In Everything Give Thanks

In the year 1902, at the Keswick Convention, the prayer union, known as the Keswick Prayer Circle, was established, which now numbers scores of thousands, covenanting with each other to pray daily for the speedy effusion of the Spirit’s power in all lands. As editor of The Missionary Review of the World, being in correspondence with persons in all parts of the world, I have noted that, since that date, there have been remarkable outpourings of the Spirit in Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, in various parts of China, in India, in Japan, in Persia, and in Germany; in connection with the work of Dr. Torrey and others in the British Isles; and in at least ten points in the United States of America, widely separated as to distance, and therefore not affected by proximity and contact, such as Schenectady, N.Y.; Denver, Col.; Los Angeles, Cal.; Kansas City, Missouri; Pittsburgh, Pen.; Dayton, Ohio, Portland, Oregon, etc. The wonderful work of God, in Wales, has awakened the astonishment of disciples everywhere. Special tidings have just come from India and Assam, such as the following from the Rev. J. Pengwern Jones, Sylhet: “Telegrams received from Cherrapongee; another outpouring, wonderful scenes, place ablaze; praise Him”; and later: “Glorious work continuing Cherrapongee.’’ Rev. J. Anderson, of the Danish Mission at Tirukovelur, South Arcot, reports as follows: “In the midst of a revival, great stir in the congregation, meetings thrice a day, besides smaller prayer meetings. My heart is boiling over with joy and thankfulness.” These are only a very small portion of the wonderful workings of Almighty God in answer to prayer. Will Christians who are interested in this movement unite everywhere to pray for a general outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit.

In view of such abundant answers to prayer, we may well be moved to praise. Let us meditate on these words from 1st Thessalonians v. 18: “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God concerning you.” Some things attract the mind strongly to this text. In the first place, the scope of the injunction: “In everything

give thanks.” As Chrysostom said: “There is no calamity but sin; for everything else let God be praised.” “For this is the will of God concerning you.”

There are seven important injunctions here, of which this is one; but this is specially emphasized by being declared to be “the will of God concerning us;” and there must be some reason. Perhaps such is found, in part, in the fact that we are most apt to neglect thanksgiving. Archbishop Ussher, on his dying bed, holy man as he was, was much disturbed by his ‘‘ sins of omission,*’ which he was continually beseeching the Lord to forgive; and no one sin of omission is more common than the neglect of thanksgiving.

What specially draws the mind to this injunction is the fact that here our attention is called, not so much to an act as to a frame of mind, a habit of life. This is the only place in the Bible in which seven spiritual frames are put before us in succession — all of them

HABITS OF MIND AND OF HEART.

‘‘ Rejoice evermore” — the joyful frame; “pray without ceasing *’ — the prayerful

frame; “in everything give thanks** — the thankful frame; “quench not the Spirit *’ — the watchful frame; “despise not prophesyings — the teachable frame; “prove all

things; hold fast that which is good — the judicial frame; “abstain from every form of evil** — the hallowed frame. These are all to be cherished as habits of mind and heart and life.

“In everything give thanks.** How little we know of the thankful frame I

We occasionally give thanks; but do we always give thanks? Are we always in a grateful mood? Is our habit one of thanksgiving?

The Book of the Psalms seems to be a kind of spiritual diary for recording prayers ofFered and answered, and occasions of praise and thanksgiving which they evoked. It would be a profitable thing to study the Psalms in this light. It would be found a sort of Divine commentary on rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, in every thing giving thanks. The Book of Psalms may be classified under these three heads: the rejoicing in God, the prayers offered to Him, and the praises offered to Him. And the main author, and those who were his colleagues in these devout compositions, emphasize at least ten different occasions for special thanksgiving to God.

For instance, common mercies — “Who daily loadeth us with benefits.” Then uncommon mercies, great providential interpositions in crises of history; then

gracious experiences of salvation, sanctification, and victory; and again, all that stimulates faith and trust in God’s dealings and God’s character; and then all specially answered prayers; and again all specially sanctified afflictions; and then all holy promptings to obedience; and then the impulses to quickened hope; and especially the new visions of the truth; and, particularly and above all, the new visions of God. Such are the occasions, specially emphasized in the Psalms, upon which thanksgivings were offered to God.

Many other beautiful frames are inseparably linked with the thankful frame. Let us look at a few of them briefly.

