Psalms 100:2

Serve the Lord with gladness. "Glad homage pay with awful mirth." He is our Lord, and therefore he is to be served; he is our gracious Lord, and therefore to be served with joy. The invitation to worship here given is not a melancholy one, as though adoration were a funeral solemnity, but a cheery gladsome exhortation, as though we were bidden to a marriage feast. Come before his presence with singing. We ought in worship to realise the presence of God, and by an effort of the mind to approach him. This is an act which must to every rightly instructed heart be one of great solemnity, but at the same time it must not be performed in the servility of fear, and therefore we come before him, not with weepings and wailings, but with Psalms and hymns. Singing, as it is a joyful, and at the same time a devout, exercise, should be a constant form of approach to God. The measured, harmonious, hearty utterance of praise by a congregation of really devout persons is not merely decorous but delightful, and is a fit anticipation of the worship of heaven, where praise has absorbed prayer, and become the sole mode of adoration. How a certain society of brethren can find it in their hearts to forbid singing in public worship is a riddle which we cannot solve. We feel inclined to say with Dr. Watts

MUCH of the sweetness of music lies in the ear to which it is addressed. There are mysterious sweetnesses and unknown harmonies which lurk, and the notes are detected only by the ear attuned to melody. The most enchanting strain to one ear may be discord, itself, to another! The wise man tells us that as vinegar is upon niter, so is he that sings songs to a sad heart. The song in itself may embody the soul of delight and yet it may be misery itself to the ear which is not in tune with it.

MUCH of the sweetness of music lies in the ear to which it is addressed. There are mysterious sweetnesses and unknown harmonies which lurk, and the notes are detected only by the ear attuned to melody. The most enchanting strain to one ear may be discord, itself, to another! The wise man tells us that as vinegar is upon niter, so is he that sings songs to a sad heart. The song in itself may embody the soul of delight and yet it may be misery itself to the ear which is not in tune with it. So is it with my text. It is a short, but inexpressibly sweet stanza. "Serve the Lord with gladness," is a delightful sonnet to the spiritual mind, but to the ungodly, the careless, the unspiritual, it is flat and dull—the grinding of labor's wheel—and far other than a verse from a cherub's harp. The very first word is "serve." And the proud spirit of unregenerate man kicks at that at once. "Serve!" says the man, "why should I be a servant? I hate the yoke and I will not bow my neck." The lawless spirit, fond of what it calls "free thought" and "free action," hates the sound of the word "serve." "I will be my own master," says the willful, wayward soul of the man who knows not what is meant by obedience and has never drunk into the deep joy of submission to the Lord. "Serve?" he says, "let those do so who are calves enough to bow their necks, but as for me, I know no government but my own ungovernable will." But to the soul that has been subdued, delivered from the bondage of its own self-dominion—the soul that is humble, teachable, weaned from the world, and changed into a little child—the thought of service has Heaven in it! For such a heart remembers that in the New Jerusalem they serve God day and night, and it looks forward to perfect service as being its perfect rest. Renewed minds accept "Ich dien"—"I serve," as their motto and feel ennobled by it.

Serve the Lord with gladness - It is your privilege and duty to be happy in your religious worship. The religion of the true God is intended to remove human misery, and to make mankind happy. He whom the religion of Christ has not made happy does not understand that religion, or does not make a proper use of it.

Serve the Lord with gladness - That is, In your worship, and in all your acts of obedience. Let there be joy in this service. Let it not be with the fear of slaves; not as a matter of compulsion and force; not with reluctance, moroseness, or gloom. Let it be a cheerful, happy service; let it be freely rendered, let it be an occasion of joy to the soul. The service of God is a source of the highest joy that man knows. Come before his presence with singing - As expressive of joy. So the birds sing; so nature rejoices; so should man - intelligent, redeemed, immortal man, be joyful.