by Dallas Crist
"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the LORD. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Colossians 3:15-17
For reasons that only God may know we have lost out on a very important message that Paul tried so explicitly to give to the first century believers through his epistles. What has happened in America? To whence have we given our thanks? Is it truly to the LORD that we give our thanks? Have you ever thought of what thanksgiving is, or how it is given from us to our LORD?
First, let us look back once upon a time in America when thanksgiving was truly a way in which we expressed ourselves to the LORD and how the day of thanksgiving came about. On September 25, 1789 Congressman Elias Boudinot of New Jersey made a proposal to President George Washington to proclaim a day of thanksgiving for "the many signal favors of Almighty God."1 Joseph Gales, author of The Annuls of the Congress, writes that Boudinot "could not think of letting the session pass over without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining, with one voice, in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings He had poured down upon them." So it was on November 26, 1789 that President Washington proclaimed the United States first national day of thanksgiving.
If we were to look back in our most recent past we would find all kinds of different stories as to how Thanksgiving Day came about and why. The most predominant story that I learned about in school was of the Native Americans that brought food to the pilgrims to eat. Thanksgiving was given from the pilgrims to the Natives for the food and they celebrated a day together with this food and fellowship. However, what is written in history that our schools of humanism are leaving out these days?
Most of us would agree with Pastor Flip Benham when he claims that "there is a holiday that is rapidly being removed from our collective memory in America. It is sandwiched between Halloween and Winter Break (dare we say Christmas?). The reason for its purposeful removal from the American memory is that Thanksgiving, more than any other American holiday reminds us of the gracious hand of Almighty God providentially establishing our nation to be a city set on a hill.'"
With that let us dig a little further into the history of the people who would dwell and be residents of this city that so shines on that hill (or, at least once shined). Most of our history derives from our Reformed forefathers. First, John Wycliffe translated the Bible into a language that would be readable to all men and women. The Bible that he took this translation from is called the Vulgate, which is nothing less than the Latin version of the Holy Writ. Then, with the help of Martin Luther and the invention of Guttenburg's printing press the Bible became available to all men in a very rapid succession of events.
Then with all the persecution that was taking place in England a group of believers, called Separatists, were driven out of England by King James. These families, wanting to pass their godly heritage down to their children, fled to Holland in hope that they could establish themselves there. To that demise they realized that the only way to do this is to protect their families from the culture at large, thus causing them to come to America.
Before that recorded history we read of a similar story. "One of the earliest recorded festivals occurred a half-century before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth. A small colony of French Huguenots established a settlement near present-day Jacksonville, Florida,' Diana Karter Appelbaum writes in Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History. On June 30, 1564, their leader recorded that We sang a psalm of Thanksgiving unto God, beseeching Him to continue His accustomed goodness towards us.''"
Following the fall harvest of 1621, the best-known of the early thanksgiving celebrations took place. Edward Winslow's chronicle of the event is written in his work How the Pilgrim Fathers Lived. Pay close attention to an eyewitness account that he records, "Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming among us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation, and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty" (emphasis added).
There is a large portion of our history that is indeed hidden in the annuls of time, and if we want to learn our true history it is going to be up to us to go find the information. Regrettably so, our children will too be diverted from the truth in our secular schools.
Jonathan Edwards wrote a remarkable work on religious affections called A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections in Three Parts. The premise to his entire treatise is 1 Peter 1:8, "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."
Peter is writing to the recipients of his letter acknowledging their grief in all the antagonism they were receiving through persecution. Edwards establishes that there is a threefold benefit to the trials that Peter talks about in verses six and seven of the same chapter, "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by the fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." The first, "hereby the truth of it is manifested, it appears to be indeed true religion. Trials, above all other things, have a tendency to distinguish true religion and false, and to cause the difference between them evidently to appear ... and then, these trials not only manifest the truth of true religion, but they make its genuine beauty and amiableness remarkably to appear ... again, another benefit of such trials to true religion, is that they purify and increase it."
What we glean from this and the scripture quoted is how true religion operated in these Christians under their persecutions, whereby these benefits appeared to them and how it manifested to be true religion, thus was like to be "found unto praise, and honor, and glory , at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Once again, Edwards finds that there are "two kinds of operation or exercises of true religion, in them, under sufferings, that the apostle takes notice of in the text, wherein these benefits appeared.
The first he claims is our Love to Christ. We see in Deuteronomy 10:12, "And now Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul?" And in chapter 6: 4-5, "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one LORD: and thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Just as Moses commanded the Israelites, so has the LORD Jesus Christ answered the scribes by quoting these two verses (Deut. 6:4-5; 10:12) as the very first commandment (Mark 12:28-30). So, in any matter of circumstance our main function is to LOVE God through Christ. Edwards puts it this way: "The world was ready to wonder, what strange principle it was, that influenced them to expose themselves to so great sufferings, to forsake the things that were seen, and renounce all that was dear and pleasant, which was the object of sense. There was nothing in their view, that could induce them thus to suffer, or to support them under and carry them through such trials. Although there was nothing that the world saw, or that the Christians themselves ever saw with their bodily eyes that thus influenced and supported them, yet they had a supernatural principle of love to something unseen; they loved Jesus Christ, for they saw him spiritually, whom the world saw not, and whom they themselves had never see with bodily eyes."
