REFORMED WITNESS
Volume IV, December 1996, Number 12
It Is a Good Thing to Give Thanks Unto the Lord
A Thanksgiving Meditation by Pastor Arie den Hartog
It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O most High: To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night. Psalm 92:1,2.
Psalm 92 is a psalm of thanksgiving. The opening words of this psalm quoted above express the theme of the whole Psalm. What a joyous Psalm of thanksgiving this is! "Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon a harp with a solemn sound. For Thou, LORD, hast made me glad through Thy work: I will triumph in the works of Thy hand." The Psalmist desires to use instruments of music to give thanks to God. God gave these instruments of music for this purpose, not for the evil purposes that modern man uses them for. The Psalmist gives thanks because he has witnessed and experienced the wonderful works of the LORD. His heart has been made glad. Many of the psalms of the Old Testament could be classified as psalms of thanksgiving. It is obvious from this how central thanksgiving was for the people of God of the Old Testament. Such thanksgiving must be central to our lives as well. In fact the summary of our whole calling before God is to live in thankfulness unto Him. It is a most miserable and wretched Christian who does not constantly give thanks to God.
Psalm 92 according to its title is a Psalm or Song for the Sabbath Day. The origin of the titles of the Psalms is not definitely known. These titles were added later to the Psalms after they had been collected in the book of the Psalms. We do well to pay attention to these titles. Even if they were not part of the original inspired Psalms they are nevertheless for the most part accurate. The Sabbath Day (in the New Testament the Lord's Day) is particularly the day of thanksgiving. On this day God's people cease from their earthly labors in order that they can have opportunity to concentrate on the worship of God. In our worship of God we contemplate His greatness and glory. We remember His great and wonderful works of creation and redemption. We give thanks and praise to God. We glory in His name. We must do this all the days of our life, but because of our sinful weakness, and because we are so caught up with the day to day business of our life in the world, we fail to worship God as we should, we fall short of always giving glory to His name. Therefore God has given us a special day for this purpose, namely the Lord's Day.
Thanksgiving Is a Distinctly Christian Activity
Psalm 92 is the song of the child of God. This is true of course of all the Psalms. They are not the songs of the ungodly. Psalm 92 was written to be sung by the people of God together in the worship of God. The ungodly do not give thanks to God. God reveals His power and glory in all the creation around as the inspired apostle Paul says in Romans 1. God showers His benefits upon mankind and even on His whole creation. Even the wicked receive the good gifts of God. Yet they do not acknowledge Him. They are not thankful. This is a great evil on the part of man. Instead of being thankful wicked man uses all of God's good gifts in lust and greed and in wickedness and rebellion against God. He refuses to give God thanks but glories in himself. Even on the so-called Thanksgiving Day the majority of mankind does not truly give thanks. Rather he glories in his own great wealth and in the imagination that he has gotten this wealth through the labors of his own hand and by his own intelligence and industry. The feasting of the man of this world is wicked because it is a feasting in which he does not truly give thanks. Thanksgiving to God must begin with repentance. Rather than merry-making, the ungodly world should go on its knees, it should fall down in dust and ashes before the Lord and repent of the great evil of using God's gifts in sin and wickedness without remembering God and without the fear of His name. The thanksgiving of the ungodly impenitent sinner is not pleasing to the Lord. He is not glorified by it. When the ungodly sinner comes to God he will find God to be a God of wrath and judgment.
The child of God gives thanks to God only after he has gone to the cross of Jesus Christ and found there forgiveness for his great and many sins. It is an awful thing that we live so much of our life without thanksgiving. Because of our sinful nature we too forget God in so much of our life. Our thanksgiving must therefore begin at the cross of Christ Jesus. It is only through the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ that we find righteousness and forgiveness. It is only because Christ Jesus is our mediator that we can come to God at all. Because of the atonement of the cross of Christ God will receive us in His mercy and not consume us in anger. The greatest reason for the thanksgiving of the child of God is the knowledge and experience of the salvation of God. The greatest gift of God to us is the gift of His Son Jesus Christ and the gift of the forgiveness of sin and righteousness in Him. Only when we realize that do we bring proper thanksgiving to God.
