We Have a Guardian
Has Britain been Shielded?
Preserved: St Paul’s Cathedral, 29 December 1940
A glance at past history shows that Britain and the Anglo-Saxon peoples times without number might have met defeat and disaster, had it not been for circumstances entirely beyond their control.
Seldom have they been ready for war, yet invariably they have muddled through to victory. This strange tendency has often been referred to as “Britain’s Luck”; others have spoken of it as the “Unseen Hand in English History.” A writer in one of our leading newspapers once summed it up thus:
“It is when Britain is in danger of invasion or her liberties are threatened; it is when ruin seems to the bravest of heart inevitable, that we see emerging factors entirely beyond the control of man that somehow avert the danger and contribute to security . . .”
Is it strange that the promises of victory and deliverance found in the Bible given to Israel seem to apply to Britain and the family of her kindred peoples? Many believe that today Israel is the Church; but by no stretch of the imagination can the Church be called a Nation; furthermore, Israel was to become “a Nation and a company of Nations” (Genesis 35:11).
Moreover Israel was to be called after ‘Isaac’ – “In Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Genesis 21:12). Has the word Isaac ever been associated with the Church? Shortly before the end of World War II, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Wilson, wrote an article in the Sunday Chronicle. He said:
“If ever a great nation was on the point of supreme and final disaster and yet was saved and reinstated, it was ourselves . . . It does not require an exceptional religious mind to detect in all this the Hand of God. It has been a miracle and the person who does not recognize that is impervious to the deeper significance of events. We have been saved for a purpose; let that be acknowledged . . . Our Empire has a mission to discharge to the world.”
It is when we consider the overall pattern of events in Britain’s history of defending freedom from the oppressor that we most clearly realize Almighty God was with us, directing our strategy, protecting our land, using us as His instruments in the overthrow of tyranny; yet, permitting us to be afflicted, for our correction.
The Divine promise to Abraham and his seed when he returned from his victory undertaken in faith against great odds to liberate Lot and his family stated: “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” (Genesis 15:1). This promise was extended to his descendants, for Moses said to Israel: “The eternal God is thy refuge . . . He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them . . . Who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help” (Deuteronomy 33:27, 29).
Where is Israel today? A small portion of course is found among the Sephardic Jewish community, the remnant of the House or Kingdom of Judah. Israel’s homeland, and due to come, was to be somewhere away from Palestine – in an “appointed place” (II Samuel 7:10); in fact Isaiah and Jeremiah both locate it as being some ‘isles’ (Isaiah 24:15; 49:1; Jeremiah 31:10). There is a promise which may be a comfort to us in the days ahead: “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper” (Isaiah 54:17).
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Kingdom Foundation
121 Low Etherley, Bishop Auckland, Co Durham DL14 0HA, United Kingdom.
Tel: 01388 834395 Email: michael@thekingdomfoundation.co.uk
2017
