Now, I preach this message or
the things that we're going to look at toward the end of the
message many times. And like I said, I often think
of them because I am, my flesh, in my flesh and in my carnal
nature, I tend to be an ingrate, as we all are. And we need to
be reminded, as God does remind us over and over again in Scripture,
to be thankful. I looked up the word thanks and
thankful and thanksgiving in Scripture. four or five hundred
times that those words are used. A great deal in the Proverbs
and the Psalms. And a great deal in the New Testament.
And our Lord says here to the church at Colossae, be ye thankful. Be ye thankful. First time I preached this message
was I think in 2001 or 2002, maybe even before that. I still
had red hair at the time. And I went down to Murrells Inlet
to preach it at a church where a fellow was claiming to believe
the gospel of grace. And I preached this message.
Donny Bell and Gary Shepherd and I were holding a meeting
for this man, and we found out as we were there he didn't believe
much of anything. And after we left, the church closed three
or four days later, and they never reopened. So I don't know
where the pastor is now. I think somewhere in North Wilkesboro. The things considered in this
passage have come to the forefront of my mind in these last few
days, perhaps because so many people are talking about Thanksgiving.
And I do not worry that it is redundant because the word of
God is full of the repetition of this truth of Thanksgiving.
God so often reminds us to be thankful. It will do us no harm
to repeat what he is pleased to remind us of. Tomorrow many
will gather around the tables of this land and share a meal
and give thanks on the designated federal holiday called Thanksgiving. It was made a holiday to commemorate
when Native Americans and English colonists shared a meal together
and then a state of Thanksgiving. At least that's one version. Many versions of that day float
around and are pretty much up to the perspective of the ancestors
or the participants as to what actually took place. As most
things, especially in this day, this federal holiday has become
a political football and will run its course. But regardless
of the politics or the accuracy of the history, the concept of
thankfulness is one of the finest things we could ever talk about.
If we each, whether a believer or not, were to be given a moment
of true lucidity, a moment where the circumstances of life, imagined
or real, true or concocted, could be set aside, we would realize
that we have a multitude of reasons to be thankful. A multitude of
reasons to be thankful, and all of them would be and should be
attributed to God. We have life. That's a gift of
God. We have breath, he holds the
breath of every creature in his hands. We have food and shelter
and raiment because, like the lilies of the field, he covers
us, and like the sparrows, not one falls without his knowledge.
We have the ability to think and to reason and to make choices,
and it all comes from the fact that you exist, that you are. If you did not exist, none of
that would matter. and your existence is due wholly
and completely to the will of God. You are here because He
has chosen to have you here at this time in His history. We do not expect everyone to
be thankful, nor do we expect everyone to acknowledge God,
but it is only reasonable for all those who tasted of the grace
of God, that God is gracious, to be thankful because they've
been given understanding that what they have, they have received
at the hands of God's mercy. What have you that you've not
received? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you've
not received it, saith the Scriptures? Even a good night's sleep is
a gift of God, Scripture says that. Wealth neither comes from
the north or the south or the east or the west, it comes from
God, the ability to get wealth. There is no doubt that sinners,
whom God has bought by the blood of His Son and saved by His free
grace, are grateful people and thankful people. Everything they have, this side
of eternal torment, is given them freely. When people receive
something, there are three reasons possible, or three responses
possible. They either take it for granted,
as if they were entitled to it because they are worthy, They
receive it as something that must be paid for, or they take
it in gratitude, acknowledging that it comes freely and costs
them nothing. Those are the three responses
to getting something from God. Those who have experienced the
grace of God know that everything comes freely and without them
meriting it in any way. If you have life in Jesus Christ,
it's because God gave it to you. And He gave it to you because
He purposed to do so before the foundation of the world. And
just a casual look at the Word of God will reveal that the mark
of true believers is that they are thankful. You read the epistles
of Paul and Peter and John, you'll find their language is the language
of thanksgiving. Thankfulness, we saw this last
Sunday, is the manner of the worship of the child of God,
both public and private. And in truth, An understanding
of the truth of grace can lead to nothing but thankfulness.
