Thanksgiving E-Mail

I received the following e-mail this morning. Since it is on the subject of Thanksgiving
I thought I would post it as another installment in the series.

Large chunks of American Academia have turned their backs by and large on
history. There are many schools in our nation that do not teach history
any longer. They have something called social studies and from that
perspective they look back at source and root of some of the issues that we
face currently and through that they attempt to show people what happened
in the past. The problem with that of course is that one gets only bits and
pieces of the picture. It could be argued that at its best we only have
bits and pieces but we can and in the past have done considerably better
than the pseudo intellectuals of our day are doing in their attempt to bury
the subject of history. Why the reluctance to look at history. Philip
Schaff (The greatest church historian of the 19th century and arguably the
greatest church historian ever) quoted someone (I am not sure of who he was
quoting) "Those who refuse to study history will be condemned to repeat the
mistakes of their ancestors. I believe that to be true. We however face a
problem that is in addition to that. It is a sense of forgetting our
roots, and by so doing losing our identity. In a great many ways our
identity has already been lost. Make no mistake those who came to these
shores were not Politically correct and if someone had challenged them
about their attitudes they would have been very abrupt with their answers.
The Politically Correct crowd are not made of the stuff of men like
Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Henry, Peyton, Hancock,
Muhlenberg, Greene, Allen, Boone, Lee, Rogers, Edwards, Post, Bellamy,
Whitefield, Brainard ,Zeisberger, Brainard, Sargent, The Tennents and
others.

The small list that I have written down are names that come to mind at
once. The list could go on and on and among other things for which to give
thanks to God at this season of the year is thanks to Him for raising up
such men who gave leadership to a people who were in many ways not a people
at the outset. The spread of the Gospel to the Indians (Don't call them
native Americans or you simply spread another error-since the name America
is also of European origin and the people we call Indians with nearly one
voice called themselves "the people" in their given tongue) was of deep
significance if we take seriously the mandate of Matthew 28 and Acts 1:8.
Men who pledged their lives and liberty and their sacred honor are not to
be taken lightly, and God used those men. Were all of them believers?
Definitely not! But then God is not cramped by being able to use only
those who trust in Him. He used Pharaoh as we read about it in Exodus.
Paul speaks of it in Romans 9:17. It is for this very reason that God had
raised him up. It is God who raises up and puts down nations (Jeremiah 18)
and Franklin (definitely not a believer though a fast friend of Whitefield)
would bring before the Constitutional Convention the need for prayer, and
the need for seeking Divine assistance since he acknowledged that if a
sparrow does not fall without the knowledge of God then no nation can rise
or fall without His hand in it. That God raised up this nation should be
the heart and soul of what Thanksgiving Day is about and in the roots of it
that was precisely at the heart of it. In 2006 there will be a whole lot
of football played on the television and people will speak about being
thankful but as to whom they are thankful it will not be clear and as for
what they are thankful it will be equally a question.

My father talked about days at Moody Bible Institute when they used to sing
"Count your many blessings " they would not sing " name them one by one "
but rather "weigh them ton by ton" It is more realistic and believers have
so much to be thankful for not just one day of the year but every day.
Truly grateful hearts should be constantly in praise to God for His
goodness and His mercy and Grace to us.

There are those who will be reading these lines who will not be in America.
Those of you who fit that description may not be eating turkey (neither
will I since I am allergic to turkey) and the culture in which you are
living may not observe such a day on their calendar. It nevertheless I
believe is one of the most important holidays on the calendar of American
people. It is a time to reflect on

The Greatness of God. He is the God who can say in Isaiah 40 that the
nations are a drop in a bucket, and who in I Kings 19 produces earthquake
wind and storm and yet communicates in a still small voice. He is the God
who lifts up one and takes down another (Psalm 75) He is great and greatly
to be praised, and His understanding is unsearchable. Let those who are on
ego trips about their own intellect have a problem with this if they will
it is cause for those who are His to rejoice that though we are so very
finite yet in Grace He allows us to know Him and to communicate with Him
and He with us.

The Grace of God. In Infinite condescension He has reached into our lives
and brought us from spiritual death to Spiritual life (Ephesians 2:1-10)
We should always be thanking Him for that.

The Mercy of God for it is of His mercies that we are still here as a
people and a nation. (Lamentations 3)

The Incarnation for in this season of the year we begin to think of the
miracle of the birth of the Lord Jesus.

Truly all of God's people should be thankful all of the time (I
Thessalonians 5:18) but at this season of the year consider some of the
larger pictures that we sometimes neglect and be thankful.

A Constant Debtor to Grace,
Glen Miller