A Thanksgiving Letter to the Faithful Remnant Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the faithful remnant whom the Lord has kept through fire and trial, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. As we gather this Thanksgiving, let us lift our hearts in deep gratitude, not merely for the blessings of provision and family, but for the costly foundation upon which this nation was once laid, and above all, for the infinite price paid by our Savior for our eternal redemption. We remember with solemn thankfulness the Pilgrims—those weary saints who, in 1620, crossed a merciless ocean aboard the Mayflower, driven by a holy conviction to worship God according to Scripture and to advance the Christian faith without the corruption they fled. Half of them perished that first brutal winter, yet in the spring they planted, prayed, and gave thanks. Before they ever stepped ashore at Plymouth, they penned the Mayflower Compact, declaring their voyage was undertaken “for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith.” Their covenant began with these words: “In the name of God, Amen.” They knew that no society endures apart from submission to the King of kings. Let us never forget the price our spiritual forefathers paid: hunger, disease, freezing cold, the graves of spouses and children; yet through it all they clung to the promises of God and declared with the Psalmist, “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name” (Psalm 100:4, NASB). But as great as their sacrifice was, it pales in comparison to the One who left the throne of heaven to become a Man of sorrows. This Thanksgiving, may our deepest gratitude be fixed upon Jesus Christ, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). He paid the ultimate price—not with silver or gold, but with His own precious blood. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, NASB). “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, NASB). “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Revelation 5:12, NASB). Beloved remnant, we live in a day when the foundations are crumbling, when many who once professed the name of Christ have fallen away. Yet here we stand—by grace alone—still holding fast to the Word of life, still trusting the blood of the everlasting covenant. This is no small mercy. Therefore, “Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms” (Psalm 95:2, NASB), not because our circumstances are easy, but because our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, purchased at infinite cost. May the Lord grant us the same resolute faith as those who went before us on these shores, and far above that, the faith to follow the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. This Thanksgiving, and every day, let us fall on our knees and proclaim with overflowing hearts: “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15, NASB). I have included links to three of Pastor Peters' messages on Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy them: - Thanksgiving Sermon #109
- Thanksgiving Sermon #435
- Thanksgiving Sermon #717
Jesus is King" No King But King Jesus" Jason S. Junker Jason@sfaw.org |
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Thanksgiving: The True Story |
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The true story of Thanksgiving is a story of the Pilgrims. We’ll begin with them by saying that they viewed their coming to America as fulfillment of Bible prophecy and themselves as the true children of Israel. This can be seen from the most excellent and accurate history book, known asThe Light and the Gloryby Peter Marshall and David Manuel. “By now, a farewell sermon had become a tradition, and it was preached by a stalwart young Puritan minister named John Cotton, whose star was also destined to rise over New England. He preached on 2 Samuel 7:10 (KJV): ‘Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as before time.’ Samuel Eliot Morrison put it thus, ‘Cotton’s sermon was of a nature to inspire these new children of Israel with the belief that they were the Lord’s chosen people; destined, if they kept the covenant with Him, to people and fructify this new Canaan in the western wilderness.’” There is much to the Pilgrim story. Of course, we won’t be able to tell all of it in this publication but before we go further in this writing, let us go to the Scriptures and see what they tell us about these people. I Peter 2:9 (NASV) is not just about those people then, but their descendants now. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” The story of the Pilgrims is a story about a race of people. What people did the Pilgrims consider themselves to be? History reveals they considered themselves to be the children of Israel. Let’s go to another quote from another proclamation concerning Thanksgiving. As you study the history of Thanksgiving, you’ll find several different proclamations throughout history. This one is a proclamation by Jonathan Trumball, then governor of the English Colony of Connecticut. The date of the proclamation is in 1775 “…that he would inspire the king’s heart with wisdom to discern the true interest of all his people, and make them know what Israel ought to do.” Notice, that in this proclamation, which we’ve just noted a short, brief quote from, they considered themselves then as Israel. The story of true Thanksgiving is the story of a race. But, it’s also a story of Christianity, not the nonsensical brand of today, known as the Judeo-Christians, or the Judeo-Christian churches. We are talking about the real thing. . It was the real thing that Daniel Webster was talking about in a speech he delivered entitled A Discourse delivered at Plymouth on the 22ndof December, 1820. It’s found inVolume 1, The Works of Daniel Websterdated 1851. This speech was on the occasion of the dedication of a statue of faith on the two hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. “Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. |
