Greetings to all of our dear friends here in America, and all around the world! Our friends in Brussels, Belgium; Surrey, Canada; Singapore; Weimar, Germany; and Piteå, Sweden. Thank you for your love and support, and friendship! It means a great deal to us here at the Church of Jesus Christ Online Ministries and our affiliated churches in Owensboro, Kentucky, and Athens, Alabama.
Here in the United States of America Thanksgiving Day sadly appears to mean not much more than a juicy turkey dinner, a family reunion, or a football game on the telly! The greater majority of our fellow Americans have seemingly lost the very fact that THANKSGIVING means giving thanks. But to whom are we to give thanks!? And what are we to give thanks for!?
In 1696 my 7th great-grandfather James Johnston, Sr. sailed westward through the rough Atlantic from Scotland to America. He landed on the coast of Virginia and would eventually acquire 150 acres of land in the Pamunkey (River) Neck of northern Virginia. Surely many a man who sailed to the New World sensed that their endeavors were being favored by the very hand of God. Those early settlers seemed to grasp the grandeur of a special opportunity and the great blessing of an almighty. And because of this, the indications show us, the majority were thankful. At least at first.
History shows us that the very first “Thanksgiving Day” originated at Plymouth Colony in December of 1621. On that first official “Thanksgiving Day” they thanked Almighty God that they were still alive and had enough to eat. Truly, the majority of the Pilgrims did recognize God as the TRUE SOURCE of their blessings. Sadly, with the passage of time and an innumerable amount of illegal immigrants from other lands who do not wish to assimilate into our cultural history (since our founding in the late 18th century)— the knowledge of the true source is nearly nonexistent … and here are some stats – and because Google is biased, this stat was located on the third search page of their search engine!
November 25, 2021A study on migration to the Unites States found that 67 percent of the undocumented immigrants who are living in the country migrated from Central America and Mexico. …The project shows that Mexicans make up 48 percent (5.31 million) of the 11 million undocumented immigrants population.Salvadorians (741,000) and Guatemalans (724,000) each represent slightly over 7 percent of the undocumented immigrants who call the U.S. home. People from Honduras make up the remainder of the two-thirds, with around 4 percent of illegal migrants - 490,000 people - coming from there. …The report also discovered people from India comprise the next largest group of illegal immigrants, with around 500,000 undocumented people in the US.(READ MORE: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/67-of-illegal-migrants-in-us-are-from-mexico-and-central-america/ar-AAR8xGk. Retrieved 23 November 2022).
When you type in “Where most illegal immigrants come from” in the Google search engine the very first result is from Insider Monkey from a 2017 article which states, “After winning the election, he [speaking about President Donald Trump] continued on the path, determined to weed out the undocumented immigrants, turning his ire on the so-called sanctuary cities, which harbor and attempt to protect their undocumented population.” So, this certainly shows us which direction this author, as well as this mega-giant company, leans! There is nothing "so-called" about it! Sanctuary cities DO EXIST! - see "Sanctuary Cities in the United States 2022." Again, retrieved 23/11/22.
But, today in this 21st century present evil age, the vast majority of Americans probably don’t even think of God our Father or our Lord Jesus Christ His Son on Thanksgiving Day. Much less actually praying to Him to give Him thanks. Far too many Americans have come to accept that this national holiday is just for friends and family to come together to stuff themselves with too much food and drink. Our awesome Creator God – the very family of God – is left out of the picture! As a friend not long ago told me when she came over to visit, “You’re not gonna get godly on me, are you!?” Well, God is not acknowledged as THE SOURCE of blessings. Sadly, my own wife often says when I speak of our great blessings from the Almighty, “God had nothing to do with my success in life – I did it!” But I remind her that it is God that gives her the strength and power to have this great success in life. “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17) 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 1:16-17.
Our very Lord Jesus Christ says, speaking of God the Father, “ …’ He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust’” – Matthew 5:45. Even though a growing number of our peoples may not believe this, GOD IS THE SOURCE OF OUR LIFE AND OF EVERY GOOD THING WE ENJOY AND HOLD DEAR! God blesses even the evil with the basic necessities of life.
Since the first “Thanksgiving Day” some twenty generations ago, the real meaning of this national holiday has gradually deteriorated throughout American history! Sadly, even when the name Christopher Columbus comes up most are notoriously negative, accusing him of the most heinous and exaggerated crimes such as genocide, hurting the development of indigenous people, biological warfare, sex slavery, and enslavement of innocent people leading to the Transatlantic Slave Trade!
