May 1940 was a time of grave crisis for the British Empire and for the whole civilized world….Winston Churchill feared that it would be his hard lot to announce the greatest military disaster in our long history while on 27th May, The German High Command announced:

The British army is encircled and our troops are proceeding to its annihilation.

With the entire front collapsing rapidly, the decision was reached at home to evacuate our forces from the Continent.

But the only port from which to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force was Dunkirk, and that was already being seriously threatened by the Germans. Churchill said:

I thought – and some good judges agreed with me – that perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 men might be re-embarked. …The whole root and core and brain of the British army … seemed about to perish upon the field or to be led into captivity.”

All therefore seemed about to be lost. But, Britain had a godly king. Seeing this situation developing, his majesty king George VI requested that Sunday, 26 May should be observed as a National Day of Prayer.  In a stirring broadcast, he called the people of Britain and the Empire to commit their cause to God.  The whole nation was at prayer.  

Together with members of the Cabinet, the King attended Westminster Abbey, and millions of his subjects in all parts of the Commonwealth and Empire flocked to the churches to join in prayer. The whole nation was at prayer on that Sunday. Photographs would be seen of people queuing to attend the service that Abbey itself was so overcrowded!

So much that the following morning the Daily Sketch exclaimed, “Nothing like it has ever happened. In its hour of deep distress a heart-cry from both monarch and the people alike was going up to God in prayer. And that cry did not go unanswered. For very soon at least three miracles then happened:

The first was that for some reason—which has never yet been fully explained—Hitler overruled his generals and halted the advance of his armored columns at the very point when they could have proceeded to the British army’s annihilation. They were now only ten miles away!

A second miracle was a storm of extraordinary fury broke over the Flanders on 28^th Tuesday May, grounding the German Luftwaffe squadrons and enabling the British army formations, now eight to twelve miles from Dunkirk, to move up on foot to the coast in the darkness of the storm and the violence of the rain, with scarcely any interruption from aircraft, which were unable to operate in such turbulent conditions.

The Fuehrer had obviously not taken the weather into his reckoning, nor the One who controls the weather.

The third miracle was despite the storm in Flanders, a great calm-such as has rarely been experienced settled over the English Channel during the days which followed, and its waters became as still as a mill pond…this enabled a vast armada of little ships, big ships, warships, privately owned motor-cruisers from British rivers and estuaries to ply back and forth in a desperate bid to rescue as many of our men as possible. As a result 335,000 men of the British army were evacuated from Dunkirk! 

There were many so many ships involved in the evacuation that this is the way in which Douglas Bader, the legless Spitfire fighter ace, who sped over with his squadrons from the fighter base at Martlesham, near Ipswich, to help cover the operation, described the scene in Fight for the Sky:

The sea from Dunkirk to Dover during these days of the evacuation looked like any coastal road in England on a bank holiday. It was solid with shipping. One felt one could walk across without getting one’s feet wet, or that’s what it looked like from the air.

There were naval escort vessels, sailing dinghies, rowing boats, paddle-steamers, indeed every floating device known in this country. They were all taking British soldiers from Dunkirk back home. You could identify Dunkirk from the Thames estuary by the huge pall of black smoke rising straight up into a windless sky from the oil tanks which were ablaze just inside the harbor.”

Many miracles happened that many of the troops on the beaches were favored with a strange immunity. When about 400 men were being machine gunned and bombed, systematically, by about sixty enemy aircraft, one man who flung himself down with the rest reported that, after the strafing was over, he was amazed to find that there was not a single casualty.

Another man, a chaplain, was likewise machine-gunned and bombed as he lay on the beach, after what seemed like an eternity, he realized he had not been hit, and rose to his feet to find that the sand all around where he had been lying was pitted with bullet holes, and that his figure was outlined on the ground. Truly, amazing things were happening. There were signs on every hand that an intervening Power was at work.

Officers and men alike had seen the hand of God, powerful to save, delivering them from the hands of a mighty foe who humanly speaking, had them at his mercy. Many historians have concluded that the turning point of World War II happened at Dunkirk.

