“Thankfulness, 2021” by Romans
Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
Youtube Audio:
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. Tonight, as I have in past years, I am going to share with you a Discussion on Thankfulness as it is presented in the Word of God. While the Theme will be the same, tonight is something of a departure from previous years, so “buckle up, and be prepared to be taken on a journey through the pages of Scripture that will draw from both the New to the Old Testament.
I will admit that the verse I chose to cite, tonight, seems to run contrary to the announced theme of Thankfulness, but it is an attitude that we can fall into, and need to avoid. In what many consider to be his last epistle, the Apostle Paul gives a very specific and ominous forecast of conditions as he saw they would be happening at the End Time. He begins in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, saying, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come...”
He lists nineteen attitudes that would be dominant in the End Times, making the conditions in the last days, in his words, “perilous.” For this Study, I want to zero in on just one ungodly attitude in particular: “Men shall be … unthankful...” I believe that God is very concerned about, and disapproving of ingratitude. It is surely not a fruit of the Spirit, nor was it how Jesus lived as a human on earth, nor how we should live.
Jesus addressed this problem of ingratitude in Luke 17, beginning in Verse 12: “And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests...
And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.”
Jesus' reference to “this stranger” was based on the fact that of the ten lepers who were cleansed, the only one that returned to give thanks was a Samaritan. The “nine” who simply went their way were fellow Israelites who accepted the mercy and healing, they had asked for, but it did not occur to them that, after they were healed, they apparently thought that God was not worthy of an acknowledgment of thanksgiving and praise.
Albert Barnes writes of this, “With what singular propriety may this question now be asked, “Where are the nine?” And what a striking illustration is this of human nature, and of the ingratitude of man! One had come back to give thanks for the favor bestowed on him; the others were heard of no more. So now. When people are restored from dangerous sickness, here and there one comes to give thanks to God; but “where are the nine?”
When people are defended from danger; when they are recovered from the perils of the sea; when a steamboat is destroyed, and a large part of crew and passengers perish, here and there one of those who are saved acknowledges the goodness of God and renders him praise; but where is the mass of them? They give no thanks; they offer no praise. They go about their usual employments, to mingle in the scenes of pleasure and of sin as if nothing had occurred.
Few, few of all who have been rescued from “threatening graves” feel their obligation to God, or ever express it. They forget their Great Benefactor; perhaps the mention of his name is unpleasant, and they scorn the idea that they are under any obligations to him. Such, alas! is man, ungrateful man!”
In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave His followers a Command that I will admit is a difficult Command for me to obey. I will allow each of you decide how well you do with this Command: Jesus said in Luke 6:35: “But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.” We are called to love both our enemies and those who are unthankful.
Matthew Henry writes of this: “It will redound to our honour; for herein we shall resemble God in his goodness, which is the greatest glory: “Ye shall be the children of the Highest, shall be owned by him as his children, being like him.” It is the glory of God that he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil, bestows the gifts of common providence even upon the worst of men, who are every day provoking him, and rebelling against him, and using those very gifts to his dishonour.
Hence he infers (Luke 6:36), Be merciful, as your Father is merciful; this explains Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, as our Father is perfect. Imitate your Father in those things that are his brightest perfections.” Those that are merciful as God is merciful, even to the evil and the unthankful, are perfect as God is perfect; so he is pleased graciously to accept it, though infinitely falling short.
Charity is called the bond of perfectness, Colossians 3:14. This should strongly engage us to be merciful to our brethren, even such as have been injurious to us, not only that God is so to others, but that he is so to us, though we have been, and are, evil and unthankful; it is of his mercies that we are not consumed.”
Jesus left us an Example of thankfulness. Just before He divided the loaves and fishes He gave thanks in Matthew 15:36. Just before He called Lazarus out of his tomb, we read in John 11:41: “Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.” At the Last Supper, when He was instituting the bread and wine emblems of the Lord's Table, He gave thanks for each in Luke 22: 17-19.
The annual celebration of Thanksgiving in America is an accepted, and an expected part of our culture. Originally, when European settlers first came to this land, Thanksgiving was a spontaneous, although an unregulated event. Feasts were celebrated at which Christians would gather to thank God for good weather, a good harvest and for various other times where God's hand of Provision and Blessing were evident.
Then on October 3, 1863, President Lincoln made a Proclamation establishing the fourth Thursday of November to be a National Day of Thanksgiving, to be observed annually. In his proclamation, President Lincoln acknowledged the Divine favor shown by God to America, such as the “blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. … these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed … we are prone to forget the source from which they come.”
The he declared: “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people...”
