Luke's Gospel, Chapter 18, and we will begin
our reading in verse 9.
Luke's Gospel, Chapter 18, and verse 9.
And Jesus spent this parable unto certain which
trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and
despised others.
Two men went up into the temple to
pray, the one a Pharisee, and the other
a publican.
The Pharisee stood, and prayed thus with himself,
God, I thank thee that I am not,
as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or
even as this publican.
I fast twice in the week, I give
tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not
lift up so much as his eyes unto
heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God,
be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to
his house justified rather than the other.
For every one that exalteth himself shall be
amazed, and he that humbleth himself shall be
exalted.
And then I'd like you to turn to
John's Gospel, Chapter 11.
This is a long story.
Most of us are very familiar with it.
I would like to break into the story
in verse 35.
John's Gospel, Chapter 11, verse 35.
Jesus wept.
Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved
him.
And some of them said, Could not this
man which opened the eyes of the blind
have caused that even this man should not
have died?
Jesus therefore again, groaning in himself, cometh to
the grave.
It was a cave, and the stone lay
upon it.
Jesus said, Take ye away the stone.
Martha, the sister of him that was dead,
saith unto him, Lord, by this time he
stinketh, for he hath been dead four days.
Jesus said unto her, Said I not unto
thee that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst
seeest the glory of God?
Then they took away the stone from the
place where the dead was laid.
And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said,
Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard
me.
And I knew that thou hearest me always,
but because of the people which stand by,
I said it, that they may believe that
thou hast sent me.
And when he thus had spoken, he cried
with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
And he that was dead came forth bound
hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face
was bound about with a napkin.
Jesus said unto them, Loose him, and let
him go.
Then many of the Jews which came to
Mary and had seen the things which Jesus
did, believed on him.
Now if you'll bear with me for one
further reading in Luke's Gospel, chapter twenty-two.
Twenty-second chapter of Luke's Gospel, and verse
fifteen.
Luke's Gospel, chapter twenty-two, verse fifteen.
And Jesus said unto them, With desire I
have desired to eat this Passover with you
before I suffer.
For I say unto you, I will not
any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled
in the kingdom of God.
And he took the cup and gave thanks,
and said, Take this and divide it among
yourselves.
For I say unto you, I will not
drink of the fruit of the vine until
the kingdom of God shall come.
I trust that God will speak to us
this evening through these portions of his word
which we have read together.
I'm not telling you any secret when I
say that in the summer of 1927, I
was born in the province of British Columbia
in Canada.
About that same time, in the Dominican Republic,
an inferior officer in the armed forces, a
junior officer, rose up and led a successful
attack against the constitutional government.
It was a bloodless event.
The respected and elderly Dominican statesman who was
president was overthrown, and this young upstart became
the maximum leader of the Dominican Republic.
While I was growing in childhood and youth
in Vancouver, he became an absolute dictator of
the Dominican Republic.
In May, the last days of that month,
in the year 1960, he was assassinated, as
most of you perhaps know who are here
this evening.
His end was inevitable.
The forces were building up in all segments
of our society to bring his regime, which
had lasted for almost thirty-three years, to
an end.
Some of the factors that were prominent in
his downfall can be mentioned very briefly.
It wasn't many years after he came into
power that he manipulated the change of the
city, the capital city's name.
Since colonial times, it was known as Santo
Domingo de Guzmán.
He changed it, and it became known as
Ciudad Trujillo, which in English means Trujillo City.
Having changed then the capital name to bear
his own personal name, it was a very
easy thing for all other towns to place
his name on the prominent main streets.
His name and his presence influenced the whole
country.
Eventually, he was known as Benefactor de la
Patria Nueva, the Benefactor of the New Nation.
But towards the end of his reign, he
did his very best to achieve what he
had longed for for many years, and that
was to be named the Benefactor of the
Church.
In this, he failed, and in the pressures
that mounted against him, he was finally assassinated.
He was a man of lowly birth, of
no education, but he became an absolute dictator,
and I believe the man who reigned for
more years than any other dictator in the
long history of dictatorships in Latin America.
