Music
One, two, three, four.
All right. Welcome straight past back to church. Happy Thanksgiving. It's good to see all of you out. Thanks for joining us this evening on our Thanksgiving service.
We don't have a lot in the way of announcements. Obviously, we had our Thanksgiving dinner tonight and quite a bit of food is still left back there.
So feel free to stick around. And feel free to make a plate for yourself on your way out. Make several plates for yourself.
There's so much food back there. I should have known better. I ended up buying six pies from Costco.
In spite of that, because I said more than once, I said the church will cover dessert.
And for some reason, you know, I just spaced the fact that people typically, you know, just do the opposite.
And they said, oh, you got dessert? Well, we got it too, right? So anyway, lesson learned.
But even, you know, just just help yourself back there to thank you.
Everybody that cooked and brought out dishes is great.
All of it's really wonderful. So it's nice to be spending Thanksgiving with our spiritual family here.
And it's, of course, wonderful being able to eat all this great food, too.
So I really don't have much in the way of announcements.
Like I said, let's just quickly count up any soul-willing that might have been done going back to Monday.
If there's anything from Monday to report or Tuesday, Wednesday.
And I don't think your team went out today, but I'll ask anyway if there's anything from today.
All right. We'll go ahead and sing one more song before we get into the preaching this evening.
All right, turn your handles to page 230.
Heavenly Sunlight, page 230.
Please turn your Bibles to Romans 2.
Brother, grab these for us. Romans chapter two.
Romans chapter two. The Bible reads.
Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judges.
For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself.
For thou that judgest doest the same things.
For we are sure that the judgment of God is the judgment of God.
For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself.
For we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which committed such things.
And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things and doest the same?
That thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
Or despises thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering,
not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasures up upon thyself wrath against the day of wrath
and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds,
to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for the glory and honor and immortality eternal life,
but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey in righteousness,
indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil,
of the Jew first and also of the Gentile.
But glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.
For there is no respect of persons with God.
For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without law,
and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.
For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law,
these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts,
their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.
In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel,
behold, thou art called a Jew, and restless in the law, and makest thy boasts of God, and knowest his will,
and approvers the things that are more excellent being instructed out of the law,
and art confident that thou thyself a guide of the blind, a light to them which are in darkness,
an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which has the form of knowledge and the truth in the law.
Thou, therefore, which teases another, teaches not thyself. Thou that preaches, a man should not steal.
Dost thou steal? Thou that sayest, a man should not commit adultery. Dost thou commit adultery?
And thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boasts of the law,
through breaking the law, dishonours thou God. For the name of God is blasphemed among Gentiles through youth,
as it is written, for circumcision verily profited, if thou keep the law, but if thou be a breaker of the law,
thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore, if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law,
shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shalt not uncircumcision, which is by nature,
if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law?
For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh.
But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter,
whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Brother Wallach, will you pray for us, please?
Lord, most rest in heaven, Father, we thank you for the time that you have allowed us to gather.
Lord God, we always have so much to be thankful for.
And Lord God, we just ask you to bless the pastor as he preaches, blesses his mouth, and cleanses his mind
so that he may boldly preach a word.
Lord God, we ask you to bless our hearts and our ears so that we may gladly receive your word,
and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. So tonight in Thanksgiving, of course, I'm going to take a break from our typical midweek service.
We're going through the book of Genesis and preach a Thanksgiving sermon.
And I want to preach a sermon entitled, A Good Reason to Be Grateful.
A good reason to be grateful.
Of course, there's many reasons that we could give thanks to God today.
In fact, there's many people today in this world that are giving thanks to God, maybe not necessarily the Lord himself,
but they're grateful to some higher power.
They're grateful, perhaps, just for the blessings that they experience from being in this country.
And they're grateful for a lot of carnal things.
And obviously, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be grateful for the physical things that we have, the blessings, the prosperity.
But the real reason we should be grateful this evening is because of God's mercy.
If there's one thing that we can be grateful for this evening, one thing that we can praise God for every day of our lives,
it's the fact that God has been merciful to us.
If you look here in Romans chapter 2, look at verse 1, it says,
Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judges.
For when thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself.
For thou that judgest doest the same things.
Of course, Paul in this chapter is pointing out the hypocrisies of the Jews.
He goes on in verse 2 and says,
But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things and doest the same,
that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?
