A Profitable Question for Thanksgiving Day

The poet sang, “Within Thy temple, Lord, we think on mercies past.” This psalm speaks of victory over a mighty enemy; therefore, the Lord is praised. We hope to go up to His house to remember His mercy, compassion, and faithfulness shown unto us and our dear ones. The best place for us to show our gratitude is where His church gathers. It is the place which is praised by lovers of the truth. Nothing can be compared with it, especially when the Lord shows His presence.

Some people say that the Lord has completely withdrawn from His church. We cannot deny that there are many shortcomings in our hearts and in the church, but still the Lord shows His favor, and He cares for the church. There are moments when the Lord causes His children to rejoice in His house. According to His promise, such a remnant will remain to the end of the world.

In God’s house we may acknowledge the Lord for the benefits which He has bestowed upon us. Although many are wrestling with sickness, others have been restored to health. Are there not many reasons to be thankful before the Lord? He has spared us for another year, notwithstanding our many sins, while others in our congregation and our families were taken away by death. The main thing is that the door of our life is not locked; it is still open. There is yet a possibility to be converted. When the end of our life comes, then the door is closed for good. Oh, seek the Lord while it is yet possible.

When we look about and see the sins of our country, the sins of the church, and the sins of personal life, then it becomes an incomprehensible wonder that the Lord has not cast us away. God’s Word is greatly despised, God’s law is forgotten, God’s day is misused, and we hear God’s name profaned all around us. Is it not a miracle that we may still have a Thanksgiving Day? Perhaps there are some readers who say, “It has been such a difficult year for me; it is not possible for me to have a Thanksgiving Day.” Let me ask you a question. Is your situation worse than it was with Job?

We receive both good and evil

The great question in the book of Job is, “Can true piety still be found upon the earth after the Fall?” Satan denied that piety existed and stated that man serves the Lord only to receive a reward. In prosperity we sing, “I love the Lord,” but in adversity we leave Him and curse Him. Job must be God’s proof that Satan is a liar. We know the history; even when Job lost everything, he praised the Lord and said, “The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

Satan did not give up. “And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” He pointed out that Job had, indeed, lost all his possessions, but he was personally healthy and well. If he were to lose this, then he would curse the Lord, according to Satan. The Lord gave Satan permission to try Job, but he was not to touch his life. Job was then tried with a horrible skin disease. Soon his wife came against him, “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.”

This was satanic advice. Calvin says, “She was an instrument of Satan.” We cannot find anywhere in God’s Word to show that this woman was wicked or that she embittered the life of Job. No, this woman became embittered by the sorrow. In one day she lost everything, and now her husband is in such a sad condition. She cannot bear it anymore.

Many people have such a problem. It may be a broken ideal, an unfulfilled wish, a setback in business, a disappointment at their work, or perhaps an empty place in the family. If we are honest, can we say that we never become rebellious? Have we never murmured about the ways of the Lord? When we look back upon the season which lies behind us, there can be so many things which we would have liked to have gone differently. We so often look at the negative things, but has not the Lord given us many blessings which we do not deserve?

Job’s wife was not only embittered and sorrowful about the loss of her children and possessions; she was also offended by Job’s piety and his close life with God, especially in their present circumstances. By nature we live with the same offense in our hearts. We can live with religious people, but we do not like to live with God’s people who are always warning us. We would, however, like to die with them, just as Balaam expressed it.

The church is also surrounded by enemies on all sides who say, “Where is thy God?” The world is full of misery, there is much poverty, injustice is done, the wicked rule, and the pious are oppressed. At such times we hear horrible questions such as, “Are you still religious with all that is going on in the world?” The end result is that many leave the truth; it is Satan who uses these difficult circumstances into which we have fallen to undermine the truth. It is grace when in days of adversity we may say, “Thy will be done.”