He achieved a place of prominence from which,
in his own way, he looked down on
those that surrounded him, or, to use the
verse we have read this evening in Luke's
Gospel, chapter 18 and verse 9, the last
phrase, he despised others.
He built himself up into the place of
power on the basis of violence, of corruption,
of cruelty, of hatred, and he was known
for his despisal of all others.
Now, the man that we have read about
tonight in Luke's Gospel, chapter 18, was a
man entirely different from Trujillo in the Dominican
Republic.
He was a man who achieved great prominence
not on the basis of murder and bloodshed
and violence, but rather he was known, as
most Pharisees were known, as outstanding moral persons.
He achieved his position on the basis of
faithfully fulfilling his religion and his tradition.
And finally, he, with others, from their place
of moral prominence, they despised others.
This is the point of departure in this
short story of the two men who went
to church to pray.
I mention it this evening because the Pharisee
had deceived himself.
That is, he believed that material possessions, that
cultural heritage, that ecclesiastical privileges, automatically indicated that
someone or anyone, and this man in particular,
had the sign of divine approval, that God
was with him.
And because of that, he was a man
filled with prime, and on this particular Thanksgiving
Day in his own history, he went up
to the church, he went up to the
temple, to give thanks to God.
I would like tonight, very kindly but forcefully,
to emphasize that cultural, material, social privileges do
not necessarily indicate the approval of God.
This is something that many of us in
the Western world, perhaps, have failed to perceive.
And we think of our heritage, and of
our blessings, as some special indication that God
is for us, and that he is blessing
us.
You may remember that the Apostle Paul, that
great champion of the Christian faith in the
first years of the Christian church, wrote to
his friends in Philippi, and he said, And
I know how to be a bait, and
I know how to abound.
To put it in contemporary language, he knew
about affluence on the one hand, and dire
poverty on the other hand.
He'd been to both extremes many times in
his life.
But Paul in no way indicates that his
poverty was the result of a spiritual decline
in his life, any more than he indicates
that the abundance that at certain times he
experienced was the result of a spiritual high.
As a matter of fact, he's very clear
whether in poverty or in affluence, he knew
how to be contented, for his contentment was
never linked to the things that he had.
It was linked, rather, to his intimate, personal
fellowship with Jesus Christ.
Thus, when he was very poor, when he
was very hungry, he was a contented man,
just as he was contented when there was
abundance of material things round about him.
In the world in which we live today,
we can look across the Pacific Ocean at
one of the most remarkable nations in the
world today, Japan, that has experienced in recent
years an industrial change and development almost unequaled
in the world, and in no way can
we consider Japan a country of Christian heritage.
Most of you here this evening in your
own lifetime will remember the communist revolution in
Russia, and today, in scientific technology and in
military might, it stands second only to the
United States of America.
Its power, its technology, has nothing to do
with its belief in God, for as all
of us know, it is an atheistic society.
Most of us in recent months have become
acutely aware that a small group of powerful
men in the Middle East hold in their
hands tonight almost the control of the economies
of the world, and in no way are
they Christian men, nor in any way can
we say that they have that sign of
divine approval.
I emphasize this tonight because this man, the
Pharisee, blessed with a tremendous tradition, for it
was to the people of Israel that God
gave what the Bible calls the oracles of
God, the message of God.
The people of Israel that had been created
in the sovereignty of God as the channel
through which the Messiah would be born into
the world.
This man with this rich heritage came to
the place where he thought he had superiority
over all the other people of the world,
and even over all of his contemporaries in
his own society, and he went up to
church to give thanks to God that he
was not like other men.
One final illustration on this point, for I
come to you tonight from Latin America, and
in Latin America I move every day of
my life amongst people, some of them who
have no way of knowing where their next
meal is coming from.
People whom God loves with the same love
that he loves each one of us here
tonight, that whatever we have in no way
makes us special over other people in the
world, the vast majority of people in the
world who are in poverty and need tonight.
But the Lord Jesus is the outstanding example.