The outcome of the war was not ultimately determined by the United States army after Hitler had attacked Russia. The defeat of Hitler began when thousands of people humbled themselves and fell on their knees and prayed that God Almighty God would save their nation, and in His mercy and grace He did the save the nation and ultimately the rest of the civilized world.

Never are we to dismiss the power of prayer. Dunkirk provides overwhelming evidence that God indeed answers desperate prayer whether from individuals or nations.

Much of these miracle events I share came from a book The Trumpet Sounds for Britain written by David E. Gardner

The National Days of Prayer, fasting and humiliation are from the state not the church. They are from examples of Old Testament Kings of Israel like Jehoshaphat, who called the people to prayer when Israel was threatened with war with the surrounding nations.

Jehoshaphat committed the situation to the Lord, because he acknowledged that only God could save a nation. He professed complete dependence on the Lord and took comfort in His promises and deliverances. And indeed God was faithful and He fought for Israel (see 2 Chronicles 20).

The power of prayer and fasting to shape history in Britain’s Biblical Christian heritage can be demonstrated in the example of the King George VI in which God delivered the nation of England through a series of miracles that saved Britain and civilization as a whole.

The Lord had raised godly leaders at that time just like He raised King Cyprus. One man was King George VI who is reportedly to have been a man of prayer. There is a little known story of the days when King George VI was in the Royal Navy. His personal messenger was instructed to visit his cabin at certain times every day. He was to knock, enter and await instructions.

One day the messenger carried out his instructions and found the Prince on his knees, praying. A little embarrassed, the man stood and waited. After a few minutes, the king-to-be rose to his feet, put an arm around the messenger’s shoulders and said: “If ever you find me on my knees, remember there is room for you by my side.”

In a poem read to the nation by King George VI in his Christmas Day broadcast 1939:

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied, “Go into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.

Just as the preaching of John and Charles Wesley saved Britain from the French revolution, today the spiritual vaccum of the post Christian society has allowed a flood-tide of secularism to threaten Britain’s Christian heritage.

In his dairy John Wesley tells us that in 1756, King George II called Britain for a day of solemn prayer and fasting because of an impending invasion of the French. Wesley wrote,

The fast day was a glorious day, such as London has scarce seen since the Restoration. Every church in the city was more than full, and a solemn seriousness sat on every face. Surely God hears prayer, and there will yet be a lengthening of our tranquillity.

Wesley later added “Humility was turned into national rejoicing for the threatened invasion by the French was averted.”

So when King George VI called a nation to pray, seven times God answered miraculously, within days of the nation humbling itself and praying.  These days of prayer called by the king during the World War II saved Britain from Hitler. Most of us believe that once more we must rise up in prayer to resist the enemy within our gates.

In his trilogy, entitled, The Trumpet Sounds for Britain, David E. Gardner traces in detail how God has intervened in many instances in English history in order to ensure that the Protestant Christian position in England should continue to be maintained.

Rev. Gardner went to be with the Lord in 2002 just before the trilogy was republished. He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War when an emergency on a submarine caused him to recognise the miraculous deliverance of God.

This personal experience of God’s miraculous intervention helped him to understand what God had done for the people of Britain as a whole, many times in their history. He recognised the signs of decline of Britain from its biblical-Christian heritage. He was the watchman on the wall who researched, wrote and published pamphlets and books to call the nation back to God through repentance and prayer.

He takes us back from victory with the Spanish Armada which was so decisive that the shadow of Spanish power—which for thirty years had darkened the political scene and how it was removed. He points out that let us never forget that it was Almighty God who had changed the course of the British history.

All this was due entirely to these mighty interventions which had brought about such an utter defeat of the Spaniards. The Spanish Empire had already extended its dominions to the West Indies and the western coast of the South American continent as far as Mexico and Peru.

There had been plot after plot in England to overthrow her protestant Queen and to reintroduce the Roman Catholic faith in the realm, and all these attempts had been encouraged by King Phillip himself, by the Pope, and by English Roman Catholic exiles operating against England from the Continent.

But God in His mercy gave England the victory. Then first forward in 1918 during World War I , the Germans had broken through the Allied line, there were heavy causalities, and reserves were practically exhausted and the situation was becoming quite desperate for the Allied armies.

