Sometimes we tend to forget that the people in the Bible were real, ordinary people with normal emotions, pasts, and lives. Sometimes we have a hard time applying the lessons that could be learned from their lives to ours because we read the story knowing the ending. Anybody here ever have somebody tell you the ending of a movie or a book, before you saw or read it? Ruins it doesn't it, and when you do get around to reading, or seeing the story you tend to kind of skim over it because you already know the ending.

Jesus time and time again taught His disciples about how that He would die and rise again on the third day. As people tend to do when they don't want to hear something, the disciples tried to ignore His comments and Peter even tried to openly rebuke Jesus for talking about His death and resurrection. In their not understanding, they forgot what exactly He had said. For we find in the days after the crucifixion, that the disciples were scattered and scared. Meeting in closed rooms with the doors and windows locked scared for their own lives and not even talking about Jesus rising again. They forgot about the three days part. While all of the men were scared and trying to figure out what to do next, the women said, "well, He may be dead, but we loved Him, and the least thing we can do is take some ointments and flowers to the graveside so that everyone will know that we loved Him." So the Ladies get up early on what would correspond to a Monday morning to us. And right at the break of daylight, they get to the tomb. As they peer through the hazy morning, all of a sudden the realization of what they are seeing hits them! The Stone is rolled away! They rushed into the tomb and the body wasn't there. The Scriptures say in Luke 24, that even seeing the tomb empty, and the grave clothes lying there, that the reality of the resurrection did not hit them. And they were standing outside the tomb "perplexed" when suddenly two "men" in shining white garments appeared to them:

God had to send messengers to remind them that they had something to be thankful for! Even today people are the same way. One reason that you need to come to church is that you need a messenger from God reminding you that you have something to be thankful for, because human nature tends to forget. We miss out of a lot of blessings, and we go through a lot of unnecessary stress and worry, because we forget what the Word of God says about our situation! "They remembered his words." When you are in a situation, you need to pray, "God, help me to remember what Your Word has to say about this situation." Some people wonder why God just doesn't speak in an audible voice all of the time and give us direction everyday. You know, wouldn't it be nice to be at work, and you're not sure of what to do in a little disagreement, and you look up and say "God?" and then an audible voice from heaven comes down and tells you and your supervisor and all your coworkers "Jane is right, the money lost was misplaced, if you'll go to this file here, and check line 236 you'll find the mistake. Sally should be fired, Jane should get a raise, and ya'll need new computers." "Thanks God." (God would say ya'll because God is a Cajun. Remember God created crawfish, and Paul said "all things are fit for consumption with thanksgiving. I can tell you that when I sit down to eat crawfish, I'm THANKFUL. Also Revelation described His hair as "like wool." When you see my Father-in-law's 'fro then you'll see that all cajuns have nappy hair like wool. It also said that he had eyes like fire. You ain't never seen eyes like fire until you get a cajun mad, trust me I live with one! And don't forget the Gates made of solid pearl. You don't read about the giant oysters that produced them because God's got them in the back soaking in the Tabasco getting them ready to fry up for the Marriage supper. See? Irrefutable proof in Scripture that God is cajun!)

My point was that very rarely speaks to us directly in an audible voice or even strong impression. The reason that He does this is because He has already given us His word. You don't need a "new" word from the Lord, you've already got God's Word at home sitting your shelf, you know the dusty one! If God spoke to everybody directly everyday, then nobody would bother to read His Word! Somebody told me last month, "if God wanted me to get baptized in Jesus' name, then He would come down and tell me." I told them God's already came down and told you to do it, it's found in His Word. Like I preached this morning, if God's Word is not enough, then what is?

The other side of this is that I've found myself in situations where I did not have the answer and God would not speak to me. EVERY time this happens, it is always because God wants me to return to the scriptures and find the answer. EVERY time I have a lack of direction in my life, I know it's God trying to get me to return to the scriptures and study something that I've have neglected to thoroughly study. Some of you feel like your life has no direction, and it won't until you begin to apply yourself to the study of God's Word. I have the answer to every one of life's problems and situations and it's in 66 books called The Bible!

