This message was recorded November 18, 2012. The speaker is David Simpson. I will give thanks unto thee, for thou hast answered me, and art become my salvation. The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner. This is Jehovah's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which Jehovah hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now we beseech thee, O Jehovah. O Jehovah, we beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of Jehovah. We have blessed you out of the house of Jehovah. Jehovah is God, and he hath given us light. Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar. Thou art my God, and I will give thanks unto thee. Thou art my God, I will exalt thee. O give thanks unto Jehovah, for he is good, for his loving kindness endureth forever. I don't preach days. There are lots of days a preacher can fill his calendar up with trying to preach on those days. Thanksgiving is the only time that I allow myself to veer off of that. And the reason I do is because this day, this time, I believe has its roots out of the Scriptures and is vitally important that we all live a positive and thankful life. If you look in the first verse, the psalmist says, O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, because His mercy endures forever. And if you look to the last verse, it says, O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, His mercy endures forever. You can look at the first verse as an introduction and the last verse as a conclusion. And all that is in between here, these are building blocks of what it is to be thankful. In verses 1 through 4, or maybe 2 through 4, perhaps is the way to say it, you have a series of exhortations, and this is the psalmist preaching. First of all, in verse 2, he preaches to the nation. He says, let Israel now say that his mercy endures forever. Then he preaches to the priest in verse 3, and he says, let the house of Aaron now say that his mercy endures forever. And then he combines together all of the nation and the priest together, and he says in verse 4, let them now that fear of the Lord say that His mercy endures forever. That's the psalmist preaching to the people. In verse 5, we see the psalmist expressing his pain. So in verse 5, he said, I called upon the Lord in distress. The Lord answered me and set me in a large place. We don't know who this psalmist is, to be truthful. We have no reason to think that it was David. In fact, I think it was far beyond David, as I'll point out to you in a few moments. But men of faith, women of faith have not always had it easy. In fact, most of the time it's been very hard, very difficult, a lot of trials. And he speaks of calling upon the Lord in distress. And you see this phrase of him calling upon the Lord, which I talked about in the last hour, going all the way back to the last verse of the fourth chapter, that God's people call upon the Lord. They worship Him. They petition Him. They reverence His name. But here He is calling upon the Lord. This is the psalmist's pain. Then in verses 6-9, not only does he have pain, but at the same time, he has peace. So here is the peace of the psalmist. It says in verse 6, the Lord is on my side. I will not fear. man can do unto me. The Lord takes my part with them that help me, therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. So he is at peace during the midst of all that is going on all around him and in the distress that he finds himself. In verses 10 through 13, this is the psalmist power. In verse 10, he says, All nations compassed me about, but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them. They compassed me about. Yea, they compass me about, but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them. They compass me about like bees." Isn't that quite a picture? Bees all around. They are quenched as the fire of thorns. Thorns sticking you in the side. It feels like fire. For in the name of the Lord will I destroy them. Perhaps this is a type and a picture of the Lord and His power. But He is going to be victorious no matter if the world is all around Him. causing his distress. And then in verses 14 through 17, this is the psalmist's praise, and he says, The Lord is my strength and song and has become my salvation. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly. I will not die, but live. and declare the works of the Lord. That's his praise. So in the midst of all of this, he has peace, and he has power, and he has praise to God. But he also needs a personal purging of himself. In verse 18, the Lord hath chastened me, or corrected me, sore, so that it was very hard, but he hath not given me over unto death. He didn't take my life, but he did correct me. And all of us can identify with that. We keep on breathing. We keep on having another day. The next day the sun does come up. And you have to get up and go about your day. It's going to keep on. The Lord is going to correct you. But life is going to go on. 27 and 28, this is the psalmist making a pledge. And he says in verse 20 and 19, Open to me the gates of righteousness. I will go into them. And I will praise the Lord. This gate of the Lord, unto which the righteous shall enter, I will praise thee, for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation." Then if you go down to verse 27, God is the Lord which hath showed us light. Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar. Thou art my God, and I will praise thee. Thou art my God. will exalt thee." He has decided in his heart and mind, he's bent that way of praising the Lord. He is going to praise God no matter what his circumstances may be. Now between those verses, from verses 22 through 26, it is very clear in those verses that this is a prophecy. So this is the prophecy of the psalmist. It's the prophecy of Christ. And it prophesies two events in his life. I want you to look first of all at verse 26 in the order of Christ's life. It says, verse 26, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. If you were to look in Matthew 21 in verse 9, you would see that that is the verse that is quoted when Jesus is riding on a donkey and coming into town. He is riding in a triumphant manner. coming into town and people are throwing out flowers and beautiful plants in front of him as the king to receive him in. And so this is the verse that tells us of the triumphant entry of Christ. But if you go back to verse 22, it says, the stone which the builders refused or rejected became the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the rejection of Israel toward him and is the verse that also appears in Matthew 21 and verse 42. So this is obviously a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. Cornerstone is that corner that actually keeps straight the rest of the building. If it's crooked or cockeyed, than the rest of the building is going to be off balance. So that cornerstone in any building is important. Now this verse, verse 24, is often taken out of context, saying this is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. But this day is not talking about the particular day that you and I are living in. In other words, it's not Sunday, the 18th of November, not this day. When he says, this is the day which the Lord hath made, he means this is the time period of the Lord coming in, of the entrance of the Lord. This is the day. And the fact is, you and I are living in that day. This is the long day from the time of His first coming until His second coming. Times have been good and times have been bad, but all the way through the time, God has had a people. We know very little of most of them. Because communication was so sparse. But we're not the first ones to speak of justification in connection with the cross. I'm confident of that. We're not the first ones to link these truths together to see that God justified and forgave and redeemed strictly on the condition of Jesus Christ. So when it says this is the day, he's talking about this long time period, and every day that we have is a part of that day. And what should we do? Rejoice and be glad in it. We should live a thankful life, a life that is filled with rejoicing. Now, this psalm also appears, at least the first and last verse, appears also in the book of Ezra. So I think this is interesting. That's what drew me to this. This was written in the time of Ezra. And I'm sure you know who Ezra was and all about him. So I won't tell you much about him, but you remember that the Israelites, the children of Israel, the nation, was taken captive. They went into Babylon. We also know that then they began to come back from Babylon and they came back to their homeland. And there were priests, and there were prophets, and there were scribes. The scribes at this period were truly faithful men. By the time of Christ, when we speak of the scribes, We speak of them in a very derogatory way because that's the way he did. But the scribes at this time were men of great note, great intelligence, and with a very important job of keeping a record, of writing out these Hebrew scrolls over and over and over again so that the word would not be lost. Well, Ezra was a scribe, and he was a faithful scribe that returned back to this time, prophesied over a long period of time, or at least the book covers a long period of time from 536 B.C., then going backwards down to 458 B.C., so for 78 years. And if he was a writer all of this time and a preacher during this time, a faithful scribe, that's a long time at this particular time to do that. But Ezra, Chapter 3, verses 10 and 11 is where you see these verses. And it appears that the psalmist of 118 and Ezra would have been writing probably at the same time. They would have been contemporaries to each other. Whether God inspired Ezra to say the words first, we don't know. Or whether he inspired the psalmist to say these words first, we don't know. Or maybe they were common things that were said among the people who were faithful at that time. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, his mercy endures forever. But what we do know is that this matter of being thankful to Jehovah God goes all the way back in the early history and throughout the history of the people of God. So when we come as a congregation or when you gather with your family in Thanksgiving, it has a long history. Our forefathers came to this country. A group of them, 104 I believe, 102, sailed to this country. They were looking for freedom, religious freedom, political freedom, and economic freedom. That's the things they were looking for. Some try to argue they were looking for one more than the other, but that's not true. They were looking for all of those things. That's why they came. That's why they left their homeland and they came here. They got here in the fall of 1620, and 58 of those original 120 died over that harsh winter that followed. In the spring, these pilgrims were taught by the Indians to plant and to fish and to store, and so they could be ready for the next year. Late in the fall of 1621, these men who were separatists, called separatists because they wanted to separate from the false religion of that day, the state religion of that day. And the way we're going with the state taking over everything, we may be headed in the same direction. But that's what they wanted to separate from. And they were called separatists, and that's why they came here, to get away from that. And they were steeped in both Old Testament language and New Testament language. And they were steeped in this matter of being thankful. In the fall of the year, in September, throughout the year, the Jews had a time of Thanksgiving that was called the Feast of Tabernacles. That's what it was for. It was a week-long, an eight-day-long celebration. The people would come to Jerusalem, and they would gather there