PSALM 95 - Do Not Harden Your Heart

(READ PSALM 95)

Introduction

Recently we began noticing that our water at the house was beginning to give off an odor and a bad taste—which on the one hand isn’t that surprising since we live in this part of PA—everyone’s house is built on the mines, after all! When we drilled our current well we had a water softener system installed to address how hard the water was, but it was no longer doing the job. We called the company, and they came and re-calibrated the sensors on the system, and also gave me a bottle of powder to pour into the brine tank once a month or so to keep the water softened.

Hard water is a nuisance, for sure—taste and smell, rough on your hair and skin and clothes. But Psalm 95 warns about something much worse—a hard heart:

Psalm 95:8 LSB

Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,

What is interesting is that this warning seems to come very suddenly in the middle of a psalm that has been calling God’s people to joyfully praise God for his power and faithfulness in the first seven verses—then in Verse 8 it seems to take this sharp turn into warning God’s people not to test God. What this seems to indicate to me is the psalmist is urging God’s people to guard against hardening their hearts by praising God. You see this in Verse 1 and Verse 6, where it seems as though he is pleading with them: “Oh, come let us worship! The sense you get is that he is saying, “Don’t harden your hearts against God—let us sing for joy to Him instead! Don’t harden your heart—instead, come let us worship and bow down!!

Once again, let’s remind ourselves of where this psalm is found in the overarching flow of the Psalms. We are in Book IV of the psalms (Psalms 90-106), which were arranged so as to remind God’s covenant people to come back to the foundations of the covenant. They have seen the devastation of Jerusalem because of their abandonment of their covenant (which is the theme of Book III, Psalms 73-89). Now they are beginning to see God’s powerful hand at work, bringing them out of their captivity in Babylon and back to the Land of the covenant. The psalmist here in Psalm 95 is calling them to rejoice in God’s faithful power on their behalf, and reminding them not to grow hard-hearted by forgetting His faithfulness.

So this psalm is a warning against letting our hearts grow hard toward God. Just like the Israelites in the desert, every one of us who have “Seen His work” in our lives are in danger of falling into hard-heartedness. No matter how many times we have seen His goodness to us, no matter how many deliverances we have had, we are always in danger of our hearts turning hard--doubting His goodness, not trusting His plans, convinced that THIS time He is going to abandon us. When our hearts are hard, we lose our sensitivity to God’s Word, we become more and more calloused, more cynical, less able to see His faithfulness.

As Jonathan Edwards put it:

Now by a hard heart, is plainly meant an unaffected heart, or a heart not easy to be moved with virtuous affections, like a stone, insensible, stupid, unmoved, and hard to be impressed. Hence the hard heart is called a stony heart, and is opposed to a heart of flesh, that has feeling, and is sensibly touched and moved (Edwards, J. (1996). A treatise concerning religious affections: in three parts ... (p. 17). Logos Research Systems, Inc.)

When our hearts are hardened toward God, worship becomes a chore, Bible reading and prayer a grind. We are less and less inclined to spend time in His presence, and eventually less inclined to spend time with other Christians. If left unchecked, a hard heart will blind you to all of God’s gracious work in your life and deafen you to His call to holiness.

So the message of Psalm 95 to us, as it was to the exiles returning from captivity in Babylon, is to

Soften your heart with GRATEFUL PRAISE for God’s FAITHFUL POWER toward you

The psalmist is calling for our grateful praise of God’s faithful power in our lives as a way of heading off the threat of a hardening heart. Keep your heart from becoming hard by regularly pouring out joyful worship, thanksgiving and confident trust in YHWH. And so let’s start by looking at the end of the psalm—let’s look at the condition that the psalmist is warning against. Starting at the end of verse 7, we can see

I. The SYMPTOMS of a hard heart (Psalm 95:7b-11)

So the shift from calling us to praise to warning us against a hard heart takes place right in the middle of verse 7:

Psalm 95:7 LSB

For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you hear His voice,

Another way to translate the Hebrew in this verse is “O, that you would hear His voice!!” Or “If only you would hear His voice!” This gives us a glimpse into the psalmist’s motivation to call for grateful praise and glad submission to YHWH. Because the first symptom of a hard heart is that it

Wrestles with OBEDIENCE (v. 7b)

When a heart is becoming hard toward God, obedience to Him becomes an open question, doesn’t it? You may or may not do as He has called; the desire to submit to Him is weak, the desire to please your own desires looms larger in your heart. Remember when we studied Jonah earlier this year, when YHWH called him to go to Nineveh, he immediately bolted for Joppa to find a boat to take him in the opposite direction.

