Praise the King who saves
Psalm 95
Unlike some of the psalms, we know almost nothing about the author or the background of this one. It is in Book 4 of the Psalms, so it was probably not written by David. Perhaps it was written a few centuries later, during the time of Hezekiah, who made a special effort to gather the writings of David and Solomon. , Whoever the psalmist is, he calls upon our deepest emotions to recognize God our King. He begins with praise and ends with a warning.
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the LORD is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the desert,
9 where your fathers tested and tried me,
though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
“They shall never enter my rest.”
Psalm 95:1-11 (NIV)
Just by glancing, we can see that this psalm is divided in two sections. In the beginning the psalmist talks about why people should praise God. At the end, God talks about people who failed to praise Him. Let’s begin with the voice of God in the second part.
Be warned by the grumbling of the LORD’s people who knew His capability
The psalmist says there are two ways we may hear from God, one is with a soft heart of obedience, the other is with a hard heart ready for judgement. One heart listens, the other heart goes astray.
• Do this
• Don’t do that
• Listen
• Don’t turn away
And God gives an example. Don’t harden your heart as your ancestors did at Massah and Maribah. The accounts are in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20. They are well known incidents. Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt. God released them through the plagues and led them over the Red Sea on dry land. Once they got into the wilderness they saw that there was no water and they grumbled and accused Moses of leading them out to the desert to die.
God told Moses to strike a rock with his staff and the rock became a fountain. Decades later, the same thing happened, only this time God told Moses to speak to the rock. Moses struck it instead, and God was displeased with Moses, but He gave the people water anyway.
We often associate the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness with their unwillingness to face the giants in the Land, but here we are told there was more to it than that. God was planning the 40 year wandering way back when they started quarreling about the water and testing Him. Thus the names Moses gave the place: Maribah (quarreling) and Massah (testing).
We tend to say,
hey! The people had no reason to grumble. Hadn’t God just saved them from the Egyptians? Hadn’t He just parted the Red Sea? Hadn’t they seen the power of God in ways that many generations since can only dream about? What was their problem? No wonder God punished them.
And this is all true.
It is important to see this from God’s perspective. For Him it wasn’t about water. From God’s point of view, He had been faithful and the people were being faithless. He had shown them things that were wondrous, and all they could do was doubt.
However, it is also important to see it from the people’s point of view.
• They were in the desert
• There was no water
• They were thirsty
• And there was no water
If you watch CSI, you’ve heard the rule of threes. A person can survive three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes without air.
These people were not stupid, they knew that without fresh water they would die. And they left the Nile, one of the largest sources of fresh water in the world behind to go to the desert.
What’s the matter with you Moses? Didn’t you have a plan when you brought us out here?
It was a legitimate question. For these people it was more than a question. It was life and death. Not just theirs. Moses was afraid for his life when he talked to God about it.
Back to Psalm 95. The point of calling this story to mind is found in verse 9:
where your fathers tested and tried me,
though they had seen what I did. Psalm 95:9 (NIV)
God says, even though you had seen my hand at work, you still challenged my authority and tried my patience.
• I turned the Nile to blood
• I mingled hail with lighting
• I divided the Red Sea
• And you are worried about a dry throat?
Now we need to tread carefully here, because it is bigger than it looks. Hear carefully what God is saying:
You don’t have the right to grumble even when it is life and death. Even if it looks like my purpose is that you die in the desert ... that is not reason enough for you to grumble and challenge Me!
So.
• What great things have you seen God do?
And then
• What is reason enough for you to question God?
• What is trouble enough for you to consider turning your back on Him?
• What is a big enough problem for you to complain?
• Is it worth the kind of discipline that God is capable of?
The blessings we have had from God are all the reason we are supposed to need to keep from
• Blaming Him
• Or complaining about His plan
• Or questioning His love and care
This is the warning of the Psalmist. Even if you are dying of thirst, trust God. He is powerful enough to come through. He is saying, "don’t go this route."
• Don’t do that
• Instead, look at this
The great King owns the land, the sea and us by right of creation
This is the middle of the psalm, verses 3-7. There is a poetic pulse that moves us through this section:
• The land is God’s, He made it
• The sea is God’s, He made it
• Let us worship God, He made us and owns us
God is the King by right of ownership. God owns everything by right of creation. The psalmist is spreading his net over the whole of God’s dominion.
• The depths of the earth
• The mountain heights
• The sea
• All humanity
I like Danzinger’s translation of verse 4
... in His power are the hidden mysteries of the Earth
Another way of seeing this verse is noting that the depths of the earth also describes graves. God is not just in charge of geology, He is in charge of biology too. God owns the power of life on the surface and death underneath. God is over all of it.