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Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for their Christian religion. They journeyed by its light and labored by its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the element of their society and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions: civil, political or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments and extend this influence still more widely in the full conviction that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity.” It was not a pluralistic melting pot multi-cultural society that they came to establish or that the God of Israel was helping them to establish. It was a Christian society. How can we deny that? Particularly when we read theMayflower Compactwhich says: “In the name of God we whose names are unwritten the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord King James by the grace of God by Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaking for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.” |
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This is all a story of our roots. As Daniel Webster said,“Let us not forget the religious character of our origin.” It’s a story of our roots that go back to a race and to Christianity. Thus, this story cannot be told in the humanistic government public schools today, without complaint by the antichrist Jewish ADL or without a lawsuit from the Jewish controlled ACLU. It couldn’t be mentioned by our leaders today, political or religious, because it is not politically correct. It couldn’t be televised with any accuracy, as you couldn’t get any sponsors as it may offend Jews, Buddhists, Satanists, even Judeo-Christians and frankly it may be bad for business. The acceptable, and we might add, make believe story, goes something like this. White Pilgrims nearly stared their first winter, but they were saved by the Indians, who taught them how to survive, being thankful for their deliverance, by the hand of the Indian, proclaimed a special day of Thanksgiving. One man said of such a story that “it’s superficial to say the least and a a lie at most.” Frankly, it is true that in the fall of October, 1621, the Pilgrims threw a party for the Indians. But that’s not the divine origin of our Thanksgiving; the one we celebrate every last Thursday in November |
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Let’s talk about the Indian story. The Indian story, for the most part, is that there were no Indians in the area. Why? Because the God of Israel removed them so that He could plant His covenant people, the Israelite Pilgrims, in their place. The Indians did not save them. I take this from the writing by the late Pastor Sheldon Emry. “Twentieth century subversives, who write much of our present textbooks, and history, try to tell us the English Colony would have perished if it had not been for the noble red man! That is a strange theory, but the truth is even stranger, for there was not one Indian within seventy-five miles of Cape Cod Bay in 1620! This was wondered at by the Pilgrims, who actually attempted to search out the Indians in hopes of bartering for food. They did not find any. They did find a few caches of dried berries and meat, obviously stored for the now-missing Indians, which they took for themselves and these did prevent the deaths of some who would otherwise have died. But they found no living Indians. It was not until several years later that they learned the reason, from other Indians from further away, who slowly moved into the area. We will take the story as told by a Puritan, Captain Edward Johnson, in his Wonder-Working Providence of Sions, Savior in New England, published in 1653: ‘Now let all men know the Admirable acts of Christ for His churches and chosen, are universally over the whole Earth at one and the same time, bur sorry man cannot so discourse of then…And therefore let us…tell of the marvelous doings of Christ preparing for His peoples arrival in the Western World, whereas the Indians report they beheld to their great wonderment that perspicuous bright blazing Comet (this was the celebrated comet of November, 1618, so bright as to be visible in daylight), anon after Sun set it appeared, as they say, in the Southwest, about three houres, continueing in their Horizon for the space of thirty sleepes (for so they recon their dayes) after which uncouth sight they expected some strange things to follow…which he now tell.) The Summer after the blazing Starre (whose motion in the Heavens was from East to West, pointing out to the sons of men the progress of the glorious Gospell of Christ, the glorious King of His Churches) even about the yeare 1618 a little before the removeall of that Church of Christ from Holland to Plimoth in New England, as the ancient Indians report, there befell a great mortality among them, the greatest that ever the member of father to some tooke notice of, chiefly desolating those places where the English afterward planted. By this meanes Christ (whose great and gloious works the Earth throughout are altogether for the benefit of His Churches and chosen) not onely made roome for His people to plant; but also tamed the hard and cruell hearts of these barbarous Indians, insomuch that halfe a handful of His people landing not long after in Plimoth Plantation, found little resistance.’ (Old spelling kept) The antichrists may scoff, may beguile us to forget, but it is certainly a miracle, and who but by God that no hostile or savage Indian was left alive in the land to which God had driven the little Mayflower. Only after they had been firmly planted, and had grown from their first weakness, did the Indians return, and then they mostly looked on these strange white men with awe, as their primitive minds made connection between the comet, the plague and the sudden arrival of these Christians.”