First, the habit oj observation. One great error — and it lies at the root of all the rest — is that we are thoughtless. The observing heart is like the magnet, it takes up God’s mercies, as the magnet takes up iron filings. You may pass the magnet through a whole heap of earth, and it will select all the particles of iron and steel that may be in it. Pass a thankful heart through all human experiences, and it will pick up the mercies of God, gathering up occasions of thanksgiving. Think and thank are from one root. To be thankful is therefore, first of all, to be thinkful, and to be thoughtless is to be thankless.

The habit of observation is, of course, linked with another — the habit of meditation. It takes profound and prolonged thought to

ROOT THE MERCIES OF GOD IN OUR
HEARTS,

to make us appreciate and understand them. “If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered” — that is one result of meditation. The Psalmist made the attempt to count up God’s mercies and found them to be absolutely innumerable. The habit of thinking, prolonged thinking, about God’s goodness, passing all His leadings and dealings in review — that is inseparable from the thankful frame.

And then there comes also the habit of remembrance. Observation and meditation fix God’s mercies in the memory; they become matters of recollection to us. How often, in the Word of God, His people are rebuked because “they remembered not His ways,” but “forgat His mighty works!” What were Massah and Meribah — the day of temptation in the wilderness, the day of provocation? Massah means “temptation,” Meribah means “provocation.” And what was the temptation and the provocation that gave this double name to this peculiar experience? When the people had no water to drink, threatening to go back into Egypt, and murmuring against Moses and against God for bringing them out into the wilderness to die, with their cattle, of thirst, they forgot that, immediately before, God had sweetened the waters of Marah by the tree which He had caused to be dipped into them. They forgot all His marvellous doings in the land of Egpyt, the passage through the Red Sea, the Pillar of cloud and of fire; and, when they came into a new emergency they said: “Is God among us or not?^* It was this wholesale forgetfulness of

God’s former mercies that made the occasion to be branded with the two names, Massah and Meribah. God carries us through six sorrows, and we doubt His presence in the seventh. He carries us through six hundred emergencies, and we doubt His interposition in the six hundred and first! We are all just like Israel; we need not cast any stones at them; we are repeating their history to-day, in a lack of observation, of meditation, of remembrance, as to the wonderful works of God.

When these good habits exist they naturally give rise to another — the habit of supplication. As we remember God’s past dealings, these embolden us to pray again. We have found Him a liberal Giver — One who does not reproach us with the frequency or the magnitude of our requests; and so we come again, and with requests for larger gifts, and with larger faith in Him. “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears;” thus the Psalmist is incited by God’s past goodness and his memory of it, to ask again, and continually to ask.

Then, again, the habit of faith is stimulated. Experience of past trust in God, and of past mercies, begets confidence in future interpositions. And this trust — this confidence in God’s goodness, leads to obedience to God’s commandments. We know how safe a Leader and a Guide He is, because past experience has demonstrated it; and so we “esteem all His commandments concerning all things to be right,” and we hate every false way.”

Not only so, but this leads also to joyful frame — even in sorrow and affliction. We look back and say: “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy Word. I know that in faithfulness Thou hast afflicted me.” Naturally,

THE LAST THING WE EVER REJOICE IN

is sorrow. There is perhaps no higher frame of mind than that which is found in the capacity to take delight even in affliction. It is one of the greatest triumphs of grace over the flesh and the world and the devil. Yet, when we stand before God, and, from the vantage ground of eternity review His dealings with us in time, we shall see that if we could have planned our own life, with infinite wisdom and love to guide, we should not have made one solitary deviation from the course of the providential and gracious dealings of God with us — not one. Joseph said to his brethren: ‘‘ Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto goodT Evil men and the devil are continually thinking evil against us, but God means it all unto good. What starts from the adversary like a meteoric shower to smash and destroy us, comes into the atmosphere of God which encompasses us, and is like the meteors, which become incandescent in the air, are vaporized

In Everything Give Thanks ii

and resolved to dust, and so falling upon the earth, actually fertilize it. So the things which start from the devil as curses, reach thankful souls as blessings; so that the experiences we would evade and avoid, and wish to escape are the very experiences that often carry in themselves the greatest blessings to a child of God,

