Transcript

Three college freshmen and three college seniors were traveling home for Thanksgiving break. At a train station, the three freshmen bought tickets for themselves and watched as the seniors bought just one ticket.

One of the freshmen asked, “How are the three of you going to travel on only one ticket?” “Watch and learn,” answered one of the seniors.

They all boarded the train. The three freshmen took their respective seats as all three seniors crammed into a bathroom together and closed the door.

Shortly after the train departed, the conductor came around to collect tickets. He knocked on the bathroom door and said, “Ticket, please.

The door opened just a crack, and a single arm emerged with a ticket in hand. The conductor took it and moved on. The freshmen observed this and agreed it was a clever idea, so they decided to do the same thing on the return trip and save some money.

When they got to the station, they bought a single ticket for the return trip. The seniors were also there, but they didn’t buy any ticket at all.

One of the freshmen was perplexed and asked, “How are you going to travel without a ticket?” “Watch and learn,” answered one of the seniors.

When they boarded the train, the three seniors crammed themselves into one bathroom and the three freshmen crammed into another bathroom across the way.

Shortly after the train was on its way, one of the seniors left their bathroom and walked to the bathroom where the freshmen were hiding. The senior knocked on the door and said, “Ticket, please.”

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday with family members and loved ones coming home and gathering together. It is a special holiday because it makes us stop and count our many blessings and thank God for them.

Psalm 100 is about the children of Israel traveling home for thanksgiving as it were, to the promised land and the temple in Jerusalem. And as they did, they were taught by God to “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving.”

Psalm 100:1-2: “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.”

The 100th Psalm is written to Israel. And it emphatically emphasizes the Lord. In verse 1, we read, “make a joyful noise unto the LORD.” In verse 2, “Serve the LORD.” In verse 3, “Know ye that the LORD He is God.” And in verse 5, “For the LORD is good.”

The Lord and Who He is and what He has done are the basis for our praise and thanksgiving, and our thanksgiving is to be rendered to Him.

Psalm 95-100 in your Bible are a grouping in your Bible. They have been called Enthronement Psalms or Kingdom Songs.

They have common features of praise and worship with parallel structures and repeated expressions about worship, thanksgiving, gladness, rejoicing, and singing. And they all focus on the Lord as the great King and Judge of all the earth.

This grouping of the Psalms has movement toward Jerusalem, toward the temple in Jerusalem, and even toward the Lord’s very presence in that temple.

Psalm 95:1,2 says, “O COME, let us sing unto the Lord…Let us COME before His presence with thanksgiving…O COME, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.” Psalm 96:8 says, “…bring an offering, and COME into His courts.”

Psalm 99:9 adds, “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill.” And here in Psalm 100, you similarly have “COME before His presence with singing,” and “ENTER in His gates with thanksgiving.”

There were 3 required feasts each year that the Jews were required to attend. The feast of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. As Israelites made their way to the temple in Jerusalem these verses speak of the purpose and attitude with which they were to come.

Their purpose in coming was worship and service, and their motivation was praise and thanksgiving for all that God had done for Israel.

The grouping of Psalms 95-100 is prophetic of the millennial kingdom and the reign of the Messiah over the world. They refer to that future day when the Lord “cometh to judge the earth, with righteousness shall He judge the world” (98:9).

In Psalm 99, we read, The Lord reigneth…The Lord is great in Zion…Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill” (99:1,2,9).

Israel will come from all over in that day to come to the Lord’s literal presence in the Temple. In the past, the Temple was the dwelling place of God, the place where His glory and presence resided in Israel.

But in the future kingdom, God’s presence will reside in the temple in the personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, sitting on His throne, reigning over the world.

The temple will be filled with Christ’s glory and presence. So when it says to “come before His presence with singing” it’s speaking literally that Israel will do this in the future when they come into the presence of their God and King, the Lord Jesus Christ.

In that day, in Christ’s millennial temple, Israel will “Enter into His gates [or temple gates] with thanksgiving, and into His courts [or temple courts] with praise.”

The first 3 commands of the Psalm are commands to rejoice: make a joyful noise, serve with gladness, and come with singing.

