By Jeremy Bell
I am going to highlight Christian agreement. Finding points of agreement helps build unity among people. Often, disagreements are in the application of fundamental ideas. I will share how Psalm 95 supports Christian salvation fundamentals. I will continue with Hebrews 3: 1 – 4, Hebrews 3: 7 – 19, Hebrews 4: 1 – 7 directly afterwards because this New Testament writer refers to it. Understanding the unity across scripture is excellent theological practice.
Usually, Christians get excited about grace through faith without works. Often the mantra is love, love, love. God is love, He loves us unconditionally and people simply respond to His love, and everything works out. This is dangerous. The blood of Jesus Christ was not cheap, and God will not be mocked. God put warnings in His word, and this is one of them. It’s true that God is love and He does love us. But to enter into His holy presence, to enter into relationship with Him, does have a condition. It’s His son, Jesus. No one comes to Father except through faith in Him.
Repentance
This begins with repentance. It means denying self even dying to self and turning to Jesus and His ways. Through faith in Jesus that He alone is savior and that He will provide everything needed to be reconciled to the perfect provider, God the Father. This means knowing that this life is one of opportunity for that and then that opportunity is over when we die. And we all enter into death.
But those who trust in Jesus and not themselves or other gods, are alive forever. They will wake to a judgement that will save them from eternal separation from the living God who made them and provided good things for them. Jesus calls this place a lake of fire, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Eternal thirst without satisfaction. Those who die without faith in the true living God through the son He sent, Jesus, will wake to enter into a judgement of death and complete separation. But I digress.
Warning
Let me get back to the warning here by providing some context to this Psalm. Thousands of years ago, the Israelites were slaves to Egyptians. Slavery has been around ever since mankind has existed. Some of it resembling a workplace type scenario where slaves were treated more like employees and sometimes family. Other times slavery resembled something that looked more like caged animals. Slave owners imprisoned, whipped, and killed slaves like rats and cows. This Israelite enslavement resembled the later.
The Israelites prayed to the living God, and He heard them. He raised a leader us, Moses, and delivered them from the Egyptians. Not only that, He led them to a promised land where they would enter into houses that were already built, and where the agriculture was flowing with milk and honey. During the journey God demonstrated His presence as a pillar of fire by night and smoke during the day. He parted the Red sea, gushed water for them to drink out of rocks, and rained food down for them from the sky to eat.
God Spoke
As the Israelites neared the promised land, God spoke to Moses saying, “Depart, go up from here, you and the people that you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I will send an angel before you; and I will drive out the people of the land. Go to a land flowing with milk and honey. Send men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. Of every tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, every one a prince among them.”
To enter into the promised land, they went up, and spied out the land and returned at the end of forty days. They went and came to Moses, to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel. The fruit of the land was shown to them. They told him, and said, “We came to the land where you sent us. Surely it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
However…
However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. Amalek dwells in the land of the South. The Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite dwell in the hill country. The Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along the side of the Jordan. We aren’t able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.” They brought up an evil report of the land, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
Joshua and Caleb, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes. They spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If Yahweh delights in us, then he will bring us to enter into this land and give it to us: a land which flows with milk and honey. Only don’t rebel against Yahweh, neither fear the people of the land; for they are bread for us. Their defense is removed from over them, and Yahweh is with us. Don’t fear them. Let’s go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!”
Bad Choice
But the entire congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness! Why does Yahweh bring us to enter into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be captured or killed! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return into Egypt?” They said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader, and let’s return into Egypt.”
Yahweh’s ‘Obligation’
Yahweh said, “As I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with Yahweh’s glory— because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice; surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it. How long shall I bear with this evil congregation that complain against me?”
“As surely as you have spoken in my ears, so I will do to you. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all who were counted of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me, surely you shall not come into the land concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell therein, except Caleb and Joshua.
Mercy to the Next Generation
“But I will bring in your little ones that you said should be captured or killed, and they shall know the land which you have rejected. After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’ I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”
Repentance Too Late
The people mourned greatly. They rose up early in the morning and went up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Behold, we are here, and will go up to the place and enter into that which Yahweh has promised; for we have sinned.” Moses said, “Why now do you disobey the commandment of Yahweh, since it shall not prosper? Don’t go up, for Yahweh isn’t among you; that way you won’t be struck down before your enemies. For there the Amalekite and the Canaanite are before you, and you will fall by the sword because you turned back from following Yahweh; therefore Yahweh will not be with you.”
But they presumed to go up to the top of the mountain. Nevertheless, the ark of Yahweh’s covenant and Moses didn’t depart out of the camp. Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down.