What happened next is described in an article which appeared in the winter 1942 Journal of the Brigade of Guards as quoted by David E. Gardner:

As the break-through continued, “The Germans concentrated high explosive and machine-gun fire at Bethune, in Belgium, the focal point of their advance, preparatory to a bayonet attack in mass formation. Suddenly the enemy shell lifted and concentrated on a slight rise beyond the town. The ground here was absolutely bare—yet enemy machine guns and shells raked it from end to end with a hail of lead. As suddenly as it started, the enemy’s fire ceased.

The dense line of German troops, which had started to move forward to victory in mass formation, halted dead. And as the British watched, they saw that line break! The Germans threw down everything they had—and fled in frantic panic. How did this happen? Gardener’s father who was in action during the war told him about what really happened and he Gardner came across an authentic account of what happened and why there was a sudden turn of events.

I will not go into the details of the exact account, but according to one senior German officer, a member of the Prussian Guard who was taken prisoner immediately afterwards, the explanation was there was an Angel called “English White Calvary” which was plain to those who were there, both German and British. They were all aware that something by a way of divine intervention had taken place to halt the Germans. 

They was a fine figure of a man, whose hair, like spun gold, shone in an aura around his head. The Prussian Guard said that “By his side was a great sword, but his hands lay quietly holding the reins, as his huge white charger bore him proudly forward. In spite of heavy shell and concentrated machine-gun fire the White Calvary advanced, remorsely as fate, like the incoming tide surging over a sandy beach….

Then a great fear fell on me, and I turned to flee; yes, I, an officer of the Prussian Guard, fled, panic stricken, and around me were hundreds of terrified men, whimpering like children, throwing away their arms and accoutrements in order not to have their movements impeded…all running. Their one desire was to get away from that advancing White Calvary; above all, from their inspiring leader whose hair shone like a golden aureole. That is all I have to tell you. We are beaten. The German Army is broken.

They may be fighting, but we have lost the war; we are beaten–by the White Calvary…..I cannot understand…I cannot understand…..”

There was plenty of evidence available that God had worked to turn the tide so many times. He moved to deliver in response to the nation’s prayers, which is proof positive that Almighty God not only answers the prayers of individuals but also of nations.

It’s been recorded by historians that National Days of Prayer had played a very important part of Britain’s prayer history. In the twentieth century, British National Days of Prayer were called by the monarch on the advice of the Parliament.

Both King George V and King George VI called the people to prayer on fifteen separate occasions between 1939 and 1945 and all these Calls to National Prayer were related to the First and Second World Wars.

The last National Day of Prayer had been called in 1857 that is almost 60 years since the last two World Wars and this practice of National Day of Prayer had been forgotten.  It took a long time for the government to agree on a call to prayer because the men in power were mainly concerned about what the Germans would think of such a call.

So the Christian Herald and the Evangelical Alliance played a significant role in promoting the cause of a National Day of Prayer. They both organized a petition of some 84,000 names which included 9 mud stained sheets of signatures from soldiers who were in France.

After three years, in October 1917 the Parliament agreed and the call to prayer was made by the King in November for a National Day of prayer on January 6^th.

After the practice was reinstated, subsequent National Days of Prayer were called. The first National Day of Prayer of the century was on 6^th January 1918 and the last was on 6^th July 1947 which is almost 70 years ago after Winston Churchill had been named Prime Minister on May 10, 1940.  More on Britain’s prayer history in our next post.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zbUqeYnyxw]

Image description: Albert Frederick Arthur King George VI (1895-1952) Source: Public Domain

In Germany, in 1909 when the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was reaching the whole of Europe and spreading throughout the world, things did not proceed well. Revivalist Thomas Ball Barratt a British-born Norwegian pastor and founder of the Pentecostal movement in Norway, was baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues in November 1906 while attending the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles.

1907 Barratt held revival meetings in Oslo, attracting international attention. Jonathan Paul from Germany came to those revival meetings and was convinced this was truly the work of the Holy Spirit. That same year he returned from Oslo to start revival meetings in the city of Kassel in Germany, the result of which was the formation of a German Pentecostal Denomination.

