Ramon Arias | November 25, 2014
Millions of Americans at home and abroad will be celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 27th of this year in the traditional way, with an elaborate banquet that no doubt requires days of preparation.
Billions of people around the world do not understand why Thanksgiving is such a big holiday in America and officially sanctioned. It is also true, and sad to acknowledge, that most Americans do not understand the true meaning of Thanksgiving either.
It is a tragedy that America is fundamentally being transformed and removed from her original foundation of biblical principles right before our eyes. As a nation, we are crossing another dark period of our own making. With the help of biblically illiterate Americans, the promoters of a secular society are the reason for this disastrous condition.
Regardless of your understanding and stance in relation to who Abraham Lincoln really was, I feel compelled and think it is totally appropriate that we rethink our position as a nation by reconsidering the establishment of this important official holiday with the Thanksgiving Proclamation that Lincoln issued in October 3, 1863. At that time in history, the nation was being ripped apart by a deadly conflict between the Northern and Southern States.
As we read the proclamation written 151 years ago, let us analyze it in depth along with our family, friends and loved ones. Keep in mind that Lincoln’s proclamation could have never been done in our time due to the many gods that plague America. Nowadays too many Americans really think man is the savior of the world and the universe. (Text in bold print has been added for special emphasis):
“The year that is drawing towards 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 soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to invite and provoke the aggressions of foreign States, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
The needful diversions of wealth and strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship. The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
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.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people; 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 Prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him that, 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.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.”
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
Before we are too quick to ask God for His blessings on America, let us first make it a priority to humble ourselves before Almighty God and our Heavenly Father to ask His forgiveness for our many personal and national sins. As individuals and as a nation, we have turned our back on Him and His revealed Truth. Let us purposefully recommit our life to Him and take personal responsibility going forward for the well being of this nation and the world.
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
