Psalms 95

Psalms 95:6

This Psalm suggests a great many subjects of interest, but the point to which the text directs our attention is the import and bearing of its invitation to worship.

I. In the strictness of the word, adoration is the expression, by an outward, but much more by an inward, act, of man's sincere conviction that his first duty to Almighty God is submission; and thus it is distinct from many other acts of the soul which are sometimes apt to be mistaken for it. (1) Contrast it, for example, with admiration. As admirers, we take it for granted that we are so far on a level with the object admired as to do Him justice; as admirers, we presuppose and exercise, although favourably, our rights as critics. In adoration we abandon all such pretensions as profane, as grotesque; we have no thought but that of God's solitary and awful greatness, and of our own utter insignificance before Him. (2) Thanksgiving, praise, and prayer for blessings all three differ from adoration in this, that in each of them the soul is less prostrate, more able to bear the thought of self, than in pure and simple adoration. Pure adoration has no heart for self; it lies silent at the foot of the throne, conscious only of two things: the insignificance of self, the greatness of God.

II. Notice some of the leading benefits of worship, which explain the importance which is assigned to it by the Church of Christ. (1) It places us, both as individuals and as a body of men, in our true place before God our Creator. (2) Worship obliges us to think what we are ourselves. (3) Worship is a stimulus to action when, and only when, it is sincere. If it be true that to work is to pray, it is no less true that to pray is to work. Prayer, in fact, is work, since it makes a large demand upon the energies of the will. Contact with the highest reality cannot but brace us, and we find in all ages that the noblest resolves to act or to suffer have again and again been formed as though in obedience to what seems a sudden overpowering flash of light during worship.

H. P. Liddon, Family Churchman,Aug. 18th, 1886 (see also Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxx., p. 104).

The goodness, the power, the wisdom, the providence, the presence, of God are abundantly shown and manifested to us in all the works of the Creator. There is nothing in all these works that looks, as it were, the work of chance; all bear marks of care, and design, and adaptation of means to the end; all seem to say to the hearing ear, "The hand that made us is Divine." And it is to the worship of this Divine Head, it is to the acknowledgment of God as our Creator, that the text calls us. The contemplation of God's works is calculated: (1) to fill our souls with noble and worthy thoughts about God; and (2) to make us humble in our estimate of ourselves, as forming a small part in these mighty works. These two things help to make accepted worship.

R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons,3rd series, p. 176.

References: Psalms 95:6. F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 369; H. Hayman, Rugby Sermons,p. 119. Psalms 95:7; Psalms 95:8. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvi., No. 1551; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xx., p. 204.Psalms 95:8. G. Moberly, Sermons in Winchester College,2nd series, p. 283.Psalms 95 J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages of the Psalms,p. 216. Psalms 96:6. A. Watson, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts,3rd series, p. 128. Psalms 96:8. E. W. Shalders, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiv., p. 179.