Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Reflections on Psalms 95

 Psalms 95(Contemporary English Version)
  1. Sing joyful songs to the LORD! Praise the mighty rock where we are safe.
  2. Come to worship him with thankful hearts and songs of praise.
  3. The LORD is the greatest God, king over all other gods.
  4. He holds the deepest part of the earth in his hands, and the mountain peaks belong to him.
  5. The ocean is the Lord's because he made it, and with his own hands he formed the dry land.
  6. Bow down and worship the LORD our Creator!
  7. The LORD is our God, and we are his people, the sheep he takes care of in his own pasture. Listen to God's voice today!
  8. Don't be stubborn and rebel as your ancestors did at Meribah and Massah out in the desert.
  9. For forty years they tested God and saw the things he did.
  10. Then God got tired of them and said, "You never show good sense, and you don't understand what I want you to do."
  11. In his anger, God told them, "You people will never enter my place of rest."

Psalm 95 opens with a call to worship the Lord who is sovereign over every force, real or imagined. He is sovereign over the earth and the sea and the mountains, for He has made them. And He is sovereign over any so-called god that man can imagine. In other words, He is greater than we can even imagine. Therefore, whenever God doesn't meet up to our expectations it is because our imaginations are not great enough to comprehend Him. So we are called by the psalmist to "Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our Maker." (95:6)

Lest any are tempted to ignore this call to worship the Lord, the psalmist gives a reminder of what happened to the unbelievers in Israel during their journey to their land of promise. Even though the Israelites had seen the Lord perform mighty works on their behalf, they tested the Lord wanting Him to keep proving Himself to them. The Lord finally had enough and He "swore in My anger, 'They will not enter My rest.'" (95:11) As a result they were not allowed to enter the land of promise.

We are to remember that "He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the sheep under His care." (95:7) So when He calls to us we are not to harden our hearts as the Israelites did at Massah in the wilderness with the result that they did not enter the Lord's rest, meaning they did not enter the promised land. A similar warning is given to Christians in Hebrews 3:7-11. In this passage the writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95:7-11 and then adds, "Watch out, brothers, so that there won't be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that departs from the living God. But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin's deception. " (Hebrews 3:12-13)

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