A Song of Thanksgiving
Study Scripture: Psalm 100
Background Scripture: Psalm100
Devotional Reading: Ephesians 5:1 – 2, 15 – 20
Lesson 12 November 16, 20 2024
Key Verse
Enter His gates with [a]thanksgiving,
And His courtyards with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name. Psalm 100:4
INTRODUCTION
Are you in the habit of saying “Thank You” when someone does something to benefit you?
Have you ever thought about saying Thank you to your parents for all the time they spent with bringing you up, the amount of money it costs them, and the many things they wanted to do but could not because their attention was on you?
Have you ever thought about saying “Thank you” when someone holds a door open for you or opens the car door to let you get out easily?
Or do you feel entitles to what is done for you and so you do not feel saying “Thanks” is necessary?
Do you remember the famous Gospel song, “No Charge” which tells about a young person wanting to charge their mother for doing chores around the house?
Pay close attention to the mother’s response to her child as she begins to list what she did “without charging”!
So consider what you owe to your Creator and Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ and to God the Father for agreeing to have His only Son coming to earth and suffering and dying to save you from certain death for your sins, and to the Holy Spirit for putting up with the crap you keep on doing, applying the benefits brought to you from the redemption completed on the Cross, praying for you with “groanings that cannot be uttered”, and maturing you, changing you day by day into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Young and old persons should remember that God has done so much for you that you cannot humanly repay the debt you owe to God for your salvation.
Do not ever forget you are saved by Grace and not of yourselves. You have been bought with an unimaginably great price. You paid nothing for your salvation.
So should you not think to always “Thank” God for what He has done and as a minimum obey Him, knowing fully well that the ability to obey is given by Him and the strength you have to do anything good is in fact given by Him alone.
Have you thought about the fact that His mercies to you are new every morning?
We all have some idea as to what “thanksgiving” means. It means as the Dictionary stated “devotion, sacrifice, praise, or an offering. Thanksgiving is to glorify God as an act of worship, giving thanks for all things as part of God’s providence”.
Note we are dealing with relationship. The Dictionary continues, “It focuses on a relationship between God and man…..Thanksgiving begins with acknowledging God as faithful, earnestly giving Him thanks, in advance, for His abundant blessings”.
Psalm 100 is familiar to many Christians through the hymn “All People That on Earth Do Dwell,” whose tune is called “Old Hundredth.”
The superscription to Psalm 100 states the obvious. The Psalm concerns praise, or better, thanksgiving. Anyone reading / singing this Psalm should come to God with deep gratitude.
We are faced in our Psalm of Study with a series of action words which speak of our ability to do the actions:
- Shout for joy to Yahweh…
- Serve Yahweh with gladness…
- Know that Yahweh is God…
- Enter into his gates with thanksgiving
Note there is to be no whispering, no mumbling, for we have an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, freely-giving God who loves those that come to Him with fervour.
So the logical result of what you should do is declared in this popular song:
“Give of your best to the Master;
Give of the strength of your youth.
Throw your soul’s fresh, glowing ardor
Into the battle for truth.
Jesus has set the example,
Dauntless was He, young and brave,
Give Him your loyal devotion;
Give Him the best that you have”.
So get started if you love God as you say and thus show you do.
Let me paraphrase what some writers suggest:
-Consider the alternative and then be thankful you are alive and can find some constructive action, even if the action is simple.
-Be thankful God has given you the gift of love and if you have it, show it and give that love in every action in life.
-If you thank God for the gift of time use the twenty-four hours a day you have and choose to be like Jesus.
-Recognize what you have been given, and if you thank God for the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the food you can eat to sustain your live and give you pleasure, show your thanks by action
-If you love music and can listen and enjoy it or even produce it, and it speaks to your soul show your thankfulness by spreading the music of God.
-Since you love what God has created, the creation of night and day, and the beautiful seasons of the year, and the color and the glorious sunsets show your appreciation by your actions.
-Since you know that God loves you despite your warts, your weakness, your inclination to do injustice, and follow the desires of your flesh even if it damages others, be thankful by getting reconciled to God.
Take stock of your life. Understand gratitude must follow God creating you in His image and empowering you with His Spirit, giving you great gifts that He wants you to use to build up the Body of Christ.
