The psalm this morning that we're considering is Psalm 136, 136, I don't know why it says 1, 3, and 4, but we're going to read the whole psalm this morning. And boys and girls, when you listen to this psalm, I want you to think of a certain phrase that stands out, a certain phrase that hopefully you don't miss, hopefully adults don't miss it either, but it is a phrase that is repeated over and over and over to which you have to ask the question, are we hearing the Lord and what he's saying to us when he gives us this kind of repetition? So this is Psalm 136 this morning. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords for his steadfast love endures forever. To him who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever. The sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever. The moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, for his steadfast love endures forever. And brought Israel out from among them, for his steadfast love endures forever. With a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him who divided the Red Sea in two, for his steadfast love endures forever. and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever. But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him who led his people through the wilderness, for his steadfast love endures forever. To him who struck down great kings, for his steadfast love endures forever. And killed mighty kings, for his steadfast love endures forever. Sihon, king of the Amorites, for his steadfast love endures forever. And Og, king of Bashan, for his steadfast love endures forever. And gave their land as a heritage, for his steadfast love endures forever. A heritage to Israel as servant, for his steadfast love endures forever. It is he who remembered us in our lowest state, for his steadfast love endures forever. And rescued us from our foes, for his steadfast love endures forever. He who gives food to all flesh, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of heaven for his steadfast love endures forever. Did you guys get what phrase that was? I think the Lord is telling us something really important by doing that and inspiring that. The temptation for the pastor is to just read everything and then at the end say his steadfast love endures forever. But you'd miss the whole point of the psalm, wouldn't you? You'd miss what the psalm is intending to do and help you with. This morning we come together for Thanksgiving and this is a joyful day of celebration and Thanksgiving for the Lord's care in our lives and what a great opportunity to do what we should be doing every day of our life, but to come together and worship as God's people and to thank the Lord for all that he's done for us and to reflect a little bit on his goodness to us from the beginning and all throughout history to his people. This is a special time where we have to do this. Almost every year we've come together, I have, what, now preached eight or nine of these here, eight. And every year we've come together, and it was the same in my previous charge, and every year we would experience and rehearse and think about the blessing of the Lord, the provision of the Lord, the care of the Lord, how the Lord blessed us another year with good gifts, and how many could we rehearse. I've often thought to myself, though, every year as I preach this, what happens on that particular Thanksgiving when we have experienced a Thanksgiving of loss and of hardship and of struggle? That was something that I've always thought to myself about. What would we feel like? What would that look like? And I think, though, things could be much worse than what they are now. We've begun to taste what years could be. Everyone says, I was even in my neighborhood the other day, and I heard the kids chanting out bad words about 2020. And they learned that from their parents, didn't they? That this has been a difficult year, a challenging year, a year of hardship, a year in our church of loss. We've lost a lot of real pillars here in the church and saints who've been great influences. It's been a hard year in many respects. And people are full of stress and anxiety and difficulty. And how would I evaluate things in the midst of that kind of Thanksgiving day? How would I preach and what would I say and what would I do? I was reading Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation that he wrote in the midst of the Civil War that piqued my attention, something that he said in the middle of it. 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 of 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. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seen to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace, this is what he says, has been preserved with all nations. Order has been maintained. Laws have been respected and obeyed. And harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict. It's hard for us to believe that that could ever be the case today, really. That there would be peace. And even in the midst of great war, the civil war, where a president could stand up and say something like that, that it could be true. We've seen the opposite. We've seen in our days lawlessness. We've seen in our days chaos. We live in incessant worry about the future. But I think it's helpful to remember as we come together for Thanksgiving today that even in the darkest days, even when we fear entering the dark times of providence, even when we fear the future and we look at the struggles of the present, there is never a time, there is never a time when it's so dark that you can't see the goodness of the Lord to you. There's never a time. In fact, I would argue that in the darkest moments, that's where we see things the most clearly. In the darkest moments and in the difficult days is where we see the blessing of the Lord and the help of the Lord. And our Thanksgiving then is not just one of routine expectation or something that we just do culturally. It's something that actually in the difficult days, when we come together, the Thanksgiving that we have takes on real sincerity and real meaning when