for this time of Thanksgiving. And so when our forefathers came to this land steeped in the teaching of thanksgiving from a psalm like Psalm 118, and like the Feast of the Tabernacles, they knew it to be the right thing for people to gather and to give thanks. And so in that fall of 1621, they gathered together with the Indians, and they brought things together, and they had fish, and they had vegetables, and they had fruit. and they had a time of celebration together, probably lasted for several days. And then that Thanksgiving, that first one, became the foundation for then people later on, George Washington, for example, and on after that, even in the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln declaring that people should gather for Thanksgiving. So I cannot, when we come to this time of year, keep from being moved with the thoughts that go so far back that we are a part of history to keep this and for us to know the Gospel and to have access to God's Word, to know that we ought to be a thankful people, no matter what kind of trials you may have. So I want to talk with you for a minute about two things that we should be thankful for. First of all, we should thank God for daily provisions. That's the first thing. We should thank God for daily provisions. Jesus said this in Matthew 7, verse 9 and following, What man is there of you whom if his son asked for bread? If his son asked for bread. Steve, if one of your boys asked you for bread, would you be so cold as to give him a stone? No, you wouldn't do that. If Nick asked you for a stone, Ken, if he asked for bread, would you give him a stone? No. You'd give him bread. You'd probably give him something to go along with the bread. Well, Jesus said, which of you, if your son asked for bread, would give him a stone? Or if he asked for a fish, you'd give him a snake. Or if he asked for something that was beneficial, you would give him something that was destructive. Well, if you then, being evil, he didn't question whether we're evil, whether we're corrupt, because we are. If you then, being corrupt, having evil inside of you, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him? The fact is, we all have a lot. We all have much. You're able to take a shower this morning, right? Was the water hot? Able to get hot water this morning? Been a very short period of time that people have had hot water in their houses to take a shower with. Your house is warm now. You can cool it in the summer. Been a very short period of time that people have had those things. Refrigerator at your house? Refrigerators haven't been made that long. Very short period of time. People have had these things. We have a lot. God is the giver of good things. Give us this, Lord, our daily bread, is the prayer. He gives us families. He gives us friends. He gives us homes. He gives us sustenance. He gives us a church. He gives us a church. How important, how valuable is the church? I will tell you that through the years, I've had opportunities, business opportunities, where I could have moved away and I could have made more money, I think. But I wouldn't leave because of the church. I stay here because of you. I stay here because God has seen fit to give us a ministry. It's the reason I became your pastor. That verse that Paul spoke of, seeing we have this ministry. God has given this to us. We're stewards over it for the period that we're here. God is the giver of daily provisions. Paul said, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I thought about talking with you about contentment, but I'm not a very good example of it. I often feel a great deal of discontent rather than contentment. I can tell you what the word means, and that's probably the best thing I can do because it's in the Bible, so I should talk with you about it. But the word is sort of an odd word. It's a word that means to be self-sufficient. And in the best sense of that word, it means to be self-sufficient. To be content is not to be arrogant. That's not what the word means. To be self-content or self-sufficient is not to be arrogant. It's not to be lazy. If you're content with what you have, then I'll just Quit work, I won't do anything, I'll become lazy. No, that isn't what it means either. That isn't at all what it's talking about. Rather it's a disposition. It's a disposition of mind and heart, affection, consciousness. It's a disposition of satisfaction. with the portion in life that God has given to you. The portion that God has given is spoken of in the book of Ecclesiastes. And whatever your portion in life is, is what you need to be contented with. You wouldn't be contented doing what I do. I wouldn't be contented with doing what you do. But together we come and we make a family. My wife and I are a great deal different, but yet we also have many things that are the same. And together we are contented. So contentment is a very important and vital thing. And Paul says, I've learned. Notice I've learned. Because you don't have it when you're a child. There's no child in here that's contented. All the children have to learn to be contented. And as parents, we're going to help them grow to the point of contentment. The psalmist said, or actually asked a question, What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will offer to thee sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call, there it is again, upon the name of the Lord. Psalm 116, verse 12. It is right for us to thank God for the ideals and the sacrifices of our forefathers, of those who founded this country, and the men and the women who have and do defend our liberties. I thought several times this week of Brother Ken Brown. I didn't say anything last week, but this was the week that we think of those who have been to service. And Ken was in the Vietnam War. Got aging orange while he was there. Affected all of his life. Yeah, Ken, you came home and God had a life