This week’s “Wednesday Word” is a summary of an exposition of Psalm 95 from Dr. Wellum given on Sunday, August 24, 2008.

This week Dr. Wellum overviewed the fourth book of the Psalter (Psalm 90-106). Beginning with the great Psalm of Moses, we are quickly introduced to the theme of this fourth book: God has been faithful to his people in the past and so his people can have confidence in his ongoing faithfulness. Throughout these seventeen psalms, we continually see a refrain of God’s steadfast love to Israel as his erring children struggle to understand the plan of God during this post-exilic period.

Psalm 95. Verses 1-6 express an overflow of worship from the psalmists. By the use of this lavish language he creates an insightful forerunner to verses 7-11. This dichotomy shows us that it was a lack of worship that brought Israel to this point. God’s chosen ones have hardened their hearts rather than worship their Maker and Shepherd, Yahweh. Even though they have stood witness to the provision and deliverance of Yahweh, their hearts calcify with hardness. Psalm 95 closes by saying:

“For forty years I loathed the 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.’ ”

Moving to the New Testament, Hebrews 3-4 draw from Psalm 95 this theme of rest. These chapters stress that Christ, who is greater than Moses and Joshua, provides the only way into this God’s Sabbath rest. Obedience and faith in Christ supply the sole means for receiving this rest. The author of Hebrews writes, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience” (4:11).

Therefore, in light of Psalm 95 and Hebrews 3-4, may we always seek to remember what God has done in past generations as well as the present. May we strive to continually dedicate our hearts and minds to the worship of Christ, lest we succumb to hardness of heart. May we trust in the unfailing promises of God, that all that he said he would do he has done in and for us in Christ Jesus. May we look to the culmination of all things in Christ when he will come and we will enter this rest with him, because only in him can this promise of rest be realized.

Listen to this week’s lesson: Psalm 95

~ds