we experience the goodness of God in affliction. The goodness of God in the darkness. We worry about what is to come, and I think it's always important to say, in light of what Lincoln said, that the experience of what we worry about is always different than what we've actually built up in our minds. There's a reason that the Lord's providence and workings have been set before us in history. What we worry about doesn't determine the future. What we worry about doesn't make something concrete as it's going to go. And here I think this is a helpful way to look at things. We can stop as difficult as the year has been in loss and in hardship and say, wait a minute, in the midst of all of this, has God not proven himself still faithful? When has God ever proven to be unfaithful to us? Has God not shown himself strong? If we will peek our heads up above the clouds for a moment, we see all kinds of rays of light. if we will just look and think for a moment there's so much to be thankful for isn't there there's so much to bless the name of the lord for there's so much to give him sincere praise from the heart what shall i render to the lord for all of his benefits to me is that still true i think psalm 136 helps us with that i think psalm 136 provides us with a great perspective It was known as the great Hallel in Israel. The psalm is a pledge of how God will be to his people always. Now I want you to think about that. A pledge to how God will be to his people always. This is a pledge of his faithfulness because the pledge of it all is rooted in something that he kept saying to us over and over, that his covenant love for us never changes. His covenant love for us never changes. Why do you think he had to say that 26 times? Why did he continue to have to say that? Notice here, the psalm begins by calling us to give thanks to the Lord. Notice the repetition. Give thanks to the Lord, the God of gods. There is no one else, as the psalm is calling us to recognize, who deserve such thanks for such faithfulness. You know, 26 times in the Bible this is used in this particular psalm. His covenant faithfulness. His love endures forever. I looked up the old Wycliffe's translation from this from 1395, and I thought it was beautiful. Alleluia, knowledge ye to the Lord, for he is good, and for his mercy is without end. His mercy is without end. That's how Wycliffe first translated this in 1395. Knowledge ye to the God of heaven, knowledge ye to the Lord of hosts, for his mercy is without end. His mercy is without end. The special covenant love of the Lord is something that's emphasized here. It's a special word. It's his keset. It's a word that he chose specifically to tell us. A word so special, it was even difficult over the years for the translators to quite get right. It was so special, so bound up with his covenant promise with Abraham, so bound up with his faithfulness to everything he said he would do, that they enjoined to it the understanding of love and mercy, bringing it together. So that this excellent mercy, this steadfast love, putting all these concepts together, come together in this word of loyalty of the Lord. He will not fail in anything he said he would do. We need to hear that right now. I believe that's the most important thing that we need to hear right now since everything is changing and we live in scary times and what isn't really changing at the moment. Think about all of life right now and the quick speed of change of everything that we know. The culture is changing, the times are changing, the way of life as we know it is changing. We are changing at times in not good ways, especially after we eat today. We're all changing, aren't we? Leaders come and go. What is stable? What is stable in this world right now? The days that we knew, that we look back, I am, I'm one of these guys that shouldn't do it, but I of course look back to the good times, at least for me, as I enjoyed them. It may not be for somebody else, but I've had really good times, and I look back to the good times, and I somewhat dream about the good old days. Shame on me, for the Bible's always said there's an upward calling and something so much better for you, and you should never look back. You should always look forward. But we do that, because in the present, there's so much change, and there's so much instability, and there's so much uncertainty for the future. We want to grasp backward to something that was stable and concrete and that we could hold on to and say, that was sure for me. That's what we do as people. And by the way, if you really are honest about the past, it was never as good when you were going through it as you think. But we always romanticize it. We always treat it that way. In the midst of this, in a world of uncertainty and confusion and chaos and darkness, here the Lord comes to us and says, uh-uh, wait a minute, wait a minute, there's something and someone who's never changed. I can't change. I won't change. It's impossible. That's why we love the doctrine of immutability. You know what that is? The core truth that has never changed is my steadfast covenant love for you. Over and over and over and over. And I wondered if we got wearied me reading it. Isn't that beautiful? That'll never change in this world. My love for you will never change. Think of how we treat one another and how we fall in and out of relationship with one another and it could even be our spouses and things change and difficult times change and people change and there's constant conflict. There's never ending conflict and we're in. Think of what the Lord's saying here. I don't change. I don't change. When Abraham, when that covenant was made, when Abraham stood there, he fell asleep and I passed through those pieces, we cut, that covenant was cut and I've proved it on the cross that I don't change. When I gave my son to die for you, my steadfast love endures forever. My steadfast love endures forever for you. My steadfast love endures forever. And I think that's where the basis for which the psalm says, there's really three ways I've already proven it. lift up your eyes out