All right, if you would open
your Bibles to the 136th Psalm. Psalm 136. Give thanks unto the Lord, for
he is good. His love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods. His love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His love endures forever. Now I can understand why many
of our brothers and sisters in the Lord resist taking note or
observing any of the religious holidays invented by men. God
never commanded us to make up holidays. And the religious world
has corrupted the holidays it has created. and caused them to be required
observances, that is, some of the religious world, turned them
into requirements, as though there would be something wrong
with us if we did not observe them, and has even assigned a
measure of merit to taking note of them. And anyone who's been
saved out of such a religion is bound to have a negative view
of holidays. The pagan world has paganized
all the so-called Christian holidays. Now some like to say that some
of them at least had pagan roots, but that's really rather hard
to prove. But one thing we do know, they
have paganized them. They may have had good purposes
in the beginning, that is, the people who, you know, thought
it would be good to observe this or that every year. They may
have had good intentions, but along the way, as the observance
of these days spread to the general population, of course the general
population doesn't like the things of God, therefore they have paganized
them. As for me, Thanksgiving should
be called football day, because people talk more about the football
games that are going to be on that day, and they are more concerned
about—many people are more concerned about making sure that the Thanksgiving
dinner does not interrupt one of these scheduled football games.
Christmas has been corrupted from a celebration of the incarnation
of our God to the point it's hardly religious at all, at least
that's the way it is in our culture. And the religion that it promotes,
when it does promote religion, is a man-made one, complete with
a man-made God called Santa Claus. I was listening to some traditionally
Christmas music this morning. And that song, The Little Drummer
Boy, came on. I remember as a kid,
I was always touched by that, because I've always kind of been
somebody that's for the underdog. And so the story is this little
kid, he couldn't do anything but play a drum, and supposedly
he went to Bethlehem. And while all the wise men were
giving him gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and whatever else,
people, all he could do was play his drum. And one of the questions is,
to the effect, what kind of gift can I bring that's fit to give
a king? But he played his drum and then
it says Jesus smiled at him. Well, that's all sweet. But it's
talking about a religion of works. Now it's saying you don't have
to do much, Play the drum. Nonetheless, the
whole thing is based on this little boy thinking that he can't
do enough to satisfy or be worthy of a king, but it turns out he
can. Well, sweet as that may sound,
that's not the gospel. And some may say, oh, they haven't
made a god out of Santa Claus, but you look at the god of most
of American Christianity, and it's difficult to tell the difference
between him and Santa Claus. He's making a list and checking
it twice, going to find out who's naughty and nice. And if you're
nice, you get good gifts. If you're not, you get something
else. And that pretty well makes up,
unfortunately. If you peel back all the layers,
that's American Christianity. Actually, we could call that
human Christianity, because it all comes down to that. And Easter
has become so far removed from any spiritual significance that
it's more associated with rabbits and egg hunts than it is with
the triumphant resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And among
those who do make it about the resurrection, I sometimes fear
that they're more enamored of the event of the resurrection
than they are of the person who rose from the dead. Our Lord
Jesus is not the only person that ever rose from the dead.
Lazarus did. True, he's the only one that
ever rose from the dead never to die again. But the only reason that the
resurrection of Jesus Christ is worthy to take notice of is
because it's Jesus Christ that raised from the dead. And then holiday is a contraction
of the words holy day. And in the new covenant of the
gospel, there are no holy days, rather, the entire New Covenant
age is a single holy day. For it is the day the psalmist
spoke of when he said, this is the day the Lord has made. Let
us rejoice and be glad in it. And we live in that day, and
the whole time. So far as the calendar's concerned,
for the whole time, from the day of Pentecost onward is a
single holy day in the sight of God. However, as freeborn
sons of God, we're free to do whatever we want to do, so long
as it does not deny the gospel or bring shame upon the God whom
we worship. Even though God does not command
us to observe any days, we are free to do so if we want to. For example, the Feast of Dedication. Now you read about that in the
scriptures. The Feast of Dedication. It's now called Hanukkah. It's
not the Jewish version of Christmas. It just happens to come about
the same time of year. But it was a feast to celebrate
the victory of the Jews over their oppressors of that time.