The Lord Jesus is the reason for our joy in the Church, the Body of Christ and He is the reason for Israel’s joy as well.

“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord” in verse one speaks of a glad shout and verbal expressions of their thanksgiving and worship.

It signifies the kind of response that loyal and grateful subjects give before their king. The Psalmist calls Israel to shout, to raise their voices with words of joy and praise to her King.

And Psalm 95:1 teaches Israel to “let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.” For His great salvation and deliverance from both their sins and their enemies, this will draw forth glad shouts of praise among those in Israel in the kingdom.

God’s call for worship is extended to “all ye lands,” or all the earth. For His kingdom, Christ will gather His people Israel “out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south,” Psalm 107:3 says.

As they come up out of the lands from which they have been scattered for the kingdom, they will make a joyful noise unto the Lord, shouting and praising Him as they come.

At the coronation of King Solomon, 1 Kings 1:39-40 reads, “…And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon. And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them.”

And when Israel’s greatest King reigns, Israel will likewise praise Him with such fervor, volume, and intensity that the earth will seemingly shake and split open.

And the Psalmist adds that this praise is to come from “all ye lands,” which refers to the nations in the earthly kingdom. Christ will reign over all lands and all the earth in that day, and so all nations are called to praise Him.

The blessings brought by His reign will be so vast, that all the earth will have abundant cause for praising and thanking the Lord for His goodness and mercy.

As Israel is coming to the Lord’s presence in Jerusalem, she is called to “Serve the Lord with gladness: come before His presence with singing.”

The service that is called for here is that of worship and service in the temple as they come to Jerusalem.

As Lord, Christ is to be served, and there is gladness in this freely rendered service.

It is a privilege to do whatever the Lord would have us to do. Israel in the past and in her future, and the Body of Christ in the present, all are called to serve the Lord with gladness.

If we are serving the Lord, but are not very glad about it, then we might have forgotten Whom we are ultimately serving. The source of joy and gladness in serving is in the realization of the One we are serving, and the great privilege we have in doing so.

And speaking of a privilege, verse 2 states “Come before His presence.” This is a divine invitation. God invited Israel into His presence to come to worship Him.

God wants our presence, fellowship, and communion. God says, “Come into my presence.” Now, most of us will likely never get a White House invitation to meet with the President of the United States in the Oval Office. We are not on that level. We are on a higher one.

Believing Israel has an open invitation to come before His presence in the temple in the kingdom on the earth. And the members of the Body of Christ have an open invitation to come before His presence in the throne room of heaven above.

In Ephesians 3:12, the Body of Christ is assured that “In [Christ] we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.” After we pass from this life, we know we are welcome in His presence in heaven. And that is cause for thanksgiving.

And as an expression of their joy and gratitude, the Psalmist wrote that Israel should sing God’s praises as they come and “come before His presence with singing.”

Singing as an expression of one’s gladness, joy, and praise of God is what this entails. Our singing is not to create our gladness, but to express it.

Isaiah 35:10 prophesies of this day for Israel in the kingdom, “And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

This phrase also teaches us something about prayer, reminding us that we ought not always to rush into God’s presence in prayer with our questions and requests only.

We should come into His presence with praise. We should praise and thank Him when we pray. As Paul taught the Body of Christ, “in every thing by prayer and supplication WITH THANKSGIVING let your requests be made known unto God.”

Psalm 110:3: “Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”

The invitation to “come before His presence” came with knowing and realizing something.

Israel needed to remember the incredible privilege of the One they were coming into the presence of. Their joyful noise, gladness, and singing were to stem from the great blessing of knowing “that the Lord He is God.”

They would be stepping into the very presence of God when they came to the temple in the past and in the future during the millennium.

The word “Lord” in “the Lord He is God,” is Jehovah in the original Hebrew. So the Psalmist states that Jehovah, He is God.

Jehovah is not one god among many; He is God alone, the only true God, the living God. This hearkens back to Deuteronomy 6:4, which says, “Hear, O Israel, The Lord [or Jehovah] our God is one Lord [or Jehovah].”