When I saw an emperor moth hatch out in my study on a Sunday morning, after an hour of struggle to get through the narrow neck of the cocoon, I was reminded of the naturalist who saw one of these creatures — which measure seven or eight inches from tip to tip of the wings — struggling out of the narrow neck of its confining covering. Thinking it a pity that the creature should have such a hard time, he took his lancet and slit down the cocoon on the side. At once the moth easily came out, but never developed its magnificent hues, tints and colours, or soaring wings, but drooped for a little while and died. The struggle of getting out of that cocoon was necessary to throw the fluids of the body into the wings and to develop all its beauty and strength. If you could cut down the cocoon of your trial, you might ease your suffering, but you would never have the beautiful colours in your wings, and you would never know what it is to soar upward and God ward.

THE THINGS WE ARE TRYING TO GET RID OF

are often the last things we can afford to get rid of. When we remember God’s mercies, and trace them, and meditate upon them, we shall find that what we have most occasion to be thankful for are the experiences for which we were least thankful at the time.

Then there are other very gracious frames which are developed by the same remembrance of God’s goodness. Take, for instance, the hopeful habit. You feel you can trust the Lord in the outlook for the future, because you find He has been faithful, in the review of the past. He has fulfilled His every promise to you up to this moment. There is a vast wealth of promises that lies in the future for its absolute realization; but you have no doubt that the same faithful God will grant you like exhibitions of His faithfulness in the times to come.

There are some beautiful touches in the Word of God upon this subject. In Micah vii. 20 we read: “Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.” Why “the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham?” Why not the mercy to Jacob, and the truth to Abraham? Because, when God first made covenant with Abraham, He was under no obligation to do so; it was a matter of pure mercy. But, when He had made the covenant with Abraham in mercy, it became, to Jacob, a matter of truth; thus what was mercy to Abraham, was truth to Jacob. God was under no obligation to enter into covenant for your redemption; but, since He has covenanted, it ceases to be a matter of mercy only and becomes a matter of truth. It has nothing to do with your deserts, but it has something to do with His honour. An old coloured woman in the South, who was very poor, obscure and ignorant, was very confident that she was going to heaven. “Why,’’ said one, nobody knows anything about you, and if you go to hell the universe will be ignorant of it.” “Yes, massa,” said she, “it won’t make no difference to de folks in dis world, but it will make a great difference to de Lord, because His truff and honour would be for ever gone.’’* So the great thing is to trust Him, that He will be true to Himself and to you, and the habit of meditating on His past mercies begets confident hopefulness as to His future absolute fidelity.

The Psalms also show us how David was moved by God’s mercies to a giving frame as seen in his abundant offerings. Would that our gratitude were as practical as his I Did you ever reckon the probable value of what he gave, in materials and in money, for the erection of the Temple? Taking the figures, as given in the last chapter of the First Book of Chronicles — 10,000 talents altogether, part of gold and part of silver — it reaches the immense sum of nineteen million pounds sterling — or ninety-seven millions of dollars I — a tolerably decent gift to bestow on the service of God, out of a man’s own proper purse! God was merciful to David, and he was in the habit of meditating upon His mercies till the thought of these things took full possession of him, and, when great crises came, his offerings were abundant.

But, above all things, this led him to offer himself to God. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies ot God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.’’ A thankful heart is not satisfied with any gift short of one’s self; and when one’s self is truly given, it takes in everything else. If you are the Lord’s, certainly everything you have is His also; but too many call everything they have His, and fail to see that it ought to include themselves.

THE GREATEST OF ALL THE RESULTS

of a thankful frame is found in the worshipful frame. There is something better than any blessing, and that is the B lesser Himself — something better than any knowledge of the truth, and that is the knowledge of the God who is THE TRUTH — something better than any benefit, and that is He who bestows all benefits. When you are accustomed to observe God’s mercies and to meditate upon them, and to fix the remembrance of them in your heart; when you are stimulated to greater prayer because of past answers, and to larger trust because of previous experiences, and to fuller hope because of what you have known of God; when you are enabled to rejoice even in sorrow, so that you welcome all the dealings of God’s hand without discrimination; when you are moved to burst forth in witness to others, declaring what God hath done, — then you come to the point where, before the Lord, meditating upon all that He is, as well as upon all that He does, you reach the crown and climax of the thankful heart — adoration, “Thou art good, and doest good.” The Psalmist does not say: “Thou doest good, and art good,” but looks, first of all, to the beneficient God Himself; Thou art good and doest good.” Nothing is more beautiful in the Psalms than this adoring love of God.

