*Twas the month before Christmas*

*When all through our land,*

*Not a Christian was praying*

*Nor taking a stand.*

*See, the Politically Correct Police had taken away,*

*The reason for Christmas – no one could say.*

*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*

*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*

*It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say*

*December 25th is just a ‘ Holiday ‘.*

*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*

*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*

*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*

*Something was changing, something quite odd! *

*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*

*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*

*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*

* At Lowe’s the word Christmas – was no where to be found.*

*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears*

*You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.*

*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*

*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*

*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*

*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!*

*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*

*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*

*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*

*Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*

*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*

*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*

*So as you celebrate ‘Winter Break’ under your ‘Dream Tree’*

*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*

*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*

*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, not Happy Holiday!*

Please, all Christians join together and

wish everyone you meet during the holidays a

MERRY CHRISTMAS

CHRIST IS THE REASON FOR THE CHRIST-MAS SEASON!

]]> http://annasversatilewriting.com/truth-can-be-a-hard-pill-to-swallow/feed/ 0 http://annasversatilewriting.com/teach-our-children-and-grandchildren-the-true-story-of-thanksgiving/ http://annasversatilewriting.com/teach-our-children-and-grandchildren-the-true-story-of-thanksgiving/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:01:08 +0000 Anna http://annasversatilewriting.com/?p=645 Let us teach our children and grandchildren the TRUE story of Thanksgiving and how GOD’S PROVIDENCE IS REVEALED IN HISTORY.

This is an article reprinted by permission in it’s entirety from The Christian Law Association’s website www.christianlaw.org. It contains truths that are never heard in our schools or media today. Due to the pernicious demand that we must have a “separation of church and state” by the anti-God crowd, the truth of our country’s Godly heritage has been virtually drowned out. Hopefully this article will help you to see that God is real and that He is still at work.

Americans are beginning to forget the important origins of our national Thanksgiving holiday. Its spiritual significance is no longer taught in our nation’s public schools. In fact, most school children today are taught that Thanksgiving originated when the Pilgrims invited their Indian friends to dinner to thank them for providing sustenance after the Mayflower landed. As with much of modern American revisionist history, there really is much more to the story.

Coming to America

The Atlantic crossing in the fall of 1620 had been an extremely difficult journey for the Pilgrims. For two months, 102 people were wedged into what was called the “tween decks” of the Mayflower-the ship’s cargo space with only about five-and-a-half feet of headroom. No one was allowed above deck because of the terrible storms. This was no pleasure trip. The Pilgrims comforted themselves on their journey by singing from the Book of Psalms. This “noise” irritated one of the ship’s paid crewmembers. He told the Pilgrims he was looking forward to throwing their corpses overboard after they succumbed to the routine illnesses common on such voyages. As it turned out, this crewmember himself was the only person to die on the voyage and be thrown overboard.

God providentially protected His own people. A little-known fact about the Mayflower is that this ship normally carried a cargo of wine; and the wine spillage from previous voyages had soaked the beams, acting as a disinfectant to prevent the spread of disease. During one terrible storm, the main beam of the mast cracked. Death was certain if this beam could not be repaired. At that moment, the whole Pilgrim adventure could very easily have ended on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Providentially, the Pilgrims had with them a large iron printing press screw. That screw repaired the beam, saving the ship and all on board.

“Land Ho!”

After sixty-six days at sea, land was sighted off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, not the place these Pilgrims wanted to be. They intended to establish their new colony in the northern parts of Virginia (which then extended to the Hudson River in modern-day New York), but two factors interrupted their plans. The winds had blown them off course, yes; but they later learned that other Englishmen who wanted to settle in the same part of Virginia had actually bribed the ship’s crew to land them farther north. Despite this chicanery, God was in charge and the Pilgrims landed exactly where God wanted them to be. Had they actually made landfall near the Hudson River, they most certainly would have been immediately attacked by hostile Indians. Instead, they arrived at the one spot along the coast where hostile Indians had been providentially removed from the land.

Many years before the Mayflower journey, local Indians had captured a Frenchman on a fishing expedition to that region. Just as they were about to kill him, the Frenchman warned them God would be angry, would destroy them all, and would replace them with another nation. The Indians boastfully replied that his God could never kill them. Yet, a year or two before the Pilgrims arrived in this very same region, nearly all the native inhabitants had been wiped out by a plague.

Help Arrives

Despite this miraculous provision of safety from hostile Indians, the Pilgrims barely survived their first winter on the Cape. Only four families remained intact; but God was still faithful. In the spring of 1621, He sent Squanto, an English-speaking Indian who offered to teach the Pilgrims how to survive in this strange new land. Squanto was one of only a few local Indians who escaped the plague. He had been captured as a young man and taken to England as a slave. During that time he mastered the English language. When he was freed, he returned to his native territory on the Cape shortly before the Pilgrims arrived.