We receive evil out of God’s hand, which is meant for good

Job was hurt by the words of his wife, but he felt immediately from where they came—from the Prince of Darkness. Job knew that God is God; therefore, He is incomprehensible, unsearchable in His judgments, and His ways are past finding out. God is great, and we comprehend Him not. Because He is God, He is also holy, holy in His doings, and nobody may resist Him. He is God and also good, even in the darkest moments when everything seems to testify against Him. God is good, even when He comes with His judgments.

No matter how much was brought against God, Job clung to God by faith. In Him was all his hope and expectation. The evil which he received out of God’s hand was meant for good even though he could not comprehend God’s ways. “But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”

He who does not take God into account is foolish. The fool says, “There is no God,” but Job knew better. God’s works are often a riddle for man, especially in spiritual life. The doctrine of free grace is a stumbling block unto the Jews and foolishness for the Greeks, who mock with it. The wisdom of the world is foolishness. For a handful of joy people sacrifice the salvation and welfare of their never-dying souls. Whoever is like the wife of Job is foolish. She was instructed by her husband not in anger or hardness husband not in anger or hardness but in love. He said unto her, “What, shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” The good that Job received was from God, and so it is with each one of us. All that we have and that we receive, like marriage happiness, a quiver full of children, riches, or whatever it may be, comes from the Lord. God is sovereign when He gives these blessings, but He can also send us sickness, solitude, sorrow, or poverty.

When God’s Word speaks about “good,” then it often means spiritual good as we read in Psalm 27:13, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” Job had received temporal and spiritual good. How has it been for us this past season? Did the Lord give temporal prosperity? How was it for our soul in the past season?

We may not deny that when the Lord has given blessings upon the work of our hands, it is a great privilege for which we should acknowledge the Lord on this day which our forefathers have set aside. However, we do not need good only for this time state but, above all, for eternity. We must be born again. By the grace of God, Job had received this spiritual good.

Job also received evil, however, as he said in chapter 30:26, “When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.” Job saw that both good and evil came from God’s hand. It was not by accident or luck. He was able to climb higher in his meditation, namely, to God in heaven, from whom he had received both. It takes an eye of faith to understand that all things work together for good in the life of God’s children. Adversity can be just as profitable and necessary as prosperity. The catechism states so beautifully, “He will make whatever evils He sends upon me, in this valley of tears, turn out to my advantage; for He is able to do it, being Almighty God, and willing, being a faithful Father.”

It was in this manner that Job may have his Thanksgiving Day. Was it for the good crop which he had received? No, that was all gone, yet he could have a Thanksgiving Day for all that he had received. For many it seems incomprehensible, but “With my God I can leap over a wall and run through a troop,” said David, and this is true.

Let me ask you once more: How do we go to church on Thanksgiving Day? Is it like Job? Then in our attitude on that day it will be seen that it can be a Thanksgiving Day even when we have gone through the sieve seven times in the past season.

We received evil, but we should not forget the good

How often is it not seen that we forget the good that we have received and think only of the evil we have experienced. Jacob complained that all of these things were against him, and so it is many times. Job might say by faith, “And shall we not receive evil?” That is how it should be for the Christian. By the grace of God, and in the exercise of faith, the Christian may have Thanksgiving Day in the midst of all his losses and suffering as it is written, “In all this did not Job sin with his lips.”

It had stormed in the soul of Job; you can understand this when you consider the circumstances in his life. It was made even worse by the words of his wife. It did not leave him unmoved! A wrestling Job maintained the honor of God. He held fast to God because God held him. “In all this did not Job sin with his lips.”

This is by the grace of the Lord Jesus. Through Him and with Him we can overcome, even when the storm of unbelief threatens to undermine God’s work. Jesus Himself has been in the heaviest warfare, in which He was attacked by Satan and the world. In the greatest agony He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” His cry was without sin, without rebellion, and He did not fall down before Satan. This is the power of everyone who, by grace, becomes a subject of the King of kings. p

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