Prolog

What Is “TODAY” to God?

“TODAY” is God’s unique ability to know and have the control of the beginning of the age through the end of the successive ages.

Hebrews 3:12-13 [Therefore beware] brethren, take care, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to cleave to, trust in, and rely on Him], leading you to turn away and desert or stand aloof from the living God. 13 But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem {ruse, ploy}, the trickery which the delusive {misleading} glamor of his sin may play on him]. AMP

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages {from beginning to the end}] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible. AMP

This study, “The MYSTERY of the SUCCESSIVE AGES of MAN REVEALED” is an overview and composite of God’s foreknown and predestined plans for a person’s life from BEFORE the successive ages of time and history began through this current time and place in history. Then it continues with our judgment which will either reveal our future in eternity with God as a “Born Again True Believer” or in Hell for all of eternity as a Make Believer/Unbeliever/sinner. God views these successive ages as His timeline for “TODAY” because He can see and knows the end from the beginning – He is able to see the ENTIRE BIG picture of His creation at one time.

Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end and the result from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure and purpose, AMP

For more information on God’s ability to make things happen in His creation according to His timeline, click on the following link: www.http://mysteryworldview.com/mystery/2016/12/20/godrevealed/

As I study the Bible, I have come to realize that Its use of the word “TODAY” is how God views the ENTIRE TOTAL PICTURE of His creation from the beginning to the end of His foreknown and predestined plans, and because He can do this to Him every day is always “TODAY!” Please think about this analogy for yourself! Yesterday is GONE! Tomorrow is NOT PROMISED! In reality, all you/I really have is “TODAY”/NOW. We need to be praying to God to reveal to us His overview of “TODAY” so that we can be on our right lines on our page in His Book of Life bringing to fruition His foreknown and predestined plans for us to truly worship and serve Him in spirit and truth! Carefully read the following texts from the Book of Hebrews Chapter 3 and in particular Chapter 4 verses 7-11 to understand the scope of “TODAY” and how it applies through the successive ages to man. In the following texts, God the Holy Spirit reminds Israel about His testing of them in time and place in history, BUT His SAME counsel applies to us “True Believing Christians” for “TODAY!” Following is God’s view of “TODAY:”

Hebrews 3:7-19 {Israel,} Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, {NOW} if you will hear His voice, 8 Do not harden your hearts, as [happened] in the rebellion [of Israel] and their provocation {goading} and embitterment {showing intense hostility} [of Me] in the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 Where your fathers tried [My patience] and tested [My forbearance] and found I stood their test, and they saw My works for forty years. 10 And so I was provoked (displeased and sorely grieved) with that generation, and said, They always err and are led astray in their hearts, and they have not perceived or recognized My ways and become progressively better and more experimentally {realistically} and intimately acquainted with them {i.e. they have not matured in their worship and service of God}. 11 Accordingly, I swore in My wrath and indignation, They shall not enter into My rest {into eternity with Me}. [Ps 95:7-11.] 12 [Therefore beware] brethren, take care, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to cleave to, trust in, and rely on Him], leading you to turn away and desert or stand aloof from the living God. 13 But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem {ruse/ploy}, the trickery which the delusive glamor of his sin may play on him].
14 For we {“True Believers”} have become fellows with Christ (the Messiah) and share in all He has for us, if only we hold our first newborn confidence and original assured expectation [in virtue of which we are believers] firm and unshaken to the end. 15 Then while it is [still] called Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion [in the desert, when the people provoked and irritated and embittered God against them]. [Ps 95:7, 8.] 16 For who were they who heard and yet were rebellious and provoked [Him] {His People – The Jews of the Old Testament.}? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was He irritated and provoked and grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dismembered bodies were strewn and left in the desert? 18 And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed [who had not listened to His word and who refused to be compliant or be persuaded]? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter [into His {eternal} rest], because of their unwillingness to adhere to and trust in and rely on God [unbelief had shut them out {only a few received eternal life with God – Hebrews 11:39-40}]. [Num 14:1-35.] AMP

Hebrews 4:7-13 Again He {God} sets a definite day {BUT a DIFFERENT day/time in the successive ages} [a new] Today, [and gives another opportunity of securing that rest {being with God for all of eternity}] saying through David after so long a time in the words already quoted, Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts. [Ps 95:7, 8.] 8 [This mention of a rest {your being with God for ALL of eternity} was not a reference to their entering into Canaan.] For if Joshua had given them rest, He [God] would not speak afterward about another day {This is God’s omniscience – His ability to see and know ALL things at ALL times in advance!}. 9 So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the [true] people of God; 10 For he who has once entered [God’s] rest {physically died} also has ceased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own. [Gen 2:2.] 11 Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell]. {Paul also shared with us this same thought:}
Philippians 2:12b … work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) {during your lifetime} your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ). AMP

12 For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart. 13 And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, naked and defenseless to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do {Again, we see God’s omniscient ability to know and see EVERYTHING about ALL things at ONCE!!!}. AMP

Let’s compare the way God wants us to look at His “TODAY” and what it takes for us to get to be with Him for all of eternity versus the way the “god of this world” with his kingdoms of the world wants us to look at its “today.” Remember, jobs/toiling provides the money to provide for us to have the necessities for us to live in this world, BUT “the love of money” is the root of all evil” which will hinder many Christians from entering His rest. Do NOT allow yourself to be caught up in Satan’s schemes and his never ending deception of portraying and enticing us with the kingdoms of the world and the things of this world! Following is Satan’s limited worldly view for you for his “today:”

James 4:13-17 Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and spend a year there and carry on our business and make money. 14 Yet you do not know [the least thing] about what may happen tomorrow. What is the nature of your life? You are [really] but a wisp of vapor (a puff of smoke, a mist) that is visible for a little while and then disappears [into thin air].
15 {For the truly “Born Again”} You ought instead to say, If the Lord is willing, we shall live and we shall do this or that [thing]. 16 But as it is, you boast [falsely] in your presumption {brashness} and your self-conceit {HEY, TAKE A LOOK AT ME!!!}. All such boasting is wrong. 17 So any person who knows what is right to do but does not do it, to him it is sin. AMP
1 Timothy 6:10-11 For the love of money is a root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have been led astray and have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves through with many acute [mental] pangs {their conscience accusing them, but they continue on sinning anyway [Romans 2:15]}. 11 But as for you, O man of God, flee from all these things; aim at and pursue righteousness (right standing with God and true goodness), godliness (which is the loving fear of God and being Christ-like), faith, love, steadfastness (patience), and gentleness of heart. AMP

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love or cherish the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him {or “love of the Father is not in him” – NASB, KJV, NKJV, NIV}. 16 For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh [craving for sensual gratification] and the lust of the eyes [greedy longings of the mind] and the pride of life [assurance in one’s own resources or in the stability of earthly things] — these do not come from the Father but are from the world [itself]. 17 And the world passes away and disappears, and with it the forbidden cravings (the passionate desires, the lust) of it; but he who does the will of God and carries out His purposes in his life abides (remains) forever. AMP

2 Corinthians 2:11 To keep Satan from getting the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his wiles and intentions {schemes}. AMP