Ezekiel 33:1-6 is an end-time prophecy about a watchman chosen by the people. No watchman in this world has fulfilled that role quite like Winston S. Churchill. He was a great leader whose role was prophesied in your Bible.
“Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people” (verses 1-3). Churchill delivered some powerful messages in the 1930s. He warned the people and the British government for a decade before they took any action against the German threat.
“Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand” (verses 4-6). What happened in World War ii, terrible as it was, would have been even worse if someone like Churchill had not fulfilled this prophecy.
This is an inspiring truth God has revealed to us. We can learn many lessons from this man.
I believe William Manchester wrote the single greatest secular book on Earth: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940. It is well worth studying. I believe there is a lesson to learn on every page. It tells you a lot about the Holy Roman Empire and the British Empire. And it is a great resource for learning how to formulate a military strategy spiritually. We are, indeed, in a spiritual war (e.g. 1 Timothy 1:18). We must overcome the devil, the god of this world, and win victories. This means we need a military strategy that provides direction for our life and ensures spiritual victories.
A Man of Concentration
Churchill did most of his writing from his home, Chartwell. He was unmistakably in charge of that place and ran it like clockwork. “His routine was absolutely dictatorial,” wrote F. W. Deakin, who worked closely with Churchill on his biography of the first duke of Marlborough. “He set himself a ruthless timetable every day and would get very agitated, even cross, if it was broken.” That is what it takes to do something great like what Churchill did or what Manchester did. These were both great men. One man made history, and the other understood it as probably no other author ever has.
Churchill had incredible concentration. You could see that in the major projects he took on. As Manchester wrote, “Churchill has developed what biographer Philip Guedalla calls a faculty for ‘organizing large works.’” He wrote four volumes on Marlborough,
four volumes on A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, six volumes on World War i titled The World Crisis, six volumes of The Second World War and many more great books.
He had big goals, and he fulfilled them. That is an example for all of us. He chose to organize large works that really mattered, and they are still read by people today. And he organized and wrote all those books while saving his country and Western civilization.
“Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works …” (Ecclesiastes 3:22).
Churchill certainly did that.
Churchill would spend, on average, six to eight hours preparing a 40-minute speech. He wrote his speeches in poetic form, separated into stanzas like the verses in the book of Psalms. They were deep, powerful messages structured in a very thoughtful way.
One leader at the time said no one man can do anything great by being an orator. Churchill, however, marshaled the power of words to warn! He mastered the English language and used words with great precision. What he said carried great impact. He stirred millions of people with those speeches. He worked, prepared and did all he could to reach people—and in so doing, he changed history! Churchill influenced the entire world, and still does to this day for people who really know about leadership.
Of course, he made his mistakes, even serious mistakes at times. But he was a leader par excellence—like no one else in World War ii.
God’s Church has the greatest message in the world. How well do we communicate it? At God’s schools, we teach our students to have precision in their writing, speaking and all they do. We teach them how to craft a message and speak with impact.
Whenever Churchill needed help in a subject he was not well versed in, he would bring in an expert. For example, he did poorly in math while at school and wanted to better understand scientific matters and work that required a lot of arithmetic. So he brought in Prof. Frederick A. Lindemann. Lindemann had a “matchless gift,” as Manchester described, “as an interpreter of science for laymen.” Lindemann helped Churchill understand the military technology that was being developed. He knew Churchill was a great man and loved to work for him. Lindemann served Britain immensely in helping Churchill. Lindemann was just one of a whole army of assistants Churchill used, especially with his large book series.
Churchill was also an avid painter. During the 1930s, when he was hated by many Britons, he said: “If it weren’t for painting, I couldn’t live. I couldn’t bear the strain of things.” Painting helped him see the beautiful things of this world. He really appreciated the simple beauties of nature.
The Fever of War
“Churchill was warning of Germany’s yearning for revenge, but the casual visitor to Berlin that fall of 1932 would have seen few signs of it,” wrote Manchester. Germany was out for vengeance because of World War i—a war the Germans started! Yet Churchill stood alone in speaking out against Germany’s intentions.