Look at verse 4.
Now, why is it that there's some people that would judge others for the things that they themselves are doing?
Those that would judge them which do such things, they shall not escape the judgment of God.
Why would anyone have the hypocrisy in their lives?
It says in verse 4, Paul posing this hypothetically, I believe,
Or despises thou the riches of his goodness.
And that's really what the problem with the Jews is here.
They despise the riches of God's goodness.
Because what was their big beef was the fact that Paul and the apostles and Christ turned unto the Gentiles and turned away from the Jews.
Of course, the Jews were welcome to get saved if they believed on Christ.
But the Jews saw the goodness of God when he turned unto the Gentiles, or he was the light unto the Gentiles.
And in many ways, they despised the riches of God's goodness, despised the riches of God's forbearance and long suffering,
not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth to repentance.
They should have seen those things taking place and saw the goodness of God, the long suffering of God, the forbearance of God,
and that actually should have driven them closer to God to abandon their hypocrisy, abandon their trust in the law and to trust in Christ,
because of his goodness, because of the fact that he did, through his forbearance and long suffering, go to the Gentiles.
Look at verse 5,
Jump down to verse 11, it says there, there is no respect of persons with God.
That's what he's trying to get across.
And look, just because you trust in the law, it doesn't matter.
It's going to be honor and glory and also damnation and judgment to the Jew first and to the Gentiles we just read.
There is no respect of persons with God.
That's why God was able to go to the Gentiles and it should have, again, compelled them to see the goodness, the forbearance and the long suffering of God.
And that should have caused them to be thankful.
But as you read in Romans chapter 1, on that path of becoming a reprobate, if you want to turn back there, you can.
It says in verse 21, because that when they knew God, specifically the Jews, they definitely had the oracles of God,
they were given those things, they knew who God was, yet they glorified him not as God.
And what was the first thing there after having not glorified God?
What's the first thing that it mentions there?
Neither were thankful.
They were not thankful for the blessing that they had been given through knowing God,
that they were damaged every way, as Paul goes on and says, chiefly that they had the oracles of God.
They were thankful for that, for the privilege, the opportunity that they had to be God's messengers to be that light of the Gentiles that they were supposed to be.
Neither were they thankful.
Ingratitude, or a lack of thankfulness in our lives, can lead us down a dark path.
Obviously, if we're saved, we're not going to become reprobate.
But the principle is here.
That's kind of what kicks things off.
When we know God, we know what God is like, we see how good and long-suffering and merciful God is,
and we're not thankful for it, that can lead us in the wrong direction, that could take us to a bad place in our lives.
And one reason we should be grateful this evening is because of the fact that God is good, that God does forbear, that God is long-suffering in our lives.
We should be thankful for the mercy of God in our lives.
Now, there's many reasons, again, why we could be thankful this evening.
We could all go around and probably give good things that we're thankful for.
I asked a few of my children, what are you thankful for today?
And they gave me good reasons.
I'm not saying there's any wrong answer.
But it's a lot of things that a lot of people be thankful for.
They're thankful for family.
They're thankful to live in the United States.
They're thankful for their home.
They're thankful for their friends.
They're thankful for a lot of these carnal things, not necessarily spiritual things.
And look, it's right and just and proper that we give God thanks for even the carnal things in our lives.
Don't get me wrong.
We pray over the food.
We give thanks for God for the food that we eat.
We give thanks to God for our family, for our friends, for these carnal things.
But I'm here to tell you, those things come and go.
We might not always have those things.
We might give thanks this morning or this evening for God's mercy, or excuse me, for our health.
You might say, I'm so thankful that I'm in good health.
Well, what happens if your health takes a turn?
As it's want to do in all of our lives at some point, we go through things physically even.
We go through trials and temptations with our health.
Maybe it's our finances.
Maybe we say, I'm just so thankful to God that my finances are what they are, that I've got all my ducks in a row,
and I've got my little apple cart just arranged just right with all my investments and my debts and everything.
You've got everything just right.
Your portfolio is looking good.
You're thankful for God.
But what happens when the economy takes a downturn?
What are we going to be thankful for then?
Maybe we're thankful for friends.
What if friends turn on us?
What if friends move away?
What if friends stop being friends?
Maybe we're thankful for family.
What happens if family's taken away?
What if they die or get sick or whatever it is?
