More Scriptural Parallels: The Pilgrims as a Living Commentary on Holy Scripture

 Brethren, the more we gaze upon these Separatist saints, the more we see the Word of God leaping off the page into real history. Their story is not merely “inspiring”—it is a divine typology. God wrote their voyage into the margins of our Bibles as a fresh exhibition of ancient truths. Here are more unbreakable parallels that ought to make every Bible-believing Christian fall on his face in wonder.

6. They were Abrahams, obeying the call to leave kin and country for a land they had never seen.

   “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went” (Heb. 11:8).  

   These Pilgrims forsook houses, lands, fathers, mothers, and the graves of their ancestors because Christ was more precious to them than England itself. They did not wait for a comfortable retirement package. They stepped onto the Mayflower with nothing but the promises of God in their hearts and the Geneva Bible in their hands. That is saving faith in shoe leather.

7. They were children of the Exodus, passing through the great deep while Pharaoh’s armies (persecution, famine, disease) drowned behind them.

   The Atlantic Ocean stood before them like the Red Sea. For sixty-six brutal days the winds howled, the timbers groaned, and one sailor who had mocked them was swept overboard in judgment. Yet the Lord “made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over” (Isa. 51:10).  

   When they finally sighted land, they fell on their knees on the deck of that stinking, rolling coffin of a ship and sang Psalm 107: “They that go down to the sea in ships… these see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.”

8. They were wilderness wanderers, learning that “man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD.”

   That first winter was their Sinai and their Kadesh-Barnea combined. Half of them went into graves on Cole’s Hill. Yet the remnant learned what modern Christians have forgotten: God will kill every idol we lean on until Christ alone is left. He starved them of comfort that they might be filled with Christ. He let the snow cover their graves so that the seed of a godly nation could spring up in the spring.

9. They were Nehemiahs and Ezras, rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in troublous times.

   With muskets in one hand and trowels in the other, they built houses while standing guard against attack. Every man worked with his weapon girded on his side. They knew that the church visible must be fortified against wolves without and within. They did not trust in alliances with the world; they trusted in the sword of the Spirit and the providence of God.

10. They were the church in the wilderness of Revelation 12—nourished by God while the dragon raged.

   “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.”  

   While the scarlet beast of Romanism and the counterfeit protestantism of Canterbury roared in Europe, God prepared a table in the wilderness for His true church. Plymouth was that place prepared. The Pilgrim fathers were that woman’s seed who kept the commandments of God and had the testimony of Jesus Christ.

11. They were Gideons, a tiny remnant against impossible odds.

   Only fifty-three saints survived that first winter to see the harvest of 1621. Fifty-three! Yet with those few the Lord shook a continent. He delights to take “the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” Never despise the day of small things. The Kingdom advances not by mega-church strategies but by faithful remnants who would rather die than compromise.

Beloved, when you read your Bible, do not read it as ancient history. Read it as present reality. The same God who called Abraham, led Israel, preserved a remnant in Babylon, sheltered His church in the wilderness, and planted a godly seed in New England is YOUR God.

He is still calling Abrahams out of Ur.  

He is still parting Red Seas.  

He is still feeding His people in wilderness places.  

He is still raising up separated, Bible-believing, psalm-singing, doctrine-honoring churches against all the power of hell.

And one day soon He will gather every Pilgrim—past, present, and future—around His throne, where we will cast our crowns before Him and sing with a loud voice:

“Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation!”

Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The true Pilgrims are ready.

DMMC

11-15-25