A Message from John Winthrop – Choose Life
Tomorrow we, as a nation, celebrate Independence Day for the 243rd time.
For the last two days, I have been sharing excerpts from John Winthrop’s sermon he gave to his fellow Puritan travelers on the Arabella when they crossed the Atlantic Ocean. One hundred forty-six years passed between the time the Puritans came to Massachusetts in 1630 and the thirteen colonies declared their independence from England in 1776. Today you are rearing children who will help determine what America is like 146 years from now. John Winthrop’s message can help. Winthop continued:
And to close this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the Lord, in his last farewell to Israel, Deuteronomy 30. “Beloved, there is now set before us life and death, good and evil, in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in His ways and to keep His Commandments and His ordinance and His laws, and the articles of our Covenant with Him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it. But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it.
Therefore let us choose life,
that we and our seed may live,
by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him,
for he is our life and our prosperity.
Get a bunch of mamas together and you hear these words over and over again: “my kids.” We love our kids. We want good for our kids. We homeschool because we love our kids and want what is best for them. We say “our kids.” John Winthrop said “our seed.” Like us, he was concerned about the generations after him. Moses encouraged the Israelites to choose life. Winthrop encouraged his fellow Puritans on the Arabella to choose life. And I encourage you to do what Ray encouraged our congregation to do this past Sunday:
We must ask in every situation: “What is right?” not “How can we get by?”
That is what Moses and John Winthrop were saying. Let’s do the right thing. “Our seed” are depending on it. As Moses said:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today,
that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.
So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,
by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice,
and by holding fast to Him;
for this is your life and the length of your days,
Deuteronomy 30:19-20