And the name, Jehovah, refers to the fact that He is the covenant-keeping God of Israel who was and is faithful to Israel and all her promises.

It speaks to how He is self-existent and eternal, Who was and is and always will be. There is no other God but Him, and He is Supreme over all.

A. W. Tozer stated rightly that God “wants to cultivate within us the adoration and admiration of which He is worthy. He wants us to be astonished at the inconceivable elevation and magnitude and splendor of Almighty God.”

We put God in His rightful place when we place Him above all and just praise and honor His greatness and glory.

Thanksgiving is based upon truth and a proper knowledge and understanding of God. We render our praise and thanks to the true God Who is over all, thanking Him for Who He is and for what He does.

In verse 3, the Psalmist wrote of the true God that “it is He that hath made us.” “He hath made us” does not refer to God as Creator forming and creating a person or mankind, but to the constituting and creation of Israel as the people of God and His chosen nation. He brought Israel as a nation into existence.

In Psalm 149:2 we read, “Let Israel rejoice in Him that made him.” Isaiah 43:1 further says, “But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.”

The Lord God made Israel and called her to be His chosen people that she might be a light and a blessing to all the families of the earth. As their Creator, Israel belonged to God, and thus the Psalmist says, “We are His people” (cf. 95:7).

God cares for what belongs to Him. And the Psalmist adds that Israel is “the sheep of His pasture.” Israel is His people and His sheep.

And as a good Shepherd, the Lord cared for His sheep, and they did not want for anything. Being the Lord’s sheep, He was always there for them, providing for them, leading and guiding them, and watching over and protecting them. For this, they owed Him their heartfelt praise and gratitude.

God made Israel, “and not we ourselves,” the Psalmist added. Israel was not self-created; they derived their being as a people and a nation from him. All that they had and were, they owed to God, and thus, again, He was worthy of their thanksgiving.

Under grace, being a member of the Body of Christ, we are God’s people today.

Titus 2:14 teaches that Christ “gave Himself for us [the Body of Christ], that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar [or special] people, zealous of good works.”

We are God’s special people in this age of grace. And all that we have and anything we are in Christ, we owe to God, and it is because God gave us what we have and made us who we are and what we are in Christ by His grace. And He is more than worthy of our worship, good works, and thanksgiving.

Psalm 100:4-5: “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.”

Referring to the temple in the kingdom, Micah 4:1 states, “But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.”

Following the invitation in verse 2 to “come before His presence,” the presence of the Lord, Who is God. Arriving at the temple during Christ’s millennial reign, the invitation is further given to “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.”

The gates and courts spoken of here speak of the city gates, the temple gates, and the courts within the temple. Israel was to enter through these gates and courts in their approach to the Lord which gave access to His awesome presence.

Ezekiel 40-45 describes the millennial temple with its many gates and outer and inner courts.

And as believers enter and walk through these gates, they are to do so with grateful praise in their hearts, ready and willing to “be thankful unto Him and bless His name.”

They were to be thankful to God for the great privilege and praise God for the permission to come into His presence. The blessing of entering the Lord’s presence naturally draws this out of the believer because we are totally undeserving of this blessing.

And this draws our mind to the day when we will be “absent from the body, and…present with the Lord.” At that time, we will enter the Lord’s presence in heaven with the same mindset to be thankful to Him and to bless His name for saving our souls and giving us life eternal and a home in His heaven.

The word “For,” in verse 5 gives the basis of why Israel should be thankful unto Him and why they should bless His name. And first it is because “the Lord is good.”

The Lord is good in every aspect of His being and nature.

Israel will experience the goodness of the Lord during His reign, such as the blessing of entering His presence, and also the Lord will bless her abundantly in His kingdom.

The reason why we are thankful at Thanksgiving is because of this truth and fact that “the Lord is good.” He is good all the time, and He is good to us in so many ways.

Out of His goodness, He has blessed us with life, breath, food, family, homes, jobs, and so on. Out of His goodness to us, the Body of Christ, He has given us eternal life, hope, an inheritance and position in Christ in heavenly places, and He has blessed us with us with all spiritual blessings.

