Leslie Weatherhead tells the story of the 5 year old boy use to listen to the radio even
though he could not understand anything but the children's programs. He observed that his
parents listened every day to what was called the news. He could make nothing of that. One
Sunday morning he went into his mother's bedroom where the radio had been turned low so
as not to disturb the baby. Assuming it was the news, he listened and heard a word he
recognized. The speaker kept using the word God. He took off down the stairs to the
kitchen where his grandmother was preparing a meal, and he said, "Granny, you had better
turn on the radio. It's the news, but today it's about God." If ever the world needed to hear
news about God, it is today. God news is good news, for God is good and the source of all
that leads to thanksgiving.
If we live in a world of diminishing gratitude, it is because we live in a world retreating
from God. Gamaliel Bradford expressed the minds of millions of modern materialists who
suspect that they have been short changed in their trading of God for gold. He wrote,
Of old our father's God was real,
Something they almost saw,
Which kept them to a stern ideal,
And scourged them into awe.
I sometimes wish that God were back
In this dark world and wide;
For though some virtues He might lack,
He had His pleasant side.
Had the poet taken some time to study the nature of God he would find that the only
reason God had an unpleasant side, and must be a God of judgment, is because of men like
himself who push God out onto the fringes of life, and put idols in the center. The modern
American is in danger of forgetting his heritage, and like the pagans of old, worshiping the
creature rather than the creator. Years ago a Chinese delegate to a summer conference in
America told of how an Indian, Chinese and American would react to seeing Niagara Falls
for the first time. The Indian would become deeply meditative, his mystic soul being stirred
to commune with the infinite spirit. The Chinese with his ingrained sense of family solidarity
would wish his family could be there to enjoy it with him. The American, however, would
begin immediately to figure out how much horsepower was going to waste per minute.
This is an exaggeration, but one based on the obvious fact that we as a people are
becoming so obsessed with the means of living that we are losing sight of the meaning of
living. G. K. Chesterton said that future generations will discover how miserable we were by
our daily reminder to each other that we ought to be happy. If we were a people basically
happy we would not need constant exhortations to be happy. The fact that every
Thanksgiving we sigh and say we really should be more grateful for all we have reveals how
ungrateful we are. This does not mean that most people do not appreciate having the good
things they have. It is just that it is hard to get excited about it. Turkey and all the
trimmings might turn you on temporarily, but it doesn't last. That is the problem with
materialism and thankfulness on the level of getting good things and pleasure.
Thanksgiving in the Bible is on the level where it has lasting meaning. In Psa. 118 the
author expresses thanks for many things, but notice how he begins and ends this song of
gratitude. He begins and ends with God. Only when God is the alpha and omega of our
thanks do we experience thanksgiving on the biblical level, which is the top level. We tend to
center our thanksgiving around our blessings rather than around the Blesser, and so we
loose much of the emotion and joy of a heart filled with lasting gratitude. We need to lift our
eyes to God and His goodness, and not glue them on the gifts. We must, with the Psalmist,
gaze on God's being first, and then on His blessings.
The fire of gratitude can only be kept burning bright by feeding it with the fuel that
comes directly from God's own nature. Those who rely on the fuel they can produce are
from their own nature soon become cold and ungrateful. Give thanks to God for He is good,
says the Psalmist. God is good; that is the basis for everlasting praise, and not the fact that
you have got everything you need and much beside. Start with God. "Give thanks and
praise to God above, For everlasting is His love, Praise Him ye saints, your Savior praise,
Forever good in all His ways." The first thing this great hymn of gratitude makes clear is-
I. THE BASIS OF THANKSGIVING.
It is the goodness of God. Thanksgiving based on anything less is inadequate and
sub-Christian. If you start out by saying I am thankful because I am healthy, tomorrow you
may be sick, and you have lost the basis for your thankfulness. If you say I am thankful
because I am well off financially, a tragedy could change that, and your basis for gratitude
would be gone. Everything you build on short of the goodness of God is sinking sand. It
alone is the solid unchanging constant, and the stable rock, which endures forever when all
else passes away. The man without God, and the man who has not put his trust in the
goodness of God can never know the joy of absolute thankfulness. The gratitude of the
unbeliever is always relative and shaky because the basis for it can crumble at any time.
Here, however, we have a basis for thanksgiving that never changes, and that is God's
goodness. Whittier wrote,
Yet in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings,
I know that God is good.