and their oppressors had defiled the temple. And so they rededicated
the temple and made an annual celebration of it. And we read
in the scriptures that our Lord was in the temple at the feast
of dedication. Now I don't think that was merely
a coincidence. Our Lord went there because it was an annual
observance. So there's nothing wrong with
us observing a day to commemorate some event if we want to. The
religious world has corrupted everything, so we don't need
to worry about the fact they've corrupted so-called holy days. We might want to resist observing
these days, at least the way the world does and the way the
religious world does. We wouldn't observe it with them. lest someone think that we believe
the same thing about them, that is about those days, as the ones
among whom we are. That is a religious, if we made
any kind of religious observance. But then we don't worship purposefully. We don't join hands with any,
or in any kind of religious worship, with those that do not agree
with us. Not because we're offish, not because we count that we're
better, but because we count that our Lord is worthy of our
committed devotion to Him. And that would include not being
found participating in forms of worship that deny who He is
and what He's done. Then the pagan corruption of
holidays can simply be avoided. And while God has not made any
calendar days holy in the new covenant, not even Sunday worship. You realize that nowhere in the
scriptures is it commanded what day of the week we are supposed
to worship. The only reason it's done on
Sunday at least that is the only scriptural reason people can
find, would be where Paul said, on the first day of the week,
set aside whatever gift you're going to give to the church. But I don't know that he meant
by that, that that was the day the church met. I think he was
just pointing out, that's the first thing you do. There's nothing that forbids
us from declaring something or some particular day to be a,
quote, holy day. Now if this shocks anyone, recall
that holy means nothing more than set apart or special. And while we could never declare
a day as holy unto the Lord, because only the Lord can declare
something to be holy unto Him, We can, if we want to, make a
day holy, that is special, set aside for a particular event,
if we want to. And the fact that we have set
aside Sunday as foremost of all a day to meet with our brethren
and worship shows that we do make some days humanly holy. Now this coming Thursday is Thanksgiving,
and I said all that because I am taking note of a
holiday on the calendar of the United States of America, and
it guided me to this subject. There are several stories about
the beginning of Thanksgiving, generally involving the pilgrims. Some of them have, I know the
story that I was told was altered enough to make it sound like
it was an altogether white man thing, when in truth the first
Such celebration involving the pilgrims that landed at Plymouth
Rock involved them and the Indians, who also brought food. And indeed, I'm sure that the
pilgrims, according to their religious convictions, gave thanks
to the God they worshipped, but I doubt the Indians joined in
on that part of it. But as a national holiday, Thanksgiving
began in 1863. when President Lincoln made a
proclamation that on the last Thursday of the month that it
would be good to give thanks to the Lord. And remember, this
was done right in the middle of the Civil War. I'm gonna quote you part of his
proclamation. It says, this year that is drawing
toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful
fields and healthful skies. To these bounties which are so
constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from
which they come, others have been added. which are of so extraordinary
a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart
which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence
of Almighty God." Now, one reason I like Lincoln is that guy knew
how to use the English language. He was very good at writing and
speaking. And he said things in there that I've repeated from
this pulpit, one of them being that we are so accustomed to
the abundance of natural blessings that God gives us, we don't even
take note of them anymore. And he went on a paragraph or
two about the fact that the Civil War was, the tide was turned
and the Union seemed to be on the
advance at that point. But then he says this, 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, and listen to this now, who while dealing
with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered
mercy. Now I don't know if Abraham Lincoln
was a believer in the way that we use the word. I've read that
he was not a particularly religious man until he became president. And maybe the distresses of that
office, and in particular the prosecution of the war, had so
humbled him. And maybe he did believe. Or maybe he had that more or
less civil Christianity that most of America has had since
its founding. But I know this, I would certainly
be glad if some of our politicians spoke like that. Whether they
understood all that they meant or not, the Most High God while dealing
with us in anger for our sins, have nevertheless remembered
mercy." Humility and thanksgiving. We
don't find that much in our culture at all, do we? Humility is not
praised at all. Aggression, force. selfishness, and unthankfulness. It's certain, though, that Lincoln's
call was not the first call to give thanks unto the Lord. To give thanks to the Lord seems
to be, according to the Scriptures, the most basic expression of
faith. So much so that to be without
thanks to God is proof that you do not know God, nor believe
Him. Now, nobody here is going to
say, well, I give thanks to God, you know, as though you give
thanks at the level you should. But that's because none of us
ever does anything at the level we should. But in Romans chapter
one when Paul is denouncing mankind in general, actually
I think he was speaking of Roman culture as it was observed that
day, but it said that they neither acknowledged
him as God nor gave thanks. Now, why would you just throw
that in? Isn't it enough that they did
not acknowledge God? Well, maybe his point was they
did not acknowledge God as God. And here's the proof of it. They
didn't give him thanks. An unthankful heart is a heart
that's never been touched by grace. John said when He referred to
the miracle of the Lord feeding 5,000 men plus their wives and
children. And he made reference to that
this way. This is when the Lord fed the
5,000 after he had given thanks. What's that got to do with anything,
we might think? Isn't the big deal that he miraculously fed
5,000 people? Well, 5,000 men, both their wives
and children. Isn't that the notable event? Not according to John. That's
probably the event everybody remembers, but John wasn't going
to leave us thinking that was the big story. Christ gave thanks. Now here's the interesting thing.
