Team, it hardly seems possible that we're about
to celebrate Thanksgiving once again. Do you
agree with that? Are you ready for it? Well,
some are and some aren't. The first Thanksgiving
was observed in the New World in October of 1621.
Plymouth Governor William Bradford declared a
feast to give thanks to God for the first harvest
of the Pilgrim Colony. Massasoit chief of the
Wampanoag, and 90 other tribal leaders were invited
to join the 52 pilgrims on a three -day fast.
There is actually a contemporary account of the
first Thanksgiving written some two months after
it. It was written by Edward Winslow, who says,
our corn, by that he means our wheat, did prove
well, and God be praised. We had a good increase
of Indian corn and our barley in different good,
but our peas not worth gathering, for we feared
they were sown too late. Some people think peas
aren't worth gathering anyway. They came up very
well and blossomed, but the sun parched them
in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in,
our governor sent four men on fowling. That so
we might, after a special manner, rejoice together.
after we had gathered the fruit of our labors.
They, for in one day, killed as many fowl as,
with a little help beside, served the company
almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations,
we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming
amongst us, and among the rest, their greatest
king, Massasoit, with some nighty men. whom for
three days we entertained and feasted and they
went out and killed five deer which they brought
to the plantation and bestowed on our governor
and upon the captain and others. And although
it be not always so plentiful as it was at this
time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are
so far from want that we often wish you partakers
of our plenty. It was a couple of hundred years
later that Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first
national holiday as a Thanksgiving Day in 1863,
actually in the middle, as you know, of the Civil
War. He wrote, the year that is drawing toward
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 so
extraordinary in nature that they cannot fail
to penetrate and soften even the heart which
is habitually insensible to the ever watchful
providence of Almighty God. Lincoln continues,
no human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal
hand worked out these great things. They are
the gracious gifts of the Most High God. 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 so journeying in
foreign lands to set apart and observe the last
Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving
and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth
in the heavens. And he writes on. That, ladies
and gentlemen, was a president of the United
States. Bradford, Lincoln, and many or most even
of the founding fathers expressed a strong belief
in the providence of God in founding this nation
and preserving it from its enemies. In his 1789
inaugural address, George Washington, our first
president, spoke of, quote, that almighty being
whose providential aids can supply every human
defect. Again, the words of a president of the
United States, pointing us, the American people,
to the providence of God. I want us to think
this morning about living on the edge with providence.
What do we mean by providence? The word providence
comes from the Latin originally. It's the combination
of two words, pro, meaning before, and then videns,
which comes from a Latin verb, videre, which
means to see. It's where we get our word video.
And so it means to see ahead. to see before and
therefore to guide or to manage a process, providence.
The dictionary says providence is the omniscient
divine directing the universe for the benefit
of mankind. Providence concerns God's support.
his care and supervision of all creation. From
the moment of the first creation to all the future
into eternity, write some others. I invite you
to open your Bible with me this morning to see
a chapter that deals with providence. It is the
ninth chapter of the book of Nehemiah. We see
these words in the prayer of the Levites on the
occasion of the National Day of Prayer. This
text in Nehemiah shows the Jews gathered to reflect
upon God's dealings with them as a nation and
in response they offer their praise to God as
well as their confession of their sins. They
look about them and they see the situation that
they are in as a nation and it causes them to
think upon the providence of God and today I
invite you to ponder the providence of God yourself.
Because when you and I think upon the providence
of God, thanksgiving will erupt in our hearts,
exalting the glorious name of the Lord. In chapter
nine, it says in verse five, and the Levites,
and it names them, said, stand up and praise
the Lord your God who is from everlasting to
everlasting. And the people stood up and together
they said, blessed be your glorious name and
may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.
You see as they begin to think about God's providence
upon them as a people, they cannot help but speak
praise to God and exalt his character, his name.
Now I would like for you to trace with me the
subjects of their contemplation, the subjects
of their praise to God, and make each of these
your own reflection of praise to God. In the
first place, they praise God for his providence
in creation. His providence in creation. Notice
verse six. You alone are the Lord. You made the
heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their
starry host, the earth. and all that is on it,
the seas and all that is in them. You give life
to everything and the multitudes of heaven worship
you. And so they begin by giving praise and thanksgiving
to God for his providence in creation. And they
say to him, God, you are the maker and you are
the sustainer of everything, of everything in
the visible. material creation and of everything
in the heavenly spiritual dimension. You are
the maker and the sustainer of all. You give
life to everything. This, by the way, is a common
cause of thanksgiving to the people of God. Open
your Bible to Psalm 104 very quickly and look
at this text with me. Psalm 104. I love to hear
your Bibles turning. That tells me that you're
thinking and you're enjoying the Word of God.
