This morning, if you will turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 105, I'm going to read to you and preach from verses 1 to 3 on the beauty of Christian thanksgiving, seeing as it will be thanksgiving that we will observe on Thursday as a nation. I usually try to bring a message that will revolve around our thanksgiving, which ought to be even much greater to God for all of the blessings that he lavishes upon us day by day, not only earthly blessings, but spiritual and eternal blessings through our Lord Jesus Christ. So let's bow together for prayer before I begin to speak to you. Father, thank you for this time around your word. Thank you that you feed your people good food, not only in terms of the physical food of this life, but also the food of your word, the bread from heaven, the manna to our souls. And so I pray that you will help me as I set forth the truth of Christian thanksgiving to your people so that each of us will be thankful today and thankful all this week and remember to give you thanks For we know that you have written and said through the Apostle Paul that in everything we ought to give thanks For this is the will of you our God in Christ Jesus So help us and bless us as we listen to this message for I pray and ask it in your dear name Lord Jesus. Amen Psalm 105 beginning in verse 1 Oh give thanks to the Lord Call upon his name. Make known his deeds among the peoples. Sing to him. Sing psalms to him. Talk of all his wondrous works. Glory in his holy name. Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord. Well, as we approach this Thanksgiving day this Thursday, it gladdens my heart that this particular holiday gives us real opportunity to speak to others around us of what we're thankful for and whom we are thankful to for all that he has given to us. And according to these verses that I just read to you, there is a threefold beauty to Christian thanksgiving that I want to open up for you at this time. First of all, to obey the command to give God thanks is a beautiful thing to God. Verse 1 of our text says, Praise the Lord, O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. for His mercy endures forever. So here's a joyful command which is given to us. It's one that we ought always and often to observe, to do it. That is that you and I ought to be often praising the Lord and thanking the Lord for His goodness to us. We ought to be thankful as Christian people that His mercy endures forever. It's not just that he has shown us mercy once upon a time when he saved us, it is that his mercy continues on always and forever. It's good for us, I'm saying, to remember that Thanksgiving has been celebrated as a day of thankful remembrance for this country, the United States of America, as early as 1620 in the Plymouth colony. It's with a thankful heart that you and I as Christians remember the Puritan pilgrims who first came over from Delft Haven in Holland in the year 1620. They'd fled persecution from their native England and not too long before They were making this plan then to go across the Atlantic Ocean to come to the new world. They were searching for a place where they could worship God with freedom of conscience. I think it's peculiarly fitting that we pause this morning and remember that what we have come to know as Thanksgiving began with Christian people experiencing trials and testings of their faith, and yet they obeyed this command of our text. They were thankful people. I want to read to you, I don't customarily read any lengthy sections, but in this message I'm going to read several that are fairly long. This first one is not too long, but it says here, this is a by a historian, he says, accordingly on Saturday, November 11, 1620, religious services were held on board of the Mayflower, and they fell on their knees and rendered thanks to God for his kind protection of them during their dangerous voyage across the ocean. They implored, they begged his favor to rest upon them amidst the trials, the toils, and the temptations upon which they were now to enter. So what I'm trying to point out to you here this morning is that this is the kind of people that you and I should hope to be like in our trials and difficulties on our journey through this life. to heaven. We are like pilgrim in pilgrim's progress. We have set out on a journey from this life to the next and you and I, we would be a thankful people. We would be a thankful people not only on this upcoming Thanksgiving but as it says in Ephesians 5 verse 20, We would be those who would be giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is thanksgiving anyway? Well, the dictionary says that it is the act of giving thanks, a grateful acknowledgement of benefits or favors, especially the act of giving thanks to God. Well, that's a good definition, isn't it? Let me just pause and simply ask, are you a thankful person here this morning? Those of you who have come here this morning to worship God, is a part of your worship thanksgiving this morning? Are you giving thanks in your heart and your mind for all the goodness and the mercy that God has shown to you? Thanksgiving is an act. You may be thankful to be alive, thankful that you have a house to live in, thankful you have a family to live there with you. You may be thankful for your daily bread. You may be thankful for your good health. You may be thankful for the many possessions that you have. But do you give thanks to God that you are a person who belongs to him, that you were made by him, and that you belong to him by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's adopted you into his spiritual family. You belong to him. You see, everything that is good comes from God and his