Historian John Lukacs said Churchill foresaw the issue of a vengeful Germany as early as 1924, when nobody else was even talking about it. Churchill spoke about how “the soul of Germany smolders with dreams of a war of liberation or revenge.”
The Germans want revenge today more than most people imagine. German officials say a lot of nasty things about United States President Donald Trump; they talk as if he were the worst criminal ever. A lot of that is yearning for revenge. Yet they ought to be thanking the Allies for defeating the sixth head of the Holy Roman Empire, the most brutal in history!
Adolf Hitler was a beast! That is the way Bible prophecy characterizes him. He didn’t think like a man. Just before World War ii started, a French author wrote in 1939 about meeting with a German ex-serviceman. “His fanatical tone alarmed me,” she recorded in her journal. “I tried to reassure myself with the reflection that an ex-serviceman is bound to hold militaristic views; yet how many such were there, who lived only for the moment when the great day of revenge would come? Never had I seen hatred shine so nakedly from any human face. All through our journey I did my best to forget it, but without success.”
This was the evil Churchill was warning against.
Churchill knew he was dealing with an evil man, but he did not know that this evil man was prophesied in the Bible to head an evil empire, the sixth resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire (Revelation 17:10). Other leaders of this empire were Justinian, Charlemagne, Otto the Great, Charles v commencing the Habsburg dynasty and Napoleon, who crowned himself emperor in 1804.
In 1933, “[t]he high fever of militarism was throbbing throughout Germany,” Manchester wrote. “Duff Cooper, financial secretary at the War Office in the early 1930s and a parliamentarian marked for higher office, spent September of 1933 driving through Germany and Austria. He wrote Winston that throughout the Reich, ‘everywhere and at all times of the day and night, there were troops marching, drilling, singing.’” Germany was preparing enthusiastically for World War ii.
Around the same time, a British lieutenant colonel wrote Churchill, saying, “I dined with four young Nazi students a week ago. They had been sent over to tell England what the Hitler movement was doing to the youth of Germany. It all sounded very unpleasant, though they seemed to like it! They made no secret of their belief that within three or four more years Germany would be at war.” These young Germans were excited that war was coming!
They attempted to exact their revenge in the 1940s, and they are preparing to do so again. That is the reality of this Holy Roman Empire beast.
World War i had dealt a mortal blow to the British Empire. Great Britain lost about a million men in that war. War is a terrible thing, and it is usually the young people who must do the fighting. Over half the Frenchmen between ages 20 and 32, just beginning their productive years—1,385,000 men—were killed between 1914 and 1918.
That awful history weighed heavily on people as Hitler began to emerge. Everyone was war-weary and terrified at the thought of another war.
Yet Churchill was trying to help people face reality. He wanted to prevent war through strength rather than through naive, hallucinatory pacifism and weakness. He warned of the militarism overtaking Germany. He urged people, especially the leaders, to brace for what was coming, but they just scoffed.
Empire in Decline
Throughout the 1930s, Britain was headed by mediocre leaders—addle-headed pacifists who would do anything to avoid war. The bbc and British media were into escapism rather than fighting for the empire. That rankled Winston Churchill. He loved the British Empire and all the good it could accomplish in this world, and he wanted it to live on.
The British Empire was the greatest empire there has ever been. At its height, it had 475 million subjects and covered a quarter of Earth’s surface. On Empire Day, schoolchildren would take off half a day to celebrate the world’s mightiest military and a magnificent imperial power unlike anything this world has ever seen.
That is the England Churchill grew up in and loved. Saving and preserving the British Empire was his main goal! Yet in the 1930s, “the Empire was, in Churchill’s gloomy words, on a ‘downward slurge,’” Manchester wrote. He just couldn’t keep people interested. The Empire was a gift from God—yet most of the leaders were bored with it!
