Forget Not His Benefits | James Buntrock

In this message, James Buntrock calls the church to “forget not His benefits” from Psalm 103—remembering that God forgives, heals, redeems from destruction, crowns with mercy, and renews strength. Tying Thanksgiving and American history to biblical patterns, James Buntrock argues that cultures (and families) thrive when they keep God’s works and testimonies in constant remembrance, passing them down so hope stays alive. James Buntrock challenges listeners to reclaim testimony—both personal and historical—as a spiritual weapon: we overcome the enemy “by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.” With Milestone Sunday approaching, James Buntrock urges everyone to “sanctify” themselves this week by reflecting on what God has done, sharing it boldly, and letting remembered breakthroughs build faith for the next one—because God still works wonders among His people.

Chapters

• 0:00 A Call To Scripture And Purpose
• 1:00 Psalm 103 And God’s Benefits
• 2:30 Why Testimonies Matter This Year
• 4:20 Thanksgiving As America’s Early Habit
• 6:10 Washington’s Prayer And The Great Escape
• 12:30 Providence In The Fog At Long Island
• 16:40 The Quakers, Psalm 91, And Peace
• 22:00 Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation
• 28:10 Psalm 78: Teach The Next Generation
• 33:40 Limiting God By Forgetting His Works
• 37:30 Thanksgiving, Praise, And Living Benefits
• 41:30 Overcoming By The Blood And Testimony
• 46:40 Modern History, Curriculum, And Memory
• 50:20 Healed, Redeemed, And Renewed
• 54:00 The Shepherd Who Removes Lack

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

As Pastor says, we like to lift the Bible up and make God glad and the devil mad. And so y'all say this with me, Heavenly Father, I thank you for your holy written word. Holy Spirit, breathe life on this word. My heart is ready to receive. It is good ground. The word's coming to the inside of me. It's being implanted in me. I'm going to be a doer of this word and not a hearer only. And I'm going to reap all the benefits available to me through the precious blood of Jesus. We thank you for this. In Jesus' name. Amen. I've got a message for you this morning. The title to this morning's message is Forget Not His Benefits. Can anyone guess what scripture that might be originating from? Somebody? How about Psalm 103? There you go. Psalm 103 is the verse for this morning. And so we're going to read that first few verses of that. It starts out Psalm 103, verse 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul. So we're talking to ourselves here. Bless the Lord, O my soul. And forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. And we could go on, but those are some wonderful benefits right there, and we're going to focus on those this morning. I'm going to give you a little bit of a history lesson, just a uh a prelude to what's going on this morning. I'm going to give you a little bit of a history lesson. We're going to talk about some word. We're going to talk about some history out of this nation. We're just on the on the backside of the Thanksgiving holiday, and so I think that this is appropriate. But uh then we're going to move into uh uh thinking about your personal testimony and your personal history and what God has done in your life. Um the whole idea behind this message this morning, I'm just gonna go ahead and spill it right now, but next Sunday uh we're gonna have uh our milestone testimony Sunday. And we're gonna dedicate next Sunday morning, we're gonna dedicate that service to testimonies, your testimonies. And and many of you have submitted your testimonies already. This is not your life testimony, this is not what God did from your birth all the way through present, um, although it could include that. But um there's a there's a forum online, and I think we've got a QR code, it'll it'll come up here later uh during the announcements time. But if you're if you have a milestone thing, something that God, a notable thing that God has done recently, and specifically this year, because at the beginning of this year, uh God gave uh our pastor the theme for this year that it would be a milestone year. And that means that there would be markers along the way, uh prominent things that God has done in your life at a certain point where things happened, where God intervened, where he helped you, where he saved you, important things. So these are milestone testimonies, and we've got a lot of them that have already come in. And I expect after this morning service, I want you to be inspired and prompted to uh uh cooperate with this. It's important to have your testimony to give your testimony. Nobody's gonna make you do this. This is not a, we're not forcing you to do this, but this is um you ought to be joyful about talking about the things that God has done. It ought to be exciting, it ought to, it, it it it ought to, it ought to help you. And so um we're gonna talk about some things this morning with that in mind next Sunday. Everybody say next Sunday is milestone Sunday. So don't forget it. You said it now. You can't forget it. All right, so let's uh let's visit some of our national history. So we've just come off the uh off of uh our Thanksgiving holiday. I trust everybody had a good time with family and and over-indulging on plenty of food and lots of carbs, and and uh and I know God blessed the carbs. But uh, and it's important to give thanks on a regular frequency every day would be good. That'd be a good frequency, uh, and not forget these things. Um But I want you to know that from the beginning of our nation, from the beginning of our founding, um, this was a normal response in everyday life. It wasn't, they didn't start the the our our nation off with having a Thanksgiving holiday and turkey and dressing and all the things. This was a normal response. Thanksgiving was a normal response when they saw that God had helped them in some way, when God uh would had done something to help them accomplish something. And and immediately they would they would be quick to go and tell God thank you. That was a normal response of people in this country. That was just the culture of this nation from the beginning. Um I'm gonna read to you here in just a moment the uh Thanksgiving proclamation. Uh this is uh from George Washington. I'm gonna read that here in a moment, but I want to set this up. That was not the only Thanksgiving proclamation. In fact, from the day of our founding, from