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Are you Thankful for America? - FF E18
13 Plays5 days ago
Is there a good reason to be thankful for our nation? In this episode our fathers discuss the importance of Thanksgiving, and to Whom we say "thank you". They also address whether or not the United States is a nation for which we can be grateful.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Preacher Dad podcast. My name is Jared, and I am the Preacher Dad, and you've made it to Fatherhood Friday. And even though we're diving into the Christmas season, and Merry Christmas, everybody, we don't want to forget to mention a few things about Thanksgiving. Today's episode is about Thanksgiving, because we are grateful, very grateful to be in the nation we are. And I hope that you'll stick around, even though maybe you're trimming the tree or already got your Christmas shopping done. We hope that you'll stick around and listen to a little bit about what we share with you about Thanksgiving.
00:00:35
Speaker
As a quick reminder, I want you to know that this podcast is brought to you by Cornerstone Fellowship. Cornerstone Fellowship is a small country church in the middle of nowhere, Georgia, where we just love to love Jesus. And we would love to bring you on and make you a part of that.
00:00:51
Speaker
And if you can't come and visit with us here in the in the out in the boondocks, then we would love for you to visit us online, either on Facebook, you can look us up, Cornerstone Fellowship, or you can find us at the website, cornerstonefellowship-ga.org.
00:01:08
Speaker
dot o r g cornerstone fellowship dash g a dot o r g And a just quick reminder that your subscription, your comments, your interaction with us on this podcast is very, very valuable and really helps us out. So anything that you would like to do to contribute, we sure would be grateful.
00:01:26
Speaker
So God bless you. Have a wonderful day. Let's start Fatherhood Friday.
Meet Nate Eisner
00:01:42
Speaker
All right, everybody, welcome to Fatherhood Friday. We're glad you're here. My name is Jared, and I am the Preacher Dad. I'm the host here of the Preacher Dad podcast, and you what congratulations. Congratulations, you have found the smallest, tiniest corner of the internet where truth is still preserved.
00:02:02
Speaker
Truth is all over, but here in this little corner, we're preserving it. And I'm here tonight with my friend, my good pal, Nate Eisner. Nate and I, if you haven't listened to some of the previous podcasts, Nate and I got to know each other when he was just a 16-year-old little munchkin at Chick-fil-A we you were both working at.
00:02:25
Speaker
And we have really enjoyed getting to know each other better and sharing some real strong passions. Nate, thanks for being here tonight. Good to be here. Well, we are, ah tonight we want to say Happy Thanksgiving. This episode is coming to you the day after Thanksgiving. So maybe we could also say Merry Christmas. But tonight we want to focus on Thanksgiving.
Significance of Thanksgiving
00:02:50
Speaker
And I know you probably are all like, some of you have probably got your shopping done and you got your tree up already. But we wanted to think about Thanksgiving just a moment longer because Thanksgiving is really one of my favorite holidays.
00:03:05
Speaker
Nate, I don't know where where it falls for you. Where does Thanksgiving fall as far as favorites? It's definitely up there. i mean you know I like any day off, of course. love it. The extra time I get to spend with my family, and I also appreciate good food.
00:03:23
Speaker
yeah i mean its But I will say, I think the the the holidays that fall during the colder months tend to be ah tend to be my favorite, for sure. Yeah, yeah definitely. know, I...
00:03:34
Speaker
good you know i ah Thanksgiving is really a quintessentially American holiday. I mean, it is it really got its start in America. It is a Christian holiday. And I think that is in in large part why it's kind of not been commercialized as much, in part at least because it's so Christian and it's so American.
00:03:56
Speaker
But I wanted to share just briefly the Thanksgiving story. And maybe ah maybe there's some things that I'll share with you tonight. That you were not thinking of. And that will be some new information for you, Lord willing.
Thanksgiving History
00:04:12
Speaker
But I got this information from Wall Builders. You listeners know that I support Wall Builders as a ministry and just have learned so much from them.
00:04:24
Speaker
But I want to share this with you. So if you'll bear with me, it says, The tradition of Thanksgiving as a time to focus on God and thank Him for His blessings, dates back almost four centuries in America.
00:04:37
Speaker
While Thanksgiving celebrations occurred as early as 1541 in Texas and 1607 at Cape Henry, Virginia, it is from the Pilgrim Festival of 1621 that we derive the current tradition of Thanksgiving.
00:04:52
Speaker
The Pilgrims, which were a congregation of Bible-loving English Christians, set sail for America on September 6, 1620, and for two months braved the harsh elements of a storm-tossed sea.
00:05:06
Speaker
Upon arriving in what is now Massachusetts and unprepared for the harsh New England winter, nearly half of them died before spring. Emerging from that grueling winter, the pilgrims were surprised when an Indian named Samoset approached them and greeted them in their own language, explaining to them that he had learned English from fishermen and traders.
00:05:27
Speaker
A week later, Samoset returned with a friend named Squanto, who also spoke English. Squanto lived with the pilgrims and accepted their Christian faith. Squanto taught the pilgrims much about how to live in the New World, and he and Samoset helped forge a peace treaty that lasted for generations between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians.
00:05:51
Speaker
Pilgrim Governor William Bradford described Squanto as a special instrument s sent of God for our good. That summer, of the pilgrims, through hard work, prayer, and the assistance of helpful Indians, reaped a bountiful harvest. As pilgrim Edward Winslow affirmed, quote, God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn.
00:06:14
Speaker
And he continues, by the goodness of God, we are far from want, end quote. The grateful pilgrims therefore declared a time in the fall to thank God and to celebrate with their Indian friends, America's first Thanksgiving festival.
00:06:31
Speaker
Ninety Wapanoag Indians, joined the 53 pilgrims for three days of feasting, which included shellfish, lobsters, turkey, cornbread, berries, deer, and other foods.
00:06:45
Speaker
And Nate, I think that proves that they were definitely somewhat Southern there in Massachusetts because they had cornbread at Thanksgiving. I think it's proof.
00:06:57
Speaker
ah They also had athletic competitions, and play, the young pilgrims and the Wapanoag men engaged in races and wrestling matches and athletic events, while the other men engaged in shooting competitions.
00:07:11
Speaker
And then they also had prayer and thanksgiving for God's providence in watching over and providing for them. This celebration began an annual tradition that slowly spread to the entire nation.
00:07:23
Speaker
Americans now celebrate a day of thanksgiving each November as part of our long American tradition of openly and publicly acknowledging God. Among the many examples of the open acknowledgement of God is the Declaration of Independence, which declares, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, end quote.
00:07:55
Speaker
As Thomas Jefferson affirmed, quote, And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?
00:08:11
Speaker
End quote. It was standard practice for our leaders across the generations to acknowledge God as the source of our national rights and blessings and to give thanks to him.
00:08:22
Speaker
Some people believe America has strayed from the strong religious convictions of previous generations. Perhaps, but an important question is not just where is our country's faith, but rather where do you stand on faith?
00:08:37
Speaker
Have you thankfully acknowledged the providence of Almighty God in your own life? As you celebrate Thanksgiving, remember to retain the original gratefulness to God that had all that has always been the spirit of this, the oldest of all American holidays.
00:08:57
Speaker
And you know, Nate, I really appreciated that so much. And it just reminds us, I think, about how grateful we can be, not just for the individual blessings that God has given us, like good health maybe, or a great family, or ah a job, or a car.
00:09:14
Speaker
He's given us individual blessings, but we also, as a corporate corporate nation, have a reason to be thankful to God that we live in the United States of America.
00:09:26
Speaker
And You know, America has plenty of problems. We could spend the next 300 Fatherhood Friday episodes and God bless, God willing, there'll be 300.
00:09:38
Speaker
You know, we could spend so much time talking about the problems in America because there's tons of them. There's plenty of them, mostly because ah we have embraced a secular humanist society where we have rejected God and rejected his word.
00:09:53
Speaker
And that's caused a lot of the problems we have. But you know we've never been a perfect country because we were not founded by Jesus. you know We're not founded by perfect men. they were The founders did wrong things. America has done wrong things. So is every other nation of the world.
