaineth therefore a sabbatism for the people of God. For he that entered into his rest, himself also rested from his works, as God from his own" (verses 6-10).

The inference is drawn that some would hear and believe, whilst the mass were unbelieving and perished; and both were verified in the type: Israel fell as a whole; Joshua and Caleb entered Canaan. It was a sad issue then with which grace would point the moral to the Jews that professed the name of the Lord, and indeed to any now in Christendom. God's mercy would not be hindered by human opposition or indifference. If those first appealed to refused the glad tidings, He persists in calling. He again fixes a day, and in David, long after Moses and Joshua, "Today" is the word (as it has been said) "Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." He is coming, and Israel will not harden their hearts in that day, but will say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of Jehovah. But the Christian and the church now say, Come, for they at least have proved His infinite grace. They dread not, but long for His presence. But withal the call goes on to the unbelieving while He tarries. For He is a Saviour as well as their Bridegroom (Rev. 22).

He begins by saying, "Let us fear lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any should seem to come short of it," not attain to it. For we have been the objects of the proclamation of glad tidings, as they were in times past. But the word addressed to them remained fruitless, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it: for we which have believed do enter into rest. The rest itself is yet to come, and it is believers who enter into it. For a rest of God there is, and there are some who enter into it: inasmuch as it is written, "They," that is, those (pointing out a certain class who are to be excluded) "shall not enter into my rest."

God had wrought in creation, and then rested from His works when He had finished them. Thus, from the foundation of the world, He has shown that He had a rest, as in the passage already quoted, "If they shall enter into my rest"; but this, showing that the entering in was yet in question, showed that into God's rest in the first creation man had not entered. Two things then are evident — some were to enter in, and the Israel to whom it was first proposed did not enter in because of their unbelief. Therefore He again fixes a day, saying, in David, long after the entrance into Canaan, "To-day — as it is written — to-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts."