With Thanksgiving upon us, our thoughts turn to turkey, pumpkin pie, football, and family. It’s a special day to thank God for all the wonderful blessings He has bestowed on us personally and as a nation.

Who is praying on the wall?

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“O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.” 1 Chronicles 16:34

Thanksgiving is also a time to reflect on our country’s origins and how God led a small band of Pilgrims to the New World. We’re taught the highlights in school. The Pilgrims came on the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620. The native Wampanoag, Squanto, taught them how to plant corn in the Spring. Then, in the Fall, with Massasoit, the Wampanoag chief, and 90 of his men attending, they celebrated a harvest feast, which we now call Thanksgiving.

But the true Pilgrim story is so much more than a big meal. It began a decade and a half before, in 1606. The Pilgrims were members of a religious group called the Separatists who wished to separate from the Church of England, which was a crime.

The Pilgrim Covenant

As IFA founder Derek Prince noted in his book, The Pilgrim Legacy, “The Pilgrim wanted liberty for himself, for his wife and little ones, and for his brethren, to walk with God in a Christian life as the rules and motives of such a life were revealed to him from God’s Word. For that he went into exile; for that he crossed the ocean; for that he made his home in the wilderness.”

The Pilgrims believed they received their spiritual freedom directly from God through Jesus Christ, not the state-run church. To help them live out their faith, they entered into a covenant in 1606 with one another. William Brewster had opened up his home, Scrooby Manor, as an underground house church. Here, the Pilgrims agreed to obediently follow Christ and actively cultivate His presence among them.

Dr. Paul Jehle, pastor of New Testament Church and president of Plymouth Rock Foundation, in his book Journey of Faith, described this early Pilgrim church as a ‘Church by Covenant’. He states, “The Pilgrims formed a church through a commitment to one another by the direct authority of Christ who sat on the throne of their heart.”

Their covenant is known as the Scrooby Covenant, which promises…

“As the Lord’s free people joined by a covenant of the Lord into a church estate, in the fellowship of the gospel, to walk in all His ways made known, or to be made known unto us, according to our best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost us, the Lord assisting us.”

It Cost the Pilgrims Dearly

As a result of their faith, many were put in jail. When the persecution in England grew harsher, the Pilgrim families sold their land, homes, and belongings to live in Holland.

During those 11 years, their children began leaving the Pilgrim faith for, as William Bradford described, “the great licentiousness of youth in that country, and the manifold temptation of the place, they were drawn away by evil examples into extravagant and dangerous courses… and departing from their parents”.

To save their children from sin and with a missionary zeal to “advance the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world… and be as steppingstones unto others for the performing of so great a work”, they decided to go to the New World.

The Pilgrims undertook a frightening journey. Fierce storms blew them off course, driving them northward from Virginia to the frigid wilderness of New England. They landed in Plymouth on December 21, 1620.

Of the 102 passengers that set sail from England, only 52 Pilgrims survived the first winter – a heavy cost indeed.

In the Spring, when the Mayflower set sail for England, Captain Christopher Jones offered the Pilgrims free passage back. Not one soul took him up on his offer – so strong was the Pilgrims’ covenantal commitment to one another and to God.

God’s Covenants with Humanity

Covenants are as old as Genesis. God made covenants – or special promises – throughout history. God’s first covenant was with Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply” and to take care of His creation. (Genesis 1:28) Sadly, they broke their covenant with God, and sin entered the world.

God’s Covenant with Abraham was for the creation of Israel whose purpose would be to shine God’s light to the world. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. (Genesis 12:2)

God’s Covenant with Noah is the first Covenant of Grace, in which God promised to safeguard and bless the creation until the creation of the new heavens and the new earth Never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. (Genesis 8:21)

God’s Covenant with Moses and the Ten Commandments provided a framework for people to live within the Covenant of God’s love, like this… If you love me, you will have no other Gods before me… and so on. (Exodus 20:1-17)

God’s Covenant with David was one of hope and the coming fulfillment of the law and the prophets in Jesus, the true Son of David. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever. (2 Samuel 7:16)

God then made a New Covenant, His ultimate promise of love, and it was to be written not on tablets of stone but on the hearts of His people. And it cost Him dearly – His very own Son. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son that whosever believes in Him will have eternal life.. (John 3:16)

The ‘Whatsoever It Should Cost Us’ Generation

The Pilgrims saw themselves as the ‘whatsoever it should cost us’ generation who, like Abraham, faithfully left their homes and families to follow God to an unknown land.  Like Noah, the tiny vessel Mayflower became the ‘ark’ of their salvation.  Like Moses, they were prepared by God to form their church and community around a covenant that God Himself promised to uphold. Like the first disciples, they knew that they were bringing to a new land the great Good News of Christ’s New Covenant, that He commanded should go forth into all the earth.

Today, we are privileged above all the peoples of the earth to live in a nation founded by free people whose freedom came from God. We are the legacy of those free people, not only for the nation but, more importantly, for the Church, which is the hope of this nation.

We have a sacred and solemn duty, as God’s free Covenant people, to preserve and tell God’s story of these Covenant people, who followed God, whatsoever the cost, to plant a church that was the seed for a nation and a harvest of millions of souls.

We’re indebted to the Pilgrims for their legacy as free people before God, who has guaranteed our right to worship him as our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer freely without any interference from the state.

This Thanksgiving, let us reflect on what it means to be the “Whatsoever it should cost us’ generation for our times.  It will take all courage, faith, resolve, and absolute dependency on the Lord, which we must live out in spirit and in truth.  Like the Pilgrims, we were born for such a time as this.

Every Thanksgiving, the Brewster clan offers a simple toast written by historian Dr. Samuel Eliot Morrison…

To the Pilgrims,
A simple people, inspired by an ardent faith in God,
a dauntless courage in danger,
a boundless resourcefulness in the face of difficulties,
an impregnable fortitude in adversity:
thus they have in some measure become the spiritual ancestors of all Americans.

Let’s Pray

Oh Lord, may we as Christians today seek your face and your will and have the ardent faith and dauntless courage to share the light and salvation of Christ to the lost. As your free Covenant People, today rooted and firmly established in your love by the unity of your Holy Spirit, may we stand strong so that future generations will stand on our shoulders.

Lead us as a nation as faithfully as You led the Pilgrims to America. May we boldly embark on the journey you have set for us whatsoever it should cost us, to move into the future of your Kingdom: looking outward and sharing the love You have given to us. May your Covenant with our nation, once again, be the cry of our hearts, for such a time as this, for the love of Jesus and for His sake. Amen!

Are you encouraged by the covenant legacy of the Pilgrims? This Thanksgiving, share this article with your friends and family to remind them of this legacy!

Belinda Brewster lives in Plymouth, MA, America’s Hometown, with her husband, Wrestling, an 11^th generation direct descendent of Elder William Brewster, the spiritual leader of the Pilgrims. She and Wrestling attend Chiltonville Congregational Church which is the fourth daughter church from the first church established by the Pilgrims. Chiltonville has adopted the Scrooby Covenant as its own. Belinda is a contributing writer for IFA. Photo Credit: Robert W. Weir (photograph courtesy Architect of the Capitol) – Architect of the Capitol.