The revival prompted the evangelical churches in Germany to a meeting in Berlin to discuss the disputed manifestations of the Holy Spirit. They issued a statement, known as the Berlin Declaration, a theological statement by fifty-six leading evangelical theologians that condemned the Pentecostal experience.

The declaration stated that the Pentecostal movement was “not from above, but from below and that speaking in tongues, healing miracles, and all manifestations of this revival were of the devil. These leaders blasphemed the Holy Spirit and the witness of the Holy Spirit in believer’s lives was for the most part silenced.

God’s Word became a human theory rather than the living, breathing revelation of the eternal Triune God. Along with the higher criticism movement that had destroyed the concept of divine revelation, this event spiritually prepared the way for Hitler and the Nazis.  Subsequently, the German church became divided during the Nazi regime which also like Amin, Hitler was able to exploit.

Pastor Martin Niemoller was one of the members of what had now become the Confessing church. He had been a U-boat captain during World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross for his bravery. He had initially welcomed the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933, hailing them as the heroes who would restore the dignity of Germany, get rid of the communists, and restore moral order.

Niemoller thought that the Nazi victory would bring about a “national revival” for which he had fought and prayed for a long time. But this didn’t happen and before long he found out that he too had been deceived.

Most of the German evangelical leaders didn’t have any idea of what was to come. It was only Bonhoeffer and Hildebrandt who knew what was going on. Niemoller and Bonhoeffer agreed that the church should be independent of the state, but they disagreed about the nature of the Nazi regime. To, Niemoller, the German Christians meddling in church affairs was one thing, but it was quite unrelated to what Hitler was trying to do elsewhere.

In the name of Pastors Emergency League, Niemoller even sent a congratulatory telegram to the Fuhrer, in which he swore loyalty to him. Dully deceived, many other senior clerics publicly endorsed Hitler’s chancellorship, choosing to see this as the advent of the new ethical-spiritual age beyond the materialism and turmoil of the Weimar Republic.

In his opening policy statement in the Reichstag, Hitler announced that the “national government sees in both Christian denominations the most important factor for the maintenance of our society. Protestant anxieties about a third Roman Catholic chancellor in succession allayed by the rumor that, although nominally Catholic, Hitler “thought like” a Protestant. His intentions were not immediately revealed.

Soon after he was sworn in as chancellor, he paid tribute to Christianity as an “essential element for safeguarding the soul of the German people” and promised to respect the rights of the churches.

The time came when Niemoller and other church leaders had to meet with Hitler. He had heard that there might be a church split because some pastors objected to his agenda.

He declared his ambition to have a peaceful accord between Church and State. Peace, he said is all he wanted and blamed them for obstructing him and sabotaging his efforts to achieve it. He assured them that he was doing the best for Germany.

Niemoller was waiting for a chance to speak, and when he had the opportunity, he explained that his only object was the welfare of the church, the state, and the German people. Hitler listened in silence and then said,

You confine yourself to the Church. I’ll take care of the German people.

When it was over, Hitler shook hands with the clergy and Niemoller realized this would be his last opportunity to speak his mind. He chose his words carefully and said,

You said that ‘I will take care of the German people.’ But we too as Christians and churchmen have a responsibility toward the German people. That responsibility was entrusted to us by God, and neither you nor anyone in this world has the power to take it from us.

Hitler turned away without saying a word. That same evening, eight Gestapo men ransacked Niemoller’s rectory for incriminating material. A few days later a homemade bomb exploded in the hall. Interestingly, the police came to the scene even though no one had called them…Wow….this sounds familiar to what’s going on today!

‘These threats’, according to Lutzer, were easier for Niemoller to bear than some of the criticism he received from his colleagues for his strong words to Hitler.

Clearly, the majority of the clergy had adopted an attitude of safety first. More than two thousand pastors who had stood with Niemoller and Bonhoeffer withdrew their support.

They believed that appeasement was the best strategy; they thought that if they remained silent they could live with Hitler’s intrusion into church affairs and his political policies.

Just like Amin did with the Ugandan Churches, Hitler always said the best way to conquer your enemies is to divide them. The voice of courageous Christians in Germany had to be silenced to make way for National Socialist policies.

