The Gates of Their Enemies

It occurred to me during the announcements, I probably should have just said, anyone that's planning on doing softball next Sunday, why don't we just meet up here after services? That way we can see who might be interested in getting together tomorrow, and if we want to talk about sharing rides or anything. So I see Mr. Cole nodding his head, so that sounds like a good idea. And I'm sure there are people that might be interested in next week that are traveling, but at least those of us that are here can get together and work on some things.

This morning was a two-glass-of-water sermon, so be prepared this afternoon. And I actually want to start by turning to a couple of scriptures. I don't often do that, but these are scriptures we've sung and sung before, starting with Psalm 26. Psalm 26 verse 7. I want to read a couple of them. They express a sentiment that it sounds normal when we sing it, but as I said, I haven't read it much in a sermon, and yet I think it's very important.

This sentiment is sort of the basis that inspired me to write this sermon, or part of it, actually. The other part you might notice by the color scheme I chose for today. In Psalm 26 and verse 7, David wrote that I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving and tell all your wondrous works. It just sounds natural to sing of telling of God's wondrous works.

Let's similarly turn over to Psalm 77, if you will. Psalm 77 and verse 11, we see a similar. This one is labeled as a Psalm of Vaisath, and scholars debate whether David actually wrote any or all of these, or if it was somebody named Vaisath or a title in the choir. It expresses a similar thought. Psalm 77 and verse 14 says, You are the God who does wonders. You've declared your strength among the people. Oh, wait a minute. Actually, I wanted to start in verse 11. Pardon me. Let me back up. I'll come to verse 14. I'll remember the works of the Eternal. Surely, I will remember your wonders of old. I'll also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds. This is mentioning that it's important for us to remember God's great works and talk about the works of God, the things that he's done. God has done tremendous things for the people that he's chosen, and it's worthwhile for us to tell stories about that at times.

Pass them on. Treasure them. Be inspired by them. And where I wanted to go with verse 14, this Psalm not only says that we should do that, but it actually starts practicing it. In verse 14, it says, You're the God who does wonders. You've declared your strength among the people. You have with your arm redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. The waters saw you, O God. The waters saw you, and they were afraid. The depths also trembled. The clouds poured out water. The skies sent out a sound. Your arrows also flashed about. The voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind. The lightnings lit up the world. The earth trembled and shook. Your way was in the sea. Your path in the great waters and your footsteps were not known. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. And it's not uncommon for us to read of God working the great miracles that he did when he brought the ancient children of Israel out of Egypt. He sent great plagues on the Egyptians. You know, fire and blood and hail. And then he parted the Red Sea before them, defying the laws of physics. And he brought bread from heaven, water out of a rock, and so on. This is the time of year where, you know, we're looking at the founding of our country. Of course, yesterday was the 4th of July. I forgot to ask if anybody had fireworks keeping them up keeping them up later than usual last night. We heard booming later than I would have expected. Well, not later than I would have expected, but considering it's a pretty rural area.

I think it'd be good for us to look back into our more recent history to see some of God's works.

We believe as a church that the rise of the United States to wealth and power and its dominance was part of the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

He said he would make their descendants into a great nation and just pour out fabulous blessings on them. And those blessings included what Scripture says, giving them the gates of their enemies. The gates of their enemies. I'm going to come back to that thought. But as we consider God's great works, we should remember that not all miracles are the same. As I said, in some cases, God will defy the laws of physics, which are completely under his control, and do things like part the Red Sea and bring water out of a rock. Sometimes he accomplishes his will by working in people's minds, moving people to the right place and giving people a heart or a desire to do something. He might take a hand in a battle to make sure the side he chooses will win. So I think that's worth considering. As I said, it's not something we do all the time. We focus on various aspects of scriptural subjects. We look at the law, we study prophecy, we want to focus on the fruits of the spirit, never forget the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. But there are times when it's good to just pause and reflect on the great wonders of God. Tell about his power and his great deeds. And that's what I want to do today, in a particular way. I want to focus on God in the more modern era, fulfilling his promises to give the descendants of Israel the gates of their enemies. And so that's the title I've chosen for this sermon. And Mr. McKinney can make sure to take note of that. The gates of their enemies.

But before we look at some of those stories, let's review the promises that God did make. And to do even that, I want to go back further to the beginning. I joked this morning about talking about the two trees. Because as any of you from that era remember, Mr. Armstrong gave a sermon about the two trees in the Garden of Eden. It seemed like he told us over and over and over to make sure we were finally getting it. Well, I'm not going to do all that. But we sort of have this understanding that God created mankind. And from the time that Adam and Eve chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they followed a line within God's plan that said, okay, I'm going to leave you to work out your own destiny. Mankind is free to develop his own forms of government, his own religion, his own education. And you'll learn what the fruits of that is. So he took a hands-off approach to letting us learn the hard way what does and doesn't work. And pretty much everything man does on his own, it seems, doesn't work.