of the clouds and consider it. First, praise me for the care of creation. Give thanks to the Lord, for he alone does great things. By wisdom he made the heavens. To him who laid out the earth above the waters, to him who made the great lights, the sun to rule by day and the moon, and the stars to rule by night. Thank him for this, he's saying. Thank me for this. Consider it for a minute, for my steadfast love endures forever. He links it together this way about something in creation itself. What is it about creation itself? There's something in creation that we've not appreciated. Take away the tent. And there's a big ball up there, isn't there? There's something about creation that with redeemed eyes we're able to look and we're able to understand that his word has told us to understand about it. I hope I can capture it. Everyone's gripped by fear right now. Political systems are falling. Economies are reeling. Revolution is in the works. Wicked and lawless behavior, aggression, sadness, frustration, difficult times. And yet in the midst of all this, God has put something in place to encourage you. There's something about looking at the sun and the moon. There's something about its presence. There's something about God putting these two great lights in place in the world and the mountains being assigned where they are and everything else that is put in place, the oceans being assigned their limit. That in the midst of everything changing and everything falling apart, you can go out and you can look at this and say, it's always been there. You can look at the sun. You can look at the moon. You can look at the stars. You can look at the land. You can look at a mountain and say, they can't move those things because God put them in place. It's always been a weird kind of comfort to me to be able to go out and just stare at a mountain. And say, when everything else is falling apart, when everything else is failing, to look at that mountain as it was formed, and it'll be there tomorrow. Unless the Lord comes. And I think that's the effect of this psalm. When has the sun not come? When have we not had the sun? When have we not had the moon? When have we not had the stars since the creation of the world? When have we not had the creation upheld by him? and you're able to see this stability in the creation itself. And what he's saying is recognize the one who's holding that and give him praise, for his steadfast love is just like that. It doesn't fail you. Obviously, creation, we're looking for a new creation, but you see my point. What we experience in life in the midst of all of this, He's upholding it. Praise him for this. His steadfast love endures forever. It's meant to drive us to thankfulness today when we look out of our rooms and look out of our houses and just study what is this marvelous theater that we live in that he's still caring for us, that he's still watching over us, that he's still providing for us. That should be the effect of the creation. That should be what we say when we see these things. Thank him. He's still upholding. He's still caring. That has not changed. That has not changed. Second, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. Why? For he struck down, he struck Egypt and their firstborn. To him who brought out Israel with a strong hand, outstretched arm. To him who divided the sea, making Israel pass through it. To him who overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. After that, did he fail them? No. It's never been the message of Scripture. He led them to the wilderness. through the wilderness. He fed them the whole way. He gave them the land. He fulfilled his promise. So you'll notice that here, the story here, embedded here, is the story of our deliverance. That's what the whole, the Bible, the central event in the Old Testament was the deliverance out of Egypt and God bringing them and bringing them to the land and bringing them safely home through all those difficulties in the wilderness as they traveled. He still brought them home and he gave them the land. And all of that is the story of the cross in Jesus setting us free from sin and has promised to go ahead and bring us to the eternal land. It's the whole story of the Bible and the testimony of Scripture has always been the Lord did everything he said he would do. He delivered them. It's interesting here that in the midst of this he starts mentioning all the really difficult things that happened along the way. There were these really wicked tyrants that rose up and threatened them. I don't know what Sihon of the Amorites or Og, a king of Bashan, looked like. I definitely would never name my kid that. They must have been really bad dudes. And guess what the Lord did to every enemy that threatened his people? Every time, at some point. He knocked them out. He knocked them out. He took them out. If ever they stayed in office for a period of time that was hurtful to God's people. It was the humblest people. Even that had a good purpose. But here what he's saying is all the difficulty along the way, all the hardship along the way, the Lord was so upholding his people. The Lord was the one controlling the situations. He was leading his people to the eternal land that he had promised to them. And Israel could look and sing this song as the great Egyptian Hillel and say his steadfast love endures forever. He's proved it. He's proved it. So what are we afraid of today? What are we afraid of for the future? What are we scared of? What scares our hearts? And what are we looking for? What drives us? Notice what this psalm is saying. His steadfast love endures forever. There's no reason to fear. He's delivered you. He will deliver you. And he will finish what he said he'll do. His steadfast love endures forever. The whole history of God's deliverance for his people is set before us in this psalm. Think about this great truth. Praise him for his ever-present deliverance from everything that would harm you. Praise him, give him thanks for giving you life through the deliverance of his son. Praise him that he's leading you home, you and your children, and