Churchill didn’t see God’s part in it too well, but he knew the Empire was great and felt the world needed it. He had a great love for it because he saw the good that a great empire can do. This world needs that kind of blessing. There is so much suffering, it would make you cry to see certain places on this Earth! The way so many people are living and dying is truly sick. Churchill wanted to be part of the solution to those problems.
In November 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression, King George v said, “I cannot look into the future without feelings of no little anxiety about the continued unity of the Empire.” He could see its decline and felt helpless to stop it. But almost none of Britain’s leaders felt compelled to preserve and defend the Empire!
When Neville Chamberlain was prime minister, he said: “I don’t believe myself that we could purchase peace at a lasting settlement by handing over Tanganyika [former German territory confiscated under the Treaty of Versailles] to the Germans, but if I did, I would not hesitate for a moment to do so.” He was willing to give away parts of the British Empire for an illusory peace! Churchill was the opposite. If anyone had attacked that small colonial country in East Africa, Churchill would have gone to war to defend it. All his life, he was willing to fight for the Empire. Nobody fought for the British Empire like that man!
It dismayed Churchill to see the Empire’s mystique fading away. Even after World War ii, he was distressed because, though they had won the victory over Germany, they had lost the Empire!
Mankind so often fails to recognize the blessings God gives us and fails to thank God for those blessings. We need to realize how much America and Britain have been given. God has given us the greatest gifts He could give a nation, but now God is taking them away, and we will soon enter the Great Tribulation where we will pay the penalty for our ingratitude and for forsaking Him and our God-given responsibilities.
God’s Church is an “empire” in embryo—the beginning of the God Family Empire! Those in Churchill’s day were bored with the great British Empire in much the same way the Laodiceans became bored with God’s Family Empire taught by Herbert W. Armstrong. They decided they didn’t want to follow God’s truth and support that message anymore. Thus they have let Satan take them captive spiritually.
How could we be bored by what Mr. Armstrong taught or all the truth God is giving His Church today? Through Mr. Armstrong, God gave us everything (Matthew 17:11). But the Laodiceans received not the love of the truth, so they grew bored with it (2 Thessalonians 2:10). That is a shameful failure.
We must continually stir up our love for God’s truth and hunger and thirst for it all the time!
Unwillingness to Fight
“On Feb. 9, 1933, the Oxford Union voted 275 to 153 to approve the resolution ‘that this house will in no circumstances fight for King and country.’” That was an abominable declaration! That is the kind of weakness that Churchill was up against among his countrymen.
Hitler was coming on strong at that time. Churchill knew he was deadly dangerous, but few agreed. Stanley Baldwin, leader of the Conservative Party, foolishly implemented a policy of disarmament—though Germany was arming rapidly. And while Hitler gained strength, both Nazism and communism found sympathizers among British youth and intellectuals.
War is difficult. It is easy to want to shrink back from the challenge. People want to avoid unpleasant realities. But God’s people must face the truth and embrace the spiritual warfare we are called to fight. You must fight to be in God’s Church and to support this Work of warning the world!
War certainly is evil, but if you’re not going to trust God to save you, there are times when you have to fight. The British could have stopped Hitler and even prevented World War ii in 1936 if they had summoned the courage and the fighting spirit they needed. Hitler was very weak at that time—but he had a loud mouth, and they were afraid of him.
You must be courageous and be willing to stand up to those who are telling you wrong things and leading you the wrong way.
“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction …” (1 Thessalonians 5:3). That is a scathing prophecy about our day! When you hear great swelling words about peace, peace, peace, you know that sudden destruction is coming!
“[T]he ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly” (Isaiah 33:7). That is exactly what happened to all Britain’s pacifist leaders when World War ii exploded. It is about to happen again. Those educated people are not going to bring peace, despite their best efforts. Nations all over the Earth are enthusiastically preparing for war right now. Among their speedily proliferating arsenals are nuclear weapons! This world is on the brink of nuclear annihilation! But before they blot out humanity, God is going to intervene (Matthew 24:21-22).