There's so many carnal things that people are thankful for that can just be taken away the next day.
It can just be gone in an instant.
And yet the one thing that we can be thankful for in God is something that will never be taken away, God's mercy.
God's mercy will never fail.
God's mercy is always going to be there.
In fact, if you would, we're going to spend a little bit of time in Psalms.
But if you want to go back to Job, you're getting pretty close to Psalms right there.
Go back to Job chapter number 12.
See, there's a lot of people today that are giving thanks for a lot of carnal things.
And again, there's nothing wrong with that.
We don't want to take those things for granted.
But what I'm saying is a lot of those things can disappear.
A lot of those things can just be gone tomorrow.
We're so thankful for the freedoms that we have, that could be gone.
We're so thankful for the peace that we have in our land, that could be gone.
We're so thankful to health, our finances, whatever it is, that could be gone.
All these things that are carnal, yes, be thankful for them.
But understand that those things can be taken away.
And my question is, what are you going to have to be thankful for then?
What are you going to be grateful for?
Well, I'm going to give you a good reason to be grateful this evening.
Be grateful for God's mercy.
The Bible says in Matthew, Jesus said that he, speaking of God,
may give the sun to rise on the evil and the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
We all, just by living on God's green earth,
just by being on earth and just being human beings,
we all just naturally, inherently have the blessing of God in our lives,
whether we acknowledge that or not.
There's people all over this world that aren't thanking God at all,
and yet they are inheriting his blessing every single day.
They're enjoying their life. They're enjoying their health.
They're enjoying the freedom to whatever extent they might have.
They're enjoying just being alive, just being present.
There's people all over this world.
They're enjoying the rain falling on their land.
They're enjoying the sun shining upon their land
just because God is just, by nature, a good God.
As it said in Romans, they despise the riches of his goodness.
God is just good to everybody.
God is so rich in goodness, God just blesses people
that might never thank them one time in their entire life.
So we need to have a deeper reason, as God's people,
to be grateful this evening, to have a reason to give thanks.
We might give thanks for all these things, the sun.
We might give thanks for the rain that's falling on land, the prosperity.
That's good and that's right.
But you know what? There's a lot of people that have that,
and they're not thankful at all, yet they still get it every day.
I'm not saying don't be grateful for those things.
We know we have even more reason to be grateful this evening
if we are saved, we have a reason to be grateful,
and that reason is God's mercy, salvation.
Look at Job 12 verse 6.
The Bible says in Job 12 verse 6,
the tabernacles of robbers prosper.
I think it's talking about Washington here.
And then they that provoke God are secure.
Into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
Job's making a great observation here,
that the wicked prosper in their way.
The wicked, they even provoke God, and yet they're secure.
It seems like no evil befalls them.
They're just seeming to get away with it. Why?
Because God's rain and sun comes upon the evil and the good.
It falls upon the just and the unjust alike.
God blesses people just for being on his earth.
The earth is the Lord's and the fold is thereof.
Anything that they benefit from just being here
is a blessing of God.
They prosper, even though they're robbers.
They provoke God, and yet are secure.
It seems like nothing happens to them.
Into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
God just blesses people just for being here.
But ask now the beast, he goes on and says,
and they shall teach thee.
Ask the follows of the air, and they shall tell thee.
Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.
And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
Who knoweth it not all these that at the hand of God
hath wrought this?
These, the fish, the animals, the sea,
these animals of the sea, they know
that at all these that at the hand of the Lord
hath wrought this.
They know that they are of God.
Verse 10, in whose hand, the Lord's hand,
is the soul of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.
Every single person can get up this evening and say,
I'm thankful for the next breath I'm about to breathe.
They could just be thankful for just being
able to draw the next breath.
Because truly, the Bible says the breath of all mankind
is in the hand of God.
God can take away the breath of every single one of us
like that.
In an instant, we could all be thankful for that.
And we should be.
I'm not trying to say let's not be
thankful about those things.
We should be.
But you know, the tabernacle of the robbers, they prosper.
They provoke God.
They're secure.
And they're blessed.
God brings them to them abundantly.
They just are inherently blessed just
by being on God's green earth, just
by being able to draw breath.
But we have a great reason and even better reason
than they to be grateful this evening.
A good thing to be grateful for is the mercy of God.
