Psalm 95

Psalm chapter 95, lovely Psalm.

What's he referring to here? Notice how the psalmist switches into the prophetic first-person voice of the Lord. And God says here at the end of this Psalm, when you hear the voice of the Lord, don't harden your hearts as you did at Meribah and at Massah. He's talking about that; it was the same name here. It wasn’t talking about two places; it was just one place with two different names. It was the place where the nation of Israel grumbled because they had no water, and they even talked about stoning Moses. They were so hard-hearted and faithless. And on two occasions, God—they came back to the same place at Meribah, and God brought water from a rock to take care of the people at that place, even though the people were faithless and grumbling. God says here that you put me to the test and you put me to the proof, even though I was showing you my signs every single day in the wilderness. He goes on in verse 10 to say,

And He's talking about the fact that generation didn't get to go into the Promised Land. Because you see, God referred to entering rest—His rest—as going into the land and enjoying the benefits and the fruitfulness of being in the land. But as you know, that was a faithless generation, so they wandered for a total of 40 years in the wilderness because they refused to believe the promises of God. They believed the bad report of the spies over the word of the Lord, and God said, fine, you won't be able to enter My rest. Now, here's what's interesting: the writer of Hebrews actually takes this very Psalm, and throughout two chapters—chapters 3 and 4 of the book of Hebrews —he uses this idea of entering the rest of God to apply it to the work of Jesus Christ and what the Sabbath is all about. Because he makes the connection that entering the rest of God is a Sabbath rest because that's what the Sabbath was all about—it was about resting. So he uses those two chapters in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4, he masterfully explains that Jesus is our Sabbath rest and that He is the fulfillment of the biblical Sabbath. It is such a beautiful picture of how we enter the rest of God. How do you rest? Well, I rest by putting my faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, right? I'm no longer working for my salvation. I'm not trying to be a good person in order to be saved. I'm resting in what He did, not in what I do. So I put no faith in the flesh, as Paul says, I put all my faith in God, and therefore, I'm resting. (Hebrews 3:7-11 and Hebrews 4:1-3) Ah, I don't have to sit and wonder, Am I saved? Am I not? I had a bad week, so maybe I'm not saved. No, no, no, none of that. There's no question about my salvation because I'm resting in what He did. And that is the fulfillment of the Sabbath—the biblical Sabbath was all about resting, and so Jesus is our Sabbath rest. ---