Spiritual and Prophetic Aspects of Thanksgiving

We're ready now for the PowerPoint. This is going to be an illustrated sermon. If you like titles, it's called Spiritual and Prophetic Aspects of Thanksgiving. As you know, people speak a lot about Thanksgiving, but it's amazing that God reveals to the church so much important information that is related to the Bible itself. I was quite impressed with the editorial of the Orange County Register this past Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, and the heading is called Pilgrim's Progress Toward Freedom. This message has important points to consider. I would like to go over it and give the Scriptures that are relevant to it. The reason is we need to better understand the history of our church. The purpose is to appreciate God's hand in founding this country and pouring upon it as Abraham's promised blessings to his descendants Israel, and in particular Ephraim and Manasseh. I'm going to go get a booklet here. We have this booklet that's called The United States and Britain and Bible Prophecy. I recommend going over it, especially during this Thanksgiving period, because they are all related. Notice how this Orange County Register editorial this past Thursday begins. It says, Conscience is powerful human resource. A life lived in service and truth. You can go to the next slide. It says, a life lived in service to truth that abides in one's conscience can transform lives and circumstances. Are we living a life in service to the truth? Yes, we are. And that truth abides in one's conscience, and it can transform lives and circumstances. And as history sometimes witnesses, matters of conscience can make all the difference in the world to ordinary people forced into extraordinary choices. This is the pilgrim's journey and a valued part of American heritage that we celebrate this Thanksgiving. For the broader pilgrim journey reveals conscience-driven paths that bore blessings that Americans still reap today. Yes, the pilgrims honestly tried to apply Biblical principles in their lives. And here we have three scriptures that come to mind. They certainly applied them. Acts 5, verse 29. This is what Peter and apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. Anybody who really wants to love God has to put him first. Not the government authorities, not anyone else in your life. You are to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. Now, a lot of people pay lip service to that, but the pilgrims truly put their actions where their mouth was. It wasn't just a saying. They risked their lives. In Matthew 4, 4, they tried to live this as best as they understood. Matthew 4, 4. Jesus speaking, He said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, which means physical things, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, which means spiritual things. Not many people in this life have their eyes open to God's truths, but when you do have it open, physical things are not the goal. The overarching goal is to follow the spiritual truths of God, wherever you live, no matter what the consequences will be.

And then the third scripture in Jude, the epistle of Jude, right there, right before Revelation. It says in verse 3, Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. The faith means the doctrinal beliefs. The truths of God were once delivered. That means by Jesus Christ, by God, in His word. They have not added to it nor taken away from it. And so the faith was once given, not twice, not three times, not over the centuries, but once given to the saints. The saints are members of the Church. It just means somebody that has God's Holy Spirit in them. That's what makes them sanctified. Notice the next verse, or the next slide. Abraham Koch, in the biblical heritage of American democracy, the book, page 97, says, In England, the Puritan identification with the Bible was so strong that some Puritan extremists sought to replace English common law with Biblical laws of the Old Testament, but were prevented from doing so. So when the Puritans appeared, they were so fervent trying to obey God and put all of the Biblical principles in their lives, they tried to change the British government. In America, however, there was more freedom to experiment with the use of Biblical law in the legal codes of the colonies. And this was exactly what these early colonists set out to do. The earliest legislation of the colonies of New England were all determined by Scripture. At the first assembly of New Haven, Connecticut, in 1639, John Davenport, who we have a picture of here, clearly stated the primacy of the Bible as the legal and moral foundation of the colony. These were true God-fearers.

