When Squanto comes to town.

John Farley
Pastor-Teacher
Sunday,
November 18, 2018

When Squanto comes to town

 

 

www.basictraining.org

Basic Training Bible Ministries is led by Gene Cunningham with his wife Nan as his support and companion. 

Their mission includes evangelism and the training of pastors and workers in remote regions of the world.

 

 

On board that ship were 41 Separatists. Today we call them Pilgrims.

They decided to separate from the established national church under the King James.

They set sail for the New World aboard the ship called the Mayflower.

Conditions on that ship were brutal.

 

They had set sail from Plymouth, England on September 6th 1620.

 

The land of Cape Cod was first sighted on November 9, 1620.

 

“…What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace?”

 

The Pilgrims started dying.

And then an event happened that marked the turning point in their fortunes.

“Have you got any beer?”

 

The following Thursday he returned - and he was not alone.

Samoset had brought with him another Indian.

He spoke better English than Samoset did. And he was, of all things, a Patuxet.

 

This second Indian was Squanto.

“a special instrument sent of God for their good, beyond their expectation”.

In 1605, Squanto and four other Indians were taken to England, where they learned English.

But monks from a nearby monastery bought Squanto and they taught him about Jesus Christ.

Six months before the Pilgrims were to arrive, Squanto returns to his homeland (Plymouth).

There he learns that his entire tribe had perished.

Then Samoset arrives with the news that a small colony of peaceful English families had settled at Patuxet.

When Massasoit leaves to return home, Squanto remains with the Pilgrims.

He shows them how to fertilize the ground for planting corn by using fish.

 

And he introduced them to the beaver pelt, which were in plentiful supply and also highly prized throughout Europe at the time.

Does Squanto have anything to say to us today, on Thanksgiving 2018?

Squanto demonstrated the grace of God in the lives of the Pilgrims.

God’s grace also sometimes comes to us in the form of people.
 

We are desperate.
In uncharted territory.

And that’s when a Squanto comes to our town.

God has been preparing him or her just for us.

We have had more than one Squanto walk into the town of our lives, sent by God to help us.

It’s the same Father who gave us Jesus when we were lost and helpless and wretched.

Squanto lost everything – his family, his tribe, his very identity.

If he hadn’t, though, he would not have been there for the Pilgrims when they needed him.

Jesus lost everything too - for our sake.

Phi 4:19-20

Sometimes we
don’t recognize Squanto when he comes to our town.

It was only at the very end, when he was on his death bed, that he finally saw the truth:

The Lord had been taking care of him for his entire life.

Gen 48:15
“The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,

The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day”

 

The Pilgrims were overwhelmed with gratitude. To Squanto. To the Wampanoags, But mostly to their God.

Governor Bradford declared a day of public thanksgiving to be held in October.

 

 

Things went so well that their first day of Thanksgiving was extended for three days.

Yet so often we don’t take the opportunity to TASTE and SEE the goodness of the Lord.

Col 3:12-17

 

 


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