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Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 04:50 PM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

“And he said, Hearken ye all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem,  and thou, King Jehoshaphat:  Thus saith the Lord unto you, Fear you not, neither be afraid for this great multitude:  FOR THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS, BUT GOD’S.”  (2nd Chronicles 20:15-17: 1599 Geneva Bible).

Who You Will Serve?
Who Will You Serve?

For those who are unaware, the 1599 Geneva Bible was the Bible used by our separatist Pilgrim Forefathers (they didn’t like the KJV because they really didn’t like King James, who had vowed to “harry them out of the land” of England because they would not conform to the teachings of the Church of England).  Certainly it was read and preached from during the hazardous and tedious 66-day voyage from England to the New World during that increasingly stormy and  harsh Fall on the Atlantic Ocean in 1620.  Fierce storms and huge waves and wretched living conditions below decks would have turned most modern people back from whence they came.  Not so for these 102 stalwart souls who had determined to separate from their old world and, trusting God for guidance and protection, build a new and religiously separate colony in the wilderness of North America.

We’re a long way from celebrating Thanksgiving in this troubling year of 2022, and this article is not about that great holiday.  But we Americans ARE struggling to survive as free people under a Constitution increasingly disrespected and ignored by those in our federal government who are supposed to be our “obedient servants”, but who have assumed the role of “overbearing masters”.  We’re cajoled and lied to by “our” own oligarchical  government and virtually ALL of the institutions we once trusted.  ALL OF THEM, particularly over these past two years of the “PLANDEMIC” attack by our enemies in the Chinese Communist Party, The Klan of New Bolsheviks (formerly the Democrat Party), the Centers For Disease Control, and that lying weasel, “Lord” Anthony Fauci! (You can add our no-longer-respected FBI and the Dept. of (In)Justice to that list).   

However, not enough modern Americans know the real story of the great struggles for survival that these Pilgrim men and women endured over the next several  years after 1620 in order to “obey God by resisting tyranny” (they had determined to resist the real tyranny of King James).  They really did “put their money (and their lives) where their mouths were”.  In that they are fitting examples of citizens—be they Christians, patriots, unbelievers, conservatives or liberals—of  people who became totally “fed up” with being dictated to—with being constantly MANDATED to obey some ecclesiastical group or the edicts of a sinful king—when those dictates and those mandates and those edicts were becoming antithetical to their Biblical understanding of what God expected of His followers.

These stalwart people, and many more of their brethren, had struggled for decades to reform, or purify, the existing Church of England, to which all of them were expected by English law to belong.  Eventually, this band of a few hundred souls—basically a single church congregation located at that time in Leiden, Holland, where they had fled to escape King James’ persecution—concluded that reforming the Church of England was impossible and, after a sojourn of 12 years among the more liberal Dutch people (to escape the persecution perpetrated upon them by King James and the Church of England), a portion of them volunteered to be the first of their congregation to venture to the New World and, in faith, begin a new colony that would be honoring to God’s Word.  And so they did! (Many non-believers—perhaps as many as one-third of these Mayflower adventurers-- also joined this “Plymouth Venture” for a “new start”, or as paid tradesmen to assist the separatist Christians in building the new colony’s buildings and infrastructure, or to escape their own “problems”.) 

Almost 402 years have passed since Plymouth Colony’s difficult and painful beginning.  The tiny village of “New Plimoth” (1620 spelling) has grown, along with historic Jamestown and St. Augustine (both of which preceded the “Plimoth Colony”), into a huge nation of 330 million.  However, I fear that our Pilgrim Forefathers and Mothers would have great difficulty in recognizing among Americans today the basic principles that guided them.  Those principles haven’t been totally obliterated yet, but they surely seem to have become “blurred”.  So why, we might ask, did these Pilgrims—believers and non-believers alike—and not all English-born—do what they did, and why don’t we place a higher value on their sacrifices for us?  Why have so many American “moderns” abandoned the faith of our Forefathers—the faith of their own parents and their stalwart ancestors?  Why are so many younger Americans so enthralled with the evil specter of “socialism” as the panacea for our national problems, when history tells us that it was “socialism”—or collectivism (same thing) that ALMOST DESTROYED THE FLEDGLING PLYMOUTH COLONY?  Apparently the truths of history are not all that important to many of our “moderns” here in the U.S.A.

The devout Christians among them knew that they were “pilgrims” sojourning through this life, fighting the spiritual (and physical) battles with which they were confronted.  Did they make these sacrifices for the purpose of self-gratification or vanity or trying to make themselves more holy than their countrymen?  I don’t think so.  I’m convinced that these brave and committed Christians did what they did to honor their Savior, Jesus.  Why did God call these people—members of ONE church congregation pastored by Rev. John Robinson in Leiden, Holland—to follow Him at such a great cost?  As Paul reminds us in the Word, and as they assured the people of their day, they were not especially wise—they surely were not  wealthy or influential in their world—and to those around them they were nothing but troublemakers, particularly to The Church of England’s hierarchy and to the English King, both of whom despised them.

