"Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites."

Today we are celebrating Thanksgiving day. This is a uniquely American holiday--different from Christmas and Easter, which have roots in European tradition.The celebration of Thanksgiving came to us from our Pilgrim and Puritan forefathers. It is the faith and commitment and suffering of these Christian forefathers that set the course of American history and brought God's blessing to America. There is more to Thanksgiving day than turkey and mince pie and football games. It is a time for us to remember this Christian heritage; it is a time to thank God for the mercy and grace he has shed on us during the past year; it is a time for us to humble ourselves, repent and seek God's face so that he may forgive our sins and heal our land. It is a time to renew the covenant our forefathers made with God and with one another, to recover our national destiny and seek God's will for our nation.

Let's read Exodus 19:5,6 again. In these verses God revealed his purpose in choosing Israel to be his own people. He called them to be a holy nation. They could do this by keeping his covenant and obeying his laws. He called them to be a nation of priests. A priest is one who stands between man and God. He is an intercessor. He

brings man to God and God to man. God chose his people so that he might work through them to bring his lost world back to himself. This promise belonged uniquely to the people of Israel, but Paul saw his mission of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles as a priestly duty. (Ro. 15:16) and Peter (1Pe 2:9,10) claims this promise and this purpose for the people of Jesus, the Christian Church. He said, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."

So, what does this have to do with America? It is quite possible that the Sovereign God who rules men and nations still establishes even secular nations in order to use them in his great work of redeeming the world. Our founding fathers had a conviction that America was such a nation. They were convinced that America was

a nation established by God to be a blessing to the world, and that America had a manifest destiny that was planned by God and that was being worked out by his Sovereign hand. Many people today reject this idea of national destiny because it has also been used by Satan to perpetrate evil. But Satan always tries to turn the good purposes and ways of God to his own evil use. But when we see some of the ways in which the Sovereign God has worked to establish, discipline and use America in the past we realize that God does have a purpose for our nation. Even if a few people rediscover this and seek to fulfill it, God will be glorified and our nation will be blessed. It is clear that the majority of those who came to pioneer America did not come for the highest spiritual motives. But most of the time, it is not the majority whom God seeks and uses. God had a purpose for America, and there were some men whom he could use.

First, Christopher Columbus, the Christ-bearer. "In 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue." Less than ten years ago we passed the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage to America. There are many controversies surrounding him and his journey. There is some truth in these things. But the fact remains that Columbus was used by

God to open the new world. And Columbus himself wrote in his journal words which indicate that he took his name, Christopher (which means Christ-bearer) seriously. He believed that God had called him and given him the mission of carrying the light of Christ into the darkness of undiscovered lands--to the ends of the earth. In his own personal journal, written in his own hand-writing, he quoted Isaiah 49:1,6: "Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the Lord called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name...He says: '...I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.." He believed that God had called him to be a light to the people who lived without God or hope--the people who lived at the ends of the earth. When he first set foot on American soil, he knelt and prayed to the Creator God asking that his Holy Name might be proclaimed in this second part of the earth, and he christened the land, "San Salvador"--Holy Savior, and planted there a cross.

Second, Jamestown. The first permanent English settlement in the New World was Jamestown, Virginia, founded in 1607. These first settlers did not go to build a godly nation; they did not take their families, so they did not intend to settle there permanently. They believed that there was gold; they believed that a lucrative Northwest Passage to the Indies might be found. No one planted corn, because no one wanted to work. They thought that they had discovered gold, and they shipped a load of ore to England. They depended on buying, begging or stealing from the Indians.

The ore proved to be worthless. The colonists at Jamestown suffered through times of starvation, rebellion and sickness. During the worst times, they were even reduced to eating dead bodies. But there were a few men who sought God's help, and God helped them. A permanent colony was finally established in Virginia.