Your life must be one of exuberant joy, unrestrained and public expressions of gratitude to God, caring for people, and praising Him so that all will hear of God’s majesty and face the choice of coming to Him by the work of the Holy Spirit
The Book of Psalms is a collection of five books or sections. Most Bibles note these book divisions (often with Roman numerals) at the beginnings of Psalms 1; 42; 73; 90; and 107. Altogether these five books feature 150 poems.
Psalm 100, today’s Text, is found in the fourth of these five books.
Many scholars consider this section of Psalms (Psalms 90–106) to be the answer to the problem presented in the first three books: the Davidic dynasty established (Psalm 2); the flourishing of that dynasty (Psalm 72); and the failure of that dynasty (Psalm 89).
The emphasis in Book IV of Psalms is simply that God reigns!
One writer therefore comments:
“Enthronement Psalms 47, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99 celebrate God as king over all the earth (47:7). Psalm 100 isn’t an enthronement Psalm.
However, it is similar to Psalm 96 and Psalm 95, and Psalm 100 serve as “praise” bookends around enthronement Psalms 96-99.
Psalm 100 is a hymn of praise. Such hymns usually call people to praise God, as this psalm does in verses 1-2 and 4.
Those hymns typically then give reasons for praising God, which Psalm 100 does in verses 3- 5.
Isaac Watts based his familiar hymn of praise (Tune: Old Hundredth) on this psalm:
“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”.
The verbs throughout the Psalm that are plural invite all who hear the Psalm to join in praising God. The original singers were to express their appreciation for God’s work among them in the central location, the Temple in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 5:2, 12–13).
The reason for the gratitude appears in Psalms 93–99, which should be read along with Psalm 100.
Our Psalm concludes a sequence of Psalms that concern Israel’s joyous celebration of God’s benevolent kingship.
Much of the Psalm has precise parallels in Psalms 95; 96; and 98.
“This group of Psalms encourage and remind both Israel and us to worship God as Creator King, Judge, Warrior, Revealer of truth and the Good Shepherd. They are called enthronement Psalms, and in them we bow down and reverence the King seated on His throne in His sovereign reign, in His dominion and majesty. He is the sovereign of the created universe, as far as the Hubbell telescope (and its successors) can see and beyond. He is the absolute Sovereign of our planet, of human history, and of our own personal history. All of these psalms put us flat on our faces before Him”.
This Psalm gives us the protocol of worship. Inother words, it lays out for us the way of the worshipper. It includes invitations and encouragement.
The Psalm is second in popularity only to the 23rd Psalm and children learn it easily and love reading it. It is easy to understand its contents and specific directions as to what God would have us do.
But then we expect God to hear from us and care for us even though there is no joy in His presence, or certainly if we have joy it is not like the joy that we show when we are at sports games or get involved with deep and powerful feelings while watching TV programs that we like to watch.
Psalm 100 lays out the protocol of worship reminding us thankfulness must be in the heart of the worshipper and that his or her behaviour must reflect this thankfulness in a meaningful way. If one is a new creature in Christ your actions will show this when you come into His presence.
When you come to worship you are offering your spiritual sacrifice to God. The practical and specific vehicles that the Psalm tells us we must employ in coming to God to worship must not blind us to the fact that this is an encounter with God.
So we must lay out clearly for you what one writer says:
“Music and liturgy can assist or express a worshiping heart. The danger is that they can give a non-worshiping heart the sense of having worshiped but they cannot make a non-worshiping heart into a worshiping one. The danger is that they can give a non-worshiping heart the sense of having worshiped. So the crucial factor in worship in the church is not the form of worship but the state of the heart of the saints. If our corporate worship is not an expression of our individual worshiping lives, it is unacceptable. If you think you can live any way you want and then going to church on Sunday morning (or Saturday morning or any other morning for that matter) and turn on worship with the saints, you are wrong”.
Note also that this Psalm stresses the importance of knowing things about God. The previous
Psalm 93:1 tells us that the Lord reigneth. Psalm 96:10 repeats the same theme and adds a new dimension,
“Say among the nations or the heathens that the Lord reigneth”. Then Psalm 97:1 repeats “The Lord reigneth”.
Psalm 99:1 against states “The Lord reigneth”.