The child of God gives thanks to God because of the work of the Holy Spirit in his heart. No one will ever give true thanksgiving to God except the regenerated child of God. By the work of the Holy Spirit we have come to know God as the true and living God and as the God of our salvation.
To Whom We Give Thanks
It is common in America for the President on Thanksgiving Day to make a national proclamation.
This proclamation calls the whole nation to a day of thanksgiving. Everyone is exhorted to be thankful. But it is also often said that this thanksgiving may be offered to the deity of one's choice. No distinction is made. According to "Americanism" this is supposed to be a thing of nobility and virtue. Everyone has the right to chose his or her own religion. It matters not what deity you choose as long as you believe in some supreme being. We must at least recognize that the prosperity and abundance of our land has its origin and source from someone outside of ourselves. Jews give thanks to their God, Buddhists give thanks to Buddha and their other deities. Moslems give thanks to Allah. Many simply give thanks to man. For the humanist, man is his god. But we as Christians must realize that this is not right. Of course not! There is only one true God. To give thanks to an idol rather than to the true God is not something good but something evil. To exhort the citizens of our land to do this is to rob God of the glory that belongs only to Him.
We give thanks to the LORD. His name is Jehovah. When the King James Bible uses the name LORD in all upper case letters this indicates that in the original Hebrew, the name Jehovah is found. Jehovah is the only true and living God. There are no gods besides Him. All others whom men call god are abominable idols before this true and holy God. The name Jehovah reveals to us that our God is the great I AM THAT I AM. He is the eternal sovereign God of heaven and earth. He is the creator of heaven and earth and all that they contain. He is the owner of the whole universe. He is the God of providence who rules over all. He is the source and fountain of all good. This God gives life and breath and all things to all. In Him we live and move and have our being. Man has nothing of himself. He does not have the origin of his existence in himself. Man does not have his life and strength in himself. Every breath that man takes is a gift of God. Without God, man can not so much as move. True thanksgiving to God begins with humbly acknowledging these great truths before God. Without such acknowledgment all man's thanksgiving is abominable unto God. It is boasting of man, it is God-denying and God-dishonoring. The Lord is God and God alone. All the glory for all things belongs to Him alone. As we receive all things from this God, we are under solemn obligation to give Him thanks and to worship Him as our God and to serve God with all that He gives us. Thanksgiving begins with a voluntary, joyful, zealous acknowledgment of this God. It is recognizing in wonderment the greatness of this God. It is living our lives in fear and obedience before this God. Thanksgiving is a life of service unto this God. A man who pretends to give thanks even to the one only true God and who does not acknowledge and serve this God in his daily life is a hypocrite. For this he will be severely judged.
The Lord is the God and Father of Jesus Christ. He is not the God whom the Jews worship. He is the God who has revealed Himself in the person of His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. There can be no true thanksgiving to God without acknowledging God as the Father of Jesus. The greatest gift that God gave to the world is the gift of His own beloved Son. In this gift God revealed the greatness of His love. The LORD gave His beloved Son by the wonder of the incarnation when He sent Jesus into the world into to take unto Himself our human nature and to live and walk among us as a man, made like unto us in all things. But even more wonderful than this is the truth that the Lord gave His beloved Son to the death of the cross for the salvation of His people. By this sovereign and gracious gift the LORD saved His people from sin and death and hell. There can be no thanksgiving to God without an acknowledgment of this great truth of what God has done.
For What Do We Give Thanks
On Thanksgiving day we commonly give thanks for the material abundance that God has given us. It is proper that we do this. The LORD alone has given us this abundance. Every penny of our wealth is from God. The LORD has given most Americans great wealth and prosperity. This is true certainly when we compare the abundance we have with the little that many and probably even the majority of the rest of the world has. When we give thanks to God for our material abundance we need to remember that we do not deserve any of it. There is in man a deep-seated sinful imagination that the reason why he is more wealthy than his fellow man is because of his own goodness, his extra hard work or something like that. He deserves all that he has. He worked for it all. He wisely invested what he had and so he gained more. The neighbor who is less well off than he is, is in such a situation because of his own laziness and foolishness. Even whole countries are poverty stricken because of the foolishness of its population and its leaders. We Americans are so much better. Such is the evil imagination of man. The man whose heart is filled with such evil thoughts cannot give thanks to God. True thanksgiving to God, which the child of God alone offers, is the acknowledgment that we are undeserving sinners and God blesses us by His sovereign grace. This He did also when He gave us our material abundance. Scripture teaches us also that often material abundance leads man away from God. Then this material abundance becomes a curse unto him.
