Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. Today, what is the contribution of our Pilgrim Fathers to our Christian heritage in the Constitution? One of my favorite topics. Now, our Pilgrim Fathers, besides giving us a rationale for Thanksgiving, of what possible significance do they hold for 21st century Americans so long ago?

Why would we bother to include them in a study of the Constitution? Well, they have a significance, I would like to tell you, a significance out of all proportion to their numbers because they not only provide us with a mythic, legendary story of our beginnings as a people, but because they did, in fact, make real and substantial contributions to the formation of our Constitution. Let's examine that contribution a little bit, shall we? Now, we tend to think of our Pilgrim Fathers in the beginnings of the American colonies in a rather simplistic fashion. I'm speaking of my early understanding more than anything else.

My own childish reconstruction of the Pilgrim story, I envisioned them stepping off the Mayflower in their black broad-brimmed haps and buckled shoes onto Plymouth Rock to the applause of Squanto and his Indian friends. Then, after attending a church service, they retired to their comfortable log ranch homes and had the first Thanksgiving dinner with Turkey and all the Timmings and then watched the football game on TV, right? Now, I may be oversimplifying even my childish vision of the Pilgrims, but not by much.

We always tend to view history in terms of our own experience, and our own experience of Thanksgiving and the American dream is quite other than that of our Pilgrim Fathers. William Bradford and the party of 102 settlers did not sneak in as illegal aliens to an ordered, prosperous nation in which they might soak up the social programs and welfare system of the Indians around them. No. What they saw as they disembarked from the little caravel, which had transported them across a hostile, terrifying sea, was a land as hostile and forbidding as the vast waters they had just crossed.

They did not find upscale Cape Cod duplexes with little boutiques, which sell saltwater taffy and lighthouse replicas. No. What they found instead was what they called a howling wilderness and a shore of sand forests, hostile natives, and animal predators. What was it that drove them to make the journey across an interminable sea to this distant, forsaken shore? Well, the historical record is clear.

The Pilgrim Fathers ventured into this howling wilderness in order to achieve a measure of religious freedom and to further the kingdom of God on earth. In 1620, when the Pilgrims left for the new world, James I, the first of the steward kings, was giving the bishops of the Church of England an almost free hand in persecuting the Puritans and the separatists.

Now, basically, the Puritans wanted to continue the work of the Reformation in purifying the Church of all of the trappings of Roman Catholicism, which had so polluted and destroyed the Church for so many centuries, and some wanted to do this within the framework of the Church of England. They were called Puritans. Others taught that the Church of England was either beyond hope of reform or that the pace of change was so slow that it was better to separate from her and establish a pure church from the ground up. These were called separatists.

The Pilgrims were of this latter group, and they first went to Holland, where they could worship in relative freedom, but where they found their children adopting Dutch ways and where their lives fortunes were poor and miserable too. What were they to do then? Well, they heard that the Virginia Company back in England was granting charters for tracts of land in the New World, and so they perceived over time that God's purpose for them was to remove themselves unto America, as their pastor put it. But why? Jobs, maybe?

Our socialist politicians would have us think so. How about the freedom to practice a gay lifestyle? No, the Puritans, frankly, would have clapped such a man in the stocks and banished him from the community. Was it maybe freedom to choose to abort their children if they got in the way of a woman's ambitions? Oh, no, such women and doctors would have ended up in prison for their crimes.

No, we have made so much progress in America in the intervening centuries that our schools and history textbooks are threatened and, frankly, embarrassed by the real reason for the pilgrim's decision to go to America.

Pastor John Robinson, leader of the little Scrooby congregation, it was called, he says, now as the people of God in old time were called out of Babylon civil, the place of their bodily bondage, and were to come to Jerusalem and there to build the Lord's temple, so are the people of God now to go out of Babylon spiritual to Jerusalem and to build themselves as lively stones in a spiritual house or temple for the Lord to dwell in, unquote.

Now, here, of course, they were alluding to what the Apostle Peter taught in his letter that, as he says, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, unquote. Now, ever since then, since Peter wrote that, the church has taught that the earthly temple in Jerusalem was a beautiful picture of the heavenly temple, not made with hands, as the author of Hebrews puts it, which is his body, the church.

And after Christ's resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven, Christ has been building this spiritual temple by adding the building blocks one at a time. That is, Christians, those living stones being built up into a spiritual house, as Peter says, far more glorious than any earthly temple could ever be. In fact, so utterly obsolete and abominable are literal physical temples under the new covenant that God had the old temple in Jerusalem destroyed.

Jesus himself said, but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its destruction has come near, Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, unquote, the words of Jesus. And this prophecy of Jesus was fulfilled in A.D. 70 when the Roman army under Titus burned the city and the temple and it's recorded by the Jewish historian Josephus in his The Jewish Wars. Well, the pilgrims were living stones in this spiritual temple, and they saw an opportunity to create a model of how that church should look, purified from the trappings of the Church of England.

