Thanksgiving

October 24, 1998: 

This year, the Last Great Day happened to coincide with Canada's Thanksgiving Day.

This is very significant.  In the United States, however, Thanksgiving does not arrive for another month or so.  But this day – October 12, 1998 – is also celebrated as Columbus Day in the U.S., which also has a great deal of topical significance for the Last Great Day. Columbus Day marks the discovery of America: an accomplishment that began a huge change in the history of the world.  The Last Great Day also marks a change – a future change – probably the biggest change ever in the history of world!

In this article, I would like to concentrate on Thanksgiving and its relationship to the Last Great Day. Here are a few excerpts from the Canadian Encyclopedia article on the subject of Thanksgiving:

We are all well aware that God's people are not to participate in the majority of the world's holidays.  But here is one that we can celebrate – if we keep it in the proper spirit. Continuing in the Canadian Encyclopedia:

God's people have used the cornucopia as a form of decoration in our Feast of Tabernacles celebrations.  Canadian Feast-goers have frequently enjoyed Thanksgiving dinners together when that day has fallen during God's fall festival. The Last Great Day has traditionally been the day when we say a well-deserved "Thank you" to all those who have worked so hard to make the Feast a success.  But the main purpose of this article is simply to tell you why and how God's people should give thanks to Him.

Ingratitude

Why and how should we give thanks to God?  These might seem like silly questions to someone who has been a member of God's church for many years.  But ingratitude is a disease that has been creeping into our societies, more and more, and there is a real danger that it might be rubbing off on God's children in these last days:

Paul's words are a vivid and accurate description of our western societies today.  It is a disgrace to our nations to hear children and adults in restaurants and stores, apparently devoid of the mere elements of common courtesy and, apparently with some idea that it isn't "macho" to say "Please" or "Thank you" to the waitress or store clerk serving them.  The average Canadian or American acts today as though all the good things of life are somehow owed to him.  His lack of thankfulness to God is manifest by his refusal to offer a prayer of thanks before his meal, and his complete ignorance as to the requirement to pay tithes, to give offerings to God, and to worship Him on His Sabbaths and Holy Days.  Even our Thanksgiving Days have lost their real, original meaning for many, and have become mere excuses for partying, revelling and getting.

God takes a serious view on ingratitude.  Jesus was dismayed when he had healed ten lepers and only one – a despised, Gentile Samaritan, by the way! –  made the effort to thank Him 

Ninety percent of that group of lepers were ungrateful and used God rather than serving Him.  What would our percentage be?

Ingratitude and selfishness are bad for us, both individually and collectively.  A study of the appropriate scriptures reveals that ingratitude:

• Is a major factor contributing to the moral decadence and crumbling culture of our nations,

• Produces vain imaginations and foolish hearts,

• Is bad for our spiritual, moral, mental and, ultimately, even our physical health,

• Wars against the permanent, eternal, spiritual things (the major message of the Last Great Day),

• Is part of the reason for the apostasy:

Paul is writing here about a group of people who had known God's truth and had practiced His way of life.  But they were not thankful for it.  They rejected it and returned to the ways of the world.

Also, God looks upon ingratitude as being a sin that is Laodicean in nature:

It is a selfish, thankless and ungrateful person who says or thinks, "I am rich and increased with goods.  I am a self-made man.  I have earned it all by my own hard work and ingenuity.  I have nothing that I should thank God, or anyone else, for."

Again, God takes a very serious view of ingratitude because of what it can lead to.

Why?

We have just seen why we should not have a spirit of ingratitude.  On the other side of the coin, why should we be thankful?  What are the reasons why we should give thanks to God?

There are lots of scriptures, including many Psalms, which deal with the expression of thanksgiving to God.  In this article, I would like to concentrate on just one of them – Psalm 92 – which answers our two main questions:

We should give thanks to Him, first of all, because it is a good thing for us to do so.  Our thankfulness is good for God.  Although He doesn't need our thanks, He certainly is glad when His children offer them.  And, of course, it is good for us.  In contrast with the dangers of ingratitude, here are some of the benefits of a thankful attitude:

• It guards against the dangers, previously listed in Romans 1 and II Timothy 3,

• It subdues what one Bible commentator describes as "man's potentially animal-like nature,"

• It is part of God's "way of give" (we give thanks),

• It promotes good spiritual, mental, moral and physical health.