Third, the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. The people who came to America in 1620 were different. The 102 people who disembarked from the Mayflower on the shores of America at Plymouth in New England were called Pilgrims. Who were the Pilgrims? They were men and women who were deeply committed to Christ and they had come to found a Christian nation. They were ordinary men and women, but their commitment to Christ and to the community of believers to which God had called them was extra-ordinary. In a real sense, they were a covenant people, for they had made a covenant with God to obey his laws and a covenant with one another to love each other.

They came to America from Holland, but originally, they were from England. At that time, the Church of England was very corrupt. The king of England was called the head of the church and it was controlled by a House of Bishops. The Pilgrims belonged to a group called "Separatists", because they wanted to separate from the Church of England and worship God according to the Bible, not according to the critual and political control of the government. They wanted live according to the Bible and follow the pattern of the New Testament Church. And they wanted to obey Christ, the only head of the church. The Bishops, backed by the government, persecuted them mercilessly. They made them pay exorbitant fines; they put them in prison; they made it impossible for them to get jobs. Finally, the Separatists became an underground church. But the Church of England hounded them so much that many of them sought asylum in Holland. As foreign immigrants in Holland, they were forced to do the dirtiest and most menial jobs, and were paid sub-living wages. They didn't complain, but they prayed for direction to find God's will.

Gradually, after more than 12 years of hard labor--and much prayer, they came to the conclusion that God wanted them to "remove" to the New World. They had heard about the hardships in the Virginia Colony with a death rate of over 50% from Indian raids, disease and starvation, but they believed that God would help them. William Bradford was a Pilgrim leader. Among the reasons for going to America which he wrote in his journal was that they had cherished a "great hope and inward zeal of at least playing a part, if only as a stepping stone for others, in carrying forth the Light of Christ to remote parts of the world." They had a world mission purpose. He perceived that God was calling them to a new Jerusalem, to build his temple anew, with themselves as its living stones. They believed that they were spiritual descendants of Abraham and that God was preparing them to follow in the footsteps of another Chosen People. They must go in by faith and claim the promise land. They must fight many enemies in order to do so. William Bradford knew that the devil's most potent weapons were fear and discouragement. He fought with the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. They gathered and he read passages like Isaiah 41:10: "Fear not, for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand."

God was indeed with them to protect them and to train them on their journey to the New World. They were able to find a ship, the Mayflower, that would take them to America. Among those on board were the Pilgrims and the strangers--those not a part of the congregation. The trip across the Atlantic was God's training. The weather was stormy, and the water was so rough that they were all seasick. The crew mocked them and the first mate in particular tried to frighten them with horror stories of people who died at sea. Then, the mate suddenly took ill and died--and the mocking ceased. This dangerous and difficult voyage molded them--Pilgrim and stranger--together into a community. When they finally reached land, they wrote a document called the Mayflower Compact. For the first time in history free and equal men covenanted together to create their own new civil government.

God continued to be with them after they reached America. He helped them to survive when survival seemed almost impossible. They arrived in November--just before winter set in. By God's grace they survived an Indian attack and found a cache of corn that helped stave off starvation; they found good water and good land, but there was no time to plant crops. The food supply was so short that they were down to 5 grains of corn a meal. Still, they shared food and worked together to build houses of mud and straw with thatched roofs. But that winter 47 died--almost half of their original number. Through all of this, they loved God and they loved each other. They kept the Sabbath and their Sunday Worship Service was the high point of the week.

One day, a lone Indian dressed in a loin cloth marched into their camp. They didn't know what to think, but they went out to meet him. Suddenly, he said in a booming voice in perfect English, "Welcome." He was Samoset, an Algonquin chief who had learned English from sea captains and liked to travel. He told them that the part of the coast on which they had settled had formerly been the territory of an extremely fierce and hostile tribe, the Patuxet Indians. But that they had been wiped out by a plague two years before. Indeed, God had prepared a place for his people.