We forget that we have the answer available to us! We forget that we have a Word from God! When the realization hit those ladies and they remembered what Jesus had said, don't you know they went from extreme depression to extreme joy?! It's the power of remembering what He said! In the middle of the worst day of our lives, we have something to be grateful for, we must not forget to be thankful!

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David was in the same frame of mind, of remembering what he had to be thankful when he wrote the 103rd Psalm. David goes on to remind us what we have to be thankful for! Let's go through this Psalm together and realize that what David had to be thankful for still applies to us and even in a greater way!

Hundreds of years before Jesus taught us how to pray by saying "Hallowed be thy name," David had already discovered the secret when he said "before we get to the benefits, let's first bless his holy name." Being thankful can be summed up in blessing the name of God because when you praise somebody's name, you praise who they are and remember what they've done! David goes on to say. Let's not forget all His benefits! There are benefits to living for God, and we need to remember them, let's point out a few:

We need to remember that we were lost and without hope and doomed to die physically and eternally until Jesus paid the price for our sins! Somebody said "It's Thanksgiving not Easter." But to a born-again believer, then every day's Easter and Thanksgiving, because I'll never forget the awful price that Jesus paid while dying upon the Cross. He was righteous and innocent. Jesus never sinned, so He sure did not deserve to die! The guilty one that day was you and I and the ones standing around Him. Because it was for our shortcomings and for every time that we've let Him down, that He suffered and died! The old song says "Oh how I love Him, how I adore Him, He that became, my all and all. The great Creator became our Saviour." The wages of sin is death, and we all deserved to die both physically and spiritually because of our sin, but He loved us enough to die in my place! I can never forget how important the old familiar story of the cross is, and I can never forget to be thankful that He forgave my sins! David was thankful that a lamb sacrifice had pushed his sins ahead for one year, but the Lamb of God has shed His blood for us, how much more should we be faithful and how much more should we be thankful!

David goes on to remind us that God "heals all our diseases." On the way to willingly suffer and die on the cross, Jesus paused enough to allow Himself to be beaten. This horrible whipping left Him at the point of death and would have been sufficient punishment enough without having to endure the Cross, but it was in the perfect will of God. Why was Jesus beaten? The prophet Isaiah prophesied about the Messiah being beaten and said:

The stripes of the beating were to provide physical and spiritual healing! Peter also quoted this verse:

Did you catch the difference? Isaiah writing before the death of Jesus said "we are healed." But Peter quoting the verse AFTER the death and beating of Jesus changed the words to say "were healed!" The price for your healing has already been paid for! Isaiah was healed "on credit," Jesus still had to come and pay the price for it. All of those miracles that Jesus performed were yet to be paid for, but for you and I under Grace, our healings have already been provided for! God just wants someone to step out in faith and rather than getting down at the doctor's statements, put your faith in His Word, and His Word says your healing has already been paid for!

I can't forget the awful price that Jesus paid for my healing! I must remember that God cared enough for us to not only pay our debt of sin and provide a way for us to be saved eternally, but also provided for healing power while we live! I have a reason to be thankful today!

The word here in the Hebrew that was translated "mouth" actually means "the innermost desire in man." Do I need to remind you that you never need to forget the kind of person you were before God found you? The reason that we were vile and unrighteous before God came was because we were trying to fulfill and satisfy that desire inside for something more. You knew something was missing so you tried to fill up that void with this world and sin, but it never worked. How many can testify today that your inner man was never satisfied until you found Jesus?!! I'm glad that He satisfied my inner desires. It's great that the translators translated this word here as "mouth." That is because once the Spirit of God comes and fulfills that inner void, you can't help but talk about it! Also notice that David said that his youth was restored like the eagles. Eagles molt, that is when baby eaglets are born, they have fuzzy little down feathers. As they mature, they lose the fuzzy feathers and grow mature brown and white feathers. The birds cannot fly until they have changed their covering! David said it's the same way with God: when we come to God, God changes us from one form to another to enable us to fly! Right now we can soar spiritually, and one day we are literally going to fly! And it's because of the change that God has worked in our life! We need to be thankful for the change!

