PSALM
95
WORSHIP
AND WARNING
INTRODUCTION: The author of this psalm is not named, but
some commentators believe it could have been written by David to be used in
celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, sometimes called the Feast of Booths.
During this celebration, the worshippers constructed temporary dwellings
(booths) and lived in them for a specified amount of time in order to remember
how God provided for the people during the wilderness wanderings. Much later,
Nehemiah remembered God’s care for them as well:
Nehemiah
9:21 Indeed, forty years You provided for them in the wilderness and they were
not in want; Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell.
Psalm 95 begins with a call to worship the Lord for all He
has done and ends with a warning that they not be rebellious like their
ancestors had been in the wilderness.
Psalm
95:1 O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock
of our salvation.
Susie: John Michael Talbot recorded a great setting
of portions of this psalm. I would love to open a worship service using his
song. You can listen to it here:
Susie: I enjoy singing praises to our Lord, but
there is provision here for a joyful noise.
Susan: Thank You, Lord, from those of us who lift
our exuberant, praise-filled noises to You!
Susie: There is a historical connation to
referring to the Lord as “rock of our salvation” because Jesus was the rock
from which the Lord caused water to flow in order to quench the Israelites
physical thirst and save their lives in the wilderness.
Susan: For the New Testament believers, this has
spiritual significance in having our identity in the Rock of our salvation.
Susie: It is upon the Rock, Jesus, that we build
the foundation for our lives as the wise man builds his house on the physical
rock, sturdy and immovable.
Matthew 7:24Therefore
whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto
a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
Susan: Jesus is The Rock whom we worship and
praise, and if we fail to do so, the physical, earthly rocks will cry out
praises to Him in our place.
Luke 19:40 And he answered and
said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones
would immediately cry out.
Psalm
95:2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise
unto him with psalms.
Susan: We are to approach the Lord with a heart
of humility and thankfulness, not with our hand out but with our hearts turned
upward toward Him.
Susie: The Israelites would be thanking God for
their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, their preservation in the wilderness
wanderings, their ability to conquer the inhabitants of Canaan and occupy the
Promised Land. The psalmist reminds them to come before God remembering all the
things He had done for them.
Susan: Every believer has a story with God of
deliverance and provision for which to be thankful. God tells us to thank him
for everything, which includes the difficulties and trials of life.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 In
everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you.
Ephesians 5:19-21 Speaking to
yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the
Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another
in the fear of God.
Susan: We need to define “psalms.” Is that
limited to the book of psalms or is it more?
Susie: Psalms were worship song with lyrics set
to music and usually accompanied with instruments. In that sense, worship
music, any music with lyrics that glorify God can be psalms.
Psalm
95:3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
Susan: The Lord our God is large and in charge.
He is sovereign over all the earth.
Susie: Since He is the only true God, the creator
of everything, He is definitely greater than the false gods of all the nations,
the idols they worshiped who could do nothing.
Jeremiah 10:5 Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their
idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear
them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.”
Psalm
95:4-5 In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills
is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.
Susie: By listing the extremes, the low places
and the high, the wet and the dry, the psalmist is poetically stating that God
is the Creator of everything, earth and sky.
Psalm
95:6-7a O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our
maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep
of his hand.
Susan: Bowing and kneeling are positions of
submission and humility. We are to submit to the Lord’s will and destiny for
each of us.
Susie: We humbly acknowledge that we are sheep,
not very bright and in need of a Shepherd. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, provides
us pasture, food for our souls. We hear His voice and we follow Him wherever He
leads.
John 10:11 I am the good
shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
John 10:27-28 My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
28 And I give unto them
eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out
of my hand.
Psalm
95:7b-9 Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart, as in the
provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your
fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.
Susan: The psalmist begins a warning to the
Israelites to not follow in the footsteps of their ancestors who rebelled
against the Lord in unbelief. What had the Lord done or failed to do that they
would not trust Him to provide for them?
Susie: Let’s list a few of the Lord’s wondrous
works on their behalf:
·
God
had brought them to Egypt as a small band of 70 people, one man, his children,
their children and those who worked for them in order to rescue them from a
severe famine (Exodus 1:5).
·
He
multiplied them to become a nation of over 600,000 men, probably over 2,000,000
people all together (Exodus 12:37-38).
·
When a
new Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites, He preserved Moses from being slaughtered
as a baby and later appeared to him in a burning but not consumed bush to lead
them (Exodus 2-3).
·
God
sent 10 miraculous plagues to convince Pharaoh to let His people go (Exodus
7-12)
·
When
Pharaoh’s army pinned them against the Red Sea, He not only parted the sea for
them to walk on dry land but then drowned Pharaoh’s entire army when the walls
of water came crashing down (Exodus 14-15)
·
God
had provided manna as their bread to sustain them, raining it down from heaven
every day but the Sabbath. He provided quails for meat. (Exodus 16)
Susan: All this, and they have the audacity to
doubt that God can provide the water necessary for them and their cattle. They
were more stubborn than mules! The story of this rebellion, this lack of faith,
can be found in Exodus 17:1-7.
Susie: This was the first instance of God
bringing forth water from solid rock! Believe it or not, there was a second
time they demanded water toward the end of their wandering in the wilderness
for forty years. They were slooooooow learners.
Psalm
95:10-11 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a
people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I
sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.
Susan: No wonder God was incensed and irate. He
had every right to completely consume them.
Susie: What God did was allow an entire
generation to die off wandering around in the wilderness during which time they
continued to have and raise children who would one day inherit the land their parents
would never be allowed to see.
Susan: They chose not to enter the Promised Land
due to their doubt and unbelief that God could safely get them there in the
face of overwhelming evidence that God was trustworthy and capable.
Susie: The writer of Hebrews under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit compared the Israelites wanting to abdicate the
trip to the Holy Land and return to Egypt to those Jewish Christians who wanted
to leave their faith and return to the law, to Judaism. A portion of this psalm
is quoted in Hebrews 3:7-11. Read the entire passage through Hebrews 4:10 to
see the application to early Jewish believers.
QUESTIONS
1.
Singing
or even reading hymns and songs assists in bringing us into worship. Have you
ever begun your daily quiet time with a hymn? If not, try it. Write about your
experience.
2.
Do you
have time set aside in your daily calendar to thank God for his faithful
provision? Take a moment right now to list some things for which you are
thankful. Pray and thank the Lord.
3.
Meditate
on verses 3-7a of Psalm 95. Write a few sentences about God as Creator and
Sustainer.
4.
This
psalm warns the people not to be like their ancestors in the wilderness with
hardened hearts. Are there any erroneous attitudes you need to give up concerning
the Lord? Reading the Bible and praying with thanksgiving DAILY enables us to
know what God desires. Have you committed to spending time with God?
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