Our thanksgiving to God must never end with thanksgiving for material things. This would be an insult to God. God has given to His elect children a far greater blessing. In His sovereign grace and mercy God has given us the blessings of salvation. These blessings are of far greater value than all the riches of this world. The Christian is one who understands this. For this reason even the poverty stricken child of God can and does give thanks to the Lord. The child of God realizes that even if he has nothing in this world he has all when he has God and he has Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. The prophesy of Habakkuk has a beautiful passage: "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." - Habakkuk 3:17. Is this also our confession?
The Psalmist gives thanks to God for the mighty works of the Lord. His eyes and heart are open to considering the works of the Lord. The Christian understands the mighty works of the Lord in His creation and providence. The Christian knows and acknowledges the greatest works of the Lord in the wonderful works of salvation He has accomplished in Christ Jesus. Take special note of the fact that the inspired Psalmist in Psalm 92 gives thanks to the Lord for His mighty works in destroying His and our enemies. Who today gives thanks for this? "For lo, thine enemies, O LORD, for lo, thine enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil." The casting down of the devil, the destroying of the wicked out of the earth, the triumph of the cause of the righteous, the victory of the kingdom of Christ is a great reason for thanksgiving and praise on the part of the child of God.
In Psalm 92 and in many of the other Psalms of thanksgiving the Psalmist gives thanks for the revelation of the glory of the name of God. He considers how that all the works of the Lord reveal the greatness, sovereignty, power, glory and wisdom of God. The goodness and faithfulness and righteousness of God are revealed in all His works. The beholding of this in all the works of the LORD causes the child of God to burst forth in praise and thanksgiving to God. This is truly God- centered praise and thanksgiving.
It Is a Good Thing to Give Thanks
It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD. This is good for two reasons especially. The first is that God is worthy of thanksgiving and praise. He alone is the LORD, the sovereign all-glorious God. The Lord made all things for the glory of His own name. He formed His people in order that they might show forth His praises. We show forth God's praise when we humbly and joyfully and thankfully acknowledge the Lord as our God and give Him thanks for all things. We give thanks when before our families, in His church and before the world, we tell of the wonderful works of the Lord. Thanksgiving is good because this is the purpose for which the Lord has redeemed us.
We do not imagine that by our thanksgiving we somehow repay the LORD for His great goodness to us. This is forever impossible. Rather, thanksgiving is the hearty and joyful acknowledgment of the LORD as our God and the showing forth of the glory and honor of His name.
It is good to give thanks unto the Lord because this fills the heart and life of the child of God with joy. Constantly thanksgiving causes the child of God to consider deeply the wonderful works of the LORD. There is nothing that fills our souls more with joy and gladness than doing this. The more we consider the greatness and goodness of the LORD, the more we learn to love Him, to rely upon Him, and to glory in Him.
It is good to shew forth the loving kindness of the Lord in the morning and tell of His faithfulness every night. The child of God gives thanks as soon as he arises in the morning and considers the goodness of the Lord who gives to him life and health and strength, and all good things for the day. Taking all of this for granted is the sin of failing to give God thanks and giving to Him the glory that is due unto His name. It is only of the sovereign goodness of the Lord that we live each day. Our first thoughts in the morning ought to be of the goodness of the LORD toward us and the great joy and blessing of the salvation that He has shown to us. In the night we tell of the faithfulness of the LORD. It is only because of His faithfulness and mercy that we have been preserved. The LORD our God for Jesus' sake has kept us in His love. He is our LORD and Savior. Our hope is in Him. In the contemplation of the great wonder of this we rest in peace and safety each night with the praises of His name in our hearts and quieting our souls as we lay down to sleep.
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