The Lord is merciful. Remember that there is a difference between grace and mercy. We initially obtain salvation because of God's Grace. Grace is when God gives you something that you did not deserve. Like paying for our sins, that's grace. Like loving you when you were unlovable, that's grace. But if you make it to heaven it's going to be primarily because of God's Mercy. Mercy is when God doesn't give you something that you DID deserve. Like I deserved to pay the price for my sins, but God is the God of mercy and He specializes in mercy. He didn't give me what I really deserved for my sins. This is an important concept to realize because after you come to God, people are still going to remember the past and hold you accountable for it, but God doesn't do that! Look at verse 10, and David, talking about God's people, said that God did not deal with us after our sins. This is talking about the sins that you committed before you became new in God. God doesn't hold them to you, neither does he make you reap the punishments for you, if He did, then this scripture wouldn't be true, and God wouldn't be merciful! But God is merciful. Remember that if somebody is persecuting for what you used to be, then it's the work of Satan or the work of Flesh, but it is not GOD persecuting you, because God don't even remember that you did it!

We often misquote these verses as meaning only that God doesn't remember our sins when we come to Him and are baptized in His name and repented. But it also means that God stops judgment in our life because of our past sins. Man may judge, the Devil may judge, but God does not punish you further for your past sins. When man judges, and the devil judges you because of it, then God steps in and says wait a minute, they don't deserve this anymore, and returns the judgment upon them! He is our advocate! Some of you aren't sure about what I'm saying, so before I explain notice how much time David spends upon this. You see, David was a murderer and an adulterer and God had forgiven Him, and David realized that the price for my sin was paid, and God is no longer making me pay judgment on them. Look:

God looks at a person and says this person is obeying my commandments, so I'm obligated to bless them. That's the power of obeying God's Word. When you keep His commandments then it obligates God to perform His end of the bargain! You don't HAVE to obey God's Word, you GET to obey God's Word, because every commandment of God comes with a blessing and when you obey the commandment it obligates God to keep His end because He cannot lie, see!?!

Some of you are still not convinced that God doesn't keep punishing you for your past sins. He doesn't, people will, and the devil will, but God has forgotten. Now here's the beautiful part about it. And this is really something to be thankful about. God is so smart, and the devil is so dumb, that God is able to allow the Devil to do whatever he wants and then use it to perform God's plan. The Devil as always thought that he can do a better job than God, that's what got him into his mess anyway. That's called pride. Pride is when you think that you can do something better than everybody else including God. The Devil is so conceited that he still thinks that he can outsmart God. What he doesn't realize is that God can take Satan's devious plan and use Satan's plan to end up fulfilling God's perfect will. Let me give you a couple examples of how God is smarter than Satan.

1. First know that God has already told Satan that he loses. If you think that Satan is all powerful, then you're wrong. He loses in the end. Here's the key to Satan's power: he only has as much power as you give him. You give power to Satan by disobeying God's word, and by worrying about a situation rather than having faith. But Satan's no match for God. In fact in the end, in Revelation 20:1-2 says that when it comes time to throw Satan in the pit, that God sends an angel with a chain. Did you catch that? ONE measly angel, with ONE chain to whip the devil!

2. 1 Cor 6:3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

Did you know that one day you will be given positions over the angels and Paul said that we would judge them?! Satan is a fallen angel. Did you know that you will one day be His judge? He'll be loosed after the 1,000 year reign of Christ and allowed one more chance to deceive the world, but you will already be in a glorified body and be spiritually above Him at that time! You will be able to condemn him and give a witness to those on the earth, Hey, look I overcame him, don't listen to him, he's a loser! The devil doesn't want you to remember that he's defeated, but God does and you need to be thankful, that you've got a greater hope!

