One of my favorite novels is Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe.” You know, it’s sad how we’ve taken great novels like “Robinson Crusoe,” “Gulliver’s Travels,” “Moby Dick,” or “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and relegated them to children’s stories. We’ve done the same with Samson and Goliath in the Bible. But Defoe’s book is actually a serious Christian treatise on the goodness of God.
Robinson Crusoe starts out as a rebellious young man who, through a series of misfortunes, ends up as the lone survivor of a shipwreck on a deserted island. Among the items that he salvages from the ship’s floating debris is a Bible. Every play the game “If you stuck on a deserted island and could only take one book, what would it be”? Well, that’s the situation that Robinson finds himself. He’s marooned on a desolate island and the only thing he has to read is … the Bible. And here’s one of the beautiful things that Defoe is attempting to say. There is no church on the island. There are no priests on the island. All Robinson Crusoe has is the Bible and, in Defoe’s opinion, the Bible alone can change a life. Robinson reads the Bible and learns about God’s goodness … how God provides forgiveness for our sins and gives us an endless supply of grace. And because Robinson lives on a deserted island, the only one who can provide for him is God. There are no markets, no craftsmen, no farms, no shops … and yet, over and over and over again, God backs up what Robinson is learning by providing food and shelter. The young man comes to trust God, who is providing for all his needs, and he comes to joyfully trust Christ as his Lord and Savior.
One of the things that Robinson Crusoe lacks is human companionship … and God even provide him with that. One day Robinson finds a set of foot prints on the beach and the discovery terrifies him. Having read and heard about the fierce, cannibalistic practices of some of the tribes on the nearby islands, Robinson lives in constant fear. He writes in his diary: “All that former confidence in God which was founded upon such wonderful experiences as I had had of [God’s] goodness now vanished … as if He who had fed me by miracles hitherto could not preserve, by His power, the provision which He made for me by His goodness.”
Robinson eventually comes face-to-face with the man who made the foot prints … and calls him “Friday.” And over the course of the story, Robinson shares the Gospel with him and leads Friday to Christ. The two become inseparable friends and together they both come to know and trust in the good God who provided for all of their needs … even on a deserted island.
Defoe doesn’t tell us what Robinson Crusoe’s favorite scriptures or psalm might be … he’s a fictional character … but Psalm 100 would apply beautifully to his situation. Psalm 100 is a brilliantly and carefully crafted song. The description at the top of Psalm 100 says it’s “A Psalm of Thanksgiving.” It is known as an “entry” psalm that was sung by the people of Israel or a choir of priests or Levites as they entered the Temple for the specific purpose of offering a thanksgiving sacrifice.
As a I said, there is a deliberate movement carefully crafted into this psalm. There are seven imperatives or commands in Psalm 100’s five verses: “Shout for joy” … “worship the Lord” … “come before Him” … “know that the Lord is God” … “enter His gates” … “give Him thanks” … and “praise His name.” The seven commands have a middle or central command. There’s three commands (shout, worship, and come) at the beginning and there are three at the end (enter, give, and praise). And right in the middle of these commands, number four, is what I consider to be the central command of the song: “Know the Lord.”
Hold on now … there’s more. Psalm 100 has five verses and you can do the same thing with the number 5 as you can with the number 7. There are two verses at the beginning of Psalm 100 – verses 1 and 2. There are two verses at the end of Psalm 100 – verses 4 and 5. And the central verse, verse 3, says: “Know the Lord.”
Hummmmm … what could the psalmist be trying to tell us?
You also have a deliberate narrowing of the poem’s focus. Verse 1 says “all the earth” should shout with joy. Then it narrows down in verse 2 to just God’s covenant people, the Israelites, the “sheep of His pasture.” Verses 3 and 4 zero in on the central subject of the psalm … the Lord. And verse 5 is the reason that all the earth should shout for joy and all the children of Israel enter the gates of the Temple with praise … giving thanks and singing His praises! “For the Lord is good ... His steadfast love endures forever and His faithfulness to all generations” (v. 5).