He it is that made the world. He it is that rules the world.
He it is that is the giver of all things. Yet he gave thanks
to God. We may give formal thanks to
God, and there's nothing wrong with that. We have to be careful
that we don't, as they say, throw the baby out with the wash water.
I used to do that, you know. I got to where, you know, I would
never say a blessing in a restaurant. And that, you know, came from
my remembrance of how we would self-righteously do that, to
be seen of men. Okay. But once again, don't throw
out the baby with the wash water. Just get rid of the part about
you do it to be seen of men. You can thank God without bowing
your head. You don't have to make a big
show of it. I like the way Brother Miles McKee does it. You know,
when I was traveling with him in India, you know, we'd have
to stop and eat once in a while. He never said bow your heads
or who's gonna say grace. We'd just sit down and say thank
you Lord for this good food and good friends. Didn't even follow it up with
an amen. He just gave thanks to the Lord and we ate. But giving thanks is important. It's
important for it teaches us to recognize that at all times our
God is giving us things to be thankful for. There's always something for which God is owed thanks. If nothing more than this, that
we are alive, that we have life. Some years ago I mentioned that
back in 98 when I had that real serious bout of depression, there
was hardly ever any natural joy to be experienced. Most of the
time I felt as though hell was going to open up and swallow
me. And it took a while, but I got into this practice. that
as soon as I woke up and the thought occurred to me, I would
say, thank you, Lord, for my life. And if I could go on from
there, I would. Giving thanks often reveals how
much we have to give thanks for. I may, at that time, I may have
felt miserable, but you know something, and I knew this at
the time, nothing about my life was worthy of feeling miserable
about. My life, so far as we counted,
I was in good health, other than that particular problem. I had
a nice, good home to live in, had a good family, had a good
church to worship at. had good friends, had all of
that. Our emotions are rarely ever
a good barometer by which to determine whether or not we should
give thanks. To whom must we give thanks?
