Forget Not All His Benefits

Well, thank you again, Mr. Emery. Once again, good afternoon, everyone. Happy Sabbath. Appreciated this special music, the Congregational Choir is in fine voice. Well done.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. This past week, the American people celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday. It is a time of family, of friends and food, all gathered together to reflect on and really be thankful for the blessings that they've received over the past year. It's intended to acknowledge God's providence, His loving-kindness, His care, and to really give thanks for it. The modern American Thanksgiving celebration has its roots in the first Thanksgiving that was kept by William Bradford in the pilgrims in the fall of 1621. Pilgrims who were strict Calvinists and separatists from the Church of England left for the New World in September of 1620 in hopes of starting new. They were attempting to escape the persecution that they were experiencing in England and arriving in a place in the Americas where they were free to establish their own settlements and worship how they saw fit. I don't know how many of you know this story. You probably do. It's been repeated throughout the years, you know, elementary school and junior high history, some high school history as well, digging into some of the more, you know, background aspects of it. But in its basic form, the first winter that they experienced in the Americas was brutal. It was an absolutely brutal winter that they experienced that first bit after they settled. They rode out the winter on the ship where many at that time succumbed to malnutrition, to disease, and to exposure. When the settlers left the boat in March of 1621, a little less than half of them remained. There were 50 remaining, potentially, out of the 102 that arrived at the beginning. Those that did survive were malnutritioned, they were ravaged by illness, and incredibly weak. Again, when they finally came to shore in March of 1621, they were met by a member of the Abenaki tribe who spoke English. Surprise, surprise. This gentleman that you're coming across and meeting speaks your language. And a few days later, he returned with a member of the Pawtuxet tribe named Pawtux, that's the one that you might be more familiar with, who also spoke English as a result of trips to England originally because he was taken captive and taken to England, eventually allowed to return to his people. Between the two of them, they nursed the pilgrims back to health, taught them how to cultivate corn, catch fish, and extract sap from maple trees. So they taught them how to find certain things. You know, this is the new land, this is different stuff in many cases, and they probably didn't have all the gear that they would have had in England to be able to do all of this. What else is fascinating is Suanto was instrumental in the pilgrims forging an alliance with a local Wampanoag tribe, which lasted for fifty years. In fact, it's one of very few alliances and treaties that we can look back on in history in which the Native Americans and European settlers lived in true harmony without one subjecting the other. It's a pretty fascinating deal. But when the phallus, 1621, finally came around and the colonies' first successful corn harvest had been brought in, there was much to be thankful for. Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited many of the colony's allies, and for three days they feasted, thanked God, and thanked their allies for their help. Two years later, they kept another Thanksgiving in 1623. It wasn't called Thanksgiving, it was just an organized get-together and feast, essentially, but they kept that in 1623 after the end of a particularly long drought. They gave thanks to God for the rain that came after this drought. And from that point forward, days of Thanksgiving were called periodically within a number of the New England settlements to kind of commemorate and thank God for very specific things. But that was typically done state by state. It wasn't really organized. It was kind of just each state declared its own.

It was on different dates. National days of Thanksgiving were kind of uncommon at that point in time. As time went on, however, national days of Thanksgiving were periodically declared by presidents for very specific purposes. For example, in 1789, George Washington made an official proclamation, the first official Thanksgiving proclamation, you might say, in 1789, which reads as follows. And I'm going to read this, because I want to make a point here this morning as to how things have shifted, how things have changed.

It says, whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor. And whereas both houses of Congress have by their joint committee requested me to recommend to the people, and this is in quotes, to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity, peaceably, to establish a form of government for their safety and their happiness.

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious being, who is the beneficial author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country, previous to their becoming a nation, for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, referring to the Revolutionary War, and the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now, lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and defusing useful knowledge, and in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us, and also that we may then unite in our most humbly, offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and ruler of nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations, especially such as shown kindness to us, and to bless them with good government peace and concord, to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us, and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best, given under my hand at the city of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord, 1789.