our declaration of independence all the way through about 1815, there were more than 1,400 different uh proclamations of thanksgiving and prayer. And this was uh this was done by the the Continental Congress, but it was also done by governors and and presidents all the way through. And there's been proclamations beyond that. But in that short period of time, roughly 39, 40-ish years, over 1,400 official government-issued proclamations of prayer and thanksgiving were given. And when they prayed, this was not just a token prayer, this was not a tip of the hat to the guy upstairs. This was serious prayer and thanksgiving. This was not a short prayer at the beginning of a meeting, like we've got to get on to business here, let's go ahead and invoke the help of God, we're gonna do some stuff, and let's pray to them real quick and don't take any more than two minutes. No, prayer was something that was like two hours long. It was not just one person. This is in government, by the way. This is in in Congress when they prayed. It was like two plus hours. They took time to read scriptures. It was not just one, it was lots of individuals in that room that would pray, that would read scripture. They studied scripture, they were seeking God's will for what they were about to do. And so the prayer side was very serious. On the Thanksgiving side, it was equally serious. That's why they had over 1,400 of these in such a short period of time. Um so George Washington um, he led the Continental Army against the British, um, and we decked we declared independence, so we were independent in 1776. This is about six weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, after the signing. And uh George Washington, he's he's the general, he's leading the Continental uh Army against the British, and he's come into an impossible situation. And by the way, George Washington was also known as a man of prayer. So much so that he was known to pray by himself up to one hour a day, and people learn not to mess with him. Don't interrupt him, don't talk to him, leave him alone. If he's praying, leave him alone. And he took, he started his day off with prayer, it was about an hour a day. But if he was in the middle of some terrible circumstance, a very critical decision, he would get out of the turmoil of that decision and go and leave and kind of get apart by himself and go pray. And people are like depending on him to make a decision to do something, and where's George? Oh, he's praying again. He we gotta do this, and he's praying again. That's the kind of man that he was. Remember, Jesus was also a man of prayer. He would get away from the circumstance, from the situation, and and even some of his disciples and go to the inner place, the quiet place. And he might bring his three core disciples with him, or he might leave them and go get by himself and get real serious about it, but he would pray. And so here we are, six weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, um, and George Washington was in an impossible situation. He had 9,000 troops against the British, 30,000 troops, and the British had worked him into a corner where his back was up against the East River, so this is the battle at Long Island, and you've got 30,000. Why is that important? You know, we've got 9,000 guns against 30,000 guns, they're single-shot rifles, and so you do the math on that. They have four times the firepower that we have, and this is gonna be a suicide mission or just surrender, give up, and we're done, and we don't have a country. So that's the impossible situation. George Washington backed up against a river, 30,000 troops, and he has nowhere for his troops to go. And so he prayed. Where is George? We're in a tough situation. He's praying. He's got a really important decision to make, and he took time to get away with God and pray and find out and seek God's help in this desperate, impossible situation. With man, it's impossible. With God, all things are possible. So at that point in the river, it's about a mile wide, and uh the only way for him to escape was to get his troops across that river, and people were not good swimmers during that time period. They didn't have swim lessons like we have today. Uh swimming was not a critical thing for them. Many people didn't know how to swim. Besides that, it's cold, and uh and a mile wide. And so he ordered his his troops to find anything that floats, gather anything that floats, looking for a boat, anything we can build the boat, build a barge, build a raft, anything that floats. And so his guys are busy looking for things that float. Um it was General Howe, who was the British uh officer who had kind of command of that scene right there. And for some reason, he did nothing for three days. He's got George Washington backed up against a river, and the British just stay on the outside edge and camp out and wait for about three days. That gauge gave George Washington three days to find anything that floats. So they're scrambling around looking for anything that floats. At the end of the uh, I guess on the third day, uh General Howe ordered uh or he called for the the British Navy, who was now downstream, to start sailing ships upstream. I think his goal was to completely surround Washington and maybe bring this war to an end by surrender, where no more life had to be lost. We could just let them know that, you know, I've got 30,000 here, but now we've got the ships on the other side. There is no way of escape. Just surrender. I think that was probably the plan. So the the ships pick up anchor, the British Navy, and they start making their way upstream, up the river. As soon as they do, on that third day, the wind began to blow. And the harder they worked to tack their way back and forth across that river upstream, the harder the wind blew. Such that they had worked all day, they sailed all day, and at the end they were further away than when they had started. And at the end of the day, now night is starting to fall, and you can't sail, or you shouldn't sail your ship upstream at night because there's all kinds of uh of draft issues and bends in the river, and you can't see where you're going, and you're likely run aground and sink. So the only thing the British Navy could do at that point was to give up for the moment and drop anchor further away now and wait it out until the next morning. At the end of the third day, George Washington said, Okay, you've gathered enough. We've got everything that floats, we've