Psalm 100:1-5 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! 2 Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! 3 Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
I love this short psalm! Its tone from beginning to end is joy and gladness, singing and thanksgiving to the LORD because He is God, He is Gracious, He is Good and He is Glorious! We belong to Him and we may enter into His presence and bless His Name. He is also everlastingly loving and faithful.
I also can’t read it without thinking of the hymn that is based on these words, and some pithy, amusing but valuable comments by C.H. Spurgeon on an alteration made to the English (as opposed to the Scottish) version of that hymn. He was preaching from Luke 19:37-40 back in February of 1866, and his message included these words:
Then, in the next place, you will observe that the praise they rendered was joyful praise. “The whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice.” I hope the doctrine that Christians ought to be gloomy will soon be driven out of the universe. There are no people in the world who have such a right to be happy, nor have such cause to be joyful as the saints of the living God. All Christian duties should be done joyfully; but especially the work of praising the Lord. I have been in congregations where the tune was dolorous to the very last degree; where the time was so dreadfully slow that one wondered whether they would ever be able to sing through the 119th Psalm; whether, to use Watts’s expression, eternity would not be too short for them to get through it; and altogether, the spirit of the people has seemed to be so damp, so heavy, so dead, that we might have supposed that they were met to prepare their minds for hanging rather than for blessing the ever-gracious God. Why, brethren, true praise sets the heart ringing its bells, and hanging out its streamers. Never hang your flag at half-mast when you praise God; no, run up every colour, let every banner wave in the breeze, and let all the powers and passions of your spirit exult and rejoice in God your Saviour. They rejoiced. We are really most horribly afraid of being too happy. Some Christians think cheerfulness a very dangerous folly, if not a ruinous vice. That joyous Hundredth Psalm has been altered in all the English versions.
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,
Him serve with fear, his praise forth tell,
Come ye before him and rejoice.
“Him serve with fear,” says the English version; but the Scotch version has less thistle and far more rose in it. Listen to it, and catch its holy happiness:—
Him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell;
Come ye before him and rejoice.
How do God’s creatures serve him out of doors? The birds do not sit on a Sunday with folded wings, dolefully silent on the boughs of the trees, but they sing as sweetly as may be, even though the rain-drops fall. As for the new-born lambs in the field—they skip to his praise, though the season is damp and cold. Heaven and earth are lit up with gladness, and why not the hearts and houses of the saints? “Him serve with mirth.” Well saith the Psalmist; “before him exceedingly rejoice.” It was joyful praise.
(Spurgeon, C. H. (1866). Praise Thy God, O Zion. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 12, p. 125). London: Passmore & Alabaster.)
Let’s bask in this 100th psalm, then, and by God’s grace let’s enter into its outpouring of abundant praise to God! As Isaac Watts put it in his hymn, we have found glory begun below, but we are marching upward to a still more blessed and glorious home!:
Come, we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known;
Join in a song with sweet accord, and thus surround the throne.
Refrain: We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We’re marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God.
The sorrows of the mind be banished from the place;
Religion never was designed to make our pleasures less.
Let those refuse to sing, who never knew our God;
But children of the heav’nly King may speak their joys abroad.
The men of grace have found Glory begun below;
Celestial fruits on earthly ground from faith and hope may grow.
The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heav’nly fields, or walk the golden streets.
Then let our songs abound, and every tear be dry;
We’re marching through Immanuel’s ground to fairer worlds on high.
