Be Ye Thankful

11/22/2018(Thanksgiving) 

Of the myriad of things our lives should be filled with, thanksgiving is right up there running over the top! The word of God teaches us that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,” and “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not all consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning…” How amazing is that! How, though found in the Old Testament, are these truths pertinent to us today? Well, the answer is the #1 reason we should have thankfulness on our lips 365 days out of the year. And, from a dispensational Scriptural approach, the Lord did at one time, intervene in the lives of men directly to stop many who became enemies of God’s plan. His plan for us today couldn’t have gotten here (through time) had He not intervened. Be very thankful we live in this dispensation of time. 

Today, we are faced with seeing all sorts of horrible activities by individuals against the “people of God,” and some “people of God” even performing some atrocities, yet God is silent. What is the difference? Where is God today? Does He not care, anymore? Can’t God stop the killing of the unborn? Why do bad things happen to people who belong to God?

Answers to these difficult situations and horrible occurrences get kicked around the political world as though some “hero” politician is going to be the panacea for everything from world peace to some sort of sanctuary from our enemies! In general, the people have come to want to invite “protectionism” and even embrace it as the last hope. These sorts of vacated thoughts, (meaning we just don’t want to deal with this stuff) are not the answers we seek. Where is the God of our Fathers and what IS He saying about this?

Well, this is not a short subject to answer so it will be painfully short, but, here goes: God gave His word to us in a simple to read, 6th grade grammar, set of 66 (relatively) short dissertations, describing His plan from the first day until the last. Yes, from the first day until the last—read it and see. But, for today, here’s the synopsis of it all. 

God made everything and saw that it was “very good.” Then, from time immemorial, came the one creation which had “iniquity” found in him and disruption to God’s plan began. So, the righteous God instigated the plan we are living out. We are roughly 6,000 years down stream on this plan and there isn’t any doubt of its outcome. God wrote it all out clearly for us all to see with only one caveat: to see it, we must believe it. (I know, many side roads get taken and it is impossible for everyone to believe exactly the same way about everything. That will not change God’s overall success plan, He knew we would be like this, and He still wrote the perfect plan execution to a T.)

The Great God and our Father watched His children become so evil that He could only see one “perfect” man left with which to save His plan. In due time, he added another man which (by foreknowledge) He knew would carry out the next big portion of the plan. Then, another carried forth God’s righteous word in written form. Soon, the sinful nature of man began to chop up the written righteous words, and sell excuses and penitences. After that, God stopped speaking for a few centuries to pave a way for the world to see His Son when the fulness of that time should occur. The people of God, of course, killed the Son!……..But, the Father raised Him from the dead, astounding a few, but inciting hatred and blasphemy in the rest!

Not long after that occurred, the Son, resurrected and restored in the “glory which He had with the Father before the foundation of the world,” slowed down an enemy, the most zealous of all enemies, and made him to understand why he could not win against the One with whom he was fighting. He made this fallen creature, a most ungodly man, to understand how righteousness gets imputed freely, not earned. So, the Great Plan of God takes a turn (like a parentheses in time) to make His power known, to seek all that had been lost all along the way. The Father explained through The Son just how powerful that recent death of the Son had been: it was used as a payment for all sins for all mankind for all time. Then, the Son went on to explain, that magnificent, glorious resurrection showed how full and complete this plan is by providing a justification for , not nations as before, willing to believe this plan (of salvation.) Just believe it. 

That being shown, and the rest of the story yet laid out before us and not having occurred, is the reason the Lord isn’t being heard from today. These horrible events we see and hear of are the futile attempts by that well known enemy to turn the people of God away from the perfection in the plan. the foreknowledge of God keeps His people safe, dead or alive (sorry for the bluntness.)

 He wrote it down, told men to preach it—in season and out of season, don’t quit till you’re done! You see, this salvation, so freely given, was bought with the price of sin payment, and to make it perfect, the Father had the Son, who was perfectly sinless, perform the whole payment for us all. 

Wait! I’m not finished! Then, if we will simply believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father will seal us; SEAL US, unto the day He takes us to Heaven ever to be with the one who paid the price. Since we are sealed, no amount of evil can get in the way of us being eternally a part of God’s perfect plan. Wow!

In the simplest of terms, in the simplest of ways, for the simplest to hear, this is the answer: “…how that Christ died for our sins (He was delivered for our offenses), according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day(for our justification) according to the scriptures:” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved..”

Now, can you think of anything to be thankful for? If not, consider if He had not died for our sins, had not been raised from the dead, what would be left? Only the failed system of man’s own attempts at being righteous. What a mess, a world missing this, the only hope, the hope of all who seek Him.

Thanks for reading, the Elder.  and “be ye thankful.”