We're looking at Psalm 100. Psalm
100 is one of those psalms that quite a few people are aware
of. That is, it's kind of like the
23rd Psalm. It's read quite often. It's a glorious psalm, no doubt. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before his presence with singing. 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. 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. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord, all ye lands, and surely The Lord is our source of joy.
You know, the Lord has put us into the world and there are
many things that bring joy to us as we go through the world. Reading the account of Balaam,
that brings joy. to our mind as we consider the
preposterousness of the whole situation, and yet a true story. You know, someone has said that
truth is stranger than fiction, and the account of Balaam is
certainly one that proves that to be true. But there are many things to
be learned from the account of Balaam. And none is more evident
to me than the sovereign will of God to do according to His
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay His head. Now, Balaam was determined
to circumvent the way of the Lord, and it ever turned He was
just like a weasel, you know. He was just looking for a way
the whole time. Now, he was going along, but
you can be sure it's just like the cats at the house. When the
doors open, they're sitting there, and they're just waiting, and
usually you can kind of, you know. You can put your foot in
a certain way and keep them from going, but they'll be there long
enough and they'll figure, and just when they've got the right
thing, boom, you know, they go through the door and they get
in there. And that's the way Balaam was. He just couldn't
do what he set out to do. But in his heart the whole time,
there was a desire to do it. go his own way and to get what
he wanted. And he did not love the truth
of God. And a lot of people, they think
that they can make a joyful noise unto the Lord whenever they get
ready. I mean, isn't that right? I mean,
most people think, well, we'll just go out here and we'll just
be joyful. But you know, the joy that is spoken of here is
not a joy that is something that can be ginned up by the will
and purpose of men. You cannot make yourself to rejoice
in the Lord. Now, we're commanded to rejoice,
rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. We
are to go forth with joy. But only as the Lord gives us
joy can we do so. But if we be in Christ, that
is a joyful place, is it not? Joy to the world, the Lord is
come. May all men be joyful in Him. Now we know that all men will
not be joyful in Him. But that doesn't change the obligation. to do, to be joyful. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord all ye lands. That is, raise up praises, sing
honor to his name, exalt him with all that's within us. All
ye lands, the Lord is the king over all the earth. Who shall
not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? And as the vision that
John had, he said there were people from every kindred nation
and tongue on the earth that praised the name of the Lord.
All the earth shall praise Him. He is the Savior of the world.
And that doesn't mean He saves every individual in the world,
but it means He saves the world. Just like the scripture says
He saved the world in Noah's day, when He saved Noah, because
that would have been the end of mankind, would it not? Had
the Lord not delivered Noah, what if He'd have just swallowed
up everybody and started over again? He could have if He wanted
to. That's not His purpose, because the Lord would demonstrate that
He has a people in the earth and He will deliver them. And they are the earth. You see,
we inherit the earth and the earth is ours. It belongs to
those who are in Christ because it belongs to Christ and we've
been made heirs and joint heirs with him. So whatever is his
possession has become ours, not by right, but by grace, by mercy,
by the fact that it's been bestowed upon us. Serve the Lord with
gladness. come before his presence with
singing. There's really no other way to serve the Lord. Now, every
man on the face of the earth is going to serve the Lord. Balaam
served the Lord. He couldn't help it. He didn't
do it with gladness. And there's a lot of people that
they serve the Lord. Oh, we gotta serve the Lord.
Well, brother, serve the Lord. Are you serving the Lord? Yeah,
we're serving the Lord. I mean, we'd be doing something
else if we could, but we're serving the Lord. Well, brethren, that's
not what we're called to do, not just to serve the Lord. I
mean, the slaves in the field served their master, did they
not? But I don't imagine many of them did it with gladness.
They did it because they didn't want to be whipped, or they didn't
want to, you know, reap the consequences of not doing it. Now that's the
way a lot of people look at serving the Lord. They serve the Lord
because they fear what will happen to them if they don't. Well that's
a poor way to serve the Lord. In fact, it's not really any
way at all to serve the Lord because the true service of God
is with gladness. The scripture says that the Lord
loveth a cheerful giver. Now there really is no other
kind because you don't give something unless it is done cheerfully. Because if you're not doing it
cheerfully, then it's not giving, it's paying a tax, is it not?