Finally, President Lincoln concluded, “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States... to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
As good as President Lincoln's intentions were to publicly and officially thank, and acknowledge God annually, he limited his thanks to the physical blessings that God had bestowed on America. But God is the Source of all things, physical and spiritual, and is worthy of not only annual Thanksgiving, but our continual thanksgiving and praise. All that we have, and will have, all that we are, and will become, comes from Him.
Over the 16 decades that have transpired since Lincoln's original proclamation, we have drifted farther and farther from his intended meaning of what Thanksgiving Day is all about. Today, we think more in terms of how much we are going to eat, instead of acknowledging, as Lincoln did 158 years ago, in naming “the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies,” and the Source of that food, and all the various other blessings He bestows on us.
We have come to regard Thanksgiving Day as a day of overindulgence, and Football Games, and the Macy's Day Parade, and Black Friday Door Buster Sales at the Mall or Online. It is none of these things. It was, again, in Lincoln's words, “set apart... as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father Who dwelleth in the Heavens.” This is not to say that no one thanks God, but the Day has generally been derailed, and the culture has drifted far from its original purpose.
King David proclaimed a similar national day of Thanksgiving when the Ark of the Covenant came to Jerusalem, although I will say, his was a far more spiritually intense offer of Thanksgiving to God than Mr. Lincoln's. We read in 1 Chronicles 29:10-13: “Wherefore David blessed the LORD before all the congregation: and David said, Blessed be thou, LORD God of Israel our father, for ever and ever...
Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name.”
We find, as we study the subject of Thankfulness in Scripture, that we are admonished to be thankful, and we are warned to not take for granted the Blessings that God bestows on us. We read in Deuteronomy 8:10: “When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.” Yes, I realize that this originally was spoken to the children of Israel, but I submit that it fully applies to us living 35 centuries later.
We also read in Psalm 100:4-5: “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.”
The Expositor's Bible says of this: “The call to praise is repeated in Psa_100:4 with more distinct reference to the open Temple gates into which all the nations may now enter. The psalmist sees, in prophetic hope, crowds pouring in with glad alacrity through the portals, and then hears the joyful tumult of their many voices rising in a melodious surge of praise. His eager desire and large-hearted confidence that so it will one day be are vividly expressed by the fourfold call in Psalm 100:4.
And the reason which should draw all men to bless God’s revealed character is that His self-revelation, whether to Israel or to others, shows that the basis of that character is goodness-i.e., kindness or love-and that, as older singers have sung, "His lovingkindness endures forever," and, as a thousand generations in Israel and throughout the earth have proved, His faithful adherence to His word. and discharge of all obligations... to His creatures...
{God's Faithfulness} “gives a basis for trust and a perpetual theme for joyful thanksgiving. Therefore, all the world has an interest in Jehovah’s royalty, and should, and one day shall, compass His throne with joyful homage, and obey His behests with willing service.”
In Ephesians 5:18-20, the Apostle Paul tell us: “... be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Not only should we give thanks always, we should give thanks in every thing:
Notice in 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
Notice another reason for the giving thanks in Scripture: Psalms 68:19: “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation.
Daniel prayed three times a day. David prayed morning, noon and night: Here we see where another psalmist who writes of praying to God at Midnight in Psalms 119:62 : “At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.”
He praised and thanked God for His Righteous Judgments. Matthew Henry wrote this in his commentary about this section of Psalm 119: “The psalmist prayed with his whole heart, knowing how to value the blessing he prayed for: he desired the mercy promised, and depended on the promise for it. He turned from by-paths, and returned to God's testimonies. He delayed not. It behoves sinners to hasten to escape; and the believer will be equally in haste to glorify God.
No care or grief should take away God's word out of our minds, or hinder the comfort it bestows. There is no situation on earth in which a believer has not cause to be thankful. Let us feel ashamed that others are more willing to keep from sleep to spend the time in sinful pleasures, than we are to praise God. And we should be more earnest in prayer, that our hearts may be filled with his mercy, grace, and peace.”
I would like to repeat and reinforce Matthew Henry's words that: “No care or grief should take away God's word out of our minds, or hinder the comfort it bestows,” by pointing out, once again, that Daniel saw to it that he would praise and thank God three times a day, not merely as a deported captive, but knowing that to give God the praise and thanks He deserves was to invite a one-way ticket to a lion's den. Yet, we forgo praising and thanking God without the threat of death looming over us.
Paul and Silas showed how they understood that God was always worthy of praise: Let's pick up the story in Acts 16:23 “And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.”