goodness. And you know, or you should know, that he has placed it there. that is His grace and His goodness, or He has worked it into your heart by the Holy Spirit. And so everything that you have is from His bountiful hand. So truly, each of us has much to be thankful for, and this is where you should realize the beauty of the command to give thanks. You see, many unbelieving people do not give thanks to God at all. But all of us should understand this morning that our God is a God of great goodness. Do you realize that? That God is essentially good in His great being. If you realize that, you should tell Him so. You should tell Him so. Because it's good and a beautiful thing to give Him thanks. God expects this of you. His highest creature, man, and woman, he expects you to give him thanks. It's the creation of the world. God has expected this. You can see this if you'll turn with me over to the epistle of Romans, Paul's book to the Romans, chapter 1, and verse 20. And here Paul is showing the guiltiness of men after the fall. a guiltiness which continues in fallen men to this very day. They are guilty sinners, fallen sinners by nature, all of us are, if we do not have Jesus Christ as our Savior. He says here in verse 20 of chapter 1 of the book of Romans, he says, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood that is, God's attributes, by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile. in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened." In other words, what Paul is saying is that men, at the beginning of the world, they used to know much about God in that time period, at the beginning of the world. And the creation itself declared God's attributes, what God was like in His great being. And the creation spoke with a loud voice. of God's goodness. And so everything that God made in the beginning was very good. The hymn writer says, for the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies, Christ of all to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise. We so little think of these things. apart from the grace of God and the Holy Spirit bringing it to our attention. But if we understand that sin has entered the world through one man, even through Adam, and death came through the one man Adam's sin, then we can understand why men do not see the goodness of God so much in the creation. So we understand from what Paul has said here that they become futile in their speculations. In other words, they speculate, they try to think about the way that the creation is, but they don't come to the knowledge of the truth that God created it. So there are many people who think that all of mankind have evolved from apes, which we have not. We are all creations of God. We have all been made by the Almighty. We have all been woven together in our mother's womb. And God has had a purpose for each and every one of us according to his plans from before the foundation of the world. And so it says here in the verses I just read to you in the book of Romans that it was a great grief to God that those people back then were not thankful for all that had been created. And you know something, I think it's a great grief to God now when he looks down upon all of us, if he does not see us as being thankful for all that he created and made, even ourselves. We didn't make ourselves, he made us. And then that we are thankful for the way that He made us, and for the family that He brought us into, and for the people that He has in our lives even now. There's a purpose that God has for every single person. And we need to think about that. I'm saying we're born into this world with sin, In our nature, our minds and hearts are spiritually blind to the truth of God's word. We do not glorify God by believing that he created this amazing world. We do not think about how God speaks to people through his creation and through his blessed word. And I'm trying to tell you that it's a great grief to God if you will not receive this truth and act upon it. here this morning begin to act upon it. Give him thanks in your heart. It says in Psalm 107 verses 8 and 9, Oh that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men for he satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness. It says that four times in Psalm 107. Oh that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. If it says that four times in one psalm, it must be very important to God that you are a thankful person. Now notice that it says there that it's the soul of the one who is hungry that is satisfied by God. You have many reasons to give thanks for all the food that God gives to you, and you may have much reason humanly speaking, to give thanks for all that God has given to you to satisfy your body with here in this life, like food, but do you give him thanks for it? When you sit down for a meal, do you bow your head and humbly give thanks to the Almighty who has given you your food? Give us this day our daily bread, we pray, And we shouldn't take that for granted. But even more, oh so much more, Psalm 107 there, are the satisfactions which God gives to your soul when you know God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is even more to be given thanks for. Psalm 103 says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, that is, the guilt of your sin, who heals all your diseases, yes, and even brings you through death and into eternal life, if you believe in Jesus, who redeems your life from destruction, buys you back from your slavery to sin, redeems your soul unto God, the Lord Jesus does, crowns your life with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles." Well, if this is what God the Father has given to you through