Psalm 100

One Woman’s Crusade

Was the first Thanksgiving really held by the pilgrims shortly after the Mayflower anchored at Plymouth? Texans claim the first Thanksgiving in America was proclaimed in Palo Duro Canyon by Padre Juan De Cadilla for Coronado’s troops in 1541, 79 years before the Pilgrims.

At any rate, Thanksgiving as an annual national holiday was slow in coming. Throughout early American history, some leaders issued Thanksgiving proclamations; some did not. Many were against it for various reasons, and Thanksgiving was an on-again, off-again affair … until Sarah Hale got hold of it. Sarah was a young widow with five children and a millinery shop. She used spare moments for writing, and in 1823 her first book appeared. She was soon hired as editor of a small magazine; then, in 1837, she was named editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, the nation’s foremost women’s magazine. Circulation mushroomed.Godey’s wasn’t a Christian magazine, but Sarah, an Episcopalian, was a devout Christian who injected religious issues into her editorials. In 1846 she launched a crusade to establish Thanksgiving as a holiday. She wrote stirring editorials about it, and November issues featured Thanksgiving poetry, stories, and turkey recipes. She pelted politicians with personal letters on the subject, and by 1859 30 governors had agreed to a common day of Thanksgiving.

Still, no national holiday emerged. As America lurched toward civil war, Sarah tried a new tactic. Disunion, she wrote in 1859, could be averted by Thanksgiving: If every State would join in union Thanksgiving on the 24th of this month, would it not be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution!

But war erupted in 1861. In 1863 she wrote President Lincoln, laying before you a subject of deep interest … the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a national and fixed union festival. The beleaguered president finally agreed, and on October 3, 1863 he established Thanksgiving as a national holiday for the last Thursday of November. Even in war, Lincoln said, we can count our blessings: “They are gracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”

Tell the Lord how thankful you are,

Because he is kind and always merciful.

Tell the Lord how thankful you are,

Because he is kind and always merciful.

Psalm 118:1,29[1]

I. Elements of Thanksgiving

1. Thanksgiving Shout

Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands.

Great shouts of joy in the Scriptures:

a. 1 Samuel 4:5

1 Samuel 4:5 NASB95

5 As the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth resounded.

b. John 12:13

John 12:13 NASB95

13 took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.”

c. 1 Thessalonians 4:16

1 Thessalonians 4:16 NASB95

16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

My favorite illustration comes from my own pastoral experience. It took place on Sunday morning at Bible Baptist Church in Elkton, Maryland. The Sunday morning service was just ready to begin when in came a man who had never attended our church before. He looked around with awe and amazement at the great number of people packed into the large auditorium.

He came slowly down the aisle looking from side to side and seated himself on the second row from the front. As I preached he listened with the keenest of interest.

When the invitation time came, I said, “Now how many of you are not saved, but you would like to be, and you want us to pray for you? Will you raise your hand?” He shot up his hand and waved it back and forth persistently until he was sure that I had seen it. When I asked those who would claim Christ to come forward, he literally bounced out and darted to the altar.

He stood stiff and erect: I asked, “Sir, do you believe that Christ died to save sinners?” “Yes, Sir, I want to do just that,” he said rejoicing, with a beam of triumph about him.

When he came into the baptistry, I dropped him into the water and out again to walk in the newness of life. He came up out of the water clapping his hands and shouting, “Hot dog, hot dog, hot dog.”

Our people roared with laughter. I quickly asked them for silence as I explained that this poor man had not been around the church and didn’t know about “Amen, Praise the Lord, and Hallelujah”; his word was “Hot dog,” and he was praising the Lord with the only vocabulary he knew.

We Will shout together:

“The Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And his truth endures to all generations.”

“Thank you Jesus!”

2. Thanksgiving Service

Serve the Lord with gladness.

Can you bear to be waited upon by a servant who goes moping and dejected to his every task? You would rather have no servant at all, than one who evidently finds your service cheerless and irksome. – George Bowen.

Principal Robert Rainy, of whom a child once remarked that she believed he went to Heaven every night because he was so happy every day, once used a fine metaphor about a Christian’s joy. “Joy,” he said, “is the flag which is flown from the castle of the heart when the King is in residence there.”

3. Thanksgiving Singing

Come before His presence with singing.

Friend: “So you were asked for an opinion of that amateur’s playing. What do you think of it?”

Master musician: “He plays in the true spirit of Christian charity.”

Friend: “What do you mean?”

Master musician: “His right hand does not know what his left hand is doing.”

Haydn, the great musician, was once asked why his church music was so cheerful, and he replied: “When I think upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from my pen, and since God has given me a cheerful heart it will be pardoned me that I serve Him with a cheerful spirit.”

4. Thanksgiving Thinking

Know ye that the Lord he is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

In conversation with Professor S. F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, the Rev. George W. Hervey asked this question:

“Professor Morse, when you were making your experiments yonder in your room in the university, did you ever come to a stand, not knowing what to do next?”

“Oh, yes, more than once.”

“And at such times what did you do next?”

“I may answer you in confidence, sir,” said the professor, “but it is a matter of which the public knows nothing. I prayed for more light.”

“And the light generally came?”

“Yes, and may I tell you that when flattering honors come to me from America and Europe on account of the invention which bears my name, I never felt I deserved them. I had made a valuable application of electricity, not because I was superior to other men, but solely because God, who meant it for mankind, must reveal it to someone, and was pleased to reveal it to me.”

In view of these facts, it is not surprising that the inventor’s first message was, “What hath God wrought!”

5. Thanksgiving

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Psalm 23 NASB95

A Psalm of David. 1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

How has the Great Shepherd taken care of you tenderly?

6. Thanksgiving Worship

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.

Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

Governor Bradford of Massachusetts made this first Thanksgiving Proclamation three years after the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth:

“Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.

Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.”

II. Reasons For Thanksgiving

1. God’s Goodness

For the LORD is good;

Matthew 19:16-17. Good means to be morally sound or excellent. Only God is morally excellent because He is the only one who can cause the most moral benefit to the largest number of beings whether they are moral or immoral. Many people can do morally good things, but the benefit of those things is limited. God not only does morally sound things but He is good. He defines what good is and any goodness that we posses comes from Him.

2. God’s Mercy

His mercy is everlasting,

Tolstoy, the great Russian writer, was passing along a street one day when a begger stopped him and pleaded for alms. The great Russian searched through his pockets for a coin, but finding none he regretfully said, “Please don’t be angry with me, my brother, but I have nothing with me. If I did I would gladly give it to you.”

The beggar’s face flamed up, and he said, “You have given me more than I asked for. You have called me brother.”

Jesus has given everything for us and has called us brothers and sisters in Him and we will enjoy that privilege of His mercy for all of eternity. –

James 2:5 NASB95

5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

Even if all it taken from you, God is still merciful.

3. God’s Truth

And His truth endures to all generations.

Truth is ultimate reality. It is from His truth that we know of His goodness and His mercy because they part of that reality. It is the ultimate reality of God that will remain. All other so called realities will fail. What do believe reality is? Does it match up to the reality revealed in the Scriptures?

We have much to be thankful for.

We Will shout together:

Say Together: “The Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And his truth endures to all generations.” “Thank you Jesus!” 3X

[1] Morgan, R. J. (2000). On this day : 265 amazing and inspiring stories about saints, martyrs & heroes (electronic ed.). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.