THANKSGIVING

Here we find a guilty and humbled people thanking and praising the Lord of heaven and earth. While they are in the valley of humiliation, God forms poor sinners for His praise. The praying publican, in the valley of self-abasement and humiliation, did pray and thank God; the pharisee, on the other hand, was on the height of self-exaltation and did neither pray nor thank God.

True prayer and thanksgiving to God with mouth and heart is a fruit of the indwelling Spirit. In this praying and thanking there is a true, heartfelt sense of sin and utter hellworthiness. This is what we find in this psalm.

The author of this psalm has not been recorded for us, but he surely was a servant of the Most High. His eyes were open to see the great blessings which His God had bestowed upon the people and the wonders wrought in their midst. He sees very clearly what their faithful Covenant God had done and given, but also the unthankfulness of the people, showing what was in their evil hearts. Again and again they were guilty of committing two evils, turning to idols which could not hear and deliver. How soon did they forget their Benefactor and Redeemer! Do you understand this, readers? Do you understand this, people of the Lord? Do we differ from the Israelites?

How true a confession is found in the following verses: “Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not His word: but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord. Many times did He deliver them; but they provoked Him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity.”

This servant of God now sees and feels what the Israelites - the most blessed people on earth, he himself included - what they and their fathers have done. This weeping and confessing servant has eyes within and without. The Spirit of conviction and discovery fills his heart, and with a broken heart he confesses, and says, “Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions. Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against His people, insomuch that He abhorred His own inheritance.”

The psalmist sees that God in His fierce anger has sent destructive judgments upon the good land and the people. The words of the weeping prophet Jeremiah were fulfilled. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. He shall work and who shall let it?

This true sense of wickedness and punishments brings him low and in deep humiliation. He does not murmur, but glorifies God in His doings. With Daniel in Babel he justifies God, bewails and confesses sin and wickedness, and says, “We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly.”

In these depths of self-abasement and humiliation a poor and guilty people are formed to thank and praise God. “This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise,” Isa. 43:21. O behold Jacob in the depths, crying to God and saying, “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast shewed unto Thy servant.”

In such ways and depths, when the blessed Spirit of grace, supplication, and thanksgiving fills the soul, then all coldness and hardness of heart flees away. Then the psalmist exclaims, “Praise ye the Lord, O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever.”

It is a thanksgiving day, and God, Who has blessed and punished in righteousness, is glorified. In this frame the psalmist excites others, yea, the whole church to praise God from Whom all blessings flow.

Praise ye the Lord! Praise Him with mouth and heart. Praise Him in all His attributes, all His words, works and ways - yea, also in the way of judgment and chastisement. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise Him for the great and unspeakable Gift Christ Jesus. Praise the great Creator and Re-creator in Christ Jesus! Praise Him eternally! This is the desire of all those who have become image-bearers of the great God, Who rules supremely in their heart… and not the “I” god.

O give thanks unto the Lord! Do thank the Lord of Lords and the King of kings. He is so worthy to wear the crown and to be glorified, not guilty worms of the dust. Thank Him at all times and for all things. It is the admonition of Paul, “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Give thanks for the blessed arms and the rod; for the sanctifying cross; for adversity and prosperity; for afflictions and comforts. May you be taught to pray: Do, Lord, help a poor and helpless creature; form me in Thy way and work for eternal thanksgiving!

“For He is good!” God is good; so the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Is God not good even when He glorifies Himself in the woes of those stubborn creatures that would not hearken and bow for Him, would not honor and glorify Him? Is He not good when He leads His backsliding people into the furnace of fire and under the painful rod of correction? Oh, how good is God for a deeply sunken and wicked generation, who turn their heart and home, their country and church more and more into a Sodom of debauchery. He certainly has no delight in their death and eternal destruction! Oh, how bitter, how bitter forever if this goodness of God shall be cut off forever in hell, and that for young and old! How good is God for His backsliding children when He draws them back to Him in bitter ways and forms them to His praise in the depth of misery and humiliation. The Church in olden times has said, “O Lord, I will praise Thee; though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me,” Isa. 12:1.

“For His mercy endureth forever.” No, not for those that remain impenitent and live and die in sin; not for those whose feet have been led out of the Sodom of the world but not their heart - “Remember Lot’s wife!” But for all those who have cried in true conviction of sin and soul misery, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” How necessary and sweet is God’s mercy and grace for guilty and sorrowful souls, whose prayer it has become, “Have mercy upon me, 0 God, according to Thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” Ps. 51:1. How these souls do need that mercy and sovereign grace as long as they journey forth through the howling wilderness of this world. And shall they not at times thank and praise God for the undeserved mercy and goodness He shows unto them? That goodness and mercy which Christ Jesus has merited for His black bride and of which they shall sing after this life forever in glory?

Yes, His mercy endureth forever. And Ethan says, “I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever: with my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations.”

Let the people of the Lord be encouraged in all their dependency and shortcomings, in all their cries and desires; for after this life they shall have the desire of their heart to thank and praise a triune God forever with the great multitude of heavenly singers.

But those souls, who never have days and nights here of crying to God and thanking Him, shall have no eternal thanksgiving day, when there shall be no more night for God’s people. Oh, that the eyes of the blind might be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped! Then the lame man shall leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing, yes, to thank and praise the Lord, Whose mercies endureth for ever. Isa. 35:5, 6.

“And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” J.V.Z.

Outward gains are ordinarily attended with inward losses. - Flavel.

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