All of his life in this world was
lived in intimate fellowship with God, and the
Lord Jesus said the foxes have holes, and
the birds of the air have nests, but
the Son of Man does not have a
place to lay down his head.
As far as we know, he never owned
a home.
He was never surrounded by material possessions.
It would appear that at the hour of
his death, all that he properly owned were
the clothes that he wore.
Thus, affluence or material blessings in no way
is anonymous recognition that a man is enjoying
divine approval.
The Lord Jesus did, and he had none
of it.
God shattered the heavens, and he said on
one occasion, this is my beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased, but he had
no place to put down his head.
No home that was his in the sense
that your home is yours.
He was the person in the history of
our world that his whole life was lived
in fellowship with God, well pleasing to God,
but there was no expression of affluence that
surrounded him when he was in this world.
Thus, the farce, as he comes up to
the presence of God, is very, very mistaken.
On one occasion some years ago in the
Dominican Republic, Mr. Stunt of Echoes of Service
of Bath, England, visited us, and he was
with us in our home in La Vega
at that time.
And in the course of my usual activities,
he went with me one day through one
of the very poor areas of that city.
The streets were filled with children, many of
them without any clothes, and many of them
with signs of malnutrition, and most of them
dirty.
And as we walked that street, I said
to Mr. Stunt, I've often wondered how you
can explain that I was born in a
Christian home, and brought up from my infancy
in a Christian church, and was taught and
trained by godly men and women.
How that happened to me, instead of being
born right here, in this filthy street, in
this little town of La Vega.
He didn't answer for a little while, and
he walked on, and then he stopped, and
he said, Jim, the only possible answer is
linked to the sovereignty of God.
Then we walked a little farther, and he
stopped again, and he said, but Jim, remember
that privilege brings responsibility.
That's what the Pharisee had missed in his
life.
All of his culture, his heritage, his ecclesiastical
privileges, and his material blessings had so occupied
his mind that he had lost all sense
of responsibility.
And he stood in pride and self-sufficiency
to offer a hypocritical prayer of thanksgiving to
God.
Let me notice tonight with you briefly his
prayer.
It begins in verse 11.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,
God, I thank thee that I am not
as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or
even as this publican.
This is often because status by negation.
And whenever you build up a status on
the basis of negation, you put the grace
of God completely outside of your life.
Now, this is something that is so common
in the world today that we live with
it day by day, many of us, and
are not really conscious of what it means.
But you build up your status personally, or
as a family, or as a church, or
as a nation, by looking out in others
and thanking God you are not like them.
That as we mentioned this morning, you've achieved
this, you've done the other thing, and you
look down negatively on the others and you
build yourself up onto the top of a
pyramid from which you look down on all
others, despising them as the Pharisee did.
And that type of status denies the grace
of God.
Now, tonight, those of us who are here,
maybe some of you are sitting back and
thinking, well, there must be some way that
we can acknowledge in the presence of God
and give thanks that we're not extortioners, and
that we're not unjust people, and that we're
not adulterers.
And, of course, there is.
But not like the Pharisee did.
The Pharisee spoke from a heart full of
pride, for the Bible clearly says he despised
the others.
It's an entirely different matter when adulterers cross
our paths, or when we're touched by unjust
people, or by extortioners, or any other type
of evil, malicious people, and in a spirit
of humility, we acknowledge before God that but
for the grace of God, we might well
be in the same position.
Thus we notice and we give thanks for
the difference.
But we give thanks recognizing the presence and
the evidence of the grace of God in
our lives.
The Pharisee completely denied any activity of the
grace of God.
Those of us who are here tonight, and
I speak as one of you, for my
wife and I, in our middle age, are
seeking to build a little home in Santo
Domingo, and we have our family.
We thank God for meals day by day,
for clothes to wear.
We thank God for all of these things,
and we look around on the world, and
we're surrounded, believe me, in Latin America by
corrupt men, by malicious men, by immoral people.
Remember that the Lord Jesus, He was separate
from sinners.