If you truly understand grace, if you truly understand that
there was nothing in you or about you that could ever recommend
you to God on any level, and yet He chose you to salvation
before the foundation of the world, you have nothing to do
but to be thankful, because you have nothing to do with it. However,
because of the contrariness of our flesh and the natural carnal
bent towards self-exaltation, we are often admonished to be
thankful because our flesh is the quintessential definition
of the ingrate. Such admonitions are reminders
of believers to return to their first love. The theme of thanksgiving
is repeated throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament.
And remember, as we read these books, they are inspired Inspired writers who wrote this
book, wrote what God breathed into their minds and into their
hearts and pinned it down for us throughout the ages. And throughout
this tome, we find the inspired sentiment over and over again,
give thanks to God for his mercy endureth forever. Those who penned
these words were acknowledging God and giving Him glory and
thanking Him for the eternal character of His mercy and His
grace. And only one who has been shown much mercy would have a
notion of this true thanksgiving. The Lord said, he who is forgiven
much, loveth much. And what a Spurgeon's sermon
was entitled, The Love of God That None, Only the Loved Ones
Know. The same can be said of His mercy.
Only those who have received it know of it and are thankful
for it. Only those who have received
mercy. The New Testament is full of thankful people. Often they
say, give thanks unto God or thanks be unto God over and over
again in Scripture. But you'll find that their thankfulness
is precise and it's pointed and it's singular. Their thankfulness
reflects their understanding of the glory of God and the glory
that is due God for the salvation of His people. Thanksgiving finds
its source in God when men are given grace to acknowledge Him.
The sovereignty of His person and the glory of His distinguished
grace are set forth, and men are thankful for that who have
tasted of it. Thanksgiving is a stripping doctrine,
a humiliating truth, if you will, because it is acknowledging that
what you have, you have nothing to do with obtaining it. So it
strips us of any pride when we're truly thankful unto God. Thanksgiving
is about the glory of God. It's also very interesting that
What believers are thankful for in scripture are the very things
that so-called Christian religion despises and discounts as the
doctrine of devils, or your truth, or the truth that your little
group preaches. But the very things that the
saints in this book, written and inspired by God to say, are
the very things that the flesh rebels against. And this refusal to acknowledge
God and be thankful reveals that much of what is called Christianity
is little more than the efforts of religious flesh. That's all
it is. And as we take our meal tomorrow
and break the bread of thanksgiving, let's consider what Inspired
Kenneth declares that the children of God are thankful for. Because
thanksgiving is for something. It has an object, and it's an
appreciation for something. It's not just a general attitude. You can't be thankful for nothing. You must be thankful for something. And the Word of God teaches what
the people of God are thankful for. And if you want to spend
about a year and a half in a study, just get you a concordance and
look up the words thanks, thanksgiving, thankful, and have a ball. You'll find out what God is thanked
for in this wonderful book. Just four or five things I want
us to consider tonight and consider it in light of what people believe
about being thankful today. Men talk about being thankful.
They're thankful for stuff they have. They're thankful for the
temporal blessings that they have. They're thankful for their
house and their home and their car and clothes on their back
and that's good because God provided them too. But those things are
rarely mentioned in Scripture. Possessions are rarely mentioned
as to what God has given them to be thankful for. In fact,
the Lord said, don't even consider those things when He talked to
His disciples. He said, don't consider the temporal
things in life. He said, that's what the Gentiles
seek. Well, that's what the nation, that's what the world seeks after,
the things. He says, you seek first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and I'll take care of all the
rest of that stuff. All that stuff will be added
to you. You don't even think about that. You won't go after
that. You'll go after my truth and
my sovereignty and after honoring my name and my glory and exalting
my son, the Lord Jesus Christ, our righteousness. You do that,
and I'll take care of the rest. So we're not even going to consider
that. He said, if you think about adding an inch to your stature,
you ain't going to grow an inch. You're not going to grow with
it. She said, you can't number the hair of your head, but I've
numbered them. I've numbered them. What are the people of
God thankful for? The Word of God teaches us. Let's
look at a few passages. First of all, let's go to the
revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation chapter
11. In Revelation chapter 11 and
verse 17, the four and twenty elders in verse 16, which sat
before the throne and their seats fell upon their faces and worshipped
God. Now this is how they worshipped God. Saying, we thank, we give
thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty. 11, 17. Which art and was, and art to come, because
thou hast taken to thee thy power, thy great power, and hast reigned."
