O that today you would listen to his voice: harden not your hearts - revisit

I wrote this blog in November 2014. My spiritual journey has had a dramatic change since then. My renewed Catholic faith encourages me to read the Liturgy of the Hours from the Divine Office to begin my day. I have only been able to do the Office of Readings in the mornings consistently. So today - Friday of the 3rd week of Lent, I began with the usual Invitational Psalm. The antiphon "O that today you would listen to his voice: harden not your hearts." is from Psalm 95. Yes, I always begin my day with this Call to Worship and Obedience from Psalm 95. Why is it so important to begin my day with this Psalm?

Charles Spurgeon, the famous Protestant bible teacher, wrote this lovely introduction to Psalm 95:
"This Psalm has no title, and all we know of its authorship is that Paul quotes it as "in David." (Heb 4:7.) ... It is in its original a truly Hebrew song, directed both in its exhortation and warning to the Jewish people, but we have the warrant of the Holy Spirit in the epistle to the Hebrews for using its appeals and entreaties when pleading with Gentile believers. It is a psalm of invitation to worship. It has about it a ring like that or church bells, and like the bells it sounds both merrily and solemnly, at first ringing out a lively peal, and then dropping into a funeral knell as if tolling at the funeral of the generation which perished in the wilderness. We will call it THE PSALM OF THE PROVOCATION. "

The Psalm can be divided into two sections:

(I) Invitation with Reasons (Verses 1-5)
O 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 the dry land, which his hands have formed.

(Verse 1) The author of this song had in his mind's eye the rock, the tabernacle, the Red Sea, and the mountains of Sinai, and he alludes to them all in this first part of his hymn. God is our abiding, immutable, and mighty rock, and in him we find deliverance and safety, therefore it becomes us to praise him with heart and with voice from day to day; and especially should we delight to do this when we assemble as his people for public worship. (Verse 2) The perfection of singing is that which unites joy with gravity, exultation with humility, fervency with sobriety - thus we are reminded "let us make a joyful noise" twice. (Verses 3-5) These verses supply some of the reasons for worship, drawn from the being, greatness, and sovereign dominion of the Lord.

(II) Invitation with Warnings (Verses 6-11)
O 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.
O that today you would listen to his voice!
    Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
    as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your ancestors tested me,
    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 whose hearts go astray,
    and they do not regard my ways.”
Therefore in my anger I swore,
    “They shall not enter my rest.”

But what is this warning which follows? Alas, it was sorrowfully needed by the Lord's ancient people, and is not one which the less required by ourselves. The favored nation grew deaf to their Lord's command, and proved not to be truly his sheep, of whom it is written, "My sheep hear my voice:" will this turn out to be our character also. God forbid. "To day if you will hear his voice." Dreadful "if." Many would not hear, they put off the claims of love, and provoked their God. "To-day," in the hour of grace, in the day of mercy, we are tried as to whether we have an ear for the voice of our Creator. Nothing is said of tomorrow, "he limited a certain day," he presses for immediate attention, for our own sake he asks instantaneous obedience. Shall we yield it? The Holy Spirit says "To-day," will we grieve him by delay? We cannot soften our hearts, but we can harden them, and the consequences will be fatal. Today is too good a day to be profaned by the hardening of our hearts against our own mercies. While mercy reigns let not obduracy rebel. "As in the provocations, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness" (or, "like Meribah, like the day of Massah in the wilderness"). Be not willfully, wantonly, repeatedly, obstinately rebellious. Let the example of that unhappy generation serve as a beacon to you; do not repeat the offenses which have already more than enough provoked the Lord.












"These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come." (1 Corinthians 10:11)