00:10:10
Speaker
And you know a lot of people, they they talk about what is considered to be, by many, the original sin of America, and that is of slavery.
00:10:22
Speaker
And that some people say even America was founded upon slavery and that it was instituted to preserve the, the slave, the preserve slavery as an institution.
00:10:33
Speaker
And of course that's all just baloney, but I wanted to point out a couple very important facts to talk about whether or not we should really be grateful to live in this nation.
00:10:44
Speaker
At least it helped me to be more grateful to be American. The first one is that slavery was not invented by America. You know, it was a problem all over the world.
00:10:56
Speaker
And, in It was ah just pervasive everywhere. And actually, it was the biblical Christianity of the pilgrims which influenced those early colonies and therefore those early states so that the United States of America was the first nation in the world to outlaw the slave trade.
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
00:11:20
Speaker
They did it first because they were out ahead of the curve. And do you know Nate, take a guess at who signed the law to outlaw the slave trade in the United States.
00:11:35
Speaker
Which president signed it?
00:11:40
Speaker
We always hear about Lincoln. I'll give you a hint. ah Yes, you do, but it was before him. I'll give you a hint. It was within the first five. Within the first five. Oh, man. Was it was it Washington?
00:11:53
Speaker
Nope. After him. One more guess. Jefferson is always the one that everybody throws around. Jefferson is the man who signed the law in the United States. So Jefferson gets a bad rap on slavery because he did own slaves, but he actually was not a huge supporter of that ideology and was willing to let it die.
00:12:18
Speaker
And even in the early drafts of the Declaration of Independence had wording in there to be anti-slavery. Thomas Jefferson... But he did sign the law that ended the slave trade in the United States. Now, it didn't end slavery.
00:12:32
Speaker
Unfortunately, the United States was only the fourth in the world to end slavery, period. they They outlawed the owning of slaves at all in the entire country. and They were the fourth in the world to do that. Nate, that's out of dozens of countries.
00:12:49
Speaker
That is a very good record to be first in the world to outlaw the slave trade and fourth in the world to outlaw slavery at all. That's really good. And now not to say that slavery is okay.
00:13:01
Speaker
certainly he was wrong. But it was the influence of biblical Christians that caused it to die and helped it to go away. The abolitionist movement was largely led by biblical Christians.
00:13:15
Speaker
And so yeah I really, when I found that out, it sort of turned the narrative on its head a little bit for me. And I was like, man, we've been we've been out ahead of the rest of the world in large part because our nation was and is today founded upon biblical ideas and biblical principles.
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00:13:38
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:15:06
Speaker
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00:15:18
Speaker
That all men are created equal. that that is That is in our founding documents. men are equal. All men are created equal. Now it's kind of like, hey, look, why didn't you get rid of slavery?
00:15:30
Speaker
That's a long story that we could go into. But the bottom line is there was, I think, 11 out of the 13 colonies that were anti-slavery. They they were willing to vote to end slavery. and there were two slave states that said, we're not voting for this if you end slavery in the nation. So For the sake of unanimity, they decided to push, kick that can down the road. And unfortunately, we kind of reap some of the benefit, some of the the damage to our nation and the many, many American lives lost.
00:16:01
Speaker
Why? in In part to end slavery. And, you know, I just think that understanding that might help somebody out there to be like, wow, you know, our nation has really been doing a good job of leading in this area, as well as many others, spreading freedom, spreading Liberty throughout the world.
00:16:20
Speaker
And that is something that we can really be grateful for as Americans. I agree. And I think too, that also just shows that like very much so today you have the political divide, you know, that has always been, you know, humans have always disagreed in most of the time to very great lengths, people will disagree.
00:16:41
Speaker
And so, you know, that just shows that just because a narrative gets pushed that, you know, our country had slavery, you know in our past and that is very much a great sin like what we did to the native americans was a great sin but um you know we're all sinners and that's not to lessen you know the the brutality of some of that stuff but um i think it just shows that you know just because you had people that may or may may have supported that at one time you can also see that there are plenty of other people who went to great lengths to not support it
00:17:16
Speaker
um So you can't just let the one one side you know rule the ah rule the narrative there because there's always two sides to the story. That's right. i don't think that I think that there's certainly plenty of things that the United States has done wrong throughout its history, 250-year history.
