Having celebrated the 75th anniversary of VE Day, we are now approaching another significant milestone – the 80th birthday of what has come to be known as the Miracle of Dunkirk.
As I watched the old newsreels of that gloriously happy day in 1945 alongside the anecdotal contributions (tinged with pride and sorrow) of many veterans, I was stirred to indignation when a commentator suggested that it was the superiority of our Spitfires that effectively won the war.
The Debt We Owe
Now, I have a great love for those magnificent flying machines. We proudly display a painting of one in our home and I love to recall how my South African uncle flew them in defence of Britain, for which he was made a member of the Distinguished Service Order.
But I believe I am right in saying that we were vastly outnumbered by German weaponry in the early stages of the conflict, and the precision of their engineering was second to none – then as now!
Yes, our pilots (my Uncle Murray included) were very brave and Mr Churchill was right to declare: “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.”
In reality, we probably owe as much to the determination and strength of character of Mr Churchill. But more than all these, our nation owes everything to our heavenly Father who answered our desperate prayers by saving us from invasion and slavery.
The battle was indeed won ‘in the air’ – but through prayer to God, whose word declares: “’Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty” (Zech 4:6).
Spiritual Groundwork
The groundwork for our eventual victory was laid a few months earlier than the famous Battle of Britain. In May 1940, 338,000 soldiers were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, on the other side of the Channel.
As we stood on the brink of subjugation by a brutal enemy, King George VI called the country to a National Day of Prayer, duly held on 26 May 1940. Queues of earnest folk lined up outside churches all over the land in order to petition Almighty God for our deliverance – the queue outside Westminster Abbey snaked along for a quarter of a mile.
We were in a very desperate situation, which fortunately galvanised a frightened population into action – the only kind of action guaranteed to make a difference. As Jeremiah put it, the Lord says: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer 29:13).
Our nation owes everything to our heavenly Father who answered our desperate prayers by saving us from invasion and slavery.
Movies such as 'The Darkest Hour' and 'Dunkirk' – wonderfully produced as they were – do not tell the whole story. In fact, as with the BBC and other news media in these more secular days, it is not on their agenda to tell the whole truth as long as it makes for good drama.
So they depicted the undoubted bravery of hundreds of boatmen sailing across a dangerous stretch of water to rescue our stricken soldiers. The reality was that the sea had been becalmed, thus enabling so many little ships to speed to the rescue. In addition, the calm had been preceded by a storm which grounded German pilots who might otherwise have blasted those puny boats out of the water.
The real heroes were the ordinary men and women who got down on their knees to pray to our Father in heaven, who still – like Jesus on Galilee – calms the storm and steers endangered men to safety.
The prayer ministry of Rees Howells was born in the Welsh revival, which began in this chapel at Loughor, near Swansea, in October 1904. Photo: Linda GardnerLives Laid Down
Yes, astonishing though it may seem to the current generation, the war was won chiefly on the battlefield of prayer, led by men like Rees Howells, founder of the Bible College of Wales in Swansea, who literally fought the enemy on their knees.
It was in that vein that Howells and his students successfully steered us through the Dunkirk crisis. His biographer Norman Grubb writes that, throughout the war, “the whole college was in prayer every evening from 7pm to midnight, with only a brief interval for supper. They never missed a day. This was in addition to an hour’s prayer meeting every morning, and very often at midday. There were many special periods when every day was given up wholly to prayer and fasting.”
Howells told his students: “Don’t allow those young men at the Front to do more than you do here.” Over the Dunkirk period, he spent four days alone with God “to battle through and, as others have testified, the crushing burden of those days broke his body. He literally laid down his life.”1
No Greater Love
Jesus said: “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13) – words that are inscribed on war memorials all over the world, rightly honouring those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom.
Only, we are in danger of missing the point of what Jesus was getting at, as he immediately goes on to say: “You are my friends if you do what I command” (v14).
He was preparing them for his own sacrifice on the Cross. He was saying that no greater love would ever be shown than what the Son of God did for you and me as the Passover Lamb sacrificed for our sins. The blood he shed as he died in agony on that cruel Cross has brought life and immortality to mortal men, assuring us of the glorious hope of an eternity with him.
No greater love would ever be shown than what the Son of God did for you and me as the Passover Lamb sacrificed for our sins.
Putting it another way, Jesus also said: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
It is so encouraging to learn of the vastly increased numbers of people seeking solace from online church services amidst the current pandemic. As many are forced to face up to their mortality, they can be assured that Jesus has conquered death. He went through it for us and was raised to life as the ‘first-fruits’ of all who believe in him.
No-one ever showed greater love than this, giving his life for those he would call his friends! And he wants to be your friend, the only qualification for which is just to believe!
References
1 A Nation Reborn (Christian Publications International), pp97-98, quoting Rees Howells: Intercessor by Norman Grubb (Lutterworth Press).