But he also planned to work through chosen people at times. And we see in God's Word that a few people he would give his spirit and use in powerful ways. Additionally, he chose one of those people and said, of your descendants, I'm going to make a particular nation. And I'm going to give those people understanding of my law and of how to worship me. But the one thing that he would not do with that nation was pour out his Holy Spirit upon all of them. This would be an example showing us, by contrast, that even with all the knowledge needed, even with God himself speaking to them, explaining how to worship him, what system of laws they should have, without God's Spirit, even the best of people and the best of situation won't achieve what we should. We won't live up to our great potential. Let's look at the blessings, though, of course, because we want to see that God would pour out those blessings. If you'll go to Genesis 22, we'll begin in verse 16. I'll confess up front that the first part of this sermon is mostly review of things hopefully we've studied many times, but we can't too often review some of these basic principles. This occurs after God had tested Abraham in the supreme way of seeing if he would be willing to even sacrifice his only son or his only legitimate son Isaac. And when Abraham followed through in being willing, but God cut him off before he did, God told him this. And verse 16, by myself I have sworn, says the eternal, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, blessing I will bless you, multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore and your descendants shall possess the gates of their enemies. Now we see this in a sense as God making an unconditional promise. He swore by himself that these blessings would come out. And of course, they didn't come immediately on Abraham, although Abraham was very blessed. Those blessings would be passed on through his son and his grandson. Interestingly, if you'll turn over a couple chapters, Genesis 24 and verse 60, when Isaac, well basically Abraham sent a servant to find a bride for Isaac, his son, from among his people, and when Rebecca was about to leave, her family asked a blessing of God upon her that also mentions our title today. Genesis 24 and verse 60, the family said they blessed Rebecca and said to her, our sister, may you become the mother of thousands of ten thousands and may your descendants possess the gates of those who hate them.

You ever wonder what's a big deal about controlling your enemies' gates? Now I had to change my way of thinking from growing up. I lived in one of those suburban housing projects, and almost all of our houses had those wire chain link fences with a little gate. And of course, by the time I was nine years old, we quickly learned to jump over those fences very quickly. So whether the gate was open or closed didn't matter a lot. It mostly mattered if there was a big dog in the backyard. But we want to point out on a national basis, a gate is referring to the ability to move military power, to control military and or economics. A potential enemy would need to be able to have transportation. If you can... I'm talking too fast... If you can control the movement of a country's military, you can control that country. So in some cases, a gate might be a certain mountain passway, a way to get from one side of a mountain range to the other without having to climb all the way over. It could be an isthmus, you know, meaning a narrow body of land connecting two larger ones. Such... one of the best examples of an isthmus I think of is Central America connecting North and South America. But for most of America... most of American... most of human history, navies have been the primary means to project military power. You load men and weapons on ships, and you can move them a long distance fairly cheaply. That makes the vital sea lanes the equivalent of gates. There are certain passes that if someone controls them, they can either allow military power to move through or prevent it. Such gates might be good ports. You know, if you're moving sea... you know, power by sea, you need a good port of entry to be able to get into land and make a difference. They could be islands that control the approach to or from a country. In some cases, capes. Not the kind of cape that Batman wears, but a piece of land sticking out into the sea, like the Cape Horn at the tip of South America. If you control that, it's very difficult... it's difficult to get around even if nobody's trying to stop you. And of course, in some cases, canals or rivers. Let's keep that in the back of our minds as we continue to follow these blessings being poured out and transferred down through the family. If we go to Genesis 48.

Genesis 48, beginning in verse 15. Here, the grandson of Abraham, Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel, is ready to bestow that blessing on two of his grandchildren. So Jacob here is speaking. It says, and he blessed Joseph. And he said, God, before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, walked. The God who has fed me all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, blessed the lads. Let my name be named upon them. And he's speaking of Ephraim and Manasseh, as we'll see in a moment. And the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. Now Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim. That displeased him. Ephraim was the second son, not the oldest. Normally, the eldest had the right hand put on his head, showing that he'd get a superior blessing. And he went to remove it. He said, no, father, this is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his. From what we understand, Jacob crossed his hands because he knew which one was older.

