Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1551
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, August 1, 1880
“Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart.” Psalm 95:7,8.
THIS Psalm is a burst of praise. It resounds with the joyful noise of hearty thanksgiving unto Jehovah and yet before it closes you hear the solemn tones of exhortation to men to hearken to the voice of their God. Alas that it should be true, but true it is, that the Canaanite still dwells in the midst of Israel! In every gathering of the faithful there is a mixture of those who know not the ways of God. When Israel came out of Egypt, a mixed multitude came forth with the people of God—that mixed multitude did them great damage and often brought them under great sin and consequent sorrow, but they were always there. And they are always here, too, in the Church and around it, dishonoring us by their evil behavior. Not only in the great congregations, but even in little gatherings of Believers we meet with the unworthy ones. Scarcely are 12 met together without a Judas in the midst of them.
Thus it comes to pass that in our loudest praises there is always a measure of discord and when we have lauded the Most High with our best hallelujahs we shall be called upon to listen, in humble silence, to His warning voice addressed to the unbelieving and disobedient among us. Such characters are here this morning and it is well for us to know the fact. It is well for us to examine ourselves, whether we belong to this class and whether the words before us may not be addressed to ourselves—“If you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” But supposing us to have listened to the Lord and to have found peace like a river in consequence, it is well for us to think of those who are sitting side by side with us who are living in unbelief, that we may bless God the more for distinguishing Grace manifested to ourselves and that we may offer our earnest prayers for them all through the service that God may bring them to His feet and save them by His Grace.
In the spirit of hearty love to men’s souls I shall try to preach. And in that spirit I beg of you to hear the Word of God today. If saints are thus moved to pity sinners and to pray for them, the Holy Spirit will bless the Word and it will be quick and powerful to search out the thoughts of men’s hearts and awaken them from their indifference to the voice of God. He is a happy minister who, while he preaches, is surrounded by a praying people! Joshua in the plain is sure of the victory while Moses pleads upon the mountain with God! Borne up by your supplications, I advance to an earnest conflict with the hard hearts of the unsaved. Yet the sermon will not be altogether and only for the unbelieving, for, alas, even in God’s people there is a measure of unbelief and deafness of ear. Even God’s children do not hear their Father’s voice so readily as they should!
We are sometimes so taken up with other things that God speaks again and again and we do not regard Him. The still small voice of His love is too apt to be altogether unheeded while the thunders of this world’s traffic fill our ears. Take heed, therefore, Brothers and Sisters, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Lest this should be the case, let each of us take home to himself so much of what shall be spoken as may fairly be applicable to himself and let us all hear God saying to us, even to us, “Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart, as in the provocation.”
Let us come at once to the text. The simple plan of our speaking this morning shall at once be laid before you. We have here, first, a time specified—the Holy Spirit says, “Today.” Secondly, a voice to be regarded—“If you will hear His voice.” And then, thirdly, an evil to be dreaded, against which we are warned—“harden not your heart.” There is a sad tendency in man to harden his heart even when God speaks and, therefore, the Holy Spirit says to us, “Harden not your heart, as in the provocation.”
I. First, then, THE TIME SPECIFIED—“Today if you will hear His voice.” This is the uniform time and tense of the Holy Spirit’s exhortations. He says nothing about tomorrow, except to forbid our boasting of it, since we know not
what a day shall bring forth. All His instructions are set to the time and tune of “Today, today, today.” He speaks of pressing and immediate necessities requiring to be supplied “today” and of urgent duties which must be fulfilled “today.” He says, “Consecrate yourselves, today, to the Lord.” “I command you this thing today.” “Son, go work today in my vineyard.” Therefore, “Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart.” “Today” is a time of obligation. Every man is under a present necessity as a subject of God to obey his Lord, today, and having rebelled against his God, every sinner is under law to repent of sin today!