00:17:33
Speaker
But that doesn't mean that has done nothing right. It has done an awful lot of things right and may is still today the one of the main bastions of individualism and of liberty.
00:17:49
Speaker
i mean, if if America goes falls to socialist Marxist ideas, where are you going to go? they're we're We're leading the charge against it, at least some of us are. yeah you know This is one of the last free places in the world.
00:18:05
Speaker
And so you know i just think that that all of that is because of the Christian heritage that we have. And you know there's you can actually kind of you can You can draw a chart and see the influence of two cities. You can see the influence of Plymouth and the influence of ah Virginia.
00:18:28
Speaker
and um what's that What's that place the Virginia company came to first? Oh, man. Oh, I can't remember. Anyway, it's where the settlers
Historical Influences on America
00:18:39
Speaker
first. Jamestown.
00:18:40
Speaker
Jamestown. Yeah. when The influence of Jamestown? Sorry. The influence of Jamestown and the influence of Plymouth. And the influence of Plymouth really led people into biblical Christianity against slavery. They were abolitionists, anti-slaveries. And the influence of Jamestown was more in a secularist, a secular direction, you know, trying trying to make money and were willing to, you know, participate in slavery for that reason. So really, you know, there's a lot of,
00:19:16
Speaker
a lot of things that go into the history there, but I really think that people should be grateful that we live in the United States of America and that we have a country that is founded upon God, founded upon biblical ideas. all Our entire system of law is based upon the Ten Commandments.
00:19:34
Speaker
And, you know, so much about our representative of public is because of what what what God instituted to the Jewish people in the law of Moses. And so there's just so much that we have to be grateful for.
00:19:47
Speaker
And we still live in, I don't like to say the greatest country in the world, but I do think it's definitely one of the greatest ever, uh, to, to grace us. And the Lord has just blessed us so much. You know, we could live in Zimbabwe. We could live in, you know, the Congo. We could live in, uh, communist Russia, you know, so many places.
00:20:11
Speaker
You know, that's, um, I have the only time I've ever been out of the country was to the Bahamas. So I don't know if that really counts because it was, but um you know, my wife has been to a couple of our countries on missions trip. She went to Haiti, which is heavily, heavily impoverished. My mother-in-law went to Niger in Africa and my wife also went to, she didn't to Thailand. She went to the Philippines um and you know, something that,
00:20:43
Speaker
I've heard a lot of people say this. I personally have never experienced it, but just from my wife's testimony, my mother-in-law's testimony, you don't you don't realize how blessed you are until you leave the country and you see how the rest the world lives. And it really is the rest of the world. you know I mean, outside of basically the Western countries, um you know you get into these third worlds essentially, and you realize, oh my gosh, just the fact that we have roads that you can drive on without losing your suspension like you're' you're living like a king not to mention the stories that you hear from you know missionaries that live full-time it's wild stories and i mean just the fact that we get three meals in a day it's way beyond so many people in the clean water access to clean water puts you i'm i'm completely blanking on where i got these statistics but It had to do with like, it was either you're the top 1% of the world in your wealth. If you just have access to clean water again, I don't know what those numbers are, but I know that that was access to clean water was a very significant factor in whether or not, or what what made you considered wealthy when you compare the rest of the world.
00:21:58
Speaker
um I mean, we take that for granted every day. i mean, I know I do. And so, I mean, I know there's parts of America that that's not necessarily, um a luxury for everyone but um when you think about it even if you don't have running water in your home you know there there are drag cabins in the country um but i mean you go to the you can go to the walmart and they've got running water in their public bathroom sink i mean yeah we don't have we don't have squatty potties you know we have working for me i've heard some squatty potty stories from some africa mission strips i bet well you know i just
00:22:38
Speaker
in In a time in our lives, Nate, when so many people are tearing America down, and there's certainly, as I said, plenty to complain about, plenty to plenty of problems that we need to work on.