And Jacob said, no, I know my son. He'll become a great people. He also shall be great. But truly, his younger brother shall be greater than he. And his descendants shall become a multitude of nations. So he blessed them that day, saying, by you, Israel will bless. Saying, God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh. And he said Ephraim before Manasseh. So we see these blessings going down to these two tribes in particular. Thinking back to what God told Abraham, those blessings we believe would be unconditional. They were going to be poured out. They would become a great many people and be rich and control the gates of their enemies. But later, when God was speaking to some of those descendants, he showed that he reserved the right to withhold those blessings for certain times. If you'll go to Leviticus chapter 26. Leviticus 26 beginning in verse 14. What I'm doing right now is sort of a mini summary of our old book, The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy. As I said, I want to set the stage here.

As part of giving the law, God showed the nation of Israel that he just brought out of Egypt that if they obeyed him, they would receive wonderful blessings. But if they disobeyed, they would be punished. We find that in Leviticus 26. Also Deuteronomy 28 is famous for that. But I want to look at the wording here in Leviticus 26. In verse 14, God says, But if you do not obey me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise my statutes, or if your soul abhors my judgments, so that you do not perform all my commandments, but break my covenant, I'll also do this to you. I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever, which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. You'll sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. I'll set my face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you. You'll flee when no one pursues you. Then something interesting comes up in the next verse. And he says, after all this, as if that wasn't punishment enough, if you do not obey me, I'll punish you seven times more for your sins. We've looked at that seven times more and pondered. It might be easy to think, well, he's talking about multiplying by seven. But we also see many times in the Bible that the word time is used to represent a year. Several prophecies speak of time, times, and half a time, and equate that to three and a half years, which we know for a fact because it explains the same number of months or the number of days involved.

If what this says is, if you disobey me, I'll punish you seven years more. Well, seven years, looking back several thousand doesn't seem to make much difference. But there are other places in prophecy where we see God uses a principle of substituting a year for a day or a day for a year. He goes back and forth. Now, seven years have 2,520 days in them. If the punishment would be, if you don't obey me and I punish you all this and you still don't obey, I'll punish you seven times or a day for a year for seven years. 2,520 years? That's a long time of having God's blessings withheld from the people of Israel whom he promised to give them to. Could we find any possible evidence of that ever having happened? Well, we could if we're willing to do some counting. We know that the main part of the nation of Israel, the northern tribes, were defeated by the Assyrian Empire, and in fact they were taken away captive in the year 721 BC. If we count 2,520 years forward from then, we come to the year 1800 AD. Okay, well, if our understanding is correct, looking in history right after the year 1800, we should see whatever nations have the peoples of Ephraim and Manasseh within them suddenly have a dramatic increase of blessings, a rise to power and influence. And that's exactly what happened. In the early 1800s, the British had been involved in a long time war with France. Actually, in the Middle Ages, they had what was called the Hundred Years' War, but in the late 1600s, or about the 1700s going into the 1800s, they had another period of fighting on and off that historians sometimes call the Second Hundred Years' War. And this last round of it, Napoleon Bonaparte, conquered most of Europe. He had himself crowned the new Holy Roman Emperor, and the only nation standing against him was Britain.

But Britain was due to inherit a lot of blessings. They defeated Napoleon. And in doing so, they became what we might call the world's first superpower. Britain became the most powerful empire in the world. Did it control the gates of its enemies? Well, let's think. And here's... I thought about referring to this map up here. I should have brought a pointer. But if you look, you see Britain and Ireland off the northwest coast of Europe, its situation where it was to start with helped to control the approaches to northwestern Europe. Its military victories also gave it control of India. India is not on that map, but India juts down like a cape into the Indian Ocean and allows them to control movement in the Indian Ocean. They also gained control of the Rocka Gibraltar, which is the western entrance of the Mediterranean Sea. They gained control of Egypt, which controls the eastern end of the sea, and the island of Menorca in the middle to control all of the Mediterranean. And by capturing and taking control of southern Africa, Britain had control of the Cape of Good Hope, which controlled movement around Africa. Controlling the Falkland Islands off the coast of Argentina, if I'm correct, they controlled access to the Cape Horn.

The British Empire included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Thus, they controlled most of the points on the globe that are important in able strategy.

At the height of its power, the British Empire was more powerful even than what would become the greatest single nation on earth, the United States.

But that nation wasn't slighted in its blessings from God, either. After the First World War, the United States of America grew steadily into the most wealthy and powerful single nation that's ever been. And it would also come to control some vital sea gates.

I'm summarizing some things I want to go into in more detail in a few minutes. But in its rise to power, the United States had to take from rival empires the gates into its own land first. Vital ports all around what is now the continental United States had been controlled by enemies. The United States would gain control of those. Ports like New Orleans, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle. Once that was accomplished, the United States would reach out and start obtaining control of sea gates around the world, like Hawaii, the Philippine Islands, the Panama Canal. If we put the British Empire and the United States together, one could say that the descendants of Joseph came to control almost all military access points around the world. The ones that they didn't control weren't that vital or weren't that useful. Like some of the ports in northern Russia, you can only get to in the summer, and you're lucky even then if the ice melts. So some of them aren't that important. The fulfillment of these prophecies made thousands of years ago is one of the major ways that we recognize who are the modern descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Since those names were placed on Ephraim and Manasseh, when we look at end-time Bible prophecies addressed to Israel, we can say, well, that's us.

