Let us turn in our Bibles today
to the book of Psalms 95. Psalm 95. O come, let us sing unto the
Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence
with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For
the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. In his hand
are the deep places of the earth. The strength of the hills is
his also. The sea is his, and he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land. O 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 will hear
his voice, harden not your heart as in the provocation and as
in the day of temptation in the wilderness. When your fathers
tempted me, proved me and saw my work, Forty years long was
I aggrieved with this generation and said, it is a people that
do err in their heart and they have not known my ways, under
whom I swear in my wrath that they should not enter into my
rest. Apart from the truth that all
scripture is given by inspiration of God, it would be impossible
to understand how David could have written this psalm. In it,
he clearly speaks of the times of the Messiah, the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ, though he lived a thousand years before
his birth. If you notice the word today
in verse seven, from that word to the end of the chapter, these
words are quoted in Hebrews chapter four. And they are there said
to be the words of the Holy Ghost and are interpreted by the apostle
who wrote the letter of Hebrews to be the voice of the Son of
God over his house. Now, this morning as we look
at this psalm, I have three divisions. And I'll use the words okam to
introduce each division. First, okam. Let us praise the
Lord. When you think of David, I believe
it's fair to say that most all of us, when we think of him,
we think of him as a man of praise, a man who praised the Lord. And shouldn't this be a mark
of every child of God? The Lord Jesus Christ told his
disciples, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples
if you have love one to another. But I believe a close second
to that love that exists between God's people is the fact that
God's children are children who praise the Lord. Now David did
not write all of the Psalms, but he wrote most of them. And
over and over in the Psalms, he encouraged both animate and
inanimate objects to praise the Lord. And the last verse of the
last Psalm, he wrote, let everything that hath breath praise ye the
Lord. Now in this psalm, I want us
to notice three things about this word, O come, let us praise
the Lord. First, he gives us what is an
accepted method of praise. An accepted method of praise,
let us sing unto the Lord. This is an accepted method of
praise, singing unto the Lord. Have you ever thought of this
truth, that we have the Lord Jesus Christ in this matter as
an example? The Lord Jesus Christ is our
example in singing and praising the Lord, praising God. You know, we don't major on the
fact that the Lord is an example, is our example because we want
to emphasize the fact that he is our substitute. He is our
savior. He gave his life to redeem us,
but he is also our example. And in this as well, praising
the Lord, singing unto the Lord, he is our example. Psalm 22 begins
with the words that he spoke on the cross when he said, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Psalm 22, it's called the
Psalm of the Cross. But verse 22 in that song, we
read this, and these are Christ speaking from the cross. I will
declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation.
Will I praise thee? And then the writer of Hebrews,
he quotes that verse, but he quotes it like this. I will declare thy name unto
my brethren. Now that's the same. But the
second part of that verse in Hebrews is, in the midst of the
church, rather than in the midst of the congregation, as it is
in Psalm 22, I will praise thee. In Hebrews, it is in the midst
of the church, I will sing praise unto thee. We know that the Lord
Jesus Christ, the night before he was crucified, facing as he
did, the Garden of Gethsemane in just a few minutes, and the
cross the next day. The Bible tells us that he sang
a hymn, sang a psalm rather, with his disciples and they went
out to the Mount of Olives. He sang a psalm, sang a psalm
of praise unto the Lord. God's people have always been
known as men and women who praise the Lord, and singing is an acceptable
way to praise the Lord. It is said of Martin Luther that
during the days of the Reformation, when he was many times under
such pressure and such tension and persecution, that he would
tell those around him, when things looked dark and gloomy, come,
oh come, let us sing the 100th. Of course, he said that in German,
but let us sing the 100th. And he was talking, of course,
about the 100th Psalm. If you turn over just a page,
make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the
Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing. Know
ye that the Lord, He is God. It is He that hath made us and
not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep
of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving
and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless
His name. For the Lord is good, His mercy
is everlasting, and His truth to all generations. Let us sing
the 100th. Let us sing this psalm of praise
in the midst of darkness and in the midst of persecution.
Now in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, writing to one
church, he said, teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing, singing with grace in your hearts
to the Lord. So, O come, let us praise the
Lord. And first of all, we see an acceptable
way of praising the Lord is singing. A very important part of our
worship service is singing, singing unto the Lord, making melody
unto Him. And when we sing these hymns
of praise, we try to choose out hymns that truly do focus upon
the Lord Jesus Christ upon our God and our Savior. And we have
so many wonderful hymns that the church has given unto us
down through the ages. And these hymns, most of them
have been written out of experience. And we love the hymns that we
sing here in this congregation. I wish we knew more in the hymn
book. Great is thy faithfulness, O
God my Savior. Isn't that a wonderful truth
to sing and praise the Lord? We sang that hymn just a few
minutes ago. Now I belong to Jesus. Jesus
belongs to me. What a wonderful truth if you
know Christ as your Lord and Savior. That's what, in the Song
of Songs, the bride, the church of Christ said, my beloved is
mine. And I am my beloved's. Now I belong to Jesus. So an
acceptable way of praise. But notice the second thing.