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So. Who saved them from starvation? Now that we’ve established, according to history, there weren’t any Indians, that they were removed by the hand of the God of Israel, so He could plant His little colony of Pilgrims there, who then saved them from starvation if the Indians did not? The answer istheir great God and King Jesus Christ, their Saviour, saved them time and time again. One time He used not Indians, but rather an Indian. An Indian named Squanto. That God glorifying story is superbly told by David Manuel and Peter Marshall in their history book,The Light and the Gloryon pages 130, 131 and 133. Basically, the story goes something like this: After the Pilgrims were settling in, one day an Indian came walking into camp and he said, “welcome. You got any beer?” Now, that might sound like a make-believe story, but you’ll find out that it’s the true story. This quote is taken from page 129: “’Welcome!’ he suddenly boomed in a deep, resonant voice. The Pilgrims were too startled to speak. At length, they replied with as much gravity as they could muster: ‘Welcome’. Their visitor fixed them with a piercing stare. ‘Have you got any beer?’, he asked them in his flawless English.” |
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As this history goes on to tell, the next day this Indian brought another Indian with him and he too spoke flawless English. His name was Squanto. On page 130 ofThe Light and the Glory, referring to Squanto, the book states: “The extraordinary chain of ‘coincidences’ in this man’s life is in its own way no less extraordinary than the saga of Joseph’s being sold into slavery in Egypt. Indeed, in ensuing months, there was not a doubt in any of their hearts that Squanto, whose Indian name was Tisquantum was a God send. His story really began in 1605, when Squanto and four other Indians were taken captive by Captain George Weymouth, who was exploring the New England coast at the behest of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The Indians were taken to England, where they were taught English, so the Gorges could question them as to what tribes populated New England.” The story goes on to tell that Squanto was of the Patuxets Indian tribe. According toThe Light and the Glorytheywere “a large, hostile tribe who had barbarously murdered every white man who had landed on their shores.
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AND THAT'S THE TRUE STORY |
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But, four years prior to the Pilgrim’s arrival, a mysterious plague had broken out among them, killing every man, woman and child. So complete was the devastation that the neighboring tribes had shunned the area ever since, convinced that some great, supernatural spirit had destroyed the Patuxets. Hence the cleared land on which they had settled literally belongs to no one! Their nearest neighbors, said Samoset, were the Wampanoags, some fifty miles to the southwest. These Indians numbered about sixty warriors.” Now, according to the story, Squanto made his way back, but when he got home, there was no home! His people were all wiped out. Going on in the story inThe Light and the Glory onpage 131:
“When Squanto stepped ashore six months before the Pilgrims arrived, he received the most tragic blow of this life: not a man, woman, or child of his tribe was left alive! Nothing but skulls and bones and ruined dwellings remained.” Squanto had no place to go. He found the Pilgrims and according toThe Light and the Glory, “the Pilgrims cast a baleful eye on their amazing friend, who seemed to have adopted them.” What took place, was Squanto, who spoke flawless English, taught them how to plant corn, how to trap beaver, how to catch fish coming up into the streams. So you see, the story is not, “the Indians saved Pilgrims”,the story is“God saved the Pilgrims by using an Indian who was taken into slavery years before and returned to the New England Colony area.” As a result, in the fall of 1621, October to be precise, the Indians were invited to a party by the Pilgrims. It was a party of thanksgiving. There was a thanksgiving that took place at that time, but, going on with this story, let’s now go to the origin of the Thanksgiving that we celebrate, not in October but in November.