We ought to have a passion for Christ’s Second Coming. Oh, how this world needs that. It is the only hope in this world!
Madman
This world is full of hatred. Anti-Semitism is rising just as it was before World War ii. Hitler’s great goal was to wipe out the Jewish race. But his hatred went beyond just that one race: He hated anyone who would challenge him. He wanted revenge for World War i. That is the way it is with the Holy Roman Empire. It is evil because the devil is leading it.
As Hitler prepared for revenge, British politics were besotted with lethargy and blindness. Germany was building a military juggernaut while Britain, America and other nations uttered platitudes and spoke smooth things.
Despite the obvious evils Hitler was perpetrating, many journalists really believed he wanted to make things better for Europe. His aim was the opposite! He had spelled out his intentions, beliefs and hatred in his 1925 book, Mein Kampf. Churchill knew all about Hitler’s views long before the German became chancellor. He knew Hitler needed to be watched, that he would commit great evil if he took power. And that is exactly what happened. This man was a beast! He did not think like a man! He was mad and Satan-possessed. Yet Britain wouldn’t listen to Churchill’s warnings. So often, people will not heed the truth!
The Times was supposed to be England’s greatest newspaper, but it was actually its worst. It reported that Germany only wanted military freedom. Churchill knew better and asked in May 1932, “Do you wish for war?” The way you’re going, it’s going to bring war!
The media often fails at important times. This is certainly true today. Most of them are ignorant of reality and are spreading insane and dangerous lies.
Hitler was able to transform Germany with astonishing speed. That is something the Germans have done numerous times throughout their history. Look at Europe today and notice how quickly it is changing. The Germans never thank America for raising them up from the ruins of World War ii. They have a growing contempt for America and a growing determination to militarize and dominate all of Europe!
They are more sophisticated today, but when they talk about how horrible President Trump is, a lot of that springs from their desire for revenge for World War ii! They have said that in the next war they plan to destroy America first because we provided the power that cost them victory in World Wars i and ii.
Have you noticed how quickly Germany is rising? We must be aware! World War iii is going to bring much worse destruction than this world has ever experienced! All the Holy Roman Empire needs is its strongman, who is going to hijack the whole operation and destroy mighty nations. Think of the armaments the Germans have and the terrible purposes they have for them. If we don’t have God protecting us, we are going to be their victims. That is reality.
God’s Work must remind people of Germany’s history and warn them of the prophecies about that nation! “So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman [and a prophet] unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me” (Ezekiel 33:7). It is our job to get this word out! It is from God’s mouth! We must do our job!
Following Wicked Men
This message isn’t just for the adults in God’s Church; God has a message for our youth. Boys in Germany under age 16 were subject to military training. The nation was recruiting pilots for the German Air Force, known as the Luftwaffe.
Chamberlain went to Munich in an attempt to make a deal, seeking to give Hitler everything he asked for. He was surrendering to Hitler at every stage. At one point, Chamberlain came back with a little piece of paper and said: We have peace now! Hitler has given us peace! That “peace” hardly lasted a month before Hitler was on the move again.
Munich is very close to Dachau, the concentration camp where some 5,000 prisoners were living in the worst possible conditions and dying horrific deaths. Prophecy shows that this history is about to repeat itself on a much larger scale! We cannot just push this aside!
The coming strongman is going to hijack the whole of Europe. He is going to be possessed by Satan and take people where the devil wants them to go. So many people are willing to follow the devil. God holds us accountable for whom we follow and whom we fight against!
Hitler and the Nazi leaders were the lowest people in Germany and Austria. They were fanatic hooligans, right out of the sewer! People knew they weren’t normal, sound-minded people. Yet they followed them.
The Daniel 8 man is going to be someone this world and men in high places will worship. Hitler wasn’t like that coming strongman; he wasn’t nearly as intelligent. He knew a lot about evil and how to build a military. Of course, he was possessed by the devil, but even before he was possessed, he was an insane human being. You can read Mein Kampf and plainly see that he wasn’t mentally sound. But people didn’t believe what he wrote. They reasoned that it was written years prior and he no longer believed it. In reality, his beliefs had intensified!