Let us look at an illustration or two of this. First notice how the great interpositions of the Lord evoked the most magnificent of all the Psalms. What, for example, was the occasion of the eighteenth? Look in the 2nd Book of Samuel, 22nd chapter. We read in the end of the 2 1st (and there should be no division of chapters here), of the slaying of four giants — sons of Rapha and brothers of Goliath — by the mighty men of David. The whole family of this giant seems thus to have been slain. “And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of 16 The Spirit’s Voice to the Churches

Saul/* It was this deliverance, not only from Saul and his armies, but from the four giant brothers of Goliath, that led to the utterance of this sacred song. There is no other Psalm in the whole collection that in thirteen different places applies the first personal pronoun of the singular number, in the possessive case, to God. Such is the effect of reviewing God’s mercies — we get a sense of personal possession in God. He is our God in a new and special sense. “The Lord is my Rock, and my Fortress, and my Deliverer; my Shield, the Horn of my salvation, my High Tower, my Refuge, my Stay, my Lamp, my Strength, my Power.” These are the expressions found here, all of which reach their climax in “MY GOD.” If you review God’s dealings, if you see how He has given you daily mercies, common and uncommon blessings, providential deliverances, gracious experiences, answered prayers, fulfilled hopes, great revelations of truth, and abundant visions of His own blessed character, you will feel and say,

HE IS “MY GOD.”

Take another example from 2 Samuel, vii. This especially touches the matter of adoration, and is one of the most remarkable chapters in the whole Old Testament. When David was desirous to build a house for God, he was not permitted to do so, because he had been a

In Everything dive Thanks

man of war. Solomon, who was the forecast of the coming Messiah, the Prince of Peace, was selected to build the Temple. But the Lord says to David, Notwithstanding that thou art forbidden to build a house for Me, yet “the Lord telleth thee that He will make thee an house.’’ Whenever the Lord does not grant what His servants ask. He always gives something better. “The Lord will make thee an house. And when thy days be fulfilled ... I will set up thy seed after thee, and will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.” Solomon is undoubtedly the type of the Holy Seed — the Messiah. “I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: but My mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.”

If all that prophecy refers to Solomon it cannot be true. If it refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, there is one clause in it which disturbs us: “If he shall commit iniquity.” But Bishop Horsley and others have resolved the difficulty by showing that it may be translated, “i, iniquity be committed to Him — laid upon Him”’ If so, we 18 The Spirit’s Voice to the Churches

can understand what follows; “According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David.^* In the promise of an everlasting kingdom, and of a Seed from whom this kingdom should never be alienated, undoubtedly David, on that occasion, had a glimpse of the coming Christ. It was then that David saw “His day,” and was glad.

Now see the effect of this vision of the future in the Psalm that follows. It shows how the worshipful attitude comes when we get a proper apprehension of God’s mercy, past, present, and future. “Then went King David in, and sat before the Lord.” He went into the sacred place of communion with God — for meditation. Hear the outburst of the worshipper — there is nothing more beautiful in the Old Testament: Who

am I, O Lord, Jehovah, and what is my house, that Thou has brought me hitherto! And this was yet a small thing in Thy sight, O Lord, Jehovah; but Thou hast spoken also of Thy servant’s house for a great while to come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord Jehovah?” Or, rather, “And is this the decree of the Second Adam?” That is the way Bishop Horsley translates it. David looked through and past the present transient events of life and saw the coming Christ; and, in wonder and adoring amazement, he said: “Lord, Thou hast spoken of Thy servant’s house for an illimitable time to come. Is this the decree about the Coming Man, the Second Adam?”

Oh, that our thankfulness might lead us to sit down before the Lord, and absorb our minds and hearts in meditation on what He has done, what He is doing, and what He is going to do I And remember this, that what He is going to do is so immeasurably beyond all that He has ever done, that it is not worthy to be mentioned in comparison. All the past experience of all the saints in all ages of the world, is but as a drop in the ocean to what the saints are all to experience at the return of the Lord Jesus from heaven, in the perfection of spirit, soul, and body, and in the perfection of the new heaven and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.