The Thanksgiving Catalogue

Psa 103:1 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Psa 103:2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

Psa 103:3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

Psa 103:4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

Psa 103:5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

The preacher came over to visit unexpectedly. Wanting to make a good impression, the lady of the house instructed her little daughter, “Please run and get that good book we all love so much and bring it here.”

The daughter tottered off and then returned in a minute with triumph on her face and the Sears catalogue in her hands!

The biggest Thanksgiving killer, is the day after when Christmas shopping begins in earnest and we stop thinking about what we have and start thinking about what we want.

Many of us like to peruse the Christmas catalogue looking at all the neat stuff we want. We ought spend more time looking at the neat stuff we already have. In Psalm 103 we find Gods Catalogue of Mercies, not a Christmas catalogue but a Thanksgiving Catalogue.

6 things we can Praise God for.

This is DAVID’S “Hallelujah Chorus.”

* It contains twenty-two verses—the same number of verses as there are letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

* The covenant title “Lord” (Jehovah) occurs just half that number of times.

* It is what we call an envelope psalm—it ends in exactly the same way as it begins—the subject matter being thus enclosed or enveloped between the opening and closing words: “Bless the LORD, O my soul.”

* In the original text the verses are all of uniform length and all contain two lines each.

Any time we have trouble praising the Lord we should turn to this psalm, get down before the Lord, and recite it back to Him.

The First item we find in God’s Thanksgiving catalogue is the Remission of Sins:

Psa 103:3, “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;”

The word “iniquities” is a strong one. It does not mean “mistakes.” What if the Bible said Christ died for our mistakes? God forgives our iniquities, all our ingrained perversity, all the bentness of our being. Now, there is an item for praise!

David sees the believer as a forgiven pentinent. “He forgiveth all our iniquities.”

The measure of His Forgiveness.

Psa 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

That is the horizontal measure. We take a point on this planet and we draw a line horizontally, but we must be careful. We must not draw the line from north to south because that is a finite distance. Light travels from pole to pole fourteen times a second. The north-south measure is finite, not so the east-west measure. If we travel north from a given point, sooner or later we will reach the north pole, a definite point; then we travel south to the south pole, another definite point. East and west are a different matter. We can start to travel east and there is no point, so long as we continue in that direction, at which we start to travel west; or we can start to travel west and, no matter how long we continue, there is no point at which we start to travel east. West is always west; east is always east.

Mic 7:19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

A little over a century ago, when pirates roamed over the seas between the southern states and the Spanish main, the brig “Nancy” was pursued by the British warship “Sparrow.” She was suspected of being engaged in illicit trade and piracy, but when captured, not a scrap of incriminating evidence could be found among her papers. It was thought that she would have to be released, but the question was referred to the authorities at Kingston, Jamaica, into which port she was brought.

Meanwhile another vessel (Ferret, Lieutenant Michael Fitton) a tender of the British frigate “Abergavenney,” had been cruising the same waters off the coast of Haiti. Harpooned a shark, found a parcel of papers, tied around with string.

These papers (Which are still on display in the Institute Museum of Jamaica) were found to relate to the doings of a ship called the “Nancy” and thinking they might serve an useful purpose, the officer (Lieutenant Michael Fitton?) preserved them till they reached Kingston, which was the next port of call, arriving there just as the case of the “Nancy” came before the courts.