God and the Turn of the Year

The day of provocation: an expression which hangs like a heavy cloud over our text, a term which leads us back to the Old Testament story. The day of provocation refers to the bitterness of Israel against the Lord, who was leading them to the land of promise. Graciously Jehovah had led them out of the land of bondage, but in bitterness they demanded the bread of Egypt.

Majestically He had revealed Himself at Sinai; yet when Moses delayed to return from the mount, the people provoked the Lord by worshipping the golden calf.

Thus they continued. At Kadesh they refused to enter the land which the Lord would give them. Disgruntled with the past, fearful of the future, they became a prey to the subversive agitation of doubters. When God commanded that they go forward in His Name, they rebelled.

How long would God tolerate this condition? He said: “Because all those men which have seen My glory, and My miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not harkened to My voice; surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it.” So many thousands had left Egypt, yet of all of them only two entered Canaan, plus a new generation. The others fell on the journey, not the victims of a superior armed force, but brought low by their provocation of the Lord.

A similar refusal may prevent us from entering into rest. For example: Lot’s wife went from Sodom, but never came to Zoar. The present closing of the year reminds us that we are sojourners on earth. But have we become pilgrims on earth, seeking the continuing city? We have reached another mile-post in our existence, and the Lord is commanding us to proceed in His Name. Have we heard His voice in the time that has passed? May He grant us grace not to provoke Him through unbelief and the deceitfulness of sin! If He so drastically excluded Israel’s soldiers from the promised land when they refused to

heed His warning and accept His aid, how much more would we incur His wrath by rejecting His spiritual ministrations to lead us by grace into the eternal Canaan! We shall do well to ponder the earnest New Year’s Eve admonition offered in the text: “Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”

Today — how relentlessly time surges on! Today — a brief moment, never to return. Today — a priceless gift of the Lord, not to be squandered. Soon there will be no more “todays.” The month of December reminds us of this flight of time. Another year of God’s grace has passed. Soon He who now pleads with you will judge you. There is no time to be lost. Tomorrow it may be too late. “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” Repentance is necessary. There may be no tomorrow.

How insistently the Lord has called us in the past, particularly during the year now drawing to a close. He deals with us as He did with the children of Israel of old. Almost like a refrain the words in the Book of Judges 4:1,2: “and the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord... and the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, King of Canaan,” runs through Israel’s history.

Is Israel’s sin ours? Is Israel’s history ours? We have turned our backs to the Lord. How many in our nations ruin their bodies and souls with drugs? How many use abortions because they do not desire any or more children? How many choose to break their marriage or to live together without marriage? How many misuse God’s holy Sabbath?

Although thus far we are not openly at war with other nations, we are given over to all kinds of sins, and God’s punishment rests upon us. Many of us have lost dear ones because of heart-trouble, cancer, and other ailments. Many of us have been called through illness. Not everyone was bedridden for months, but every sickness and weakness of body is a call from God not to place our confidence in health or strength, but rather to hear His voice and not to harden our hearts.

Perhaps the Lord has called us through various reverses: financial setbacks, loss of position, unemployment, or betrayal by friends. These bring to us the voice of God. By letting His hand rest heavily upon us, the Lord tries to convince us that He is the living Cod: the living God who requires that our consciences be purified from dead works; who demands that we serve Him alone. His wrath overtakes all who apostatize; into His hands it is dreadful to fall in an unrepentant state.

He has urged us through the words of Holy Scripture in your homes, in the churches.

Today we have the message: “But exhort one another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13). Oh, at the end of the year 1986 we beg you: Harden not your heart, but humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Today, as you hear the solemn words of our text applied to you, heed His call. May God give us to plead guilty and to seek divine pardon.

At the end of the year 1986 we beg you: Harden not your

heart, but humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.

Over against the warning voice of God, powerful forces are at work to nullify the effect of His words! Sin would plug our ears so that hearing, we hear not. Don’t forget that by nature we have an evil heart, which is ever seeking to arouse doubt in our minds. The devil says: Don’t believe the Bible. And our heart and mind, without the grace of God, like to satisfy their own desires. The deceitfulness of sin is so powerful. By this is meant the temptations that approach us. Be it the temptation to anger which caused Cain to cast the Lord’s warning to the wind; be it for God’s child the temptation to deny our faith, such as made Peter to forget the Lord’s voice; be it the lust of passion such as let David drown out the admonition of the Lord not to sin with Bathsheba; be it temptation of any kind, it is deceitful to picture sin as something good and to be desired, and the Lord’s words as something of little worth and to be disregarded.

These same forces have approached you and me during the past year, endeavoring to keep us from following the Savior’s warning, not to harden our hearts as Israel did in the wilderness. How loudly did not the Lord have to call us to repentance to be heard above the sin of unbelief and the deceitfulness of sin!

We are expressly warned not to depart from the living God! We can have the name “Christian,” but are we by faith a follower of Christ? It is for us to consider our condition now when we are soon to step out of this year. To this end God has been calling you, is still calling you: “Repent; harden not your hearts.”

The admonition not to harden our hearts, however, cannot give you the power to heed this admonition, if only the law with its demands and threats is preached to you. The Lord issues no bare warning, but to conclude the old year and enter the new, not in a fatal hardening of hearts but to learn to beg if He will reveal the way of salvation in the gracious offer of Christ. At the end of the year may it be our need to learn to become partakers of Christ. Without our merit, we must learn that only in Him is full salvation — to know by grace (and that is an incomprehensible wonder) that for the sake of the only Savior we can by faith see what it is to have peace with God. He is the Vine and we have to become the branches.

The precious gift of grace, necessary for now and the unknown future, is to be received only in the way of losing the battle against a holy and righteous God. Carnal security will cause you to lose footing and fall. To avoid such tragedy, God has provided us with the means so that He can preserve us unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ on the clouds of heaven.

He has given many warnings and also the preaching and reading of His precious Word and testimony. He can work faith in our hearts and teach us more and more that the lowest place is the best place. In Christ alone is safety and security for the coming year, and even for the day when we are called out of this world to appear before a holy and righteous God. Only in Him is safety! May God give at the end of the year to beg for that faith that Christ has earned on the cross.

He can give us to seek Him, and to learn that He alone can preserve us unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the clouds of heaven. By the light of the Holy Spirit He can teach us to mourn because of our sins and wrong behavior in 1986.

Soon 1986 will come to an end; a little longer, and this year of grace will be no more. And after a brief span of time there will be no more time.

“Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” Today God warns us most insistently to repent of our sins. Today He speaks also about the possibility to be saved as an empty-handed beggar. Oh, the promise of grace for a poor sinner is so wonderful! If you may learn to bow your knees, even at the end of this year, God is merciful and can give what we have not deserved.

As we enter upon the new year, we are taking a road which we have not gone before. God’s children may be a little comforted, knowing by faith: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Therefore, come what may, only in Christ we are safe for time and eternity — also in the year of our Lord 1987.

May the Lord give begging hearts and a need to know by faith that the born Christ is the only source of salvation. Amen.

Rev. A. W. Verhoef is pastor of the Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Chilliwack, British Columbia.

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