God’s 6 Providences for America’s First Thanksgiving

Christian History “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Hosea 4:6

If we fail to know our history, we may fail to make history!

One night the whole persecuted church of 100 Christian Separatists made a daring escape out of England to Holland. Imprisonment and even execution was the fate of some Separatist Christians in England. They were called “Separatists” because they separated from the state church of England to form their own biblical congregations.

Even though the Christian Separatists living in Leiden Holland were not persecuted, why after ten years did they want to leave Leiden?

The Dutch culture was lascivious and beginning to have an ungodly ill effect on their children. Nor were they having success in turning society or local government toward biblical Christianity. Moreover, they had a missionary spirit in believing they would be able to convert American Indians to Christ, and many they did. In short, they longed to establish a Christian society and nation, as they wrote, “a New Israel”.

However, it was a financial impossibility for those from the Leiden congregation that wanted to venture to America to be able to do it. However, in 1620 prayers were answered. An English company was willing to finance them to go to America if they would become indentured servants to the company. [As a side note – in earliest America most settlers were white indentured servants.

On September 16, 1620, they were on their way to the New World in the small Mayflower boat, only 90 feet long and 24 feet wide. All 128 set sail – 102 passengers plus 26 crewmen. Of the 102 passengers there were 51 men, 20 women, 31 children, and one child born at sea.

The Mayflower was not designed as a passenger boat but rather a cargo vessel. There were two decks. The top deck for a crew and the below decks for cargo. The 26 rough crewmen took the top deck, and all 102 passengers were crammed into the 2^nd deck below – side by side, sleeping, doing all their living together, under 5-foot ceiling, and seldom able to be on the upper deck.

I’ll let you imagine what that must have been like – 66 days in the salty ocean rocking waves to get to America. And then having to remain on board in their dark hole for another 6 months during that winter until their houses were built. During that winter almost half died. At times so many were sick and dying, there were not enough well ones to even bury the dead.

But before they moved onto land, despite there being only 20 Christian men of all that were on board, the Christian men determined to form their Christian civil government, drawing up what was called the Mayflower Compact. They had everyone sign the Compact, believing only Christians should be the civil leaders and to only follow God’s civil Law.

The Mayflower Compact read in part:

“In the name of God, Amen . . . by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France, Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith…a Voyage to plant the First Colony… in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic… Anno Domini [in the year of our Lord] 1620.”

When the Christian Separatists first set foot on America, the first thing they did was to bow in prayer, committing themselves and America to God.

Though half the settlers perished the first winter, all may have perished like previous New World expeditions if God’s Hand had not been on them. But in two distinct ways the Pilgrim Separatists were much different than all previous New World adventures:

1. These were all true born-again committed Christians, and all from one little church in Holland.
2. They brought their wives and children with them planning to stay and establish a Christian nation, a “New Israel”, as they declared.

Contrary to what many are taught, the Pilgrims did not come to America to escape Christian persecution. They had already fled persecution a decade earlier from England. They had been lively safely in Holland. They only came with one passion: To set up a “New Israel”, a new Christian nation. The Lord’s Prayer was not just rote to them – “Our Father which art in heaven, hollowed by Your name… Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

There were at least 6 Providences of God in the Pilgrims founding of America and leading up to the first Thanksgiving to God:

1. God’s providential storm – The Mayflower was charted to go to a specific place in America. But God’s providential storm never allowed it. The captain of the Mayflower tried for days to sail further south where they were chartered to land. But after fighting God’s providential winds for days, they finally had no choice but to set ashore where the winds forced them, which they called Plymouth Rock, and they named it after Plymouth England, where they sailed from.
2. God’s providential protection – Had God’s wind allowed them to sail where they intended and tried to for days, they would have landed right in the middle of where a savage Indian tribe lived. All the Pilgrims may have been massacred soon as they stepped on shore, as happened with other non-Christian expeditions.
3. God’s providential free land – Where God’s wind forced the Mayflower to land there was no Indian tribe living. Prior to their landing an Indian tribe had been living on that exact area of land right where the Pilgrims walked on shore. But sometime earlier God allowed a deadly plague to enter the tribe and it killed literally every Indian in the tribe. So God providentially gave them that land – no man’s land – free land.
4. God’s providential provisions – Just prior to the plague, the tribe had gathered in all their food for the coming winter. They buried it for preservation in dirt mounds all over the area. All the Pilgrims had to do was see where there were dirt mounds and dig up their food for that first winter, as they were virtually out of food from the long voyage. God had their food waiting for them. That never happened to any non-Christian venturers.God did the exact same thing for His Hebrew children when they entered the Promised Land. As Scripture records, God destroyed the wicked Canaanites after they had planted their fields and not yet harvested their crops. The day God’s manna from heaven stopped falling was the day God told the Hebrews to cross the Jordan river into the Promised Land. Waiting for them there was what God said in Psalms – “What the heathen had planted His children would reap”.
5. God’s providential safety – As a result of the plague, no other Indian tribes would settle in that area. They felt the evil spirit of death was there and were afraid to go there. This gave the Pilgrims God’s providential safety.But that was not all. When the Pilgrims lived there and did not die, the Indians feared the Pilgrims and their Great God as being greater than their spirit gods. This gave the Pilgrims great advantage even in their mission to convert Indians to their God, the Lord Jesus.
6. God’s providential help – That first winter, one day out from the woods came a young Indian. Staring at the Pilgrims, they were suddenly shocked to hear the India say – WELCOME! He knew English. His name was This had been where he had lived, his home tribal village.