Such a thankful attitude is good for all of these reasons and, if you think about it, it is common sense to thank God when He has answered our prayers.  After all, we undoubtedly will need help again!  Continuing in Psalm 92:

We should acknowledge and thank God for His lovingkindness and faithfulness toward us.  When you celebrate the Last Great Day and during the rest of the year, please think about the following, be thankful for them, and don't take them for granted:

• The Last Great Day and its wonderful and exciting meaning and future fulfillment,

• The Feast of Tabernacles and its meaning,

• The other Holy Days and their meanings,

• The Truth of God that has been – and continues to be – revealed to His children,

• The gifts of God, both spiritual and physical, that He continually pours out to us,

• The church of God and our part in it,

• Our brethren and the opportunities for fellowship with – and service to – them,

• Loving, faithful spouses and good children,

• God's ministry and their untiring service to us.

We should thank God because He gives gladness and even a sense of triumph and victory to those who have an active part in His Work.  In one way or another, every single member is able to have an active part in God's Work.  Remember that we are all different members of the Body of Christ and that, like the parts of the physical body, we have been given different talents and functions.

The apostle Paul also related thanksgiving and triumph, when he wrote,

When the fulfillment of the Last Great Day arrives at last, and we see our parents, children, friends, and other loved ones in the Second Resurrection, we will shout with thanksgiving and great joy:

Returning again to Psalm 92:

We should thank God because His works are great.  Just look at His creation!  Also, His thoughts are very deep – deeper than any human being can totally comprehend.  Consider the microscopic detail He has created in the universe.  Think about the individual, loving attention He bestows upon His children.

Verses 6 and 7 interrupt to mention the future of the incorrigibly selfish and ungrateful of the world: the brutish, foolish, wicked, workers of iniquity. Then we return to the list of reasons why we should give thanks to our great God:

We should thank God because, although His thoughts are very deep (as mentioned back in verse 5), He Himself is most high. This is one of His names.  He is the Most High.  He is the great God of sovereign height.  He is the highest of the high.  He is the ultimate in height!

The Psalmist inserts another interlude in verse 9, to repeat the fate of God's ungrateful enemies, the workers of iniquity.  Then back again to more reasons for God's people to be thankful:

We are to thank God because He will exalt His people.  From the weak and simple of the world, He will exalt us.  He will raise us up from our lowly beginnings, and will anoint us as kings and priests:

Back again to Psalm 92:

We are to thank God because He will do justice to His enemies: the wicked and the ungrateful of the world: those who have been offered His way of life, have tasted of it, but have spurned it as worthless!  Is it right that we should be thankful for God's judgement and punishment upon them?  We certainly should not gloat over their fate, but we would be wise to remember the accounts of the punishment of Aaron's wicked sons, and of King Saul in which the mourning of their loved ones was strictly limited by God (Leviticus 10:1-7; I Samuel 16:1).  We should beware of thinking of God as harsh for His judgments. God's enemies are our enemies too, as we are members of His Family.

We are to thank God because He gives spiritual and physical health and growth to His people, according to His will and His great wisdom and mercy.

The psalmist repeats the word "flourish" here, a word which was translated from the Hebrew "parach," and can also be translated as bud, blossom, grow, sprout, fly, spring up, and abundantly.

In the Old Testament era, "the courts of our God" referred to an Israelite's presence in God's physical temple, which was a symbol of His heavenly throne room.  In New Testament times, the term refers to one's membership in His church and, prophetically, might look forward to the future time when God the Father and Jesus Christ will transfer their thrones from heaven to earth  

We are to thank God, then, because the spiritual and physical health and growth that He has already given us will increase even more in the wonderful, almost unbelievable future that He has in store for us, which again is pictured by the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day.  God's firstfruits will then have been freed of their old, tired, ailing human frames.  God's newly begotten sons and daughters, still in physical form, will enjoy virtually perfect soundness of body and mind in a pollution-free world.  Psalm 92 again:

Fat?  Surely, obesity is no valid reason to give thanks to God?  At the time of the translation of the King James Version of the Bible, to be fat was to be considered healthy and prosperous.  But the word "fat" here was translated from the Hebrew "dashen," which might be better rendered as vigorous or stalwart.

We should thank God because, even in our senior years, God's people are in good spiritual health, most are in relatively good physical health, and are still able to be very active in His Work – bringing forth fruit. This is partly attributable to living God's way of life, which includes obedience to His laws of radiant health that He has revealed to us, and to His blessings, which He bestows upon each of us, individually.