Psalm 100 involves us in the gladness of the Psalmist over the worldwide reign of the Lord God of Israel. It can be regarded as a Psalm of prophecy about the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. That would make the Psalm have a much more powerful effect on us for it looks forward to the future and the completion of God’s plan for the earth, the universe, and for humanity.
Now, it is sad that some of us might not look seriously at the magnificence of the benevolence of God and the plan of redemption established by God. But if one begins to meditate on these things it will be really quite easy for a believer to turn away from spending so much of their energy and emotion on the things of the world instead of focusing on spending that energy and emotion on the things of God, and actively participating in the plan of God by doing what this Psalm exhorts us to do.
Be very careful to understand this Psalm is telling you that a healthy Christian is a praising Christian.
One task never to be forgotten is that the Lord God must be praised for His magnificent accomplishments and His gifts of salvation, redemption, sustaining you, and His guarantee of eternal life to those who are in His family.
Do not behave as if you forgot that you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people called to advertise the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.
If you find yourself breaking His commandments. desecrating His Sabbaths, doing your work on His holy day, showing no concern for the weak and vulnerable, the strangers, those who do not know the truth, “know” that Scripture condemns you and calls you a hypocrite, destined to be cast into outer darkness.
God looks at your heart and He “knows” you. You cannot hide from His piercing gaze.
You are supposed to be “His”, and should be acting accordingly. You must show you appreciate Him.
You must show you know He is God of the whole earth, for this Psalm is a Psalm of prophecy.
This brings us to the matter of exuberance in worship. Christians often express their faith in ways so that when people look at them they find they are humourless, with made up sad faces, stern and gloomy. They do not serve God with gladness. Those people give Christians a bad name.
This is not saying Christians have to behave as if they have no problems, and sing and dance to fool people. People can unfortunately use praise in worship to entertain themselves and cover up their personal distress. Avoid that kind of hypocrisy.
One Pastor tells the story of his going to a football game which was crowded. A man seated in a row before him whose face he could not see was always jumping up and shouting loudly at every play, criticising players and umpires. He was really loud. The Pastor said he would have loved to see who was always making such a rukus. Then in a break in the game the man turned around and he saw it was a member of his church.
This Pastor said this man never showed such energy in worship and showed little life there in church. But at the football game he was a totally different character and showed a different personality. He was energetic and noisy.
Are you like that man?
Or do you praise loudly in church but outside church you are gloomy and dour, and give Christians a bad name?
Be careful! What you do shows who you are!.
So let us take this Psalm seriously.
THE TEXT
Verse 1. It is important to note that the Psalm begins with the title “A Psalm for Thanksgiving”. This title is a part of Psalm 100, definitely a part of the Word of God and is recognized as such in Old Testament times.
We tend to ignore the titles of the Psalms but it is helpful to know that the title which has been provided in the Scriptures gives us a great deal of information about the author, the musical instruments and arrangements involved, the historical situation, the setting of the worship experience as well as other things.
We can easily do the “action words” that we are now going to be involved with in this hymn of praise.
It is generally pointed out that Isaac Watt bases his familiar hymn of praise on this Psalm. It reads:
“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”.
There are of course other very popular and well-known hymns based on this Psalm. In all the verses in the Psalm the heart of worship is defined and so we are called on to express gratitude to our “Good Shepherd” as we celebrate His rule.
The first, tells us that we should be wonderfully noisy and so we are told to shout, to raise our voices. The word used means that there should be a glad shout like the blast of a trumpet. These are loyal subjects who are told to respond when the King is among them. This is a shout of triumph or literally a battle cry.
The Hebrew word that is used rua is the word used when God told the Army and the priests of Israel to march around the city of Jericho seven times and Joshua told them then to shout and when they shouted the city walls fell down. That word for shout then is a battle cry and it means victory has been achieved.
So is that how you feel when you come to meet God? Is your shout of praise a victory shout?
Or is it a “weak shout” which tells God that you have had a terrible day and so He should not expect a lot from you?
When we come to meet God we do this knowing that God’s intention is to meet with us. He is looking at your heart. He seeks honest appreciation and worship.
Thus the Psalm addresses us to give praise and thanksgiving to the Lord God with a loud shout of unusual joy, the kind of joy you should find in the Kingdom of God.
We remember that the Apostle Peter told us in1 Peter 2:9
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light;
ones who were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy”.
