Psalm 95
Welcome or warning, which will it be? This is the challenge for you and for me. Those who would welcome Him: no longer strangers. Turn from His warnings and face your great dangers. Listen, oh listen! Escape from distress. Turn from His voice and you will not find rest.
Psalm 95 begins with a heart-warming, worshipful welcome and ends with a warning. It begins “O come let us sing unto the Lord!” and concludes with “They shall not enter into my rest.” It begins with an invitation to come to the Lord; it concludes with lingering caution to insensitive hearts.
Worshiping the Lord with a welcoming heart, 1-7a
Appealing to others to join you in using your voices to praise the Lord, 1-2
“O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.” When humans gather to sing together, there is a feeling of camaraderie. Remember when you sang the national anthem at a patriotic event?
But believers sing not to their land, but to their Lord. We have the joy of honoring the Lord with our voices. Together, in likeminded joy, we can honor the Rock of our salvation – our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. In Spirit-filled unity, we can come together in His Presence, giving thanks and singing the psalms together. Come let us all now joyfully sing to our great Savior, Lord, and King! The Rock of our salvation strong, with thanks and praise we lift our song. Why would we do this? That question is answered in verses 3-5.
Adoring the Lord as our great God and King, and the Creator of all things, 3-5
For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 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.
Great is our God, our Lord and great King! With His strong hand He made all things:
The depths of earth, the mountain heights, the land, the sea, all show us His might.
Whether it is the Marianas Trench, the deepest spot under the sea – nearly 7 miles deep – or Mt. Everest at 29,032 feet, our Lord made all of these. Our great Creator formed that land on which His creatures dwell. The Atlantic consists of 41.1 million square miles of ocean. But the Atlantic is dwarfed by the Pacific, which consists of 63.8 million square miles of ocean. The Earth’s oceans cover more than 70% of the globe.
Can you make water out of nothing? Can you make dry land out of nothingness? Can you cause volcanos to spew out hot lava that forms rock and islands and break down the soil so that plants and birds and animals can dwell there? Now stop to consider the Creator, our Great God and Great King. In His hand are deep places such as the Marianas Trench and mountains such as Everest. He made the seas. He made the land. This is why we should come before His Presence with joyful singing today.
Appealing to others to humble themselves before the Lord God, our Shepherd, 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…”
Come let us worship, humbly bow before our Lord and Maker now. We are His people, He our God; He guides us with His staff and rod. The Lord is the Maker of His flock and the Master of His flock. He is our Shepherd and we are His sheep. This is why we should come together and worship Him, bowing down. Let us kneel before our Maker. He is our Great Shepherd.
Perhaps the Apostle Paul had Psalm 95 in mind when he wrote, “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:” (Colossians 1:27-28) As believers, we have the joy of being able to say, “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever!” We proclaim Jesus Christ – crucified for our sins on the cross of Calvary. We proclaim that Jesus Christ who died the sinner’s death that each of us deserved. We proclaim that same Lord Jesus risen bodily from the grave. We join together to sing of Him – the Rock of our salvation.
Warning those who will not welcome the Lord with worship, 7b-11
“… 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. 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 swore in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.”
To whom is this warning addressed?
It is addressed to those who will hear the Lord’s words today. Will you open your heart and really listen closely to the Words of Scripture? If you are unwilling to listen to Him, then this warning is also for you. If you will not welcome the Words of the Scripture, then you are warned by the Words of Scripture; you ignore these warnings to your own eternal peril.
What is the warning and how was it illustrated?
The warning is this: do not harden your heart. “Harden” is from a Hebrew word meaning “to make hard.”[i] It is used of Pharaoh’s stubbornness in Exodus 13:15. The root word is used of metal that has been hammered or beaten into shape. In Isaiah 63:10-17, those who rebelled and vexed God’s Spirit were hardened from the fear of the Lord. Like Pharaoh in Exodus 9:34-35, those who harden their hearts will find that the Lord will confirm their hardness – a terrifying prospect (read Exodus chapters 10, 11 and 14).
First Illustration: Meribah and Massah
This hardness of heart is illustrated by the day of rebellion and testing in the wilderness. The words translated as “provocation” and “day of temptation” actually use the place names “Meribah” and “Massah.” At Massah and Meribah, the thirsty people quarreled with Moses and tested the Lord saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?!” (Exodus 17:7). They even insisted that it would be better for them to go back to Egypt, though they had seen His miraculous works. According to Deuteronomy 9:22, the rebellious people of Israel provoked the Lord to wrath. They did not believe that the Lord would provide water for them even if they asked. When Moses did ask, the Lord provided water that gushed forth from the rock to quench the thirst of all the people.