But I want to stop short there because my purpose today wasn't to look at end-time prophecy, even though, of course, it is important and we should focus on it.

I want to turn back to my original purpose, to tell of God's great works. I want to go back and look at some of the stories of how God brought this to pass for the United States of America.

It occurred to me as I started on this, even in my life. I've been in God's church most of my life, so I've had an understanding of all the things I just described, almost longer than I can remember.

And even the oldest of us here have lived in a world where those promises were already fulfilled.

Our people have had the gates of their enemies for a long time. We didn't get to be astounded by watching these wondrous works of God. We were born into a world where they had already happened.

But we can look back and consider the stories, maybe be inspired by them.

Now, there's not time today to tell of all the stories. I was thinking, when I taught American history classes, of course, we'd meet two or three times a week for about nine months, and even then, it's a survey looking over the broad strokes. So, I'm going to skip past a lot of amazing stories, particularly during the American Revolution. Maybe you've been hearing about those a lot already because we just had the Fourth of July. And some of those are astounding, to think that the United States declared independence from the world's only superpower and managed to get that independence as a miracle. But I want to pick up, after the year 1800, that time when we should start to see the blessings really come to fruition, and see gates start to be opened to the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh. Now, I'm going to turn and make another turn, though. Before I describe the first miracle that I'm confident God did perform for this country, I want to review another miracle that God worked early in the life of Abraham and Isaac to show that sometimes God works these miracles in subtle ways. As I said, working in people's minds and positioning things. So if you'll go with me to Genesis 24, this won't take long. This is the story of when Abraham sent his most trusted servant. We believe it was the one that he mentioned earlier, was named Eliezer, to find a wife for his son Isaac, which is about time I think we read Isaac was, I think, some people say about 40 years old. I've heard some people speculate he might have been as old as 80, and I thought, boy, they should have sent Eliezer looking for a wife a lot sooner.

But any event, he traveled a long ways to Abraham's family and asked God for a miracle. And we're gonna we're gonna pick up where he's explaining to the family of Rebecca, the one that he finds, what happened. So it's in Genesis 24 beginning in verse 42. So we'll hear the words of the servant, probably Eliezer. It says, this day I came to the well and said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, if you will now prosper the way in which I go, behold, I stand by the wall of water. So here I am by the well, and it'll come to pass when a virgin comes out to draw water. And I say to her, please give me a little water from your pitcher to drink. And she says, drink, and I will also draw for your camels. Let her be the woman whom the eternal is appointed for my master's son. But before I had finished speaking in my heart, so I hadn't even finished the prayer to God, there was Rebecca coming out with her pitcher on her shoulder. Those were those big, probably, you know, earthenware pots full of water, who knows what it weighed. So, you know, once you've got it up on your shoulder, letting it down, or, you know, it's no small matter.

She went to the well and drew water, and I said, please give me a drink. She made haste and let her pitcher down from her shoulder and said, drink, I'll also give your camels a drink also. So I drank, and she gave the camels a drink. Now that doesn't sound like a big deal. It's almost like, take a lap of a little bit of water. But you know those camels' humps that they say fill up with water? I don't know for sure, but I've seen cattle on a ranch. Cows can drink a lot of water. I learned that when I was in Big Sandy working for the water plant. We had to make sure the plumbing was working out on the farm. And if it broke down, they'd give us a call and say, hey, we need that water. I remember my boss saying, you don't understand how much water those cows drink. The cow will walk up, and this is his words, not mine, and go, and just suck up gallons of water. I don't know, if a cow can do that, how much does a camel drink? And this guy had 10 camels with him. So this woman said, oh, I'll give you a drink, and I'll I'll draw water for all 10 of your camels. That's no small matter. No wonder this guy said, hey, something's going on here. In verse 47, I asked her and said, whose daughter are you? Where'd you come from? She said, well, the daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, whom Milka bore to him. So I put the nose ring on her nose, which isn't my choice of jewelry, and bracelets on her wrist, and bowed my head and worshiped the Eternal, and blessed the Lord God of my master Abraham, who'd led me in the way of truth to take the daughter of my master's brother for his son. So, ah, she's the daughter of Abraham's brother. God had to be playing a hand in this. This is all too spectacular to just be a coincidence.

