SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
6/15/2012 8:37:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 95 PT-1
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Psalm 95:1-5
Message of the verses: We will begin to look at several
introductions to Psalm 95 in today’s SD and then begin to look at the psalm.
“This
psalm, though without a title, was written by David, as appears from #Heb 4:7,
and to him the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions
ascribe it. It belongs to the times of the Messiah, as Kimchi observes; the
apostle applies it to the Jews of his time, and bespeaks them in the language
of it, #Heb 3:7-11, and in which time Israelites, believers in Christ, are
called upon to serve and worship him, in consideration of his greatness in
himself, and his goodness to them. Theodoret thinks that David spoke
prophetically of King Josiah and his times; and wrote it in the person of him,
and the priests of God.” (John Gill)
“For the
expounding of this psalm we may borrow a great deal of light from the apostle’s
discourse, Hebrews 3-4, where it appears both to have been penned by David and
to have been calculated for the days of the Messiah; for it is there said
expressly (#Heb 4:7) that the day here spoken of (#Ps 95:7) is to be understood
of the gospel day, in which God speaks to us by his Son in a voice which we are
concerned to hear, and proposes to us a rest besides that of Canaan. In singing
psalms it is intended.” (Matthew Henry)
“This Psalm
has no title, and all we know of its authorship is that Paul quotes it as
"in David." (#Heb 4:7.) It is true that this may merely signify that
it is to be found in the collection known as David’s Psalms; but if such were
the Apostle’s meaning it would have been more natural for him to have written,
"saying in the Psalms;" we therefore incline to the belief that David
was the actual author of this poem. It is in its original a truly Hebrew song,
directed both in its exhortation and warning to the Jewish people, but we have
the warrant of the Holy Spirit in the epistle to the Hebrews for using its
appeals and entreaties when pleading with Gentile believers. It is a psalm of
invitation to worship. It has about it a ring like that or church bells, and
like the bells it sounds both merrily and solemnly, at first ringing out a
lively peal, and then dropping into a funeral knell as if tolling at the
funeral of the generation which perished in the wilderness. We will call it THE
PSALM OF THE PROVOCATION.” (Charles H.
Spurgeon)
“This
psalm, with its references to the wilderness wanderings, may have been composed
by David (Hebrews 4:7) for the Feast of the Booths, or Tabernacles (cf. Ps
81). During this feast, the people of
Israel lived in booths, remembering God’s provisions for them in the
wilderness. After a call t worship
(95:1-7a), a prophecy in the voice of the Holy Spirit Himself (cf. Heb. 3:7)
breaks in and reminds the people of the dangers of rebellion and tempting
God. Verses 7b-11 are quoted verbatim in
Heb. 3:7-11 (cf. Heb. 3:15, 4:3-7) with the warning that those vacillating Jews
also were in danger of missing the promised ‘rest’ (i.e., Salvation).” (John MacArthur Study Bible)
“The annual
Feast of Tabernacles was a joyful even as the people looked back on their
ancestors’ wilderness wanderings, looked around at the bountiful harvest, and
looked up to give thanks to the Lord (Lev. 23:33-44). It has been conjectured that this psalm was
written for the feast after the exiles returned to Judah from Babylon.* Certainly verses 8-11 would remind them of
those wilderness years, but they are quoted in Hebrews 3:7-4:13 and applied to
believers today. The church must take
heed to what happened to Israel (see 1Cor. 10:1-13). While 95 calls on Israel to worship, 96 calls
all the nations of the earth to worship the God of Israel (96:1, 3, 10,
13). As the psalmist calls God’s people
to celebrate the Lord, he gives us three admonitions to obey.” (Warren Wiersbe) I wish to include an end note that Warren
Wiersbe added to this introduction and it was placed after the word
Babylon. I will put a * after that word.
“Heb. 4:7 ascribes this psalm to
David. The NIV and NASB read ‘through
David,’ while the KJV and NKJV both read ‘in David,’ this is ‘in the ‘Psalter.’
This is the preferable translation.”
I wish to
make a point from some of the different introductions, and that is that there
are many commentators, especially early commentators who attribute the writing
of the book of Hebrews to Paul. The book
of Hebrews is placed at the end of the Pauline letters, but many Bible
commentators today do not believe that Paul wrote it. I happen to agree with the later commentators.