God had also prepared a man to help them. The next day, Samoset came back with Squanto, the only remaining Patuxet Indian. He had been captured and taken to England. He learned English, become a Christian and found a way to come back, only to find that his people were all dead from the plague. He had no mission and no reason to live. Then God gave him a mission to help these helpless Pilgrims. So he came. He taught them how to plant corn and pumpkin, how to refine maple syrup, how to stalk deer, how to discern edible berries, how to trap beavers for pelts--generally, how to survive in the new land. God had prepared Squanto just as he had prepared Joseph in Genesis to save the lives of his people. Surely God's hand was on America.

In the summer of 1621 they planted crops, built houses and traded with the Indians. God gave them a bountiful harvest. So Governor Bradford declared a day of public Thanksgiving, to be held in October. Chief Massasoit, the wary but basically friendly chief of the Wampanoags, who were the nearest Indian tribe, was invited, and he came a day early with 90 Indians. They prayed about all the guests, for they were short of food. But God provided. The Indians had brought 5 dressed deer and more than a dozen fat wild turkeys. There was abundant food, but the first course set before each person was a plate with 5 grains of corn on it. They did not want to forget the previous winter of starving, and they thanked God for his gracious provision. After the abundant dinner, they had contests--foot-races, Indian wrestling, etc., and had such a good time that the Indians stayed for 3 days. This was the first Thanksgiving.

Fourth, the Puritans and John Winthrop--A City on a hill. The Puritans were also from England. They also did not like the corruption in the Church of England, but they did not want to start a new church. They wanted to reform the Church from within. Whereas the Separatists--the Pilgrims--had given up houses and land and jobs and everything and had gone underground, the Puritans tried to compromise and bring about a reform from within. In the long-run, it didn't work. Still, they didn't want to leave the Church. So, they found a way. They decided to immigrate to America and continue the Church of England, but make it a spiritual church, obedient to Jesus. They kept their plans a secret, and worked to get a charter from the king. He was busy doing this and that, and he signed the Massachusetts Bay Charter without noticing that there was no mention of where the new Company would meet to conduct its business. So the Puritans took their charter and came to America with it. With their own charter, they became a self-governing colony. Unlike the Pilgrims who were from the working class and were few in number, many of the Puritans were from the upper middle class, and thousands of Puritans made the exodus from England to the New World.

John Winthrop, the Puritan governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was man of faith whom God used to set the direction of the Colony and the direction of America. He arrived from England in June, 1630. He believed that God had called him to this pioneer work, and in order to do it, he left his wife, his youngest son and his property in England and came to America. He and his fellow Puritans came to this country with a sense of destiny, a conviction that God wanted to use them to build a Christian nation that would be city on a hill to give light to all the world. Matthew 5:14-15 say, "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put in under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house..."

He believed that this was only possible when God's people committed themselves wholly to God, then committed themselves absolutely to the community of believers to which God had called them. He shared this idea of a covenant community of believers with the Pilgrims of Plymouth. When he arrived, he found that the Puritans who had come the year before were discouraged and ready to quit. He realized that they were not keeping their covenant with one another. He put them all to work, including the gentry who were not in habit of working. Some of them got mad, but they all worked. The problems were solved one by one and the almost-dead colony was resurrected. Like Nehemiah who came back from Babylon to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, Governor Winthrop had inspired the people to renew their covenant with God and their commitment to God's people.

Read Exodus 19:5,6: "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites." God also had a purpose in establishing America. Our founding fathers saw it. It is his great blessing that he has called us to be a holy nation. It is his great blessing that he has called us to be a priestly nation and has given us his holy mission, to share the gospel of Jesus with all the people of the earth.

This year, for what are you thankful? Or are you thankful at all? Some people are thankful for good grades; some are thankful for material things or for blessings in their families. Others can find nothing to be thankful for at all--only many complaining topics. But let us thank God that he has a holy purpose in establishing our nation. We have drifted away from his purpose, and our national influence has not been so good for the nations of the world, but this does not have to be. Let us thank God that he has called us and is using us--even though we are few in number--to make America a priestly nation with God's holy mission.

(Historical information taken from “The Light and the Glory” By Peter Marshall and David Manuel)