This is something to be thankful for, the sovereignty of Almighty
God. We thank you, Father, that you
reign. Now most people don't mind Him reigning in creation
or even in providence to some degree, but nobody wants Him
to reign in salvation. The one thing that absolutely
glorifies Him and all His attributes. They don't want Him to reign
in that. They want you to have a part in that. They want you
to have something to do with it. They want your choice to
be involved. But that's not what the children
of God thank God for. They thank Him for the fact that
He reigns. That He reigns. That He's absolutely sovereign
in all things. They're glad that God is sovereign.
There was a group down in Louisiana, in Baton Rouge, I think, or either
Lake Charles, Louisiana, charismatic group of people who were building
a new church, a million dollar church that they were going to
build, and the pastor there, began to see by God's grace, he listened
to some messages by Henry Mahan and Ralph Barnum and some other
men, he began to see that what he was preaching, this you can
keep your salvation and you can lose your salvation, it's up
to you whether you sin or not and so forth, and all this stuff
about tongues and stuff like that, it was the Church of God
in Christ, or the Church of God, or the Assembly of God. And he
began to preach the gospel to these people, and it wasn't long
before they fired him, kind of like that fella out in California.
He preached the gospel to his people, and he told the people,
the Lord saved me. They'd been preaching to him
about 20 years, and what did they do? Did they rejoice? No,
they fired him. They fired him because he was telling them the
truth now. So they let him go. Well, that church down there,
the Day of Dedication, after they fired this preacher that
began to preach to them, the Day of Dedication, the head of
that whole Church of God assembly stood up there and dedicated
this new million-dollar building. And it said, We of the Assembly
of God deny the sovereignty of God. That was his speech that
day. Well, he wasn't a thankful person,
was he? When a child of God, God's children are thankful for
his sovereignty. He just said it. We give thee
thanks, Lord God Almighty, that thou hast taken thy power to
thyself, and has reigned, and has reigned. That's the gospel.
We know that from Isaiah 52, and it says, How beautiful upon
the mountains are the feet of them that preach the gospel,
that pre-publishes peace, that publishes salvation, that say
unto Zion, Thy God reigns. This is the beginning of the
foundational truth of the gospel. We don't have a gospel to preach
if God is not who He says He is. If He's not absolutely sovereign,
if He never changes, We don't have a gospel of preaching unless
God is God. We might as well tell people,
do your best. Reach out halfway and God will
meet you halfway. Take a walk down an aisle. Do
the best you can. God helps people who help themselves
and tell them lies like that unless the truth is set forth
that God is sovereign, the gospel is not preached. This is the
fact. And the people of God are tickled
to death about it. You ask any true believer if
he loves the sovereignty of God, and you say, I don't know where
else to go. Where else am I going to bow for help and strength
and need? To someone like me who can't
do anything unless I let him? Or to someone who absolutely
controls all things and has power over all things? Who sends the
rain? Who's the clouds and the dust
of his feet? Who walks in the whirlwind? Who caused the earthquake?
