America and Britain are in grave danger today because most of our watchmen are blind. Here’s why.
Winston Churchill was a watchman crying in the wilderness.
How could so many of our leaders in the United States and Britain—almost all of them—have been so weak in dealing with Hitler? Why was the British Parliament thinking of disarming as Germany rapidly rearmed?
Across the Atlantic, America was assuming a similarly passive posture. We might have remained that way throughout World War II if Japan hadn’t directly provoked us at Pearl Harbor. As Edward R. Murrow said, “America didn’t enter into the war, they were bombed into it.”
Our leaders lacked the watchman quality of a strong leader like Churchill. He faced reality and spoke the truth in a dangerous world. Most leaders in the U.S. and UK lived in a weak world of illusion.
Martin Gilbert wrote the greatest biography ever of this great leader, Winston S. Churchill. In Volume 5, The Prophet of Truth, he wrote, “Into Europe’s ‘highly complicated and electrical situations,’ Churchill declared, ‘our well-meaning but thoughtless and RECKLESS PACIFISTS expect us to plunge with sweeping gestures,ENCOURAGED BY LONG-DISTANCE HALLOOS FROM THE UNITED STATES’” (emphasis mine throughout).
The U.S. was even more pacifist than Britain.
FROM THE FEBRUARY 2011PHILADELPHIA TRUMPET
n 1932, there were 2 million members in the Nazi Party; 400,000 men belonged to Hitler’s semi-military “storm troopers.” Three of the Nazis’ most strident demands were: 1) They wanted an end to the Versailles Treaty—a treaty to make the Germans pay for the damage they caused by starting World War i! 2) They wanted to rearm—something they were not allowed to do after World War i. 3) They demanded that German Jews be removed from all walks of German life.
This last demand should have alerted the world to where Germany’s rearmament would lead! Any good watchman should have understood and warned the people. Actually, there was only one prominent leader who was alarmed by what was happening in Germany. He spoke out publicly against it. That man was Winston Churchill. He wanted to see Britain strengthen its weak military. Yet Britain’s foreign secretary, Sir John Simon, was working feverishly to get the British government to rapidly and comprehensively disarm! His appeal gained strong and enthusiastic support. Other members of Parliament were also working to achieve that goal.
Winston Churchill was a watchman crying in the wilderness.
How could so many of our leaders in the United States and Britain—almost all of them—have been so weak in dealing with Hitler? Why was the British Parliament thinking of disarming as Germany rapidly rearmed?
Across the Atlantic, America was assuming a similarly passive posture. We might have remained that way throughout World War ii if Japan hadn’t directly provoked us at Pearl Harbor. As Edward R. Murrow said, “America didn’t enter into the war, they were bombed into it.”
Our leaders lacked the watchman quality of a strong leader like Churchill. He faced reality and spoke the truth in a dangerous world. Most leaders in the U.S. and UK lived in a weak world of illusion.
Martin Gilbert wrote the greatest biography ever of this great leader, Winston S. Churchill. In Volume 5, The Prophet of Truth, he wrote, “Into Europe’s ‘highly complicated and electrical situations,’ Churchill declared, ‘our well-meaning but thoughtless and reckless pacifists expect us to plunge with sweeping gestures, encouraged by long-distance halloos from the United States’” (emphasis mine throughout).
The U.S. was even more pacifist than Britain. Both nations made horrendous misjudgments about Hitler. We should be embarrassed even today by our shameful fear and weakness against one of the worst tyrants ever.
The big question is, did we learn anything from this towering mistake that almost cost us our freedom? Did Churchill’s example teach us why we made such colossal misjudgments? The answer is no to both questions.
Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat its catastrophes! Today a nuclear first strike is apt to win the next major war. So our margin for error is much smaller. That means we would have to stop a Hitler-type movement before it gained power.
Never was there a greater need for political and media watchmen!
We can’t afford the pacifist attitude we had before World War ii and survive nationally. Yet our pacifist attitude today is far worse than it was then. And China, Russia and other nations are exploiting that weakness.