3. Remember the story of the devil possessed man in Gadarenes. Jesus got off of the boat with His disciples and this crazed devil possessed man came running down from the tombs where he lived naked, with broken chains hanging from his hands and his feet. The demons inside him all began to scream at Jesus, please don't torment us and please whatever you do don't send us out into the deep. I don't know why the devils didn't want to get wet so bad, maybe it had something to do with all the baptisms that Jesus' disciples had been doing. When you go down into the water in Jesus name, you become a new creature, and Satan loses his hold on your life, maybe that's why the devils just didn't like ANY water at all. The Bible records that there was a herd of pigs nearby and the devils begged Jesus not to send them into the water but rather let them go in the pigs. The devils knew they were going to lose, they just wanted to take somebody with them, that's the way the devil is today, don't fall for his lies, he knows he's going to lose and just wants to take you with him! Jesus said okay, go in the pigs and so the devils left the man and went into the pigs. One thing they hadn't counted on is that pigs are smarter than some folks. They are because the scripture says that the pigs ran off the cliff and into the sea and drowned themselves rather than allow the devil to run their lives. Some people are dumber than pigs because they are content to allow the devil to run their lives! The point is that in the end where did the devils end up? In the water. See the devil can do whatever he wants to do, but in the end Jesus will always turn it around and use if for His will.

Some of you need to remember this concept. God spoke all the angels including Lucifer into existence and could just as easy speak them out of existence. Why doesn't He? Because it doesn't matter what Satan does, God's going to win. You need to remember this in your life. The best policy with Satan is to ignore him, he hates that. It don't matter what Satan does in a born-again believers' life, God is always able to turn it around and use it fulfill His will. Remember this scripture?

All things work together for good to them that love God! to them who are THE called. The elect, the ones who have been redeemed. All things work for the good, even the actions of other people. Even the actions of Satan. God uses those things to bring good in your life. Let people talk about you, God will use it for good. Let Satan persecute you, God will turn it around and make it good.

Calvary was what Satan thought would be his biggest triumph but became his complete and total defeat! Satan fell right into the plan of God and by crucifying Jesus, lost his stranglehold on mankind. Listen to the following verse:

If Satan would have known what was going to happen, he sure would not have crucified Jesus. And Satan is reminded of this defeat every time he sees us lifting up our hands, a redeemed man, praising God. You've got a reason to be thankful. Satan is a defeated foe, as long as you keep God's commandments and obey His voice! We need to never forget it and always give thanks for it!

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Because of time, I will only briefly mention the other reasons to be thankful, but we need to never forget them!

The lord will rule and reign and His kingdom will the be the greatest kingdom that has ever been or ever will be and you and I will be a part of it and rule and reign with Him in a glorified body! That's something to be thankful for!

The Scripture says that the angel of the Lord encampeth around those that fear the Lord and delivers them! Not only do you have the Lord on your side, but he has sent an angel to watch over you as long as you obey His words and respect Him in your life! When you choose to live your life according to the will of God, you get angelic help. In the story of the man in the Gadarenes, the man had devoted his whole life to allowing the devils to have their way. Because he was so sold out, not one devil, but thousands of devils possessed him and followed his every move. The devil always copies God. The best the devil can do is a cheap imitation. The more sold out you are to God, the more power you gain and the more angelic ministers that God assigns to you. Go ahead, pay the price through prayer and fasting. Keep studying the Word of God and applying it to your life. Keep being faithful to God and the things that He hold dear, and God will increase your angelic protection. You need to remember the next time that you become fearful, that you are protected as long as you are obeying God's Word! That's something to remember and something to be thankful to!

David ends his Psalm the same way that he started. By praising the name of Jehovah, the revealed name of God to him. We now have a much more powerful name to bless, the name of Jesus which means "Jehovah has become salvation." Before Calvary, David found a lot to be thankful for and bless the name of God. After Calvary, how much more should we be thankful!?! We should remember this sermon this entire week and remember that I've got a reason to be thankful! Don't forget to be thankful!!!!!!