Psalm 104. The psalmist says that God provides
for all of his creatures here. The psalm reflects
something of the order of Genesis chapter one,
but we don't have time to go into that today.
In verses one through nine, God is praised for
his creative power and wisdom. Oh Lord, my God,
you are very great. You are clothed with splendor
and majesty. And on the praise goes through the
next verses. And then beginning in verse nine,
the psalmist praises God for his intelligent
design of the creation. And he parades before
us in his words. God's creation and how God cares
for it how God planned the earth's ecological
systems To provide food and water for the animals
and the birds He says that God causes the grass
to grow even in far distant places so that animals
of the fields might eat and He says he gives
plants for man's cultivation and food As your
eye goes down through these verses, notice that
he talks about the trees and the mountains, the
moon and the sun, darkness and sunlight, the
sea and its numberless creatures. And he says
all of them have a place in God's created order
and God provides for all of them. He makes a
summation statement in verse 24 where he says
how many are your works Oh Lord in wisdom you
made them all the earth is full of your creatures
And then in verse 27. He says these all look
to you To give them their food at the proper
time When you give it to them they gather it
up when you open your hand. They are satisfied
with good things When you hide your face They
are terrified and you take away their breath
and they die and return to dust. When you send
your spirit, they are created and renew the face
of the earth. He concludes the Psalm by saying,
praise the Lord. My friend, the world that you
see around us is not here by chance. It is here
by the intelligent design of its creator. And
as we look at this world and admire its beauty
and its order, we should reflect thanksgiving
to God. He has designed his creation to bring
him pleasure and to exalt his name and so today,
On this Sunday of thanksgiving, we praise God
for his providence in all of creation and how
he cares for and manages and guides all creatures.
But the Jews, as they praise God in Nehemiah
9, do not stop with praising God for his providence
in creation. Going back there, you notice that
he begins in verse seven to praise God for his
providence in history. His providence in history.
And again, let your eyes just flow down through
the text. These Levites begin to recount the
major periods of their nation's history up to
this moment. They begin, of course, with Abram,
whose name was changed to Abraham. And in verses
seven and eight, they remind themselves that
God keeps his promises because he is a righteous
God who cannot lie. And then in verses nine through
12, they reflect upon their ancestors who were
led out of Egypt by Moses. And they say in verse
10, God, on that occasion, you made a name for
yourself. And they praise him. Then beginning
in verse 13, they remember Moses receiving the
law at Mount Sinai and the provision of the bread
from heaven and the water from the rock. And
despite the golden calf debacle, God provided
forgiveness for his people and he remained with
them. He did not abandon them there in the wilderness.
They go on now in verse 19 to think about that
wilderness wandering, that time of God's provision
for his people. When he gave his spirit to them,
it says, to instruct them. Notice they remember
his guidance by the pillar of cloud and the pillar
of fire. They remember how God sustained them
through that 40 years. They lacked nothing. Their
clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet
become swollen. They remember that God gave them
victory over the enemies who tried to block their
way, and they named two of the most notorious,
Sihon and Og. And they thank God that he multiplied
their generations, even as those who had rejected
him at Kadesh Barnea died. And those multiplied
generations in verse 23 of this prayer recounting
God's providence in history, those multiplied
generations enter the land and conquer it under
the leadership of Joshua. God brought them into
the land he had promised. And all the possessions
that had belonged to the Canaanites became theirs.
God gave it to them. And then they remember that
sad period that followed as they continue, verses
26 and following. As they think about the time
of the judges, when the people of God were disobedient,
and therefore God handed them over to their adversaries
who oppressed them. But, God graciously gave
them deliverers, that is, the judges that are
mentioned in the book by that name. In verse
29 and following, they think about the centuries
since then, the times of the kings and the prophets
of God. They remember these things and how God
admonished them when they were stubborn. They
acknowledge that they had been stiff -necked.
and yet God did not put an end to them. He did
not abandon them. What are they doing here? They
are giving thanks to God for his providence in
the history of their nation. And how that from
Abraham's time down to the very day in which
they lived, God had overseen them through good
and bad. through success and failure, through
obedience and disobedience. God had cared for
them, and they give him praise for that. This
reminds me of what the Apostle Paul said to the
Athenians, and I invite you to turn to Acts chapter
17, where we have the record of his great sermon
on Mars Hill to the philosophers of Athens. these
pagans had scant knowledge of the Bible. They
knew little of it. Therefore, Paul begins with
what they did know. He references the God that
was unknown to them. He says, I want to tell
you about this God that you don't know about.