Thus was the original Thanksgiving proclamation that authorized, at this time, a one-time national day of thanksgiving for a very specific purpose, and it was an acknowledgement to God, it was an acknowledgement to God, for the rights and the freedoms which they had won, all the blessings that had been given by God's hand in the fighting of the Revolutionary War, the establishment of the government of this country, etc.

It wasn't until 1863, during the height of the Civil War, that Abraham Lincoln established a national day of thanksgiving. Interestingly, he was petitioned by Sarah Josepha Hale, who was a magazine editor and the woman who wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb. You might recognize the name from that. She wrote the song or the melody and the lyrics to Mary Had a Little Lamb. But she had pushed for the better part of 36 years to get a national day of thanksgiving set, a day that everyone kept at the same time, all together in the country, stopping and pausing and thanking God for his providence.

She was finally successful after 36 years of petitioning this to get through to Abraham Lincoln. He writes in his first presidential proclamation—I'm going to read this too, because I want to look at the backdrop. The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.

To these bounties which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which is sometimes themed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations. Order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in a theater of military conflict.

While that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union, needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship. The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements and the mines as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield. And the country rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor is permitted to expect continuance of years with the large increase of freedom. No human counsel has devised nor has any mortal hand worked out these great things. These are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, has nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverentially, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficial Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the descriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as it may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

From that point forward, aside from a couple of years in 1939 to 1941, when FDR moved thanksgiving up a week, it has been kept the end of November. President Roosevelt moved it up in order to extend the Christmas shopping season during the Great Depression in order to allow for the companies that were struggling at that time to make a little bit more money. This is really the origin of what we now know as Black Friday. And interestingly, at the time, so many people protested it, and enough began referring to the changed holiday as Frank's giving after President Franklin Roosevelt that he finally relented and signed a bill into law in 1941 that commemorated the fourth Thursday of November as thanksgiving. So while thanksgiving was now fixed, while it was set, the retail shops could market the shopping season however they wanted.

They had the ability to now do whatever it was that they wanted, and so they began earnestly pushing the day after thanksgiving as the biggest shopping day of the year in about the 1980s. That's when Black Friday really started pushing forward to become what we now know as kind of the biggest shopping day of the year, and it's been that way ever since. As we read both of these proclamations by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, you can hear their acknowledgment of God, of His providence, of His ongoing blessings in the lives of regular average Americans. You know, when people tell us the United States was never designed to be a Christian nation, that's false.

That is false. Separation of church and state was designed to not create a situation like England where any one religion had control over the entirety of the populace.

But the men that started this country were Christian in their origins and in their implementation of Judeo-Christian law. It is clear when you read these proclamations and when you look at these proclamations, God was more than just an afterthought during these times of history. There was a time in this nation where God and His blessings were recognized, where people recalled what God had done for them and were genuinely thankful for His providence.

There was a time when the president of this country recognized and stated that these things were not acts of men but were divine gifts. He didn't point to himself and say, look at all the things that I did, just look at all the things that God has done. You know, as the whole things in this country have begun to change over the past few decades, I think if we look back on our own history, especially recent history, in the last few decades in particular, things have changed significantly in this country. History.com, which is the web platform for the History Channel, records the following statement, In many American households, the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of its original religious significance. Instead, it now just centers on cooking and sharing a bountiful meal with family and friends. An article by The Independent discussed how a vocal minority are boycotting Thanksgiving because they are beginning to view Thanksgiving Day as a celebration of the conquest of the Native Americans, similar to how we have gotten rid of Columbus Day and replaced it with Indigenous People's Day in some circles.

Professor Robert Jensen of the University of Texas at Austin stated, one indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a national day of atonement accompanied by self-reflective fasting.