We are, of course, very much aware of those in God's church who are at present suffering from poor health.  These statements are certainly not intended to imply that those who are ill cannot be included as God's people because they are not physically flourishing, vigorous, and stalwart – in the peak of health.  Although I have no statistics to support this, I would say that if we were to compare the percentage of healthy people within God's church to that of those outside, it is probable that we would find God's people to be in comparatively better overall health.  We may sometimes feel that there are so many brethren who are sick.  This is because we tend to be more aware of the health problems of our brethren because of the excellent communications within the church and, through God's Spirit, we care more about the sufferings of our brethren (I Corinthians 12:26).  Although God, in His great wisdom, has permitted some of our members to suffer with major health trials, His laws of radiant health have, nevertheless, had a very positive effect on His people overall.

Although I do feel very much for those who are chronically ill and, although this may seem easy for a reasonably healthy person to say, it is important for us to remember that all physical healing is, at best, only temporary (Hebrews 9:27).  We must keep our minds focussed on the fulfillment of the Last Great Day, when all sickness and disease will be done away forever:

God speed that day!

Also, like that one healed leper mentioned earlier, we must make sure that we take time to thank God when He does answer our pleas to heal us. Remember that the true Miracle Worker – the great God – is more important than the miracle itself.  Back to Psalm 92: 

Last, but certainly not least, we are to be thankful to God because He is totally – one hundred percent – dependable, upright, solid, and righteous.

How?

We now move on to our second question: How should we thank God?

At some undeterminable time in the past, God created some very special spirit beings.  They are described in the fourth chapter of Revelation  as four beasts (KJV) or living creatures (RSV) and twenty-four elders.  Some of their special functions in heaven are to worship, glorify, honour, and to thank Him continually:

When the Last Great Day is fulfilled, the whole world will be able to see these marvellous spirit beings.  It appears that God arranged for many furnishings and procedures in His temple to serve as physical symbols of various aspects of His heavenly throne room.  Perhaps as physical counterparts of the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders, God designated a special group of priests to whom He gave responsibility over the formal and regular thanksgiving ceremonies that were to take place in His temple:

Let us now return to the first three verses of Psalm 92 to find out how God's people should thank Him in these latter days:

These verses tell us that one of the ways we should thank God is by singing praises to Him.  The closest we in today's church of God can come to the thanksgiving activities of the four beasts, the twenty-four elders and the temple's "thanksgiving priests" is through the appointment of men to lead songs, the offering of special music, and the convening of church choirs for God's Sabbaths and Holy Days.

We have our greatest opportunities for singing praises to God during the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day.  These song services are all the more enjoyable for the members of our smaller groups who meet in homes each Sabbath and, sadly, no longer have the regular opportunity to sing praises to God as part of a large group.

The reference, in verse 3, to ten-stringed instruments, the psaltery (another type of stringed instrument, similar to a modern zither), and the harp, refers to the instrumental accompaniment of songs of worship and thanksgiving.  Although we have occasionally made use of other instruments at Feast sites and campouts, the modern congregations of God's church have traditionally used pianos to accompany our hymn singing.  Our local congregation does not have the luxury of an accomplished piano player so, like many congregations, we make use of CDs copied from our old Bible Hymnal tapes for accompaniment.  These work well for most small groups because our "joyful noise" can be augmented by the excellent voices of the singers on those recordings.  Another very pleasant hymn-singing opportunity has been made possible through the wonders of telecommunications, whereby all the North American brethren, including the small "in-home" groups, can sing the final hymn each Sabbath as one united voice of praise and thanksgiving, with the accompaniment originating at our headquarters congregation at Fort Mill, South Carolina.

In addition to our weekly hymns of thanksgiving, we can also thank God for His loving kindness and His faithfulness in our daily, personal, detailed prayers.  Through this scripture, God urges us to do so morning and night.  In His "prayer outline" (Matthew 6:9), Jesus indicates that thanks should be given right at the beginning of our prayers in the "Hallowed be thy name" portion.

We tend to ask for a lot in our prayers.  Again, do we place as much importance on thanking God when He answers those prayers and gives us what we ask for?  Some years ago, one of God's ministers in our area suggested the very worthwhile recommendation that, every so often, we should spend our whole prayer time in nothing else but thanksgiving to God.

We do have so very, very much to thank God for.  As God's children, let us not be guilty of the great sin of ingratitude.  God admonishes us, through the apostle Paul in Colossians 3:15:

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and...

Be ye thankful.

Printable version   =>

This page last updated: March 08, 2012