p. 6 | For What to Thank God

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 17, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 46.

For What to Thank God

Thanksgiving.

BENEFITS received should call forth thanksgiving in response. Thanksgiving, or praise (for the two are often synonymous in the Scriptures), is as old as God’s benefits and His creatures’ gratitude, and is obligatory upon all the recipients of His blessings. And so God has enjoined thanksgiving and praise upon all His works, and especially all His sentient creatures. Psalm 148 is a grand choral anthem calling upon all creatures in heaven and earth and sea to join in the great universal thanksgiving song.

We may surely know that as the angels behold the forthshining of God’s effulgence, as they contemplate His goodness, as they see His loveliness of character manifest in abounding mercy and grace to the undeserving, while they themselves are also the constant recipients of His benefits, their every chord of music and every act of service are beautified by the grace of holy thankfulness.

How much more should sinful man, wholly unworthy and undeserving, be thankful to God for His goodness!

“O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good; For His mercy endureth forever.”

For What to Thank God.

All good things come of God through Christ. For “every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.” All material blessings, all mental and social and spiritual blessings which have been or are or will be, are from God. He gave the earth to be the home of man, and man forfeited his home through sin, and the trail of the serpent and the shadow of death rest heavily upon it. But God gave His well-beloved Son to die to purchase back the world and to win man’s allegiance to eternal love. He sends His rain on the just and on the unjust. He gave His Word of truth to instruct rebellious and sinful and imperfect man in the way of life. His good and mighty Spirit pours out upon the world the great, diffusive currents of life, to restrain evil, to plead with man, to preserve his life, that man may turn and live. He has permitted sin—man’s way, the selfish way—to run its course, in famine, pestilence, disease, death, war, and strife, that man may see that sin is exceeding sinful, that what one sows he must reap; and yet, amid all this warfare and rebellion against God, this woe and misery of earth, comes the voice of Eternal Love and Mercy from the Father’s throne, in tones of infinite tenderness and appeal, saying, “Come.” “And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come.” And from him who responds, who gives himself to God, the sin is taken away; to him is a new heart given, and he is clothed in the bridal robes of the righteousness of his King. He is given power over sin here, and at last an abundant entrance into that kingdom which knows no song save that of “thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” No wonder, as “the sweet singer of Israel” recounted God’s mercies, he exclaimed:—

“O that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men.”

“Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; Let all the peoples praise Thee. O let the nations be glad and sing for joy.”

And it would seem that every grateful soul would respond:—

“I will give Thee thanks with my whole heart;”

“I will worship toward Thy holy temple, And give thanks unto Thy name For Thy loving-kindness and for Thy truth.”

“I will give great thanks unto the Lord with my mouth; Yea, I will praise Him among the multitude.”

“I will give Thee thanks in the great congregation; I will praise Thee among much people.”

When to Give Thanks.

On special days alone, or once a year? This is better than nothing, but it is not Bible thanksgiving. It is not thanksgiving when we give thanks only on a public day because appointed by President or governor or church. It is well to remember God in harvest-time; but this alone is not true thanksgiving. True gratitude is ever responsive to all God’s blessings and mercies; for “they are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness.”

In the ancient vitalized service of God they stood “every morning to thank and praise the Lord, and likewise at even.” The psalmist sings:—

“At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto Him Because of Thy righteous judgments.”

“I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

“O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto Thee forever.”

And thus it is that the apostle Paul breaks forth:—

“But thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us the savour of His knowledge in every place.”

“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-ward.”

“Giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.”

But What of Trouble?

Thank God even for this; for see the assurance God has given: “And we know that to them that love God God worketh all things with them for good.” “Who worketh all things after the counsel of His will; to the end that we should be unto the praise of His glory, we who have before hoped in Christ.”

Let come, then, what will, whether it be war or peace, famine or plenty, persecution or support, imprisonment or liberty, life or death, the Christian may be thankful to God, who will overrule all things for the glory of His name and the good of His people.

How to Give Thanks.

Not in words alone; for that were mere mockery. “My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth.” “If a brother or sister be naked, and in lack of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.”

There is abundant opportunity to show our gratitude to God. Let children show theirs by relieving hard-worked, heavy-burdened fathers and mothers. Let the rich and well-to-do—those who have abundance, nay, more, those who have sufficient, remember the poor in their need. Let the hoarded dollars turn to the coin of heaven by being used to minister to God’s needy ones, physically and spiritually. Let the moody misanthrope, the society-cloyed men and women of wealth and fashion, find new sensations, new life, new joy, by visiting the poor and sick and needy in their wretched tenements under the shadows of their own gilded pinnacles and towers. They will find new cause for gratitude. Let them do this, not once a year, but “at all times,” that every day of the year—round of seasons may be a glad Thanksgiving Day to God.

“O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good.”