our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ has died so that these things might be brought to your soul as realities, then I'm asking you here this morning, will you not give Him thanks that it is so that He's the one that satisfies your soul? Are you a dissatisfied person? If you are, it's because you are not letting God satisfy your soul by His powerful and wonderful grace, and you should give thanks that there is a way to overcome a disgruntled spirit that is being dissatisfied. with things in your life. It is to give thanks. To give God thanks. What a beautiful command it is. I want you to turn with me over to Psalm 92. I want to speak to you a little bit about the beauty of the acts of thanksgiving. Psalm 92 and verses 1 and 2. It says here, it is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises To your name, O Most High, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night. So in doing this very thing and giving thanks, I hope that you can see that to God, and it should be to you, it's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing. to praise God. It's something that you ought to wake up in the morning and praise the Lord. And it's something that before you go to bed at night, you ought to praise the Lord. Morning and evening, what a great privilege it is to give thanks to God each and every day, to have personal and private devotions of thanksgiving in the morning and more of the same at night. If this seems legalistic, to you, you really haven't understood the beauty of true devotion to God. So, you have not yet come to the place, if that's true of you, where you have a very thankful heart. It's an attitude which you need to repent of, for if you do not obey the command, that is the command to give thanks, you most likely will have a complaining heart. How can you glorify God if you have a complaining heart and unthankful spirit? The whole earth is full of the goodness of the Lord and so should you not stop and pause and thank him for it each and every day? Once in the morning for his loving kindness, once every evening for his faithfulness, that's how the command is given here, that's how it is obeyed. And then second, we give thanks by talking of all of his wondrous works, because it's a beautiful thing in God's sight. Verse two says, sing to him, sing psalms to him, talk of all his wondrous works. I remember when my children were very young, that I used to sing to them a number of hymns out of the book of Psalms for singing. One of them is the hymn that we're going to sing after I get done preaching to you. Here in a few minutes, Psalm 145c in our book of Psalms for singing, it says, The eyes of all upon thee wait, their food in season thou dost give, thine open hand doth satisfy the wants of all on earth that live. The Lord is just in His ways all, in all His works His grace is shown. The Lord is nigh or near to all that call, who call in truth on Him alone. He will the just desire fulfill, of such as do Him fear indeed. their cry, regard, and here He will and save them in their time of need." But what is this psalm saying except that we ought to talk about all of His wondrous works and tell them to our children and sing psalms to them about them. Psalm 145 verses 14 to 16 says this, the Lord upholds all who fall. and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look expectantly to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open up your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing." So what great things are spoken of here concerning God and His works. Are you bowed down in your spirit? When you came here today to this church, He can raise you up. Are you hungry? He can feed you because we'll have a meal right after this service. So let's go back now and let's think once again of how God's mighty works were seen and remembered by the pilgrim fathers. I want to read to you here a bit something that I think is very precious about the early time in Plymouth colony when the Pilgrim Fathers first came to live there. It says this, Edward Winslow says this in his Mort's Relation, which is the name of the little book. He says, our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fouling, that is hunting for birds, so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They for in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help besides, served the whole company almost a week. And at that time, among other recreations, we shot off our firearms. They call it exercising their arms. Many of the Indians coming among us, and among the rest, their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor and upon the captain and others. And although it not be always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that is from need, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty. So you can see here that these Christian people truly believed that they were partakers of plenty, and they attributed it to the goodness of God, even though in our standards that might not have been all that much. Another historian, John Stetson Berry, and I have his book sitting on the pew, Over here, you can take a look at it if you want after the message or sometime today. It's on the history of Massachusetts. It says this in his book, in the fall, September of 1621, the first harvest of the colonists was gathered. The corn yielded well, and the barley was indifferently good, but the peas were a failure, owing to drought and a late sowing. Satisfied, however, with the abundance of their fruits, four huntsmen were sent out for fowl, and at their return, and for a special manner, the pilgrims rejoiced together, feasting with King Massasoit." This is the very incident that I just read to you before. with this man