“Shout for joy all the earth” (v. 1). “All” the earth … all people … should recognize God as the Maker and Sustainer of the world we live on. The world belongs to God, the One who created it, the One who created all life on it, the One who created all the people living on it. Therefore, shouldn’t all the earth, all the people of the earth, serve the Creator … their Creator … with gladness?
Psalm 145 says that the eyes of all look expectantly to God, who gives them their food in due season. God opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing (Psalm 145:15-16). God satisfies the desire of every living thing … not just Jews and Christians … not just human beings … but every living thing that flies or crawls or swims or springs up out of the ground. Whether we’re stranded on a desert island … or simply feel that way … the Lord will provide. He who gave us lungs also created air. He who gave us stomachs supplies us with food and water. He who made us in His image provides companionship. He who made us with eyes also creates spell-binding vistas and surrounds us with beauty and gave us minds to take all this in and appreciate it. He who made us gave us voices so that we could come into His presence singing about the joy and the gratitude that fills our hearts and souls.
Whether those out there in the world know it or not, WE know that this world would be a living hell without God, amen? We know that this world is the hunting ground of the Devil, who prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. The only reason this world is not a living hell is because it is the Kingdom of God. God still rules this world. God is still king over this world. It is only because of God’s mercy and love for His creation that the world still exists and that all the people have the chance and the opportunity to turn to Him and enter His perfect kingdom. And because of that, as verse 2 says, the whole earth should worship the Lord with gladness and come before Him with joyful song, amen?
As I said earlier, verse 3 is the pivotal point in the psalm. It goes from speaking about all people to speaking only about God’s chosen, covenant people. It also contains the central command of the psalm: “Know that the Lord is God.” “Know that the Lord is God” is the central tenant of our faith. Every morning devout Jews pray the Shema which declares the sovereignty of God over Israel. The only God is the God of Israel. There is no one else. There is no other god. And that God has made us and we are His people, His children.
“He has made us” does tie us back to verse 1. All the earth should shout for joy to the Lord … worship Him with gladness and come before Him with joyful songs … because He made us … an allusion to the creation story in Genesis 1. But “He made us” also refers to God’s covenant people … the “sheep of His pasture” (v. 3). God “made” Israel when he chose them to be His people … when He liberated them from Egypt and made them a nation in the wilderness. He has made an unbreakable covenant with them and they have received His promises and they enjoy His love and care in a way that the rest of the world cannot … not because they are special or proven themselves to be worthy. They have nothing to commend themselves to God. It is only because of God’s grace that He chose them, made them to be a particular people in all the earth … sheep of God’s pastures under God’s watchful care … another reason for them to shout to the Lord and come into His Temple and worship Him with gladness, amen?
And because of Jesus Christ, we too are God’s covenant people! We too enjoy the promise of God’s steadfast and enduring love and care. We too graze in the pasture of God’s love because Jesus is the Good Shepherd who gave His life for His flock. We may live because Jesus died for us. And, like the covenant people of Israel, we give thanks to the Lord our God today and every day of our lives. We cannot help but shout of joy, amen? We can’t help but worship Him with gladness, amen? We can’t help but come before Him with joyful songs because we are His! Because Jesus … our dear, precious Savior … bought us with His blood, amen?
Verse 4 speaks of the people of God coming into God’s Presence at the Temple. Now a days, we no longer go the Temple. We no longer have to sacrifice the blood of animals because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Lord, the Good Shepherd. Instead, we come here (church). This is where we come to offer up our worship. This is where we come to shout to the Lord … to worship with gladness ... to come before God with our joyful songs.
While it is true that the Israelites worshipped in the Temple and we worship in the church, the church is NOT the fulfillment of the Temple. Jesus Christ is! The sacrifices in the Temple foreshadowed the sacrifice of the Lamb who was slaughtered to give us new life … eternal life. The Temple was the symbol of the Presence of God in the midst of His people. The Temple was where the people would go to meet God. Today, we don’t go to the Temple … we go to Jesus Christ! The Messiah … Immanuel … God with us … dwells in our hearts through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit.
And the reason we shout for joy … the reason we worship Him with gladness … the reason we enter His Presence with thanksgiving … the reason we give thanks to Him and praise His name is summed up in verse 5: “For the Lord is good and His ‘hesed’ … His steadfast love … endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations.” Did you hear it? “All generations” echoes “all the earth” in verse 1.