These were not the great and eminent men of England, either royalty and nobles and men of letters, but rather simple men and women who labored hard, not only as workers and tradesmen, but also as elders, deacons, and saints of the church. When they finally agreed to go, they did not take their commitment lightly either, but bound themselves in a covenant. I have talked to you about covenants a lot in the past. And the pilgrims bound themselves in a covenant with one another. John Robinson, Pastor John Robinson, put it this way.

He said, we are knit together as a body in a most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation whereof we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we do hold ourselves straightly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the whole by everyone, and so mutually, unquote. Well, after a great many trials and labors and preparation for departure, they were cheated, they were lied to, they had a number of false starts, while they finally boarded the Concord at Heathrow Airport and made the crossing in under three hours. No, they crossed the wild ocean in the only way available to them at the time, by wooden ship.

In fact, their first boat, the Speedwell, sprung a leak, forcing them to transfer to a smaller ship, the Mayflower. That's the one we know. It took them seven weeks to cross the ocean amid storms and sickness and taunting from a surly crew. One of the crew in particular so hated Christians that he took great delight in telling them how much he looked forward to sewing their bodies in shrouds, tossing their bodies overboard. Four, death was a familiar shipmate, as Bradford put it on those long sea voyages.

And this sailor called them the puniest assortment of psalm-singing puke stockings he had ever seen. Well, guess who was the first one sewn into a death shroud and thrown overboard? Huh, this sailor contracted a mysterious disease no one else fell ill from, and he alone perished from it. Well, at the end of their long journey, the pilgrims arrived far north of Virginia, which was their original destination in what is now Massachusetts, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Well, what was the first thing they did upon setting foot on dry land?

Did they break out the champagne, toast their good luck, and set about building the New World's first abortion clinic? Did they smoke a pipe full of marijuana with the Indians and immediately set up a sensitivity training session among the pilgrims to encourage diversity and tolerance for Indian culture and religion? No, they did not.

William Bradford records in his journal, he says, being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again, to set their feet on the firm and stable earth. And it was no marvel that they were thus joyful, Bradford says, unquote. And today, Cape Cod is full of trendy sushi bars and exclusive condominiums in the summer homes of the Kennedys and the Shrivers.

And were the pilgrims to wash up upon their shores today, they'd be arrested and shipped back to England as disgusting, undesirable, illegal aliens with dangerous religious opinions. But at the time, long before cultured bluebloods would clamor to claim to be descended from them and pay small fortunes for beachfront property there, well, these pilgrims arrived with, as Bradford puts it, no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh their wither-beaten bodies, no houses or much less towns to prepare to, to seek for comfort, unquote. The pilgrims were made of hardier stuff than the present occupants of Cape Cod.

They were men and women of deep Christian faith who trusted that God would take their meager physical means and use it with that faith to continue the work of building the kingdom of God in this new place. They were committed to the sacrifice of their lives, to building not a secular state, but a community of free Christian people who could worship and labor as never before in the history of mankind. How could this be accomplished?

Well, they knew that it was not a benign and beneficent federal government who would help them with a series of government programs after they'd applied for them, but that it would be God alone who would aid them in their venture in the new world. Bradford, again, from his Of Plymouth Plantation. He says, whichever way they turn their eyes, save up or to heaven, they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue.

If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civilized parts of the world. Let it also be considered what weak hope of supply and comfort they left behind them. What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace? Unquote, William Bradford. Well, in addition to wresting a living from this wilderness, the pilgrims faced the prospect of governing themselves far from king and parliament.

How would they govern themselves? How would they do it? Did they set up William Bradford or Miles Standish as a king to rule over them as lords and monarchs? No. They had just come from a place where the abuses of a tyrant had encouraged the enemies of religious reform to hound and persecute them.

No. The pilgrims wanted nothing to do with a king. Did they throw all things in common, promising to each according to his need, from each according to his ability, as Karl Marx puts it? No. Although some of the early colonists would attempt an early form of communism, holding all things in common and sharing from a common store, and expecting all to work for a common bank of goods, they would find, lo and behold, that it robbed men of personal initiative and drove them to expect others to work hard and build up the common store so that they could draw from it.

And this experiment in early communism in the colonies failed miserably. And no one ever tried it again in America until our own modern socialist left in America embraced it as political orthodoxy in the 20th century. What our pilgrim fathers did undertake was an early form of self-government in which the people decided issues for themselves in a primitive democracy, electing a governor, military commander, and deacon for themselves from among their number. They formalized this early democratic republic and what has come down to us as the Mayflower Compact, one of those early documents that stands as a predecessor of our own constitution.