As a matter of fact, the people that he was telling it to agreed. In verse 50, Laban and Bethuel answered and said, the thing comes from the Eternal. We can't speak to you either bad or good. They recognized that God's hand was in this. This was a miracle to accomplish God's plan, but he didn't shake the earth. He didn't cause fire to come down from heaven or path to sea. God simply moved people to be in the right place at the right time, and worked in their minds to want to do the things that he needed. Now I'm going to switch back to modern history. Modern being the early 1800s. Because I think that's what happened for the United States in 1803.

Now, I have to set a little bit of the stage, because President Jefferson is going to be the mover on the American side. But shortly before he became the third president of the United States, events were happening in Europe that would affect us over here. Remember, France and Great Britain have this ongoing fight. And so Napoleon Bonaparte is the emperor of the French, trying to expand his rule, hoping to conquer the world. So he works out a secret treaty with the Empire of Spain, in which Spain gives to France the Louisiana territory. If you're taking notes, it's the Treaty of San Ildefonso, which only a history teacher would know. But this treaty turns over not our modern state of Louisiana, which is pretty good size, but the Louisiana territory, which is basically all the land from the west of the Mississippi River to the the the the peak ridge of the Rocky Mountains. It's a big, vast area. And matter of fact, at that time, most people don't know how big it is or what's out there. But they know it's a lot of land. And one thing they know is that it's all the focus of it comes down to the Mississippi River. It's the drainage basin. Matter of fact, if you look at the United States, the biggest part of the United States, any water that falls on it will eventually end up coming down the Mississippi River and through its port of New Orleans. And that's where it gets sticky. Now, France controls New Orleans. New Orleans is a gate into the heart of North America. It's definitely a sea gate. And when the United States learned that Napoleon had gained control of it, our leaders became very concerned. Thomas Jefferson famously said, whoever controls New Orleans makes himself the natural enemy of the United States. In other words, having someone else control this gate into our country, unless they're a very good friend, they're automatically our enemy. So this is the first of what we could call the gates of our enemies. It's our gate, but the enemy has control of it. Jefferson wasn't a quandary what to do. He knew Napoleon wanted to take over the world. Should we declare war on France to take New Orleans?

Well, not a good move. France is a lot bigger and stronger than we are at that time. We wouldn't have a lot of chance of winning. Instead, he tries a very unlikely option of sending a diplomat over to Paris to see if Napoleon by chance might want to sell New Orleans. And I say sell, actually it's not the land itself because it's held as private property, but sell sovereignty, sell control of it over the United States. In early 1803, James Monroe traveled to Paris to offer five million dollars for the sovereignty of New Orleans, just the city, a dot on the map. It was a long shot. They thought, what else do we have to do? You know, our enemy's controlling this gate. So Monroe was astounded, knowing what a long shot it was that Napoleon would even consider selling New Orleans. He couldn't believe when Napoleon sent back the message saying, how about if you buy all of the Louisiana territory for 15 million dollars? 15 million? Now, nowadays, of course, that wouldn't buy a decent-sized battleship, but it still was a lot of money at that time. Now, historians will focus on reasons why Napoleon would make that decision, and you can get into more details. But as I've studied it, even when I know the details, some of which involves mosquitoes in Haiti, it still looks like God had a hand in this. With one incredible bargain, the United States doubled its size. It obtained 828,000 square miles for three cents an acre. You can't buy any land around here for three cents an acre, I'd imagine. Even land that's not so good. But this wasn't, you know, swamp land. Now, parts of it were swamp land. It was an arctic tundra. It was some of the best farm land on earth. It encompassed what is now the states of Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and so on. Soon afterwards, the United States went on to purchase Florida from Spain for about another $5 million. If you go to, you talk to historians in the universities, they'll say, ah, that's no miracle. It was politics. Which I say, really? Just politics? Influenced a megalomaniac who was trying to take over the world to voluntarily sell one of the best parts of that world for a mere pittance? At the same time, did mere politics move President Jefferson, who was the president, you know, one of the founding fathers who most opposed arbitrary action in the executive? He said the executive should not be exercising power without authority of Congress. But without checking with Congress, he signed a treaty to double the size of the nation and vastly increase the national debt. Which, by the way, he'd been saying how bad the national debt was for years, and he stripped the military to the bone to try to pay it off. Now suddenly jacked it up doing something that he was philosophically opposed to. Just politics?

Sure. Just like it was only a coincidence that Rebecca happened to come to that well when she did. And just coincidence that she was in the mood to draw water for ten camels belonging to a complete stranger. Now, I think it was a miracle. Major wars have been fought over much more minor things than nearly a million square miles of the best land on earth. This prize just dropped like a piece of ripe fruit into Americans' laps. God does mighty works. Sometimes he does them in subtle ways. As I said, he didn't feed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread in this case, but he accomplished something astounding when you look at it just on the surface. Like, how did that happen?