If evil men write books about what they are going to do, we had better believe them! Barack Obama came and said, “We’re going to fundamentally transform America.” And did he ever! God is exposing that history. Soon, He is going to expose all those evil people.
Be Willing to Fight
When Hitler first started moving Germany in the direction of war, they had little power. Churchill pleaded with his country to attack at that time. If Britain and the Allies had confronted the Nazi regime early on, they could have beaten them easily, preventing World War ii altogether! Instead, they let the Nazis get stronger and stronger until Germany had the world’s greatest military.
The British and American leaders were fearful of Hitler. They were so scared, they forgot all about character and standing up to fight for their country! Hitler would invite them to come talk to him, and they forgot their duty and their standards. They were eager to give Hitler whatever he wanted.
One man stood out as exceptional. Churchill was willing to take on that dictator, and he was prepared to fight until he died or Hitler died. Churchill wasn’t afraid of him—and that really bothered Hitler! Churchill would stand up to him—unlike everyone else who would tell him what he wanted to hear.
Yet Churchill was isolated and excluded from British politics. So what did he do? At his home at Chartwell, Churchill built a kind of independent intelligence agency!
One man changed history! It’s amazing what one person can do. God’s people can change a lot of things if we fight—because we have God behind us. That is real power.
We must be willing to fight. People die in this war occasionally, but God protects His people because they aren’t afraid of Satan and they overcome the devil. God’s people are ready to take on the devil. We have to stand up for our rights and God’s truth.
I’m sure that our battling the Worldwide Church of God in court for six years made people realize that we will fight for our rights. We will fight, and we will win! We are a little flock, but we can accomplish powerful things because God is with us! We must obey Him and trust Him and rely on His power to guide us to where we need to be.
This is Satan’s world, and we must have God guiding us and helping us. Look at the success He gives us when we do. We are the sons of God! We speak like God! We speak like this Bible! And God loves that, and He backs and supports us.
When Jesus Christ returns, He is going to fight the kings of the east and the king of the north. Two hundred miles of the Valley of Jehoshaphat are going to be filled up to the horses’ bridles with blood! These radical warmongers like to kill people and spill their blood, so God will give them a real taste of their own medicine!
This is the way this world is. But we need not fear anyone. We just fear God!
The Mistake of Disarmament
As Hitler was rearming Germany, most European leaders were aiming for large-scale disarmament. That is how they thought they would achieve peace. Stanley Baldwin, Britain’s prime minister from 1935 to 1937, said disarmament was the only path to peace. Churchill knew better.
Churchill could recognize that Britain’s worst enemy was its own government! The leaders were afraid to fight. They were lying; they weren’t actually doing what they had promised. They thought somehow they could work together with Hitler to prevent a war. If not for Churchill, they all would have died, and a lot of them did.
These nations pushing for disarmament actually caused war! In this world, weakness invites attacks.
Churchill said, “England’s hour of weakness is Europe’s hour of danger.” He saw the danger in what was happening. They called Churchill a warmonger, but he was the one speaking out, trying to prevent war.
Manchester wrote, “The goals of disarmament were admirable, but they would never be ‘attained by mush, slush, and gush,’ as Churchill put it.”
When Hitler took the Rhineland, he was taking a gamble that they wouldn’t retaliate. He knew that if Britain and its allies came after him, he would have to retreat; his military simply wasn’t strong enough to win. These European nations were committed by a treaty to push back if Germany ever entered the Rhineland, but Hitler believed they probably wouldn’t do anything—and they didn’t. That was a major signal of their stunning weakness and of the opportunities it presented Hitler for further conquest!
The British people just wanted a “quiet life.” Even with dangers mounting, the British soldiers always took weekends off! They were about to die as a country because they wouldn’t listen to Churchill, and they were still acting as though everything were normal. Hitler knew this and took advantage of it.
