America - God Shed His Grace on Thee, Part 1
Pastor Steve Holt		Mountain Springs Church
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11/25/2007		How Do I Download Sermon Audio?

• With all the problems we have in our country, America is still considered a “light on a hill” that other nations look to as it leads the world morally, ethically, and spiritually.

• Even with all of our shortcomings and faults, aliens and immigrants from all over the world still flock to America to show them how to find the universal dream of mankind, freedom.

• Why does all the clear thinking, freedom loving nations of the world still look to America for vision, values, and purpose?

• In spite of the opinion of many revisionist historians that occupy the academic chairs of our schools, is their historical evidence that America was founded to be a Christian nation?

• Was America just another land discovered by accident as our school text books tell us, or was God’s hand involved?

• Did God have a plan for America? Was the discovery of American the beginning of a great drama of God that would unfold like no other nation before or since her?

• Listen to the words of Christopher Columbus as he wrote in his journal (Christopher means “Christ bearer”):

• Columbus lost his original vision and much of his next three expeditions were marked by blind ambition and a mad search for gold…                 Columbus died a broken man in 1506.

• The dawn of the 16^th century saw more and more vessels approaching the New World.

• Adventurer after adventurer came to the Americas: Cortez to the Aztecs; Pizarro to Peru; Ponce De Leon to Florida.

• Along with these adventurers came young missionaries of the Jesuit order; Franciscan orders, reaching deep into the Indian populations with the love of Christ. Many of these early Spanish priests were martyred for their faith.

• Jamestown had many problems, all of which were spiritual in nature:

• The settlers at Jamestown did not seek the Lord’s direction or wisdom, the location chosen was low-lying and malaria infested.

• The river water was contaminated.

• They treated the Indians with contempt and paid dearly, hostile attacks being a regular occurrence.

• With little spiritual input or commitment, the people were either too lazy to work or too proud to do common labor.

• But one of the biggest problems was the communal system by which each person had to give to a common store, meaning that the most industrious had to provide for the idle and lazy.

• Jamestown was an abject failure!

• It took 19 years before Jamestown produced its first crop!

• One movement that was gaining momentum all over England was a group of highly committed Christians who wanted to see a revival within the Church of England. They were called “Puritans” for their desire to purify the existing church.

• Another group decided to completely separate from the Church of England and they were called Separatists, and they withdrew completely and formed their own independent churches.

• King James I wanted all of England to totally conform to the practices of the Church of England. 

• To escape persecution, a congregation of Separatist from the village of Scrooby, England, decided to move to Holland. In 1609 under the leadership of their pastor, John Robinson, they arrived in the Dutch city of Leyden where they lived for 11 years. 

• Holland was a very difficult place to live as the children were put under great stress, being forced to work long hours and neglect schooling. They left Holland and returned to England. 

• These Separatists, whom you may better know as “The Pilgrims,” began to believe it was their destiny to bring the light of Christ to the New World.

• In 1620, this first group of Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower in Plymouth, England and set sail for the new world. Only 35 of the 101 passengers were Separatists.

• The day they were to leave was declared a day of Fasting and Prayer.

• Their leader, John Robinson, admonished them as they were leaving saying:

• Edward Winslow, one of the leaders of the group wrote:

• It was 7 weeks of hell on earth. An ill-lighted, rolling, pitching, stinking inferno…The pilgrims were also daily harassed by the sailors.

• The story is told of one of the seaman who was the most obnoxious, calling the pilgrims, “psalm-singing puke stockings.”

• At the peak of one of the worst storms, this sailor suddenly became gravely ill and died.

• Finally on Nov. 9^th, the cry “Land ho!” was heard. The place was identified as Cape Cod.

• On Nov. 11^th, William Bradford wrote: “Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean….”

• But the Pilgrims had a problem; having landed outside the territory of the London Company, they had no basis for a civil government. But understanding man’s sinful nature, they knew they would need discipline among themselves. The Pilgrims drew up a document that has become a milestone in American history. Before the settlers went ashore, 41 men, including many who not separatists, signed the Mayflower Compact:

• The first winter was dreadful. Food and shelter were inadequate and the pilgrims started dying.

• Six died in December
• Eight in January
• By February, they were dying at a rate of two a day, even three on some days! 
• At one point, only five men were well enough to care for the sick

• 47 men, women and children had died. 13 out of 18 wives were dead. But compared to Jamestown, where the mortality rate had been 90%, they felt blessed.

• Gradually the light of Christ was winning the victory. Even the non-believers were being touched by the witness of the Pilgrims.

• But the struggle for survival continued until one day a most remarkable thing happened. This event was the turning point of their fortunes…

• One day an Indian walked into the settlement and said in perfect English, “Welcome.”

• His name was Samoset, and he was a Sagamore, or chief, of the Algonquins.