But He was recognized as the friend of
sinners, who could sit down with people in
their need, and seek to communicate to them
the things of God.
But the Pharisee, he despised them.
Thus his attitude was wrong.
Then you'll notice also in verse 12, that
he is excessively occupied with himself, with that
satisfaction of self.
Just a few words are written, I fast
twice in the week.
I give tithes of all that I possess.
Most Jews practice some form of fasting.
Pious Jews fasted at least twice a week,
Monday and Thursday of every week.
Now this man did not necessarily do it
in private.
Here he is in the church building, and
most likely praying out loud, and thanking God
that twice a week, Monday and Thursday, he
fasted.
And also he mentions that he gave tithes
of all that he possessed.
Not just as the law required.
You may remember Deuteronomy chapter 14, in that
three year cycle, they were to give tithes
of all that they had in connection with
their crops, and with their livestock.
Certain things are mentioned specifically, corn, wine, and
cattle.
But the Pharisees, they went even a step
farther.
And the Lord Jesus talks about it in
Matthew chapter 23.
I'm going to read the verse to you
tonight.
They not only very carefully tithed their crops
of corn, and their harvest of grapes and
wine, but they went farther.
Matthew 23 and verse 23, Woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For ye pay tithes of mint, and anise,
and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters
of the law.
They were so strict in their tithing, that
of those insignificant items of herbs, they carefully
set the tenth part aside for gossip.
The Lord Jesus did not condemn them for
doing that, for verse 23 says, These ought
ye to have done, and not to leave
the other undone.
Thus, with great care, the Pharisee gave his
tithe, and he faithfully fasted before God.
Paul the Apostle was also a Pharisee.
And when he gives his testimony in Philippians
chapter 3, he acknowledges that he was a
Pharisee, and then he goes on to say,
And in the things that touched the law,
he was blameless.
In all of the smallest items, he carefully
fulfilled his tradition and his religion.
It's beautiful to notice that it was after
he was touched by the grace of God,
he saw himself as he really was.
And then he wrote some years afterwards to
Timothy his son, and he said, I am
the chief of sinners.
You only know that when you've been touched
by the grace of God.
Thus, this man, the Pharisee, we find his
excessive satisfaction with self.
But then, going back to verse 11, notice
again the last phrase.
It begins, I thank thee that I am
not as other men are, and it ends
up even as this publican.
How he carefully separated himself from the men
who were most disliked in that society, the
publicans.
Most of them were Jews, and the higher
of the Romans, and they collected the taxes
from the Jews for the Romans.
Disliked and hated by most of their Jewish
brethren.
The Pharisee gives thanks to God that he's
not like this publican.
But that in itself is an expression of
his indifference, of the lack of sensitivity, for
you'll find in the Bible that the great
men of God never separated themselves from the
people of God in their hour of need,
and even in their hour of sin.
I'd like to leave with you tonight just
two or three thoughts in this connection.
Nehemiah, chapter 1, you read these words, remembering
that Nehemiah belonged to that select group of
people, very small in the Old Testament, about
whom nothing negative is recorded.
Men like Joseph, Nehemiah, Daniel stand out as
great men in the word of God.
Now God very carefully, in other cases, the
case of David, writes down what was wrong.
The shady, the immoral acts of David are
all recorded.
But here are one or two men about
whom nothing bad is recorded.
Nehemiah is one.
Nehemiah 1, in verse 1, the words of
Nehemiah, the son of Hatchaliah.
And it came to pass in the month
of Shushlu, in the twentieth year, as I
was in Shushan the palace, that Hananiah, one
of my brethren, came.
He and certain men of Judah.
And I asked them concerning the Jews that
had escaped, which were left of the captivity,
and concerning Jerusalem.
And they said unto me, The remnant that
are left of the captivity there in the
province are in great affliction and reproach.
The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down,
and the gates thereof are burned with fire.
And it came to pass, when I heard
these words, that I sat down and wept,
and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed
before the God of heaven, and said, I
beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the
great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and
mercy for them that love him, and observe
his commandments.
Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine
eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer
of thy servants, which I pray before thee
now, day and night, for the children of
Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of
the children of Israel, which we have sinned
against thee.
Both I and my Father's house have sinned.
We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and
have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes,
nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant
Moses.
Now I've read this portion to you carefully,
for as we've already mentioned, we have no
record of anything wrong in the life of
Nehemiah.
The very opposite is true.
He is one of the men who rises
up to seek to put right what was
wrong with the people of Israel, and the
city of Jerusalem.
But when he comes into the presence of
God, he does not separate himself from those
that had sinned, but he unites himself with
the whole people, and he says, We have
sinned, I and my Father's house, we have
dealt very corruptly against thee.
It is a sign of pettiness, of smallness,
when like the Pharisee, you turn your back
on the publican.
It's a sign of greatness, and of spiritual
sensitivity, when you unite with those that are
in need, and you pray with them, as
one of them, and for them.
Nehemiah is not alone.
Daniel is the great statesman of the Old
Testament, and you'll find in Daniel a prayer
almost identical to Nehemiah's prayer.
And once again, Daniel says, and there's nothing
recorded about Daniel that I know of that
is negative.
He's one of those great men of the
Old Testament.
But in his prayer, he too refers to
the sins that we have sinned, and the
things that we have done, as he prays
for the people of God.
The most remarkable illustration of all is the
illustration of the Lord Jesus.
You may remember that John the Baptist came
with a ministry of repentance, and in his
strong, forceful, not to say violent way, he
pounded that message of repentance before the people,
and then he listened.
And from all the segments of society, they
came down to the River Jordan to be
baptized by John and his disciples.
And in one of those mornings, in the
line that waited to be baptized, the Lord
Jesus took his place.
And when John saw him, he was startled,
and he said, No, Lord.
And the Lord spoke to him, for John
had said, I should be baptized by you,
and you come to me to be baptized.
And the Lord Jesus answered, Now suffer it
to be so not, for it becomes us,
taking his place amongst the people in their
need, it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness.
And then John took the Lord Jesus, and
he baptized him on that occasion.
The Lord Jesus participated in the baptism of
repentance, but he had nothing to repent on.
He did not stand on the other side
of the river and watch the sinners come
down to be baptized one by one, and
thank God that he was not like them.
But he came over, and he stood with
them.
He identified himself with them in their need,
just the shadow of that day when he
would go to the cross and fully share
our need by taking on himself our sins
and dying for us at that place.
I emphasize again tonight that spiritual greatness never,
never tolerates discrimination.
Beginning with the Lord Jesus, with great men
like Nehemiah, Daniel, we find that they sensitively
share in the needs of the people as
they come before God.
This callous, hard Pharisee.
Thank God that he was not like all
of these people, and especially like this publican
standing near the door.
On this Thanksgiving day, God grants that our
Thanksgiving will be of a nature totally different
from the Thanksgiving of the Pharisee.
Let us move then just briefly to the
Lord Jesus.
The chapter we've read from this evening in
John's Gospel, chapter 11, would seem to be
of all occasions the most unlikely for a
prayer of Thanksgiving.
For as you will remember, it is a
story of death, of sorrow, of tears, of
perplexity, and the Lord Jesus comes to that
town and he meets with Mary and Martha.
All of us tonight are familiar with the
story.
Down in verse 40, Jesus said to Martha,
said I not unto thee that if thou
wouldest believe, thou should see the glory of
God?
He had referred to this back in verse
4.
When Jesus heard that, he said this sickness
is not unto death, but for the glory
of God, that the Son of God might
be glorified thereby.
That deep conviction in the Lord Jesus, that
at this most tragic hour, let me emphasize,
it was a tragic hour for the Lord
Jesus.
For in the humanness of the Lord Jesus,
when the Bible says he wept, it means
he wept as you and I weep when
our loved ones die, when a friend is
taken from us.
The Bible also says in this chapter on
two occasions, John makes this comment in verse
5, now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister,
and Lasser.
There was no doubt about that.