Who holds all things by the word of his power? By whom everything
is glued together and held together? I'm thankful, say the saints
of God. We thank Thee. They bow down,
they worship Thee. Say, we thank Thee, O God. Thanks
be unto Thee. Thanks be unto Thee. The children
are thankful for that. The children are. The elect are. Turn to Matthew chapter 11. Hear the words of our Lord Jesus
Christ. who has just been rejected, him
and John the Baptist, for the way they preach or the way they
act. You know, nobody's ever satisfied. Verse 25 of Matthew
chapter 11, our Lord lifts his voice up. It says, At that time
Jesus answered and said, I thank thee. Now this is thanksgiving
from God the Son. O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because thou hast hid the truth that John preached
and the truth I preached, from the wise and the prudent, and
has revealed it unto babes. Boy, I'm thankful for that. Even
so, Father, for it seemed good in thy sight. God always does
what's good. All things are to live in me
of the Father. God's given me everything, and no man knoweth
me but the Father, and neither knoweth any man the Father but
me, and he to whomsoever I will reveal him. We thank thee, Father. The people of God are thankful
that God is sovereign, and they are thankful that God hides His
gospel from some and reveals it to others. These are the words
of Christ, God's Son Himself. That's what He was thankful for.
And so is every believer. You say, oh, I don't like that.
People will say that. You tell them this. Well, God
hid the gospel from some who never let them believe it. He will have them preached to
him, but he'll hide the truth of it, the spiritual truth, by
not giving them life. The son says, I'm not going to
reveal him to everybody. I'm going to reveal him to whom
I choose. Folks say, well, that don't seem right, preacher. It
don't matter what you think. The children of God are glad
that the gospel goes out and always finds its target. It's glad that those who think
they can please God based on their own wisdom and prudence ain't got any hope at all. Is
that pleasing to you? It's pleasing to Christ. You're going to have to get down
to business on this matter of thanksgiving. It ain't about,
you know, having nice stuff come your way. It's about who God
is. We're thankful for God being God. We're thankful for God being
God. Turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter
9. 1 Corinthians chapter 9. Or excuse me, 2 Corinthians chapter
9. And verse 15. Paul says, thanks
be unto God for his unspeakable gift. That unspeakable means
that the human ability to develop language or terms to describe
the greatness and the value of the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ
cannot ever be. It's unspeakable. We can't ever
come up with words that would match the value of Him, the Father,
sending Jesus Christ into this world. And thanking God for Christ
is acknowledging His sovereign gift, that it was God the Father
who sent His Son on this grand and successful mission of mercy,
and respectively, thankful that God has given us all things in
Him. Twice in John chapter 17, Our
Lord's high priestly prayer, he said, that the world may know
that thou hast sent me. You sent me. God sent me here. And God has given us this unspeakable
gift. And the children of God are thankful
to God. Why? Because it's God who sent
him. God who sent him on this mission.
In Romans chapter 8 and verse 29 it says, For whom He did foreknow,
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His
Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover,
whom He did predestinate, Him He also called, whom He called,
whom He also justified, whom He justified, whom He also glorified. What shall we say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not
His own Son, but freely gave Him up for us all. How shall
He not with Him freely give us all things? This is an unspeakable
gift. When He gave us Christ, He gave
us everything. Because Christ is all, and in
all. So the believers are thankful
for the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is an acknowledgement
that God sent Christ into this world to save His people. Look at 2 Thessalonians 2.13. You can quote this to me, I guarantee
you, but I'm going to read it anyway. 2 Thessalonians 2.13. But we are bound. Now that's
an interesting word. That means we have to. That's
what it means. We got to do this. This is what
we got to do. Now, you tell some so-called
believer that denies this truth, they'll say, I ain't gonna ever
believe that. That ain't my God. But a believer says, I just have
to give the credit here to God. I'm bound to thank God for that. I've got to thank Him for that.