But a heart that is tender toward God will find obedience as an automatic response—in Acts 10, when Peter was in Joppa and God told him to go preach to Gentiles, he went immediately! No hesitation, no second-guessing, just obedience!

A heart that wrestles with obedience is showing signs of becoming hard toward God. And a second symptom of a hard heart is a heart that

Wavers in TRUST (vv. 8-9)

Psalm 95:8–9 LSB

Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness, “When your fathers tried Me, They tested Me, though they had seen My work.

This is a reference to the Scripture passage that we read earlier in our worship—remember that the people had come to the place where YHWH had led them, and found that there was no water to drink. Exodus 17:3 says they grumbled against Moses, but in Verse 7 we read that Ex 17:7

Exodus 17:7 LSB

...he named the place Massah and Meribah because of the contending of the sons of Israel, and because they tested Yahweh, saying, “Is Yahweh among us or not?”

These same people who had seen YHWH split the waters of the Red Sea for them to pass through safely were now convinced that He was incapable of providing them water to drink in the desert! This is a symptom of a heart that is growing hard—you don’t know if God can be trusted; you’re always waiting for Him to drop the other shoe. Sure, He may have come through for you in the past, but this time He’s going to leave you twisting in the wind. Picture a mom who works every day to prepare a delicious dinner out of love for her family, and every night they come to the table having already eaten food they made themselves, saying “Well, yeah, Mom cooked for us every night for the last three years, but we can’t trust her to do it tonight!” What does that say about their opinion of her love for them?

A heart that is showing symptoms of hardness wrestles with obedience, it wavers in trust, and it

Wanders in AFFECTIONS (v. 10)

Psalm 95:10 LSB

“For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who wander in their heart, And they do not know My ways.

The psalmist holds up the example of Israel in the wilderness as a people who wander in their affections for God. His Law and His character—His lovingkindness, His faithfulness, His care and compassion and tender leading—none of that is enough to hold their affections. In the book of Numbers we read of how the prophet Balaam enticed the Israelites to commit sexual immorality and idolatry with the Midianites, causing God to punish them (Numbers 25:1-9).

A heart that is becoming hardened to God finds itself being pulled in every direction but toward Him. Work, hobbies, family, recreation, relationships—all of these things (good as they are in and of themselves) will be used as escape routes for a heart that has started to harden. But a heart tender toward God will always find its greatest delight in His faithful love. As much as it loves family and career and hobbies and diversions, they will never be able to match it’s affection toward YHWH Himself:

Psalm 16:11 LSB

You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

But the heart that is becoming hardened to that fulness of joy in YHWH’s presence, that has been invited to His right hand and the pleasures found there but turns away, there is no rest to be found anywhere else:

Psalm 95:11 LSB

“Therefore I swore in My anger, They shall never enter into My rest.”

The wilderness generation never saw the Promised Land because they had hardened their hearts to God’s promises to protect, defend and provide for them. And so their bones were buried in the desert; they never entered into the rest that YHWH had promised them.

Let your heart continue to be hardened to God and the rest that He offers, continue to allow your heart to wrestle with obedience and waver in your trust, allow your affections to wander away from Him and you will find that God Himself will see to it that you find nothing but sorrow and weariness where otherwise He would have given you rest:

Proverbs 28:14 LSB

How blessed is the man who is always in dread [of God], But he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.

Beloved, if the living and active Word of God is revealing symptoms of a hard heart in you this morning, then let this psalm draw you to the kind of grateful praise for God’s faithful power that is

II. The REMEDY for a hard heart (Psalm 95:1-7)

The psalmist is urgently calling his audience here: (“Oh, come let us sing for joy… “Come let us worship and bow down...”). He wants his people to battle their temptations to hard heartedness with grateful praise:

Psalm 95:1–2 LSB

Oh come, let us sing for joy to Yahweh, Let us make a loud shout to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, Let us make a loud shout to Him with songs of praise.