And the Bible emphasizes this quite a bit
if you want to go to Psalm chapter 30.
Psalm chapter 30.
Let's be grateful for the blessings.
Let's be grateful for the security that we have.
Let's be grateful for our families.
Let's be grateful for our church.
Let's be grateful if we live in the nation that we do, honestly.
There's nowhere else I'd rather live.
Let's be grateful for all just the prosperity that we have.
Let's be grateful for all the freedom that we have.
But above all of that, if all those things
are taken away from us, we could still
be grateful, even more grateful for any of those other things,
for God's mercy.
Look at Psalm 30.
Look at verse 1.
I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up.
Thou hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.
O Lord my God, I cry to thee, and thou hast healed me.
O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave.
Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his,
and give thanks at what?
At the remembrance of his holiness.
You know, if we start to dwell on the holiness of God,
we start to think about what God is really like,
then we'll start to be grateful for God's mercy.
Because when we start to realize how truly short we
come in the glory of God, that's when God's mercy really
starts to stand out.
That's when we really truly start to become grateful for the fact
that we even know God.
As it's said in Romans, they despise the riches
of his goodness and his forbearance and long suffering.
They despise the riches of his goodness.
God's just good to everyone.
God just blesses all the earth.
God just blesses every living soul.
God blesses every living thing.
Everything that draws breath is in God's hand.
He can take it away.
God just blesses everything abundantly.
The earth is the Lord's in the fullness thereof.
They despise the riches of his goodness,
but also another aspect of God that they despise
or take for granted is God's forbearance and long suffering.
What's forbearance and long suffering?
It's being patient and putting up with things.
If you're long suffering, meaning you suffer long.
Suffering in the Bible does not mean always
like you're suffering from an ailment.
It means you're putting up with something.
Like Jesus said, suffer the little children.
He didn't say, torture them.
He didn't say, flick pain on them.
He's saying, suffer them.
Put up with them.
You're the one that's suffering.
You're the one that's having education and kind and gentle
and waiting upon them.
And the Bible's saying that one aspect of God
that we can be grateful for is the fact that his forbearance
and his long suffering.
And if we would give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness,
what we'll actually probably end up giving thanks for
is how merciful God is.
When we start to understand how truly holy God is,
how righteous God is, that's when
we'll start to give thanks for the mercy of God.
As it says there in verse 5, for his anger endureth,
but for a moment in his favor his life,
weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in mourning.
The Bible says that the mercies of God are what?
New every morning.
And in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved.
Go over to Psalm chapter 97.
Actually, just go to Deuteronomy 8,
because I do want to read Deuteronomy 8,
which is about application.
And I know we're all the tryptophan setting in
on everybody from Turkey.
I know all the sugar is starting to wear off.
And hopefully, you guys are with me tonight.
I don't lose too many of you to the post-food coma.
It looks like everyone's hanging in there
and maybe brewing coffee.
I'm quite surprised right now.
I do want to move along, though.
The Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 8, look at verse 1.
All the commandments which I command in this day,
ye shall observe to do that you may live and multiply
and go in and possess the land which
the Lord swere to your fathers.
So in Deuteronomy, Moses is exhorting the children of Israel
just before they enter into the land of Canaan
and start to conquer that land.
And he's giving this word of warning here
in chapter 8 about what could potentially go wrong.
In fact, what does end up going wrong?
We know the story.
It says in verse 2, and thou shalt
all the way which the Lord thy God led thee
these 40 years in the wilderness to do what?
To humble thee and to prove thee,
to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldst
keep his commandments or no.
So he's saying, don't forget the 40 years you spent
wandering in the wilderness.
And in that 40 years, God was doing something.
God was, one, humbling you, causing you to rely upon him
and also proving you, like testing you.
And the test was to know what was in your heart,
whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no.
Are you going to love God and be thankful for the Lord
and keep his commandments in the good times, in the bad times,
or only in the good times?
We never really know until we go through the bad times.
And I'm just trying to prepare you to look.
When the trials come, when things get difficult,
you can still be grateful for God for his mercy,
even when these other things are taken away.
I mean, this is what he did to them in the wilderness.
It says in verse 3, he humbled thee
to hunger and fed thee with manna, right?
He's just feeding them with manna.
We know he brought the quails on one occasion.
But that's what they ate.
All the rest of the time, they're
just eating this angel's food, manna, day in and day out.