But as so often happened in history, where faithful men and women have chosen to battle on God’s side, their Heavenly Father chose the “foolish things”—the weak people of that age and time—to shame those who thought they were too “wise” to believe in Him with all their hearts, minds, and strengthsGod chose both faithful and unregenerate people to serve His purpose and shame the strong and arrogant who had tyrannized these faithful ones for decades in their native land of England.  God chose the lowly and despised people of their world to change that world. Ultimately, these Pilgrims “saw the defeat of their adversaries, and their ears heard the rout of their wicked foes” (Psalm 92:11).

It’s fashionable (and politically correct in some intellectually-challenged circles) in our “enlightened” world of today to ridicule and castigate the Plymouth Pilgrims (who were NOT the “Puritans” who came in 1630 and began the Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded Boston), who came to these shores in 1620 and helped to begin the foundations of the still partially free nation we enjoy today.  We are constantly told, by historical illiterates and by those with big mouths, limited thinking ability, and hateful agendas in their hearts, that these Pilgrims were “hypocrites”, and “persecutors of the Native People”, that they “despoiled the pure and harmonious existence” of those indigenous people, and all because of their own “greed” and a desire to “force” their beliefs on others, and rape and pillage the “unsullied land” in order to send their “filthy gains” back to their English backers.  All of which emanates from the crock of horse manure that is sent forth as “accurate history” by the brain damaged liberals of our day.

There are only a few “grains of truth” among the vast field of fairy tales (lies) regarding the interactions of these first Pilgrim colonists with the Native People.  I’ll leave those arguments for others to discuss and resolve truthfully, and they already have been so resolved, in my opinion.  For those who have studied these events with open minds and a desire for truth, it is obvious that these imperfect people—these Pilgrims-- came to this New World for both religious and political freedom, concepts which were somewhat foreign to the majority of people of that day, a time when the evil and erroneous doctrine of the “Divine Right of Kings” was still in vogue throughout Europe.

Some in our time have questioned whether the price that they paid for this freedom was too high, considering that about half of them died that

first brutal winter—i.e. was the price they paid higher than the ultimate value that they, and eventually WE, received?  Good question.  Is the cost of freedom higher than the value received?  Is the battle that we, as Christians (and as patriots), choose to fight on God’s side too overwhelming for us in our time (sometimes it seems to be so), or are we to rely on God’s Word that, “if God be for us, who can be against us”?  What price can be placed on the freedom to worship God in our own way (or not to do so at all), without the threat of being destroyed by the State (a threat that was faced by the Pilgrims for the ENTIRE time they lived in England)?  Of what value is our ability to speak our own minds to our neighbors and fellow citizens, face-to-face, in the press or electronic media, without serious threats of government agents of tyranny coming to our door to arrest us for disagreeing with any current  politically correct despotism that they might try to force upon us?  (Of course, today there ARE increasing threats against our free speech here in the U.S.—and there ARE government agents coming to the doors of activist and concerned patriots, who have been harassed and arrested and imprisoned by the increasingly tyrannous U.S. federal government and its corrupted F.B.I and its subversive D.O.J., and the Communist dominated Biden Administration IS setting up a “Ministry of Truth”--a “Bureau of Disinformation” to control speech on the social media, and elsewhere if they can get away with it).

So I ask you, my fellow countrymen, as I’m sure  the Pilgrims asked themselves in times of stress and doubt—OF WHAT VALUE IS  FREEDOM AT ALL?  Each one of us must now and forever decide that in our minds, for “freedom” is a concept that exists ONLY as we will it to exist.  If we lose the will we most assuredly will lose the freedomThat choice is forever in our hands.  And to choose “freedom” has always been, is now, and forever will be, a conflict between the forces of free thought, speech, and worship, as exemplified by our Founders, and the forces of despotism and collectivism, to whom these liberties are a threat to their grand plans for a “New World Order”—for a “Great Reset” of all of mankind by the year 2030, according to their collectivist vision for humanity.  For those who are unaware, this battle to defend our freedom from the Commissars of Collectivism  is being fought all around our troubled country this very day. To deny this fact is to be DELIBERATELY blind!   If you are unaware that your freedom is at risk, especially now that the Klan of New Bolsheviks (formerly the Democrat Party) has dishonestly assumed control of our entire bloated federal government, you are living in a deliberate “fairy tale”, and you are likely to be gravely surprised when you discover the truth!  (And I DO mean “gravely”)!