Now, there are other ways, of course. I want to move ahead in history because God will sometimes also take a hand in controlling the results in battles. He'll make sure that the people he wants to win win, and the people he doesn't want to win don't. And that's what I want to discuss next. I'm going to move ahead about 40 years in our history coming up to the Mexican-American War.

Now, American historians usually don't spend a lot of time bragging about the Mexican-American War because from our distance now, it looks like a big bully pouncing on somebody in the schoolyard and taking his lunch money. But if you put yourself in the mindset and the actual dynamics of the time, it wasn't such a mismatch. As a matter of fact, a lot of experts in warfare, before that war broke out or when it first did, thought that the United States was overmatched. The Duke of Wellness the Duke of Wellington, who was the one that defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, at one point said that the Americans are lost. They'll never conquer Mexico City.

Let me describe some of the first big battles occurred in 1846 when General Zachary Taylor led an army of 2,300 men from Brownsville, Texas, over the river. Brownsville is where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf, which we're familiar with the Rio Grande. Now it's where every Honduran and Guatemalan that can get there is coming into the country, it seems. But he led his army over there, and they met and defeated an army of 3,400 Mexican soldiers in two battles, Palo Alto and Rosaca del Palma.

And I don't have those memorized. I had to write those down. Okay, that was just to start, though. Taylor continued moving into the heartland of Mexico. He received a reinforcement, brought his army up to 4,500 men. But the odds are going to change.

President Santa Anna of Mexico came up from the heartland with an army of 20,000, and they would fight a two-day battle called Buena Vista. For the Americans, it didn't seem like a sure thing fighting against five to one odds. Now, when historians try to say, how in the world do the Americans defeat an army five times their size?

They want to, they like to focus on superior American training, or how the Mexicans were not motivated and had political differences. Historians don't like to consider that God might have had a hand in this battle. Does God take a hand in battles? Turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 21. Jeremiah 21 and verse 4. I'm not going to read a whole story here, but I just love the way God worded this here. Now, this is actually a pronouncement against the nation of Judah. If you remember, in the book of Jeremiah, the prophet is telling the Jews that, look, God has been patient with you, and now you're going to be punished. At one point, God tells Jeremiah, don't pray for these people.

They're going to be punished, and that's all there is to it. You know, the Babylonians are coming, and such is the case here in chapter 21 verse 4. Thus says the Lord God of Israel to the Jews, Behold, I'll turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands.

I'm going to turn back your own weapons with which you fight against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who beseeze you outside the walls. I'll assemble them in the midst of the city. Could God intervene to turn back the weapons in the hands of those who want to lose a battle in modern times? We're not talking about swords, we're talking about heavy artillery and muskets. Well, that's where I wanted to focus, and I'll admit I've spent a lot of time laughing over this. I always try to present it in class as a little bit humorous. I'm sure for the Mexicans, it didn't seem funny at all.

But this army that outnumbered their enemies by five to one, suddenly discovered that their gunpowder wasn't working. Musket after musket would misfire or jam. They just couldn't get off good shots. And more interestingly, they'd load their cannon, and, you know, a cannonball usually comes out at supersonic speed, and even the solid shot would just obliterate and smash anything in front of it.

Well, instead, with this defective gunpower, the cannonballs would sort of pop out and bounce along the ground, and the American soldiers would see it and step out of the way, and then get back in ranks. It was like they were playing a big game of dodgeball. I say, was that just a coincidence?

Or was it the wonderful works of God turning back the weapons of the enemy? I wonder, I had a lot more chuckles this morning. I didn't present that as well. But like I said, if you're thinking of the Mexicans, I'm sure when their cannonballs come out just bouncing along, they didn't think it was very funny either. Before I discuss the sea gates that fell into American hands, though, I want to make one more comparison of an incident of this war with something from ancient biblical history. Judges chapter 6 through 8 tell the story of God working miraculously through a tiny army led by Gideon to defeat the Midianites.

We can go to Judges chapter 7 to see how God made that army tiny.