The second exercise is Joy in Christ. Concerning this joy the manner in which it rises (viz. by faith, the evidence of things not seen), and the nature (unspeakable and full of glory); "unspeakable" and "full of glory" in kind and degree. We are to be vigorously engaged in this: "not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the LORD" (Romans 12:11). There is much to say about the affection of love being it the very first command, but let us now take a closer look into the affection of gratitude.
Paul, in the beginning of his letter to the Romans writes, "Although they new God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful..." (Romans 1:21a). I believe Paul is speaking to mankind at large as he recognizes man's foolishness in trying to drive God out his life even though man is endowed with enough information to know there is a God (Romans 1:18-20). So how is it that we show our affection our true thanks to the LORD?
The Psalmist writes in 50:14, "Offer to God thanksgiving, and pray your vows to the Most High." Paul gives thanks unto Jesus Christ in his first epistle to Timothy 1:12. And again, Paul explains that we are to give thanks through Christ (Romans 1:8; Colossians 3:17; Hebrews 13:15), and in the name of Christ (Ephesians 5:20). Ephesians 5:20 doesn't only tell us that we are to give thanks in the name of Jesus Christ, "but we are to give thanks always for all things." (This doesn't mean we give thanks for some things in our lives and other's, all the time; nor do we give thanks for all things on a part-time basis; however, always for all things.) We should accompany our prayer (Philippians 4:6; Colossians 4:2) and praise with thanksgiving (Psalm 92:1; Hebrews 13:15), and magnify God with it (Psalm 69:30).
Some of us may be asking about why we may not be affected by the things of God, thus causing us to not express our affections of love and gratitude towards Him. If this is the case, perhaps we should do some self-examining of our hearts (Psalm139:23-24; 2 Corinthians 13:5). The question that we need to ask ourselves at this point, "Is my heart hardened to anything, anything at all, in any way?"
Jesus looked upon the Pharisees with anger, when He went into the synagogue, as they tried trapping Him for healing on the Sabbath. The cause of His anger was because the hardening of their hearts (Mark 3:1-5). The reason given why Israel would not obey God was that they were hard-hearted (Ezek. 3:7). A hardened heart prevented Zedekiah from turning to the LORD (2 Chron. 36:13).
Next question: What is the opposite of a hard heart? We can find the answer in 2 Kings 22:19, "... because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,' says the LORD."
Again, Jonathan Edwards writes, "Now, by a hard heart is plainly meant an unaffected heart, like a stone, insensible, stupid, unmoved, and hard to be impressed. Hence, the hard heart is called a stony heart, and is opposed to a heart of flesh, that has feeling and is sensibly touched and moved.
"There are multitudes who often hear the word of God, of things infinitely great and important, and which most nearly concern them, yet all seems to be wholly ineffectual upon them, and to make no alteration in their disposition or behavior; the reason is, they are not affected with what they hear (or read). There are many who often hear of the glorious perfections of God, his almighty power, boundless wisdom, infinite majesty, and that holiness by which he is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity; together with his infinite goodness and mercy. They hear of the great works of God's wisdom, power, and goodness, wherein there appear the admirable manifestations of these perfections. They hear particularly of the unspeakable love of God and Christ, and what Christ has done and suffered. They hear of the great things of another world, of eternal misery, in bearing the fierceness and wrath of almighty God; and of endless blessedness and glory in the presence of God, and the enjoyment of his love. They also hear the peremptory commands of God, his gracious counsels and warning, and the sweet invitations of the gospel. Yet they remain as before with no sensible alteration, either in heart or practice, because they are not affected with what they hear."
Going back to the pilgrims, we see in many stories of their thanksgiving they were truly thankful to the Natives for bringing them food, and I believe it would be wrong to downplay the significance of that. For what were they truly thankful? I trust they were ultimately thankful for the sovereign act of God to bring these men to them with the food. If we just look at the acts of men, and think not of the Sovereign act of God through men, we become atheists. Applebaum say this, "Thanksgiving began as a holy day [for there was yet a nation to declare a national pronouncement], created by a community of God-fearing Puritans sincere in their desire to set aside one day each year especially to thank the LORD for His many blessings. The day they chose, coming after the harvest at a time of year when farm work was light, fit the natural rhythm of rural life."
In light of all that has gone on in America over the past couple of months I would like to ask all of us to take an extra moment or two this coming Thanksgiving Day in contemplation of what we are truly thankful for and how it is we can share with the LORD our gratitude. Also, I ask that all take an extra moment in prayer (not a moment of silence) to express this gratitude to our Blessed Redeemer for His grace, mercy, loving-kindness and love for all of mankind, plus the salvation of His elect. Thank Him for this nation as a "city set on a hill."
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