Four hundred years ago this past Saturday, Nov. 21, the Pilgrim Fathers of our nation signed the Mayflower Compact on board the Mayflower before it landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts. (The original date was Nov. 11 under the old-style calendar, which corresponds to Nov. 21 in the present system.)
Charisma News covered the recent signing of a new Mayflower Compact on Nov. 11, 2020, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, near a replica of the original ship. Not only did the event point us to the religious freedom on which our forefathers founded this nation, but it had great significance in the Spirit as well.
Kevin Jessip, president of Global Strategic Alliance and one of the co-founders of "The Return" prayer and repentance event held this fall in Washington, D.C., has a personal connection to the original signing. Jessip is a direct descendant of John Robinson, known as "the Pilgrims' pastor" along with William Brewster and William Bradford in Scrooby, England and Leiden, Holland. When the Mayflower's sister ship, the Speedwell, was overloaded, Robinson disembarked and remained in Holland, where he died. Nonetheless, he had a profound influence on the life and faith of America's earliest settlers, Jessip says.
"John Robinson was known as the Pilgrims' pastor, and he's pictured in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C. on the embarkation on the deck of the ship," Jessip says. "He actually wrote the farewell letter to the Pilgrims, which was based on Colossians 3:12, which, in essence stated, 'If you don't learn how to forbear one another in love, you simply won't make it in the new land.'"
Robinson also started the Congregational Church along with Brewster and Bradford, Jessip explains. "William Brewster was a financier; William Bradford had a governmental anointing; And John Robinson was the minister. So we see this triangle of ministry, business and government.
"And these are really the three Founding Fathers of America, and the Pilgrims were a model of Christian character," Jessip says. "It's written that more than anyone else, John Robinson prepared the Pilgrims to accomplish the great task of preparing the way for the settlement of the new nation. ... John Robinson made this statement: '"Had not the truth been in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones wherein I was straightly tied, but had suffered the light of God, it had been put out of mine own thankful heart by other men's darkness.'"
Jon Hamill, co-founder of Lamplighter Ministries and a descendant of Richard Warren, one of the signers of the original Mayflower Compact, wrote the new Mayflower Compact for the event. He shares about an interesting event that took place when he and his wife visited the original Plimoth Plantation about 10 years ago and spoke with the actor who portrayed Warren.
Speaking as Warren, this man told Hamill, "Well, there's been an interesting occurrence that's been transpiring recently. Unlearned men and even women have been standing up in the congregation and prophesying. They've been prophesying. Men and women together were prophesying. And nobody knows about prophesying Pilgrims, but the Holy Spirit moved in their midst in power. And they framed the future of our nation by the prophetic word of the Lord."
Hamill says, "The move of the Holy Spirit was with them. In fact, when they wrote the Mayflower Compact, they wrote this compact, they said, 'in the presence of God and one another.' They honored the presence of God, knowing that God had sent them apostolically across the waters to found a nation in freedom, to found a nation in covenant with Christ."
I have a great interest in history, and I have a personal interest in the Pilgrim Fathers of our nation because, like Jessip and Hamill, my family has a historical connection to this era. As I've written before, through a cousin's research, I discovered I am a direct descendant of William Brewster, the financier who helped found the Plymouth Colony settlement and served as its governor for more than 30 years. Through the Strang side of my family, I am also descended from the French Huguenots, who came to the New World in 1688 after the worst religious persecution in European history. Through both Brewster and the Huguenots, then, my own family has a strong connection to these roots of religious freedom that are being attacked again and again today.
Read the entire new Mayflower Compact at this link, and listen to many more fascinating stories about the Pilgrim Founding Fathers in my discussions with Kevin Jessip and Jon Hamill on this episode of The Strang Report podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. 
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