Our Quest to Reclaim a Legacy of Thanksgiving

America is a nation of people with a centuries-old tradition of celebrating annual solemn days of Thanksgiving.  Yet, it seems that our current generation has almost no concept of the deeply personal conviction of the crucial importance of gratitude.  And it’s pretty obvious that that gratitude should most deservedly be directed to the Almighty Giver of every blessing and perfect gift in our lives.

The Bible tells us in James 1:17 that

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” James 1:17

It seems like everybody these days is scrambling frantically to demand that their comforts and material desires be accommodated.  How often do we see people so ungrateful that complaints and cynical dissatisfaction have become society’s idea of “normal?”  Things haven’t changed much in 2,000 years, have they?

Do you remember the illustration of ungratefulness in Luke 17:7-19?

Jesus healed ten men of leprosy.  One of them was a Samaritan man.  He was the only one of the ten who came back to Jesus and humbly thanked Him for healing him.  Jesus asked him: “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”  Sadly, my missionary friend in Africa reports that barely 10% of those they help will bother to express their gratitude with even a word of thanks or a note card.  Gratitude may be rare, but those who express it discover the most enriching lives on earth.  Instead of loneliness, poverty and depression, those who express gratitude despite suffering conditions like that, are often the ones most inclined to be enriched, energized, inspired and transformed.

Gratitude goes counter to the ‘victim mentality’ that has deceived so many who think they’re entitled to everything at the expense of others in our culture.  When we give thanks sincerely, we acknowledge that we have received a benefit that is unearned.  We can’t help but look beyond ourselves.

Let me ask you a question.

When you’re stunned with the reality that you survived what could have been a fatal event, how does that make you feel?

Let’s look back to the time of the infancy of our American republic, two and half centuries ago.

Thanksgiving 4 Centuries after Our Pilgrims’ First Celebration #323

To better appreciate the roots of this special season for us as a people, let’s unravel the chain of events that helps us understand the implications of what led to the divinely innovative beginning of a whole new national identity.

Nobody I know does that better than my friend Bill Federer – Listen as he describes parallels between the treacherous 16th century time of the Pilgrims and our time 400 years later.

Look what 16th Century Reformation Day started

Could the result of today’s sharp divisions in human society in the ‘free world’ lead to an historic reformation matching the one beginning in 1517?

The last day of October is Reformation Day in some protestant circles. It’s obscured in our misguided culture by the more modern celebration of ‘Halloween.’ But election day in America is just around the corner, a few days later on the first Tuesday of November.

The 31st of October each year began to be celebrated as Reformation Day in the late 17th century, a hundred years after a turning point event. It all began when a passionate 34-year-old Catholic priest nailed his 95 critiques of Catholic controversial practices onto the church door in a town called Wittenberg Germany in the Holy Roman Empire. His name was Martin Luther.

Ten years earlier, Luther was ordained in 1507, and earned a doctorate in theology from the University of Wittenberg in 1512. Then he became a professor of biblical studies. But it was his own personal theological crisis regarding salvation that led him to his discovery of the Bible concept of justification by faith alone. That culminated in his 1517 publication of the Ninety-five Theses which challenged the sale of indulgences by Catholic promoters of the renovation of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. And that sparked the revolution that became the Protestant Reformation. It changed the world and culminated in generations of wars and the redirection of the history of Western nations.

Righteous Bold Lions fight for Godly Freedom

Proverbs 28:1 tells us that “The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.” … It goes on to say in verse 2, “When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order.”

What a thought-provoking observation of contrasts! Do you see it? The upstanding Righteous leaders who are bold as a lion… are as different from the wicked who are fearfully looking over their shoulders, because of all the wicked deeds that have earned them many enemies… as the wise, discerning, and organized ruler is peculiarly distinct from the multitude of bureaucratic rulers of a land of cowering rebels.

Benjamin Franklin wrote that “A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.”

When you return from a day at work, or out shopping, or driving on the highways, or just interacting with the general public, would you say that the God-fearing, morally pure population of your country is “flourishing” and increasing in authority over the land?

Remember… all that must happen for evil to flourish in a culture is for the good people to keep quiet and do nothing. Light dispels darkness. It’s not the other way around.

It’s no wonder the enemy of humankind successfully deceives so many to think they should just let their little light be hid under a ‘basket’ and cower in the shadows of the evil influences. That’s how to keep low-information voters in the dark, ignorant, and fear-filled by whatever demonic deception they think they can’t overcome by faith in the Giver of all good things from above.

Could celebrating Halloween be spiritually dangerous?

Did you know that the word Halloween can be translated as holy night? But holy for whom? What happens when a night meant to be sacred is hijacked by rituals of death and darkness?

