Voice of Thanksgiving

“The Voice Of Thanksgiving”
Psalms 26:1-12

INTRODUCTION

Our text verse today is Psalm 26:7…That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works.
There is a T.V. program called “The Voice” that displays the vocal talent of people and offers them a recording contract if they are good enough to win every challenge against the other competitors. Their goal is to get a recording contract that can launch them into stardom. The voice we wish to study today is spiritual.
“The Voice” that I want to talk about this Sunday morning before Thanksgiving is… “The Voice of Thanksgiving.”
In preparing the sermon I believe that God has planned for us today, I typed in the words “the voice” into the search engine of the computer Bible program and it gave me 1,589 different references with these words.
I will spare you the time in going through each one, but here are a few…

The voice of God– Genesis 3:8…And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. (Do you know why people try to hide or they can’t look you in the eye when you talk to them? They are guilty and they are trying to hide something bad that they have done and have not repented of it. )
The voice of your wife– Genesis 3:17… And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; (Adam had a choice of listening to the voice of God, or the voice of his wife. He chose wrong)
The voice of your father in law–Exodus 18:24…So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said. (Moses was trying to deal with every problem by himself until the father in law gave him a plan)
The voice of parents – Deuteronomy 21:18…If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: (The rebellious son was then taken to the elders to be stoned to death)
The voice of my teachers– Proverbs 5:13…And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

I. The Word Thanks in the Bible

A) Thanks to who?

Giving “thanks” is a verbal way of expressing your gratitude for a deed done for your benefit or the benefit of others.
The FIRST mention of “thanks” in the Bible is found in II Samuel 22:50…Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto thy name.
I Chronicles 16:4…And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, and to record, and to thank and praise the LORD God of Israel:
In verse 7 of the same book and chapter we find David giving His Psalm of thanks to the LORD…Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to thank the LORD into the hand of Asaph and his brethren.
By the way, the Psalm David wrote was in Psalms 105…1) O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.
A scene in heaven in Revelation 7:9…After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; 10) And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. 11) And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, 12) Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. Amen.
“Thanksgiving” in heaven will be practiced daily around the throne forever. This is why we practice now Ephesians 5:20…Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
The LAST mention of “thanks” is in Revelation 11:16…And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, 17) Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
The form of the word “thank” is given 136 times in the KJV Bible. Thank-(27) Thanked (3) Thanks (73) Thankful (3) Thankfulness (1) Thanksgiving (28) Thanking (1).
Each time the form of the word “thank” is mentioned, it means thanks to God.

II. What Is “The Voice of Thanksgiving?”

A) That I may “publish”

Look at our text verse for today of Psalm 26:7…That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works.
Note first of all the first 4 words of this verse “That I may publish.” The Hebrew word for publish is shāmaʿ and it means to declare, proclaim, make an announcement publicly, or make something known that others may need to know.
Books are “published.” The person writing the book wants to make something known. Books are not always written in truth. Some are fables, documentaries, science, biographies, and etc. Books are not always written for our benefit.
The Bible however, is “published” completely in truth as the Devine Words of God that He wants us to hear and it was written for our benefit.
So to begin with our study of this particular verse, we need to say that David here implies that we should make an announcement, we need to declare something about our God to others.
Now, in this verse 7 of Psalms 26, we need to note that David is not saying that everybody needs to grab a pen and start “publishing” a book about God’s marvelous works in our life.
David is writing this Psalm (26) speaking of his own integrity. Meaning…David talks about his morality, soundness in his love for God, his worship of God, his unwillingness to associate with false, deceitful, or wicked people.
David also wants “published” the fact that public worship should be the center of our lives. Not public worship to show off how “Holy” we are, but rather to show people our love and thankfulness to the God of our lives for what He has done.
When we decide to show others how we feel about God and share our testimonies of His works…David tells us “HOW” we are supposed to do that… With the voice of thanksgiving.

B) With the voice

“… with the voice of thanksgiving,”
First of all, WE are supposed to be making an announcement with… the voice of thanksgiving. What does that mean?
It means… that we are supposed to be so “thankful” to God that continual thanks should be a part of our everyday speech.

English 101 tells us that the word “the” is always pointing to something specific. It doesn’t mean “any old thing,” or all things, but rather something specific.
In the text verse David said “…the voice.” Okay, he means a specific (special) kind of voice. What kind of “voice” is he talking about?
David mentions what kind of voice in this Psalm 26… a voice of thanksgiving.
How do we have a voice that produces thanksgiving?

EXAMPLE: Someone may come up to you and say “Wow, you are a hard worker.” Your reply of thanks would be… “Thank God for the energy He gave me to do the work.”

EXAMPLE: Someone says to you… “You sure don’t get upset too easy.” And your thankful reply would be … “Thanks to the grace of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for giving me the peace that passes all understanding.”

EXAMPLE: A Christian comes from the doctor’s office learning they have terminal cancer and people may say… “Oh, I am so sorry to hear of your test results. Aren’t you angry that God would allow this?” Your correct response would be… “I am not worried one little bit. I am thankful that My God has allowed this to be. My home is not this world. My home is in heaven.”

The sad thing is that we are now living in a day and age where people are “unthankful.”
Timothy tells us of “the last days” (Which are from the time Christ died on the cross until now) in II Timothy 3:1…This know also, that in the last days perilous (dangerous) times shall come. 2) For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
If someone comes to you and asks… “What is the voice of thanksgiving?” What will you tell them?
The correct answer would be… “The voice of thanksgiving” is… something a person says or does in front of others to show the works of God in their lives that causes them to be thankful to God.
When was the last time you spoke with “the voice of thanksgiving” not including the thanks at meal time?
What has God done in your life that you have not thanked Him for?
Have you chosen not to tell others of God’s goodness to you? Or, do you not recognize everything that He has done for you?

Have “The Voice Of Thanksgiving” during this upcoming season!