Now, while I would generally agree that America would benefit greatly from a day of fasting and atonement, I disagree with the reasons why he feels that way. A number of articles over the past few years have argued back and forth. You can see him going all the way back to 2012, 2013, 2009, a few of them have argued back and forth the relevance of Thanksgiving in a post-Christian quote-unquote nation. Some have said, why are we keeping Thanksgiving? Besides, there's a separation of church and state. Why is this a national holiday? These arguments have gone back and forth over the past few years. My own personal observations and discussions with people leading up to Thanksgiving this year, it appears that Thanksgiving has really largely fallen along the wayside. If you look at the world around us today, I don't know how many of you have noticed the same, but as soon as Halloween was over, what was in the stores the next day? Christmas everything. The day after Halloween was over with, Christmas everything was in the stores the next day. Christmas music playing over the radio. Fact 104.1 you can't hardly listen to at this point in time during the year because it's all Christmas music. It's just constant.

As soon as all of that happened, we started to see now the shopping season gear up, right?

Stores opened mid-afternoon on Thursday. JCPenney's was open at 2 p.m. on Thursday afternoon for Black Friday shopping. 2 p.m. I was eating turkey at 2 p.m. with family playing some Nintendo.

But when we take a look at the way that things have gone over the last few years, all these stores opened up on mid-afternoon on Thursday, early morning Friday. People camped out in tents. Alongside there was a story, and I don't know if it's true. I couldn't corroborate it, but it's hilarious. I got to share it. Apparently a man dressed in a bear suit was running around shaking people's tents out in front of some of the box stores and got arrested. So there's that.

But that was kind of humorous. Making them feel a little more like they're actually, you know, camping instead of camping out in front of Best Buy.

Many of you probably saw clips on the news or on the internet of people trampling one another for the latest and greatest cheap television or tablet over the last couple of days. This Black Friday I looked it up. There's a website called BlackFridayDeathandInjuries.com. Seriously.

This Black Friday there were three shootings and two stabbings at the various malls around the country as people got into arguments over a variety of things. I worked at Toys R Us for three Black Fridays. Paul Waken and I put in our years there at that time frame, and we had fist fights in the parking lot. We had people that trampled one another to get in the door.

Horrible attitudes. It was the it is a time of the year that brings out the absolute worst in people. There's a number in my neighborhood, friends on social media, that were kind of waiting to check that Thanksgiving box so they could hang up all their Christmas decorations. I had one friend actually who had her decorations up and pictures posted on Facebook before we'd even sat down for our meal on Thursday. More and more, it seems as though Thanksgiving each year is becoming just a speed bump on the way to Christmas. It didn't used to be like this. It didn't used to be like this. Gone is the nationwide reflection as to God's blessings. Gone is the nationwide acknowledgement of a higher power. As a country, we just blow right past it. It's a blow right past Thanksgiving, and in less than 24 hours after we as a nation are intended to be reflecting on our blessings and our contentment, people are knocking each other over to get a new 55-inch television.

There's something wrong with this picture. There is something that is fundamentally broken in this country. Fundamentally broken. Let's go over to Deuteronomy 8.

Deuteronomy 8. I promise we're going to read some Scripture today.

Deuteronomy 8. If you turn over there. You know, Israel at this point in time, as you're turning to Deuteronomy 8, is about to realize the promise that God had given them 40 years earlier.

God promised that He would deliver them to a land of milk and honey, that He would deliver them to this incredible place, and this big fulfillment of a promise had been given to Abraham so many centuries before. And here they were, essentially camped on the shores of the Jordan, awaiting for the orders to cross. Before they did so, though, God desired to provide them a reminder. God desired very much to provide them with a little nudge before they were given the orders to cross over.

Let's pick it up in Deuteronomy 8 and verse 6. Deuteronomy 8 and verse 6 says, Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey. Verse 9, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you've eaten and are full, when you've enjoyed these blessings, when you and your families have fully realized what God has given you, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. You shall praise Him, you shall give Him thanks for this. God specifically tells them, when you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord. You shall praise Him, you shall thank Him for the good land which He has given you.

When the Israelites saw their bounty, when they saw the incredible blessings that they were provided, the instruction was to bless God, to praise Him and to thank Him. He goes on in verse 11, and it came to pass, sorry, I'm in verse 9 here, beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statues which I command you today. Lest, verse 12, when you have eaten and are full, and when you have built beautiful houses and dwell on them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. Verse 15, who led you through that great and terrible wilderness in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water, who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you to do you good.