If you are to apply a “heart-softener” to your life this morning, then commit yourself to

Seek your JOY in His great WORKS (vv. 1-5)

Psalm 95:3–5 LSB

For Yahweh is a great God And a great King above all gods, In whose hand are the depths of the earth, The peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, And His hands formed the dry land.

The psalmist’s reference to YHWH as the Creator and Owner of the sea, and His hands forming the dry land may be a reference to His power in parting the Red Sea so that His people could cross over on dry land (cp. Ex. 14:22). The reference to His authority over all other so-called gods, His control over the depths of the earth and Sheol (the realm of the dead) as well as the highest mountains (and the kingdoms they represent) are all fuel for tender-hearted joy. Consider His great power displayed in Creation—the works of His hands that shaped the highest peak on Mt. Everest to the lowest pebble at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. That all the kingdoms and empires and nations of the world are held in His hand and held under His power. (Go stand on the shoreline at Galveston Texas and look out over the “Gulf of America”—call it what you will, but it belongs to YHWH!)

But even more marvelous than that, Christian, reflect on how all of God’s power, all of His authority and might and strength and reach is being revealed for your sake!

Romans 8:38–39 LSB

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Train your heart to seek your joy in the great works of YHWH for you as He has delivered you from your slavery to sin and sworn His great power to keep you, and your heart will not waver in trust—you will rejoice at the great power of His work for you as He has delivered you from the penalty and power of sin and bent all His power to keeping you in His love!

Find the remedy to a hard hear as you seek your joy in His great works, and as you

Grow in glad HUMILITY before your CREATOR (v. 6)

Psalm 95:6 LSB

Come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before Yahweh our Maker.

The remedy for a heart that wrestles with obedience is glad-hearted humility before Him in worship! See the way the psalmist stacks images of humility here—there is a beautiful alliteration in the original Hebrew here for worship, bow down, and kneel. All three words carry the same idea of bowing, bending and prostrating ourselves before God in humility. Train your heart to bend before God in worship—you do not come here to be entertained, you do not come here to grow in your affirmation of yourself, you do not come here to exalt your own plans or priorities or preferences. The ancient demonstration of a subject before his sovereign was to lay flat on his face and place his lord’s foot on his neck—that is the image here; you are here this morning as the slave of God through Christ. Fight the hardness of heart that wants to question obedience, that wants to reserve the right to walk away if the commands of your King are not pleasing to you—fight by training your heart to bow before Him. To say, “My Lord and my God”, to lay down every plan, every priority or preference you have to His will in tender-hearted humility before your Maker.

The remedy for a hard heart comes as you seek your joy in His great works, as you grow in glad humility before your Creator, and as you

Find your COMFORT in His mighty HAND (v. 7; cp. Isa. 41:10)

Psalm 95:7 LSB

For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand...

Think of it—the Hand that holds the depths of the earth and the highest mountains; the Hand that formed the seas and the dry land, the Hand that held back the Red Sea so that His children could walk across on dry land; the Hand that laid so heavily on Pharoah in Egypt is the same mighty right hand that is stretched out to hold you!

A hard heart will always want to take matters into its own hands; a hard heart will care nothing for the mighty, tender Hand of God that cares for His people as a shepherd tenderly cares for his sheep. But a tender heart can rest in the hollow of YHWH’s hand, knowing that even if we can’t see His hand at work at a particular moment of difficulty or sorrow that it is still there! The mighty hand of God that keeps and cares for His children is a comfort to a heart that is tender toward Him. Train your heart to rest in His care, Christian—fight the hard-hearted tendency to anxiety and worry and fear and faithlessness.

