Biblical Reflections

Psalm 96 is a hymn celebrating God's kingship over all the world, which should lead all people to love and worship Him. It is unusually evangelistic for the Old Testament, reaching out to the Gentiles, and it is also prophetic, looking ahead to the time when God will judge all people with equity. Through the New Testament we see that day arriving as people from every nation come to God through faith in Christ. **Verses 1–6 — Sing a new song.** "Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth!" The Creator has splendor, majesty, strength, beauty and marvelous works, so all the earth should sing His praise and bless His name. The gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens. A "new song" is about freshness: always finding new ways to praise and thank Him. **Verses 7–9 — Ascribe glory to the LORD.** Now the singer speaks directly to the nations. They are to ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name, His name standing for all that He is. They should bring offerings into His courts and, trembling, worship Him in the splendor of His holiness. **Verses 10–13 — He comes to judge.** "Say among the nations, 'The LORD reigns!'" The LORD will judge the world in righteousness, faithfulness and equity, never deviating from His holiness or His covenant promises. So all creation joins the celebration: the heavens, the earth, the sea, the fields and the trees, along with the faithful from every nation, sing for joy before Him. This is Season 2 of Biblical Reflections, a week-by-week walk through the Psalms to shape our prayer and our praise. Biblical Reflections is a Christ-centered Bible teaching podcast from Cogworks Media, hosted by Andrew. Find more shows and ways to give at cogworksmedia.org. Cogworks Media is a 501(c)(3) public charity, and gifts are tax-deductible. Music: The Inspiration by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Psalm 95 calls those singing it to learn from the rebellion of an earlier generation and to commit themselves to faithfully following the covenant. In many ways it is also a prophetic psalm, looking ahead to a day when people from every nation worship God. After the lament of Psalm 94, it returns us to the hymns celebrating God's kingship over all creation. **Verses 1–7a — Come, let us worship.** "Oh come, let us sing to the LORD." The LORD is the great King above all gods and all kings. The depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains, the sea and the dry land are His, because He made them. On that basis we kneel before the LORD our Maker, for we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Sheep don't do well without a shepherd, and the King over all creation is ours. **Verses 7b–11 — Do not harden your hearts.** "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah." The generation of the Exodus saw God's works and still tested Him. They went astray in their hearts and did not follow His ways, so they did not enter His rest, likely meaning the Promised Land. Instead they spent the rest of the forty years wandering in the wilderness. The lesson carries to us as new covenant people. If the great King and Creator is speaking, we listen and follow Him, and His rest is found in His presence, both now and in the future. This is Season 2 of Biblical Reflections, a week-by-week walk through the Psalms to shape our prayer and our praise. Biblical Reflections is a Christ-centered Bible teaching podcast from Cogworks Media, hosted by Andrew. Find more shows and ways to give at cogworksmedia.org. Cogworks Media is a 501(c)(3) public charity, and gifts are tax-deductible. Music: The Inspiration by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Psalm 94 is a community lament, written at a time when the wicked exult in their wickedness and oppress the faithful, many of whom are socially weak. It breaks briefly from the kingship psalms around it to ask God to take action and protect His people. Andrew walks through the psalm in five movements. **Verses 1–3 — The appeal for justice.** "O God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth." The psalmist calls on God to repay the proud as they deserve. Justice belongs to God's character, and it includes vengeance on the wicked. That vengeance is His to take, not ours. **Verses 4–7 — The oppressors.** The wicked are arrogant and boastful, but it goes beyond words. They crush God's people and kill the helpless: the widow, the sojourner and the fatherless. Then they say the Lord does not see. **Verses 8–11 — God sees.** "He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?" The God who made us knows the plans of the wicked, and those plans are but a breath. **Verses 12–15 — God keeps the faithful.