• It was then in conversation with Samoset that the Pilgrims discovered how providential their location for the settlement had been.

• This area had been the territory of the Patuxets, a large hostile tribe that had murdered every white who had landed on their shores

• But four years before the Pilgrims arrived, a mysterious plague had broken out, killing every man, woman, and child.

• Hence, all the land had been cleared, perfectly prepared for the Plymouth settlement.

• The land literally belonged to no one!

• Samoset then returned with Massosoit, the Indian chief who would prove to be a great blessing to the Pilgrims.

• It was Massosoit that signed a peace treaty with the Pilgrims that lasted for over 40 years, and would be a model to all other future settlements in America.

• After Massosoit and Samoset left, one Indian brave remained…his name was Squanto.

• Squanto, according to Governor Bradford would become “a special instrument sent of God for their good, beyond their expectation.”

• Squanto’s story is nothing less than amazing and quite similar to the biblical story of Joseph. I don’t have time to tell it now, but it would be worth your own personal reading and study

• Squanto showed the Pilgrims how to plant corn the Indian way, which was better suited for American climates than England.

• That fall, through Squanto’s help, the Pilgrims harvested 20 acres of corn.

• Squanto showed the Pilgrims how to catch cod and eels.

• He showed them how to hunt for turkey and deer.

• Squanto taught them how to harvest and refine maple syrup; how to plant pumpkins among the corn; and how to discern herbs that could be eaten and herbs that could be used for medicine.

• Squanto introduced them to the pelt of the beaver, which was greatly desired in Europe.

• Gov. Bradford called for a day of public Thanksgiving, to be held in October.

• Massasoit, the peaceful Indian Chief was invited, and unexpectedly arrived a day early with 90 Indian braves!

• Fortunately the Indians did not come empty handed. They brought with them five dressed deer and over a dozen turkeys.

• They were also the first to introduce a new product line in America… corn kernels dropped into a hot pot over the fire, that popped.

• The Thanksgiving celebration lasted for 3 days!

• But unlike the Jamestown colony, they did not give in to discouragement nor to despair, but trusted God.

• Not one person died of starvation that winter.

• It was now April of 1623:

• Time to plant the year’s corn.

• But there was a listlessness about them.

• Everyone knew they had to plant and harvest twice as much as last year in order to survive the next winter.

• So the leading men of the colony made a monumentous decision…there would be 2 plantings:

• Suddenly, new life seemed to infuse the Pilgrims (pg. 141, “Light and Glory”):

• But soon a great drought swept the northeastern seaboard. It hardly rained for 12 weeks!

• The Indians danced and prayed, but nothing happened.

• The Pilgrims prayed and fasted, and the rains came! And, oh, did they come.

• Not only was the corn saved, but they brought in a bumper harvest. They brought in so much as to have a surplus for corn for trading and storage.

• The Plymouth Colony would go on to be vibrant spiritually, and the free enterprise would produce a remarkably wealthy and charitable people. 

Last and not least, the Pilgrims cherished a great hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations, or at least making some ways toward it, for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the Kingdom of Christ in the remotest part of the world.

 

• They believed that if you honored God, no matter what the outcome, God would honor you! They were so faithful.

• No one was special. There were no “gentleman” on the Mayflower. Everyone was equal and everyone was treated with respect and honor according to their character rather than their ancestry.

• The Mayflower Compact is still considered the finest precursor we have to our Declaration of Independence.

• The Pilgrims showed the world just how important it is for each man and woman to be able to have the freedom to work hard with free enterprise and entrepreneurship. They especially saw its value in that second spring planting.

• We now have the longest constitutional democracy the world has ever known.

• They fasted and prayed, and God honored their devotion and faith. At every turn, no matter how difficult, the Pilgrims did not resort to despair and discouragement, but rather fasted and prayed for God’s miraculous power.

• They fasted before their perilous voyage across the ocean. Not one Pilgrim died on the voyage.

• They prayed and fasted before setting foot on the beach of their new home. They later learned that the place they chose was one of the only areas in the New World that had no hostile Indian tribes.

• They fasted and prayed for rain, and they were given a most remarkable harvest.

• Governor Bradford called for a day of fasting and prayer the day before elections for any public office! The people were to pray for God’s will as to who was elected to any public office. How about that?!

• Because of the great persecution they had experienced, they immediately set up a civil government and a church. The civil government took care of civil matters and the church took care of the spiritual.

• Elder Brewster, the minister of the Plymouth Colony, was organizationally separate from the civil authority, Governor Bradford.

• The church could pick its own pastors and elders without government interference.

• Once more, anyone, regardless of social standing, could join the church.

As one small candle may light a thousand, of the light kindled here has shown unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation…we have noted these things so that you might see their worth and not negligently lose what your fathers have obtained with so much hardship.