He gives us what is an accepted attitude of praise. An accepted
attitude of praise is joyful thanksgiving. You notice in verses
one and two, we have the word joyful. And then in verse two,
we have the word thanksgiving. This should be our attitude as
we sing and praise. It should be a joyful attitude.
We don't come and sing a hymn of drudgery or anything like
that. Those chants that you hear sometimes
in some religious places or orders where it sounds more like they're
complaining to me than worshiping, you know? Our hymns singing should
be, we should have the attitude of joy and thanksgiving unto
the Lord for who He is and His blessings and His mercy unto
us. in this world in which you and
I live, a world of uncertainty, turmoil, pain on every hand we
see, then we live in this world as God's children. And we should
always maintain a joyful and a thankful attitude, always. And I said we should maintain
this attitude. This attitude should be developed
and maintained by us as God's children. We should think upon
God's goodness and God's mercy. He is a great God, as the psalmist
says in this hymn. He is a great God and yet he
thinks upon us. What an attitude we should have
of joyfulness and thanksgiving unto the Lord. Someone might
ask, well, what about those times when we feel like Jacob? When
Jacob said, all these things are against me. What about those
times? Even in those times, we should
maintain a joyful and thankful attitude because we must realize
we would all, if we had our choice, I suppose, we would all want
to live on the mountaintop as far as our experiences are concerned. We would always want to be on
the mountaintop. But the God of the mountaintop
is also the God of the valleys. And God has ordained that, yes,
we spend time on the mountaintop when our hearts are just bubbling
over naturally with joy and thanksgiving. But God has also purposed that
we go through the valleys. And these valleys are necessary.
They're necessary for us lest we go spiritually proud in ourselves. And even in the valleys, we must
remind ourselves that what God has given unto us, he has given
himself unto us. He has given his son unto us.
He's given God the Holy Spirit unto us. He's given the kingdom
unto us. Remember what our Lord told his
disciples? Be of good cheer. It is your
father's will to give unto you the kingdom of God. We didn't
earn it. We don't deserve to be in this
spiritual kingdom. We've been given this kingdom
and we must maintain, we must learn to think and train ourselves
to maintain a joyful attitude. What a blessing. And what a cause
for joy are these words of Job. You know, Job, in the midst of
all the affliction and all the trials that he went through,
and it was all ordained of God, this is what he said in one place.
He said, for he, speaking of God, he knoweth the way that
I take. And every believer can say the
same thing every day of our lives. He, that is God, He knows the
way that I take, He knows the way that I go, and He knows it
because He ordained it from old eternity. We must maintain. this spirit, this attitude of
joy and thanksgiving. And then notice the third thing,
the psalmist, he gives us what is the accepted subject of our
praise, the rock of our salvation. Oh come, let us sing unto the
Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation. Now in the Psalms, David, He
mentioned several times the experience of the nation of Israel when
God opened up that rock in the midst of the wilderness and water
gushed out. In Psalm 78 and verse 16, he
wrote, he brought streams also out of the wilderness. ...salvation that that water
gave unto the Israelites. But he is speaking, of course,
of Christ, who the Apostle Paul in the New Testament said, that
rock, that rock is Christ. Now he didn't mean that literal
rock is the Lord Jesus Christ, but that rock is a type of Christ. Oh come, he says, let us sing
unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation
and the salvation that we receive from the rock that is from the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's not a temporal salvation,
it is an eternal salvation. Remember what the Lord Jesus
Christ said to the widow, or to the woman, rather, at the
well. In John chapter four, he said, the water, the water that
I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing
up onto everlasting life. And I love the words of our Lord
there when he told that woman, he said, if thou knowest who
it is that speaketh and thou wouldest ask of him, he would
give thee this water. What a wonderful invitation,
right? What a wonderful encouragement
to ask the Lord for salvation. Our Lord plainly told that woman,
if you would ask me, I would give you this water. For whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. To every
person here today, hear these words as I speak them today. Once again, ask and it shall verse in Hebrew, our great high
priest who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,
and that's where I usually stop when I mention that verse, but
that's not the end of that verse, is it? He goes on to say, holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher
than the heavens. Now that's just as high as you
can get right there. High as the heavens. He's our
rock and we think of Him because of the height, but also the strength. The strength, the rock of our
salvation. In Isaiah, He is the child born
and the son given and the government shall be upon His shoulder. In other words, for strength
the Lord Jesus Christ today He reigns, he rules on the throne
of God, the scepter. He rules over all. He said, all
power in heaven and earth is given unto me. And then for not only the height
and the strength, but the shelter. We think of him as a rock. We
think of that verse in Isaiah chapter 32, which says, he's
a hiding place from the wind, a covert. from the tempest. You can think in an area where
mainly where there's great heat and you can get in the shadow
of that rock. But also if there's one of those
storms that come up across the desert and there's a rock there,
he's a shelter from the wind, a covert from the storm. The
Lord Jesus Christ, he is that to us. And he's the foundation
as a rock Remember he said, upon this rock, I will build my church. He wasn't talking about a man. He was talking about the God
man, about himself. The church is built upon Christ,
not upon some man, some weak man, no strength in any man. I don't care who he is, but the
God man, yes. And he is our foundation and
the scripture said, whosoever believeth in him shall not be
ashamed because he is a sure foundation. Well, notice the
words in verse three. I wanted to mention these just
in case someone here doesn't understand before we go on to
the second point. But what about his words in verse
3, where he says, he is a great king above all gods? Well, how do you explain that?