** The Lord will not forsake His people. He disciplines and teaches them, and often He rescues the faithful through the trouble rather than out of it, walking alongside them as they grow in faith. **Verses 16–23 — God rises up.** "When I thought, 'My foot slips,' your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up." God's steadfast love is the basis of the request. Wicked rulers may frame injustice by statute and condemn the innocent, but the Lord is a stronghold and a rock of refuge, and He will bring the iniquity of the wicked back on them. When the faithful feel outmatched, Psalm 94 gives us words to pray: honest about the wickedness, and anchored in the God who sees, keeps and rises up for His people. This is Season 2 of Biblical Reflections, a week-by-week walk through the Psalms to shape our prayer and our praise. Biblical Reflections is a Christ-centered Bible teaching podcast from Cogworks Media, hosted by Andrew. Find more shows and ways to give at cogworksmedia.org. Cogworks Media is a 501(c)(3) public charity, and gifts are tax-deductible. Music: The Inspiration by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Psalm 93 is a hymn of praise for God's kingly rule over creation. He is the universal King. It opens a run of psalms (93 and 95–99) that celebrate God's reign over everything He has made. In this episode Andrew walks through all five verses and shows why a psalm that never once turns the focus to us is such a gift to our worship. **Verses 1–2 — The King is enthroned.** "Yahweh reigns; he is robed in majesty." Because the Lord reigns over all creation, the world is established and cannot be moved. His throne is established from of old, and He Himself is from everlasting. **Verses 3–4 — Mightier than the sea.** The floods lift up their voice and their roaring. Raging waters are a picture of the restless, warring nations. The psalmist uses building parallel lines, a hallmark of Hebrew poetry, to arrive at one point: Yahweh on high is mightier than all of it. **Verse 5 — Trustworthy and holy.** God's creation reflects God's character. The mountains, the forests and the orderly path of the natural world all point back to Him. So we can trust His decrees and know that His ways are holy, holy, holy, without any shadow of turning. Psalm 93 is praise of God simply for who He is. Andrew closes with an encouragement for worship leaders and all of us: make room in our singing for the greatness of God Himself, not only for what He has done for us. This is Season 2 of Biblical Reflections, a week-by-week walk through the Psalms to shape our prayer and our praise. Biblical Reflections is a Christ-centered Bible teaching podcast from Cogworks Media, hosted by Andrew. Find more shows and ways to give at cogworksmedia.org. Cogworks Media is a 501(c)(3) public charity, and gifts are tax-deductible. Music: The Inspiration by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Psalm 92 carries a superscript found nowhere else in the Psalter: "A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath." It is a hymn of thanks and praise to God for giving Israel the Sabbath, and Andrew finds in it a model for how we pray. Verses 1–5 — Praise. It is good to give thanks and sing praises to YHWH, El Elyon, the Most High. This praise is built on declaring God's names, extolling His steadfast love and faithfulness, and remembering His great works. Andrew encourages us to pray the same way, and to keep a prayer log so we can look back and remember what God has done. Verses 6–11 — The contrast. The wicked sprout like grass, but they are doomed to destruction forever. The godless are called stupid, foolish, wicked, and evildoers, while the faithful are lifted up and anointed with fresh oil, and live to see their enemies scattered. Verses 12–15 — The flourishing. Back to the Sabbath, the faithful rest secure. They flourish like the palm tree, grow like the towering cedars of Lebanon, and still bear fruit in old age. In worship they declare that YHWH is upright, that He is their rock, and that there is no unrighteousness in Him. God's righteousness means He always acts according to His holiness and His covenant promises. As new covenant people, we can count on that, and like Israel we are called to set aside regular time to worship Him. This is Season 2 of Biblical Reflections — a week-by-week walk through the Psalms to shape our prayer and our praise. — Biblical Reflections is a Christ-centered Bible teaching podcast from Cogworks Media, hosted by Andrew. Season 2 walks week-by-week through the Psalms. New episodes weekly. ▶ Subscribe for weekly teaching through Scripture 🔗 More shows and ways to give: cogworksmedia.org Cogworks Media is a 501(c)(3) public charity — gifts are tax-deductible. Music: The Inspiration by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/