WEEKLY SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
An international
Sunday school lesson commentary
For
Sunday December 14, 2014
Over 70,000
readers worldwide
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MAKE
A JOYFUL NOISE
(Express
your praise to GOD)
(Psalm
95)
Our unwillingness to respond to GOD
in the right way (obedience) will result in our losing of our only opportunity
to enter into GOD’s holy “rest” when our lives here on earth are expired. In
Psalm 95 the psalmist calls for us to acknowledge GOD as the great GOD above
all the other deities (influences) of this world. GOD is the CREATOR of this
world and we must respond to HIS voice with “saving faith”, if, we wish to end
up in HIS glorious presence in the end. Here the psalmist writes these words
that so eloquently crosses the spans of time to serve as a reminder to us, here
in the 21st century;
(1)” Come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
(2) Let us come to him with thanksgiving.
Let us sing psalms of praise to him.
(3) For the Lord is a great God,
a great King above all gods.
(4) He holds in his hands the depths of the earth
and the mightiest mountains.
(5) The sea belongs to him, for he made it.
His hands formed the dry land, too.
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
(2) Let us come to him with thanksgiving.
Let us sing psalms of praise to him.
(3) For the Lord is a great God,
a great King above all gods.
(4) He holds in his hands the depths of the earth
and the mightiest mountains.
(5) The sea belongs to him, for he made it.
His hands formed the dry land, too.
(6) Come, let us worship and
bow down.
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker,
(7) for he is our God.
We are the people he watches over,
the flock under his care.
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker,
(7) for he is our God.
We are the people he watches over,
the flock under his care.
If only you would listen to his voice today!
(8) The Lord says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah,
as they did at Massah in the wilderness.
(9) For there your ancestors tested and tried my patience,
even though they saw everything I did.
(10) For forty years I was angry with them, and I said,
‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from me.
They refuse to do what I tell them.’
(11) So in my anger I took an oath:
‘They will never enter my place of rest.” (NLT)
(8) The Lord says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah,
as they did at Massah in the wilderness.
(9) For there your ancestors tested and tried my patience,
even though they saw everything I did.
(10) For forty years I was angry with them, and I said,
‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from me.
They refuse to do what I tell them.’
(11) So in my anger I took an oath:
‘They will never enter my place of rest.” (NLT)
GOD’s voice is represented by any of the directives that are given
to us through the Holy Scriptures, and, through the HOLY SPIRIT, WHO, is at
work in all believers. True believers will always hear, recognize, and seek to
obey that voice, and we
worship HIM only when we “hear and do” that which HE directs and commands in
HIS Holy Word. The key to
our personal relationship with GOD is to remain steadfast and sensitive to HIS
HOLY SPIRIT, and to always be ready to respond in the right way when HE does
speak to us.
The very concept of
“GOD’s rest” is rooted in creation itself, and, even today, still has vital
meaning for believers. We, as Christians, know of GOD’s place of rest, because
scripture tells us that on the seventh day, GOD rested from all of HIS labor. And
so we see GOD’s place of rest, is just like HIS Word, in the sense that it has
always been there for us to enjoy following our earthly experience. And even
though many have failed to make it to that place of rest over the generations,
it still remains to be enjoyed by those who listen to, and obey CHRIST JESUS.
This place of rest is
not like the land of Canaan, where Joshua led the people to, following their forty
years of struggles on the desert all those years ago. God has spoken since that
time about another place of rest that is still waiting for those who believe in
this day and time. We will find rest from all of our labors, just as GOD rested
after creating the world, if we are led by our faith into obedience to HIS
Word. However, anyone who disobeys GOD in this day, as the Israelite people did
who died in the desert long ago, will also experience a death that will
eternally separate them from GOD.
We, as modern-day Christians, must take care that we do not find
ourselves in the position of the Israelites, who were made, by GOD, to wander
in the desert for forty years, and were never able to experience GOD’s “rest”
in the new “promised land” of milk and honey (Canaan), because of their
perpetual disobedience. If we disobey and move against GOD’s Will today, as
they did then, we ourselves will never experience GOD’s rest (in Heaven), which
JESUS says, has had specially prepared for us, since the foundation of this
world.
This Psalm is one of the seven so-called “Enthronement Psalms” of
the Psalter (the others are Psalms 47, 93, & 96-99), and it helps us to somehow
sense the intimate bond between “Old Testament faith”, and our own “faith in
CHRIST JESUS” today. It also helps us to appreciate just “how great of a
salvation” we have in GOD, through HIS greater SON. GOD’s promise of salvation,
or, entering into “HIS place of rest”, is still valid, and should make us
tremble with fear for ourselves, our loved ones, and all other human beings, who
might fail to reach it, at the end of this earthly struggle.
A Sunday school lesson
by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official Website
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