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When the Pilgrims came here in 1620, they had learned some things that recent generations have had stolen from them. For instance, they had come to understand that the basis of the government is covenant. No state can exist very long if its citizens are not in covenant with each other.
The word covenant is defined as “a meeting or agreement of minds”. The minds of a people living under a particular government must be in agreement on the basics of life if they are to be able to walk together throughout the generations.
They must agree about Who God is, and who He says they are, and what His plan for them is, both as individuals and a nation. Without this agreement, education, commerce, and government just become a constant argument of: “What do I think is best?” as opposed to, “What do you think is best?”
The Pilgrims had walked in covenant for many years before landing on these shores. Their church agreement, or covenant, had seen them through great difficulties. When they arrived here, they were faced with the need to create a civil government. It was the most natural thing for them to simply transfer the principles of their church covenant into a civil document. That document is now known as the Mayflower Compact: The first governmental document ever drawn up by common men, which lasted. Later America’s Founding Fathers would restate those same principles in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
In a letter to Edwin Sandys, a statesman and businessman who would help to finance their voyage, their Pastor, John Robinson, and Elder, William Brewster, would describe their covenant with one another, stating that they were:
“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…”
(December 15, 1617, in a letter from John Robinson and William Brewster in Leyden, Holland, to Sir Edwin Sandys in London, England. William Bradford (Governor of Plymouth Colony), The History of Plymouth Plantation, 1608-1650 (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856 | Boston, MA: Wright and Potter Printing Company, 1898, from the original manuscript | Rendered in Modern English, Harold Paget, 1909) | Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Glory of America (Bloomington, MN: Garborg’s Heart’N Home, Inc., 1991), 11.16.)
Once the Pilgrims had received Christ as Lord, they had learned to walk this way by obeying what the Bible taught in Ephesians 4:15-16 when it states:
“…but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies…causes the growth of the body…”
Once their minds were in agreement, they wrote out the things they agreed upon and signed their names, pledging to:
“…walk together in all His ways made known or to be made known unto them, whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them.”
(Bradford, William. 1650, in his work entitled, The History of Plymouth Plantation, 1608-1650 (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856 | Boston, MA: Wright and Potter Printing Company, 1898, 1901, from the original manuscript | Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress Rare Book Collection | Rendered in Modern English, Harold Paget, 1909 | NY: Russell and Russell, 1968 | NY: Random House, Inc.) | Verna M. Hall, comp., Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America (San Francisco: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1976), p. 185.)
They were simply agreeing to live toward God and one another by the teachings of the Bible.
Out of this simple agreement grew the greatest nation in world history. We knew that Jesus Christ was God and that the teachings of His Word were true, and thus, trustworthy. Believing that obedience to Him was the most important thing we, and our government must do, we rose to the pinnacle of world power and influence. Up until the early 1900s we taught our children in our schools that this Pilgrim Covenant was the basis of our nation.
Then, through the deception of some educators and business people, we began to turn away from the God of our Fathers and their covenant with Him. The rest is history.
Was our nation more stable then, or now? Were our people safer then, or now? Were our children more respectful of Jesus Christ then or now?
Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children! And you won’t like what that brings to you. I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.