Come and Praise the Lord (vv. 1-5): “1 ¶
O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD, Let us shout joyfully to the
rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come
before His presence with thanksgiving, Let us shout joyfully to Him with
psalms. 3 For the LORD is a great God
And a great King above all gods, 4 In whose
hand are the depths of the earth, The peaks of the mountains are His also.
5 The sea is His, for it was He who made
it, And His hands formed the dry land.”
Let me first make a comment on
verse five for it goes along with the Bible Study that I was a part of earlier
this year as we studied the origins of the earth and how God made the earth as
seen in Genesis 1-2. The psalmist writes
that the sea is His and that is because He made it and then goes on to write
that God made the dry land, that God formed the dry land. As we look at the process that the Lord used
to make the earth we see first of all that the entire planet was actually made
of water. Peter speaks of this in his
writings 2Pe 3:5 For when they maintain
this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long
ago and the earth was formed
out of water and by water.” We
read in the book of Genesis that when the Lord first formed the earth out of
water that the Spirit of God hovered over the earth and that word hovered means
vibrate, kind of like a mother hen hovering over her eggs so that they will hatch. Next we see that the Lord formed the dry
land, “9 ¶ Then God said, "Let the
waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land
appear"; and it was so.” (Genesis
1:9) In this verse we see that the dry
land appeared because God spoke and it happened. It was not a big pile of mud, but it was dry
land as God formed it out of the water, and then He immediately formed the vegetation
and it began to grow. My point in
writing about this is that we can see throughout different portions of
Scriptures that it was God who created the earth, and God did not use evolution,
for evolution is impossible.
Now back to
the first parts of Psalm 95 in which in the first two verses the psalmist tell
us how we should praise the Lord and then in verses 3-5 we see why we should
praise the Lord. Dr. Wiersbe writes that
this is communal praise and not individual, but both of these are important. We see in the NASB that we are to shout
joyfully and we are to be wholly focused on the Lord. I suppose that there are times in different
churches that there is shouting going on but the question is whether it is
shouting to the Lord or shouting to make one feel good, for our focus is to be
on the Lord. The word “come” that is see
in verse two means having a face to face meeting with the Lord, to be in the
presence of the Lord. Dr. Wiersbe writes
“Believers today do this through Jesus Christ (Heb. 10:19-25). We should be thankful in our praise as we
extol the Lord for His great mercies. (On God the Rock, see 18:2)”
The reason
that we praise the Lord is because He is great and also because He is above all
other gods. I suppose in a sense there
is no other God than the Lord, but people make for themselves gods that they
worship and praise. There were many
idols mentioned in the OT and for the reason of Israel worshiping other gods
(idols) God sent them into captivity for seventy years and when they returned
that problem was solved. How about
today? Do we worship other gods today? I don’t think that we build idols and bend
down to worship them, but perhaps we worship the god of money, the god of
sports, the god of sex or some other god.
I have heard that an idol is something the we use to take the place of
God, that we spend more time with than with God that at times is more important
to us than God. We have many
distractions in our lives today, distractions that come from our fast paced
lives, from the technology that is exploding right before our eyes and this
technology can be used in our worship of the Lord or it can be used as a
distraction and become an idol in our lives.
When we as
believer think about praising the Lord we can look back at what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done for us, how He came to earth as a man, yet still God, how He
lived on the earth for thirty-three years of which the last three years He
ministered and prepared twelve men to take on His ministry after He suffered
and died for our sins. We know that He
is now in heaven after His ascension and is enthroned “far above all” (Acts
1:33; Eph 1:19-23; Phil 2:9-11; Col 1:15-18).
We read in Romans 8:37-39 these wonderful words “37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly
conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created
thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.” This is a great reason
to worship the Lord.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: God has lifted up my spirits today from these
verses in Psalm 95:1-6 and also these verses from Romans 8:37-39.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Abide in the Vine and worship
the Lord for His goodness to me.
Memory verses for the week:
2Peter 1:1-2, “1 ¶ Simon Peter, a
bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith of
the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus
Christ: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied to
you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
6/15/2012 9:54:32 AM
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