And then I'll draw an interesting comparison to more modern times. Judges 7 and verse 2, of course, Gideon had blown the trumpet and the men of Israel turned out to follow him. And it says here, the eternal said to Gideon, the people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against me, saying my own hand has saved me. So God proceeded to tell Gideon, tell anybody, tell the army, any of you who are afraid can go home. He made that announcement and guess what? Two-thirds of them went home. So that didn't, and Gideon's mind didn't help matters. Of course, God was seeing it from a different perspective. In verse 4, the eternal said to Gideon, the people are still too many. Bring them down to the water and I'll test them for you there. Then it'll be that of whom I say to you, this one will go with you, the same will go, and whoever I say this one shall not go, the same shall not go. And I'm not going to read through the description. Basically, God said, anyone who dips it, you know, when they go to drink sticks their face down in the water, I don't want you to take them. Only the ones who bring water up to their mouth. That was 300 people. And of course, you know, we remember that the battle, of course, Gideon deployed his men around the Midianites in the middle of the night, and they each had a torch with a clay pot to cover the light and a sword, and on his signal they would smash the clay pot and hold up their torch, and they all shouted, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. The Midianites woke up and freaked out and started fighting each other and killed most of each other off. So it sounds like, okay, those are only 300 soldiers, but they didn't have to do anything anyways. They just stood there and watched. And I often focus on that, but if you turn ahead to the next chapter, we don't want to forget that not all the Midianites died in that initial battle. There were still thousands of them left, and Gideon wasn't about to just give up.

Chapter 8 and verse 4, when Gideon came to the Jordan, he and the 300 men who were with him crossed over, exhausted, but still in pursuit. Well, they're exhausted. They'd been up all night and working on this battle, so they're chasing after them. Let's go to verse 10. Judges 8 verse 10, Now, Zeba and Zalmuna were at Kharkor with their armies with them about 15,000, all who were left of the army of the people of the east, for 120,000 men who drew the sword had fallen. So after 120,000 men, 15,000 left seems real small. But then again, if you're coming up on them with an army of 300, 15,000 seems pretty big. What does Gideon do? He says, Gideon went up by the road of those who dwell in tents on the east of Noba and Jogabad, and he attacked the army while the camp was secure. And Zeba and Zalmuna fled. He pursued them and took the two kings of Midian, Zeba and Zalmuna, and routed the whole army. So this time the 300 didn't just stand there and watch. They dived in and conquered an army. I haven't even done the math. I'm not sure what the odds are of 300 against 15,000. No doubt that was a miracle. God had a hand in that battle. Well, there's something that happened in the Mexican-American War. Not exactly the same, but perhaps just as miraculous. It involves a volunteer regiment from Missouri. They were called, well, they're known in history as Donathens Regiment. They were the first Missouri regiment led by Colonel Alexander Donathen. It had 800 men. So a bit larger than 300, but 800 is not exactly an army. They were mostly backwoodsmen and farmers, not trained soldiers. They volunteered when the war broke out, and so they were mustered in. And they went along with the armies that actually captured Santa Fe and what's now New Mexico. There wasn't much in the way of fighting there. And after that happened, the leaders of the expedition said, well, we're going to take most of us and go out to California to conquer that. And you, Donathen, well, go meet up with Zachary Taylor, with his army. That makes it sound like if we're here, I'm going to say go meet those guys over in Portsmouth. But we're talking the expanses of the West. I don't know how many of you have ever driven across Mexico, or not Mexico, Texas. You drive from East Texas to West Texas, and there's a whole lot of Texas in between.

And you get to go south of the border in New Mexico. It's broad expanses of desert wasteland.

And these untrained soldiers began a year-long journey. They traveled on foot about 6,000 miles of desert wilderness. During that time, they received no supplies, no communication, no new orders, no pay. But they were following their orders. They met and defeated two separate Mexican armies, one of which had 4,000 men. Now, of course, that's still not as dramatic as 300, defeating 15,000. But 800 men going into the heart of an enemy country and defeating an army of 4,000? That still sounds miraculous to me. I haven't made a study of all the details of this regiment's expedition. You know, I wonder, if we get the details, does it make it less miraculous? I imagine some of them grumbled and complained, maybe talked about turning back. I'll bet there were some of those 300 with Gideon that grumbled and complained that, I'm tired, let's go home.

Maybe some of Donathan's men would say, oh, we just got lucky. Maybe some of Gideon's men would say, we just got lucky. But I'm convinced that amazing things like this don't just happen. You don't have an army of 800 invade an enemy country and defeat its army that's, you know, more than four times its size. God takes a hand to make things like that happen. Now, I'm not going to describe the rest of this war. I will note that California pretty much just became American. Nobody there even wanted to fight over it. They said, yeah, we'll be happy to be Americans. The United States victory in that war brought possession of territory that now includes the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California, along with parts of Texas, Colorado, and Utah. Another big chunk of land becomes part of the United States.

And not the best farmland in the world, but soon after we gained control of it, somebody discovered that there was gold in them with our hills. A lot of gold and a lot of silver. And by gaining California, California does have some of the best farmland. We also gained control of two more of the most vital seagate's, entrance into the United States, the ports of San Diego and San Francisco.

