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 to 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 2 Pe 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 tells 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 seen 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 that 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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