It says, this is what he said, Well, haven't we found that to be our guiding light? The Scriptures? It's the same today as it was then. It goes on to say, So these pilgrims are very different than many of the other ones that came to the New World. For instance, the Spanish that came, the great majority came because they were seeking gold. They were seeking to get rich with the lands. And they basically conquered the Indian population and submitted them to becoming forced labor. They worked in the fields. They worked in the mines. But the pilgrims didn't have that type of motivation. They came because they wanted religious freedom. They did not find it anywhere else in the world. They just wanted to establish their own form of worship and not be harassed or persecuted for it. In John 8, 31 through 32, Christ said, Christ said, So they were trying to put the biblical truths into practice in these colonies in New England. It is no accident that the early settlers called their Plymouth colony Little Israel. They thought they were enacting like in Israel of old, but instead of being there in the Middle East, they were doing the same thing in America. And they even compared Governor William Bradford to Moses. They had a spiritual leader. They felt that they had fled lands of oppression and had found a new home, just as the Israelites had once fled Egyptian slavery and settled in the Holy Land. The pogroms also recalled their emigration from Holland as being akin to the return of the Jews from Babylon to Israel under the leadership of the biblical figures Ezra and Nehemiah. It must be remembered that fleeing from England, some went to Holland where there was more religious freedom, but they never really accommodated themselves to the new Dutch language, to the Dutch culture as such. And so they basically just spent a number of years, and then from there, those that returned to England, basically, were the ones that made it to the new world. It is then understandable the association of the pilgrims with the Bible and the traditions of Israel, that their Thanksgiving festival could be patterned after the biblical festivals of Thanksgiving for abundance and harvest as found in the Bible, in particular during the fall, the Feast of Tabernacles. So in a sense, they were so imbued with the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament ones, that they were going to have a harvest festival. They didn't know it then, but they were fulfilling biblical prophecy. I think we are one more slide forward. Are we okay with this one? Okay. When they brought to America their principles of being governed by biblical principles and desiring freedom of religion, of politics, and trade, they wanted religious freedom, they wanted a government that allowed that freedom, and that people could appoint their leaders, instead of having a king doing all of it for them, and also free commerce. Most of those that were pilgrims were actually from the western part of England, where there were the merchants and tradesmen, more than the farmers that were in the east area of Britain and were more of the aristocracy. So how did it start?

In the history of the Puritans under Elizabeth I Wikipedia article, which was pretty accurate, it says, and we have here a picture of Elizabeth I, the reign of Elizabeth I of England from 1558 to 1603 saw the start of the Puritan movement in England. So we have to give credit to Elizabeth I for allowing a lot more religious freedom, which had not been the case previously. But she still had a very firm grip on government, and so they did clash with the Puritans and the authorities of the Church of England, the Anglicans, which was the official Church religion.

And so they had the clash, and its temporary effective suppression as a political movement in the 1590s. They actually issued certain restrictions upon public meetings, because the Puritans wanted to change the government. They didn't even want to have a queen anymore. They wanted to have a God-centered type of government, and of course they got into trouble, and so they weren't allowed to meet publicly. And this, of course, led to further alienation of Anglicans and Puritans from one another in the 17th century during the reign of King James I from 1603 to 1625, and the reign of King Charles I from 1625 through 1649, that eventually brought about the English Civil War from 1642 to 1651. It lasted nine years. So the British, also here in the U.S., they had a civil war here, they had one there, and it was between the Puritans and the Anglicans with the Catholics mixed in. And of course, the crown at that time was King Charles I. Incredibly, it was the Puritans who won the civil war.

And so, under the Puritan Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, 1653 through 1658, and then later on, the Puritan government, the English Commonwealth, when Oliver Cromwell was no longer in power, 1649 to 1660, and as a result of this revolution in freedoms, the result, as a result of political, religious, and civil liberty that is celebrated today in all English-speaking countries. It came from the Puritans, more than anyone else. And so the Puritans had a tremendous impact in England, and it opened itself up to many more religious, political, and civil liberties. Of course, in England, they had in 1660 what they call the Glorious Revolution, where they installed the king again, and then they dissolved the Puritan system of government. But it did rain for quite a number of years, and it affected not only England, but also here in the United States. So what's interesting is the relationship of how God opened up these freedoms in this country and in England to get a work done. And we traced that period of time to the period of the reign of Elizabeth I, all the way in the next centuries to what is called the Sardis Era of the Church, basically until 1933. So it was several centuries, and God opened it up from what had been a very repressive system with the Catholic Empire governing most people. That was broken when Elizabeth defied the Spanish crown, and then the Spaniards were defeated with their Spanish armada in 1588. The war against Spain started in 1585, and it lasted three years, and the Spanish were defeated, never to recover their primacy in military and political power. So what's interesting, let's turn now to Revelation 12, verses 3-7. Let's read Revelation 12, 3-7. I'm always impressed with this section of Scripture because it's a history from the coming of Jesus Christ all the way until His return. And you know how many Scriptures, how many verses? Four. Four verses. Talk about that. Notice in Revelation 12, it says here in verse 3-7, This is talking about Satan and his rebellion. And the dragon stood before the woman, that's Mary, who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. And we read in the Gospels how actually Satan used King Herod to send troops to Bethlehem to kill all the little babies, infants in that area, trying to kill him. But God did not allow it, and Jesus Christ and His family were able to flee from Bethlehem to Egypt, where they were there until King Herod died. Verse 5, it says, So that's the history. Jesus Christ is born, lives a life, dies, is resurrected after three days, and then afterwards goes up to heaven, where it says here, caught up to God and His throne. Okay, so now we're in the period of time of the beginning of the church.