How many of our fellow Americans believe this and give thanks to God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!? Sadly, and we have spoken of this before, Christianity in America is in rapid decline – here is a 2019 Pew Research Center article that states –
“Telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65 percent of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26 percent, up from 17 percent in 2009.”(READ MORE: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/. Retrieved 23 November 2022).
Most Americans today certainly don’t acknowledge God’s living word – the Holy Bible – as our Creator’s inspired word by which all U.S. presidents should rule our nation.
Yet, His living word emphatically told the children of Israel – as He tells us this day – “’ Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. 19) And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes’” – Deuteronomy 17:18-19.
The LORD God tells us that all kings, presidents, and prime ministers of a nation or province should read it all the days of their lives so that they can learn to reverently fear Him and be careful to observe all His words and statutes.
Our beloved 16th President Abraham Lincoln in his 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation stated, “The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. … I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.”
He knew the nations’ blessings came from God – and he rightly stated so – “No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”
In one of his earliest political speeches, given at the Young Man’s Lyceum in 1838, he told his fellow Americans, “We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. … We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings.”
On March 30th, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed a resolution that he proclaim a National Day of Prayer and Fasting. In it, he states, “It is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. … It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
The LORD God’s WARNING
Friends, we as a nation today are in SERIOUS TRIBULATIONS! We, as a nation, have TURNED OUR BACKS TO THE LORD GOD! And the LORD God has withdrawn Their blessings from us as a nation.
On my personal Facebook page – before it was “deleted” by Meta Platforms, Inc. ™ — I was posting a whole plethora of grave tribulations which were occurring all around the world, entitled “This Chaotic World.” Until, the LORD our God revealed to me His living word in Jeremiah chapter 7, concerning the descendants of the children of Israel, “’ Therefore DO NOT pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you’” – Jeremiah 7:16; 11:14. Truly, there comes a time in the progression of the downfall of a society or a group or a nation, a time when God says, ‘I’m just done with it!’ ‘I’m done messing with them!’ At that point, you’re wasting your time even praying for them. I mean when Noah was in that huge boat, and the rains fell and the waters rose, do you think Noah was on the top deck praying for the people!? The judgment of God had already been made! Do you think that Lot and his two daughters when they were struggling to get away from the plain of Sodom and Gomorrah, do you really think that God wanted them to turn around and go, “O’ these poor people”!? “O’ God help them!” There was no praying for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, it was over! God had rendered His judgment and He was executing it. And so, the people of America, the people who say, ‘In God We Trust,’ but a society which is so mucked up now, it sometimes will get you in trouble if you even say the name Jesus Christ in public. There’s going to come a time when God Almighty and Jesus Christ say, ‘I’m just done with it!’ ‘It’s over!’ ‘Let the end-time trauma begin!’
Notice this DIRE WARNING FROM THE LORD OUR GOD –
“’ Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by NOT KEEPING HIS COMMANDMENTS, HIS JUDGMENTS, and HIS STATUTES which I command you today, 12) lest — when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; 13) and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied; and ALL THAT YOU HAVE IS MULTIPLIED; … 17) then you say in your heart [as my own wife does this day], ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ 18) And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.’
19) Then it shall be, IF you by any means forget the LORD your God, and follow other gods [including, my friends, the Idolization of Politics!], and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. 20) As the nations which the LORD destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the LORD your God’” – Deuteronomy 8:11-13, 17-20.
The LORD our God spoke this grave warning to the ancient children of Israel, but it applies TODAY to the modern-day United States of America and to the United Kingdom and her Commonwealth countries – which includes Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Along with, of course, modern-day Israel.
The LORD our God says to all nations –
“’ But it shall come to pass, IF you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you’” – Deuteronomy 28:15.
And as we have spoken before – also the curse of TERROR!
“’ I also will do this to you: I will even appoint TERROR OVER YOU, …’” – Leviticus 26:16. A great many people are running when no one is pursuing them – Leviticus 26:17. Biblical prophecies are being confirmed! Ever more terror is coming!— unless we, as a nation, repent and turn unto God!
What does all this have to do with the Thanksgiving Day holiday!?
This: Our careless, growing atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” decadent, adulterous generation and way of life have stripped bare the true value and meaning of the Thanksgiving Day holiday. God our Father and God our Savior – the living Jesus Christ!
Give thanks to God always for our blessings in the greatest of nations! □
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