In the larger scope of things, we may have preferred the German church to react differently by being more courageous, on the other hand, we cannot overlook and only accuse the church who gave us Martin Luther, a man whom God used to restore an important truth-The just shall live by faith. 

In fact, Albert Einstein paid tribute to the Church in German as the only institution that opposed the Nazi regime.

Attributed in The Church’s Confession under Hitler by Arthur Cochrane is a quote by Albert Einstein:  

Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short few weeks.

Then I looked to individual writers who, as literary guides of Germany, had written much and often concerning the place of freedom in modern life; but they, too, were mute. Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.

Yes, it was mainly the Church and individuals like Irena Sendler, Andre Trocme and his wife Magda Trocme, Corrie Ten Boom, and many others who opposed the Nazi regime and restored light amid great darkness.

God also raised up intercessors to pray and stand in the gap for God’s purposes and will to be done regardless of what the enemy intended to do. In the end, the demonic power, that had strengthened and guided Hitler, the SS, and Nazism, was broken through the persistent prayers of faithful men and women.

One of the greatest lessons to learn from both the Ugandan and German church is that, it’s only prayer and intercession inspired by Holy Spirit that can unite the church against the powers of darkness.

As we draw closer to the end of this age, we need to remind ourselves that the final contest between, good and evil, light and darkness, heaven and hell, for the kingdoms of this world, it is only One Person who is sufficient for these things, and He is the glorious Third Person of the Godhead in those people whom He can indwell.

Resources:

John Seymour, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-45, London 1968

Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich, A New History. Copyright ©  Pan Macmillan 2000-2001

Dr. Erwin Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God, 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany. Copyright © Moody Publishers 2010

Arthur Cochrane, The Church’s Confession under Hitler. Copyright © Pickwick Publications, 1976

Robert K. Ssebatta, Reclaiming the Forgotten Biblical Heritage, An Urgent Call to Revival and a Great Awakening, Volume 2 Copyright © Watchman Research Media Publications, 2014

Image description: A committee of the “German Christians” Berlin, November 13, 1933. Used with Permission Source: Gedenkstaette Deutscher Widerstand

The Bible tells us, “We are not wrestling against flesh and blood but against  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this [present] darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) places.” (Ephesians 6:12 AMP)

History teaches us that when any government generates a racial war between different color groups, or a class war between the rich, middle-class, and the poor, it finds it easier to take emergency action measures to secure national peace. Believers in Jesus Christ of all races and nationalities are the only group of people standing between the rising tide of hate and destruction in the West.

If we think this is too far-fetched of a message, just consider that Hitler would not have become führer of Germany without the cooperation of Germany’s evangelical churches. Out of almost 13,000 pastors and churches, only 750–800 had the courage to oppose him. Why? He divided most of them.

It has been noted that while white America elected the first black president, it also brought out the worst in some black Americans, preachers, and other Christians who acted out of their emotions instead of using their God-given faculties to discern the times we live in. Hitler is quoted to have said: “How fortunate it is for the governments that the people they administer don’t think.”

As I mentioned in my previous post, the only people who truly benefit from the race division are those who claim to be fighting for justice. White racism exists, but it is not the cause of our problems.  Blacks are also racist and so is every race. Racism is about power and economics. No one is born to be racist but most of the racial seeds that have been planted in people’s hearts were planted by their parents when they were young.

Some white people find themselves uncomfortable or uneasy when they are with black people; likewise, some black people feel inferior and unwanted when they are with white people. The tendency to react in this way might have been planted within them by the enemy of our souls when they were little children.

Dr. Claud Anderson in his Vision Beyond the Dream Speech, said the same thing when he said the underlying reason for racism is not about the color of our skin, but about the power for the economic benefit of other people:

Racism is a power relationship or struggle between groups of people who are competing for resources and political power. It is one group’s use of wealth and power and resources to deprive, hurt, injure, and exploit another group to benefit itself.

That’s why most black people have been programmed to think of themeselves as inferior, different, and even dangerous; and even the media and some learning institutions have done a good job of portraying them as such. But racism is not necessarily the issue here; it is not about color, but about economics. It is how we respond to media distortions and the programmed self-hatred prevalent in our culture.