The reason for all our thankfulness, for all our joy, for all our praising is the goodness of the Lord as demonstrated and proved by His “hesed” … His continuous and faithful love. The word “hesed” is a covenantal word signifying that God has not only chosen us for Himself but has promised to love us and keep His covenant with us for generations … for all time.
When we shout for joy to the Lord, when we worship Him with gladness, when we come into His Presence with thanksgiving and praise, we are thanking Him and praising Him for His Son, Jesus Christ, who lives in us through the Holy Spirit. And our praise and our joy and our thanksgiving can’t help pouring out of us. We who believe have no fear … only peace. We who believe have no despair … for we have hope. We who believe will not suffer forever … for we will one day enter the perfect Kingdom of God. Knowing that the Lord is good and that we are His people … the sheep of His pasture … is the cause and the source of our joy, our praise, our thanksgiving, and our sacrifice.
Psalm 143:10 says: “Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; Your spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness.” The Lord Jesus had something important to say about this in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). Jesus presents four contrasts in these two verses:
o There are two gates … one wide, one narrow
o There are two roads … one broad and one difficult
o There are two groups of people … the many and the few
o There are two destinations … destruction and life
Imagine you were untouched or untaught by the Gospel and you’re trying to sort out which way you want to go in life. You see a wide gate … a broad way … a large number of people. Nearby you see a narrow gate … a difficult way … and only a few people. Which road would you take? Well, there are many people on the broad way for a reason. Left to ourselves, we’re gonna chose the wide path, the broad road, and the large crowd. But that choice leads to destruction. Only the narrow gate, the difficult road, and the small crowd lead to eternal life.
And God … our good, good God … tells us which gate to enter with thanksgiving … which road to travel … which group to follow. He tells us to “chose the narrow gate … chose the difficult way … chose a few companions because I, Jesus know … I understand what’s lies in store for you at the end of both roads.”
There has never been a time in history when this “narrow gate theology,” as one commentator put it, has been more out of vogue than it is today. And yet, as we walk with God, does not life itself teach us that God is good and His way the best? Isn’t that what Robinson Crusoe discovered on his deserted island?
The broad gate and the broad way, as we observed it today, is a lifestyle unencumbered by moral guidelines. It’s free from spiritual stop signs and ethical speed limits. You can get on the broad way go as fast and as far as you want. You can sample whatever pleasures life has to offer … and today it offers everything the imagination can conjure up and more. You can live as you please. You can do whatever you want it seems if it “feels good.”
The narrow way, however, has speed limits and warning signs and guardrails. Those traveling on the broad way look over at us on the narrow, more difficult way and scoff, telling us to get a life … to loosen up … to color outside the lines once in a while. They think we’re weird. We are husbands and wives who have decided to bond together for a life time. We are parents who give ourselves to our children and not to chasing dollars. We are children who are respectful of our mothers and fathers. We are families who go to church, who seek to serve the Lord … who are committed to doing right even when it’s hard. It’s a difficult kind of life but it’s not destructive.
The broad way IS the road to destruction. The people on the broad way tend to become bitter or disillusioned as they age … as they lose the vigor of youth … as they lose their passion for life … as they face the growing prospect of the grave. But the people on the narrow way … as they mature … as they get closer to the end of the road … what you sense in them is life … stability … a sense of peace …relationships that work … families that love each other … people who care … surrounded by men and women who share their precious faith and love for the Lord. They still bear fruit in their old age … staying fresh and green … proclaiming that “the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him” (Psalm 92:14-15).
Which is why the people on the broad road, seeing those on the narrow and more difficult road, don’t understand why the few people they see on the narrow path are shouting for joy … are worshipping the Lord with gladness … are singing God’s praises with joyful songs. “How can this be?” they watch and wonder. Because we know the Lord is God! “It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people .. the sheep of His pasture” (v.3) … because we know with all our hearts, with all our mind, with all our strength, and with all our souls that the Lord is good and His love endures forever.
God is good … all the time!
All the time … God is good!
Amen.
[Communion]
