[Pastor Ralph]

Q2. (Psalm 95) In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm? Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm? How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?

[Tabatha]

Q2. (Psalm 95) In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm? Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm? How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?

Psalm 95 rather easily divides into three sections. First, There is an exhortation to worship Jehovah ( 1-2 ) Second, reasons for the validity of that activity are set forth ( 3-7 ). Third, there is a warning against becomimg "hardened" to the truth ( 8- 11 )

THE " VOICE " of GOD

God is a Being of commmunication. He wants the human family, fashioned in His very image
( 1: 26-27 ), to know of His existence and His purpose on its behalf. He has wonderfully " declared"
His existence in the Glories of the created universe ( Psa. 19:1; Rom. 1:20 ). In ages past He spoke to great leaders via dreams, visions, and even "Face to Face" But these were special forms of divine communication and were never intended to be experiences for everyone throughout the whole history.

" HEARING "
David urges, " Oh that you would hear.... " But what does it mean to "hear " the LORD?

Actually, in biblical parlance, "hearing" is frequently the equivalent of "obeying " In the Hebrew Old Testment, the term for obey is shama, which ultimately means to "hear " The people of Israel, for instance, are told by the Lord," ....... If you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be mine own possession... ( Ex. 19: 5 ). If one is not obeying, he simply is not listening to God.
Similarly, a common term for obey in the Greek New Testament is akouo, "to hear" A kindred form of this word is even more dramatic.It is hupakuo, literally, " to hear under". The idea sugested is that of that of one who places himself " under " another ( teacher ) and "hears" with a view to practing what he is taught. Paul could speak of those who became " obedient " from the heart to that form of teaching ( gospel ) to which we have been delivered ( Rom. 6:17 ).

" TODAY"
The importance of hearing ( obeying ) God " today " is paramount.
Psalm 95, and echoes thereof in the New Testament, speak eloquently to the man and woman of today. Those who "have ears to hear," should do so with great dispatch. Are you listening to God's voice.
A hardened heart is as useless as a lump of clay or a hardened loaf of bread. Nothing can restore it and make it useful The psalmist warns against hardening our hearts as Israel did in the desert by continuing to resist God's will ( Exodus 17:7 )They were so convinced that God couldn't deliver them that they simply lost their faith in Him. When someone 's heart becomes hardened that person is so stubbornly set in his ways that he or she cannot turn to God. This does not happen all at once ,it is the result of a series of choices to God's will. If you resist God long enough . God may toss you aside like hardened bread useless and worthless.

Meribah means "quarreling" and Massah means " testing' This refers to the incident
at Rephidim ( 17:1 -7 ) When the Israelites Complained to Moses because they had no water.

What keeps us from God's ultimate blessings ( entering His rest ) " ? Ungrateful hearts ( 95- 2 ), hardening our hearts ( 95: 9 )testing God because of stubborn doubts ( 95: 9) in Hebrews ( 4: 5- 11 ) we are warned not to harden our hearts . but to reject the glamour of sin and anything else that would lead us away from God.

[Commissioned]

Q2. (Psalm 95) In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm?
Some of the reasons why we are commanded to worship the Lord in this Psalm is because He is the rock of our salvation, because He is great and a great king above all gods, because He holds, in His hands, the deep places of the earth; He owns th hills, the seas and the earth. In fact, He is the creator of the universe and mankind.

Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm?
I think this warning is included in this psalm to serve as a reminder that even though God is our provider we sometimes forget where we came from and how God was with us to bring us through.

How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?
We should always have a praise on our lips, because God is worthy of our praise.

[Lynnely]

Q2. (Psalm 95) In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm? Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm? How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?

We are to worship God because He IS God...and we are not! He is a GREAT GOD and a great King above all gods. He holds reign over even the depths of the earth as well as the tops of the mountains. He made the sea and formed the dry land...He is the Creator.

And that is why we should worship Him! Also because He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. We are the objects of His greatest creation. We were created to have fellowship with HIm...to worship, love and adore Him. I sometimes wonder if He isn't sorry He gave us that mission...instead of the beautiful horse, or fleet deer, or the Monarch butterfly, or the flighty little hummingbird...or the dog who always loves, regardless of how the master treats him/her, whose eyes are always full of forgiveness and readiness to get on with things! We must be such a disappointment to Him!