The battle is a spiritual battle not physical one, so we have to fight it on our knees in the spirit and stop blaming white people for all our problems. We all like to blame others since the fall our first parents, but giving in to this temptation renders us incapable to accept responsibility for our choices and actions.

God did not create one race to be inferior to another; there are tens of thousands of intelligent, productive black people. Many have arisen from humble beginnings to lead successful lives. Black people are exactly like white people in the area of natural intelligence—some very bright, some of ordinary good intelligence, and some slightly or seriously below average.

Instead of criticizing our fellow blacks who respect learning for “acting white” and being “traitors” we should be making a conscious effort to encourage them intead of being envious of them.

Another crucial point is that, we should avoid like a plague the politician’s game of “divide and rule,” using the old race card. We are all human beings created in the image of God, and we should all strive to love one another as brothers and sisters, regardless of the color of our skin, serve, and glorify Christ and enjoy Him forever and lastly be productive and useful citizens. For the Bible says,

We also were once thoughtless and senseless, obstinate and disobedient, deluded and misled; [we too were once] slaves to all sorts of cravings and pleasures, wasting our days in malice and jealousy and envy, hateful (hated, detestable) and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior to man [as man] appeared, He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but because of His own pity and mercy, by [the] cleansing [bath] of the new birth (regeneration) and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He poured out [so] richly upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. [And He did it in order] that we might be justified by His grace (by His favor, wholly undeserved), [that we might be acknowledged and counted as conformed to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action], and that we might become heirs of eternal life according to [our] hope.

This message is most trustworthy, and concerning these things I want you to insist steadfastly, so that those who have believed in (trusted in, relied on) God may be careful to apply themselves to honorable occupations and to doing good, for such things are [not only] excellent and right [in themselves], but [they are] good and profitable for the people….And let our own [people really] learn to apply themselves to good deeds (to honest labor and honorable employment), so that they may be able to meet necessary demands whenever the occasion may require and not be living idle and uncultivated and unfruitful lives. (Titus 3:3-8;14 AMP)

Lastly, black churches that are still preaching the liberation theology social gospel should repent and preach the true gospel of Jesus Christ. The overall emphasis of black liberation theology is the black struggle for liberation from various forms of “white racism” and oppression. Yet this social gospel of good deeds rejects the biblical concept of repentance, regeneration and sanctification.

Source of image: Heavens Call

All the hatred and bitterness you see right now between white and black or black on black crime comes from unforgiveness. The Bible tells us that resentment or bitterness causes trouble and bitter torment, and many become contaminated and defiled by it (see Hebrews 12:15). 

Wherever there has been a hurt, the human reaction is usually one of rebellion, hatred, and unforgiveness—the biggest bondage of these three is hate. When we hate, we give away our heart and mind because bitterness only hurts ourselves.

But there is no sin or past action that is unforgivable. Forgiveness is not easy—that is why it’s an act of faith. When we forgive someone else, we are leaving the injustices in God’s hands, who tells us not to take revenge. “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. (See Romans 12:17–21).

As black people, we need to reject the legacy of bitterness that resides in our hearts. We have to love and forgive one another, even if we’ve suffered racial discrimination.

We need to remind our black brothers and sisters that those who are embracing bitterness against whites should remember that many white people died fighting to end slavery, and many voted to put the first black (mixed-race) president in the White House.

Blacks should also understand that many white people are standing up for the God-given freedom and liberty of blacks in America and around the world, while the corrupt white and black leadership is profiting off the hatred they foster within the black community. Those who are harboring hatred because of what happened in the past are poisoning themselves, believing that it will kill the whites.

We blacks are blaming whites as being the racists, forgetting the fact we are also harboring hatred and racist negative attitudes in our own hearts toward them. How many of us genuinely reach out to the white community to serve them?