God is utterly amazing in His creative power
The lowest piece of real estate on Earth was first reached in 1960, near the coast of Guam. John Walsh and Jaques Piccard took a bathyscaphe about 6 3/4 miles down into the ocean and became the first people to reach Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on earth. In Challenger Deep, there are shrimp and flounder about a foot long, in pressure1000 times water at sea level. This is pressure so intense it would crush a person faster than he could be afraid of it. Going without government caliber equipment is impossible. It is laughable to attempt it.
By traveling west a little over the width of this country, into nearby Asia you reach Mount Everest which is nearly 5 ½ miles high. First climbed in 1954 and now mostly done with oxygen bottles, lichens can be found growing at about 4 miles up. One out of every 12 people that make the climb to the summit dies in the attempt, some of their bodies can be seen along the route, it is too dangerous to try to bring them down.
The highest and the lowest points of real estate on earth have a differential of less than 13 miles. People can barely go there and we are amazed when they do. But, natural, unsupported life can be found in both extremes. From the top of the mountains to the bottom of the sea, God has created life that this psalmist could not have imagined. We did not even see it until the living memory of many of the people in this room (not mine). But those tiny, resilient plants and those incredibly strong fish belong to God. We can barely get to them, let alone claim ownership. God created them and they are His.
And now think of the picture painted by the psalmist.
We should worship Him,
for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care. Psalm 95:7 (NIV)
Any shepherd who owns his pasture can claim ownership of the bugs on the land. He may even want them there. But that isn’t why he keeps the grass fresh. It is for His sheep. How can we doubt that God will take care of us? And if He chooses to let us die, how can we doubt His wisdom. It is certainly not a reflection of His ability. The secret place of the earth where you will be buried belongs to Him. This is a God who can create places we can barely get to, and cannot survive, at least not for long. And yet, He creates life that thrives there.
• He can deliver from oppressors
• He can rescue through the sea
• He can give water in the desert
• And He can accomplish whatever you most need
• What is more, you have seen Him do it
• He owns the mountain heights
• He owns the ocean depths
• And you are his lamb
... the special possession He especially cares and provides for. What a powerful and loving King!
Sing to God for His great salvation
This brings us to the beginning of the Psalm. The command is to make music.
• Sing
• Play an instrument
• Play the radio if you can’t play anything else
• But play it in praise to God
• Make loud music
I was listening to a report on music practitioners the other day. These are people who are medically licensed to play the harp in hospice situations. The skeptical doctor who watched the process saw agitated dying patients who could no longer be helped by morphine calmed by the music. They lay in peace and their loved ones could come and be with them when they passed from this life to the next.
Music is an incredibly powerful force to our emotions and is an unexplainable expression of them.
• You have seen babies nod to sleep when a song is sung
• You have seen girls scream when a band is performing
• You have seen men cry when a song is played
• People march off to war pumped and motivated by music
The psalmist is saying that this powerful expression of human emotion is most appropriately used in praising God. When the worship leaders say, "Let’s sing together," it is not an instruction, it is an opportunity. It is your chance to shape your breath in the most powerful, constructive force available to the human voice and sing about the God who loves you.
Why? Because He saves.
• The God who delivers from enemies and from death
• The God who creates the incredible forces of nature
• The God who cares for you
Deserves your most intimate and joyful and powerful expressions of praise.
What other king can do all this and still love you as His prized possession? What other king is so reliable? What other king can give such security?
He is the Rock
In all the Psalms, a rock is a sign of stability. When Jesus wanted to tell us to build wisely, He told us to build on a Rock. When Jesus wanted to instill confidence in Peter, He called him a Rock.
God is our Rock.
And He is not just any Rock. He is a Rock in a specific capacity. He is the Rock of our Salvation.
For the Israelites this meant He was the powerful security of their delivery from their enemies.
To you it means He is the power behind your spiritual security.
• Not your ability to be good
• Not the amount of Scripture you read
• Not the hours you spend in prayer
• Not the number of people you help
• Not the number of church services you attend
But the forgiveness and love of the King of the deepest depths and the highest heights. Your spiritual security is in the relationship you have with the Supernatural Rock of your Salvation.
• Trust the God who defeats His people’s enemies
• Trust the God who delivers through the waters
• Trust the God who raises the high mountains
• Trust the God who places life in the pits of the sea
• Trust the God who holds you in His hand
And sing Praise to the One who cannot fail, the King, the Rock of your Salvation.