got these makeshift rafts and boats and anything that floats. And uh and that night he begins to move his troops across the river, trip after trip, a mile across, a mile back, a mile across, a mile back. All through the night the troops were moving across the river. George Washington committed to his uh military. I'm going to be the last man across. I will not leave any of you behind. I'll be the last one. And so all night long they're making that trip across the river. Problem was morning came and the light's starting to shine, the sun's starting to come up, and now they're running the risk of being spotted by the British. Another little side story here: uh there were some Americans who were uh sympathizers with the British who were aware that George Washington is making trips across the river and that he's gathered things that float. And so this couple of guys run into the British camp to let the British know, hey, they're escaping, you gotta go after them. Um and the first guards that these two encounter were two German-speaking guards who were fighting for the British. And so the German-speaking guards didn't understand the English, and all they know is that there's two guys who don't look military who are trying to get into the camp, and so they apprehend them and lock them into, um they lock them down for the night. And so these guys were, you know, trying to tell the British they're escaping, they're escaping, and now they're in chains for the night while George Washington is making his trips across. But by morning daybreak, he had moved 8,000 of the 9,000 troops across the river, and George Washington and the thousand were left to face the British. That's a more impossible situation. But history records that a very thick fog settled in in that moment. In fact, in Major Benjamin Talmadge, so he is a major in the British Army, and he records in his diary, he's quoted as saying, a very dense fog began to rise, and it seemed to settle in a peculiar manner over both encampments. I recollect this peculiar providential occurrence perfectly well. He writes in his diary that God did this. This is a providential occurrence, and he recollects it perfectly well. And so very dense was the atmosphere, I could scarcely discern a man at six yards distance, or about 18 feet, or I guess about me to the front row. He couldn't see a man in that distance. And so George Washington and his 1,000 continue to make trips across the river because they were under cover of a cloud that settled in, a very peculiar cloud, according to Benjamin Talmage. And so that happened, and then after the fog began to lift, um, things are starting to clear up just a little bit. And finally one of the uh uh British officers come in and they see these two guys in chains right there. And hey, who are these guys? What why are they here in chains? Who are these? And so they said, well, they they tried to come into the camp last night. We didn't know who they were, and they were acting all crazy, saying things we didn't understand, so we locked them down for the night until you could get here and we can present them to you. And so uh now the story gets out, sir, we were just trying to alert you that you needed to go after George Washington, his men, they've been escaping all night long, and now it's too late. And so now the British have the word, they're escaping, and so when they they move into the the the shoreline right there, they get to the shore's edge, and the image that they see is the image of George Washington, the last man stepping out of the last boat onto the shore on the other side. That is a miracle. In fact, can you recall a time in history when there was a group of people with an adversary or military who had them surrounded on three sides and their only way of escape was across a river? Does that sound familiar? Egyptians, Israelites, Red Sea. And how did God protect the Israelites and keep them separated from the Egyptians? Well, by day it was a pillar of fire, but by night it was a cloud. So that's another occurrence where God used a cloud to obscure the view of those escaping and getting on the other side of the river. Like this is epic Bible story kind of stuff, and it's part of our American history. How many of you heard this story when you were in junior high or high school? I'm looking for a hand. All right, maybe we got a couple of hands here, three hands. The rest of you didn't hear this. You did you, those who did hear it, did you hear about it from the pretext that this was a miracle that God intervened on our behalf? Did they talk to you about God intervening and saving? No. Did they talk to you about George Washington being a man of prayer? They left this out. Our history is being purged of the testimonies of these epic Bible-type testimonies, and history's been purged of this for our kids. That's horrendous. Let me give you another story here out of our history. And I bet none of you have heard this one because this is quite a bit more obscure. So this one would have happened in 1777, and then I'll get back and we'll read the Thanksgiving proclamation. Because I want you to know what kinds of things were on the minds of those who were proclaiming Thanksgiving to be a day of prayer and thanksgiving, to establish that day for all of us. I want you to know what was on their minds. So certainly that miracle of getting across the river was on their mind. So this is 1777. It's the year after the Declaration of Independence has been signed. Um I'm gonna abbreviate some of this story here, but it was a time when the British had recruited um the Native Americans to raid and attack settlements, and so the British were using the Indians to put pressure on settlements. Um, everybody in that time during these settlements was really afraid of the American Indians. Um, there was also the tension built because you've got uh these settlements encroaching into areas where it's hunting lands for the Indians, and so now they're feeling the stress and the tension of two different uh culture types meeting together and fighting over the same hunting grounds. Um, and so at this time, people, the the settlers had left their homes that were kind of pushed further out west, and they start to come back east a little bit. Uh many of them had come back to the cities, the safer areas, Boston and uh the fort at uh Saratoga. Um and sometimes the people would venture out to go check on their homes and their livestock, and then they'd hurry back and come back, and