Look at the racist statements that flow from black politicians with the exception of a very few, which serves to further divide the races. Booker T. Washington had a great deal to say about how black leaders exploit their own race for financial and political gain. In his book My Larger Education, he wrote:

There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs—partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

I feel sorry for those of us who are using hate, division, and revenge by twisting the truth for material and political gain. When we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, there will be no one to blame except ourselves. For the Bible says,

We must all appear and be revealed as we are before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive [his pay] according to what he has done in the body, whether good or evil [considering what his purpose and motive have been, and what he has achieved, been busy with, and given himself and his attention to accomplishing]. (2 Corinthians 5:10 AMP)

Our power, party, influence, riches, and interfaith services will all fail us—we can be assured of that. It won’t matter whether we made a million dollars and made ourselves a name by selling our soul and others; what will be important is our relationship with Jesus Christ and how we served Him in the way we treated our neighbor—whether black or white—during our lifetime. All the applause and accolades we are now receiving will mean nothing in eternity.

If you are a black person doing this, you have to remember you have to totally forgive the injustices done against you. Until you forgive the white people, you will be in far greater chains than your ancestors ever experienced. God forgives our debts as we forgive our debtors. Release the white man and you will be released as well.

All the problems of blacks don’t come from white racism, and even if white racism is the root of all our problems—which is not true, it’s not going to change our circumstances. Some white people are not likely in the foreseeable future to feel respect for the black man considering what even the first mixed race or black president has done to fundamentally transform America.

You have to remember that it pleases most whites to imagine that they are inherently superior to an entire race of people. Whites suffer from a superiority complex and blacks from an inferiority complex. We all desperately need the gospel of Jesus Christ regardless of the color of our skins. If you are a black person and you meet a white person who is a racist, forgive him, just love him, preach the gospel to him/her and trust God for the results.   

Here is an Example of Forgiveness

A story is told of an elderly black woman who experienced racial prejudice at about seventy years of age. She was facing a man in court named Mr. Van der Broek. He was guilty of brutally murdering her husband and son, who were all the family she had. In court the judge asked her, “How should justice be done to the man who murdered your family?”

Her response was this: “I want three things: First, I want to gather the ashes of my husband (who the accused man had burned to death while she watched) and bury them. Secondly, since my husband and son were my only family, I want this man, Mr. Van der Broek to become my son.

I would like him to come to the ghetto where I live twice a month and spend the day with me so that I can pour whatever love I have left in me on him.

Lastly, I would like to cross the courtroom and take Mr. Van der Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know he is truly forgiven!

Wow! What a grace to forgive. We need to pray for this grace all the time especially as the love of the great body of people is getting more and more colder.

When Alexis de Tocqueville 1805 –1859 (pictured above) traveled to America to study the American prison system, he wrote a book titled, Democracy in America, which has been regarded as one the greatest commentaries ever written on the American government and society.

In his book, he explored the effects of the rising inequality of social conditions in the Western world. He noted the connection between slavery and the point of view held by many people at the time:

Those who hope that the Europeans will ever mix with the Negroes appear to delude themselves; and I am not led to any such conclusion by my own reason, or by the evidence of facts. Hitherto, wherever the whites have been the most powerful, they have maintained the blacks in a subordinate or a servile position wherever the Negroes have been strongest, they have destroyed the whites; such has been the only course of events which has ever taken place between the two races.

I see that in a certain portion of the territory of the United States at the present day, the legal barrier which separated the two races is tending to fall away, but not that which exists in the manners of the country; slavery recedes, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary…. The modern slave differs from his master not only in his condition, but in his origin.

You may set the Negro free, but you cannot make him otherwise than an alien to the European…. The moderns then, after they have abolished slavery, have three prejudices to contend against, which are less easy to attack, and far less easy to conquer, than the mere fact of servitude: the prejudice of the master, the prejudice of the race and the prejudice of color.

Tocqueville predicted that black Americans would eventually revolt at being deprived of their civil rights, including their social and economic rights. He prophetically saw that the country’s past would determine its future:

If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States…. The Negro race will never leave those shores of the American continent, to which it was brought by the passions and the vices of Europeans; and it will not disappear from the New World as long as it continues to exist….

I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as “means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the United States.” The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily declare themselves as enemies.