Everyone wants a “quiet life.” God’s people are not called to a quiet life! We’re called to proclaim a message that many people will hate as time goes on! But it is the truth they need to hear, and we must do our duty to give it to them.
Appeasement Means Defeat
Throughout the 1930s, Britain’s leaders were talking incessantly about appeasement. Churchill was deeply upset. Yet so often, his speeches in Parliament would elicit groans, or people would just get up and walk out while he was speaking. They treated him horribly. His opponents would speak against him, and members of Parliament would give them standing ovations. Churchill and his small group of followers would just sit there and take it.
Even today, Churchill is unpopular in the United Kingdom because its people learned nothing from World War ii. They should have learned these lessons, but they still love appeasement.
Margot Asquith, the wife of one of Britain’s prime ministers, told Churchill that Hitler needed to be “met with Christian love.” This world’s version of Christian love is phony. You had better make sure you have God’s real love.
People will quote Christ about turning the other cheek, but when faced with evil such as Hitler was committing, turning the other cheek is not the reaction that is called for.
Hitler would make strong statements and issue strong demands, and people would just bow to him! They wouldn’t even call him a dictator. However, Winston Churchill did so all the time. He said, I’d never, ever negotiate with that evil man. Hitler certainly knew where Churchill stood! That’s a wonderful example for us, and we must draw the spiritual lessons out of this.
Britain’s leaders were afraid to offend Hitler. They wanted so much for him to become a better man so everything would be OK, but he just kept taking their countries and killing their people. Hitler needed to be offended! We won’t find peace and justice with such a man. We need to call a dictator a dictator.
Most of these people didn’t understand human nature. They didn’t believe God when He says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked …” (Jeremiah 17:9). That’s human nature! If someone is giving full expression to that evil heart, as Hitler did, then we need to confront him! That is what God’s Church must do.
Confidence and Courage
Throughout the 1930s, Churchill was getting information and intelligence on German rearmament from people in the Foreign Office who were putting their careers at stake. Superior men and women would come and give him statistics they knew he didn’t have and secrets he needed that the government was unwilling to share. This got some of them into a lot of trouble, even being imprisoned. They were willing to chance that because they knew Churchill would get that vital information out to the people! The real lovers of the Empire began to emerge. They were ready to stand up to their lying, evil leaders who were weak and incapable of ruling.
Intellectuals today turn up their noses at patriotism. They are self-abasing regarding national pride and their history with God.
As God’s people, we certainly don’t want to be prideful, but we also don’t want to go around acting like we’re nobody! We are God’s sons! We have a Father, and we have Jesus Christ as Head of this Church! They are unimaginably strong and powerful. We have to know that and use their strength and power, and we must have the will to do everything God wants us to do. Oh, how that gives us victories!
Winston Churchill had the power, confidence and courage to keep warning about the mounting dangers. Though his influence in Parliament was minimal, he went straight to the public by publishing articles in newspapers and magazines. He always managed to keep himself in the public eye because he knew he was right. What a power he was!
One individual who was living in Germany in the 1930s said, “Winston was a tower of strength and comfort to us ….” Was he ever!
Still, the political class called his messages vitriolic; they called his fears of Germany groundless. Throughout the 1930s, they branded him with some of the most awful adjectives and titles you could imagine. He didn’t look and talk like the rest of Parliament.
On one occasion, while an opposition speaker was delivering his address, Churchill lowered his head and was swinging it back and forth. The speaker said, “I see my right honorable friend shaking his head. I wish to remind him that I am only expressing my own opinion!” Churchill retorted, “And I wish to remind the speaker that I am only shaking my own head.” He had a good sense of humor and wit, even in dealing with considerable backlash.
As time goes on, God’s Work is going to have to say more and more things that people don’t like. We are here to trumpet God’s message and give people a chance to hear the truth, no matter the consequences.