So you are by your praises and your joyful noise to the Lord to advertise the call of God and its amazing benefits’
In case you might not understand the value and significance of praise Hebrews 13: 14 stresses that praise must be part of the daily life of every believer.
In verse 15 it states: “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name”.
We must admit to ourselves our inhibition or self-consciousness that most of us suffer from. Some people like to be concerned about what they look like and what people think of them.
Some like to give the impression of being intellectual and withdrawn because of the society in which they operate and the family that they come from and so exuberance does not come naturally to them and is often unpleasant.
Of course sometimes we notice that there is a large crowd with lots of energy, noise, enthusiasm and excitement but note that there is no worship leader there. They do what they feel like doing and that is to become noisy and exuberance. It is amazing how people that are withdrawn and intellectual can shout and scream at their favourite sport event. If they can do it there without a worship leader they certainly can do it if it comes from our hearts of gratitude.
Verse 2. Our service and worship must be done with gladness and with joy. Our joy is now turned to song for music is the form that we often use to express our joy and praises.
Note carefully that our Psalms are not going to create gladness but to express it. If you do not have that God in your heart and are just worshiping God because you think that’s what you have to do to show others what you are, and to pretend, you will be missing the point of worship. Worship is to give honour, adoration, and admiration to God that is worthy of that.
This Psalm therefore stresses “knowing”.
One writer tells us that there are 575 references to praise, singing, and music in the Bible with most of them in the Psalms.
We should be aware that music is very important to God. Satan himself we are told in Scripture was the choirmaster in heaven. And so he well knows the effect that music has on believers.
Many therefore will use music as a way to get into you to make you feel that they are really worshiping God and their music would take you into the worship of God. One writer introduces us to what music really is and does. He states:
“The danger, I fear, is that in many churches and for many individual believers instead of worshiping God we are worshiping music. Music is the vehicle that stirs the emotions and expresses our hearts. But music is not worship. It is part of the protocol that prepares the heart And sets the stage for the encounter with God. Music is a sacrifice of praise not a synonym for worship”.
So when your heart is prepared by singing songs of praise you come into the presence of God to serve the Lord with gladness. Service is worship.
We are told by the Hebrew linguists that “serve” means to work and so work is an expression of worship. One of the ways we can worship God is to work.
There is a word that means we are serving God by working in our daily life but that is different from the word used here. This word is as one writer said,
“The specific Hebrew word means our physical activity when we are gathering at a worship service, not the lifestyle of worship. But this word means singing, praying, and body language that express gratitude and appreciation”.
There is certainly a place for quiet and reflective worship but in the public worship of the congregation rejoicing should predominate.
There is no doubt that you might feel a little under the weather sometimes for everyone has their ups and downs but there is a time and a place for everything. When we come before God publicly in corporate worship it must be different.
Verse 3. So when we come before God we are to come “knowing”. Our knowledge is not just to be an intellect knowledge but one also based on experience and moral understanding.
One writer looks at this word and comments
“We typically understand “knowing” to be an internalized mental process rather than a specific action to which one can be summoned. Yet the Hebrew word “to know” (yd) actually suggests something more. The term is used in several contexts (Genesis 4:1 and 1 Kings 1:4) to describe an embodied mutual awareness that comes from sexual intercourse. To be clear, a sexual knowledge is probably not in view in this context. However, the larger usage of the verb “to know” in the Hebrew Bible suggests that the people’s knowledge of Yahweh’s identity is not merely intellectual assent. It is a deep and intimate awareness of God’s identity as revealed to a particular people”.
This is so because we are extremely close to the Lord. We therefore should make sure that our responsibilities in our daily life have not removed us from the time we have to gain an increase in knowledge of God. We cannot expect to be too busy to learn about God so that we can worship Him properly.
We stand before God acknowledging that He is God, the God of the universe, the Creator. We know that unlike the gods of the pagans, and of the other people around us, Yahweh is the true God. This is the first reason for praise’.
The second reason is that He made us as a human race from the beginning, gave us life, and He has to keep us every second of every day and not withdraw the breath from us.
The third reason is that we belong to Him. We are His. We are in covenant relationships with Him and .because of this covenant relationship Yahweh watches over us because we fear Him and hope in His loving kindness. As Psalm 33 tells us He delivers our soul from death and He is our help and shield.