God WAS disappointed with the Israelites in the wilderness. They complained about all the miraculous ways He had taken care of them from delivering them from captivity to feeding them and giving them fresh water to drink in the desert. They preferred their old captivity to the life He was taking them...a land of milk and honey...and His rest.
Don't we try Him every day? Aren't we unhappy at times with our lives...don't we complain? Don't we forget to thank Him for our very breaths? He was warning us NOT to harden our hearts as to forget who is God.

[Elwood C O'Dell]

“We worship, we bow down, because we recognize both God's ownership of us and his responsibility to care for us.”* We worship because He is worthy of all praise, honor and glory. We worship because of Who He is and what He has done / is doing for us. We worship because He is God. “The way we live our lives comprises our worship of God, not just what we say with our mouths on “worship days.”* Worship is a 24/7, 365-366 days a year way of life.

I feel the warning is there because we, like the children of Israel, tend to forget and need to be reminded of how dependent on God we really are. We tend to feel that we are in control and that we are the masters of our own fate. When in reality we are only fooling ourselves. Only one person can be God and He will have no other gods before.

When things get rough, we often yearn to return to our old ways of doing things. If we are not careful we can easily begin to begin to question God and His direction in our lives. This can lead us into a situation where we find ourselves estranged or out of harmony with Him and this can lead to disastrous circumstances.

*quotes from Dr. Wilson

[charisbarak]

The reasons to worship the Lord are:
1. He is the God of our salvation
2. We need to be thankful for what He has/is doing for us
3. For the Lord is the great God above all gods--extol Him
4/5. He made everything & everything is in His control
6. He made us, we need to worship Him
7. He is our Great Shepherd

The verses of warning--8-11--were included to show how easy it is to turn from being a people of praise to a people of griping with hardened hearts.

All is His--praise & extol Him. Be content. It shows a definite contrast in attitudes & actions.

[Roxanne]

[quote name='Pastor Ralph' date='Aug 18 2007, 02:00 PM' post='28550']
Q2. (Psalm 95) In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm? Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm? How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm? BECAUSE JESUS IS LORD...BECAUSE EVERYTHING JESUS IS. HOW TO TURN TO GOD AND AWAY FROM ANYTHING ELSE....PRAISE THE LORD THROUGH EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING

[KelvinJC]

1) We should worship God as he is the almighty creator of the Universe. He had given us the gift of salvation as a believer. He had saved us marvelously. He is also our sheperd. We praise God to allow him to know that we are thankful for the things He had given and poses right now. Overall, he is worthy and the almighty one, thus we need to glorify his name and lift his name up.

2) I believe it is a reminder from God that there is a tendency to forget who is the true God and always been there for us in times of trouble. These verses are just reminding us that we should always depend on God and know that the success does not come from ourself. We do need the help from God or else we will fail no matter how hard we try. Often times, we think we are in control of the task, and often forget it is God that had helped us and guided us.

3) We should always praise God at all times and in all circumstances. We are once reminded that only God is the true God and we should depend on him at all times. We should take actions and not just simply say it through our mouth.

[nancychua]

Q2. (Psalm 95) In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm? Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm? How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?

We worship the Lord because we recognize God`s ownership that He is our Saviour & Creator who knitted us out from our mother`s womb to this world to serve Him not to be served. He is our Sovereign God who is worthy of all our praise, honor and glory. We must worship and give thanks in all the things that He has done in our lives. He is the Rock of Salvation & hope of our future in whom we can totally depend & trust in Him . There is no other God that can be compared with the unfailing love that He has surpasses with all our understanding. Everything that has breathe must praise and worship Him.


The warning in psalm serves as a reminder that He is in control of our lives. He is our Abba Father who meet all our needs according to His riches in Glory. He is always there with us in times of good and bad, He will carry us through as promised He will never leave nor forsake us in times of need. He reigns above all heaven and earth.

As long as we live, we have to live for the Lord and our lips shall never stop praising Him. Hallelujah!