The future is dark to you? You don’t know what is going to happen as you step forward? Leave it in the mighty hand of your God. Hide God’s Word in your heart with the promise from Isaiah 41:10:

Isaiah 41:10 LSB

‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will make you mighty, surely I will help you; Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

Christian, what diagnosis does God’s Word give you about the state of your heart this morning? Are you seeing signs of a heart that is growing hard toward Him? Do you find your heart beginning to wrestle with obedience—that there is something within you that wants to tap the brakes, to slow down and really think about whether you want to do it, that immediately comes up with a dozen reasons why it wouldn’t really be disobedience if you didn’t? Cultivate a heart that is ready to obey—come before Him in humility in worship; come into His presence with a joyful declaration that you are His to command. Present your sword to Him with the cry “Command me, my liege!” Soften your heart in worship and you will be ready to obey Him when the battle comes.

Have you begun to grow hardened toward all of the mighty works He has done in your life? Have you begun to forget all of the mighty works He has done for you in the past, all the ways He has remarkably and providentially seen to all of your needs, defended you and kept you from harm, the many “dangers, toils and snares” that He has seen you safely through? Do you look at that next hardship on the horizon and say, “This time He’s not going to help me… He is just going to let me suffer through this one...”

Do not harden your heart to His ever-present mercy toward you; don’t waver in your trust in Him. Don’t you see that you can never be alone in your suffering? Jesus Christ suffered alone on that Cross, abandoned by His Father, so that you will never face suffering alone! Do not allow a hard-heart to rob you of the joy of seeing the great power of God revealed on that Cross; the power of God that dealt once-for-all with the death-penalty of sin you had earned and reconciled you to Himself through it. The power that raised Jesus Christ from the depths of the earth and seated Him far above every mountain and kingdom and power on this earth—that is the power of God at work for you! Break open the hard heart inside you with the Cross of Jesus Christ; let the stone that was rolled away from His empty tomb roll over and crush your unbelief—will not the same power of God that raised Jesus from the dead also deliver you from death?

Do you find a heart that is growing hard toward God in affections that are beginning to wander from Him? Like Israel in the wilderness, are you setting other gods in competition with YHWH? Are you looking to something besides Him for your happiness? Is there something in your life that you say you absolutely cannot be happy unless you have it, that if you cannot achieve that goal or do not have that relationship or do not have this pastime you simply cannot have peace in your life? Beloved, if there is anything or anyone that you are placing higher in your affections than God Himself—if your peace and contentment is being held hostage to any goal or priority or presence other than Him—then you will never have peace in this life.

To reject the peace that He offers in His presence is to reject any hope of freedom from anxiety and fear in this life. To wander away from Him is to wander away from any real pleasure.

Jeremiah 2:13 LSB

“For My people have done two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water.

If you see in the light of God’s Word this morning that you have wandered away from Him—or worse yet, if you realize that you have never known Him at all—then look again at the last four verses of Psalm 95. Notice that they are written in the first person—they are the direct appeal of YHWH to you this morning! He is calling out to you Himself, He is pleading with you, do not turn away from Him. He is calling you to forsake that hard heart, to repent of your wrestling with obedience, your wavering trust, your wandering affections. He is warning you that you are jeopardizing any hope of rest in this life, He is warning you not to become loathsome to Him by your continued disobedience, He is calling you to avoid His anger by bending your heart to Him in repentance. That generation in the wilderness never entered the rest found in Canaan. A hard heart will give you no rest; the only rest is among the people of His pasture and the sheep of His Hand. And so He calls you this morning with this promise:

John 10:27–29 LSB

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish—ever; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Come and find rest; come and find the remedy for a hardened heart, come and find forgiveness for your sin and a new birth through the work of the great King above all gods, the crucified, risen and reigning YHWH—your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 LSB

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION:

What does it mean to have a “hard heart”? How did the Israelites in Exodus 17 demonstrate hard-heartedness in the way they reacted to having no water? In what ways are we like them as we respond to hardship in our lives?

What are some features of the text of Psalm 95 that indicate that this psalm was written in response to signs of hard-heartedness among the people it was written for? How do these features help us understand the purpose of the psalm?

What are the symptoms of a hard heart that this psalm reveals? Do you see any indications of these symptoms of hard-heartedness in your life?

What remedies does this psalm suggest for preventing your heart from growing hard toward God? Which of these remedies are you most likely to find easy to follow? Which one seems the most difficult to adopt into your life? Pray this week that God would equip you to grow in a tender-hearted response to His Word!