Psalm 95

What a wonderful Psalm again we have for meditation.  Let us consider the progress of the Song.

·         95:1-5 are a call to loud, joyful praise.  The people are to come and with great energy to worship the great God … the great King above all gods.  How great is our God?  The deepest valleys and highest hills of earth are His.  The sea and the dry land are His.  It is His for He made it!  And it is all His because He had no help.  He shares His glory with no one else.

·         95:6-7a are a call to humble submission before our God.  He is the same One: the One who made us.  We bow before Him because He is the great King.  We graze in His pasture and we are fed from His hand.  What a great King He is when we realize how blest we are to be in His kingdom/flock.

Before we note the last part of the Song let us remember Jesus Christ.  Everything said about the Lord in the opening verses (v1-7) is true of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The Bible makes it clear.  He is the Creator.  Everything was made by Him, through Him and for Him (Col. 1:19).  No one helped Him; without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:3).  He is the King whose every enemy will bow (Phil. 2:9-11).  He is our great God and Savior (Titus 2:13).

It is no surprise then that the writer of Hebrews referred to the admonition at the close of this great Hymn.  Ps. 95:7b-11 are quoted in its entirety in Heb. 3:7-11.  The concern in Hebrews is that people who seemed to have come to trust or rest in Christ will turn from Him and go back to that which never did nor ever could give them rest.  Through our great Savior, a great salvation has been provided (Heb. 2:3).  To turn away from that salvation is to denigrate the great One who provided it, to trample the Son of God underfoot (Heb. 10:29).

·         95:7b-11 is a warning not to harden our hearts against God.  The illustration of how one might do this is a story from the Old Testament.  It is the first occasion when the people of Israel came to the edge of Canaan.  Twelve spies were sent in, 2 came back ready to take possession of what God promised, but 10 feared the giants in the land.  The 10 carried the day; the people rebelled even though they had seen God’s great works in Egypt and in the wilderness. 

Do you see the connection?  In our own lives, in the testimonies of others, and especially in the record of Scripture, we know the God of the Bible is a great God.  There is no other God, none like Him.  And to fail to trust Him today, in light of what we know from previous days, is to treat Him as nothing, to make light of Him, to consider Him ordinary. 

Friends, today, in your day of trial, come joyfully into God’s presence because He is a great God.  Bow before Him because He is a great King.  Trust Him, rest in Him.  He is no different this day than He was yesterday.