O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise!

The opening words of Charles Wesley’s stirring hymn, dating from 1739, serve to remind us that we cannot thank God enough for all His many blessings. We live, sadly, in a world that is not simply ‘taking God for granted’, but is routinely forgetting Him altogether. Fewer and fewer people, it seems, believe in and worship the God of the Bible; and, if we hear about God at all, it is more often than not when people ‘blame’ Him for the sorry state of the world. It is not unusual, in these days of general unbelief, to come across the kind of disillusion expressed in the doubter’s question: "How can there be a loving God when there is so much wrong with the world?"

But such disillusion, and the prevailing humanistic atheism of the early 21st century, overlook two very important facts. First, that the suffering of mankind is not a modern phenomenon: the world has long been ‘in a sorry state’. We simply know a great deal more about it all now thanks to the advent of instant global communications, with the devastating effects of floods, earthquakes and famines beamed directly into our living rooms almost as soon as they are felt anywhere in the world.

But second, and most important of all, the Bible not only acknowledges that the world is in a mess but also clearly explains the reasons why. It tells us – if we are humble enough to accept it – that sin and death, and all the adverse conditions that go with them, are the ‘fault’ of mankind, and not to be blamed on God. Instead, we are told, God Himself is working ceaselessly for our ultimate good; and behind all the troubles of the world there is a long-term purpose at work for the salvation of all those who will put their faith and trust in God and His Son Jesus Christ.

The genuine tragedy for our modern world is that the offer of God’s saving grace – through belief in the saving work of Jesus and baptism into his name – is so little understood in these otherwise ‘enlightened’ times. But for those who see and understand that God is calling all men and women to become part of His future – when everything that has been wrong with the world for so long will be swept away in a perfected earth – there is every reason, perhaps now more than ever, to thank God for His long-term kindness to an imperfect and undeserving race. And, even if we each had "a thousand tongues" with which to praise God for His goodness, they would still be inadequate to thank Him for all that He has done, and is doing, to make the world, once again, the paradise that it was when He first created it "very good" (Genesis 2).

There is a loving God. But do we thank Him enough?