So we have every incentive to make a joyful noise to the Lord.
Do not think therefore that people of other religions know the Almighty God. They might use the word “God” but they do not like when you tell them that Yahweh is the only God for they do not want to hear that doctrine.
So remember that you’re not being intolerant when you proclaim that Yahweh is God and that there is a God consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But you must be careful that you do it in love. You are doing them a favour by telling them the truth for that is the only way for them to have eternal life.
Now note carefully that Yahweh is our Shepherd. The omnipotent God is the one on which we can rely for we are the sheep of His pasture. God is omnipotent and He knows the end from the beginning and He knows all things in front of us and all the things that lie behind us.
He knows what is coming on us soon and He knows what will come to us in the ages of eternity. It is wonderful to have such a God for us, for we can point to any place in the universe and say that God is there. He is everywhere. Nothing can escape Him.
He is in hell executing judgment and justice, and He is in heaven administering grace and mercy.
He will be with believers onto the end of the Earth and beyond for He is our Shepherd, our all-knowing, all- powerful, ever present, unchangeable, promise keeping Shepherd.
He made us and when we fell into sin He redeemed us and so we belong to Him in view of what He has done for us.
Verse 4. So we are invited and we have the right to enter into His gates with thanksgiving.
This song refers to people going together to enter the courts of God, the presence of God, the God who holds us safely giving us identity, safety, and security.
“Gates and courts describe the temple. The prophet Ezekiel saw visions of temple gates and courts (Ezekiel 11:1; 40; 42:15; 43:1-4; 44:1-4; 45:19; 46:1-19; 47:2; 48:31-34) several large gates permitted access to the temple. There were four courtyards:
- The Court of the Gentiles (open to Gentiles)
- The court of women (open to Israelite women)
- The Court of Israelites (open to ritually pure Israelite men)
- The court of Priests (restricted to Priests)
Beyond the courtyards were:
- The Holy place (where priests attended to the golden lampstand, the table of showbread, and the golden altar of incense)
- The holy of Holies or the most holy Place (where only the high priest was authorized to enter, and he only on the Day of Atonement).\\
The psalmist specifies how we should approach these places of worship—with thanksgiving and praise”.
The word blessing is closer related to kneeling and so we are invited to kneel and pay homage, knowing Yahweh and joining in reverence and praise.
Remember that believers will be able to enter into the holy city in the New Heaven and the New Earth. No sinner, no person who is unclean, no person who is defiled will be able to enter. Therefore we who can enter into the presence of God will logically enter into these gates with thanksgiving and praise for the ultimate fulfillment of everything that the Lord God does would then be there.
Yahweh is good (Hebrew: tob)and moral and His characteristics are positive. There is nothing negative or untoward about Him. He is pure. He does not associate Himself with Sinners. He wants sinners to be cleansed so that they can come to Him.
Then we are told that Yahweh has loving kindness (Hebrew:hesed) and that this endures forever. This word hesed has a variety of meanings such as faithfulness, kindness, mercy, goodness, love, and all of these words let believers know that God thinks positively about them.
We can look at the example of how God dealt with Israel and how Israel many times gave Him many reasons to cut off His covenant relationship with them, but despite all of this God still maintained that relationship.
Note that Jesus has come and entered into covenant relationship with you and He has told us and we know that He will never abort His relationship with us true believers.
God’s therefore has faithfulness (munah) and that continues to all generations. See Psalm 33:4 and 119: 90. God’s faithfulness is not just with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but with you and will lead you from the beginning of your journey.
So think of all the goodness that God has done for you and remember that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those that are called according to His purpose.
Life might be difficult sometimes but you know that you are in the hands of a loving Shepherd who is good.
It is not that we were righteous for in fact we lived in envy and malice, being disobedient, hating one another and doing bad things to one another. But God in His loving kindness appeared to us not by works of righteousness that we have done but because He is merciful He washed us and regenerated us by His Holy Spirit and He keeps us in covenant love.
Verse 5. So we worship because we are absolutely certain that God’s love is real and that He will always be loyal to us.
But God is a God of truth and that will never change. He is a God of mercy and His mercy will be everlasting.