00:22:52
Speaker
We need to remind ourselves, I think, how blessed we are to be in this nation and how how God has worked through our nation to bring light to the world.
00:23:05
Speaker
That doesn't mean that we've always done everything right. I mean, The church itself has not done everything right. And there's plenty of damage that people in the church have done. And there's plenty of damage that Americans have done to each other. But the fact the matter is God still works through this nation. And I think I'm just, I'm proud of that. I'm proud of our our record on slavery.
00:23:30
Speaker
i i put ourselves up against any nation in the world. And i think that we've done a good job of proclaiming truth and right godly things and so it just makes me makes me proud proud to be a american right yeah i mean it's yeah everybody all of sin and fall short of the glory of god and while there are some you know sin is sin before god but sin has different consequences varying degrees of consequences here on earth um
00:24:08
Speaker
And while slavery is not acceptable by any he stretch the imagination, um what are we doing with today? You've been given today.
00:24:20
Speaker
um How do we move forward? You know, are we going to sit in and feel the shame of it and let that dictate our future? Or can we accept that we have sinned? Can we repent and can we move on and we make tomorrow a little bit brighter than it was yesterday? um You know, when you repent of your sin, it's a good thing to remember your sin. There's a wonderful Vodibachum sermon on remembering your sin.
00:24:47
Speaker
or It is a gift that God allows us to remember our sin because one, it gives us a testimony and it gives us a healthy fear it so that we don't fall back into it. And so it's a good thing to remember our sin as a declaration that this is who we were and this is who we're going to be in the future because we have been redeemed in Christ.
Thankfulness and Dad Jokes
00:25:07
Speaker
So. Yeah, that's that's my two cents on it. I love it. Well, you know, Nate, ah I am thankful to be an American, and I'm also thankful for dad jokes.
00:25:18
Speaker
Aren't you thankful? Thankful for dad jokes. So here's a couple to start your Christmas season with. What's blue and smells like red paint?
00:25:31
Speaker
Blue paint. That's correct, Nate. Very good. It is blue paint. I showed up at the weekly kleptomaniac anonymous meeting, but all the seats were already taken.
00:25:46
Speaker
that would that one' see That one didn't land, but.
00:25:53
Speaker
But hey, I got one. Okay, go for it. All right. So I decided to rename my toilet Jim instead of John. People are really impressed when I tell them I go to the gym every morning.
00:26:08
Speaker
I like that one. That's a good one. How about, I'm friends with 25 letters of the alphabet. I don't know why. Ah.
00:26:22
Speaker
i My friend recently quit his job to pursue a career in miming. Miming. I haven't heard from him since. Nice. Well, we'll let that be it for tonight.
00:26:36
Speaker
And hopefully... you all of you seven or eight listeners out there, I think the other 12 people went to shopping and aren't listening
Closing Remarks and Interaction
00:26:45
Speaker
to the episode. But all you seven or eight listeners out there, we sure are grateful for you. And we hope that you'll be even more thankful than you were before that you live in the United States of America.
00:26:57
Speaker
And I know we are. So we hope to have you back again next time on Fatherhood Friday. If you want to get in touch with us, you can reach us at dads at preacherdad.com. That's dads, D-A-D-S at preacherdad.com.
00:27:16
Speaker
And we would love to hear from you, hear your questions. We might spend an entire episode on your question at this point because, well, let's be let's be let's be real. There's not a lot of people sending us any messages. so If yours is interesting, we'll probably read it.
00:27:33
Speaker
I'll say we're running a Black Friday special right now. If you comment dads in our comment section, the next episode, you will get some free dad jokes. All right. That's right. we will We will read some directly for you. If you just comment at dads down below, wherever you're listening.
00:27:50
Speaker
but We need an algorithm boost. Somebody give us some interaction, please. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Like, comment, subscribe. That's what they say. So, well, folks, thanks for listening in. Thanks for your support.
00:28:03
Speaker
oh And we sure are grateful that you're out there. And we will continue to be here. God bless you. Have a great night.