Verse 17, then you say in your heart, My power and the might of My hand has gained Me this wealth.

God knew the tendency of man. He knew that in times of plenty mankind would forget God.

In times of plenty mankind would forget God, that they would think the things that they had achieved were a result of their own hand, their own power, their own magnificence, their own greatness, that they would forget particularly in those times of plenty where those blessings came from.

His advice to the people of Israel at that time was not to let that happen, to not forget the Lord, to not forget His benefits, to remember where these blessings were and where they had come from that they had so enjoyed. He goes on in verse 18. Verse 18, you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant, which He swore to your fathers as it is this day. Verse 19, then it shall be if you by any means forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and serve them and worship them. I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God. God provides them with an assurance of a punishment to Israel if they forget God, if they turn their back on Him and follow after other gods to serve them and worship them. He tells Israel through Moses that they shall surely perish, that they will destroy them for their lack of thankfulness and their lack of remembrance. Brethren, are we there yet? As the nation, are we there yet? Have we reached this point where we have said, you know what, God, we're good. We're good. We've got the best government in the world. We've got all these material blessings. We've got all these wonderful things. We don't need you.

We've got it all taken care of. Have we as a nation reached this point? Have we turned our backs on God? Have we sought after other gods and served and worshipped them?

Title for this second split sermon today is, Forget Not All His Benefits. Forget Not All His Benefits. That phrase comes from the 103rd Psalm, if you'd turn over there, please. 103rd Psalm.

We're going to examine this to help to establish our point today.

Psalm 103, and we're going to pick it up in verse 1 and kind of deep dive into this particular Psalm.

Psalm 103 in verse 1 reads as follows. It's the Psalm of David, praise for the Lord's mercies.

It says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, his acts of goodwill, his charity, his compassion, his blessings, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

And David essentially says here that he will praise the Lord with his entire being, not forgetting his benefits, not forgetting his recompense, his blessings.

We recognize there are blessings that come from this way of life, incredible blessings that come from this way of life. When we live life according to what God instructs us to live, the blessings pour forth. Now, difficult times come too. You know, it's not an absolute guarantee that everything's going to be perfect. We know that by much tribulation we enter the kingdom of God. And so we recognize, though, that there are incredible blessings that come from this way of life. God forgives our sins. He heals our diseases. He redeems our life from destruction. He buys it back from death, crowns us with loving kindness and mercy, provides us with blessings of food and drink that we might be renewed. You know, God pours out material blessings on his people. He also pours out spiritual blessings on his people. And the psalmist is really encouraging those who read this to not forget, to thank God for all of these things, to not forget all his benefits.

Verse 6 continues, verse 6 continues, The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel. All of his deeds, all of his miracles and wonders were made known to the children of Israel. Verse 8, The Lord is merciful and gracious. He's slow to anger. Abounding in mercy, he will not always thrive with us, nor will he keep his anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. God executes righteousness and judgment and justice.

Made his ways known to Moses, his acts, his miracles, his wonders, again known to Israel, to the children of God. Those things have been preserved for us throughout history, so that we can look at them and, like Mr. Kester talked about today, say, our God is a God of truth. He is a God who, when he makes his promises, he follows through.

I will deliver you from Egypt. Did it? Check. I will give you the promised land. Did it? Check.

On down the line, we can look at the promises that God gave his people, and it's check, check, check, check, check. So when it comes to our time, when it comes to a situation where we look at it and we say, we've been promised a kingdom of God that is coming, we can already pretty much check that box. We just know that it may not be in our lifetime, it may not be in our timing and as we expect it. But God does all these wonderful things. They've been reserved for us throughout history for our benefit. The passage talks about the mercy and the grace of God, that he is slow to anger, that he abounds in mercy, and not has he dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities. Brethren, we deserve death for our sins. The wages of sin is death. That is the wages of our life and our falling short is our paycheck, so to speak. What we have earned is the death penalty. But David records here that God doesn't deal with us according to our iniquities. He forgives us. He shows us mercy when we don't deserve it. He shows us mercy when we do not deserve it. And so he then kind of comes through this, forget not all his benefits. Forget not all his benefits. Verse 11, he continues in Psalm 103, For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him.

