Bible Verses for Come, Ye Thankful People, Come

Everyone loves the Christmas holiday season, but more and more we rush past Thanksgiving.  We may no longer be an agrarian society that focuses on seasons as they relate to farming, but we do see reminders of the Lord's provision through harvest all around us.  We see it in the plentiful displays at a farmer's market or grocery store.  We see it in the yields of our or neighbors' gardens.  We see it in the apple orchards and pumpkin fields that people visit for modern "agri-tainment."  

At my church when I was a child, we would have a food drive on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  People would bring non-perishable food items chosen from their pantry or selected at the grocery store and set them in the front of the church to be given to those in need.  It was our "firstfruits offering" to the Lord.  It was our thanksgiving offering for what He supplied and we gave from that supply in faith that he would continue to provide for us.  My church called that food drive "Harvest Home."  Harvest Home was the ancient English harvest feast where they would celebrate the harvest.  Of course, the original feast was pagan but a true harvest feast should be a celebration of the Creator who provides sustenance for us.

That is why "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" is my quintessential Thanksgiving song.  I continue to "raise the song of harvest home" each year.

I plan to study Thanksgiving hymns and songs biweekly until this Thanksgiving.  I hope they remind you of all that you have to be thankful for.

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come

by Henry Alford (1844)

Verse 1:
Come, ye thankful people, come, 
Raise the song of harvest home;

Psalm 100:4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.

All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin.

Deuteronomy 11:13-15 "It shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, that He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. He will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied."

Exodus 34:22 You shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks, that is, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.

God our Maker doth provide
For our wants to be supplied;

Philippians 4:19 And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Come to God’s own temple, come,
Raise the song of harvest home.

Psalm 95:2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

Psalm 116:17 To You I shall offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and call upon the name of the Lord.

Verse 2:
All the world is God’s own field,
Fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown
Unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear,
Then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we 
Wholesome grain and pure may be.

Matthew 13:24-29 Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves *said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he *said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. 
Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

Verse 3:
For the Lord our God shall come,
And shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day
All offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last
In the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store
In His garner [storehouse] evermore.

Matthew 13:36-43 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” And He said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

Verse 4:
Even so, Lord, quickly come,
Bring Thy final harvest home;

Revelation 22:20 (KJV) He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Gather Thou Thy people in,
Free from sorrow, free from sin,

1 Corinthians 15:22-23 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

There, forever purified,
In Thy garner [storehouse] to abide;

Revelation 22:3-5 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.

Come, with all Thine angels come,
Raise the glorious harvest home.

Matthew 16:27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.