But God says, I am with you! That is a powerful and a wonderful statement of a loving Father. Always remember those four words. He means every word! God loves to see people have courage when they are doing something righteous!
Be Specific
When Churchill spoke, he was specific. Mr. Armstrong was the same way. We need to be specific. A watchman and a prophet must give specific statements on specific issues and subjects. We have to tell this world truths that they need to understand.
Under the Versailles Treaty that ended World War i, Germany was prohibited from rearming. Most of Britain’s leaders didn’t believe that Hitler would start a war, but Churchill knew otherwise. He warned, “Do not delude yourselves. Do not let His Majesty’s government believe—I am sure they do not believe—that all that Germany is asking for is equal status.” That’s what Britain’s leaders were saying: Germany just wants equal status. “That is not what Germany is seeking,” Churchill continued. “All these bands of sturdy Teutonic youths marching through the streets and roads of Germany, with the light of desire in their eyes to suffer for their fatherland, are not looking for status. They are looking for weapons.” That is a strong and specific exposure of the truth!
One could see in the Germans’ eyes that they wanted to fight for their country. Yet Britain’s college students refused to fight at all. The 1933 Oxford Union resolution that said the House would in no circumstances fight for King and country had, as Manchester wrote, “aroused Churchill’s wrath. He called it ‘an abject, squalid, shameless avowal,’ a ‘very disquieting and disgusting symptom.’ Its impact abroad, he said, would be disastrous. He thought ‘of Germany with its splendid, clear-eyed youth marching forward … burning to suffer and die for their fatherland,’ and of ‘Italy with her ardent Fascisti.’ He said: ‘One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of manhood of all these peoples when they read this message sent out by Oxford University in the name of young England.’”
We have young people in God’s Church today who are fighting and achieving wonderful things. They are gaining an education and learning to fight for the truth. We need our young people today to be ready to fight for the truth, even die for it if necessary. The truth is the only thing worth fighting for—the truth that God is re-creating Himself in man! We need to get that message into our mind and out to this world.
Here is another example of Churchill being specific. While Churchill was visiting Oxford in 1934, one young German scholar asked him, “Does Mr. Churchill believe that the German people, the men and women who live in Germany today, are responsible for the war? Would he please answer ‘yes’ or ‘no.’” Manchester described: “Winston looked straight at him and replied: ‘Yes.’” Of course they’re guilty! If they follow Hitler, they’re guilty of that! They’re following a beast—Satan the devil!
God replies with the same resolute conviction. Think about the Laodiceans—are they guilty? God says, Yes!
When Churchill said “Yes,” Manchester wrote, “[t]he youth bowed to him and, amid tremendous applause from his fellow students, walked out of the hall.” The students at Oxford gave this show of disrespect tremendous applause! That is the shameful attitude Churchill had to fight.
Churchill’s “indictment of Hitler was specific. He believed him to be a congenital liar and was convinced … Hitler or his followers would seize the first available opportunity to resort to armed forces.” Other leaders called Hitler a great man—until events proved that to be a terrible fallacy! But Churchill called him what he was: a congenital liar.
We all can learn to be more specific about what we say and do. Obviously, we need wisdom, but God has given us a message for this world. He expects us to broadcast it and tell people the truth, even though they’re not going to like it. But who’s going to be right? Who’s going to be blessed? Who’s going to be protected? God is going to protect His Family, and that is a great blessing.
Exceptional Perception
In addition to being specific, Churchill had exceptional perception.
For 12 years, Churchill stalked Hitler. Nobody else paid Hitler any notice, but Churchill kept telling people where he was going and what would happen if he wasn’t stopped.
Even before the Nazis came to power, Churchill was warning “the House of the imminent threat in central Europe,” wrote Manchester. “His perception was exceptional; an extraordinary number of his peers were completely hoodwinked.”