Verse 12, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust. Great is the mercy of God. He removes our sins from as far as east is from west, which is so hard to fathom that concept. It is so hard for us, kind of in our brains, the way we consider things, to understand what that is. We know he removes them entirely.

He doesn't just cover them over. Sacrifice of Jesus Christ removes our sins.

And he does this because he is our father. He pities us. The word pity has kind of a negative context, but the Hebrew word is raham. It's raham. And it basically means he has a strong affection towards us as a result of a relationship. That feeling is manifested in compassionate acts because he knows we're temporary. He knows we're mortal. He knows we're dust.

And so he has compassion on us. It goes on in verse 15. As for man, his days are like grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourishes, for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.

On those who fear him and his righteousness to children's children, to such as keep his covenant and to those who remember his commandments to do them. He created us. He knows we're temporary. He knows that our days are like grass. We flourish like the flower of the field. We're like a dandelion. It grows up. You know, it blooms. It's nice and yellow for a bit. And then it turns into what? Little white puffballs, right? Wind comes along and gone. Our lives are like that. We flourish for a time. We flourish for a time.

Four score and ten, right? By reason of strength, a little more than that.

So we take a look at our lives. We look at what God's intent was.

At some point, the wind passes over it, and it's done.

We are painfully temporary. We are painfully temporary. But the dichotomy in this passage is that God's mercy is forever. We are painfully temporary, but God's mercy is forever. And God pours that mercy out on those who fear Him, those who keep His covenant and remember and do His commandments. Verse 19. We'll continue on here and kind of wrap this up. Verse 19.

The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.

Bless the Lord, you angels, who excel in strength, who do His word, heating the voice of His word. Bless the Lord, all you His hosts, you ministers of His, you servants of His, who do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, all His works in all places of His dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. The benefits of living this way of life are vast.

He blesses us exceedingly in so many ways, from forgiveness of our sins, for everlasting mercy and grace, His healing, to crowning us with righteousness, redeeming our lives from destruction, and on and on and on it goes. David's warning to those who read this psalm is don't forget it. Don't forget it. Don't allow yourselves to forget what God does for you.

Remember His blessings and praise Him. He says, forget not all His benefits.

It's really easy, so easy to remember God when we're in need. It is so easy to remember God and to cry out to Him when we are in need, to turn to Him in our darkest hours, when we need Him the most.

In these times of our life, God and His benefits are like an insurance policy that we activate in order to fix things. It's like now we're going to make a claim. We're going to get ahold of our insurance company and make the necessary claim in order to get this fixed.

We lose a job. We have a trial, a health trial. We have some other sort of tribulation going on in our lives. Simple. We activate the policy and God fixes everything. And sometimes if we're not careful, we look at God in that way. And yes, it's natural. In fact, God promises that He takes care of these things right there in Psalm 103. He promises that He takes care of these things.

But the question that I ask for you today is, do we remember God during the times of plenty too?

Not just when we're in need. Not just when, you know, we are desperate. But do we remember God in those times of plenty as well? Do we acknowledge Him for His blessings? Praising Him for all the good things that He does during those good times as well. The nation of Israel lost sight of God at times throughout their history. And you look back over the recorded histories of Israel and Judah in particular, we can see that they lost sight of that at times. In fact, after the northern and southern kingdoms were divided and they'd been besieged by war, the northern tribes taken captive, Assyria came in and besieged them. Basically, just as God promised in Deuteronomy 8, He said, look, if you turn away from me, if you forget me, you're going to be destroyed. You're going to perish. And sure enough, they did perish in that regard as a nation. They were conquered by the Assyrians and the people were dispersed to the four winds. Judah remained. She stayed behind. She continued on for a time. And she continued on her path of disobedience until we reached the time of Jeremiah. So as we go through this section of Jeremiah, God prophesied to Judah before and during their captivity through Jeremiah. In that book, let's go ahead and start turning over there towards Jeremiah. He records a warning that God gave to His people on this concept of turning to Him for insurance purposes only. Jeremiah 2. Jeremiah 2, and we'll pick it up in verse 26.