They were chained to wall in a dark, rat-infested Roman dungeon, and they sang praises to the God Who sent His Son to die for their sins that they might have life Eternal! That had not changed; the situation they found themselves in was temporary. Paul phrased his attitude toward the trials and setbacks and beatings and imprisonments that he had experienced with words that I have never heard from fellow-believers for things far less serious.
Just this morning, I was standing in the Self-Checkout Line at WalMart buying some last-minute items for our meal tomorrow. Standing in front of me in the adjacent line was a member of a Mens' Ministry Group I was in a few years ago. He was visibly and vocally unhappy when the printer did not provide him a receipt for the handful of items he purchased. As he left the line, I could hear him say, “If I have to return anything without a receipt, I will throw it in their face!”
In stark contrast, the Apostle Paul wrote of the things he experienced (being arrested, whipped and chained to a wall in a dungeon!!): “For our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Matthew Henry writes, “The apostles were great sufferers; therein they followed their Master: Christ had told them that in the world they should have tribulation, and so they had; yet they met with wonderful support, great relief, and many allays of their sorrows. “We are,” says the apostle, “troubled on every side, afflicted many ways, and we meet with almost all sorts of troubles; yet not distressed, 2 Corinthians_4:8.
We are not hedged in nor cooped up, because we can see help in God, and help from God, and have liberty of access to God.” Again, “We are perplexed, often uncertain, and in doubt what will become of us, and not always without anxiety in our minds on this account; yet not in despair (2 Corinthians_4:8), even in our greatest perplexities, knowing that God is able to support us, and to deliver us, and in him we always place our trust and hope.”
Again, “We are persecuted by men, pursued with hatred and violence from place to place, as men not worthy to live; yet not forsaken of God,” 2 Corinthians_4:9. Good men may be sometimes forsaken of their friends, as well as persecuted by their enemies; but God will never leave them nor forsake them.
Again, “We are sometimes dejected, or cast down; the enemy may in a great measure prevail, and our spirits begin to fail us; there may be fears within, as well as fightings without; yet we are not destroyed,” 2 Corinthians 4:9. Still they were preserved, and kept their heads above water.”
Paul wrote four epistles from prison: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. In those epistles, Paul did not neglect to offer heartfelt thanks to God in spite of where he was: He wrote in Philippians 4:6: “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
The Cambridge Bible comments, “The temper of the Christian should always be one of thanksgiving. Nearly every Psalm, however deep the sorrow and contrition, escapes into the happy atmosphere of praise and gratitude. The Psalms, in Hebrew, are the Praises. All prayer ought to include the element of thanksgiving, for mercies temporal and spiritual” (Note by the Dean of Peterborough).—The privilege of prayer is in itself an abiding theme for grateful praise.”
While a prisoner, the Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 2:6-7: “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.”
Of this, Matthew Henry comments, “Observe, Being established in the faith, we must abound therein, and improve in it more and more; and this with thanksgiving. The way to have the benefit and comfort of God's grace is to be much in giving thanks for it. We must join thanksgiving to all our improvements, and be sensible of the mercy of all our privileges and attainments.”
Of this, the Cambridge Bible tells adds, “abounding] A favourite word with St Paul. It occurs five times in Philippians. Nothing short of spiritual wealth, and its full employment, ever satisfies him. therein] In your faith, regarded as “the sphere” of the sense of “abundance.” Loyal reliance on the all-sufficient Christ was to be largely, fully, exercised.
with thanksgiving] Lit., “in thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving was to attend, to surround, this large exercise of faith. It would do so as a matter of reason; for the possession of such an Object of faith was indeed ground enough for holy gratitude. And it would do so also as a matter of experience; for there is no surer secret for a glad thankfulness than full habitual reliance on the Christ of God.
“The words [“thankful, give thanks, thanksgiving”] occur in St Paul’s writings alone of the apostolic Epistles. In this Epistle especially the duty of thanksgiving assumes a peculiar prominence by being made a refrain, as here and in Colossians 1:12; Colossians_3:15; Colossians_3:17, and Colossians_4:2.
Let's zero in on Colossians 3:17: “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”
Of this, we read in the Preacher's Homiletical, “The universal obligation of Christian duty.—“Whatsoever ye do in word or deed.” 1. There must be a recognition of Christ in everything.—In all our employments, conversation, public acts of worship, in social and private prayer, in secular and domestic concerns, in all matters relating to the place of our abode, in changing residences, in the connections we form for ourselves and our children. There is a comprehensiveness in this obligation which is all-embracing.
III. The unvarying spirit in which Christian duty is to be done.—“Giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.” They who do all things in Christ’s name will never want matter of thanksgiving to God. The apostle has frequently referred to this duty of gratitude, and he evidently regarded it as a very important element of the Christian character. It was Christianity that first taught the duty of being thankful even in trial and suffering.