And so he says in verse 24 of Acts 17, The God
who made the world and everything in it is the
Lord of heaven and earth. And he does not live
in temples built by hands. Athens was filled
with temples and altars. He is not served by
human hands as if he needed anything because
he himself gives all men life and breath and
everything else the providence of God. From one
man he made every nation of men that they should
inhabit the whole earth and he determined the
times set for them and the exact places where
they should live You see the Apostle Paul begins
preaching to the pagans of that day the providence
of God Do you know that there was a time when
every Public school students knew the facts of
these verses. There was a time when our culture
was aware of the providence of God. We read about
it in the documents of our founding fathers.
They knew. But that knowledge has been stolen.
It has been oppressed. It has been torn out of
textbooks. and remove from the curricula of our
schools and our society. And today the American
people, although by far the majority say they
believe in a god, it is an unknown god in essence.
We are as ignorant of the god of Acts chapter
17 as were the Athenians. And our culture today
needs to hear again of the providence of God,
that he's the maker of heaven and earth, and
he determines where people live and how long
nations last. It's all in his hands. And he gives
to everyone life and breath and everything. It
is not of our own doing, nor is it of chance.
However you frame it. philosophically or in terms
of scientific so -called evolution. This world
is not here by chance. It is here by the providence
of God. And we can look back in our own national
history if we're honest enough to do so. And
we can trace the providence of God in our history.
The laying of a foundation for this nation by
God -fearing people. how different than what
happened, for example, in Australia, where the
nation was really founded as a penal colony.
But in the United States, what became the United
States, the new world was founded by God -fearing
people. What a difference that has made in our
nation. And then the founding fathers. leading
to revolution and victory over England, something
that was impossible humanly speaking. But God
intervened, I believe, for the colonies and gave
us these United States. And then they met to
formulate a means of governing ourselves. And
eventually the Constitution was formed. I believe
the Constitution, though it doesn't contain the
word God, is is woven with the concepts of the
Bible. In fact, the fact that we have three branches
of government come straight out of scripture.
You can read about it in Isaiah chapter 33 in
verse 22, where the founding fathers saw that
the Lord is our law giver, he is our judge, he
is our king. And they took that model of lawgiver,
the legislature, the judge, the courts, the king,
the executive branch, and they built that into
the Constitution. And they put in the Constitution
wisely safeguards, checks and balances, because
they knew the nature of man. They understood
what the Bible teaches about the heart of man,
and they knew that government needed to be checked.
They wrote it into the Constitution. That's why
we need judges today who will interpret the Constitution
and not make new laws. I'm not going to go there.
I would love to. We can praise God for his providence
in the history of our nation. We can praise God
for the way elections have turned out. Even when
our candidate didn't win, God was in his providence
working. We can praise God for a third reason,
along with the Levites. For creation, for history,
and third, for his providence. in our own day
and in our own lives. Notice in the ninth chapter
of Nehemiah, these who are praying say, in all
that has happened to us, you have been just.
You have acted faithfully while we did wrong.
Notice that they personalized this. It's not
just that God has been with them in history.
That's true enough. But they say, Lord, you have
been with us today. You are with us now. It has
been at this time 140 years since their nation
had been overwhelmed by the Babylonians. Generations
now had been in exile and they had come back
now to the land to rebuild the temple and to
rebuild the walls of the city here in Nehemiah.
And they say, God, you are at work in this. And
believe me, Nehemiah recognized it above them
all. Go back to chapter one for a moment and
see how Nehemiah saw it. In chapter one and verse
four. In the very beginning he says, when I heard
these things about the wall being broken down,
he says, I mourned, fasted, and prayed before
the God of heaven. And what did he pray? Look
in verse 11. He says, give your servants success
today. What is he saying? He's saying, God, in
your providence, be with me in what I'm about
to do. Then we look into chapter two and verse
eight. He testifies, because the gracious hand
of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.
He sees God's providence at work in his life.
Look at verse 12. He says, I set out during the
night with a few men. I had not told anyone what
my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem.
Nehemiah is saying here, this is not my vision.
This is the vision that God has put in my heart.