and and there were there were skirmishes and people died, and it was getting rough. Um talking about the Quakers here. The Quakers were a people of peace. Uh they didn't carry guns, they didn't engage in war. Um, they also did not leave their homes to go back to the cities and the fort for safety. They stayed out on the on the frontier's edge. They were not afraid. Um and so they they stayed there. Um The Quakers were were famously met to worship on Sundays. Um but then back during that time they also uh used to meet on, it says in this story that I'm reading here, that they that Thursday was also an important day for them, and that they had a particular meeting house at Easton called uh the Easton Friends, the group of Quakers out there, and they had a log cabin that they would meet in on a regular basis for prayer and for church, and so they'd meet their Sundays and Thursdays. And so we're setting up what their what their tradition was. They would often just sit in that cabin and pray quietly, the Quakers would. And by the way, do you know why the Quakers are called the Quakers? Because sometimes when they were praying, they started to quake. The holy the presence of the Holy Ghost would cause them to quake, and they were nicknamed the Quakers. So uh one Thursday morning, uh the Quakers at Easton were were gathering uh to pray, and and one of the uh uh Indians from the local area, a friendly Indian, um, peers in and sees them there, so he's spying them out. Um a prelude to this, there was a Quaker named, um I think his name was Nesbitt. And I don't, it doesn't really matter beyond that, but over Robert Nesmet. So he woke up one morning with a sudden urge to pray. And during that time of prayer, so he's not there, he's back in the city area, and uh he's a man who speaks French, the fruit some of the Indians speak French, so he would have been the only one in that setting uh at Easton to uh be able to communicate with the Indians. So Robert Nesbitt, not there, he's about 40 miles away, and he wakes up with a sudden urge, he's praying, and God delivers a word to him. And really it was Psalm 91. Um and so he had such an urgency that he walked through the night 40 miles. It took him a couple of days to get there, but he finally gets there to where these Quakers at Easton are meeting to pray, and he joins them in prayer. The Indians have already spied them out. So Robert Nesbitt is in there in the room with them and they're praying. Uh he pauses during that time of prayer, he delivers um his his uh prophecy here, and uh he says things um like this. He said, I will say of the Lord, the Lord is your refuge, he is our refuge, he is our fortress, and we trust our God. Um surely he has delivered us, and he will deliver us from all the snares, from the uh he'll cover you with his feathers, and under his wings we dwell. So he's he's prophesying this, he's praying this out. Um cover you with his feathers, on his wings you shall dwell dwell and take refuge. Uh he'll be your shield and buckler. We won't be afraid of the terror by night, we will not be afraid of the arrow that flies by day. So he's prophesying and praying this out. Then they go back to a time of quiet prayer while they're sitting there in the presence of God quietly, the Holy Ghost is in that room, and the front door blows open. Um the Indians come in that room, the chief is in that room, and not a quaker moves. Like they normally quake, but this was not a time for quaking. And so they they continued in prayer. The Indian chief later has a conversation in French, broken French, with Robert Nesbitt, and the rest of the story shakes out in the telling of the story. So this Indian chief says to Robert Nesbitt, we came here to kill you. But when we came in the room, we recognized that you were in the presence of the great Holy Spirit. And it is against our custom and our rules to uh interfere with anyone who was in the presence of the great Holy Spirit, and so we had to leave you alone. Like we came in here to kill you, and you're there, so we had to stand and wait. So we're just patiently waiting for you to stop your interaction with the great Holy Spirit, so we can still kill you. But the Quakers are a friendly people, um, and and and uh Robert Nesbick gets up and greets the chief with a handshake and begins to speak a familiar language to him in French and greets him and invites him to come in and join them in prayer. Okay, we're here to kill you, and you're in the presence, and we can't until you're done with that, and now we're gonna come in the presence with you, and and we're both gonna be interacting with the great Holy Spirit. And so they do. They all pray together for a little while. Now the drive to kill them is gone. And the Indian chief later says it conveys the rest of the story to them, but we're here to kill you, you can't, presence of God, all that. And uh, and so they make peace with the Quakers. And the Indian chief takes one of his own arrows and pulls it out. And he takes the arrow and he breaks it in two. And he gives Robert Nisbet the half the arrow, and the chief keeps half the arrow. So this is kind of like a covenant of peace kind of a thing, because an arrow is an instrument of war, and he's breaking the instrument of war, and you keep half, and I'll keep half, and and we'll be like the little heart keychains, the divided thing, and we'll I'll wear one, you wear one, and we'll be besties. Um and so that's the that's the scene right there. And then he takes the uh the the feathers off the end of the arrow and he peels those off the shaft, the white feathers. And then he secures those feathers to the door frame. He marks the door frame with feathers. Okay, so does this sound familiar? So we go back to Psalm 91, and just in case uh we may have forgotten here, Psalm 91, um, he shall cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you shall take refuge, and you shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor the arrow that flies by day. I mean, Robert Nesbitt had just prophesied this and prayed this out, and then the danger came in and it was completely diffused, and the door frame was marked. Does anyone remember a time in history, maybe biblical history, where the death angel came into the camp to kill, except that the door frame was marked with a sign, so that the death angel had to stay out. And so the chief explains, as long as you have your doorframe marked with these feathers, no Indian will touch this house. We will not