BY JACK WARD
Phil 4:6: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.“ 1 Th 5:18: “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Martin Rinkert was a minister in the small town of Eilenburg, Germany, some 350 years ago. He was the son of a poor coppersmith, but somehow he managed to work his way through school. Finally, in the year 1617, he was offered the post of Archdeacon in his hometown parish.
A year later, what has come to be known as the Thirty Years’ broke out. His town was caught right in the middle. In 1637, the massive plague that swept across the continent hit Eilenburg. People died at the rate of 50 a day, and the man called upon to bury most of them was Martin Rinkert. His labors finally came to an end about 11 years later, just one year after the conclusion of the war.
His ministry spanned 32 years, all but the first and the last overwhelmed by the great conflict that engulfed his town. Tough circumstances in which to be thankful. But he managed. And he wrote these words:
Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom his world rejoices.
It was written in 1637. The name of the hymn is “Now Thank We All Our God.” In the year that Rinkert wrote that hymn, over 8000 persons in his German village, including his own wife and his children, died of pestilence. Yet, in the midst of that catastrophic social and personal loss, Rinkert set down to pen this great hymn of praise.
The Christian faith affirms that in the midst of everything—in death, in loss, in hardship—we can turn to God in praise and thanksgiving because He is good, because he is worthy of our praise, because He loves us.
It takes a magnificent spirit to come through such hardship and express gratitude. Here is a great lesson. Surrounded by tremendous adversity, thanksgiving will deliver you with heart and hand and voice. Our forefathers were not so much thankful FOR something as they were thankful IN something.
In bounty or in want, they were thankful. In feast or in famine, they were thankful. In joy or in misery, they were thankful. There is a big difference between being thankful FOR things and being thankful IN all things.
Of course it is hard to be thankful when a loved one has tragically died or we have gotten some terrible news. But this is really your moment of truth, the moment when everything we know and believe about God will be tested. God had prepared Martin Rinkert for his moment of truth. God gave him peace, God gave him strength and God gave Him thankfulness. Are you ready for your moment of truth? And then will you give thanks with heart, with hands, with voice?
Listen to Pastor Jack’s sermons every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. on 98.9 WSIP FM. Check out the Tomahawk Missionary Baptist Church Facebook page and our website at tomahawkmbc.com.