[Sophia M.]

1---He is our rock of salvation
The Great God, Almighty King, All things belong to God,

b---You can't praise God with the mouth and then not back it with your actions, you have to be true with your All your heart, mind and soul.

[Jezemeg]

Far too often in this broken world, there is a tendency to worship the creation, rather than God, the Creator. He alone is worthy of our praise and adoration. Another problem is that we pay 'lip service' in our worship, we say the right words but contradict them with our actions. God is not interested in this type of worship, He classes it as 'empty', likening it to the mindless clashing of cymbals. In this day and age there is a tendency to think of God as a kind of 'Santa Claus', His only purpose being to fill our wants...again, this attitude shows the lack of maturity among many believers. We are here to worship God, not He us. We must remember that God alone can see the 'Big Picture', He is the only one equipped to know exactly what providing us with our wants will result in, and we must learn to trust Him that He has a reason to refuse our wants.

[JustJeff]

Psalm 95 tells us that our God is God of Gods, there really is no other. He is omnipresent, the creator of all things, our Maker. Yahweh is our Shepherd, our leader and provider. Without Him we lose our way and suffer great want. When He speaks we must listen and follow.
When we rebel against Him by murmuring and complaining He listens and He will reject us by excluding us from His rest as He is wrathful. Thus, if we forget verses 1-7, be warned of the penalty in verses 8-11.

[davidjjj]

What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm?

Because of the joy we have from Him concerning Him (1)
Because of His salvation (1)
Because He, the Rock of our salvation, is worthy of thanksgiving (2)
Because He is the great God, the King, -above all other so called gods (3)
Because of His great and creative power- He is sovereign (4-5)
Because He is OUR maker and OUR God (6-7)
Because WE are the people He watches over, the sheep under His care (7)

Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm?

The theme of God’s role as Shepherd and us as His sheep has come up, as has His role as King, and His role as Creator. As King and Shepherd we enjoy God’s protection and salvation -but the other side of the coin is we are to listen to His voice i.e. His direction. That’s what servants do, that’s what sheep do (in the Middle East) they listen and follow. The Psalmist makes it clear that as worshipers we should listen to God, our hearts should be pliable. As the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, our God leads us to rest- but those who don’t listen will not enjoy this rest (95:11) this is a warning and we are to learn from the past example

How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?

Someone once declared “a bent knee is not enough” in the first part of the psalm we see a bent knee in worship concerning God’s Kingly rule, the second part is a reminder that this is meant to be more than lip service in a worship gathering, it meant to be in every facet of our lives

[EuniceC]

1. We are brought to the realisation that we actually have reasons to praise God: He is a great God indeed, He is King above all, All things, including us, belong to Him, without Him, we wouldnt have been created, He created us for Himself, we belong to Him, so we must praise Him.
2. Praise does not just mean shouting and making music, but realising His authority over us, submitting to that authority, and not questioning Him about what He does in our lives, because we acknowledge that He is good, He is mighty, and He desires the best for us, so why should we praise Him, then as we come out of His presence, we ignore His command? it means simply disobedience, and this grieves the heart of God, we are therefore to take the cue from the Israelites and be warned, that lip service to God is despicable to Him.
3. The reasons for praising Him still remain the same, we belong to Him, and He is wonderful, whether we feel it or not, so we conitnue to praise Him. PRAISE THE LORD!

[aray1967]

We should worship the Lord because He created everything and everything belongs to Him. We are his children. He is the Parent and the Teacher not to be tested or quarrelled with because we are of His creation.

I think the warning was put there just to keep us reminded that He is a vengeful God and will not tolerate being tested.

[Lisa Rupert]

Q2. (Psalm 95) In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm?
We should worship him because he is our God, and we are his children. He is Our Creator he is Our God , he is Our King, he is Our Provider. He is to be worshipped because he is Our King, Our Rock of Salvation, Our Shepherd. He is all Holy, all Just, all Loving, all Righteous, all Caring, all Great, all Good and for this he is our God and He is worthy of All Our Praises. We should praise him with all honor and glory.

Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm?
We are warned because of our sinfullness we are sometimes not mindful of God, and because of this we can be disobedient children. It is in us so we must remain mindful of his Glory, and praise him for all his Greatness as a constant reminder. Because without him we are just lost, aimlessly wondering in the desert, without direction, guidance, love, or any hope.

How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?
It reminds us that we should have a submissive heart, surrendering to our God, that our spirit should be a submissive one filled with faith in God and we should be obedient to his Will. We are not only to worship from the outside but we must demonstrate our love for him from the inside also by humbling of our ways and demonstrating our obedience and love for him in all we do. As an example of who he is, is also who must strive to be, obedient and loving children.

[Rev. Moultrie]

[/font][quote name='Pastor Ralph' date='Aug 18 2007, 02:00 PM' post='28550']
Q2. (Psalm 95) In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm? Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm? How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?
[/quote

[font="Century Gothic"]

IN PSALM 95 WE ARE TOLD TO WORSHIP THE LORD BECAUSE HE "IS A GREAT GOD, AND A GREAT KING ABOVE ALL gods." HE IS THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS AND HE HAS ALL POWER.
I BELIEVE THE WARNING IN VERSES 8-11 IS THERE TO REMIND US OF HOW THE EARLY ISRAELITES MESSED UP IN THE WILDERNESS AND ANGERED GOD. IF WE KEEP WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM IN REMEMBRANCE, WE'RE LESS LIKELY TO REPEAT THE MISTAKES THAT THEY DID; NAMELY, BEING DISOBEDIENT TO AND NOT FULLY TRUSTING GOD.
THIS FITS IN WITH THE EARLIER ELEMENTS OF THE PSALM BECAUSE IT TIES TOGETHER THE FACT THAT GOD IS KING OF KING & LORD OF LORDS, AND WE SHOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING THAT WOULD OFFEND HIM. THE CONSEQUENCES FOR DOING SO ARE GRAVE INDEED.

[Patsy Laycoax]

The reasons contained in this psalm that we should worship is,the Lord is a great God and King,above all gods,in His hand is the deep places of the earth,the strength of the hills and the sea is his. He made the sea and His hands formed the dry land.He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
I think a warning was included in this Psalm because there may come a time when we cannot worship because our heart will be hardened.That could happen when we provoke the Lord's wrath because we did not give Him his rightful place in our heart. We must worship with our heart and not just our mouth.
This fits with the earlier elements of the Psalm because it tells us who God is and what He has done so we are without excuse if we do not worship and praise Him for who He is!

[Patricia A]

Q2. (Psalm 95)

In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm?

HE IS A GREAT GOD, A GREAT KING ABOVE ALL OTHER GODS; HE IS THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS AND HOLDS ALL CREATION IN HIS HANDS. HE WATCHES OVER US AS WE ARE HIS FLOCK.

Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm?

Christ calls upon his people to hear his voice. You call him Master, or Lord; then be his willing, obedient people. Hear the voice of his doctrine, of his law, and in both, of his Spirit: hear and heed; hear and yield. Christ's voice must be heard to-day. This day of opportunity will not last always; improve it while it is called to-day. Hearing the voice of Christ is the same with believing. Hardness of heart is at the bottom of all distrust of the Lord. The sins of others ought to be warnings to us not to tread in their steps. The murmurings of Israel were written for our admonition. God is not subject to such passions as we are; but he is very angry at sin and sinners.

How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?

Let us be aware of the evils of our hearts, which lead us to wander from the Lord. There is a rest ordained for believers, the rest of everlasting refreshment, begun in this life, and perfected in the life to come. This is the rest which God calls his rest.

[Stan]

Q2. (Psalm 95) In Psalm 95 we are commanded to worship the Lord. What are the reasons why we should worship contained in this psalm? Why do you think the warning in verses 8-11 is included in this psalm? How does this fit with the earlier elements of the psalm?


3For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

4In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.

5The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

6O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

7For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,

I think that the reasons are contained ina verses 3 thru 7, God is great, He alone created everything so everything belongs to Him even me. He hold everything in His hands, He provides us with foood and water. He is our shepard our care taker in Him we have no fear or worry but only thanksgiving and praise.