The Sunday Sermon
Paul's Thanksgiving
by Alexander Whyte
Edited by R.P.Woitowitz Sr.
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son - Colossians 1:12-13
THANKSGIVING is a species of prayer. Thanksgiving is one species of prayer out of many. Prayer, in its whole extent and compass, is a comprehensive and compendious name for all kinds of approach and all kinds of address to God, and for all kinds and all degrees of communion with God. Request, petition, supplication; acknowledgment and thanksgiving; meditation and contemplation; as, also, all our acts and engagements of public, and family, and closet worship,--all those things are all so many species, so to say, of prayer. Petition is the lowest, the most rudimentary and the most elementary of all kinds of prayer. And it is because we so seldom rise above the rudiments and first principles of divine things that we so seldom think, and so seldom speak, about prayer in any other sense than in that of request and petition and supplication. Whereas praise--pure, emancipated, enraptured, adoring praise,--is the supremest and the most perfect of all kinds of prayer. Thanksgiving is higher and purer than petition; while, again, it is lower and less blessed than holy, heavenly, God-adoring praise.
Now it is to thanksgiving that the Apostle here invites the Colossian believers. He has prayed for them ever since the day on which he first heard of their faith and their love. And now, that Epaphras has brought him such good news of their continuance and their growth in grace, he invites them to join with him in this noble thanksgiving--unto the Father who hath delivered him and them from the power of darkness and hath translated him and them into the Kingdom of His dear Son.
Darkness and the power of darkness verses the Armour of Light
Now, what is this darkness? It is sin, you will answer. And so it is. It is sin. And each man's own, and only, darkness is from his own sin. Each man's darkness is so thick, and so inward, and so abiding, because it is the darkness that is cast by that huge idol of darkness, each man's own sinful self. "Self," in this life, is just another, and a truer, and a keener, and a more homecoming name, for sin. My sin is myself. And my darkness lies so thick and so deadly on my soul because self towers up so high and so dark in my soul. And in every man's soul!
Do you hate the darkness, and yourself on account of it? and do you rejoice in the light and seek it? Are your dark thoughts about your neighbor your daily burden and agonizing prayer? Do you, before God, put off the deeds and the words and the thoughts of darkness, and put on against them the armour of light? Do you, my brethren, do you? Then Paul, hearing of all that from Epaphras, would write an Epistle to you in his most soaring style, till you would answer: "Would God, He had indeed so delivered me!" And he would answer you back again, and would say, "When Christ, Who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any": and in all that the Father will more and more deliver you from the power of darkness, and will "translate you into the kingdom of His dear Son."
