Thanks for the Bread, the Wine and Oil

Minister:
Date: AM (Thanksgiving Day)
Text: Psalm 104:14,15
  1. Gifted with necessities.
    1. Thanksgiving Day must not be just a general attitude of thanks, but gratitude to the God Who gives the harvest.
      1. The sincere, godly Christian knows that the bountiful harvest is from the Creator God.
      2. When we look at the Creator’s gift of the physical harvest, then we see it as a picture of the spiritual blessings of salvation.
    2. Our text declares that God “causeth the grass to grow.”
      1. For all the things man is able to do, he cannot make anything alive and grow.
      2. God’s purpose for the grass is so He “may bring forth food out of the earth.”
    3. The devout eye sees God’s hand in every field blade of grass.
  2. God not only produces in abundance for our basic needs but also for our unneeded, luxurious desires.
    1. “Bread which strengtheth man’s heart.”
      1. God brings forth bread, the staff of life, the most indispensable and necessary means for man’s nourishment.
      2. Man has strength and courage after eating.
    2. Besides the necessary bread, God also gives us the pleasant and unnecessary luxuries: wine and oil.
      1. God also furnishes us with a feast, including wine.
      2. And God gives us “oil to make his face to shine.” (cf. Ps. 23:5; Eccl. 9:7,8; Ruth 3:3).
  3. God is to be blessed for all He gives. “Bless Jehovah, O my soul. O Jehovah my God, Thou art very great” (1).
    1. That God has to call us to praise Him, and especially in harvest time, points out the fact that our natural proneness is to forget.
    2. It is especially with the wine and oil that we are to rejoice in our God.
    3. While the ungodly world wallows in pleasures without discerning the Giver, may we use the necessities and the luxuries gifted to us with joyful and grateful moderation.