come in and kill this house. In other words, we're under covenant. And I could go into the threshold covenant of God where he told them the Israelites to mark the doorframe with the blood, the top of the door, the door post, and there was a threshold groove there where the blood ran down and filled the trough. And and it was the it was actually a pagan ritual or a custom at the time that God used to come into covenant with them. And when God steps over that covenant line and into your house, he said, I'll protect this house. That's what the Indian chief was saying. I'm in covenant with you, and we will protect this house. Not only will we not kill you, but we will protect this house. These are parallels with the Bible. How many have ever heard any any part of that story ever? I probably butchered parts of it, but generally that's what happened. And that should be told in our history. Our kids need to know this. So these are the types of things that were on the minds of our Congress and George Washington when he gave this Thanksgiving proclamation of 1789. It starts off whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor. And whereas both houses of Congress have have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceful peacefully to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. Now therefore I do recommend and assign this Thursday, the twenty sixth day of November, to be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious being, who is the beneficent author of all things good that was, that is, or that will be, that we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation, for the signal and manifold mercies and favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the latter war, talking about the Revolutionary War, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and our happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted, the national constitution for the civil and religious liberty which we are blessed, and the means by which having acquired and diffusing useful knowledge and in General for the great and various favors which hath been pleased to confer upon us, and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and ruler of the nations, and beseech him to pardon our nation and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private situations, to perform in several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all people, by constantly being a government of wise, just, constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and divide and guide all sovereigns and nations, especially such as have shown kindness unto us, and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord, to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and increase the science among them and us, and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best, given under my hand at the city of New York, the third day October in the year of our Lord. When did we stop saying that? 1789. What happened? We go home, we have Thanksgiving, we express some gratitude, we're amongst family and friends, and we talk about some good things, and we have a good meal together, and then the day after is Black Friday, and everybody goes shopping, and we rush out to get the Christmas tree and put up the Christmas decorations and prepare for the great next celebration. And then like the Thanksgiving, this ought to be a daily thing, a regular thing, a normal thing. And it ought to be normal in our government, it ought to be normal in our schools. And who are we thankful to? God Almighty, who did these wonderful things for us, who helped us so that we have a nation. These are wonderful testimonies, and we ought not forget them. And really, our kids can't forget them because they were never taught them. And we got to change that. So let's move on. That's a lot of history right there. Let's move on to some scripture in Psalm 78. And I'm not going to read all of this, but I want to set this one up with a few verses up front, and then we'll pick through a couple of places and land on the uh towards the end of it. So Psalm 78, verse 1 give ear, O my people, to my law, incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, so you wouldn't be able to understand those, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. So you wouldn't know the dark parables of old, except that it's spoken of frequently in our families and handed down from our fathers. We will not hide them from our children. That means we've heard them from our fathers, and you have to keep telling these things to your kids, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works he has done. For he has established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded to our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they would arise and declare them to their children. So this ought to go on and on and on and never be lost. And for this reason, and this is important, verse 7, that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. That's the purpose, that they might set their hope in God and forget not the works of God and keep his commandments. When we tell our children and they tell their children and they tell their children, and this is not lost, if history is not purged of God, if the Bible is not silenced, if you hand this down like a precious thing from generation to generation, the purpose is that your children would have hope in God, that their children would have hope in God, that their children would have hope in God, that all of them would not forget the works of God and that they would be faithful to keep his commands. That's the purpose. And so let's skip forward here. If you went down to verse 11, uh it's talking about how the Israelites refused to walk in his law, they forgot his works and his wonders that he had shown them, marvelous things he did in the sight of their fathers. In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan, he divided the sea and caused them to pass through. That was Egypt. It was also the United States at the battle of Long Island on the East River. And so the Israelites forgot these things. If we skip all the way down, in verse 38 it says, But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time he turned his anger away and did not stir up his wrath, for he remembered that they were but flesh, a breath that passes away and does not come again. How often they provoked him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert. Yes, again and again they tempted the Lord, uh they tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel. They limited God by forgetting his works because they didn't talk about them. They didn't, the hope of God wasn't passed on. They forgot his works and they didn't keep his commands and they limited God. Now I thought God was limitless. We sing about he's limitless. Well, yes, he is limitless, except where he's limited himself, he is a just God, he will not violate his word. Where he under his word uh is justified in doing something, he will. Where he is not justified in doing something, he won't. In other words, when people are living their lives for the devil, when they're living like hell, does he come up alongside and just pour out blessing on them? Because he loves them and they're his kids and they're but flesh and he remembers and loves them anyway, and my little darling, I'm just gonna bless you anyway. God doesn't do that, and we shouldn't do that with our kids either. What God's Word does is reward the good behavior when you're on the right side of his word, there's blessing. When you're on the wrong side or the left, there's cursing. We got to get on God's side. Where's God's side? We can find it right here in his word. Let's get on his side, and then you can live under the blessing. But we can't forget his benefits, we can't forget his testimonies, we can't forget his goodness. Psalm 34 says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord, the humble shall draw shall hear of it and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. I will bless the Lord at all times. Remembering his benefits, forget not his benefits. That's the title to this message this morning. And thanksgiving is a big part of that. We started out this service this morning with Psalm 100, I think it's verse 4, that we can enter his gates with thanksgiving. It starts with thanksgiving. You're on the outside, and you can come on the inside. And if you're gonna get on the courts on the inside, you've got to come up from the gates on the outside, so we can enter his gates with thanksgiving. It starts with that. That's good. Now we can enter his courts with praise. We can open the door to the room where he is, we can come in and be where he is and praise. And what are you praising him about? You're praising him about the wondrous works in your life, the things that he's done for you and your family. You have a wonderful testimony, and we need to be talking about it. We need to express our gratitude to him. We need to give him praise for that. But it doesn't stop at Thanksgiving. Forget not his benefits. When you talk about his benefits, you can have more of his benefits because they're present of mind. You're aiming towards those things. You can have those things. You recognize what's available to you under the covenant. When someone next to you is celebrating the benefits, talking about the benefits. You might not be aware of some benefits, but you heard so-and-so right here talking about some benefits. I heard Joseph talking about some benefits, and I'm getting excited about those benefits, and I want those too. And what did he do to get those benefits? And I start doing the same thing. You see how this is building people's faith for the benefits. It builds your faith, it establishes a hope in God. Maybe you're in an impossible situation. Maybe you're stuck with your back up against a deep river a mile wide and nothing that floats, and you've got everything else coming against you in your life. Maybe you feel stuck and hopeless and helpless and without a remedy. George Washington took time to pray and found out what God's will was and what his next step was. And then he implemented that plan. And the Holy Ghost was with him in a spectacular way that nobody reads about in history. But if we had talked about that in history, maybe we wouldn't be stuck in so many impossible situations. Maybe they wouldn't look so impossible anymore. Maybe people wouldn't be so stuck when they talked about this and say, oh, look what God did then. I know He can do it again. He might even do it for me. You start building hope that way. Your testimony is important. Not just to give thanks to God. It starts with that. Not just to give praise to God, but it builds hope in other people. People need to hear your testimony. You need to hear your testimony and remind yourself of God's goodness, of his faithfulness back then, because when you're going through something now, you can't, the devil can't steal that testimony that happened back then. He can't take it from you because it's already a done deal, it happened. What he can do if we let him is steal the knowledge of that so that we quit talking about it and don't remember it. And then we limit God in our life, his ability to act on our behalf because we forgot his wondrous works and we lost hope and we didn't obey his commands. And now we're out of position. There's a benefit to remembering the benefits in your own life. In Revelation chapter 12, verse 10, it says, Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come. So this is really speaking to the birth of Jesus Christ, his life, and the crucifixion on the cross, the penalties of our sins have been paid, and redemption has been made for a lost man. That's wrapped up in that one sentence right there. Now salvation and strength in the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come. For the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before God day and night. The devil used to have access to God, where he would say, God, they're not doing right. They're on the wrong side. I'm gonna go get them. And the devil would be justified. So this was like a court of law. God the judge, and the devil is the accuser of the brethren, and he would accuse you to God day and night. The devil no longer has access. You know why? Because the penalty for all of it has already been paid in full. So there is no court case anymore. The gavel has come down, the edict, the judgment has been issued, and the devil is out of the court and no longer has access to accuse anymore because it's irrelevant. It's a moot point. It's paid for entirely. So the accuser of the brethren has been cast down. Good news and bad news. He was up there accusing you to God. Now he's down here accusing you to you. And you have to contend with him. The penalty's been paid. Great news. I'm going to heaven. I've got to contend with earth, and I've got to still contend with our adversary, the devil, who walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour, who he may devour. He's looking for easy prey. My advice to you is you can't stop from being prey. You can't stop from having a target on your back. If you're going to stand up for God's word, if you're going to be a being of light, you're going to stand out in dark places. It's going to be a little bit awkward. The devil's going to see you. He's going to know where you are. Just don't be an easy prey. Make sure there's somebody weaker next to you. See, you do not have to run faster than the bear. You just have to run faster than your friend. No. It doesn't mean we have to run from the devil. The next line says that in verse 11, Revelation 12, 11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimonies. And they love not their life to the death. Oh, more bad news. No. It means that the value of our life is priceless. We are in him. He is in us, and death has no sting. We have the blessings and the benefits in this life and that which is to come. Whether we get it all here or get the rest of it there, it doesn't matter in the realm of eternity. And so don't worry about it. Death has no sting. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The only thing that death does for the believer is arranges the meeting for between you and Jesus Christ. It brings us face to face with our Lord and Savior. And so we get to overcome the devil. We don't run from him. We overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. In other words, we're enforcing the judgment against him and with our own testimony. The testimony of our salvation and what the blood did in our life. That's the number one. But there's other testimonies too. Whatever you're going through, go back and look in your life and see where God was faithful. If you don't have it in your life, look to somebody next to you who had it in their life and they ought to be talking about it. Look to the history books where it is written about God. It's not there, but it's coming. I mean it, it's coming in Texas. Our history books are in the process of being fixed to record, to publish history, to publish these testimonies, and to not take out the acknowledgments of Almighty God. This will be in our classrooms, I believe, by 2030. This will be a done project. Texas is now publishing its own books, and we've got David Barton from Wall Builders, who is heavily, heavily, heavily influencing what goes in these history books and what does not. It used to be that the books that were written by the publishers or published by the publishers had to include things that were acceptable to Texas and to California, who were basically the largest book purchasers of the entire United States. And so we used to say that, okay, if we get half the things that we think ought to be in here, then we'll be happy and we'll buy the books. It's now a requirement that we have to get 100% of what Texas requires in their history books, or we don't buy the books. And so Texas is now published in the process of publishing our own books. California can go jump in a lake or the Pacific, fend for themselves, it doesn't matter. That means other states that don't have the money to publish books, school books, history books, they're going to have to buy from Texas. That means the public the history that's published here that acknowledges God in our history that's coming back is going to go across the nation, and our kids are going to learn some things that have been missing. They're going to hear about the testimony. They're going to be able to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of these testimonies. They are just as valid as your own personal salvation testimony. What God did is a wonderful testimony. And so let's not forget his benefits. I just want to run over those again. Forget not his benefits. He forgives all your iniquities, all of them. Your past does not represent you anymore. If you are a blood-bought, forgiven child of the Most High Living God, your past has been blotted out. And the devil can't say anything about it to God. The blood is the only thing that speaks to your righteousness. The only thing the devil can do is to remind you of your history. And my recommendation to when he does that is to plead the blood of Jesus against him by the blood of the Lamb and remind him of his future when he brings up your past and overcome him. We can do that. If you are a born-again believer, if he's your Lord, he is leading you into triumph. Now, thanks be to God, who always leads us into triumph. The question on our side is will we follow where he's leading? If we follow where he's leading, we'll always live in triumph. Who heals all your diseases. He was eager to do that. Wherever he encountered unbelief, it said he could not heal except for a few minor ailments. When he encountered unbelief, and so it's incumbent on us to remember the testimonies, to have hope in God, to remember his faithfulness and to do his commandments. That builds faith. When you have faith, it's an atmosphere of faith and you can have his benefits. And so when healing's available, you can have it, and it's available all the time. Who redeems your life from destruction? The devil comes to steal, to kill, destroy, to come and take your life. You know, I read that right there, who redeems your life from destruction. I think about our daughter Thea, who in 23, October 23, was hit by a uh broadsided by a pickup truck going way too fast. It folded her car in half, and she was found at the scene unconscious. When the the fire chief showed up and and uh and started tending to her, he recognized that she had all the signs and symptoms of traumatic brain injury. She was airlifted to the same hospital she was born in, and the devil starts talking to Claire and I, who got the word, that's the same hospital she was born in, that's the same hospital she's gonna die in. That's what the devil started speaking back. And we overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. We plead the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus. He redeemed her life from destruction. And when we got to the hospital, she had a band-aid and a Tylenol, and we walked out, nothing wrong. She left in one condition and she came home completely different. That was a miracle. That's a testimony. We're never gonna forget that. He redeemed our life from destruction, who crowns you with tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, he renews you, he renews your health, he renews your body, he quickens your mortal body. He renews, he makes new again. How many old do we have in here? Alright, you can be new again. Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. If he is your Lord and he is your shepherd, you shall not want. If he's your Lord and your shepherd, that means I'm gonna treat him like he's my Lord. That means I'm gonna care about what he says. I'm gonna care about what side he's on. That means I'm gonna put him first, I'm gonna honor him. I'm gonna give thanks to him, I'm gonna give him praise. If he's your Lord, and to be Lord, he's gotta be Lord over all of it. It's kind of an all or nothing deal. You're gonna give him Lord over all of it, or really, he's not effectively Lord over any of it in your life. But when he is your Lord, he is my shepherd, I shall not want. You know what that means in the Hebrew? It means I will not lack, I will not decrease, and I will not fail. The Lord is my shepherd. I will not lack, I will not decrease, I will not fail. He leads me into green pastures beside still waters, he restores my soul. And sometimes I make a mistake and I wander off into the valley of the shadow of death, and things get rough and scary and dark and sad. But I will not fear because he never left me. He will not leave me. The Lord will not leave me. In fact, he said, I will not leave you nor forsake you, so that we can boldly say, The Lord is my helper, what can man do to me? I will not fear. So sometimes we can get off, and you know what? He's still right there. You don't even have to turn around and run back, you just have to turn and recognize that he's right there. So in the middle of your trouble, you can simply repent, turn around, bump into the Holy Ghost who's right there, and he can say, If you're stuck, I got this. Grab my hand, I'll grab hold of it with you, and let's get out of this mess. Let's go back to the green pasture. Let's go back to beside the still waters. Let me restore your soul. Let me put some things back right in your life again. Let me heal you. Let me let me redeem your life from destruction. Let me show you my tender mercies again. It's that easy to turn around and come back. If you carry the Holy Spirit with you, He's always with you. He's the you're the temple of the Holy Spirit, and he's always with you. And so let's not forget his benefits. His benefits bring hope. Remember his wondrous works to the children of men. You know, in the in the Old Testament in Joshua chapter 3, um, he warned the Israelites to sanctify yourselves, to prepare yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will work wonders among you. What did they do to sanctify themselves? They had to get things right, they had to put things under some blood, they had to have some sacrifices, make sure that they were in the right position with God, make sure that they had done the commandments, and they remembered his works, his wondrous works to the children of men. They took time, they meditated on the good things he had done because they're about to go into the promised land. Their backup is against the wall, they've got wilderness behind them, and they've got giants in front of them and a big river in between. And Joshua said, Sanctify yourselves, get right, get your mindset, get your mind in the right place. I want you to think about and talk about and remember the good works. I want you to amp yourself up, hype yourself up. If you're in the locker room before the game, you got to remember the wins. You got to remember what it feels like to be victorious and get in that mode again. We're fixing to go across this river, and God's gonna do some stuff, and we get to be right there in the middle of it, watching him show off. We're about to cross a river, we're about to go into his promises. Sanctify yourselves, get your mind ready, get your heart ready. And when they did, they walked in and the rivers parted. And what did God tell them to do? He said, I want you to take 12 stones, one for every tribe, each of the tribes of Israel, and set these stones as a memorial. Don't ever forget. These stones are gonna stand here forever, and whoever passes by these stones are gonna remember what God did. How he brought you out of darkness into light, how he brought you out of a hellish place into the uh the promised land full of plenty. Remember the Lord your God. Remember his works. Talk about them. This ought to be normal in everyday life. Normal. What's next Sunday? It's Milestone Sunday. We're gonna talk about some things on Milestone Sunday. I want you to sanctify yourselves today. And all week, not just between now and lunchtime, or between now and you go to bed at the end of today because we're gonna have church on Sunday and then there's Monday. I want you to sanctify yourselves this week. I want you to prepare for next Sunday. If you're not giving a testimony, I at least want you to be thinking about the testimonies in your life, or at least the testimonies around you. Maybe you're somebody who feels so stuck that you feel like I barely have any testimony worth talking about at all. Okay, we can all get into a dark place in the valley of the shadow of death, but you don't have to live there. When you're going through hell, don't quit. So I want you to let other people's testimonies build your faith and build your hope so that you can celebrate with them. When you start celebrating with their testimony, God will give you your testimony. But you probably have more than you're really realizing or acknowledging. How many in here were born? That is a miracle. I mean, just the miracle of life, all the things that are set up to ensure that does not happen, and it still happens, is a miracle. And then besides that, the devil walking about like a roaring lion is seeking to destroy the procreation of the image of God, and anyone born today is even a bigger miracle of life than they were 50, 60, 70 years ago. But if you were born, you have a miracle. And so we're going to celebrate with testimonies next Sunday. I want you to sanctify yourselves. Because when we start talking about these things on Sunday, there's still some year left. This is a milestone year. If you haven't got your milestone yet, there's still some year left. And if it doesn't happen this year, there's still next year. I want you to have hope. I want you to build your faith. I want you to get ready because the Lord your God is going to work wonders among you tomorrow. Let's celebrate his works today. Forget not his benefits.