One of Winston Churchill’s greatest biographers, William Manchester, said that Churchill “saved Western civilization” in World War ii—not just Britain and Europe.
How important is it that we learn from that civilization-saving history?
Henry Steele Commager wrote an introduction to Winston Churchill’s biography of his ancestor, Marlborough. In it Mr. Commager wrote, “… Churchill’s reading of history reinforced his early education to exalt the heroic virtues. He was Roman rather than Greek, and as he admired Roman accomplishments in law, government, empire, so he rejoiced in Roman virtues of order, justice, fortitude, resoluteness, magnanimity. These were British virtues too, and, because he was the very symbol of John Bull, Churchillian. He cherished, as a law of history, the principle that a people who flout these virtues is doomed to decay and dissolution, and that a people who respect them will prosper and survive.”
Learning lessons from great leaders of the past is critical to our national well-being. If we flout those heroic virtues of history, our nations are “doomed to decay and dissolution.” But if we respect and emulate them, we “will prosper and survive.”
That is “a law of history.” Our national survival is at stake!
The Lessons of History
Commager wrote, “[Churchill] accepted, instinctively, the attitude toward history which that century took for granted: that history, in the words of Bolingbroke, was philosophy teaching by examples. What is more, he was quite ready to stand there and point to the examples. Indeed we can say of Churchill what he himself wrote of Rosebery, that ‘the past stood ever at his elbow and was the counselor upon whom he most relied. He seemed to be attended by learning and history, and to carry into current events an air of ancient majesty.’
“Nowhere does this appear more simply than in the ‘Grand Theme’ which Churchill imposed upon his history of The Second World War: ‘In War: Resolution; In Defeat: Defiance; In Victory: Magnanimity; In Peace: Good Will.’ He read history as a stupendous moral scripture, and for him the writing was, if not divinely inspired, at least authoritative. More, it was straightforward and simple. History was a struggle between the forces of right or wrong, freedom and tyranny, the future and the past. By great good fortune Churchill’s own people—‘this island race,’ as he called them—were on the side of right, progress and enlightenment; by great good fortune, too, it was given to him to buckle these virtues onto him as armor in the struggle for a righteous cause.
“If history was philosophy teaching by examples, what lessons did it teach? …
“First, history was not just the pursuit of idle hours but was, itself, philosophy and, rightly read, furnished lessons which statesmen could ponder and apply.
“Second, history was both memory and prophecy. It provided the counsel and the solace of the long view both to the past and to the future. The contemplation of the ages which mankind had somehow endured, and survived, infused the student with patience, with humility, and with courage; the prospect of a posterity which, a thousand years hence, might pronounce the verdict that one generation had given to a nation ‘its finest hour’ encouraged resoluteness and hope, and strengthened the ability to confront crises that seemed insurmountable.
“Third, history followed great cycles: The same themes recurred, again and again, the same drama was played out, from age to age; and as men had somehow survived the vicissitudes of the past there was ground to hope that they might survive those of the present and the future. Thus four times Britain had fought to rescue Europe from the grip of a tyrant—Louis xiv, Napoleon, Kaiser William, and Hitler—and four times Britain had succeeded in saving Europe and, with it, the cause of liberty and justice. Here was a recurring pattern which augured well for the future of ‘this island race,’ and of mankind, for, as Churchill saw it, the welfare of mankind was inextricably intertwined with that of the English-speaking peoples.
“Fourth, history bore witness to the vital importance of national character, for character was as important to a people as to an individual, and every nation must be alert to defend and preserve it. That each nation had a special character Churchill did not doubt, and as he contemplated the long arch of centuries he was led to a fifth conclusion, that it was, above all, the English character which had lighted up the corridors of time, flickering now and then but mostly pure and clear and even luminous—the English character and that of England’s daughter nations around the globe.” Today, character isn’t even important enough to raise as a political issue in Britain and America!