That's what they were eating for 40 years.
And God's saying, he suffered thee to hunger,
in the sense that he didn't give them anything else,
only what God was providing.
And that was the test, right?
He humbled them to prove them, to know what was in their heart,
and he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger.
And in our own lives, that might be what God does to us.
In fact, I believe that is the case in everyone's life,
to some degree and others.
God will allow you to go through a wilderness.
God will lead you into a place where
you will have to rely upon him, where you will actually suffer.
And that's God testing you to know what's in your heart,
whether you will keep his commandments or not.
And a lot of people, they don't always
go out the other side like the children of Israel
did in this instance.
Sometimes that kind of beats people out.
Sometimes people, you know, they say, enough of this,
and they go back to Egypt, as it were.
They want the leeks and the onions
and the cucumbers of Egypt and forget
that they were in bondage in Egypt, under hard bondage.
They don't want to follow God to the testing.
They don't want to get to Canaan land.
They don't want to get that victorious Christian life
because they don't want to go through the testing.
They don't want what's in their heart to be exposed.
And God is testing them, it says in verse 3.
He fed them with manna, which thou knewest not,
neither thy fathers know, that he might be to know,
that man did not live by bread only,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God
doth man live.
So look, it's great that we're grateful for the physical things
that we have, the food, right, all the things
that we just enjoy in this life, the provision, the blessing
that's upon us.
But look, those things should not constitute our lives.
Our lives should not be just about money.
Our lives should just not be about enjoying the cares
and the pleasures of this life.
Why?
Because man's life consists more of the things
which he possesses, Jesus said.
He said, take heed and beware of covetousness,
for a man's life consists not of the things which he possesses.
And that's what he was kind of proving to the children of Israel
here.
Hey, you guys are going to go without?
You're going to suffer hunger?
You're only going to have the manna?
But you're going to learn a lesson in that you live
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,
not just by bread only.
Look at verse 4.
Thy raiment waxed not old upon me,
neither did thy foot swell these 40 years.
Thou shalt also consider in thine heart
that as a man chasteth the sun, so the Lord chasteth thee.
Therefore, thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy
God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.
For the Lord thy God bring me into a good land,
a land of brooks, of water, of fountains, and depths,
and the spring out of the valley of hills,
a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees,
and pomegranates, a land of oil, olive, and honey,
a land where thou shalt eat bread without scarcest,
thou shalt not lack anything in it,
a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills
thou may diggest brass.
And when thou hast eaten, art full, and art full.
We can all relate to this right now, right?
When thou hast eaten, and art stuffed to the gills,
thou art full, thou art comatose with food.
Then, thou shalt bless the Lord thy God
for the good land which he gives thee.
Look, we should definitely be thanking God,
and blessing God, for the good things that he gives us.
But the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes
these things can be taken away from us.
In fact, maybe, when we go back to verses 2 and 3,
we see that maybe God's the one that will lead these things away.
Maybe God will suffer us to be lean.
Maybe God will suffer our finances to not be what we want them to be.
Maybe God will suffer our help to be in peril in some way,
to go through some trial difficulty.
Maybe our relationships will be what we want them to be.
Maybe God will lead us through some kind of wilderness,
and test us to see what's in our hearts.
And what should be there, what should be there in your heart,
is gratefulness, gratitude for God's mercy.
If we take every blessing away from God, if we're saved,
we still have God's mercy.
That's still something to be grateful for every single day.
No matter how hard, how difficult, how trying of a circumstance we find ourselves in,
we have the mercy of God in our lives.
And there's a danger here when the only thing that we're grateful for in our lives
is the blessings, like the food, like as here, which is what he's warning you about.
The land itself, eating bread without scarce-ness, not lacking anything,
having all the resources, the stones of iron,
DVD brass that was just having all this abundance.
This is like a description of our world today, the United States.
And we're digging all these minerals out of the earth and doing all these things with it.
And truly, we are a nation that is eaten in its full.
And look, a lot of people are grateful for that.
They're grateful for all the blessings that they're having in their lives, these physical blessings.
But if they're not grateful for God, bad things can happen.
That's what he says in verse 11, beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God.
The tendency is that when we are blessed in this way,
when we have eaten in our full, that we tend to forget God.
We tend to forget that we rely upon God for all these things,
that our breath is in his hand, and that it's God that gives us all these good things.