I mean, we all pay the IRS every year, we're supposed to anyway.
And you better be faithful to do it. But you don't do it with
gladness. You know, it's not a thing that
you delight in. But you see, in order to give
praise or to serve the Lord, it must be done with gladness.
Otherwise, it's of no use. The widow that cast in her two
mites. Scripture says that she gave
more than all of the rich men that cast in out of their abundance.
I mean, they were shelling it out, you know, putting it out
in there. And this woman came up there with two mites and she
gave it. Why was it blessed? Because it was that which was
done with gladness. She was glad to do it. She wanted
to do it. She could not be prevented from
doing it. It was not in any way to her
an obligation. And that's our service to the
Lord. is if the grace of God is in our heart and mind, we
delight in serving Him. Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before His presence with singing. Lord, we want to worship
You. I mean, it's not that we've got
to go through it. You know, when I was growing
up, it always seemed to me, and I know it probably wasn't that
way for everybody, but it seemed this way to me, at least, that
we sang songs and stuff, but we always tried to get through
them as quick as we could. And, you know, we just wanted
to do it because that's what we thought we needed to do. I
mean, that's just how it seemed to me. That's just what you did.
And so we just did it. We didn't do it. I didn't do
it, at least, because I wanted to do it. I just did it because
that was what you're supposed to do. But we come into His presence
with singing. What is singing? Singing is the
expression of the joy of the heart before Almighty God. That's what singing is. One of
the greatest blessings that God gives to His people is an ability
to sing. Now that doesn't mean that your
singing is that which might be pleasant in the ears of someone
else. See, that's not what determines
whether singing is a good thing. It's not how other people like
it. See, that's why I've heard people say, oh, well, I can't
sing. You know, if you can talk, you can sing. Because singing
is not about the ability that you have, it's about the intent
of the heart. It is the desire to exalt and
praise and honor the King. Come before His presence with
singing. Know ye that the Lord, He is God. Now that's something
a lot of people never learn. The Lord's God. I mean, he is
God. Now, a lot of people read that
over there about Balaam, and the Lord told Balaam to do something,
and Balaam did exactly what the Lord told him to do, and yet
the Lord was angry with him because he did what the Lord told him
to do. And a lot of people, they can't get with that. And just
like that scripture you read there about the Lord said about
the prophets, he said, if the prophet's deceived, it's because
I deceived him. A lot of people can't handle
that. They say, oh, well, wait a minute, that can't mean that.
When God says, I make peace and create evil, I, the Lord, do
all these things, they say, wait a minute, that doesn't mean that. I've had more people tell me
that doesn't mean what it means than any other scripture in the
book. You cannot bring an accusation
against God. You don't have the standing.
See, just recently, we had the states, they brought this lawsuit
up, and they went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court
said, we're not going to hear it because you don't have standing.
Well, that's just exactly the same way it is if you would bring
an accusation against Almighty God. What difference does that make?
I mean, you can run your mouth all you want to, but you cannot
accuse God of anything, because He is God. He's the Lord God. He does all things well. And
whether you like it, or I like it, or anybody likes it, the
Lord, He is God. Know ye that the Lord, He is
God. I personally, I don't want to
serve a God that's not God. I mean, if He's not God, what
would we be serving Him for? But He is God, and He will do. all of his pleasure, all of the
things that he purposes to accomplish in the earth will be done. Nobody
will thwart the will of God. Now you often hear people, oh,
they didn't do the will of God. Well, they might not have willingly
done the will of God, but they did the will of God. All men
do the will of God, whether they want to or they don't want to.
The Lord is God. It is He that hath made us and
not we ourselves. This is a place that people a
lot of times forget. It is the Lord that made us.
