Today Is the Day of Salvation (Deut. 26-31)

I am not a math person (ask any of the myriad of English students who have taken tests that didn't add up to 100 or whose papers I have graded over the years), but I have a really smart phone now that tells me stuff, and I can check my math. And honestly, there is some simple math that I can do. What I do know is that I am 53+ years old. I heard Christ’s call on my life when I was 12, so for more than forty years I have followed Him. The problem is I have not always followed Him well. I have struggled, wandered off fell, hurt myself, called out for help, and He has faithfully rescued this undeserving sheep from a wilderness of my own making more than once. He has done what I cannot do for myself. I have now spent more than forty years sojourning in a place not my home while seeking one that is yet to come. I can relate to the length of 40 years. It feels terribly long at times and terrifyingly short at others.

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The children of Israel that God used Moses to lead from Egypt spent forty years wandering in a desert seeking home. Forty years of failing to find it. Forty years of todays, roughly 14,600 of them. Each day full of new promise and failed hope. Each day failing to bring what they most desired and sought after—a kingdom to call their own—not God Himself; they wanted what they wanted, and they wanted it more than they wanted God’s offer of salvation. "Not today,” was each day’s response to the invitation to enter in to His rest. Miraculously delivered, divinely fed, amazingly watered, remarkably clothed, spectacularly preserved, yet they chose wrongly over and over and over and over again. And they failed to enter His rest. 

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I do not want to fail to enter His rest. Ever. I am not who I used to be, but I know He is still working on me; I am not yet who or what I will be, and I am learning still, struggling still as I sojourn, but I am walking out this life with less angst and more joy and delight in just being with Jesus. More joy in the journey (although, trust me, some days start slowly and are still struggles) of eternal life that has already begun through His work of salvation in me. He provides the grace. He does the work. He prepares the food, gives the water, green pastures for rest. He calls out to me, urging me on through His word. He graciously gives the Spirit, the life within me, and it is this that is my hope of future spent worshiping HIm. I am learning to worship. I “hear and [am learning] to fear the LORD [my] God” while on this journey (Deut. 31:13). He has put a song in my heart that overflows to my lips. I need the songs grooved into my should to remind me; it is a struggle for me to stay focused. I may often act the stupid sheep, but I am His sheep, and I know His voice when He calls my away from my sin and back to the fold. I want to be made well. I want to bring Him glory. (Be patient, y’all!)

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As I read through the end of Deuteronomy again this morning, I notice over and over again the use of the word today. Today—24 hours; 1,440 minutes; 86,400 seconds to choose to do what God has commanded. Deuteronomy 26-31 shows the children of Israel as sheep being led by their appointed shepherd with God Himself guiding him through a contained desert wilderness after being brought out of Egypt, yet even after 40 years— 350,400 hours; 21,024,000 minutes; 1,261,440,000 seconds of grumbling and complaining and looking back and longing for things instead of the God who gives them—they failed to understand. Moses speaks this to them on the today that they are reminded of the blessings and curses that go with the choices they have before them as they enter into the Promised Land (rest) that their mothers and fathers failed to enter: 

You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. But to this day the LORD has not give you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. (Deut. 29:2-4, ESV)

The metaphor of sheep crops up often in the Bible. Sheep don’t have trouble going astray—they do so naturally (“All like sheep have gone astray,” Is. 53:6 says, each turning “to his own way”), but when they stray they must have a shepherd who goes and brings them back. They don’t just wander back in hungry and tired—they go off and get themselves killed or eaten or hopelessly lost. That is the picture to hold in your head. Sheep are not the smartest critters out there.

The analogy continues as God offers people green pastures spiritually. Eating from them is not too hard to do because He has provided everything for us. Drinking from the plenteous supplies of water is not hard because He is our living water. Yet sheep-like people continually choose to stray.

God tells His people in Deuteronomy through Moses that the commandment to turn to the LORD their God with all of their heart and soul “is not too hard” for them and neither is it “far off”; rather, “the word is very near [them]—in [their] mouth and in [their] heart, so that [they] CAN do it” (30:10-14–emphasis mine).

No less than sixteen times in chapters 26-31 of Deuteronomy, Moses speaks the word today to the people, highlighting the urgency of the choices they have before them and the consequences of disobedience if they turn aside from God. God is not unreasonable in His requests. They are unreasonable in choosing not to follow Him in their own selfishness.

Today. 

In a parable Jesus relates to his disciples, He is the Good Shepherd who goes in the gate leading His sheep who follow His voice (Jn. 10:2). God is the gatekeeper holding open the gate to make sure that only those who come in the gate, which incidentally Jesus also says He is (Jn. 10:9) are actually His sheep, those who have gone astray and been called back, following the One true shepherd, Jesus, the only begotten Son of God who “lays down His life for the sheep” (Jn. 10:11). God then closes the door, keeping out the others, protecting the ones that He has given to Jesus. 

Jesus calls Himself the gate twice (v. 7, 9) and the good shepherd twice (v. 11, 14). God holds open the door for Jesus to bring in His sheep just as He held open the door of the ark long enough for Noah’s family to enter in. Then He closed it. He will close the gate of heaven one day. That’s why today is the day of salvation, all 24 hours of it that are yet to come; the 1,440 minutes of it that are remaining; the 86,400 seconds not already spent. It is urgent. Time is short regardless of how long one lives.

Psalms 95:7-8 also speaks of the urgency of remembering God today if He is speaking to us lest our hearts grow cold to His call: “He is our God, and we are the sheep of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” as the children of Israel did in the wilderness. Like Psalms,  2 Corinthians 6:2 also speaks urgently, reminding us that today is “the acceptable time . . .the day of salvation.” Tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us. (Check out the desperation of disobedience that God gives the children of Israel in the curses of Deut. 28. It's not pretty!) The next second or minute is not guaranteed either. We will be held accountable for our choices after we leave this life. We are eternal creatures. Eternity is a long time to regret the choices made while on this earth without the benefit of repenting from them before we die. Once we die, the choice is no longer ours, and the heart stays in its condition—whether that’s regenerate or unregenerate.

None of us knows when the vapor of our lives here will end, only God does, who has already numbered our hairs and our days. Our job is to listen to the voice of our shepherd as He leads us through this wilderness sojourn we call life and follow Him wherever He leads us for however long each part of our journey lasts, always obeying His voice. 

Will we sin/stray? Yes! We are definitely human and like sheep, we tend to do stupid things and wander off the path at times, but Jesus is a good shepherd who knows His own sheep and will leave the 99 to go find the one He will not allow to stay lost. By God’s grace and mercy, Jesus calls out to us and we have ears to hear and respond and return (repenting of our sin) to the keeper of our souls, the Good Shepherd, 

Jesus.

He is enough. 

Today remember what He has done to earn our salvation for us, keeping a law we could not keep, dying a death we could not die, and rising again triumphant over death, hell, and the grave, which we definitely could not do. Hang on to the truth today as we look to the resurrection of our LORD Jesus Christ and celebrate His victory that gives us life. 

Jesus. 

He is all.