Psalm 95:6-11 “Oh come, let’s worship and bow down. Let’s kneel before the LORD, our Maker, for he is our God. We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep in his care. Today, oh that you would hear his voice! Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my work. Forty long years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘They are a people who err in their heart. They have not known my ways.’ Therefore I swore in my wrath, ‘They won’t enter into my rest.’ ”

What a description: we are the people of His pasture and the sheep in His care. Knowing His care of us, why wouldn’t we listen to Him? Massah and Meribah can be translated as “quarreling” and “testing.” There were multiple times when the Israelites accused God of not caring for them, and that generation (and Moses!) ended up paying the price. We are warned: don’t be like they were!

Hebrews 3:7-13 “Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of the trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years. Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’ ” Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God; but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called ‘today’, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

For additional worship: Let All Things Now Living (Michael Card)