Today, If You Hear His Voice – Psalm 95

This psalm is expounded by the author of Hebrews, his exegetical skills sharp with the sword of God’s word (Hebrews 4:12).  The psalm teaches him that Joshua did not give Israel rest since God is still offering it “today.”  There is a spiritual rest to be entered into by believing in Jesus, who is superior to Joshua, Moses and even angels.  To abandon Christ is to abandon this rest.  Those who abandon Christ will not enter into God’s rest.

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!  Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!  For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.  In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.  The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!  For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.  Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.  For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.”  Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”  (Psalm 95 ESV)

It should seem strange that after seeing how God, the maker of heaven and earth and of us, the One who rescued us like He did Israel, and has carried us through difficult times, as He did Israel in the wilderness, that after that we should harden our hearts against Him.  This is the devilishly pathetic condition of our souls that we are so foolish and dull of spirit.  But God still offers us a chance to repent and find rest again.  Are we listening?