Psalms 95 · The Lantern

Do Not Harden Your Hearts

Come, let us sing aloud to the LORD; let us shout to the rock of our salvation.

Let us meet his face with thanksgiving; with songs let us shout to him.

For the LORD is a great God, and a great king above all gods.

In whose hand are the depths of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are his.

Whose is the sea — and he himself made it — and his hands formed the dry land.

Come, let us bow down and kneel; let us bless before the LORD our maker.

For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the flock of his hand. Today, if you would listen to his voice:

Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

"For He is the Lord our God" [Psalm 95:7]. But that we may without fear fall down and kneel before Him, what are we? "We are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand." See how elegantly he has transposed the order of the words, and as it were not given its own attribute to each word; that we may understand these very same to be the sheep, who are also the people.

Indeed, no one should continue longer time in his sins out of hope for the mercy of God, since no one wishes to be ill for a longer time in the body because of the hope for future health.

“Do not harden your heart as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,

where your fathers tested me; they proved me, though they had seen my work.

For forty years I loathed a generation, and I said, ‘They are a people who wander in heart, and they have not known my ways.’

"See, O people, the grace of Christ about you. Even while you are harassed on earth, you have possessions in heaven. There, then, let your heart be, where your possession is." This is the rest that is due the just and is denied the unworthy.

Did not the prophet, speaking in behalf of God, say to you, "Forty years I was offended with that generation, and I said, 'These always err in heart.' " How was it, then, that at that time God did not turn away from you?

"Forty years long was I very near unto this generation, and said, It is a people that do always err in their hearts; for they have not known My ways" [Psalm 95:10]. The forty years have the same meaning as the word "always." For that number forty indicates the fullness of ages, as if the ages were perfected in this number.

So I swore in my anger that they would not enter my rest.”

Psalms95

Do Not Harden Your Hearts