We are to thank God for the privilege of acting so that we may honour Him. A thankful spirit has a blessedness and a power of blessing which those only realise who cherish it. All thanksgiving is to be offered to God the Father by Jesus Christ, as He is our only mediator, and it is through Him we obtain whatever good the Father bestows upon us. The giving of thanks to God is one of the highest duties of religious worship; and if this be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, then all subordinate duties must be done in the same manner.”
Let's look at another familiar situation that Daniel found himself in: The King had asked the wise men of his kingdom to not only interpret a dream for him, but to prove that they had actually had powers of divination, the King wanted them to also tell him what the dream was!
He apparently felt that to merely interpret the vague symbols and imagery of a dream was something that anyone could do, the source being so open to any interpretation. If they could not, the penalty was death for all the wise men! When it was revealed to Daniel what the King had dreamed, and what the interpretation was, Daniel prayed a prayer of Thanksgiving.
We find it in Daniel 2:23: “I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter.” I can't help but notice that Daniel's thanksgiving was not that he had saved his own skin. He thanked God for saving the lives of all of the wise men: “...thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter.” A thankful attitude also praises God when He moves in the lives of others.
Forward into the New Testament, we see the Apostle Paul, mindful of his past opposition of Christianity, offering the following Prayer of Thanksgiving in 1 Timothy 1:12-14: “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”
In closing, let us consider the Apostle Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:57. After clearly declaring that a resurrection for us can be believed in because the resurrection of Jesus was an historic fact, he writes, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Of this, the Sermon Bible writes, “St. Paul speaks in this chapter as if the resurrection of Christ were the victory over the grave. Was it impossible then, for men, before the resurrection of Christ, to look beyond the grave? I. The apostles unquestionably speak of our Lord’s resurrection as an unprecedented fact in the world’s history. But they say that its importance to human beings lay in this, that it declared Jesus to be the Son of God with power.
It was an act retrospective and prospective. It revealed the Head of the human race. It revealed the relation of the human race, in the person of its Head, to the Father of all. That which was manifested to be true, when He who had taken on Him our nature, and had died as we die, rose out of death because He could not possibly be holden of it, had been true always.
Those who believed in Christ could not doubt that man was to learn his condition from Christ, that he could learn it only from Christ. The evidence for the resurrection lay in all the history, in all the experiences and life of men, up to that hour. Fishermen and tent-makers could not establish it. If there was such a Person, such a Head of man, such a Son of God, as they said was denoted by this event, God would show that there was; if not, there was no gospel.
II. It is God who giveth us the victory. It is most needful to remember that this victory is a gift. Therefore give up thy life to God, that He may use it as He knows best. Let Him have thy vigour... let Him have thy feebleness, that His fatherly love and sympathy, and the obedience that He wrought out in Christ by suffering, may shine forth in thee... If thou trustest in Him, and dost not faint, the end will be the same; all shall share alike in the victory.”
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 299. References: 1Co_15:57.—G. B. Ryley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 116; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xxiv., p. 402; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 112; J. J. S. Perowne, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 230.”
A Day of Thanksgiving was originally proclaimed by President Lincoln, recognizing that America has been blessed by God with abundant and overflowing natural resources. We, as Americans, and as believers in, and as the adopted sons and daughters of that God have been blessed with both Natural and Spiritual Blessings for which we should continually thank and praise God. The spiritual blessings will last beyond our lifetimes, and on into eternity.
Believers living anywhere in world, whether in a palace or in a prison should be thankful for the victory accomplished for us through the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We read, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). All that we have, and all that we will have, has come to us by and through Jesus Christ. “And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29).
At each of our Thanksgiving tables, tomorrow, I hope each of us will take the opportunity to share with everyone else present why we are celebrating this Day of Thanksgiving, and why God is worthy of our thanksgiving and praise. And let us apply the spirit of Thanksgiving in our prayers, in our thoughts, in our conversations, and in our lives throughout the coming year.
This concludes this Evening's Discussion, “Thankfulness, 2021.”
This Discussion was conducted “live” on Wednesday, November 24th, 2021
I have designed a website to serve as an Online Book Store for the things I have written and published on Amazon. These are in the form of both Kindle eBooks, and paperback books. Some of you may recall a Series I presented on "The Lord's Prayer" several years ago. My original notes for this and other Bible Studies have been greatly revised and expanded for these publications. For further details on the books that are available, and for ordering information, click the following: https://arvkbook.wixsite.com/romansbooks
If you purchase and read any of my books, Thank you! I would also greatly appreciate a review on Amazon!