His perception was exceptional. I like that expression. Merriam-Webster defines perception as “awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation.” We need to be exceptional in our perception and learn to do that to the best of our ability. God can help us see a lot of what is going on that others don’t see. We need exceptional spiritual perception, and God will give it to us! He will give us everything we want if we really go after it with the right attitude. Spiritual perception keeps us alive.
In 1924, when Hitler was just beginning to make a little bit of noise, Churchill perceived what was coming. Churchill continued to dig until he got to what he was trying to discover. He saw over the horizon much farther than most people could see. He saw that Hitler had a passion for violence and had surrounded himself with ruthless men. What are you going to do when you see that? Are you going to just praise them, or will you fight?
Most of Britain’s leaders were praising Hitler! Look at the suffering and the millions of people who died because these men were so blind. They were setting their own traps because Hitler wasn’t seeking peace.
“I do not know where Germany’s parliamentary system stands today, but certainly military men are in control of the essentials,” Churchill said in Parliament before Hitler was chancellor. “To him,” Manchester wrote, “the peril was clear. If the Germans were permitted to reassemble their military juggernaut, every nation bordering the Reich would be in mortal danger. These, he said, were the facts. The British people were being told lies.” The government was feeding the people lies!
“[A]mong the documents to reach Chartwell was a Foreign Office assessment of Britain’s defenses. The Foreign Office had found them pitiful. To double the blow, military intelligence reports, which also found their way to Churchill in the mid-1930s, disclosed that Germany had begun to rearm even before Hitler came to power. Winston learned that the British Embassy in Berlin, submitting its annual report in 1929, had stated that ‘the necessary jigs and patterns and gauges for the manufacture of modern weapons are being prepared and stocked in various factories all over Germany.’” Yet people just wouldn’t believe that Hitler’s goal was war!
Churchill could see that Hitler was a dictator. He was a beast. But what were Britain’s politicians discussing? “The prime minister and his cabinet had developed a ‘habit of saying smooth things and uttering pious platitudes and sentiments to gain applause,’” Manchester quoted Churchill as saying.
Churchill never spoke just for the applause or to give the people smooth things. He told them the truth.
A More Sure Word
Churchill was a powerful speaker. “Splendid prose, wrote [philosopher William] Hazlitt, should be accompanied by vehemence and gesture, a dramatic tone, flashing eyes, and ‘conscious attitude’—a precise description of Churchillian delivery.”
God’s Church has Spokesman Clubs and speech classes so we can learn how to speak effectively and help get God’s message out to this world. We are going to offend a lot of people. In fact, it will get to the point where the land cannot bear our words! (Amos 7:10). We will be kicked out of our country, which will likely be a step leading to us fleeing to the place of safety. But we will have to leave because, very shortly, this world is not going to be a safe place. It will descend into the worst suffering ever on this planet!
“The survival of Britain was now the main matter, and Churchill said about that, ‘It was grave in the UK: Blood, toil, tears and sweat.’” We have a message like that ourselves. Sometimes, we have to talk about blood, toil, tears and sweat.
For years, Britain had to sweat and fight and shed tears as its people died. And we have to tell them that such warfare and suffering is coming again.
Winston Churchill called World War ii “the Unnecessary War.” It should have been prevented! And it could have been if Britain had just listened to him. He kept trying to tell Parliament that Germany was on a world-war footing. France had a superior army; Britain had a superior navy. But they wouldn’t do anything.
We must be confident like Churchill was. Be confident in our spiritual war! We have every reason to be confident and to walk by faith—and oh, what a difference it makes when we do!
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19). We have a more sure word of prophecy; we have to get it out to this world and let people see and understand these prophecies!
As far as I’m concerned, Winston Churchill was one of the most outstanding men in the world. There are many, many lessons we need to learn from him—wonderful lessons about how to succeed and how to live without fear, except fear of God. These lessons show us a lot of what is coming in the next war. Germany is again militarizing and preparing for war. It is about to start World War iii! It is preparing for that right now.
Realize that we are in war. We are here to fight a war! Let’s make sure that we give it everything we have and thank God that we can have a part in it.