he will not fail, no matter how difficult it is. Praise him that he's reserved heaven for you and he's taking you there. Praise him that he's doing everything necessary and has done to set you free and to keep you and uphold you. And that is a great basis for thanksgiving, for the same truth is what we live and enjoy today. So look at creation. It's all a witness. It's here of his steadfast love, his deliverance that he's proclaimed all throughout history for you. Then there's one more in verse 23. He's remembered us in our lowly state and rescued us from our enemies who gives food to all flesh. You know, you have to kind of stop when you read that and say, when have we ever in all the difficulty not been fed? That's a really remarkable thing. We've had it in such abundance. When have we ever not really had three meals a day? There are people on the earth that don't have that. I have to remind my children that all the time. But the general truth is absolutely right. The Lord has fed this world. That's remarkable. And we enjoy all these rich blessings and goodness, and he fills our mouths with good things. Bless the Lord, O my soul, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. We're full of his blessing. We're full of his care. What do we lack? really. What do we lack? Now, if you stop and you turn off the news, which can often be a very good thing, and you stop listening to the madness of what everyone's driving into us right now, which is what? Fear. I almost really am concerned at this time that with the virus that we've lost our our whole view of death and resurrection through this. Our whole view that we don't have to live in fear of death. It doesn't mean I'm not saying we don't love our neighbor in the way that we handle this, but I fear that we're being trained by the world this way. If you stop and turn off the news and you think about everything that they've offered us in terms of fear. What do they offer us? What has the world offered us that is certain? That's the question. And when you ask that question, what has the world offered us that is certain? The answer is nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They can guarantee us nothing. They can provide for us nothing. God has really good news for us on Thanksgiving. Is anything of this psalm less true today? And the answer is no. Even if every good gift were taken away, even if the fig tree should not blossom or fruit be on the vines, which has been a rare occurrence, I've really never seen that, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there'll be no herd in the stalls. Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord, listen to this. God, the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer's. He makes me tread on high places. Habakkuk 3. At the end of the day, his steadfast love can never be taken. And if I have that, I have everything. I have everything. And that's what drives our Thanksgiving today. This is a Romans 8 kind of psalm, isn't it? That nothing can separate us from this love. It endures forever. It endures forever. It endures forever. That's the best remedy for our times, by the way. The characteristic of a darkened mind, Romans 1, is to be what? Although they did not glorify God, were futile in their hearts and their thoughts, Nor were they thankful. Really, the solution to everything is thanksgiving. To not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. We have so much to be thankful for. We serve a God who will not fail us, a God who will not change. I've been amazed this whole time in closing of how amidst all of our frets and worries and struggle, you know, we build this beautiful building next door. It's a gorgeous building. The virus has happened and we have done the best we can to honor restrictions and people have all kinds of different convictions and views on this and people do what they're going to do. But as the elders lead and as the elders wrestle, one thing has been very clear to me through all of this. The Lord has been very faithful to the Escondido URC. Very faithful. This whole time we've been here worshiping, I every Sunday come out to a yard and I don't care if it's a yard or the building. I really don't. I'm thankful for the building. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to go back in there. But I'm thankful to see a people whom the Lord has preserved. It's testimony of his power to keep you, That you love him, that you worship him, that you adore him. Be thankful. Look at all that you have. Look at all that's been given. Praise the Lord and thank him today. He has forgiven us. He's loved us. Let thanksgiving fill our mouths today for this great truth that is said over and over to us. His steadfast love endures forever. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for such a wonderful psalm. We look at the creation all around us. We can study it and enjoy it. And we realize there's a certain message in it of your great power and your great providence. All these years, these mountains have sat here. All these years that we've known under the sun and all from the beginning since they were put in place, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, all things have been upheld by you. When everything else fails, when things are, Lord, turning against us, when things are hard, when things are difficult, we can see your great power and providence and preservation telling us your steadfast love endures forever. You've given your son to die for us. You've told us the whole story of redemption, how you preserved and saved a people to yourself and brought them to the land and that you will do the same for us and you have been faithful to do that. Your steadfast love endures forever and you've satisfied our mouths with good things. You provide food for us. You've been faithful to us. Your steadfast love endures forever. Let us live in light of that and have confidence in all that you've said to us. We praise the God of heaven today who is our God. We praise the God of heaven for his steadfast love endures forever. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.