Title - A Psalm of Praise; or rather, of Thanksgiving. This is the only Psalm bearing this precise inscription. It is all ablaze with grateful adoration, and has for this reason been a great favourite with the people of God ever since it was written. “Let us sing the Old Hundredth” is one of the every-day expressions of the Christian church and will be so while men exist whose hearts are loyal to the great King. Nothing can be more sublime this side of heaven than the singing of this noble psalm by a vast congregation. Watts' paraphrase, beginning, “Before Jehovah’s awful throne,” and the Scotch, “All people that on earth do dwell,” are both noble versions, and even Tate and Brady rise beyond themselves when they sing –
To God their cheerful voices raise.”
In this divine lyric, we sing with gladness the creating power and goodness of the Lord; even as in the preceding, with trembling, we adore his holiness.
Verse 2. “Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.” He is our Lord, and therefore he is to be served; he is our gracious Lord, and therefore he is to be served with joy. The invitation here given to worship is not a melancholy one, as though adoration were a funeral solemnity, but a cheery gladsome exhortation, as though we were bidden to marriage feast. The measured, harmonious, hearty utterance of praise by a congregation of really devout persons is not merely decorous but delightful. It is a fit anticipation of the worship of heaven, where praise has absorbed prayer, and become the sole mode of adoration.
Verse 3. “Know yet that the Lord he is God ...” From this exhortation, learn that such is our natural atheism, that we have need again and again to be instructed that “the Lord is God” – of whom, and through whom, and for whom are all things.
Verses 3-5. “Know ye that the Lord he is God.” Knowledge is the mother of devotion, and of all obedience. Blind sacrifices will never please an all-seeing God. “Know” it; that is, consider and apply it, and then you will be more close and constant in the worship of him. Let us know, then, these seven things concerning the Lord Jehovah, with whom we have to do in all the acts of religious worship.
(1) “That the Lord he is God,” the only living and true God; that he is a being infinitely perfect, self-existent and self-sufficient, and the fountain of all being.
(2) He is our Creator: “It is he that made us, and not we ourselves.” We do not, we could not make ourselves. It is God’s prerogative; our being is derived and depending.
(3) Therefore, he is our rightful owner. Because God made us, and not we ourselves; therefore, we are not our own but his.
(4) He is our Sovereign Ruler. We are his people, or subjects, and he is our prince and governor. He gives laws to us as moral agents, and will call us to an account for what we do.
(5) He is our bountiful Benefactor. We are not only his sheep that he is entitled to, but the sheep “of his pasture” whom he takes care of.
(6) He is a God of infinite mercy and good. “The Lord is good,” verse 5, and therefore doeth good; “his mercy is everlasting.”
(7) He is a God of inviolable truth and faithfulness. “His truth endureth to all generations,” and no word of his shall fall to the ground as antiquated or revoked.
It was on the morning of 11th November 1620 that the Pilgrim Fathers landed in the bay of Cape Cod and formed that part of the United States of America that was to become known as “New England.” It had been a long hard voyage in the famous little Mayflower, and the numbers of those original pilgrims were small. However, as they gathered together to give thanks for God’s hand upon them, it was the words of the “Old Hundredth” that was announced and sung by the new settlers, and which filled the November air of that day so long ago: -
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,
Him serve with mirth, His praise forthtell:
Come ye before him and rejoice.”
It was a good beginning, and the Lord was to smile favourably on many of the labours of these saints that followed.