Reasons for Thankfulness
By M. G. HUFFMAN
God expects thankfulness on our part. “Be ye thankful,” are the words of Scripture. “Offer unto God thanksgiving,” says the psalmist. “With thanksgiving let your requests be made known,” says Paul. “Let us come before his face with thanksgiving,” says David; and many like texts are in the blessed Bible. In the former dispensation, numerous sacrifices were required, among which was a thank offering. And in the days of David, the Levites were required every morning and evening to thank and praise the God of Israel. There is a multitude of reasons why we should be thankful. The following are some of them:— 1. The dearest thing on earth—the privilege to live and work for God—is ours. For in him we live, move, and have our being. 2. We have numberless blessings, both temporal and spiritual. God gives us food, raiment, shelter, health, and strength. In Europe, at the present time, millions of little fatherless children and thousands of widowed women with little babes are suffering the pangs of hunger and the tortures of bereavement and suspense. But how about us here in the United States of America? Probably none of us really know what it is to be hungry. Are we as grateful as we should be to the Giver of our mercies for even the so-called common blessings of life? 3. Has not every believer in the third angel's message reasons for sincere thanksgiving to God that when this truth came to him he was enabled to accept it, and not reject it, as so many thousands now living have done? 4. Have not we as a people reasons for much gratitude to God that he has spared the lives of so many of his aged ministering servants to be witnesses in this closing work? 5. Should not we be thankful that so many of our young people, full of life and enthusiasm, are entering into this work to assist in carrying the everlasting gospel to earth's darkest corners? With clear minds and consecrated hearts and bodily vigor, how many hundreds of both sexes are entering the gospel field as ministers, teachers, editors, canvassers, physicians, nurses, Bible workers, and to serve in other ways! 6. Have not we as a people great reason for thankfulness for what God has done and is doing by way of opening up avenues through which this blessed truth can reach all nations in this generation? 7. We ought to be devoutly thankful to God that, while we have sailed as it were over tempestuous seas of obstacles and opposition, we were not stranded on the rocks on the one hand, nor grounded on the shoals of discouragement on the other. 8. And while the various winds of theological error have been and are still blowing from different points of the compass, and while those who have gone out from the main body are still trying to draw away disciples after them, we can thank the Lord that the spiritual church of God, the pillar and ground of the truth, of which Jesus our Lord is the head, is being fitly framed together, and is growing into an holy temple; and thank God that the main body is standing firm. 9. Are we sufficiently thankful to God, that, running parallel with this message, the spirit of prophecy has been manifested in the remnant church, and that today his handmaid still lives? 10. Can we ever be sufficiently thankful for God's great plan of salvation? This gospel of the kingdom has now belted the globe in its onward march, as it is being sounded to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. The apostle Paul had a view of what was being accomplished by the gospel for the Jew and the Gentile in his day, and exclaimed, “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.” This inexpressible gift is more fully set forth in that well-known text, John 3:16, where it is stated that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Did any one ever see in any book, or chiseled on stone, or anywhere else, a word so small that contained so much salvation, comfort, or hope as the word SO in this connection? “God so loved the world.” May we not be thankful, and glad also, that the great controversy between good and evil is soon to be concluded? and have we not great reason to thank God that notwithstanding the fact that nearly all the great nations of the world are now in deadly conflict, the United States of America is practically at peace? We ought to be grateful and praise God that while the conflict is on in Europe, he is giving his servants success in pushing forward the last message of mercy in those warring nations, and many are accepting the truth for this time. Personally, I do thank the Lord for the present truth, which came to me thirty-seven years ago, and which for the past thirty years I have been publicly proclaiming in many States. I rejoice that the Lord has seen fit to bless my efforts to the salvation of many souls for whom Christ died. Everything points to the fact that we are almost home. We can thank the Lord that his great clock of time will soon strike the appointed hour, and that the Lord Jesus Christ will then come to receive his waiting people to himself. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”