who was then so famous in New England. And thus, he says, the time-honored festival of Thanksgiving was instituted. Now this man was writing in 1856, before the Civil War, when Abraham made the proclamation about Thanksgiving. He says, a festival which originally confined in its observance to the sons of the pilgrims and the state of Massachusetts has now become almost a national festival, that is in 1856, peculiarly appropriate as an expression of gratitude to God and an acknowledgement of dependence upon him for his bounties and productive of a treasure of pleasing memories connected with the joys of our childhood. This is how he thinks of it in 1856. This is how this man thinks of Thanksgiving in that time period of 1856. He says, and also the mature but more exquisite delights of our hearthside that is being beside their fireplace, where parents and children, brothers and sisters, and all the loved objects of the family group renew at the festive board that is at the dinner table the vows of affection, they exchange kind greetings and revive recollections of the past to enliven the present, while the pilgrimage of life is brightened and sweetened by innocent amusements and healthful recreations and a sense of obligation to the giver of all good is implanted more deeply in the heart, sanctifying our trials and enhancing our blessings by a consciousness of the presence and protection of God. Now that's the way to celebrate Thanksgiving, isn't it? It really is. Now maybe some of you are doing that already. But you need to take note that Thanksgiving is a time for you to pause and to remember the many blessings of God upon you, upon your family, upon your community, upon your nation, upon this fallen world of sinful people through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the bread from heaven and will save all who will come to him. So I think this is very applicable to all of us who are here this morning will you not try to think of how you when you gather with your family this Thursday or maybe even before that can be a good witness to them of the goodness of God to you or the salvation of God through Jesus Christ to you to remember God for your great goodness even before them if you're ahead of a household that you could read a little passage of scripture and just tell them how thankful you are for God and for them and for all the great things that he has done for you and for your family. To be able to pray like that, to be able to give him thanks for all that he has given to you materially, all that he has given to you spiritually. And then third and finally, I want you to see the beauty of giving thanks by glorying in God's holy name that that's a beautiful thing to God when you glory in his holy name. What does it mean to glory in his name? It means to boast in him and to take pleasure in Him, and to take pleasure in being one who knows Him, serves Him, follows Him, loves Him, not only for the things that He has given to you, but also for who He is, that He is God. from whom all blessings flow, the giver of every good and perfect gift." What an amazing holiday, if you will, Thanksgiving is. It can barely be corrupted by the unbelieving watching world. They might be able to corrupt Christmas and Easter. But what are you remembering at Thanksgiving? Aren't you remembering God and thanking Him for all the blessings that you have been given? Isn't it that you're glorying in Him, that He is such a great and wonderful God, that He gives so many rich blessings to us? each and every day that He watches over you and keeps you and ponders your way very intimately and intricately. Every day when you walk with Him, He's doing all those good things. He keeps your soul. He guards your going out and your coming in from this day forth and forever. Do you boast in the Lord? Do you boast in the Lord? Do you boast in His strength and His power to save you and to keep you in the midst of this sinful and perverse world where so many people don't want to know God, don't want to walk with God, don't want to learn from God, don't want the knowledge of His ways and refuse the gospel? but here you are he's taken you spiritually by the hand and he's given you the gospel and you believed it and you were saved when you believed that gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes and now he's leading you along to glory isn't that good to know he's leading you along to glory. Do you boast in His righteousness, that is in Christ, that Christ's righteousness is something that was imputed to you when you first believed in Jesus? Christ's perfect righteousness was charged to your legal account so that God sees you as perfect and complete and sinless in His sight for Jesus' sake? What a gift! Salvation is that it's not by works that anyone would be able to boast, but we boast in the Lord. We boast in Him all day long. And you know something? There's never anything wrong with that kind of boasting. You can boast all the day long and not ever commit a sin in the Lord. If you're boasting in the Lord, then he is pleased. Do you boast in his strength? Do you boast in his power in your life? His help to you on the path of righteousness each and every day to keep you on that path. Lead me, O Lord, in the path of righteousness for your namesake. Psalm 23. Making a table, preparing a table in the presence of your enemies. Anointing your head with oil, which is the picture of the Holy Spirit. That even in the most troubling of situations, that He's there with you, that He never leaves you nor forsakes you. But He has given to you His Spirit and His very life so that you could have His Spirit. I want to read to you here a few more lines about 1623, another year