Jeremiah 2 and verse 26. As we see the northern kingdom of Israel descend deeper and deeper into idolatry, up to the point of their captivity. Some of the stuff that went on in the northern kingdom was atrocious. As we look back through recorded history, some of the different things that they were doing, the offering of their own children, it was just awful, awful, awful, awful stuff. And we see God punishes the northern tribe in a way almost like a warning to Judah.

You know, Judah didn't quite pick up on the information there. But in Jeremiah 2, verse 26 to 28, God records the following through the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah 2, 26, says, As the thief is ashamed when he is found out, so is the house of Israel ashamed.

They and their kings and their princes and their priests and their prophets, saying to a tree, You are my father, and to a stone You gave birth to me.

For they have turned their back to me and not their face. But in the time of their trouble, activating that insurance policy, in the time of their trouble, they will say, Arise and save us.

But where are your gods that you have made for yourself?

You see God's response. You say, God, save us, arise and save us.

What's God's response? Where are your gods that you have made for yourselves?

Let them arise if they can save you in your time of trouble, for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah.

See, those in secret are ashamed when it's made known.

Thief is ashamed when his crime is discovered. And so is Israel ashamed. The people and the leadership, not just the people in the country, but the leadership in that country, had turned to idols. They were worshiping trees and stones, had completely turned their back on God.

They didn't incline their face to the Lord. No. They turned away from him, placing their trust in something else. Again, we see the activation of the assurance policy.

God says, or they say to God, arise and save us. God says, where are your gods?

What are the ones that you've made for yourselves that you've fashioned out of wood and stone and metal? Where are those at? Have them come and save you in your time of trouble. He says, you have as many gods as you have cities. And at that time in history, it was pretty much true. They worship just about anything and everything under the sun. God has some stronger words in the book of Jeremiah too, that we won't visit today with regards to this time frame. But God essentially tells his people, you only seek me. You only pray to me when you need something. You only turn to me when it's convenient to you and when you're in need. God desires a people who turn to him, both in their time of need as well as in their times of plenty. When they have nothing and also when they have ample blessings. There's a passage that's recorded in Psalm 32. Let's go ahead and turn over there.

While you're turning there, I'll tell you a story. I've never ridden a mule. I know some of you have probably at times ridden a mule. Never ridden a mule. I've ridden plenty of horses. And I had a horse one time. We went and rode out at Sun River there at the feast at the little stables they've got out there out near Sun River at the feast in Redmond. And I saddled up a horse named Spanky.

True story. He got his name because he was really cantankerous. And he would grab his oat bucket and he would chase all the other horses around with it spanking them with his oat bucket. So they gave him the name Spanky. Spanky was one of the most difficult horses I've probably ever ridden. And about every three feet he would stop and eat grass. He would try to stop and eat grass. He figured it out real quick. But he would stop and he would put his head down and start munch munch munch munch munch until you grabbed a hold of those reins and did what?

Nope. Let's go. Get that bit pulled back in the back of his mouth and all right, fine. He'd go another three feet or so and decide, no, there's some more tasty grass. I'm going to get nope.

And it finally figured it out. We had a great ride after that, but it was a challenge to begin with. It was a big challenge to begin with. Psalm 32, verses 8 and 9 record something that's representative of this attitude, of this idea that people only turn to God when they need something.

Psalm 32 and verse 8 says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go.

I will guide you with my eye. Verse 9, do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding which must be harnessed with bit and with bridle, else they will not come near you. Some horses, some mules, most horses and mules without a bridle, are very difficult to control. But you put a bit in the mouth, you put a bridle on them, you make them do what you want.

