A Time for Thanksgiving

By Richard Clark, S.B.G.

Everyone ought to have a time in their life that they can point to, with Real Thanksgiving and praise God for that day. That day for most Christians, is the day of their Salvation. The Lord should be praised with the voice of thanksgiving every day of the year, but especially should he be praised on the day of salvation! The greatest event in a person's life is when they pass from darkness into light and from death unto life: born again by the word of God!

This is my testimony of Salvation, a Testimony of Thanksgiving and Praise to my Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ!

A person who is blind from the time they are born has no idea in the world what 'light' is. It is something that cannot be described with mere words. There are some people that were born blind and later they received sight. You can't imagine how glorious it is to see the light for the first time!

The LORD has blessed me with twenty-twenty vision, for which I am extremely thankful, but like every one born into the world, I too was born spiritually BLIND! The Lord Jesus said: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John.3:3p)

For twenty four years I walked through the world in darkness, without hope and without God, never even realizing what it was like to have the Light of God.

I can still remember the days of darkness and how black everything was. Oh sure, I thought that I had light, I thought that I could see. Just like everyone else, I was in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness and I was looking for a "good time," but it never really happened until I met the Lord Jesus!

Twenty four years of "life" and nothing to show for it. I suppose that is the best way of describing what an un-saved man's life is like. But all of that changed on Thanksgiving Day, 1974, when the LORD gave me the gift of life, the gift of sight, the gift of everlasting Salvation through His Son The Lord Jesus Christ!

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John.3:16)

I remember that day, like it was right now. My older brother was visiting with us from Kansas. He and I were driving around the Cincinnati area looking at some of the "new" things. We got onto the expressway (I-75 southbound) and crossed over a bridge into Northern Kentucky.

We had only traveled a little way after crossing the bridge, when He said to me, "Can I ask you a personal question?" I was slightly surprised at such a request, but I said yes. He then said, "If somebody were to ask you, 'What is a Christian?', What would you say?"

Wow! What a question! I had no idea in the world how to answer a question like that. Of course I mumbled out some kind of answer, and I was getting sort of nervous. Then, on top of that, he said, "If YOU were to die right now, are you SURE that you would go to heaven?"

Well, what in the world? How could anybody know something like that? But of course, I did not have an answer to the question, except to say, "I don't know." And then he said, "Well, if I showed you from the word of God how you can know FOR SURE that you would go to heaven, would you do what it says?" I said Yes in a round about way.

He pointed out to me that, the Bible says, "There is none righteous, no, not one" and that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Rom.3:10p,23p). He talked about Adam and how he disobeyed God's word and caused SIN to enter into the world, and into me by descent.

Then he talked about the penalty of sin, "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom.6:23)

And he said, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."(Rom.5:8)

And finally, he talked about how the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, and was buried, and rose again the third day for our justification. (Justified by the precious blood of Christ.)

He told me how the Lord had taken my place on the cross and took the wrath of God which I deserved. He took my place!

And right there, sitting beside me, was someone who also had taken my place! You see, when I was in the Army in Vietnam, my brother was also sent there. They had a rule, that they can not require more than one member of a family to be in a combat zone at one time, so, when my brother was shipped there, he elected to stay, so I could leave, and I was shipped out to Okinawa. He took my place! If that hadn't happened, I might be dead today! And the fellow that I saved from being drowned at Okinawa would not be alive today, if I hadn't been sent there! And you probably would not be alive today if Jesus hadn't died for you on the Cross! But "Here we are!"

And there was my brother, telling me how that, the Lord took my place on the cross of Calvary. How could I refuse to receive the Lord? I couldn't! (Can You?)

He said to me, "If somebody gives you a gift and you receive it, you know you have it, right?" And he handed me something. I think it was a five dollar bill, and I had it in my hand as I said, "I guess so." Then, since I was a little slow catching on, he pointed to my hand and said, "Well, do you know that you have that?" I looked in my hand, and there it was! No doubt about it!

And of course, that was an example of the fact that when God gives someone the Gift of Everlasting life, they can know that they have Eternal Life, as it is written, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God."(1John.5:13) And although I can't look in my hand and see the Lord Jesus, I can hold his word in my hand and see him by faith! The word of God is sure!

At some point in our conversation, as he was driving, he pulled the car off the expressway onto the shoulder. Romans.10:13 says, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." That's a promise, if we call on the name of the Lord, we SHALL be saved, not maybe... but SHALL! He asked me if it was allright for him to pray for me and I said OK. He prayed and then asked me if I wanted to ask the LORD to save me and then I prayed and asked the LORD to forgive me of my sins and save me, and I received The Lord Jesus Christ there and then as my Saviour! God's GIFT!

By the providence of God, we had pulled off the road on a section of I-75 known as "Death Hill" (because of the large number of accidents there) and also called "The Cut of the Hill" (because the hill was cut through for the highway). Solid Rock!

It was there, in the Cleft of the Rock that I passed from death unto life on a Real Thanksgiving Day in 1974, THANKS to the wonderful GRACE of God!