God is No Employer
God is love and God rescues. But God is the Almighty and Majestic God. He is perfectly holy and perfectly just. He is the Lord of hosts and THE most high. We would do well not to take His grace, mercy, and forgiveness for granted or even dare to consider that He owes these things to us. With the right perspective, can you even imagine the audacity to think a person would consult Him as an equal? Jesus is good news. But there is not good news unless there is an evil from which one would need good news.
Hopefully that gives some perspective and things to consider while preparing to hear or read this Psalm. They are by no means the only perspectives or considerations, just the ones right now. So… without further hesitation, here is Psalm 95 and Hebrews 3: 1 – 4, Hebrews 3: 7 – 19, Hebrews 4: 1 – 7. The motif groupings are highlighted in my book, Psalms in Motif Visualization.
[ Psalm 95 ]
Oh come, let’s sing to Yahweh.
Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation!
Let’s come before his presence with thanksgiving.
Let’s extol him with songs!
For Yahweh is a great God,
a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the deep places of the earth.
The heights of the mountains are also his.
The sea is his, and he made it.
His hands formed the dry land.
Oh come, let’s worship and bow down.
Let’s kneel before Yahweh, our Maker,
for he is our God.
We are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep in his care.
Today, oh that you would hear his voice!
Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers tempted me,
tested me, and saw my work.
Forty long years I was grieved with that generation,
and said, “It is a people that errs in their heart.
They have not known my ways.”
Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They won’t enter into my rest.”
Hebrews 3: 1 – 4, Hebrews 3: 7 – 19, Hebrews 4: 1 – 7
Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also Moses was in all his house. For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, because he who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone; but he who built all things is God. Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you will hear his voice,
don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,
in the day of the trial in the wilderness,
where your fathers tested me and tried me,
and saw my deeds for forty years.
Therefore I was displeased with that generation,
and said, ‘They always err in their heart,
but they didn’t know my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath,
‘They will not enter into my rest.’”
Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God; but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called “today”, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end, while it is said,
“Today if you will hear his voice,
don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.”
For who, when they heard, rebelled? Wasn’t it all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into His rest, but to those who were disobedient? We see that they weren’t able to enter into His rest because of unbelief.
Beware Brothers
The writer of Hebrews says it best. ‘Beware brothers.’ If any of us have been saved from the just sentence of death, it is by God’s doing. It is by His grace. God didn’t just leave clues that He hoped people would discover. He spoke with people and breathed actual words that were written and preserved. He then sent His son to explain, clarify, and demonstrate. His son also became the actual gateway to relationship with the God who saves. Jesus lived, died, and rose from the grave. We did nothing but kill Him. So, let’s stay humble.
Christians Help Each Other
More than that, let’s enter into relationship with other believers so we can hold each other accountable. Let’s encourage each other and exhort each other. What if we fall into sin and our hearts become hard? What if we are so prideful that we don’t think we need each other because we don’t sin? If any of us says we don’t sin, we’re liars that accuse God of lying. If we really believe that, we have hard hearts.
Let’s help each other rest in God and finish the race to enter into His eternal rest. God has done a thing. He has designed Christians to fit together for this purpose. We have every reason to trust Him, even against our own desires or wisdom. It is not our nature of logic and reason that will bring us into God’s heaven, though those are important, and God given. Rather, it is the nature of faith in Jesus that restores us, Jesus, the Nature of Joy.
Resources and Notes
All scripture in this article is from the WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE (WEB). The World English Bible (WEB) is a Public Domain (no copyright) Modern English translation of the Holy Bible. The World English Bible is based on the American Standard Version of the Holy Bible first published in 1901, the Biblia Hebraica Stutgartensa Old Testament, and the Greek Majority Text New Testament.
For more related to this blog, check out my post on Equipping the Saints for Local Missions Truths.
This is a reliable translation, but it is always good to read other translations as well. Biblegateway.com has a multitude of translations to read from. It is a great resource.
Another great resource is Biblehub.com. There are multiple translations, commentaries, and so much more. Great research can be done on this platform.
One more I use regularly is Gotquestions.org. This is a great site to answer questions and find threads of related questions.
There are many resources. The key is that God wants relationship directly with you, the individual. His primary source for revealing who He is and growing in intimacy is His word, the scriptures. Don’t just read for instruction. Analyze and read for understanding. Explore, ask questions, and be transformed in Jesus every moment you possibly can. There is no dispute this is a key desire of God. People are brough to the Father, in the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This… This is the Nature of Joy.
Jeremy is an author, musician, and business intelligence manager. His mission is to equip and encourage those in Christ, to equip and encourage others in Christ. Jesus, Christ, is the Nature of Joy and melody of the heart. Jeremy unites business analytics (business intelligence), songs, and Scripture for Christian living in the power of the Holy Spirit.