Well, there have been and there are, as Paul wrote, those that
are called gods. I read one time that there was
a, in the eastern part of the world, that there was a belief
that every star was a god. Every star was a god. And all
kind of pagan religion have worshipped different things that they call
gods. Many have worshipped the sun,
the moon, and the stars. Some have worshipped the wind.
Some have worshipped the rain. And you see in some of these
religions today, even the most awful looking statue or image,
I don't know what to call it, supposedly of a god. Well, there
be gods which are called gods, yes. And in the Bible, even angels
sometimes are referred to as gods. And sometimes civil leaders,
like kings and judges especially, are referred to as gods. But
over all these, whatever they may be, the Lord Jesus Christ,
he reigns over all gods. Whether they be just the imaginations
of men, or if they be civil rulers, or if they be the angels, both
good and evil angels. He reigns, He rules over all. For the Lord is a great God, a great God, and a great King above all gods. O come, let us worship Him. Now second, O come, let us worship
the Lord. I said first, O come, let us
praise the Lord, but second, O come, let us worship the Lord. In verse six, he said, O 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. It's interesting that there
are some words In the Hebrew, the Old Testament scripture written
in Hebrew and the New Testament scripture written in Greek, it's
interesting that some words mean the same in the sense that the
word for worship, the meaning of the Hebrew
word for worship and the meaning of the Greek word for worship
are both the same. Same is true of wind or spirit. The Hebrew word for spirit or
wind, the same is true of the Greek word, the Greek, the wind
and the spirit. But here, the Hebrew word, which
David wrote in, he said, O come, let us worship. Remember, there
was a leper who came to the Lord Jesus Christ one day, and before
anything, he worshipped the Lord. And both of these words mean
the same. Literally, it means to prostrate
oneself before the Lord. In other words, to bow down,
as he said, let us come and bow and kneel before the Lord, our
Maker. Let us acknowledge Him. Let us
submit completely. When a person lays before, prostrates
himself before another person, that's complete service, complete
surrender. And that's the word that David
is using here. He's exhorting you and I, God's
children, not only to come and praise him, but to come and worship
him. That is to bow down before the
Lord, our maker. Now with this thought in mind,
as he said, oh, come let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before
the Lord, our maker. Now notice the next few phrases. For He is our God. You say, well Preacher, isn't
He everyone's God? Yes and no. Yes and no. Yes, He's everyone's God in the
sense that He is the Creator of all men. But no, He is not
everyone's God. There are some people in this
world who are His, and He is their God by covenant, by covenant. In Jeremiah 31 and verse 33,
this is the way it reads there. This shall be the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their
inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their
God and they shall be my people. There are those in this world
that God has chosen in this everlasting covenant and one of the benefits
and one of the blessings of this eternal covenant, this new covenant
is, God said, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. That's just one of the blessings.
What cause, when you think about that, that God has chosen you,
if you're one of his children, to be your God? To be your God. What causes that? To worship,
to bow down, kneel down, and worship him. When I thought about
this, I thought about those words that Paul wrote to the believers
in the church at Corinth. And they're words that should
and can be applied to every church, every local church, every believer. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? If you're here this morning and
you know the Lord as your Savior, you trust in Him, you believe
in Him, you follow Him, you know God, who maketh thee to differ
from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Sometimes we get aggravated and
put out with others because they don't believe, because they have
no interest in the things of God. And we do so like we had
made ourselves to differ. The only reason we're here today
in love with Christ, worshiping Christ, desire to live for God,
is because God has made the difference. It's not because we're superior
in any way, better in any way. It's only because He has made
us to differ. We know that. And I thought about
the words of the hymn writer when he said this, wrote this.
