95
📚Oh come, let us sing to the LORD!
Let us make a joyful sound
to the rock of our salvation!
2 📚Let us come before his presence
with thanksgiving,
and make a joyful sound to him
with psalms.
95:1-2 Judging from Heb 4:7 David wrote this psalm. Of course, the true author of this psalm (and all the Psalms) is God’s Holy Spirit (see Heb 3:7; 2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:21). There are three interwoven themes in this psalm – a call to worship the true God, reasons why His people should worship Him, and a warning against hardening our hearts. Joy, singing, and worship are natural results of a proper spiritual relationship with God (Ps 66:1-2; 81:1; Eph 5:19-20). True worship is not in mere outward form; it flows from a heart made right with God (John 4:23-24).⚜
3 📚For the LORD is
the great God,
and the great King above
all gods.
4 📚In his hand are
the deep places of the earth;
the heights of the hills also
are his.
5 📚The sea is his,
and he made it;
and his hands formed the dry
land.
6 📚Oh come, let us worship
and bow down!
Let us kneel before the LORD
our maker!
7 📚For he is our God,
and we are the people
of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
Today if you will hear his voice,
95:3-7 The writer gives good reasons why God’s people should worship Him. He knew that they needed encouragement and exhortation to do what they should do. The reasons he gives for worship are these:
Jehovah God is great, therefore He is greatly worthy of worship;
He is the King of the universe, higher than all else that is called god;
He is the Creator of the world and mankind – the rivers, hills, and mountains where other gods are sometimes worshiped were all made by Him;
He has a special relationship to His people – they can say “He is our God, we are His people, His sheep under His care”.
Surely these are sufficient reasons why His people should sing to Him joyfully and praise Him with heart, soul, mind, and strength.⚜
8 📚“Do not harden your heart,
as in the time of provocation,
and as in the day
of testing in the wilderness,
9 📚When your fathers tested me,
put me on trial, and saw my work.
10 📚Forty years long I was grieved
with that generation,
and said,
‘It is a people who go astray
in their heart,
and they have not known my ways’;
95:10 On God’s anger against them see Num 14:26-35; Josh 5:6; Acts 13:18; Heb 3:10, 17. They habitually went astray – they were wanderers both in the desert and in heart. Wandering in heart came first. If they had not wandered away from God there they would not have had to wander in the desert. Above all things men should keep their hearts – Prov 4:23. If we go astray in our hearts we will go astray in everything.⚜
11 📚To whom I swore in my wrath
that they would not enter my rest”.
95:8-11 Now he gives a severe warning. But what connection does it have with the foregoing exhortation to joyfully worship God? It seems to be this: if God’s people are reluctant to worship Him, if there is no longer any joy in His presence or any recognition of His greatness and goodness, it indicates a hardening of their hearts. There may be danger of them becoming like their ancestors in the desert who continually murmured and complained against God, but rarely worshiped Him with joy. For Meribah and Massah see Ex 17:2-7; Num 20:13; Deut 6:16. Meribah means quarreling, Massah means testing. In the desert Israel tested God instead of trusting Him – Ps 78:18; Num 14:22; 1 Cor 10:9.⚜
95:11 Carefully observe the result of hardness of heart and the unbelief which accompanies it.⚜