The word Halloween comes from something that sounds sacred. It means ‘All Hallow’s Eve,’ meaning the evening before All Saints Day. In the medieval Christian calendar, November 1st was chosen to honor believers who had died as martyrs. The night before became known as the eve of this holy day. When church leaders chose November 1st for All Saints Day, that date was already marked by ancient peoples across Northern Europe. It was a time for rituals far older than any Christian observance. The church tried to overlay a holy remembrance on top of existing pagan celebrations.

Days of Creation – How Long?

How long were the days of creation? You might wonder why some people would even ask that question after reading the first chapter of Genesis. Each of the first six days described there is clearly separated by the phrase, “the evening and the morning were the first day… second day…” and so on.  Those descriptive boundaries certainly make sense to us. Is there any reason to suspect it wouldn’t have been quite clear to Moses as well?  But what is the condition that makes an evening and a morning?  You might say “the sun.”  But on day one the sun wasn’t created yet.  And reading the text of Genesis, we discover that God didn’t create the sun until the fourth day along with all the other stars.  Here’s a question for you.  Even without a sun, how would you determine the length of a day?  Is it not by the rotation of the earth?  If you were on another planet the length of your “day” would be determined by the rotation speed of your planet, right?

Of course, with only a modest knowledge of Bible history, the implication of this idea would lead any reader to very naturally conclude that God said “let there be light” for the very first time only about six or 7,000 years ago. Well, that’s quite a thought.  But, some find this far too implausible. But why? Is it because of their pre-conceived idea that the universe must surely be much older than that? If that’s the only kind of information about earth’s ancient history you were ever taught, well then naturally we would expect that kind of reaction.  But, to follow it up, if they’re trying to show agreement with the Bible, you might hear them ask: “Isn’t there some place in the Bible where a day is described as a thousand years long?” Do you suppose they might be thinking they have to find a way to help the Bible get itself out of trouble with its credibility?

The Creator of Mankind is regaining Center Stage of Human attention

Marks of a recovering society begin with the bold declaration that truth, transparency, and discernment have increasing proclamation in the public square. Even more encouraging is that more and more people, whose loved ones around them have been battered down by destructive lies, are willing to stand up to question the narratives of those who’ve overtaken society’s trusted institutions of information. They’re willing to challenge the “sacred cows” of their corrupted society.

Who Will Rebuild the Ancient Ruins of Godly Education?

Today’s generation can hardly imagine what it was like in the local schools across our nation in the past. Before the dawning of the “age of Aquarius” in the 1960s nobody would have imagined the subsequent plundering of public education by secular atheists. American society once considered it normal to focus on the development of the inner man and personal integrity. Morality in culture was highly esteemed. So was an intense pursuit of Scriptural wisdom. The school teachers and communities of Early American school houses deliberately prioritized those concepts. At their hearts, American communities believed that the education of their children was built on the premise that virtue is absolutely essential to freedom.

The ridiculous problems that every common-sense American sees corrupting our society’s institutions today realizes the source. Even if President Abe Lincoln didn’t really originate the idea, who can doubt the fact that “The philosophy of the classroom today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow?”

Education without virtue ruins its home culture with seeds of inevitable destruction

For the first two centuries of America’s existence, almost everyone could read and ‘cipher’ (do basic math)… and they did it without ANY public schools, as they’re known in our time. The institutionalized indoctrination centers of today were unthinkable to early Americans. Past generations of Americans had high value for the education of their children — much more than Americans of today. What was the difference? A lot! But rather than handing over their children to the state to be “educated” by the state, and for the goals of the state, almost all education then was handled by families, religious organizations, tutors, community-run and private schools. And it was done within a free and open market mentality, without top-down controls from a faraway bureaucracy.

The Truth About America’s Founding Fathers

As a lifelong student of the fascinating stories of America’s legendary heroes, from the Pilgrims to the Patriots, I discovered an interesting intersection with Holy Scripture. Just as the Bible has its notable heroes of faith and God-given courage in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews in the Bible, so also does the history of America have its heroes of courage and faith in its God-given deliverance from tyranny. And both have had their detractors and skeptics. They continually try to steer generations of young students away from confidence in the truthful place of those heros in the record of Almighty God’s providence in His redemption of the human race.

Accusations to disparage the Founding Fathers are common in the world of fallen mankind. You’ve likely heard slanderous assertions that the Founding Fathers were a bunch of atheists, agnostics, and deists wanting a strict separation of church and state – nothing less than a secular government and a secular public with barely any Biblical values. While their charges are shamefully false, no one is suggesting that all the early American leaders were devoted Christians (though most of them were). The vast majority of Founding Fathers wrote openly, and often, about the influence of Christianity, the Bible and Jesus on their personal lives. You can learn more of the faith journey of the people we’re talking about in the resources noted in the transcript for today’s podcast, but let’s hear some actual quotes to get a glimpse of the thinking of these men.

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