For these things and more, we are to be “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Second, why Israel should be thankful unto the Lord and bless His name is because “His mercy is everlasting.”

As we read the Old Testament, we find that Israel had much reason to be thankful for God’s mercy in not giving them what they deserved and in providing salvation, life, and forgiveness for her through the Savior. And it’s the exact same for us.

We are rightly glad and grateful to God for our homes, jobs, and good health, but take all things away from the believer, and this will not prevent us from continuing to be grateful to God and for His greatest gift of salvation.

In plenty or in need, in palaces or in prison, in security or uncertainty, we thank God for the mercy and kindness of the unspeakable gift of God’s Son, His sacrificial death and resurrection, and the forgiveness of all our sins we have through Him.

Psalm 103:11-12 reads, “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is HIS MERCY toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”

The phrase “as the heaven is high above the earth” means according to the height of heaven. And we can’t determine the height of the heavens and the size of the universe.

The height of the heaven above illustrates the kind of mercy God shows to us. Just like we cannot and will never be able to measure the heights of the heavens in God’s massive, infinite universe, so His mercy cannot be measured toward us. His mercy is as great as can be possibly conceived.

And speaking of an infinite distance, that is how far God, in His mercy, has removed our transgressions from us.

If we draw a line from north to south on this planet, we find that it is a finite distance.

If we travel north from a given point, sooner or later, we will reach the north pole, a definite point; then, if we travel south, we will eventually reach the south pole, another definite point.

The north-south measure is finite, but east and west are a different matter. We can start to travel east and there is no point, so long as we continue in that direction, at which we start to travel west.

Or we can start to travel west and, no matter how long we continue, there is no point at which we start to travel east. West is always west; east is always east.

The psalmist here describes God’s forgiveness of our sins that it is “as far as east is from west”. The blessing that is taught us here is that just as east and west will never meet; that is how far hath God in His mercy removed our transgressions from us.

Just as “east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet again,” so by the perfect sacrifice and payment for our sins at the Cross of Christ, the believer and his sins will never, ever meet again.

Our sins have been paid for and removed from us as far as possible; an infinite distance that cannot be measured, comprehended, or even imagined.

Our sins could not be more removed farther away than they are. Thus, we are truly forgiven and absolutely safe and saved from the condemnation of our sins.

Those sins have been put out of God’s sight and taken away entirely forever by a miracle of mercy and love. And that mercy and love can reach for our hearts and rightly cause us to give thanks to Him.

Finally, why Israel should be thankful unto the Lord and bless His name is because “His truth endureth to all generations.” God is faithful, He is a God of truth, who keeps His promises and cannot lie.

God is to be thanked and His name is to be blessed because He is faithful to His Word and all His promises both to Israel concerning her covenants and hope on the earth, and to the Church, the Body of Christ, concerning our hope and blessings in heaven.

God is good, God is merciful, God is faithful. God’s love, goodness, and faithfulness are not just theological propositions, they are a Person.

God’s goodness has a name. God’s mercy has a face. God’s faithfulness became a man, and He died for our sins and rose again to provide the way to God and give us eternal life.

Because of Him, we make a joyful noise, we serve the Lord with gladness, we come before His presence with singing, we are God’s people, and we are thankful unto Him, and we bless His name.

And because of what Christ did for us, one day we know we will enter into His heaven with thanksgiving and with praise.

As the old hymn, “Thanks to God for My Redeemer,” so beautifully puts it:

“Thanks to God for my Redeemer, thanks for all Thou dost provide, / Thanks for times now but a memory, thanks for Jesus by my side.

Thanks for pleasant, balmy springtime, thanks for dark and stormy fall! / Thanks for tears by now forgotten, thanks for peace within my soul!

“Thanks for prayers that thou hast answered, thanks for what Thou dost deny, / Thanks for storms that I have weathered, thanks for all Thou dost supply.

“Thanks for roses by the wayside, thanks for thorns their stems contain, / Thanks for home and thanks for fireside, thanks for hope, that sweet refrain.

“Thanks for joy and thanks for sorrow, thanks for heavenly peace with Thee, / Thanks for hope in the tomorrow, thanks through all eternity.”