I have to thank God for this. I can't get away with it. I can't
not thank Him. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of spirit and belief in the truth, wanting to equal you by our gospel
to the attaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's
children are, they know that they just have to thank God for
electing grace. They're bound to do that. And
they're thankful for that. They know that it's God has blessed
them with all spiritual blessings in Christ according as He's chosen
them for the foundation of the world. They love the doctrine
of electing grace. Only those who have not been
chosen hate this doctrine. I'm telling you that. I'm just
trying to be as clear as I can. If a person don't love the doctrine
of election, it's because he's not been chosen. Because if you've
been chosen, you're tickled to death about it. It means that
God could have left you alone, but he didn't. Had God left you
alone, you would have perished, but he chose you. He told you,
I've used the illustration many times, my brother Billy, who
was a fairly good athlete, and he was kind of the oldest boy.
He was born in 43, just before Dad went into the war. I was
born in 46, just after Dad got out of the war. So he had three
years on me, and he was strong and athletic and powerful, weightlifter,
ball player, just, you know, had a lot of gifts, could do
anything, and still can. He was an expert cabinetmaker,
At 73 or 72 now, he's still out helping my nephew the other day
cut a big old tree down and loaded it in the back of his old Ford
truck. He's still a heck of a man. He
was kind of always the captain of the ball team. Well, he could beat most of us
up, so he kept a good captain. And we'd all line up, there was
about 20 or 30 of us in the neighborhood after the war. We'd line up and
another captain, usually Dennis Key, who was about the same age
as Billy, would pick our teams. I was not a good ball player.
I had a fairly decent pitching arm for about three pitches and
after that I was wild. First base and second base were too
hot for me. I couldn't play third and couldn't play shortstop.
He put me out in the outfield and I could not judge where that
fly was. Fly ball was, I'd run up and he'd go behind me, I'd
run back and he'd drop in front of me. That just wasn't a good
ball player. Do you know who my brother always
chose first? Me. You think I'd be mad about
that? You think I'd be mad at other
people getting it chosen? You think that would upset me? No, I was happy. You know why
he chose me? Because I was a good ball player?
That I could help out the team? No. He chose me because he loved
me. And you know what? That still
tickles me to death. And if God has not left you yourself
and has chosen you, you will be thankful for it. And you'll talk about it. You'll
overtly. We gotta give thanks to God for
that. We are bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren. beloved of the Lord, because
God has, from the beginning, chosen you to salvation through
sanctification of spirit and belief in the truth. Those who
openly oppose this wonderful truth must thank somebody. I
guess they thank themselves for their salvation. They must exalt
their choice above the clear declaration of the Scripture
that God chose whom He would save. Look at 1 Thessalonians, chapter
2, verse 13. Paul says, for this cause also
thank we God. We thank God for this. We do
it without ceasing. Because when you received the
Word of God, which ye heard of us, you received it not as the
Word of men. You received it not as the Word
of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually
worketh in you that believe. God's children are thankful that
they heard the gospel, and it was effectual to the saving of
their soul. That's how they knew of their
election, because Paul says in chapter 1 and verse 5, For our
gospel came not unto you only in word only, but also in power,
and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. And you know
what manner of men we are among you for your sake. I'm thankful for the gospel.
I'm thankful that someone came along and preached it to me.
told me what God had done for me, revealed to me that God had
saved me 2,000 years ago on Calvary's tree because he had chosen me
before the foundation of the world. The poet wrote, why was
I made to hear thy voice and enter while there's room when
others made a wretched choice and would rather die than come?
