Giving Thanks

Mark Matheny
November 25, 2009

Tomorrow Will be the Day called Thanksgiving. Families will get together to enjoy good food and fellowship. Turkey with dressing and cranberry sauce will be consumed by millions as the day ensues, and children will sit at the small card table in the corner as the grownups talk amongst themselves of previous Holiday celebrations and memories of those no longer with us to celebrate this year.

This year will be different in many ways however, in that there will be millions who will not celebrate as in times past. They may have to wait in a soup line instead, waiting for a meal as they think about better days when they were employed. Days when they owned their own home, and invited their relatives to eat with them in their humble abodes as they enjoyed football on TV.

Then there are those who will be in make-shift mess halls in Iraq, or Afghanistan who will with weapon strapped to their backs, eat in a distant land, and only dream of the day when they can once again sit at the dinner table, in their own homes, and partake of a dinner with loved ones who are far from them at this present moment.

America, we have many things to be thankful for this year. We are still the greatest country on earth. We still have a light that shines within us- no matter how dim it may grow. We are still a people who can stand up and declare that we are a sovereign nation, with a declaration of Independence, and a Constitution that protects us as individuals through unalienable rights that the Almighty Himself has given- and which no man can take away.

Our country is in its darkest hour, and in need of a light that will burst upon it with such a brightness that it will cast out all the darkness of the tyranny that has reared its shadow upon us. You- each and every individual American who has felt the death knell upon the bleakest hour of our nation, you are that light that will cast out the darkness. You are a light upon a hill which cannot be snuffed out.

Tomorrow is not only a day of giving thanks, but it also a day of repentance and of renewing ourselves to the Most High. It is a day to remember those soldiers in distant lands who are risking their very beings for our freedom. They are fighting a foreign war, in a foreign land. That is why we must also fight here on our familiar shores in an epic battle- a battle of unseen enemies- a battle of traitors in our midst who would trade the futures of our children for the mere pleasures of a season.

Remember tomorrow, as you sit at the tables full of the bounty of God's creation these words written long ago, but very pertinent for our time:

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you say: I find no pleasure in them:
Before the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars become darkened, and the clouds do not return after the last rain.
In the day when the keepers of the house will tremble, and the strong men will bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and they who look out the windows see darkness;
When the doors will be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is hushed; when men will no longer rise up at the sound of birds, and all the daughters of music will be silenced;
When they are afraid because of danger from on high, and because of terrors in the way; when the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper is a burden, and desire fails; because man goes to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the streets.
Remember your Creator before the silver cord is cut, before the golden bowl is broken, before the pitcher shatters at the fountain, before the waterwheel breaks at the cistern;
And the dust returns to the earth it came from, and the spirit returns to Yahweh Who gave it...... Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Reverence Yahweh, and observe His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
For Yahweh will bring every work into judgement, including every secret thing, whether it is righteous, or whether it is evil.    Ecclesiastes 12


God give us the strength to save our Nation,
Mark Matheny.