And then farther down the chapter in verse
36, then said the Jews, behold how he
loved him.
Those who knew the Lord Jesus like John,
and the strangers who were gathered together that
day, they all knew that Jesus deeply loved
Mary, Martha, and Lasser.
So in that human situation, dark with death,
pregnant with sorrow and moral suffering, the Lord
Jesus is present, and he is convinced that
it will be for the glory of God.
And as he looks at the people, down
in verse 41, as the stone is removed,
Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father,
I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
Now this prayer of thanksgiving on that particular
occasion is the proclamation of his intimate fellowship
with God.
He thanks God for a work not yet
seen.
It had not yet happened.
But the Lord Jesus, surrounded by people in
that eastern way that were wailing and crying,
raises his voice in thanksgiving to God.
For in that dark hour, the glory of
God would be seen.
And in the sorrow and in the midst
of tears, he raises the note of thanksgiving.
Then you'll notice that in verses 41 and
verse 42, you have that sense of his
participation in the working out of God's will.
I can't pass over that tonight.
This, I grant, is a special case.
It is a case of death that needed
resurrection.
The Lord Jesus had said, I am the
resurrection.
He had what was needed on that occasion,
for he is the fount of eternal life.
And as he stood at that moment in
the presence of death, the need was death,
but the need was life for Lazarus.
And Jesus had that power.
And as he stood there, confident that God
would work, there is that recognition that he
is sharing in the working out of God's
will.
And he gives thanks to God for it.
Now, I need not labor the point tonight.
But any thanksgiving that does not involve a
reaching out to help those that surround us
in need, has a hollow ring.
The Lord Jesus was there in fullness of
life.
And yet, what was needed was life for
Lazarus.
And on that dark hour, as you know,
he called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come
forth.
You know, others shared with him in that
great work.
And secondary things.
They removed the stone.
And when the Lord Jesus gave life to
Lazarus, he came out bound, hand and foot,
even his head was wrapped in the grave
clothes.
And they had to take them off, as
the Lord Jesus did, loose them and let
him go.
But the source of power belonged to the
Lord Jesus.
And on that occasion, he shared that power
with those who were in need in their
sorrow, and especially to Lazarus, in death.
You know, the world today, perhaps even more
than many of us who are Christians, are
conscious of the tremendous need in the world
in which we live today.
In Rome, just a few days ago, an
international conference met to deal with the problem
of hunger in the world.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of people
starving today.
And we are told on good authority that
there are potentially millions of people who will
starve in the next few years.
Those of us, then, who live in a
land like the United States of America or
Canada, in so many ways, can never raise
our thoughts of thanksgiving to God without at
the same time, in some way, reaching out
to help those in need.
That is, to participate in what is the
will of God.
The New Testament running through is that unbroken
line of exhortation to good works over and
over and over again.
Now, we pause today to thank God.
We thank God for our families.
We thank God for our homes.
We thank God for our jobs.
We thank God for the material blessings he
has given to us.
Above all, we thank God for our spiritual
heritage, for new life in the Lord Jesus.
But if we thank God for all of
those blessings, without reaching out in some way,
materially and spiritually, to help those who are
less fortunate, there is a hollow ring to
our thanksgiving.
The Lord Jesus, I thank thee, Father, that
thou hast heard his dependence on God, his
fellowship with God, his active participation in the
working out of God's will, in that manifestation
of the glory of God.
And not only that, but the last part
of verse 42, or the beginning of the
verse, I knew that thou hearest me always,
but because of the people which stand by,
I said it, that they may believe that
thou hast sent me.
In this thanksgiving is the yearning, the strong
desire, that those standing round about will participate
in these blessings, will come to know the
Lord Jesus, the Savior and Lord.
Thus, we pause today to give thanks.
I think as we do to this audience
tonight, there is a recognition in the hearts
of all of us that by the grace
of God, we walk in fellowship with God.
We thank God for them.
We thank God for the opportunity of serving
him.
And we thank God that as his will
is worked out, that others will see and
believe and come into fellowship with the Lord
Jesus.