Now, I know that people just, they, I mean, if you pinned them
down, they'd say, well, the Lord made me, but they don't really
believe it. because they think that the Lord
ought to have done it this way. Or it would have been better
if this had turned out like this. Or we wanted it to be like this
and it was like that. But know ye that the Lord he
is God, it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We didn't have one thing in the
world to do with anything that brought us to the place where
we're at right this present moment. Anything that is of us is corrupt. Balaam, he was a man after his
own heart. He was going his own way, was
he not? And that's the same way that
we are. When Adam sinned, why did he sin? He sinned because
he was a sinner. It is God that made us and not
we ourselves. Now could the Lord have made
Adam in such a fashion that he would not have sinned? What kind
of foolish question is that? He could have done anything he
wanted to do. Now that's not what he purposed to do. Some
people get all upset if you say that the Lord created Adam in
such a way that he would do the thing that he was told not to
do. But God says, it's my world. I made men just exactly like
I wanted them to be. The Lord didn't make us to be
the angels. Now there's all kind of creatures
and creations that God has formed and fashioned that you and I
don't have anything, any way to know a whole lot about other
than what he's shown us in the scripture. I don't know how many
different heavenly creatures there may be or what they look
like or anything else. But the Lord has made all of
it according to the good pleasure of his will. And it is he that
hath made us and not we ourselves. We didn't have anything to do
with it. Now some say, well, that's a pretty bleak way to
look at it. Well, no, because God made it that way. Glory to
God. See, the scripture says men didn't
like to retain God in their knowledge. That's what they don't like.
See, men don't like to think of God as being God and doing
all things according to the good pleasure of his will. They like
a God that just kind of winds up like a toy and just lets it
go and it's all going out here, you know, and operating by the
free will of men and God's just kind of curbing it in and keeping
things on track and every now and then he says, well, I better
do something about this and he moves in and he does something.
That's how people think of it. But God has made all things well
according to the good plans of His will. And woe be to the man
that would question His doing, to say unto him, what doest thou? How could you do that? I mean, you have no place to
do it. It is He that hath made us. We
are His people and the sheep of His pasture. What a glorious
Blessing that is to come to that place. The Lord said, my sheep,
hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. And we are his sheep. We're glad
to be his sheep. We're not unhappy that he calls
us his sheep, the sheep of his pasture. It is he that hath made
us and we not ourselves the sheep of his pasture. Now what if he
said you're the sheep of your pasture? I mean, you see, the
pasture that you would plant, it would be good for a while,
but after a while it would grow thorns and you wouldn't have
anything to eat, because that's just the way that men are. You
realize that everything that men touch turns to baloney pretty
quick. I mean, look at every government
on the face of the earth. They all rise and they fall. Why is that? Well, it's all in
the intended purpose of God. But why is it? So that the Lord
might demonstrate the corruption that is in man. You know, there's
no perfect government on the earth. The United States is not
a perfect government. I mean, there's never been one. What's the problem with it? What's
wrong with communism? Now, people tell us, well, communism
is bad because of this, this, and this. Well, communism not
any worse than democracy. A king or having a president
is not any worse or better than having a king. The problem with
all the governments and societies of the earth has nothing to do
with the government. It has to do with the corrupt
nature of men. I mean, that's the problem. What's
wrong with communism? I mean, communism, in the sense
that everybody takes care of everybody else, sound like a
pretty good deal to me. I mean, that's actually what
Christ said, or not, you're your brother's keeper. I mean, look,
not every man on his own things, but also on the things of others.
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
I mean, that's a good thing, is it not? But what's wrong with
governments that start to do that? They leave out one problem. They don't recognize one problem.
And that is that men are corrupt. And so pretty soon a man will
be just like Ananias and Sapphira, because that's the way men are
by nature. And they say, well, wait a minute, we ought to keep
a little bit of this back for ourselves. I mean, when things
get tough, we want to hedge our bets a little bit, and so we
want to fix it for ourselves. And so because of the innate
selfishness of men, communism as a government form will never
work. And, of course, capitalism, what
happens with it? Well, ultimately, greed overtakes
men, and, you know, the same scenario. So none of these things,
it's foolish when people get to describing this kind of government's
good, and that one's bad, and this works, and that works, and
all that. None of them work because of the fact that men are corrupt. But God has made all things well. And it's working just like He
wants it to be. And we're the sheep of His pasture. And He has provided for us what
He would have us to have. What a glorious God we serve.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.
Be thankful unto Him and bless His name. We give praise and
thanks unto the Lord. Because it is He that hath made
us and not we ourselves. He has provided for us. And you
know, even if He didn't, we would be thankful if He works in us
a thankful heart. Because there's not a man on
the face of the earth that doesn't have something to be thankful
for. You know, a man that is... I was reading this week about
Helen Keller. And now they've made her into,
she's supposed to be some terrible person, you know, because of
the fact that she was born white and she had all these privileges,
even though she was deaf and blind from the time she was,
almost from the time she was born. And yet she, you know,
by the grace of God, she accomplished many things. But you look at someone like
her and you say, well, what does she have to be thankful for? I mean, she's deaf, she's blind,
she can't, you know, just think about that. Being in a situation
like that where you couldn't see, you couldn't hear, I don't
think she could speak. I mean, I don't remember exactly
all of her problems, but yet, She would express and did express
her thanks for the blessings that God put within her life.
