As we approach this national day of "thanksgiving" I thought it necessary to reflect upon our nation's long history of acknowledging and giving thanks to Almighty God.

On October 3, 1789 George Washington issued the nation's first presidential proclamation in which he called the nation to set aside a day for giving thanks to that "great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be..."

President Washington gave under his official hand the following words:

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor...

Furthermore President Washington acknowledged that he was joined by the Congress in his appeal to the nation:

Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness" ...that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

This presidential proclamation represented, in unequivocal terms, the government's call upon the people of this nation to acknowledge and give thanks to God for His many and abundant blessings. These were not benign religious platitudes but absolute statements reflecting the consensus view of life and reality which acknowledged that there is one God; the God who has revealed Himself in Scripture, in nature and in the person of Jesus Christ. It is this God that the nation once acknowledged and it is this God, the one true God that the people of this nation have turned against and today refuse to acknowledge and serve.