Commager continued, “From all this flowed a sixth lesson, that the test of greatness was politics and war. …
“‘Battles,’ he wrote in the Marlborough, ‘are the principal milestones in secular history. … All great struggles of history have been won by superior will power wresting victory in the teeth of odds.’ [Our will power has been broken (Leviticus 26:19).] And elsewhere he concluded flatly that ‘The story of the human race is war.’ Like those statesmen he most admired, Marlborough, Chatham, Wolfe, Clive, Washington, Lee, he was himself a war leader; alone of great war leaders he was a great war historian.
“History—not least the history of war—taught a seventh lesson, and taught it not only to Churchill but through him: the vital importance of leadership”—another disastrous failure in Britain and America (Isaiah 3:1-4).
Education Has Failed Us
Today we hear many academic voices telling people that learning history is of little or no value. This is an extremely dangerous trend that may be too entrenched to correct.
This educational plague is rampant among the American and British peoples. And it seems that very few of our leaders understand what a colossal disaster it is!
Syndicated columnist George Will wrote this in his Dec. 23, 2001, column: “When history is taught at all nowadays, often it is taught as the unfolding of inevitabilities—of vast, impersonal forces. The role of contingency in history is disparaged, so students are inoculated against the ‘undemocratic’ notion that history can be turned in its course by great individuals” (Times Union).
He then implied that America probably would not have been born without the bravery and leadership of George Washington. We came dangerously close to losing the Revolutionary War.
Mr. Will wrote, “Two hundred twenty-five Christmases ago, history was being made around here. And recently Lynne Cheney … came here to advocate teaching history more extensively and more wisely than we currently do. …
“Cheney recalled a 1999 survey of college seniors at 55 elite colleges, from Princeton to Stanford, which revealed that only 22 percent knew that the words ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ are from the Gettysburg Address. Forty percent could not place the Civil War in the second half of the 19th century. … Twenty-five percent thought the pilgrims signed the Magna Carta on the Mayflower. … To the question of who commanded American forces at Yorktown, the most frequent answer was Ulysses S. Grant.
“Such questions should not be difficult for high school seniors. But at the time of the survey, none of the 55 colleges and universities required a course in American history. And students could graduate from 78 percent of them without taking any history course” (ibid.).
What a disturbing survey! Most of the students—78 percent—didn’t have to take even one history course!
Numerous authorities credit Winston Churchill with saving Western civilization. Churchill could not have accomplished that unparalled feat unless he had been steeped in history. It would have been impossible for him to become one of the greatest political watchmen ever without his profound understanding of history.
In spite of this recent World War ii history, our universities in America and Britain hardly require any courses in history. How important is a deep understanding of history? Massive fruits from Churchill’s life in World War ii loudly proclaim the importance of learning history.
How deplorable and dangerously lacking is much of our education today! These institutional leaders deserve the same contempt for not teaching history that most of them display toward teaching history.
It is inexcusable and deadly dangerous!
Educators are often out of touch with reality. And our people will pay the bloody price!
Educational institutions have produced most of our political and media watchmen today. The fruits are horrendously bad.
Most of these watchmen are ignorant of history and deeply confused in a world whose number one problem is that of human survival.
When are we going to wake up?
History Is Prophecy
Churchill made some astounding prophecies before and during World War ii. Many of them came true because of his profound understanding of history. He believed that history is prophecy.
He prophesied what Germany would do in World War ii because he understood German history so well. The Germans simply repeated what they had done so often in the past. For example, they not only started World War ii, they also started World War i! And many other wars before that!
How often have we heard that “history repeats itself”? It does—time and time again.
The Bible contains many prophetic books, including what are classified as the “major” and “minor” prophets. There also are “former prophets” in the Bible—comprised of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Samuel. These books are mostly about the history of Israel, but they are called former prophets for a reason: They were written by prophets and are filled with end-time prophecy. If we live the same lifestyles our forefathers did, we will attain virtually the same results—good or bad. History prophesies the fate of nations, whether they will thrive or collapse!
If we have a deep understanding of history, it’s much easier for us to learn Bible prophecy.
God always sends His watchman to warn Israel (that includes America and Britain) of imminent disasters. That is a historical fact.
Those who heed and support that watchman are protected from the catastrophes. They are also given majestic leadership roles in the imminent wonderful World Tomorrow. (Request our free booklet The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like.)