Probably the most important thing Squanto taught the Pilgrims was how to plant the native winter staple crop-corn. The Pilgrims thanked God for this wonderful helper. They also repaid Squanto by sharing with him the most valuable treasure they had brought with them from England-the Gospel. Squanto died a year or two after coming to the aid of the Pilgrims, but before his death he asked them to pray with him that he might go to be with their God in Heaven.

Peace and Thankfulness

Squanto introduced other Indians to the Pilgrims, and these Indians were also impressed with the Pilgrims‘ God. During the summer of 1621, it appeared the year’s corn harvest would not survive a severe drought. The Pilgrims responded by calling for a day of fasting and prayer.  By the end of the day, it was raining. The rain saved the corn, which miraculously sprang back to life. One of the Indians who observed this miracle remarked that the Pilgrims‘ God must be a very great God because when the Indians pow-wowed for rain, it always rained so hard that the corn stalks were broken down. They noticed the Pilgrims’ God acted differently by sending a very gentle rain that did not damage the corn harvest. It was that miraculous corn harvest in 1621 that provided grain for the Pilgrims‘ first Thanksgiving meal with their Indian friends and helpers.

The evidence of history shows that on this first Thanksgiving Day, both the Pilgrims and Indians thanked God for His great provision and for His goodness toward them all. Unlike other Europeans who came to America, these Bible-believing Pilgrims were model Christians in their dealings with the native populations.

During their first year on the Cape, Squanto, acting as a friend and interpreter, had assisted the Pilgrims in negotiating an important peace treaty with Chief Massasoit, leader of the nearby Wampanoag Indians. The two populations, Indian and Pilgrim, kept that treaty of peace for more than fifty years.

The Tradition Continues

The story of Thanksgiving doesn’t end there. The holiday itself was not officially celebrated until almost 170 years later, after the Revolutionary War had been won and our American Constitution had been adopted. In 1789, Congress approved the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Congress then “recommended a day of public thanksgiving and prayer” to thank God for blessing America.

President Washington declared November 26, 1789, as the first national day of prayer and thanksgiving to the Lord. Another 75 years later, after the Civil War ended, President Abraham Lincoln officially established the last Thursday in November as a day to acknowledge “the gracious gifts of the Most High God,” which He had bestowed on America. Every president continued this tradition until 1941 when Congress officially made Thanksgiving a national holiday.

Teach Your Children

Now that you know the true story of Thanksgiving, this year make sure your children and grandchildren learn it too. As America is currently facing serious challenges both at home and abroad, let‘s join together with countless generations before us in giving thanks to God for blessing and preserving our nation. Let’s make sure that all our children and grandchildren learn Whose hand of protection has been on America; and let’s all pray that He will continue to bless and sustain our nation as we continue to acknowledge and honor Him.

I am also very happy that we are only two miles from our church home. With so very many pastors today preaching tolerance to sin and more and more Christians becoming so complacent, it is extremely difficult to find a church with a real Bible preaching, teaching pastor. I am proud to say that our preacher is a fundamental Baptist preacher who is not afraid to teach straight from the King James Version Bible. He refuses to give up God’s Holy Word and the fact that Jesus, and only Jesus, saves. He continues to teach that the saved soul is a changed soul, AND, he refuses to drift with the mainstream away from God. He recently took us to Romans 1:18-32. Though it is probably the saddest scripture in Romans, it is a good comparison to what is happening in our country now-a-days. We are witnessing what happens to a land when its citizens become thankless to God and forget Him and go their own way.

Romans 1:18-32 “18. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19. because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has shewed it unto them. 20. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21. because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23. and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.”

Why is God angry? Could it be because most church leaders have replaced the truth about Him with lies? People today would rather believe anything that supports their own selfish lifestyles than listen to the truth. They cannot stand the conviction that truth brings. They have brought God down to their own “corruptible” level, instead of looking upward and giving Him the true reverence that He deserves as our Creator.

Therefore, we have those preachers who pacify their congregations with what they think makes them comfortable and keeps them coming back. One of the worst sins in the church today is homosexual preachers preaching a distorted Word to their followers. I dare say, they will one day stand before God and be held accountable for leading so many astray. I do not believe that any homosexual has a right to preach in any pulpit. They are living a life of sin and they have no business in a place of leadership in the church.

“24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25. who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”

“26. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27. and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”

“28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29. being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30. backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31. without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32. who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

America is seeing the consequences of drifting away of our God. The Godly values and precepts our country was founded on are now disdained by many. There is no longer shame in sin, but it is openly tolerated everywhere. God’s Word is distorted, discarded, mocked and ridiculed. There are those who are fighting with all of their might to take the name of God and everything that symbolizes Him out of our culture. Those people are doing Satan’s work.

The following video is a great reminder of our how our forefathers believed and what this great nation was founded on. It is my prayer this holiday season that all those who call themselves Christians, but have fallen away, get down on their knees in repentance, do away with complacency and stand up for Godly values once again. Our nation will fall unless we see a great revival in the hearts of God’s children, their homes, churches, and across this United States. Let us really bow down and be thankful to our God in heaven and bring ourselves back to Him.