15b Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
Today, not tomorrow! Now, not later! Nothing is said in this verse about tomorrow. To God’s people, every day is an opportunity from God to know His will and fulfil it. How they respond each day to the Lord matters! They are warned against hardening their hearts towards the Lord and against provoking Him to displeasure.
A new day of defiance would mean another day of aggravation and provocation of the just wrath of God. However, His gracious voice today extends another opportunity for all the defiant ones to repent and escape His wrath. It is for our sakes that He exhorts us to obey His voice without delay. Our hesitation to obey His voice is a serious violation of His sovereign authority and utter contempt for His gracious voice.
Often the Lord protested and lamented Israel’s unwillingness to listen to God’s voice. For instance, in Psalm 81:11-13, He said, “But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!” While Jesus was here on earth, He told His Jewish hearers, quoting the prophet Isaiah, “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15).
Like Israel of old, many in our modern-day church despise and reject God’s voice, and squander the mercy and the opportunity He has extended to them. They are also dull of hearing. Mercy upon mercy has been shown by the Lord, but they repeatedly despise and reject them. They seem to be hearing, but they would not yield.
Have you been turning a deaf ear to the Lord’s voice against your sins? If you put off your repentance to another day, your sins will linger and abound that many days more, while opportunities of that many days would have been lost on you. Do not make your heart callous anymore! Do not flee from His presence to ungodly company! He is calling you. So, today is a very favoured day; seize this opportunity and turn to the Lord.