That's 31 A.D. when the church begins. And then it says, Then the woman, talking about the church that Christ founded, fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that she should feed her there 1,260 days. It's a period of what is the equivalent of three and a half years. But God put it in prophetic language because in the Scriptures, in the Old Testament as well as the New, sometimes those three and a half year period, 1,260 days, mean a day for a year. Ezekiel 4.6 tells us in the prophecy that God gave them that one year is the equivalent of one day. And so notice the next Scripture. Where does this situate us in verse 7? And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought. But they did not prevail, nor a place found for them in heaven any longer.

And it says this is going to happen in the future when Satan tries to take over and rebels against God one last time. And he's thrown back to the earth. Well, that hasn't happened yet. So all of this history is abbreviated, and it tells us that the church is going to have to, well, the church would flee for the equivalent of 1,260 years. Now, if God would have used just strict, literal terms, if God would have said the woman fled for 1,260 years, what would have happened? People would have said, well, Christ is not coming for a long time. And let us eat and drink and be merry, because he's not coming. So God did it in such a way that people were not going to catch this key to prophecy where one day is the equivalent of one year. And we have identified, as best as we can understand, those 1,260 years that the woman would be in the wilderness would have to flee and hide because the persecution was going to be so tremendous. We situate that first flight of the church from AD 325 AD when Constantine basically becomes the head of the Catholic Church with the Pope at his side. But Constantine is the one that's calling the shots. And he imposes Sunday as the first day of the week worship. He imposes, instead of keeping Passover as the biblical feast tells us, he establishes Easter Sunday. And that was at the Council of Nicaea, and then he warns all to become part of the Catholic Church.

There would be approximately about 60 years from 325 AD. The age or the date would be 381 AD. So you're talking about roughly a little less than 60 years when Emperor Theodosius II establishes the Catholic Church as the official and only Church recognized by the Roman Empire. By that time, anybody who objected, who was keeping the Sabbath, for instance, or the Holy Days, it was a merciless persecution. And the Church had to flee from the area of the Roman Empire to an area in Eastern Turkey called Armenia, where we trace that the Sabbath keepers continue to survive there for hundreds of years. They would be called the Paulicians. Look them up in the encyclopedia.

Paulicians. And you will see these are Sabbath keepers, and they were out from the territory of the Roman Empire. We have been teaching this at least since 1959. Over 60 years ago, Herman Hay wrote the booklet, A True History of the True Church, in 1959. He mentions the year 325 all the way to 1585. That's 1260 years. That's the Dark Ages. That's the period where the Church was supreme with the Emperor at his side, and you couldn't survive in the Roman Empire and keep the Sabbath and the Holy Days.

So the woman did have to flee to a place. Further research has confirmed this period. It's independent sources. They all basically go back to 325 AD. Notice in this book, Passover Before Messiah and After. This is from Mel and Donna Broadhurst, who are church historians. This is what they say. Do we have that quote or not? Is it there? It says, As far as Christian Passover is concerned, the beginning of the Dark Ages can be set at 325 AD with the Council of Nicaea.

Along with the turning their backs on Christian Jews, the Gentiles turned their backs on the Jewish Scriptures of the Old Testament. They disallowed Jewish input to their faith, lifestyle, and worship. It took a major reformation centuries later. That's in the 1500s. We're talking here, especially in the 1500s. Martin Luther was one that struck the first blow to reform the Church, but it was actually a little later in the 1500s, when Queen Elizabeth was the one that defied the Pope, defied the Spanish, and established many more religious freedoms than any other place.

It says, It took a major reformation centuries later to begin to undo the horror and destruction the Church brought on the world when the Gentiles at Nicaea formally adopted the policy of, quote, having nothing in common with the Jews. You see, they threw away the Sabbath, they threw away the calendar, Hebrew calendar in Scripture. And so we go forward to the O.C. Register article that I gave to you. It goes on to say, Religious persecution compelled the pilgrim flight to America. English, quote, non-conformists who disagreed with England's state church were driven underground with an act against religious assemblies in 1593. I mentioned that already, that they established they couldn't have public meetings. And 1593 was one of those decrees.

