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As
children of obedience, we must be grateful to God for He revealed to us His
Son, and He rescued us from the power of darkness, and we are grateful to Him
by doing what is right in His sight. However, we must be grateful also to all
those who do good to us. We must be grateful, for it is written: “Be
thankful” (Colossians 3:15
– NKJV). Ungratefulness is caused by greed, and by a short memory toward
those who have done good to us.
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Nabal, for
instance, was ungrateful to David and his men, as it is written: “And David
sent out ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to
Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name: And thus shall ye say to
him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine
house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. And now I have heard that thou
hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not,
neither was there ought missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel. Ask thy
young men, and they will shew thee. Wherefore let the young men find favour
in thine eyes: for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever
cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David. And when
David's young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words in
the name of David, and ceased. And Nabal answered David's servants, and said,
Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days
that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my
water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men,
whom I know not whence they be?” (1 Samuel 25:5-11). And because of his
answer he made David angry, and had it not been for Nabal’s wife (who took
the initiative in overriding the effect of her husband’s bullish behaviour)
David would have killed Nabal.
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The
children of Israel
were ungrateful to the house of Gideon, for it is written: “And it came to
pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned
again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god. And
the children of Israel
remembered not the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of
all their enemies on every side: Neither shewed they kindness to the house of
Jerubbaal, namely, Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shewed
unto Israel”
(Judges 8:33-35).
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