This is a great ground of assurance for all believers. So no matter how far into the future you can look you can say God is good and God is faithful to His promises.
God is dependable. That is so because this is His nature.
It is now appropriate to look again with a clear mind at the song by Isaac Watt.
CONCLUSION
The center of Psalm 100 invites those singing it to know God’s goodness. That goodness shows up in
God’s unfailing loyalty to Israel and His repeated acts to help and heal them and other human beings.
Psalm 100 concludes a group of Psalms by inviting all human beings and especially the people of Israel, to worship God in the joyful knowledge that He loves them and will care for them. By ending a group of psalms this way, Psalm 100 creates a sort of infinite loop. It invites us to begin with Psalm 93 and sing the rest of the hymns of praise, and when we reach Psalm 100, we can start over again.
Throughout these hymns, God the King brings salvation and joy to a needy and expectant people. They acknowledge that blessing with the only resource they can: their collective singing.
Psalm 100 ends with a look toward the future. Far from regarding the fate of the succeeding generations as bleak or hopeless, this Psalm assumes that an eternal God will always care for those who come after. The invitation to praise extends to all people. It is not a distraction from the nitty-gritty details of life but a way of helping us understand what those details can mean when we submit them to our Creator.
This perspective is worth recovering today because it frees us to find ways to bless our descendants rather than leaving them with problems and burdens.
The hopefulness and joy of the Psalm invites us to live in ways that future generations will remember us with approval.
In reading or singing this Psalm today, we can be confident that the God whom Israel trusted is still trustworthy. The hope to which they aspired, we also can embrace.
One writer and commentator states:
“The secret of living a stress-free life is to live a life of gratitude-not sweating the small stuff, while praising God from whom all blessings flow through of the day”..
What are you most thankful for? Here is a short list to get you started. Let us repeat some of what was said in the Introduction complied by preachers and teachers:
- Be thankful to be alive.
- Be thankful for the gift of love.
- Be thankful for the gift of time. .
- Be thankful for the air you breathe, the water you drink, the food you eat. They not only sustain your life, they give you strength and pleasure.
- Be thankful for the taxes you pay because it means you are employed, you have a job.
- Be thankful for the gift of color.
- Be thankful when you find a parking spot at the far end of the parking lot, because it means you are capable of walking.
- Be thankful for the lady behind you at church who sings off key because it means you can hear.
- Be thankful for the weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day, because it means you have been productive.
- The thankful for the gift of music. It can warm your heart and speak to your soul.
- Be thankful for the earthworms that till the soil and buzzards that clean up road kill, and 1000 other creatures working day and night in harmony with the universe.
- Be thankful for the rotation of the earth-that is, for night and day-and for the seasons-that summer doesn’t last all year- long(?)
- More than anything else, be thankful for God who loves you, warts and all, and has proven that love beyond all doubt by sacrificing his only son to redeem you from your sinful nature and reconcile you to Himself.
- Above all, recognize how God has proven His love once and for all through the death and resurrection of Jesus to open the door to a loving, lasting relationship with God and all creation.
So remember that when you’re worshiping you are in the audience with the King. Do not take it for granted. Remember that Kings have rules which determine how you come to meet them. God is no different. Before you come to Him, make sure that thankfulness is in your heart for you come to God for who He is and what He has done.
We have biblical faith. So then since we know that not everything in the world is all right and there is a lot of things in the world that is not right and the mystery of evil is terrible nevertheless let us praise our God and give thanks for we know He deals well with all the mysteries of life and the world.
We know the Psalms all have the common theme of the reign of the lord.
The enemies of God are trembling.
We know those who are far off will be brought near and the world, the earth, and the children of God will stop groaning for redemption will come.
So let us sing for joy to the Lord.
Let us “get ready” as the old African-American negro spiritual first published in 1872 “The gospel Train” advises: You might know the different variations of this song made popular by many singers:
Lyrics
Chorus:
Get on board, little children
Get on board
Get on board, little children
There’s room for many a- more
Verses;
The gospel train’s a- coming
I hear it just at hand
I hear the wheels a-rumbling
And rolling through the land.
I hear the train a-coming
She’s coming round the curve
She loosened all her steam and brakes
Straining every nerve.
The fare is cheap and all can go
The rich and poor are there
No second class aboard this train
No difference in the fare”.