President Abraham Lincoln

Even the much admired and respected President Abraham Lincoln, who led the United States through the Civil War, and preserved the “Union,” he as well had no solution to the problem of Slavery except the colonization idea which he inherited from Henry Clay. Thomas J. Dilorenzo in his book, The Real Lincoln, draws attention to Lincoln’s failure to live up to his expectations when he writes:

When, before the war, he was asked what should be done with the slaves were they ever to be freed, he said, “Send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” He developed plans to send back every last black person to Africa, Haiti, Central America—anywhere but the United States…. Lincoln approvingly quoted Clay as saying that “there is a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children” since “they will carry back to their native soil the rich fruits of religion, civilization, law, and liberty.” How they would do this after having deprived of an education and of the fruits of religion, civilization, law, and liberty in the United States was not explained.

The president then introduced his ideas of the black race colonizing in some other part of the country, asking them where they would be most happy. Lincoln expressed the biblical principle that man is created by and related to His Creator, and that fact gives him worth and dignity.

His Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes on August 14, 1862, was as follows:

There is much to encourage you. For the sake your race you should sacrifice something of your present comfort for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the white people. It is a cheering thought throughout life that something can be done to improve the condition of those who have been subject to the hard usage of this world. It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself, and claims kindred to the great God who made him.

In the American Revolutionary War, sacrifices were made by men engaged in it; but they were cheered by the future. General. Washington himself endured greater physical hardships than if he had remained a British subject. Yet he was a happy man, because he was engaged in benefiting his race—something for the children of his neighbors, having none of his own.

Meanwhile, Tocqueville concluded that the removal of the Negro population from America could not resolve the crisis, as he predicted that a civil war would break out:

When I contemplate the condition of the south, I can only discover two alternatives which may be adopted by the white inhabitants of those states; that is either to emancipate the negroes, and to intermingle with them; or, remaining isolated from them, to keep them in a state of slavery as long as possible. All intermediate measures seem to me likely to terminate, and that shortly, in the most horrible of civil wars, and perhaps in the total extermination of one or other of the two races.

Though slavery was a key issue, the abolition of slavery was not a strong concern for Lincoln. The Civil War was not primarily over slavery; it was the first step in moving the United States from a de-centralized government to a centralized one.

While the war lasted only four years, its roots can be traced back to a great compromise forged during the Constitutional Convention when the delegates agreed to permit slavery. In 1922, during his remarks at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, President Warren Harding noted that this concession in the Constitution represented “an ambiguity which only a baptism in blood could efface.

In the summer of 1862, newspaper editor Horace Greeley published an editorial called “The Prayer of Twenty Millions.” In it he upbraided the president for fighting against the evil of slavery while refusing to enact legislation to forbid it.

Lincoln replied to Horace Greeley that his paramount object in this struggle was to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery. If he could save the Union without freeing any slave he would do it, and if he could save it by freeing all the slaves he would do it; and if he could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone he would also do that.

Learning From History

What do we learn from Tocqueville’s prediction?  First, he was right in observing that the Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily declare themselves as enemies.”

It is true that without knowledge of history, humans are socially, intellectually, and emotionally rootless. Much of what is going on today stems directly from the past. Today most blacks behave the way they do because don’t understand their history; it is only by understanding history that we can understand the present situation we find ourselves in.

Secondly, Blacks have been conditioned to feel that their color is a badge of degradation. We have programmed to think little of ourselves and most blacks have a very strong inferiority complex. This is the reason why some black women and men have resorted to bleaching themselves so that they could have some resemblance to whites.

Remember Michael Jackson who was ironically admired or idolized by many blacks and whites bleached his skin to make it paler so he wouldn’t appear as a black man. He had numerous plastic surgeries altering his nose and lips again to resemble the white man. We hate ourselves and this self-hatred is one of the major reasons poor black youths have no sense of self-worth and see other Blacks as nothing.

We’ve not learned to love ourselves. The majority of black crime is black-on-black crime, not the black-on-white crime, because to Blacks, Whites have worth. All this is because we have been indoctrinated to feel inferior because we don’t see ourselves as valuable human beings created in the image of God.

Lastly, many African Americans have psychological anchors of racial hatred passed down from previous generations who remember slavery and discrimination. Unable to step out of their programming due to racial hatred, they are setting themselves up to be slaves again. And this is why they are bitter when they look back at their history and what has been done to them. But as we shall see in the next post, bitterness and unforgiveness is very dangerous.

Part of this article is adapted from Reclaiming The Forgotten Biblical Heritage, Volume 1