You see, all men are blessed in one way or another. Everybody
has something to be thankful for. And how foolish it is when
men grow angry with God and don't give thanks to Him. Enter into
his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless
his name. Worship him. For the Lord is
good. His mercy is everlasting and
his truth endureth to all generations. Now in the Grace Gazette this
week, it's about everlasting mercy and enduring truth. And the Lord has set forth his
truth and his mercy in Jesus Christ. Grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ. The law was given by Moses, but
the Lord in his mercy and kindness has sent to us a revelation of
his mercy and his truth in Christ. If a man would know the mercy
of God, He must see it in Christ, because Christ is the revelation
of God's mercy, even as He is the revelation of His truth.
And those two things must go hand in hand. You know, sometimes
people want to talk about the mercy of God, but they want to
leave off the truth of the fact that He said, I will show mercy
to whom I will show mercy. And so they almost make mercy
to be an obligation of God. Well, He has to be merciful.
No, you see, God doesn't have to show mercy to anybody. His
mercy is everlasting. But He's not obligated because
mercy is never a thing that could be obligated. I mean, you can't
obligate somebody to show mercy to you. That's just a contradiction
of terms. Mercy must be sovereignly disposed. And so it is that the mercy of
God and the truth of God go hand in hand. And a man cannot have
any understanding of what the mercy of God is apart from understanding
the truth of God. And of course we know that the
truth of God is found in Christ. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. What a glorious God we serve.
The Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and
His truth endureth to all generations. There's never been a generation
on the face of the earth that has not seen the mercy of God
and the truth of God. That's what Paul said. He said, these things are made. Men from the beginning have been
able to see all of these things revealed in that which God is
pleased to show to men. And what a blessing we have to
be a people that live in an age and a time when grace and truth
has been revealed in Jesus Christ. I mean, think about all those
people that died in the wilderness. Now, I don't know that all of
those, the children of Israel that died in the wilderness,
I don't necessarily believe that all of them were not of the elect. Some of them no doubt were of
the elect, yet they died not having seen the promises. And
even as the scripture says, all of the Old Testament saints But
they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the
earth and that they looked for a city which had foundations. And we, dear brethren, are blessed
in a great measure beyond what any of the peoples of the earth
have ever had because we live in a time when the Lord has revealed
himself. See, we're not looking for revelations. Now there's all these people
writing these prophetic books and whatnot, they're telling
you we're still looking for all these things to happen. Brethren,
God has revealed what's gonna happen, what has happened in
Christ. We're not waiting for some mystery
to be resolved. The mystery is resolved in Jesus
Christ. He is the one who has opened
the seals of the book. He's worthy to open it, to reveal
the mysteries of God to the world. And as such, we're blessed. And his mercy has been revealed
to every generation. But I believe, as he said about John, he said, there's not arisen
a greater prophet born of a woman than John. But he said, I tell
you, he that's least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. That man who's seen Christ crucified,
risen, and coming again, he's seen more than John ever saw.
How blessed he is. How blessed we are, brethren,
to live in a time when the gospel has free course. to be proclaimed. I don't know if that's going
to always be. I mean, you hear people talk
about stuff and you see all these different things happening where
there are people that are openly advocating passing laws to keep
people from saying certain things. Now, I can see where that would
lead to ultimately, that it would come down to if you got up and
preached that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life,
they would consider that to be hate speech or whatever, and
they'd say, well, you can't say that. Now, I don't believe there'll
ever come a time when they can actually keep men from saying
it. They may keep some men from saying it, but you see, those
whom God sends into the earth to declare it, they will declare
it. And the gates of hell cannot prevail against the Word of God. But we are blessed in so many
ways. Let us give praise unto the Lord
and come to His presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord,
He is God. It's He that hath made us and
not we ourselves. We hadn't done anything. May
the Lord be pleased, be praised.