That's what happens.
Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God.
Oh, I'm not going to forget God.
When you eat in our full and you're enjoying all the prosperity, it's easy to forget God.
How do we know if we're keeping God and not keeping his commandments?
A lot of people today, they'll pay lip service to God.
Oh, I'm grateful for God, but do you keep his commandments?
Do you do what God commands you?
Because that's what somebody who's grateful does.
Look, if we're grateful to God, then we're going to want to repay him in some way.
We're going to want to please him for the blessing that he's given us.
We're going to want to be on his good side, right?
When we eat in our full and have built worldly houses, it says, and dwelt therein,
when thy birds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied,
all that thou hast is multiplied, and then thy heart be lifted up,
and thou forget that Lord thy God that's brought thee out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage,
who led thee through this great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions and trout,
where there was no water who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint,
who fed thee wilderness with manna, which thy fathers do not,
that he might humble thee, that he might prove thee, to do thee good at their latter end,
and now say in thine heart, My power and the might of thine hand hath got me this well.
And look, for elimination, that's kind of what people say to me, isn't it?
You know, American exceptionalism.
It's our American exceptionalism. It's our form of governance that has blessed us.
Look, I understand there's people out there that give credit to God and praise God,
that by and large we are a Christian nation, quote unquote, whatever that might be today.
And we truly ought to, because we truly are a nation that I believe has been blessed by God because we have all these things.
But the temptation is, on an individual and even on a national level here,
that when we prosper and we're doing good, that we forget God.
We don't want to do that, because all these things can be taken away.
Look at verse 19, and it shall be.
If thou do it all, forget the word thy God, and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them,
I testify against you this day that ye shall utterly perish.
He's not saying, oh, you know, if you choose to forget God, if you just blow God off,
if you don't obey His commandments, if you don't keep His statutes and His judgments,
if you don't do all the things that are commanded here this day,
that God's just going to be like, oh, well, you know, what can you do?
You know, well, you know, I try.
No, the Bible says that God is actually going to be against you.
God is going to actively seek to come against you and destroy you.
I mean, that's what it means to perish, right?
I testify against you this day, ye shall surely perish.
As the nation switch the Lord destroyed before your face, so shall you perish.
Because you would not be obedient under the voice of the Lord your God.
You say, you know, when you have all this prosperity, all this blessing, you know,
and maybe if you're thankful, don't forget to be thankful to God.
And if you're going to be thankful to God, you're going to keep His commandments.
And if you don't, God may destroy you as a result.
In fact, He will as we sing for you.
And it's because, as it says in Romans, right, Romans 2 we read,
God has no respect for your persons.
Look, if we become ungrateful as God's people,
if we become unthankful, if we do not appreciate what, as it said over there,
if we despise the riches of God's goodness,
if we despise God's mercy, right, His forbearance and long suffering,
if we're not thankful for those things, the blessings that God has given us,
you know, God will get it out of us one way or another.
You know, maybe God will break things into our lives
to remind us how grateful we ought to be.
You know, God wants to bless us.
God wants to give us good things.
But more importantly, God does not want to be forgotten by us.
I mean, think about it.
If God's going to make a decision between,
well, I can either bless this person
and give them abundance and prosperity
and have them forget me, or I can not bless them,
in fact, maybe make life harder on them to get them to repent
and to actually pay attention to me and do my commandments,
which one do you think God's going to choose?
If I can make this person, you know, fat and sassy
and have them forget about me or make them lean
and make them, you know, skinny and get them on their face
before God can actually seek my face,
which one do you think a holy God is going to choose?
He's going to choose the latter, obviously,
because God does not want to be forgotten.
God deserves thanks.
God deserves praise.
Amen.
In fact, go to Psalm 118.
There's this phrase, right?
Like, if you just look up give thanks in the Bible,
the number one thing, I didn't do it in count,
but it just, to me, I think the vast majority of time,
the Bible says to give thanks for God's mercy
more than anything else.
You know, don't quote me on that.
If it's not, if that's not the majority of times
that that phrase is used, give thanks for his mercy,
it's really close.
It's like a close second.
You know, we ought to give thanks in the Lord's life
because his mercy will do us forever.
That's what the Bible says.
And, you know, God will bring us to this conclusion
one way or another.