It's so brief, we can read just about the whole thing to you right now. In the name of God, amen, it begins. The Mayflower Compact.

We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord King James, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, Ireland, King, defender of the faith, having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid, and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof, we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign King James of England, Anno Domini 1620, unquote, the Mayflower Compact. Do you see the significance of some of these provisions for the future of the nation, which would be born upon this new continent? Note with me especially, first, it was drenched in the Christian biblical faith. They were there for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, as well as for King and country. Note with me also, they solemnly covenanted together into a civil body politic.

Here was an early primitive republicanism, excuse me, at work. This phrase would crop up in the thought and writing of our founding fathers, as they reflected upon the government of their predecessors and the rich heritage upon which they had to draw. Well, an early working model, notice with me as well, they had an early working model of the rule of law, and it was instituted here at Plymouth Plantation in the Howling Wilderness. They covenanted to, as they said, enact, constitute, and frame just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices.

Not only did they promise to establish the rule of law, but an equal rule of law, that is, just laws equally applied and enforced amongst them all. No king or class of nobles like the Clintons above the law, in which the commoner was oppressed by the one set of laws and a few lived and ruled as gods above the law. The people would enact law, they would order, and enable life and prosperity for all. And notice with me too, they did not take lightly their promise to submit and obey to this compact and all the provisions which would issue from it. Theirs was not a generation, the generation of the pilgrims.

Theirs was not a generation which took pride in seeing how far they could stretch the cords of obedience before they broke. They did not write books like Abbie Hoffman steal this book, right? Remember that? He was one of the Chicago 7 of the 60s, which was, of course, a brief for rebellion and revolution against the system. Their heroes were not James Dean and his rebel without a cause.

Their music was not rock and roll, which is rebellious in its soul and sings, I fought the law and the Beatles revolution and raps cop killer. No, the pilgrim fathers and later our founding fathers knew and understood not only when it was time to protest and stand on principle, even revolt when necessary, but also they knew when it was time to buckle down, work hard, and become decent law-abiding citizens. That is exactly what they set about doing as they established the first successful English colony on the shores of North America. Their struggles were not over either.

Once they landed, there would be years of hunger and disease and death before the young colony stabilized to any degree. It wasn't until the harvest of their second year there, after a balmy summer, which helped them produce carrots, onions, turnips, parsnips, cucumbers, radishes, beets, cabbages, that, out of genuine hearts of thanks toward God, the pilgrims dedicated a day of thanksgiving to God. This has come down to us, of course, as our Thanksgiving holiday, our Thanksgiving celebration.

And while the Native Americans joined them and brought into the festivities venison and corn and more than a dozen wild turkeys, the pilgrims did not attempt to secularize and bastardize the day by calling it Turkey Day either, but rather they set it aside as a solemn day of thanksgiving unto God. Our early pilgrim forefathers were simple, godly men and women who sought the opportunity to establish a Christian community in which they could worship according to their conscience and practice a life of responsible, law-abiding Christian freedom.

This is our true heritage, dear listener, no matter what the godless secular socialist among us attempt to revise. So as you prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, plan on doing activities with your family that will teach them something of the true nature of this uniquely American religious holiday. We love to do this at New Geneva. We have a special time of prayer and Thanksgiving, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and we would just like you to join us as we do this. And I just urge you to keep in mind the importance of this day and the celebration of Thanksgiving, develop traditions in your family whereby your kids can remember.

We did this with our kids and our kids still call us on Thanksgiving to thank us for the rich heritage that we passed on to them in coming to understand Thanksgiving and its importance. It's one of my favorite holidays because it's the true American religious holiday, isn't it? Thanksgiving. We have other religious holidays, everything from Easter to Christmas and these kinds of things. But when it comes to a genuine American religious holiday, Thanksgiving is the premier one, is it not?

And the only one really, actually. So I would just urge you to read good books, read Bradford's of Plymouth Plantation. That is just a superb and excellent, very readable record of the early days of the colony. And then also pick scriptures to read. Psalm 100 is an excellent scripture to read on Thanksgiving and find time for prayer as well, in addition to your other celebrations on Thanksgiving.

And just learn to cultivate to cherish this blessed American religious holiday. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And I would just urge you to give us a call, maybe give us some feedback. Our telephone number is 523-0196.

And we have now two different websites. We have New Geneva, opc.org. And then we have one where we have cataloged, if you will, our radio messages from the last year and a half or so. And that website now is called omnispotestas.org. Omnispotestas.org.

And it means all authority. It's Latin for all authority. Let me spell that for you. O-M-N-I-S dash P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S dot org. That's O-M-N-I-S dash P-O-T-E-S-T-A-S dot org.

Omnispotestas.org. And you can call us once again for feedback and for further information at 523-0196. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. 523-0196.