Psalms 95:1. O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
The worship of God should always be joyful, hence there is to be much singing in it. God is not like Baal, who can be worshipped with crying and lamentation, and the cutting of the flesh with knives. We who believe in him regard him not as the destroyer or the avenger, but as «the rock of our salvation.» You who have hidden in that rock can truly praise him.
Psalms 95:2. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving,
Let us not be afraid to stand in the immediate presence of God; on the other hand, let us not worship him with lightness and frivolity, but let us come before his presence with due reverence and solemnity; and when we come, let it be «with thanksgiving.» I need not remind you what innumerable reasons we have for thanksgiving. Let us render to God thanks according to what we have received from him.
Psalms 95:2-3. And make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
There are no other gods that are worthy to bear that name, but Jehovah is the great King above all that are called gods.
Psalms 95:4. In his hand are the deep places of the earth:
The innermost caverns, the deepest mines of earth, and the far-down places in the depths of the ocean, these are all in God's hand.
Psalms 95:4. The strength of the hills is his also.
He is the God of the hills as well as the God of the valleys. Let us read this verse again. «In his hand are the deep places of the earth.» Are any of you there today? Then praise him out of the deep places. «The strength of the hills is his also.» Are you on the tops of the mountains today? Then give him the praise who placed you there lest through pride your feet should slip.
Psalms 95:5. The sea is his, and he made it:
Men cannot parcel it out into estates, or cut it up into allotments, as they do with the solid earth; but «the sea is his;» there God reigns alone, and surveys the broad acres of the wild waste of waters as his own.
Psalms 95:5. And his hands formed the dry land.
As though it were so much plastic clay, out of which he had molded this great globe, and fashioned the various countries in which the nations of mankind dwell.
Psalms 95:6-7. 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.
Blessed are we if we can say this in very truth, we are highly privileged to have this God to be our God, and to be ourselves his purchased inheritance, the objects of his daily care: «the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.»
Psalms 95:7-8. To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart,
It is a tender heart that hears God's voice, and the heart that hears his voice is sure to be made tender. These two things act and re-act the one upon the other.
Psalms 95:8-11. 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 grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.
They had seen God's work, but they did not know his eyes; they had not the sense to perceive the hand of God even in his miracles, or when they did perceive it, they oft rebelled against him. Oh, that we may not be like that unbelieving generation that grieved the Lord for forty years in the wilderness!
This exposition consisted of readings from 1 Kings 5:1, and Psalms 48, 95.