God will get us to acknowledge his mercy
one way or another.
I'm just trying to remind you tonight,
hey, let's not forget God.
Yes, let's be thankful for all these good things,
all these carnal things,
all these physical things that God's given us,
but that doesn't make us stand out, right?
We should be thankful for those things,
but there's a lot of people that are grateful for those things
that don't even know Christ.
They're grateful to have the liberties and the freedoms
and the prosperity that they do.
They don't even know who they're thanking.
We have much more to be thankful for today.
We have a good reason to give thanks is for God's mercy.
Look, where did I have to go?
118.
118?
The Bible says in Psalm 106, I'll just read to you,
Praise be to the Lord, oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.
Psalm 107.
Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good,
for his mercy endureth forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.
Let me have the redeemed from the hand of the enemy
and gather them out of the land,
from the east and from the west
and from the north and from the south.
Psalm 118.
Look at verse 1.
Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good,
because his mercy endureth forever.
I'm not repeating myself.
The Bible's repeating itself.
It's constantly reminding us, be thankful to God.
Why?
Because his mercy endureth forever.
Look, I don't care what you're going through in your life.
I don't care what trial you're going through,
if your health is suffering, your finances are suffering,
what position, whatever hardship you're going through,
whatever desert God might be leading you through,
wherever you're at in life, whatever isn't right in life,
you still have a reason to be grateful, and it's for God's mercy.
God's mercy, one, yes, that he saved us,
but also that that mercy endures forever.
Once we're saved, we're always saved.
We're never going to lose that.
His mercies are new every morning.
One of the great things about God's mercy
is that it endures forever.
If we're out of sorts with God, if we're backslidden,
we're not right with God, God's mercy still endures.
It's still there.
God still longs sufferings.
God is still willing to forbear.
God is still rich in goodness.
God is still waiting for his children, his people,
to get right with God any time they please.
And you know, he might just make things,
he's a leader, a leader, a leader.
I'm just saying, what's just God with a punch
and start acknowledging the mercy and grace of God
in our lives now?
Psalm 118, verse 1, I think I just read it.
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
because his mercy endureth forever.
Verse 2, let Israel now say so,
that his mercy endureth forever.
Let the house of Aaron now say so,
that his mercy endureth forever.
Let them now that fear the Lord say,
that his mercy endureth forever.
Verse 28, thou art my God, I will praise thee.
Thou art my God, I will exalt thee.
Verse 29, oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
Why? For his mercy endureth forever.
I mean, he's just driving hope over and over.
Give thanks unto God.
Why? Because he's merciful.
Give thanks unto God.
Why? Because he's merciful.
And that mercy endures forever.
But in Psalm 136, Psalm 1836,
I might fulfill some people's request tonight
that I don't preach a very long sermon.
I don't know how long I've been going,
but I'm on my last passage here
before I make a little bit of application here at the end.
At midnight, the Bible says in 119,
I will rise to give thanks unto thee
because of thy righteous judgments.
Look at Psalm 136, verse 1.
Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good.
For his mercy endureth forever.
In fact, I would encourage you tonight,
or at some point, to read this entire psalm
because every verse ends in that phrase.
For his mercy endureth forever.
God is trying to get us to understand how merciful he is,
how long suffering is, how forbearing he is.
That's the reason to be grateful tonight.
Yes, be grateful for all the good things,
all the physical things, all the prosperity we have,
but don't forget God's mercy in your life.
Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, verse 2,
unto the God of gods, for his mercy endureth forever.
Oh, give thanks unto the Lord of lords,
for his mercy endureth forever.
Verse 26.
Oh, give thanks unto the God of heaven.
Why?
For his mercy endureth forever.
Well, I don't know that I have anything
to be that grateful for in my life.
You know, I'm not blessed like so and so.
My life doesn't seem, they don't seem to have the struggles
that I have had.
Well, you know, there might be several different reasons
why that is.
Maybe you're not applying biblical principles in your life.
Maybe God is judging you.
Maybe you are being chastened.
Right?
He chastens every son he receives.
He shouldn't have just this notion in their mind
that just because we're saved that we can live however we want
and not experience the chastening hand of God.
It's a real thing.
That's not just hyperbole.
That's not just God trying to talk a big talk.
It's not an empty threat.
When God says that he chastens every son when he receiveth,
neither is there any son to be chastened if not.