Why me? Because of God. God made that
word effectual to you. In Colossians chapter 1 and verse
12, Paul says, verse 12, giving thanks
unto the Father which has made us meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light. Made us suitable God's
elect are thankful that God has made them suitable to be his
children. You think, well I'm not suitable. God has made you
so by the propitiatory and expiratory workings of Lord Jesus Christ
on Calvary Street. This is a confession that as
we stand before God we are righteous in his sight and pure in his
sight and he's accepted us in the beloved. That he has made
us to be holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight
and in his economy, and in His purpose, you are suitable to be an inheritor with the saints
in life. You're suitable. I know we sing,
unworthy am I, unworthy, unworthy, but He made me worthy. He made
me worthy, not in myself, but in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter
2 and verse 14. God's people are thankful people. Now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph
in Christ. It said in 1st Corinthians chapter
15, he said, thanks be unto God for the victory. Thanks be unto God, which always,
underline that, there's never a time when this takes place
that God does not always call something and He's always to
be thanked for it. Which always causes us to triumph
in Christ that maketh manifest the savor of our knowledge in
every place. Our knowledge is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. For we are unto God a sweet-smelling
savor in Christ, in them that say then and in them that perish. God's children are thankful that
the gospel always works. And they're not afraid to tell
folks what God has done for them because they know it works. It
may be a savor of life and it may be a savor of death, but
it always smells good to God. You smell good to God. That's
what Paul said. We are a sweet smelling savor. We're a sweet smelling savor,
God. We're confident in the gospel and we're thankful for that.
That it always works. I spent years in religion, men
talking about a gospel that was ineffectual, a gospel that couldn't
do anything unless people actually acted upon it. I spent years
in that mess and I believed it for a long time. I believed it
all those years because that's how I was raised that way. I
was raised to believe that. And it wasn't until the gospel
was preached to me and this book began to open up to me that I
saw, man, that's so wrong. That's so wrong. I hear men even today, some great
believers talking about we must preach a certain thing, make
it a little easier here and a little easier there, because we have
to appeal to men. I don't even see that in Scripture. Paul didn't. The first thing out of his mouth
to the Thessalonian church was election. That's the first words
out of his mouth. When Paul preached to the Romans,
he preached election and predestination. Same thing to the Ephesian church.
He didn't back up on these things. He knew this, that though some
men would say, I don't want anything to do with that. He knew that
God's people would hear it. It would be effectual. Some people
would spell it and say, man, I'm hungry. That smelled like
food to me. And others would hear it and
say, man, that makes me sick to my stomach. I don't want to
hear it. I've had people actually say that. You made me ill when
you preached that. I got ill, physically ill, and
in this day and time, they're doing it all the time. Wow, they're
even talking about passing laws against hurtful speech. You can't
say something hurts somebody's feelings. That's stupid. It's stupid. The gospel will
hurt people's feelings. Barney, you say whatever the
gospel goes, it'll make some people sad, some people mad,
and some people glad. And that's the way it always
works. But it always does, and we have confidence in it. That's
why we don't have to invent things to make people make public confessions. God already invented that. The
first confession of faith is believer's baptism. That's the
public confession of faith. I know the church has invented
a place where they come up and say what they need. That's not
in the Bible. That's not anywhere anywhere.
How does a believer confess Christ? He goes right over in that creek
with me, and he lets me bury him in the water and bring him
out again. And picture in Christ being buried and resurrected
and he being in him. That's the confession. Sure,
we confess with our mouth. No doubt about that. But the
initial confession of the believer is, Lord, like the Ethiopian
usually said to Phyllis, after he heard the gospel, he says,
what does hinder me to be baptized? I want to be baptized. I want
to confess this. I believe this. I want to confess
what you just told me about Isaiah 53 and this suffering substituting
this victorious Savior. I want to confess Him right now.
Philip said, well, let's find some water. Let's find some water. We know this gospel works, and
we're thankful that it does. We're so thankful that we don't
try anything else but the gospel when we stand in the pulpit.
Thanksgiving means that God did it all. that God did it all,
and all the glory belongs to Him. And so we're told again
and again in the Word of God, be ye thankful. Paul wrote to
the Thessalonian church in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 18, in everything, that pretty well covers it. In
everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you in everything. Give thanks. Father, bless us
for understanding. We thank you for everything. We know that you are God. All
things are yours. And you do your will in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. We praise you for taking your power to yourself
and reigning. We bless your name. Amen. All right. God bless you.