If Today You Hear His Voice

Psalms 95:1-5 ESV

 

“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;

    let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

    let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

For the Lord is a great God,

    and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth;

    the heights of the mountains are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it,

    and his hands formed the dry land.”

 

I love to sing. I have been singing pretty much all my life. But my singing voice isn’t doing so well these days. Yet, I am still singing even if my voice keeps giving out on me, because I love to sing the words of the Scriptures put to music, and I love to sing praises to my Lord Jesus. And I love to sing about our walks of faith in our Lord. And so what I love to sing the most are the old hymns, yet not all of them, but most of the ones I know. For I grew up singing the hymns both at home and at our local church fellowship.

 

But singing praises to the Lord isn’t just about singing with our voices, but it is about singing with our hearts. It is a lot like worship. Worship of God isn’t just about singing songs of praise to him with our voices, but it is about living lives which are pleasing to him for his glory and praise. It is about us yielding our lives over to the Lord as living sacrifices to him, holy and pleasing to him, which is our acceptable worship of him. And it is about us no longer living in conformity to the ways of the world (Rom 12:1-2).

 

Psalms 95:6-7 ESV

 

“Oh 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.”

 

Again, our worship of the Lord is not just about singing praise and worship songs, especially if our lives are not surrendered to him. For we can’t even truly worship the Lord if we are still living in sin, doing what our sinful hearts desire. And kneeling and bowing down before the Lord are not just physical positions we do with our bodies. They involve us submitting to Jesus as Lord, and us surrendering our lives to the Lord to do his will for our lives. They involve us humbling ourselves before the Lord and us obeying his teachings.

 

So if God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is our God whom we worship, then we will submit to him as Lord and leave our lives of sin behind us, and we will walk in obedience to his commands in his power and strength, and all for the glory of God and not for our own glory and praise. We will no longer be the ones controlling our own lives, but our Lord will be the one in command over our lives and we will be doing what he says to do. For, as his sheep, we are to follow him in obedience to his ways and to his will for our lives.

 

Psalms 95:7-11 ESV

 

“Today, if you hear his voice,

    do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,

    as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,

when your fathers put me to the test

    and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

For forty years I loathed that 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.’”

 

We read in 1 Corinthians 10 about the children of Israel who wandered in the wilderness (the desert) for 40 years. With most of them God was not pleased and so they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. So, we are not to be idolaters and revelers. And we are not to be sexually immoral, nor should we try to put Christ to the test, nor should we be those who grumble against God regarding what we go through in this life.

 

Because they did these things, in practice, and in rebellion against God, and because they did not humble themselves before the Lord and submit to his will for their lives, but they deliberately disobeyed him instead of willfully obeying him, in practice, most of them were destroyed in the wilderness, and only a small minority were able to enter into God’s eternal rest. And these things were written down for our instruction so that we don’t rebel against the Lord and make a practice of sin, for that will end in death.

 

And then we have the words of this Psalm repeated for us in Hebrews 3 and in Hebrews 4, so this isn’t just Old Testament teaching. This is New Testament teaching. And this teaching is not for those who make no profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, but it is for those who do profess Jesus Christ as Lord and as Savior of their lives. And this isn’t taught to us just in the book of Hebrews, but all throughout the New Testament writings. We must forsake our sinful practices and follow Jesus in obedience or we don’t have eternal life with God and heaven is not our eternal destiny.

 

So, if the Lord Jesus speaks to you through his word, and if he convicts you of sin and of lack of obedience to him, and if he shows you the right way to go and he warns you against following the way of sin, don’t ignore him. And if you are walking in sin and you are ignoring his commands, you cannot claim ignorance. You are accountable to God for what you do and for how you live. And if you decide to continue in deliberate and habitual sin, you will not inherit eternal life no matter what you confessed with your lips.

 

For our Lord regards disobedience as unbelief and he regards obedience as belief, so we cannot separate faith in Jesus Christ from obedience to him. So that also means that we cannot separate faith in Jesus Christ from the forsaking of our sins, i.e. from us dying with Christ to sin, not just once, but daily. Our faith in Jesus is intrinsically linked to our walks of faith, which involves the forsaking of sins and walks of obedience to his commands. For if we keep on in deliberate and habitual sin, and if we do not practice obedience to our Lord, again, we will not inherit eternal life with God.

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-32; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:22-25; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10; Heb 12:1-2; Jn 6:44; 2 Pet 1:1; 1 Co 15:58; Php 2:12-13; Col 1:21-23; 1 Co 10:1-22; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:26-27; Rom 2:6-8; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 5:3-6; Col 3:5-17; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Matt 7:21-23; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

 

Thou Art Worthy

Revelation 4:11

 

Thou art worthy, Thou art worthy,

Thou art worthy, O Lord.

To receive glory, glory and honor,

Glory and honor and power.

For Thou hast created, hast all things created,

Thou hast created all things.

And for Thy pleasure they are created;

Thou art worthy, O Lord.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1GIF-Nphbs

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