for you, didn't he? Yeah. Had children. Built a life. It's right for us to be thankful. So I thank you. I thank you for going and doing that, being a veteran. So it's right to thank God for daily provisions. When you sit with your loved ones, friends, this Thursday, know that the source of all things is the Lord God Almighty. Then there's the second thing. Thank God for his justifying righteousness. Now, why do I say that? Well, it tells us. It tells us in Romans 6 and verse 17 that we are to thank God for that form of doctrine to which we were delivered. The word form is that same word that is translated type in the scripture to pass. And it's a word that means a mold. So you make a mold of something. So it's a representation of something else. So if you have a if you have a horse or a dog or a cat, an emblem in your house, that's made from a mold. Well, this speaks of doctrine as a mold. I think it's an interesting way to speak of it. Here's a mold of the exact representation of the gospel. There are certain tenets to it. A dog doesn't look like a horse, neither do they look like a cat. There's a certain characteristic, and the doctrine to which we were delivered has certain characteristics to it. He uses the word doctrine because doctrine is a settled body. I use the word settled because it means it's fixed, it's not changing. It was the same in the first century, and in the 10th, and now in the 21st, and it'll be the same if there's another thousand years. It will not change. It's settled. It'll always be the same. Some of you are around when I'm gone. You'll have another pastor, I pray. He won't be like me. He'll be different. He doesn't have to be like me. But his message has to be the same. There's no difference there. Things that he believes should be the same things that we all now believe. There is a mold. There is a doctrine. And Paul is describing this doctrine. And it says, it's translated, which was delivered to you, but it's actually to which you were delivered. It's the form of doctrine to which you were delivered. So the question is, what is the form of that doctrine to which we were delivered for which we would be thankful? Well, it is the subject of the book of Romans that the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world, and by His obedience unto death, He earned righteousness that is called the righteousness of God. And it's called the righteousness of God because God accepted it and God imputed it. So here is one person of the Godhead acting in behalf of and toward the other person of the Godhead. Here is the Son earning righteousness. Here is the Son accepting and imputing righteousness, reckoning that righteousness, transferring it. He transferred it from the account of Christ without taking it from Christ to the account of those He had chosen before the foundation of the world. And it is to that truth to which we were delivered. Now, how were we delivered to it? Well, we're delivered to it, first of all, by the preaching of the gospel. God has given one means for men to be delivered to the truth, that form of doctrine, and that is by the preaching of the gospel. Now, you might try to give me a hypothesis and say, well, let's suppose that a man's on an island all by himself. Could God save him? Well, sure he could. Sure he could. And God will bring people out of silence for them to to become faithful to Him and know the Gospel. But they're going to have to know the Gospel. A man down in South America, he's God's elect. God is going to get the Gospel to him. He called out Abram from Ur of the Chaldees, all out there by himself. Did he not? Sure he did. He missed all of that, but it's by the preaching of the Gospel. And that's what we learn is that God preached the Gospel to Abraham. That's what He'll do for us. It's the Gospel to us. And then there is the awakening of the Holy Spirit. That is a very mysterious thing. We don't know when it happens or exactly how it happens. But we know that God the Spirit enters into the inner part of a person. There is a place inside of us where God can dwell. And God moves in and He takes up an abiding place in us. It's what Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born from above. And what is our response to that? To the preaching of the Gospel and to the awakening of the Spirit of God. It is repentance that is a change of our mind about what we've been trusting in to trust in Him. And it is faith, repentance and faith. Faith is resting in that finished work of Jesus Christ. We don't believe in order to get. We believe as a fruit of that gospel that's been brought to us and been awakened in us. So when we pause to think about what to be thankful for, let us be thankful for the daily provisions, which are many and multitude. And let us be thankful for the justifying righteousness, because it's that one single thing that brought us all together this morning. It's that one thing that causes me to study over and over again. Bring a message again and again. As soon as I leave here today, I'll start tonight trying to get ready for the radio broadcast. As soon as I get through with that, I'll get ready to write an article. As soon as I get through with that, I'll be working on the message for next week. Why do I do that over and over again? It's that justifying righteousness. Now, we may not always have the benefits that we have today because political, economic, Personal liberties have always been fleeting among men. And they're fleeting today. They're flying away from us. I don't know if you can see it or not. I hope you can. They're flying away from us. We are watching the death of a long history of these liberties. They're leaving us. But no circumstance can ever steal the spiritual liberty that we have in Christ. Beautiful, beautiful grace. Electing grace. Justifying grace. Awakening grace. is ever the theme of our life. Therein we rest, and therein we are thankful.