We are currently about 1 1/2 years into the corrupt and incompetent and Marxist Biden Administration, and the level of dissatisfaction with the increasingly SENILE Comrade Biden and his band of crusading communists has risen to historic levels.  Fortunately, the paid prostitutes of the main stream media, along with the disgusting leftwing progressive politicians of The Klan of New Bolsheviks (formerly the Democrat Party), the despicable RINOS and pathetic Never Trumpers who couldn’t stomach “mean tweets” and less-than-perfect behavior from a President, the oligarchs of big business and big investment conglomerates—have been exposed as supporters of what patriots call “The Deep State” which, thanks to Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 and his only partially successful fight against those enemies of liberty during his troubled administration (and thanks to the decades long fight to expose these globalist enemies by patriot organizations like the John Birch Society and many others), has been discovered to be lurking in our body politic, like a giant venomous spider threatening to devour our free enterprise economic system and convert it into its deceitful web of a Marxist/progressive/socialist “utopia”, threats which have intensified since they were successful in forcing President Trump out of the White House in November of 2020 due to election fraud and cheating. (Be on guard against far more illegalities and fraud and cheating on the part of the communist Democrat Party, because with the projected major upset by the Republicans in the mid-terms this year, and by President Trump’s assumed running for POTUS in 2024, don’t be surprised if these enemies of our freedom come up with some new and even WORSE “plandemic” or some new WAR to give them an excuse to cancel these elections).

I fear that these Democrat Bolsheviks will do all they can to speed up their deceitful and Marxist “Great Reset” of all of humanity, as they press ever more desperately to continue the process of “collectivizing” our nation that has been on-going for over a hundred years (a CONSPIRACY that was growing in our midst even while George Washington was our first POTUS).  That conspiracy is pretty much out in the open now, and despite (or more likely because of) the seeming incompetence and ineptness of the Biden Administration and its senile leader, the communization of our country is proceeding at full steam ahead, and will only be stopped if enough Americans band together and tell these enemies of God and country that “we’re mad as blazes and we’re not going to take it anymore”. 

All of these serpents of sedition have become the servants of the “god” of this age, and have seemingly blinded the minds of half of our countrymen, to the extent that it appears they want to live in Marxist/socialist/tyrannical darkness, and in their brainwashed confusion they are becoming an existential threat to those of us who value our right to continue to live as free people in a free constitutional republic as envisioned by our Founders.  (Witness the violent fascist criminal MOBS who call themselves “anti-fascist”—AntiFa—and who stifle our precious First Amendment rights while in the pay of freedom-haters like the treacherous funder of fascism, George Soros, and his fellow billionaire anti-Americans.)

So, were the Pilgrims truly on God’s side in this eternal battle between the forces of His Light and Satan’s darkness?  I believe they were.  Despite their many failings, they set an example for those who continue their struggle in this day.  These weak but faithful ones were often hard pressed on every side, but they were not crushed.  They were often perplexed and confused, but God never abandoned them to the point of despair and resignation.  For decades they were persecuted in their native land, but they were never forsaken by the One who loved them and gave Himself for them.  God’s Grace was always sufficient for them, as it must be for those of us who today are called by HIS NAME—Christian! For the sake of their Savior, these Pilgrims “boasted” of their many weaknesses, so that Jesus’ Power could rest on them.  For the sake of their Savior they delighted in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, and in many difficulties.  There is no doubt that they were on the right side of the struggle of good versus evil that began before the dawn of creation, and will not end until our Savior, Jesus the Christ, returns to set  up His Kingdom on Earth.  This article’s title declares that THIS is the day to decide whom you will serve. I declare, in all my weaknesses, for God’s side in this battle!

As Joshua boldly stated long ago:  “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”  What about YOU?

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WHLambBioMug2

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, W. H. (Bill) Lamb is a graduate of Cleveland State University (Ohio); being graduated in 1960, he moved to South Carolina in 1964.  For many years he was an Industrial engineer, Chief Industrial engineer, and plant manager in the steel, electronics, and apparel industries in Ohio, South Carolina, and Alabama.  In his younger days, he was an avid hiker in the Southern mountains, a target shooter, and is still an avid student of both American history and ancient Egyptian history.

He is an avid and long-time writer, concentrating on political and cultural issues of concern to America's Christian Patriot community.  He was published in the Lancaster, S.C. "News" during the mid-to-late 1960's, and has been a Local Columnist published in the Greenville, SC The Times Examiner since 1999.  The late and great Christian Patriot, Col. Bobby Dill, was his first Editor. During those years he has had several hundred articles published in The Times Examiner, which he always refers to as "a great journal of truth"!  

He has had one book published, a 120-page novel set in our future, titled "The History of Our Future", and two unpublished  750-page sequels "Waiting in the Wings" to be published "someday".  Bill has been married to Barbara for 65 years, has two adult  (and aging) kids,  five grandkids, six great-grandkids, and a "feisty and opinionated" 80 lb. Pit Lab named Hayley, who admittedly runs the entire house.

A very long-time member, with Barbara, of The patriotic John Birch Society, he believes that it is the duty of ALL Christians to also be dedicated patriots and do everything possible to both resist the evil of collectivism that is smothering Western Civilization and to do his best to educate and motivate his fellow Americans in the preservation of our unique Constitutional Republic, and most importantly, to share the love of his Savior with others.