It says give thanks to the Lord, that is Jehovah. Now we give
one another thanks and there's nothing wrong with that. My wife makes a meal or two a day. We've
got a strange eating schedule. It's not like she resists making
the third one or just slacks off. It's just that's all we
eat once or twice a day. And I thank her for it. And there's nothing wrong with
that. I thank God for the food. I thank him for his provision
of it and all that. And I realize that, and I'm sure
she does too, whatever ability she has to prepare food came
from God. There's nothing wrong with saying,
thank you. In fact, we ought to make that a regular part of
our conversation with people. To thank them. But how much more
than the Lord? Give thanks unto the Lord, and
he doesn't just leave it at that. Give thanks to the God of gods. One of the things about David,
I'm not gonna say the Jews, because the Jews were for the most part
rebels. David had his problems, but he was, as the Lord called
him, a man after God's own heart. And what does he say? He takes
this opportunity, once again, to declare that the God he worshipped
was God over all other gods. Now, he was not saying there
are other gods, but men claimed there were other gods. And so,
in case this psalm ever ended up in the hands of someone who
worshipped another god, David has said, give thanks to the
God of gods. Don't waste your breath. giving
thanks to those little g gods because they aren't providing
anything. It's only our Lord who has given
us what we have and none other. Give thanks to the Lord of lords. More and more I get disgusted
with so-called professed Christians,
and some of them really are, and I just think they don't understand
what an insult to their God this is. But they look to politicians
as though politicians have something to give us, the lords of our
country. And all the money, and all the
effort, and all the anxiety that's put into deciding who's going
to be our leader, It's just kind of an idolatry,
if you ask me. Yes, they may be lords, but they're
little l lords. And there's a Lord over all of
them, which rules their hearts. It is written
that the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, and
like the rudder of a ship. He turns it whatever way he wants
it to go. Oh, give thanks to the one, the
only one, who actually has both the power and the will to do
us good. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord. Now turn over to the 107th Psalm. Psalm 107, give thanks unto the Lord for
he is good, his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of
the Lord say this, those who he redeemed from the hand of
the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west,
from north and south. Who is it that should give thanks? Well, really everybody should,
but especially is this very reasonable, I hate to say obligation, we
ought to be glad to give thanks, but this exhortation to give
thanks falls primarily upon those who have experienced the Lord's
redemption. I imagine that this psalm was
written after the captivity in Babylon, And it was a call to
all those who had been gathered back to the homeland, had been
gathered back from east, west, north, and south, and had been
delivered from the hand of the enemy. To them, he says, oh,
give thanks unto the Lord. And for us, that deliverance
which God gave to the Jews from the hands of their enemies, That's
an illustration for us of what God has done for us. He has gathered
from the east and west, from the north and south, or as the
book of Revelation puts it, from every kindred, tribe, tongue,
and nation. He has rescued a people from
the hand of the enemy. He has gathered them. You say,
wait a minute, they're still in the scattered nations. Yes,
but while God's people are scattered all over the earth. He has nonetheless
gathered them in Christ. We are all in Christ. There's a form of Baptist religion
called landmarkism. and they believe that you must
be able to trace your church's, we'll call it ancestry, all the
way back to John the Baptist, or you aren't a real church.
That means it was a church that sprung up way back then, and
your church, you know, you can say, well, I come from this church,
which was started by this church, and started by this church, and
started by this church, and go all the way back there, before
you can prove you're a real bona fide church. And the fellow that believed
that doctrine was talking to someone who did not believe that
doctrine. Those of us Baptists who aren't
landmarkers believe in what is called the general church. And
this landmarker said to the non-landmarker, the word church means assembly.
Where has this general church ever assembled? And the Lord
gave wisdom to the man who answered, for he said, from eternity this
gentlest church has been assembled in Christ. And while we have not yet experienced
that in the flow of time, it's coming when he shall call all
of them out of the graves and any of his that are alive and
remain till that time shall be caught up with them, and we'll
all be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and we will all be
not only by decree, not only in the mind of God, but in our
own experience, the entire assembly will be assembled around the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we meet today We've got this
little group here. I hope there's some listening
in, watching the live broadcast. We're assembled spiritually. We've gathered around Christ.
We, of all the people of the earth, the redeemed of the Lord,
owe a debt of thanksgiving to God. Why should these people give
thanks? Well, this phrase, give thanks
to the Lord, appears, well, actually six times, but once it's, it
appears twice in one of the Psalms, but we'll say in five of the
Psalms. And four out of the five Psalms in which it appears, it's
this, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. You notice it does not say, give
thanks to the Lord, because you've got more money than you had this
time last year. He didn't say, give thanks unto
the Lord, for you're better now, you got over your disease. He actually does not mention
anything. That is, the psalmist did not
actually mention anything specifically. that was going on at the time
he makes this exhortation. He said, give thanks to God because
he's good. We're not always able to perceive
his goodness. That is, you know, because we
think a thing is good if it pleases us. And there are things that God
considers to be good, but are very difficult for us, would
be very distressful to us. But our griefs, our distresses,
our troubles do not change the fact that God is good. Now, that's why I said thanks,
because early on I said thanks is the most basic expression
of faith. Because only faith can believe
that God is good, even when one's head is brought down in deep
sorrow. A few years back, there was a
couple of kids that, I think they were on their way to school,
got in an accident, both of them got killed. They were the only
two children of this one family. And that is, I'm not dismissing
this, that that is a heartbreaking, heartbreaking experience. And
I'm quite confident the parents aren't over it yet and probably
never will be. It would be difficult to imagine
a worse grief in this world. Job experienced it. All of his
children in one day, boom, gone. And I was talking to someone
at Pump and Pack and mentioned that. And that person got so
angry at God. Why did God let that happen? Well, my answer is I don't know.