You take a look at this particular situation. This is like our country right now. This is the attitude that our country has taken, and it's a dangerous one. It's an attitude of, I don't need God because things are going well. We've reached a point in our nation, home values are up, incomes are up, while there's still a large earning gap between the top and bottom elements of society, the majority of the population, whether well-offered and need-or-doing better than many in the world around us today. Why are things so good in America right now? Why are things so good? If you look at the analysts and you look at the pundits, they'll point to a strong economy, they'll point to leadership, they'll point to strong jobs numbers, they'll point to record earnings, etc., etc., etc. They'll point to the gods of today, is what they'll point to. And they will say, these things are what has made America prosper. These things are what are driving this country. The reality is this country is doing well because God has blessed it. That's why this country is doing well. But when things get incredibly difficult and we see things in our country change, when Jacob's trouble is fully realized, as it discusses in Scripture, it's time in the future when it's just unparalleled in difficulty for the nations of Israel, and people turn to God and they say, why? Why are you persecuting us? Why don't you fix it?

Where is God when these things happen? Like they did in 9-11, like they did in the crash in 2008, like they did in history throughout time. God's response is going to be the same response that He gave to Judah. Let Wall Street save you. Let the President, let Congress, let the Senate save you. Let your legislation save you. Let LeBron James save you. Maybe not, okay.

Even here in America in 2018, we have more gods than we have cities.

They're just different than they were in the time of Judah. They're media personalities.

They're political figures. They're sports figures. They're ideologies.

They're distractions. They're work. They're career. They're addictions.

There are a lot of things that we put before God.

And while we don't bow down and worship these things directly, we can and we often do place them or the pursuit of them before our relationship with God.

What about us? What about us? As individuals, as the people of God, as the Church of God, as individuals in the Church of God? Are we like the horse or the mule that's referenced in Psalm 32, turning to God only when he jerks on the reins to get our attention, so to speak?

Have we allowed ourselves to become so wrapped up in the world around us, in the cares of this world that we've lost sight of God? Have we been lulled to complacency by our lack of want or lack of need? Has our relationship with God suffered as a result? Let's go to James 4 and verse 7 as we begin to close today. James 4 and verse 7.

James 4, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 7, which is still in here somewhere. There we go.

James 4 and verse 7 says, Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Clench your hands, ye sinners, purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning in your joy to gloom. Verse 10, Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. We talked in the first split today about the promises that God fulfills. Brethren, this is a promise. Draw near to God, he will draw near to you. This is a promise. This is a guarantee.

And God's of the Apostle James here writes that submitting ourselves to God, resisting Satan, resisting his influences, drawing near to God, that God will in turn draw near to us.

Couldn't be more plainly stated. Cleansing and purifying ourselves. Lamenting. Lamenting are the things that we do that is wrong. Mourning and weeping, repenting, and humbling ourselves in the sight of the Lord will bring us closer to him, and he will lift us up. Humbling ourselves is essential because once we're in a state of humility, only then can we be truly thankful.

Only then can we be truly thankful. If we're in a place of pride or we're in a place of arrogance, it is very difficult to be thankful. It's very difficult to be thankful. An attitude of pride and arrogance points to ourselves as the root cause of everything. But why are you so successful?

Well, because I did this, this, this, this, and this. Right? Well, that's because I made this choice and that choice and everything else. And while there are aspects of that, I'm not going to discount right choices in life and doing advancing yourself. All those things are important, but it's also exceptionally important that we recognize God's blessing in our lives, and that we honor Him for that, that we thank Him for that regularly, not just one day a year on Thanksgiving. A life of humility, a life of living close to God will allow us to be in this state of thanksgiving, in this state of gratefulness, every day. It'll appropriately focus us. It'll appropriately position us to recognize we are subordinate to God. That's our proper place, is subordinate to God. We are not to God in and of ourselves. But it allows us to reflect on His blessings and His mercy in our lives, again, not just on Thanksgiving. Brethren, do we only turn to God in our times of need? Do we acknowledge Him in our times of plenty, too? Really thanking Him for the blessings that He gives to us, not just one day a year, but year round. Really thanking Him for His blessings and for all of His benefits when times are tough, but also when times are good. In Psalm 103, the psalmist records the benefits of living a life that is near to God, records the benefits of that life, the blessings of that life when you are close to God.

He records His forgiveness. He records His mercy, His blessings, His healing, His redemption. Brethren, forget not all His benefits.