THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Psalms: God's Nurture Of The Inner Man In The Life Of Faith

XCV: God's Call For Each Generation Trust Him For Blessing

(Psalm 95:1-11)

I. Introduction

A. Romans 15:4 claims the Old Testament Scriptures were written for our learning today as Christians that we might apply their truths that by patience and comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope.

B. Psalm 95:1-11 does this very pointedly, teaching us the importance of our believing God's Word in our era to enjoy His blessing today, so we study this psalm for our necesssary insight and edification (as follows):

II. God's Call For Each Generation Trust Him For Blessing, Psalm 95:1-11.

A. There are no introductory remarks in this psalm (Kittel, Bib. Heb., p. 1058), so the verse numbering format of the English Bible fits that of the Hebrew text, and we stay with the numbering format of the English Bible.

B. We thus translate Psalm 95:1-11 as follows:

1. "Come, let us sing for joy to Jahweh; let us shout aloud to the Rock Cliff Fortress of our salvation," v. 1.

2. "Let us come before His face with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song," Psalm 95:2.

3. "Because Jahweh is the great Elohim, the great King above all elohim," Psalm 95:3.

4. "In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him," Psalm 95:4.

5. "The sea is His, for it is He (emph. pron.) Who made it, and His hands formed the dry land," Psalm 95:5.

6. "Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the face of Jahweh, Our Maker," Psalm 95:6.

7. "because it is He (emph. pron.) Who is our Elohim and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care. Today, if you hear His voice," Psalm 95:7.

8. "'Do not harden your hearts as (the forefathers did at) Meribah ["quarreling"], as (they did) at Massah ["testing"] in the wilderness,'" Psalm 95:8.

9. "'where your fathers tested (nasa, Piel stem = intensive; B. D. B., A Heb. and Eng. Lex. of the O. T., p. 650) to examine (bahan, Ibid., p. 103) Me though they had seen what I did,'" Psalm 95:9.

10. "'Forty years was I angry with that generation; I said, 'They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways,''" Psalm 95:10.

11. "'So I declared (on an ) oath in My anger, '(I am not God) if they shall enter My rest!''"

C. We note significant observations and applications regarding this psalm (as follows):

1. The psalmist called his generation in Israel to hold to the true Sovereign Creator God of heaven and earth versus the pagan false gods (v. 3), especially the local Baal god that pagans believed struggled to defeat the sea or sea monster to create the earth (Z. P. E. B., v. One, p. 432-433; B. K. C., O. T., p. 861), v. 4-5.

2. Failure to trust in Scripture's God in the psalmist's generation was to harden one's heart like the past generation in Israel that had died in the wilderness journey out of Egypt (v. 8-10) when God in wrath kept them from their anticipated rest of entering the Promised Land of Canaan, v. 11 with Deuteronomy 12:9.

3. The generation in the wilderness had failed to trust God for His deliverance at the Red Sea (Ex. 14:11-12), for drinking water at Marah (Ex. 15:23-24), for food in the wilderness of Sin (Ex. 16:2-3), to supply more manna the next day and to preserve Friday's manna over the Sabbath (Ex. 16:20, 27), to provide water at Rephidim (Ex. 17:1-3), to remain their God at Sinai (Ex. 32:1-7), by faithlessly complaining at Taberah (Num. 11:1), by lusting after Egypt's foods over God's manna (Num. 11:4-6) and at Kadesh where they doubted God's help in conquering Canaan's giants (Num. 14), Ryrie S. B., KJV, 1978, ftn. to Num. 14:22.

4. So, as the generation before them had failed to enter the Promised Land due to unbelief in God, the psalmist's generation, though having arrived in that Promised Land, was just as vulnerable as their forefathers to lacking faith in God's Word so as to sin like their forefathers, and thus just as vulnerable to facing divine discipline spelled out in the Mosaic Covenant at Deuteronomy 28:15-68! By application, then, Hebrews 4:7-11 then teaches us Christians in our era today to trust God's Word lest we ourselves face God's discipline for our unbelief, and the writer of Hebrews referred us Christians back to Psalm 95!

Lesson: Psalm 95:1-11 with Hebrews 4:7-11 teaches a timeless truth for all dispensations of believers -- their need to trust the Lord and His Word for blessing in their respective generations or suffer God's severe discipline!

Application: May we heed Psalm 95:1-11 with Hebrews 4:7-11 to trust God and His Word for blessing, knowing that as this is a timeless requirement of God for believers in every generation, we must heed it or be disciplined!