That's not a threat.
That's a promise for God.
And if we're going through some lean time,
some hardship in our life, you know,
we shouldn't sit there and bellyache and whine and moan
about how other people have it better than us
or something like that.
How unfair it is that somebody else is more blessed
than we are.
What we should say is, man, I can still give thanks to God
because he's merciful, and we should avail ourselves
to the mercy of God.
I say, God, be merciful unto me.
I teach you that commandment to help me obey them.
You know, that's the application tonight.
The Bible said there in Romans chapter 2,
you don't have to turn there, in verse 4,
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.
And what's the good thing of God tonight
that I'm focusing in on?
What's the goodness of God?
His mercy.
His longsuffering, his forbearance,
the riches of his goodness.
You know, that's the goodness of God.
But what is that supposed to do to us?
You know, what Paul was explaining to Jews
is that, you know, when you saw God's mercy
and longsuffering and forbearance to the Gentiles,
that should have led you to repentance to believe on Christ.
But let's not forget, he also said that God
has no respect for the person.
So even those of us that have believed on Christ,
we also need to understand that, yes, God is good,
that, yes, his mercy endures forever,
but that ought to prompt us to repent.
Look, the reason to be thankful tonight is God's mercy.
Again, I don't care whatever else
is going wrong in your life.
I don't care how much else of your life is in turmoil,
how much you're lacking.
You have a reason to be thankful to God.
You can get down and praise God at midnight.
You can praise God in the morning.
You can praise him in the afternoon.
You can praise him with every breath he gives you
that God is merciful.
That's the reason to be grateful.
But here's the result of true gratefulness, repentance.
If you're truly grateful for God's mercy,
you know what you do?
You get the sin out of your life.
You keep his commandments.
You'd obey him.
You'd keep the statutes.
You'd seek to live for him.
You know, you'd go to church.
You'd read your Bible.
You'd win souls.
You'd figure out what the Bible says
about raising a godly family.
You'd read about your role as a husband,
your role as a wife, and you'd seek to fulfill it.
You'd learn what the Bible commands of you,
how to be an employee, how to be a provider,
how to be an obedient wife,
how to do what the Bible commands us.
That's the result of someone who's truly grateful
for the mercy of God.
That's what it said in Romans.
The goodness of God leadeth me to repentance.
People want to acknowledge the goodness of God,
but they don't want to do any repenting.
And that's the vast majority of the world today.
We're just so grateful today to be able to break, repent.
There's a lot of people that are giving thanks
for this, that thing, and the other thing.
If they're not acknowledging God,
they're not going to crack open the Bible and say,
well, you know, God's good,
so let me figure out what he has to say,
how it applies to me,
and what does God want for me in return.
Look, the goodness of God leadeth you to repentance.
That's what the Bible says.
And the truly great thing about God
is that you can repent any time you want.
That God is merciful.
His mercy endures forever.
Well, I just want to know if I can get right with God.
You can get right with God any time you want,
because his mercy endures forever.
Well, I tried to get right with God,
and I messed up.
I tried to get this set in my life, and I messed up.
I tried to get things right, and I messed up.
Well, his mercy endures forever.
Amen.
So you can just say, well, forgive me again, God.
Forgive me again, God.
Forgive me again.
I'll try again.
Your mercies are new everywhere.
These are the promises that you've proclaimed.
There's no reason to not get right with God.
Amen.
That's right.
His mercy endures forever.
That's the goodness of God.
That's why it leads you to repentance.
Let's go ahead and close the word of prayer.
Lord, again, thank you for the great love
over which you've loved us.
Lord, thank you for the salvation that we have in Christ.
And Lord, thank you for your mercy
that you showed us in the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ, that he died for our sins.
And Lord, thank you for the mercy
that is available to us every moment of our lives.
And Lord, I pray that you help us
to acknowledge your goodness, Lord,
not just in the physical blessings that we have, Lord,
but in the spiritual blessings, the opportunities that we have
to serve you in this life.
And Lord, to have our works rendered unto us.
And Lord, I pray that you help us
to understand your holiness, Lord,
so that we would, again, unveil ourselves with your mercy.
We ask these things in Christ's name, amen.
Amen.
All right, we'll go ahead and sing one more song
before we are dismissed.
Amen.
Turn your song books to page 263.
263.
Barely, barely.
Page 263.
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?