And so he says in verse 18, I told them about
the gracious hand of my God upon me. what the
king had said to me. And then he says in verse
20, I answered them by saying, the God of heaven
will give us success. See, Nehemiah is very aware
of God's providence in his life. Turn over with
me now to chapter four. And look in verse 14.
He says to the people, don't be afraid of them,
their enemies. Remember the Lord who is great
and awesome. He points them to God, and then
in verse 20 he says, our God will fight for us.
God had taken them this far, he would take them
the rest of the way. Then in chapter six and
verse 16, at the dedication of the wall, when
the wall had been completed, it says at the end
of verse 16, they realized that this work had
been done, or the next words. with the help of
our God, the providence of God. God's providence
was at work in the life of Nehemiah and the people
of his day, and I want to say to you that God's
providence is no less at work in your life and
in our day. And on this Thanksgiving, let us
give thanks to God for his providence in our
lives. for his faithful provision and superintendents
of the life of our church, the life of our families,
and our own personal circumstances. All of them
come from God. The successes and the failures,
the good things that we've experienced and the
sad things that we've experienced, all of them
are from God. It is easier to see it in the good
things, isn't it? Pastor Duane Willis and his
wife Janet were traveling on Interstate 94 through
Milwaukee, November the 8th, 1994. Six of their
nine children were with them in the van as they
traveled to see some relatives. But a brace had
fallen off a truck and was laying there in the
interstate, and the car in front of them swerved.
But he knew, the pastor knew as he drove that
he could not swerve and miss it. He hit it, and
it caused the van to slide, but as that piece
of steel went underneath the car, it ripped out
the gas tank, causing the whole van to burst
into flames. Maybe you remember this story. The
car skidded to a stop. It was engulfed in flames.
Dwayne and his wife Janet were able to get out
of the car. Their son Ben, who was at one of
the doors, was able to roll out. Some people
coming by put their shirts on his body. It was
steaming with skin that had melted. Ben died
later that night in the hospital. But the other
five children all died in the fire of that van.
And the world listened. an astonishment, as this
man and his wife said, God knows all of history
and time from its beginning to its end. What
happened to us wasn't an accident. God is never
taken by surprise. God had a purpose for it,
probably many purposes. We don't understand God's
agenda. As Isaiah says, His ways are not our
ways. We asked Him for safety. And it didn't
turn out that way. But it's in the way God answers
our prayers that we come to understand what God's
will is. When all of Job's children were killed,
he acknowledged the sovereign control of God
behind the evil situation. Job did not say the
Lord gave and Satan took away. He said the Lord
gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be
the name of the Lord. even in the heartaches
and sorrows of our lives. God is at work. J .R.
Tolkien, who wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy,
once wrote in a letter, No man can estimate what
is really happening at the present. All we do
know, and that to a large extent by direct experience,
is that evil labors with vast power and perpetual
success in vain, preparing always only the soil
for unexpected good to sprout in. I love that.
The bottom line, folks, is this. God never fails
to keep his promises and to complete his purposes.
They are all rooted in his love for you. All
of them. So what I want to encourage you to do
is to live with grateful confidence that God
is at work every moment in your life. Because
that's what His providence is. It is true for
all of creation, it's true of history, but it's
true for you personally too. Believe it. Rest
upon it. Let it humble you in your successes.
Let it support you in your weaknesses. Let it
calm you. Let it embolden you. Henry van Dyke,
a pastor and a poet, wrote, happy and strong
and brave shall we be, able to endure all things
and to do all things if we believe that every
day, every hour, every moment of our life, is
in God's hands. Remember that this thanksgiving
and give thanks to God for his providence. Above
all his providence in giving you a Savior. One
who could rescue you from your lostness and your
brokenness and your condemnation. Who could forgive
you and give you a purpose in life and bring
you safely home to heaven. As we give thanks
to God this day and through this week of thanksgiving,
let us thank God above all for Jesus. I must
pray now in his name. We thank you Father for
your great providence, which we have seen in
your word, which we have seen with our own eyes
in the creation, which we have witnessed in history
as we have read it and lived it. and which we
have experienced in our own lives, we offer our
humble thanks to you. My prayer is that this
Thanksgiving season, we will live boldly and
confidently knowing that all that we have and
are is in the hands of a faithful God. In Jesus'
name, amen. I'm going to ask the worship team
to join me here on the platform. Because we're
going to sing together a wonderful hymn, a hymn
that is common at any time of year, but especially
appropriate at Thanksgiving. And I would like
for you to sing this out with gusto, with great
boldness and faith. Great is thy faithfulness.