Now, in closing, we go back to Luke
chapter 22, and here we come to perhaps
the highest level of thanksgiving.
Most of us are also very familiar with
this portion of the word of God.
Luke chapter 22 and verse 17, And Jesus
took the cup and gave thanks.
Now, that wasn't an automatic thanksgiving, as we
give thanks for our meals.
It wasn't an automatic benediction or thanksgiving, as
the Jews were used to doing in their
religious festivals.
It was a word of thanksgiving in which
the Lord Jesus fully understood what the cup
meant.
It meant sacrifice.
It meant death.
And he took that cup in the presence
of the disciples, and he gave thanks.
In the book to the Hebrews, we have
these words, For the joy that was set
before him, he endured the cross, despising the
shame.
He did not shrink back.
He did not turn away.
It is true that he prayed, Father, if
it be possible, let this cup pass from
me.
Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.
Before he prayed that prayer, he had taken
the cup.
Later down in the chapter, in that little
Jewish ceremony, he takes the cup again.
He speaks clearly of his blood, that if
it is referenced to violent death, it would
be a redemptive death.
And as he takes the cup, he gives
thanks.
Now, referring to it tonight, none of us
in this auditorium know anything about suffering on
this level which is unique to the Lord
Jesus.
It is also true that we know so
little of suffering in comparison to the way
so many have suffered for the Lord Jesus.
Let us give thanks for that, for we
should never look for suffering.
But as we thank God for the pleasant
circumstances that surround us, let us remember that
many of our brothers and sisters in China
tonight know all about what that cup means.
Many of my Latin American people in Cuba
know what that cup means.
Most of you are familiar with Christian people
in Russia that know all about what that
cup means.
They have taken that cup and they have
thanked God for the opportunity of serving Him.
As we thank God then for our pleasant
circumstances, we must remember those who belong to
us, who are members of us, our brothers
and sisters in other places in the world
tonight who have taken the cup and who
have followed in the footsteps of the Lord
Jesus and who have given thanks for the
opportunity of serving Him and suffering for Him
and many of them of giving their lives
for the cause of the Lord Jesus.
I read the verse again.
He took the cup and gave thanks and
said, take this and divide it among yourselves.
Those of you familiar with English history will
remember the two great martyrs, Latimer and Ridley,
who died under the queen known as Bloody
Mary.
And when they were taken out to the
place where they were to be executed, it
was Latimer who turned to his friend Ridley
and he said as follows, Be of good
cheer, Master Ridley.
We shall this day light such a candle
by God's grace in England as I trust
shall never be put out.
That is, as they walked together, they knew
what it was to take the cup and
they took it and they thanked God and
they went to their deaths.
And any of you familiar with history will
know how much God blessed that nation, England,
and through England, especially spread the gospel around
the world.
In that previous generation of men who went
to the four corners of the world with
the gospel of the Lord Jesus.
So tonight, not that I detract from giving
thanks for the good things that we have,
but let us in our thanksgiving remember those
of spiritual courage and strength who in the
sovereignty of God are not surrounded by the
things that we have and yet in their
circumstances they thank God for the Lord Jesus
for the opportunity of service and even of
sacrifice in His service.
It is easy in our society today to
give thanks the way that the Pharisees gave
thanks.
My plea this evening as we close is
that not only on Thanksgiving Day at the
end of November, but that during all the
days of our lives we will give thanks
rather in the spirit of the Lord Jesus
and that we will look forward to the
moment when we shall see Him face to
face.
Sing with me now in closing a beautiful
hymn that I discovered in your hymn book
this evening.
Hymn number 12.
When all thy mercies, O my God, my
rising soul surveys, transported with the view I'm
lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Ten thousand thousand precious gifts my daily thanks
employ, nor is the least that cheerful heart
to taste those gifts with joy.
Hymn number 12.
We will remain seated as we sing this
hymn.
When all thy mercies, O
my God, ten thousand thousand
precious gifts that brought again from the dead
our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the
sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you perfect in every good work to
do His will, working in you that which
is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus
Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
Amen.