It was faith in the unchanging goodness of God that caused martyrs to sing this psalm as
they faced death. The Mediaeval Church ordained that this Psalm be read at the bedside of
those who were dying. Death for man does not change the goodness of God. It is highly
probable that this Psalm was the song sung by Jesus and His disciples just before He went to
Gethsemane. It is the last of the songs called the Hallel, which the Jews sang at the Passover.
Things in this Psalm refer to Jesus that are very appropriate. Whether He sang it or not, He
faced the cross with the assurance that God is good and His steadfast love endures forever.
This hymn of thanks has been precious to the saints all through the ages, but none loved
it more than Luther. In his dedication of his translation of this Psalm to the Abbot Frederick
of Nuremberg he wrote, "This is my Psalm, my chosen Psalm. I love them all, I love all holy
Scriptures, which is my consolation and my life. But this Psalm is nearest my heart, and I
have a peculiar right to call it mine. It has saved me from many a pressing danger, from
which nor emperor, nor kings, nor sages, nor saints, could have saved me. It is my friend;
dearer to me than all the honors and power of the earth..." Luther lived in the realm of
top-level thanksgiving, for his trust was not in man, but in the goodness of God.
O praise the Lord, for He is good;
Let all and heaven above,
And all His saints on earth proclaim
His everlasting love.
The Psalmist is so aware that the basis and foundation of all his gratitude is in the
goodness and steadfast love of God that he calls upon all to join him in praise. Spurgeon
says, "Grateful hearts are greedy of men's tongues, and would monopolize them all for God's
glory." First he calls on Israel to join him. Who was ever more vacillating than Israel, and
yet time and time again God forgave and restored her to favor because of His steadfast love.
Let Israel now devoutly say that all His ways are pure,
And that the mercy of their God forever does endure.
He calls on the house of Aaron to join him, for as priests they had to enter the presence
of God for the people, and they knew it was only by God's goodness and mercy that they
were not consumed. Then he calls upon those who fear the Lord, those Gentile proselytes to
join the song. They were in darkness, and yet they received the light because God is good
and His steadfast love endures forever. All believers have one thing in common, and that is
that they are saved solely by the goodness and mercy of God. That is why God's nature must
become the basis for all our thanksgiving.
We tend to take the goodness of God too lightly. When a man called Jesus good master, Jesus
said, "Why call me good. God only is good." Jesus was saying that nothing and no one
less than God is worthy of the term good. If you wish to call me good, then recognize me as
God. Good is a word, which belongs solely to God. Man is only good to the degree that he
partakes of the nature of God. We use the term loosely, and so it does not convey the
reverence with us, which it had on the lips of Jesus or the Psalmist. In order to be thankful
on the top level, and in order to live on the highest level, we must give more thought to the
goodness of God. Let me share with you one of the greatest paragraphs ever written on the
goodness of God. It is from the pen of that great saint William Law.
"The goodness of God breaking forth into a desire to
communicate good was the cause and the beginning of
the creation. Hence it follows that to all eternity God
can have no thought or intent towards the creature
but to communicate good; because He made the
creature for this sole end, to receive good. The first
motive towards the creature is unchangeable; it takes
its rise from God's desire to communicate good, and
it is an eternal impossibility that anything can ever
come from God as His will and purpose towards the
creature but that same love and goodness which first
created it; He must always will that to it which He
willed at the creation of it. This is the amiable nature
of God. He is the Good, the unchangeable, overflowing
fountain of good that sends forth nothing but good to
all eternity. He is the Love itself, the unmixed,
un-measurable Love, doing nothing but from love,
giving nothing but gifts of love to everything that He
has made; requiring nothing of all His creatures but
the spirit and fruits of that love which brought them
into being. Oh, how sweet is this contemplation of the
height and depth of the riches of Devine Love! With
what attraction must it draw every thoughtful man to
return love for love to this overflowing fountain of
boundless good!"