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Origin of Thanksgiving We Honor |
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This Thanksgiving goes back to the words of William Bradford, the governor of the Pilgrim Colony, in his proclamation of thanksgiving: “Inasmuch as the Great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes and garden vegetables, and has made the forest to abound with game, and the sea with fish and dams, and inasmuch that He protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from the pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience, now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house on ye hill between the hours of nine and twelve in the day time on Thursday, November ye twenty-ninth, of the year of our Lord one thousand, six hundred twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim rock. There to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings. Signed, William Bradford, governor.” Notice, this is three years after they landed. This is the proclamation on the last Thursday of November of 1623. What brought about this proclamation? To answer that, we can say: 1) A life-saving, Christ-magnifying miracle that was so awesome that it caused them, in November of 1623, to celebrate with a day of thanksgiving. 2) The God ordained, forced conversion from Socialism-Communism, (today we call it New World Order -ism or Globalism), to God’s Kingdom system of private property and the laborer keeping the fruits of his labor. William Bradford was the governor of Plymouth Colony. It was he who wrote a history of the early days of the Pilgrims. That history has come down to us in his work called The Plymouth Plantation. Frankly, it’s the only eye-witness account that we have and most of our knowledge of the Pilgrims come from that work. To understand the first Thanksgiving, i.e., the one that we keep in November, one needs to understand the historical background of the world that existed back in the 1620’s. LIFE AS A PILGRIM A typical serf would work three days on his lord’s farm, three more days on a village communal farm, and then was allowed to attend church on Sunday. Feudalism and Communism existed side by side throughout Europe. England was the only country where this system was being challenged. The ventured Capitalist who had backed the Pilgrims in their coming to America, compelled them to adopt this Communism as their economic system. When they arrived in the New World, that’s what they had to follow. By early 1623, about two and a half years under this system, the Pilgrims literally faced famine. Bradford compared this with the famine during the time of Jacob in the Bible. Desperate and at the end of their meager resources, they demanded as particular individuals their right to the produce of their own labors. Edward Eggleston said in his book,The Beginners of a Nation, dated 1896: “After two years of labor in common had brought the colony more than once to the verge of ruin, Bradford had the courage and wisdom to cut the knot he could not untie. During this scarce springtime of 1623, he assigned all the detached persons in the colony to live with families and then temporarily divided the ancient Indian field on which the settlement had been made among the several families in proportion to their number, leaving every household to shift for itself or suffer want.” In The Light and the Glory, William Bradford is quoted as saying on page 141: “…it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness and inability, whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.” Governor Bradford is describing the effect of leaving their communal Communism and going to God’s Kingdom economics. After they made the change, Edward Eggleston put it this way. He said: “Any general want or suffering hath not among them since to this day.” Years later he wrote: “The assignment was a revolutionary stroke, in violation of the contract with the shareholders, in contrary to their wishes. But Bradford saw that it was a life and death necessity to be rid of the pernicious system, even at the cost of cutting off all support from England. In his history, he draws a very clear picture of the evils of communism as he had observed them.” (In our thirteen part series of messages entitled The Unseen War, available in book form or on CD from Scriptures for America, PO Box 766, LaPorte, Colorado 80535 for a $70.00 offering), we pointed out that according to Scripture, they are the cursed people. They make great merchants, great bankers, so forth, but they, according to the Bible, are cut off from the face of God and cut off from the face of the land. So, their survival is one of a parasitic survival. Thus, they need and do promote Communism/Socialism. Since this word has become antiquated as we’re told that it has died, we’ll use the tern New World Order-ism or Neo-Communist or One World government. Here is a quote that’s taken from theJewish Review in London,March/June issue 1934, page 29 and 30 by Dr. James Park: “It is not accident which has made Jews form so long a proportion of Socialist leaders.” (You see, some people cannot survive by God’s Kingdom economics. They must have what we call man’s system of communal Socialism.)
Back to the story…. In that year, they made the change to private enterprise. Something else happened that year also. What happened next put the Pilgrims in a position that God often puts His people in/ where the only way they could survive was by faith.