Meribah and Massah were named for the places where the people defied God, refusing to place faith in Him.
We still name places for events such as these in modern history. In 1794, General Anthony Wayne advanced to the confluence of three rivers in northwest Ohio: the Auglaize, the Tiffin and the Maumee. At that time, General Wayne was battling against the British and the eleven Indian tribes in the region. When he reached that location, he established Fort Defiance saying, “I defy the English and the Indians … to take it.” This is how Defiance, Ohio got its name: General Wayne’s declaration of defiance against the enemies of America. But Meribah and Massah testify of defiance against God!
What do hardened hearts look like today? You can see it in the anti-humanity movement. Whole Women’s Health in Fort Worth, Texas recently raced to perform 67 abortions in 17 hours before a Texas law went into effect.[ii] Members of our U.S. Congress have proposed a bill that includes this language: “Reproductive justice seeks to address restrictions on reproductive health, including abortion, that perpetuate systems of oppression, lack of bodily autonomy, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism.” The bill went on to describe these restrictions as “This violent legacy(!)”[iii] Gone are the days when the liberals argued for “safe, legal and rare”[iv] abortions. Now they are neither safe nor rare; their real agenda is that they just want to keep them legal. This is what hardened hearts look like; they are intent on slaughtering innocent infants.
This rebellion can take many forms. According to the Book of Micah, leaders tried to fulfill their own greedy desires with deceit, all the while insisting, “Is not the LORD among us? No evil can come upon us.” For that, the Lord replied that Mount Zion would be plowed like a field and Jerusalem would become a heap of ruins. (Micah 3:11-12)
The Second Illustration/Application
The psalmist may have used Meribah and Massah as classic illustrations of the kind of rebellion that led to the 40 year wilderness wandering. Or he may have been alluding to the events of Numbers 13-14. (For earlier messages on this text, see “Trouble on the Fruited Plain,” parts 1 and 2). Because the people trusted the report of the 10 faithless spies, the Lord sent them wandering in the wilderness for forty years. In Psalm 95, the point is that the Lord was grieved with those people. “Grieved” in verse 10 translates a word that means “loathed” or “despised.” According to one writer, this is the only time in Scripture with the meaning that the Lord loathed the people.[v] Israel was reproached for putting the Lord to the test, but it is the Lord’s “unique privilege” to test Israel.[vi] Every person who hears these words should stop to consider: Is the Lord grieved with the way I am living? Remember: without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Today, if you will hear His voice, do not turn away! Today, if you will hear His voice, do not turn away! Oh hear your Shepherd’s voice today without hard hearts or going astray. If you would find eternal rest, Turn not away, His grace to test.
Psalm 95:9-10 reminded those who sang this psalm that those people had tested the Lord with the unbelief. Though they saw His work, they went astray, refusing to learn His ways. As a result, those rebels never entered the Land of Promise. We usually think of God’s promises as warm and welcoming, but Psalm 95:11 is clearly a warning. So today, you still have a choice. Will you welcome Him with worship? Or will you ignore His warning?
Paraphrase of Psalm 95 (could be sung to the tune of “Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness”)
Come let us all now joyfully sing
To our great Savior, Lord, and King
The Rock of our salvation strong
With thanks and praise we lift our song
Great is our God, our Lord and great King
With His strong hand He made all things
The depths of earth, the mountain heights
The land, the sea, all show us His might
Come let us worship, humbly bow
Before our Lord and Maker now
We are His people, He our God
He guides us with His staff and rod
Oh hear your Shepherd’s voice today
Without hard hearts or going astray
If you would find your soul’s great rest
Turn not away, His grace to test
Pastor Gordon Dickson, Calvary Baptist Church, Findlay, Ohio www.cbcfindlay.org
[i] In the Old Testament, this verb only occurs in the Hiphil, used to describe causative action. So the way it is used here, the person makes his own heart hard.
[ii] Chabelli Carrazana, 67 abortions in 17 hours: Inside a Texas clinic’s race to beat new six-week abortion ban, September 1, 2021 accessed at https://19thnews.org/2021/09/abortion-texas-whole-womans-clinic/
[iii] H.R. 3755 (09/24/2021) accessed at https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755/text?r=1&s=1
[iv] See Emma Green, Just Don’t Call It Abortion, The Atlantic, October 16, 2019, accessed at https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/10/democrats-avoid-abortion-debates/600100/
[v] Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51-100, ed. Klaus Baltzer, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005), 461.
[vi] Ibid.