I honestly don't know. But I know this, he was as good
then as he was when those children were born, when he brought them
into the world. We go through ups and downs. And it's ups and downs that we
can't explain. We don't know why they come.
We don't know why it's good now. We don't know why it's bad at
another time, as we call good and bad. But here's something,
brethren, that we can know. In all circumstances, the Lord
is good, and we can trust His good providence. Now may God
not test me on that this week. I don't want to say that and
make you think that I could never be brought to be ungrateful to
the Lord. I'm just saying I know that's
the truth. God is good all the time. And His love, King James says
mercy. I honestly don't know What is the proper way to handle
that particular word? I've looked it up. I think it's
probably a combination of both. You know, mercy is a form of
love. There's no question about that. And love is always merciful. I prefer mercy. That is, I prefer
that they had translated it mercy. but that's simply a preference.
I can't, I don't know Hebrew well enough to know if that's
the best way to handle it, but I know this, His mercy, His love
does endure forever. And I like the way that it's,
the word endure is used. Because when you talk about enduring,
you're talking about something that is being used and doesn't
wear out. You go to buy a pair, a set of
tires. You want some tires with good endurance on them. Why?
Well, they're gonna be run on a road. Some of them kind of
smooth, some of them kind of rough, but all of them are gonna
wear on that tire. And there are some good tires
and there are some cheap, not so good tires, but there are
no tires that you put them on once and they'll never wear out. But God's love, God's mercy,
though rolling along on the roughness of our sin and ingratitude and
our doubts and our unbelief and all that we throw at him to test
him. I mean, it's not our intention
to test him, but it certainly does. And you know what? That love, that mercy never wears
out. I know this. Because if it could wear out,
I would have worn it out by now. I'd have worn off all the tread, and the steel would be showing
through. You ever had tires like that? Steel, or maybe if you just had
the, I don't remember what kind of cords they used before they
had the steel. But you know, you're way past time for tires
when that's showing. And I'll tell you, if there was
any way to wear out the love and mercy of God, Well, he'd
had a blowout by now just because of me. And any believer could
say that. Oh, it endures forever. And while
we do not like the fact that our conduct puts that love and
endurance to the test, we do give thanks that when His
love and mercy are put to the test, it endures and endures. Well, how do they express their
thanks? Look at Psalm 105. Give thanks to the Lord, call
on his name. Make known among the nations
what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him,
tell of all his wonderful acts. Now, of course, we can give thanks
to the Lord simply by praying prayers of thanksgiving. But there's more to it than that,
more ways. Give thanks to the Lord, call
on his name. says, I will lift up the cup
of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the Lord. When we call upon the name of
the Lord, we are demonstrating our dependence on him. And we
do so with thankful hearts, knowing that whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. We don't call on the Lord
with doubts. That is, well, we shouldn't.
I know the flesh is always going to interject its doubts, but
when we call on the Lord, we do so because we do believe that
He will give us everything He has promised, and all we're asking
for is the things that He promised. And then this, make known among
the nations what He has done. And, you know, that's one of
the things the church is supposed to be doing. Go into all the
world and preach the gospel. Why? Because the gospel is the
things that he has done. And we may not be sent to other
nations, but we're sent here. We're sent to our place of work.
You know, a lot of people think that evangelism is all about,
you know, getting people by the lapel and giving them the Roman's
road or something like that. Evangelism might be simply that
you are not afraid to give thanks to God right in the presence
of those who don't believe Him. Well, I thank God for that and
be serious about it. Sing to Him, sing praise to Him,
tell of all His wondrous acts. This is how we give thanks. Our
dependence on Him Our open and expressed dependence on Him is
a way that we express our thanks to Him. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
for He is good. And His mercy, the Bible says
the mercy of the Lord is salvation. The longsuffering of the Lord
is salvation. His mercy endures forever. Lord, bless these words
according to your will. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. We're going to observe the Lord's
table now. John, if you'd