later. In Plymouth Colony, John Stetson Berry says of what happened to the Pilgrim Fathers that next year, the situation of the colonists in the spring of 1623 was peculiarly distressing. By the scantiness of the crops and the wastefulness of their neighbors, their granaries, their storehouses of grain, were exhausted. and they were reduced to want or being in need. And the narrative of their sufferings, however, he says, is affecting and thrilling even. He says, by the time their corn was planted and their victuals, that is the food they had on hand, was spent, then they knew not at night where their food would come from in the morning. nor had they corn or bread for three or four months. Together, Elder Brewster lived upon shellfish. With only oysters and clams at his meals, he gave thanks that he could seek out of the abundance of the seas and of the treasures hid in the sand. Well, tradition affirms, this historian says that at one time, There was but a pint of corn left in the whole settlement, a pint of corn, which being divided gave to each person a portion of five kernels. In allusion to this incident, he says, at the bicentennial celebration, this would have been in the 1800s in Massachusetts, many people had congregated at Plymouth and there were orators there who had spoken and poets there who sang the praises of the pilgrims amidst the richest possible meal which had been prepared to satisfy them. But five kernels of parched corn were placed by each plate. A simple but interesting reminder of the distresses of those heroic and pious men, God-fearing men, who won this fair land of plenty and freedom and happiness, and yet at times were literally in want of a morsel of bread. That's what they were reduced to. He says, in April planting, when that commenced and the weather held favorable, Until the last of May, pleased with the new order of things, cheerfulness and industry prevailed, and there was a stimulus to work in the hope of individual benefit. Even the women and children labored in the field. More corn than ever was planted, and more life and zeal were displayed. But though favorable weather forwarded their plants, in other words, they were growing up in the earliest of the season, But the third week in May a drought set in, and for six weeks no rain fell, so that the ground was completely parched, and the plants, both blade and stalk, hung the head and changed color and were judged utterly dead. he says. At once, therefore, God seemed to have forsaken them. The most resolute among them, the most courageous among them faltered, and a general despondency prevailed. Even Hobamok, the Indian chief who lived near them, was distressed for them. He said, I fear that they will lose all their corn and starve. The Indians, he said, can shift better than the English, for they can get fish. They evidently were very good fishermen. And Barry goes on to say, but true faith yields not to permanent despair. As God only could aid them, a day was appointed to pray and to ask for God's favor. It was a fair and beautiful day, and not a cloud dimmed the horizon. And here they are. Nine hours they continued in prayer, wrestling for a blessing from God. Yet the sun shone brightly and the air was sultry, but towards evening a change was visible. And before morning the rain came, sweet and gentle, yet freely and copiously, that is, in great abundance, it came without either wind or thunder, and by degrees in the abundance, as that the earth was thoroughly wet and soaked with it, and the withered corn and the other plants speedily revived. They called it the reign of liberalities. And it lasted at intervals for 14 days. And it caused even the Indians to say, now we see the Englishman's God is a good God, for he has heard you and sent you rain. And that without storms and tempests and thunder, which usually we have with our rain, which breaks down our corn, but yours stands whole and good still." So they said, surely your God is a good God. And from that time forward, the weather continued favorable, and the harvest was fruitful and liberal. In the time convenient, they also solemnized, they set apart a day of thanksgiving. to the Lord. So brethren I've read all these things to you to show you how gracious our Lord was to these dear brethren so many hundreds of years ago at the beginning of our country and I did that so that you would see that it is good to glory in God's holy name. And if He led them, this is the point that I'm trying to make in closing this sermon, if He led them through many dangers, toils, and snares, to be those people that settled this land that we now live in and founded its first colony in government, will He not lead us along in that same good way? So let your heart rejoice I'm saying to you here this morning, if you are a person who is fervently seeking the Lord in prayer, we will pray to the Lord. to come to us his people and to even see others come to know our God as well and join with us in our pilgrimage to heaven. Well let's bow together for prayer. Father thank you for this time around your word which shows us our great need to be a thankful people and to give you thanks from a heart that is full of love to you and thankfulness in our hearts for all that you have done for us both materially and spiritually through Jesus Christ our Lord. Help us not to be those who are complainers or grumblers or not giving thanks to you, but help us even to set our thanksgiving forth during our time of Thanksgiving this Thursday with our loved ones and our relatives and our friends so that they may understand just how great and glorious and good a God that you are. For we pray and we ask all these mercies in your blessed name, Lord Jesus. Amen.