This is a theme worthy of all the time that can be given to it, but we want to lay one block
at least on this foundation before we finish. Let us never forget that we can only climb to the
heights of top-level thanksgiving by first of all laying this solid foundation. The basis for
true and lasting gratitude is the goodness of God. Only after the Psalmist makes this clear
does he go on to write-
II. THE BLESSINGS FOR WHICH HE GIVES THANKS. v. 5
This verse reveals his gratitude for deliverance from distress. The language indicates
that he was in a tight spot, but that God heard his prayer and led him into a wide place. He is
caught in a crevice and is about to be crushed by the rocks of oppression, but God leads him
out into a wide open plain. He is grateful first for God, and secondly for the highest gift God
gives to man, which is the gift of liberty. Freedom is the blessing he is so grateful for.
Salvation is another term for freedom. If the Son shall make you free you shall be free
indeed. What was salvation for Israel but to be delivered from the bondage of Egypt? All
through the Bible salvation is pictured as release from bondage, and escape from the chains
of sin and evil. Every time we break away from the pressures of sin we can sing a new song
of salvation.
In my distress I called on God;
In grace He answered me;
Remove my bonds, enlarge my place,
From trouble set me free.
The greatest liberty comes when we call on the Lord as a sinner in need of forgiveness.
This is our exodus and our coming out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.
This is when we experience God's goodness at its best. Those who have never put their faith
in Christ and followed Him into the promise land of salvation are still in the Egypt of
bondage, and they cannot sing the song of thankful deliverance. Top-level thanksgiving
depends on deep awareness of the goodness of God, and none can have this awareness until
they have the assurance of salvation in Christ. You must experience God's goodness and
mercy in being forgiven and set free from sin to have the thankful heart of the Psalmist.
Alan Paton in Cry, The Beloved Country writes, "The tragedy is not that things are broken.
The tragedy is that they are not mended again." This is the greatest tragedy of life. It is not
that men are broken and are in bondage to sin, but that they are not mended, made whole
and set free, when God in His goodness has made provision for such healing and liberty.
Even those of us who have been set free from bondage have many trials, and often find
ourselves being pushed into a narrow pit. The kind of liberty that keeps us perpetually
grateful comes only through constant prayer and victory over the forces of evil.
In bondage of distress and grief
To God I cried and sought relief.
In wondrous love He heard my plea,
And set my soul at liberty.
Every day we need to call on the Lord to set us free and keep us on the wide plain of
liberty. The facts of life an history reveal that Christians do not always escape from the
trials and dangers of life. But the facts also reveal that when believers have their roots
grounded in the goodness of God they are always free people. Hugh MacKail, a Scottish
preacher who sought to propagate the faith when it was forbidden, was captured in 1666,
and was given 4 days to live. As he was led to prison the people wept, but his face was happy,
and he cried out, "Good news, good news. I am within 4 days of enjoying the face of Jesus
Christ." Here was a man set at liberty, for he knew the good news of God's eternal goodness.
Juliana Hernandez brought the New Testament into Spain where it was forbidden. He
was arrested, tried and burned. The stern judge said, "I fear you are throwing yourself into
the fire, and for what?" Today school children in Spain read with a thrill the martyr's
answer. "For the joy he cried of bringing food to the perishing, water to the thirsty, light to
those who sit in darkness, rest to the weary and heavy laden. Sir, I have counted the cost and
I will pay the price willingly." Here was a man who could repeat verse 6 of this Psalm and
mean it sincerely. "With the Lord on my side I do not fear. What can man do to me?" You
can never rob a man of his liberty who has made the goodness and mercy of God the
foundation of his life. Let us be grateful for all the gifts of God, but above all for the gift of
freedom. All else is minor in comparison to the liberty he has given us in Christ.
There are many more blocks to be laid on the foundation of God's goodness, but we
need to close with a recognition that this song of praise begins and ends with God's goodness.
Only those who are most thankful for God Himself are among the most thankful of people.
Let us live on the highest plain and let the attitude of this Psalm and the poem of Georgia B.
Adams characterize our Thanksgiving.
I am thankful, Lord, for many things,
But this Thanksgiving Day
I am dedicating to the praise
Of only Thee, I pray!
Aside from blessing temporal,
Apart from gifts so kind,
I'm thankful for the Giver more
Than all the gifts combined!
I'm thankful, Lord, for who Thou art,
For Thy great love divine
That stooped one day at Calvary's cross
And saved a soul like mine!
I'm grateful for the years gone by
In which with guiding Hand
Thou hast with utmost wisdom led
All by a perfect plan!
I'm thankful, Lord, for many things,
Apart from gifts so kind,
I'm thankful for the Giver more
Than all the gifts combined.