...behold; and afterwards the Lord sent them shuch seasonable showers, with enterchange of faire warme weather, as, through his blessing, caused a fruitfull and liberall harvest, to their no small comforte and rejoyceing. For which mercie (in time conveniente) they also sett aparte a day of thanksgiveing. This being overslept in its place, I thought meet here to inserte ye same…” (The above excerpts are from the original manuscript from 1647 [1901 Edition]). It came about when they changed from communal Socialism to God’s Kingdom economics of a man keeping the fruits of his own labor. And it came about by the Heavenly Father bringing upon them a sore trial, forcing them to their knees in humiliation and prayer. When we see trials on the horizon looming, let us not fear, but let us rejoice that our God knows how to push down on the stiff necks of his Israelite people and force them to their knees, and force them to bow their heads in humiliation and prayer and beseech Him once again through faith. Faith that only they have, and not their cursed enemies, asking for help. The Light and the Gloryreports this story: “Whatever may have brought on the drought, the sincere and deep repentance of each and every Pilgrim had a phenomenal effect. Winslow writes: ‘But, O the mercy of our God, who was as ready to hear, as we were to ask! For though in the morning, when we assembled together, the heavens were as clear and the drought as like to continue as it ever was, yet (our exercise continuing some eight or nine hours) before our departure, the weather was overcast, the clouds gathered on all sides. On the next morning distilled such soft, sweet and moderate showers of rain, continuing some fourteen days and mixed with such seasonable weather, as it was hard to say whether our withered corn or dropping affections were most quickened or revived, such was the bounty and goodness of our God!’ Bradford says: ‘…It came, without either wind or thunder, or any violence, and by degrees in that abundance as that the earth was thoroughly wet and soaked therewith; which did so apparently revive and quicken the decayed corn and toher fruits, as was wonderful to see and made the Indians astonished to behold…’ It had to have had a profound effect on the Indians! For while their own rain dances or the incantations of their medicine men did sometimes seem to have some effect, it is interesting to note the result, as Winslow comments: ‘…and all of them admired the goodness of our God towards us, that wrought so great a change in so short a time, showing the difference between their conjuration and our invocation on the name of God for rain, theirs being mixed with such storms and tempests, as some times, instead of doing them good, it layeth the corn flat on the ground, to their prejudice, but ours in so gentle and seasonable a manner, as they never observed the like.’ There are only two origins of supernatural phenomena, and as the Pilgrims might have said, ‘the proof of he pudding is in the eating.’ The yield that year was so abundant that the Pilgrims ended up with a surplus of corn, which they were able to use in trading that winter with northern Indians, who had not had a good growing season. A second day of Thanksgiving was planned, and this year there was even more reason to celebrate: their beloved Governor was to marry one Alice Southworth.” |
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IT'S NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT |
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Again, this is another witness as to the origin of our Thanksgiving. It gives the true story; the story of the Thanksgiving that we keep today. A story that is not politically correct and thus, our leaders who are political in nature, dare not stand upon it. A story that is not acceptable to our antichrist enemies, who presently have control of the media. A story which the antichrist ADL would not want told. A story which the Jewish controlled ACLU would prevent with a lawsuit. And, it’s a story that most cannot tell because they’ve never heard it. They’ve never heard the true story of Thanksgiving. The late Pastor Sheldon Emry wrote it this way: “If we have believed and I believe rightly so, the events so far related came about by the guiding hand of God, would it not follow that God also caused the heat to almost destroy their crops, that they might seek the Lord by humble and fervent prayer? And then answer that prayer with just the right temperature to provide to them their so far most beautiful and bountiful harvest. Is it so far beyond the realm of Christian reason but to believe that God’s purpose was to cause them to proclaim a day of Thanksgiving? That it was done and following such unique and marvelous events should serve as greater proof than any argument I might offer.” In conclusion, fellow Israelites, that is the story of Thanksgiving. Not the politically correct Judaized lie told to our children in the humanistic, Christless indoctrination centers called “public school.” But, it is the true story, a story of Christian faith (and I might add, Christian faith only). A story of the miraculous and providential hand of God, shepherding and protecting His people, the lost sheep of the House of Israel. A story of the dismal failure of Judaized, Socialistic Communism that cursed men bring upon us in their attempt to parasitically live off of us, versus the success of God’s Kingdom economics of a man keeping the fruits of his labor. A story of a race of people, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Kindred people, coming to America by the hand of God, who were Israelites and whose descendants today are Israel. We pray that they might once again, know who they are and be thankful. Be thankful for who they are, and for what their God has done for them and their forefathers. Knowing that He is ready to hear them again, if they but humble themselves and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways. We are thankful to be able to tell you the story and thankful for those of you who have eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to feel the significance of this true Thanksgiving story. May we be found as a thankful people this day and all the days of the life that He gives us.Amen. |
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