At that time, quote, seperatists, puritans who wanted to worship God in congregations apart from the state-sanctioned church, the Anglican church, were considered treasonous. So it was a crime against the state if you wanted to meet, as the Puritans did, that were separatists. There were the majority of the Puritans still would go to the Anglican church. They were trying to reform it from the inside.

But there was a group that said they're too corrupt. The system is not going to change. So they separated. And that's when the Anglicans and the government persecuted them. Plymouth colony governor William Bradford describes the, quote, seperatist plight in his journal of Plymouth plantation.

Some were taken and clapped up in prison. Others had their houses beset and watched night and day. They wanted to see if they were meeting secretly. And hardly escaped their hands. And the most were feigned to flee and leave their houses and habitations and the means of their livelihood. Amid these troubles, a few, quote, separatists envisioned a new world where their right to public assembly anchored free speech and freedom of worship. Moreover, they believed that affliction in pursuit of those freedoms was preferable to prison or sanctions that refused to let them live in good conscience before the God they loved.

That was from William Bradford. It goes on to say, during the first New England winter, the fledgling Plymouth community reaped sickness and death. In Bradford's words, scares 50 people remain. Yet, by the fall of 1621, they had arrived there in Plymouth, New England in 1620. By the fall of 1621, with the help of their new American Indian friends, see, the Indians saw they weren't there to ransack them and just take over their properties or look for gold or enslave them.

These are farmers. These are people that they bought their plot of land from the Indians. They made peace with the Indians for quite a time.

And it says, the pilgrims had achieved a modest harvest and threw a party for everyone, the forerunner of today's Thanksgiving celebration. This is why we met on Thursday, although few recognize or truly give thanks about it.

The pilgrims finally disembarked at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. Their first winter, as it mentions, was terrible. They lost 46 of the original 102 pilgrims, but next year's harvest was bountiful. That's how they celebrated, inviting 91 Indians who had helped them survive their first year. It's actually this Thanksgiving celebration. They had more Indians than they had their own colonists.

It is believed that the pilgrims would not have made it through the year without the help of the natives. The feast lasted three days. The article continues on. It says, slowly the settlers began to thrive, and others took notice. Between 1630 and 1640, more than 18,000 English Puritans fled to America. These early colonies grew so quickly in the wake of England's non-conformist persecution that we suspect that, if not for the pilgrim and Puritan vision for a freer society, America might be a very different place today. Eventually, in New England, there were 80,000 Puritans that settled. Among them was a man named Roger Williams. He was the one that set up the smallest state there, Rhode Island, with more religious freedom than any place else. It was in 1671 that Stephen Mumford, we showed a map of the Baptist churches. These are the Seventh-day Sabbath-keeping Baptist churches in England in the 1700s. From that group, Stephen Mumford, a preacher from these churches settled in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1664, he came. Seven years later, they established the first Sabbath-keeping church in America that kept the Seventh-day Sabbath. From there, the church grew and multiplied.

In the 18th century, a group of Adventist brethren who were expecting Christ to come in 1844, when they didn't have that happen, they were so disoriented, and they came across one of the Sabbath-keeping Baptist church members. They accepted the Sabbath, and that's why they were called Seventh-day Adventists. But with the prophetic teachings of Helen White, they followed her, but there was a group that refused to follow her. That was the Church of God. They established churches.

Then we come to the 19th century, that happened in the 1860s. Eventually, Mr. Armstrong came across this group.

Basically, around 1931-33, the next era of the church, the Philadelphia era, as we understand it, started with the preaching of the Gospel around the world. With Herbert Armstrong, as the one that wrote and preached, I got to know him personally for 16 years. As I mentioned in my bio, he's still the person that most influenced my life. He wasn't perfect, but he was a man of God and chosen. Look at all the work that was produced with Christ as the head of the church.

I thought this editorial really brought out why we should be so thankful. But from the perspective of Bible prophecy and also the perspective of the spiritual principles behind him. So this Thanksgiving weekend, we praise the pilgrims' dogged determination, as it mentions here, to secure the freedoms of association, religion, and speech for themselves and for the generations that follow. Then the editorial finishes, it says, Yet we are also soberly reminded that affliction often accompanies freedom's course. It's never going to be easy to follow God's truths. And so we are thankful for and do not take lightly these blessings so earnestly sought by the pilgrims. For those freedoms now anchored in our Constitution preserve every American's right to live in good conscience before God and country, and consequently are worth pursuing, pondering, and protecting forever. Yes, brethren, we are so thankful to live in this blessed land. Happy Thanksgiving weekend to all.