Making 'Psense' of Psalms--Psalm 95: Gratitude and Grumblers

Part of an ongoing series on selected psalms.
If you’re like me, you have people in your life who are grumblers. You don’t enjoy being around them because the conversation soon turns downward. In trying to coax them to count their blessings instead of rehearsing old negatives, you realize you’re not completely clean of negativism yourself. Psalm 95 holds up a mirror to this very problem. We know that praise and worship please God. But the sin nature pulls us down into complaining, even though God has done so much for us. With its two-part message, this psalm lifts us, then chides us.

COME AND WORSHIP (vv. 1-7)

The psalm opens with a bold call to worship. We’re to sing for joy to the LORD, rendered in small capitals in English Bibles for the Jews’ holiest name for the most high God, “YHWH.” We’re to “shout aloud,” the word indicating loud and enthusiastic responses, like people hailing a beloved monarch. The object of our praise is the “Rock of our salvation,” a term we encountered in David’s Psalm 18. Hundreds of years earlier, Moses used the metaphor “Rock” to refer to God’s stalwart, protective essence (Deuteronomy 32:4, 31). The “come” of verse 2 is a different Hebrew word than that of verse 1. It comes from a root that suggests projecting oneself, deepening the meaning of worship as having an Audience. The behavior before this Audience is, first, “thanksgiving,” from a word for extending the hand, as in praise. Second, we are to “extol” Him with music and song, from a Hebrew word that includes the meaning of “loud shouting.” You get the picture of all-out, hand-waving praise!

The basic reasons for this praise are in verses 3-7. First, God is the “great God, the great King above all [false] gods” (v.3). He is the Creator-God (vv.4-5) of the all the earth and sea. He also made us (v. 6b). Thus He is worthy of another worship posture: bowing down. Finally, He is our redemptive God. “We are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care” (v. 7). His plan from all time was to take care of us, and that care now has the image of His Son’s nail-pierced Hand.
 

IF ONLY! (vv. 7b-9)

The end of verse 7 brings an abrupt change in tone. From all-out praise, it turns to a stern warning based on the failures of the Hebrews during the Exodus wanderings. Linger on the tone of the opening sentence: “Today, if only you would hear his voice.”  In my interaction with grumblers, I think, “If only they would realize how much they’ve been blessed.”  Of course, the finger points back at me for my failures, too. The warning is blunt and harsh: “Do not harden your hearts as you did….” Two examples are given.

*“At Meribah.” Exodus 17:7 records this failure, shortly after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and drowning of Pharaoh’s soldiers (Exodus 14), and provision of miracle manna and quail to eat (Exodus 16). When they set up camp at Rephidim, their water skins were empty, and they were so angry at Moses for leading them there that they considered stoning him. When Moses cried out to God, He told him to strike a rock, and water would come, which it did. But Exodus 17:7 records this negative of the situation: “And he called the place Massah [testing] and Meribah [quarreling] because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’” They doubted God’s Person and power!

*“At Massah in the wilderness.”  Numbers 20 tells this story. Continuing their wilderness wanderings, they arrived at Kadesh and once again experienced a water crisis. They quarreled with Moses, blaming him for their predicament. Moses and his brother Aaron went before God, who told Moses to “speak” to a certain rock. God would then cause it to pour out water. Instead, Moses took his now-famous staff and growled, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then he struck the rock twice and water poured out. Moses’ anger, his sin of putting himself on par with God (“must we bring you water”), and disobedience in striking the rock, would have consequences. God told Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” The passage ends, “These were the waters of Meribah [quarreling], where the Israelites quarreled with the LORD and where he showed himself holy among them.”

The alternative names of “Massah” and “Meribah” can get confusing, but these were separate incidents over water. That had this in common: unbelief and grumbling. The people didn’t believe that God had a plan and would provide for them.

THEY KNEW BETTER (vv. 9b-11)

“They tried me,” continues verse 9, “though they had seen what I did.” Over and over, God is faithful to us. Even in the greatest problems or sorrows, He never abandons us. We can’t begin to measure His patience, and His care of the emancipated Israelites is a prime illustration. For forty years, in some of the most inhospitable terrain imaginable, He provided food and water. Yet, verse 10 continues, “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’” (v. 10).

 IT’S US, TOO

The consequence of failing to trust God was such important theology that the author of Hebrews dipped deeply into Psalm 95 to teach about unbelief. Hebrews 3:7-4:13 quotes the psalm and warns against letting our hearts be hardened:
See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. (Hebrews 3:12-14)
The writer of Hebrews sharpened the analogy: because of their grumbling and disbelief, a whole generation of Israelites wouldn’t enter the “rest” (the gift of settling in one place) in Canaan. For us, that “rest” is the salvation rest in Christ and our future eternal “Sabbath rest” in glory. If we harden our hearts, grumbling that God can’t be trusted to take care of us, He is grieved. He gives and gives. But we ignore, and even malign, the Giver when we live in the murkiness of doubts, stubbornness and grumbling.

A thankful spirit rests on the foundation of seeing life as a gift from God. Gratitude is evidenced by:

*Humility, giving up “rights” to God.

*Noticing each day’s little blessings and kindnesses. For some, a “gratitude journal” is helpful.

*Thankfulness, expressed in prayer and as a testimony to others.

*Service to others in the name of Christ.

Grumbling mars our testimony. The apostle Paul sat in a prison as he wrote a letter to the church at Philippi. In that wretched environment, he probably heard his share of grumbling. Yet he kept His eyes on Jesus. Just after a section in which He extolled Christ’s obedience to the cross (Phil. 2:5-11), he admonished, “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation” (vv. 14-15).

 

Next time: Psalm 100