Years earlier Squanto had been kidnapped by a European trader and taken back to Europe and sold as a slave. A Christian bought him and set him free. Squanto saw how great the love of Jesus was in this Christian that Squanto soon became a Christian himself. He learned English and later went back to America to find that all his village and family had died. No one was there now except the Pilgrims.

Squanto asked if he could stay with the Pilgrims, and they were delighted to have him. Squanto then considered it his home and he was a providential life-send from God. Squanto taught them how to literally survive in the New World – how to grow corn by burying a fish with it, where and how to catch a lot of certain fish, where to find nuts and non-poisonous berries.

Squanto was with the Pilgrims long enough to get them firmly established in the ways of the New World. After two years Squanto became mortally ill. Pilgrim leader William Bradford knelt at his bedside. “Pray for me Governor,” Squanto whispered, “that I might go to the Englishmen’s God in heaven.” Squanto breathed his last November 1622, gone from the New World but entering the Eternal World.

The first Thanksgiving in the autumn of 1621, was a truly thankful time to God by all the Pilgrims because of the overwhelming providences of God in their lives.

Their Governor, William Bradford, declared a “day of thanksgiving to God” to be held in October, the first Thanksgiving Day in America. Out of Christian charity, the Pilgrims also invited the closest Indian tribe, who lived in peace near them, to come and celebrate with them. 90 Indian men came, ate, and celebrated with the Pilgrims… for three days. But by the grace and providence of God, this small Christian church of Pilgrims surviewed and populated America with their Christian values. It is estimated that today there are 25 million descendants from the original Pilgrims.

Truer words were never spoken by President Thomas Jefferson at his Inaugural Address in 1805: “Being God, in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in this country.”

Happy Thanksgiving in God our Savior,

Jim & Barb

www.JimsBookstore.com

PS: On the Mayflower as in all earlier centuries, the 20 Christian men knew the Bible mandated for Christians to be the civil leaders. (To see Scriptures that Pilgrims used for their civil mandate understanding, you can read in Christian Manifesto: https://jimsbookstore.com/jesuschrist/government/christianizing-nations-today-jesus-and-pauls-civil-mandate-christian-manifesto-vol-1-copy/).

All American colonies had written in their Constitutions a basic Christian mandate… to govern according to biblical civil law, “to advance the Kingdom of God and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Even well after the Revolutionary War and signing of the U.S. Constitution, many State Constitutions continued to maintain their Christian mandate in their State Constitutions. But Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams and other Founding Fathers did not initially support the Federal Constitution. Unlike all the previous colonial constitutions, the U.S. Constitution did not mandate advancing Christianity and the Kingdom of God or only Christians being qualified for civil leadership and civil laws being validated by Scripture references, etc. Many believed the U.S. Constitution was not good or God honoring, and it would eventually affect the States to do the same in de-Christianizing their State Constitutions and laws. But with the added Bill of Rights and the 10^th Amendment, protecting States Rights, enough States were finally persuaded to approve the U.S. Constitution.

However, what Patrick Henry, Samual Adams, and other Founding Fathers greatly feared, eventually did happen. Throughout the 19^th century one State after another de-Christianized their State Constitutions, giving freedom for all anti-Christian false religions, for the first time in America. And as sure as “reaping what you sow”, before the end of the 20^th century America started reaping the destructive fruit of de-Christianizing all State Constitutions – giving freedom for all anti-Christian false religions, in direct violation of half of God’s Ten Commandments (1-4 and 9).

And now in the 21^st century? As our sin against God has grown, America has mutated into becoming anti-Christian, and now under God’s judgment in present day rapid self-destruction.

Christians trying to share democracy with the unrighteous is not only stupid but unbiblical, the unrighteous will always win. This is one of many verses why most all early American colonies never allowed non-Christians to vote or share in civil governance (2Cor. 6:14-17):

“Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership can the righteous have with the unrighteous, or how can light share with darkness? Or what harmony can there be with Christ and Belial, or a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in you and walk among you; and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. Therefore, come out from among them and separate yourselves,’ says the Lord.”

As a nation we will only be blessed by God if we turn back our government to keep all God’s Ten Commandments. The 19^th century abolitionist, Henry David Thoreau said, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” Only being one nation under God, not under many gods, will America ever be blessed again. If we fail to know our Bible and our history, we will forever fail to make godly history!