Friday, January 7

Friday 

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did.  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.”  So I declared on oath in my anger,  “They shall never enter my rest.”   - Psalm 95:6-11

We have been looking at the meaning of worship from the Psalms.  In particular, we have looked at Psalm 95 as an invitation to worship God with our whole lives.  The passage above includes the final verses of Psalm 95, and I have to admit that it is a little bit of a strange ending to a Psalm that is supposed to be teaching us to worship.  What is all this about God getting angry and declaring oaths against people?

It might sound like an odd ending, but there is a very important lesson for us here and it is actually not at all out of place in a Psalm about worship.  First, notice the critical phrase “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”.  This is

God telling us what it is that what he wants in worship, what makes worship true worship - that today we would listen to his voice!  That is what he wants. He wants us to heed his voice not just gather together.  It is fine for people to come to a worship service, but it is of little real value if all we do is sit/stand and nod while our thoughts are drifting elsewhere. The central fact of worship is to listen to the word of God, to hear the voice of God.

The key to understanding this part of the Psalm is to know a little about that part of Israel’s history that this referred to here. It occurred shortly after the Israelites had come through the Red Sea and had journeyed only a week or two into the wilderness. They came to a place where there was no water, they had hardly had time to become very thirsty when the leaders of the people came to Moses and began to complain. "What are you doing? Leading us out into this wilderness to perish? Where is this God that is supposed to be taking care of us? Why hasn't he provided water for us?" They demanded that God prove himself again. This is the point God is making in Psalm 95. They put him to the test. They said, "Where is this God? If there really is a God who loves us and takes care of us, why doesn't he supply our need?"

Their hearts were set on the wrong things. Read the account and you can see what he meant. This was a generation that actually wanted to go back to Egypt (you know, Egypt, where they were slaves!). They wanted to return to Egypt and kept longing for the melons, the leeks, garlic, and onions of Egypt. Why would they want onions, leeks, and garlic?  I don't know!  The point is they thought only of their bellies, their appetites and desires, and God says therefore their hearts were wrong.

That is what it means to harden your heart. It indicates that you have not learned anything from God.  This is the problem God has with us. I think it must upset God that people can come week after week after week and hear stirring songs of praise, and messages from His word, and stories of what he is doing in many lives and see the evident change that has come to many and the release and freedom he is bringing about in so many hearts, and still, the minute anything goes wrong with them they are ready to fall apart and forget God.

One of the key aspects of worship is to learn how to rest in God.  Rest means to depend upon God's activity and not ours.  Hebrews defines it, "he that has entered into rest has ceased from his own works" (Hebrews 4:10).  That is what rest is.  It is really mental health, peace of heart, peace of mind, a sense of security in God.  That is what God wants for you and me.  He wants us to be secure, to be able to cope with whatever may come in our lives.  This kind of rest will only come to us as we hear His voice.  There is no other way. There is no alternative path.  There is no drug you can take that will give you rest.  There is no pursuit you can follow, no book you can read, no practice you can undertake, that will bring you true peace of heart and mind.  There is simply no alternative; you cannot come into His rest if you will not hearken to His word.

Father, help us to hear your voice as we worship.  Keep us from hardening our hearts against you.  Teach us by your Spirit to learn to rest in you – Amen.