Why, why was I made to hear thy voice and enter while there's
room, when thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than
come? T'was the same love that spread
the feast that sweetly drew us in. else we had still refused
to taste and perished in our sin. What cause do we have to
worship God, seeing that He is our God? He is our God. But that's not all the psalmist
said, for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture. Now, pasture speaks, of course,
of supply of food. And He has promised to meet each
and every need that we have. Now that's a promise, isn't it?
But my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches
in Christ Jesus. His riches in Christ Jesus? Yes. Can that be measured? No. All things are yours. Paul told
the believers at Carth. Whether life or death, things
present, things to come, all things are yours. And you are
Christ and Christ is God's. And we know we can count on this
promise for a number of reasons, just the fact that God promised
it. And he's faithful. He cannot
lie. He cannot change. But even more
than that, he that spared not his own son, but delivered him
up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely? God gives freely, doesn't he?
Say, I've got to earn it. You'll never earn it. I must
deserve it. You'll never deserve it. God gives freely. freely of His
grace. If you can deserve His grace,
it's not grace. If you can merit mercy, it's
no longer mercy. It is for Christ's sake and His
sake alone that God forgives sinners, receives sinners. How many Examples do we have
in the word of God where God has supplied the needs of his
people. And I mentioned Jacob a few minutes
ago saying, all these things are against me. And we know in
reality, all the things that he thought were against him were
the all things working together for good to Jacob. To bring him once again to see
his son Joseph. Yes. William Cowper wrote, Judge not
the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind
a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. His purposes
will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter
taste, but sweet will be the flower. What causes this to worship
God? He's not only our God, but we
are the sheep of His pasture. And then notice the third thing
he says, the sheep of His hand, people
of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Our Lord in the
New Testament said concerning His sheep, I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my hand." That passage of scripture speaks of our preservation, doesn't it? Our
keeping in the hand of Christ. And I thought about this again
this past week, and I thought, why? Why is it that some people
who call themselves believers, why is it they try to figure
out there's some way that a sheep cannot get out of his hand? Why
would anyone do that? Why would any saved person try
to prove that it's possible for one of his sheep to get out of
his hand. It's amazing to me that anyone,
it's like cutting off your nose to spite your face. That's a
wonderful promise he's given us, that Christ, he was given
his sheep and we're in his hand and no man is able to pluck one
of his sheep out of his hand, with the sheep of his hand. What
causes that to worship? Now, third, O come, let us heed
His warning. Today, today, if you will hear
His voice, harden not your heart. Now the passage here has reference
to the day, and I know it does because it tells us that God's
swearing His wrath. Verse 11, there were many things
that the Israelites did to provoke God during those 40 years in
the wilderness, but the one thing that's mentioned here is the
day when they did not believe God. Unbelieve. The spies came back and said,
the land is a beautiful land. Everything's ready for us. But
they did not believe God was able to take them into the land. And it was because of their unbelief,
God swore in his wrath. As I live, he said, as I live,
God could not swear by any greater because there's none greater.
He swore by himself. And he said, this generation
shall not enter into the land of rest. You say, well, what
does that have to do with us? Well, in the New Testament, the
writer of Hebrews applies it to us. And I would apply it to
people in this building this morning. If you were asked, do
you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you would say yes.
If you were asked, do you believe that he is the Christ of God,
you would say yes. Harden not your heart. Why is
it if you believe these things? Why is it that you will not commit
yourself to the Savior? Why is it that you will not call
upon Him and confess Him and own Him and serve Him? Why? I tell you, the Scripture
says, harden not your heart. If God speaks to you, gives you
that desire in your heart, to look to Christ, to trust in Christ,
to confess Christ, and you say, no, I'm not gonna do that. Maybe
tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe some more convenient time. This
is a warning. It's a warning from God's word.
Heed this warning. Today, God hasn't promised you
tomorrow. He hasn't promised any of us
tomorrow. Today is the day of salvation, the scripture says. Maybe you are here today and
you have heard his voice today. I pray that you will confess
him. Speak to me after the service.
Let me know that you want to follow the Lord in baptism. You
want to confess him publicly. Don't put it off. Don't harden
your heart. That's a serious matter, a serious
matter. Let's sing our hymn before we're
dismissed. O Come, hymn number 100.