I've got a side note here. It doesn't fit exactly in with the telling about the Mexican-American war, but sort of parallel at about that time was when we gained control of Puget Sound, which has Seattle and Tacoma on it. We didn't have to fight for that. And in some ways, that's also amazing, because that area that we now know is, you know, Washington and Oregon and southern part of Canada. What do you say? Southwestern Canada, but it's Northwestern America. That had been claimed by Russia, Spain, and Britain, all larger, more powerful countries than America. And yet, it was given to America without a fight. God works amazing wonders, and of course, another one of the best ports, providing another gate into our own country.

God did give the descendants of Manasseh one of the best places on earth to live, and He made that nation strong, wealthy, and secure, possessing its own gates, which it took from its enemies.

Abraham Lincoln probably said it best in this line from one of his speeches. Lincoln said, We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards fertility of soil, extent of territory, and the salubrity of the climate. We find ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or the establishment of them. And it goes on from there, but I think it's interesting. Lincoln said, We got the best place on earth, and we didn't have to work for it. We just have these blessings.

We'll see, though, that God did not stop there. He would then proceed to give the United States control of sea gates beyond our own shores. Now, I thought I'd stop and step back a little bit, because it might be easy to think of these vital ports as sea gates. And I'm guessing most of you weren't surprised when I used the term, because we've had it in our booklets for many years, and so we're familiar with it. But most Americans don't think in terms of sea gates. And prior to 1900, they didn't either. But for a while, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, Americans did start thinking. Now, they didn't call them sea gates. They called them sea lanes or vital points. Largely because of a book published by an American admiral, Alfred Thayer Mahan. And there's not going to be a quiz on this later. But Alfred Mahan wrote a book called The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. That's a mouthful. It was read by a lot of normal people. That's not the word to say it. But a lot of common, ordinary people, but also by leaders. Winston Churchill read this book and said, that's right. Theodore Roosevelt read that book. Many men who went on to become senators and representatives in Congress, the man who became Kaiser Wilhelm II, or was it the first, read that book. And so many nations in the world were vying to gain sea power. And this book, Mahan, looked at history and said, throughout human history, nations that controlled the sea controlled the world. And to control the sea, you have to have certain things. Britain has had those things. The United States is lacking too. Two things the United States needed in order to have sea power. We need a stronger navy and we need these vital sea lanes and passes, what we call sea gates. Well, he said if the US didn't control them, other nations would, and they would exercise their power on us instead of us on them.

Now we know from our history that eventually the United States did control and gain these things, but we shouldn't assume it just happened automatically. There's a story in our history that I like to share, partly because I find it amusing, but also it shows the contrast of where we were and where we needed to get to. Many Americans don't know that we nearly went to war in 1891, while President Grover Cleveland was in office. We almost went to war with the nation of Chile, or we often say Chile. And you might wonder, why in the world do we have ever gone to war with them? What did they do to us? Well, it's an interesting incident. Back then, and we were spoiling for a fight. It was a generation or so past the Civil War. We had a lot of young people that didn't know how horrible war would be. And in the history of nations, that's what happens. A younger generation comes along that forgets how bad war is and starts wanting to fight. So what happens? One of our warships, the USS Baltimore, took shore leave in a Chilean harbor. And what do sailors do on shore leave? They get drunk and whore around and fight, and that's what they did. And a couple of our sailors got killed. The Americans were outraged when we found out we demanded an apology from Chile or else. Well, the Chilean government said, we're not going to apologize. And rightly so, they began preparing to fight. We said, well, we better prepare to fight. And that's when our diplomats said, hmm, maybe we should talk instead. We looked at it and discovered they had a bigger, better Navy than we did. We didn't have much chance of defeating Chile in a war. Now, when I say that, really? You know, it's like, we're the United States. We're a superpower. But at that point, we were kind of lacking. Well, the embarrassment of that episode was actually part of what pushed Congress to say, let's build up that Navy. We don't want to have this happen again. And not long afterwards, a very brief and sudden war would suddenly change the whole picture of the United States and its place in the world. What would happen is, several sea gates and positions would be transferred from a former great empire to the United States. And that former empire was Spain. Spain still had control of positions around the world, even though it was a bit past its heyday. They didn't give them up voluntarily, but we'll see that it happened fairly easily for the United States. If you'll turn with me to Genesis 31, I wanted to point out that this is not the first time where God just decided it was time to transfer possessions from one person or nation to another. I want to look at the example of how God can do that. In Genesis 31 in verse 1, this is the story, of course, when Jacob was working for his father-in-law, Laban.

And he had worked 14 years for his two wives, and then was working several more years to get paid. And it was going pretty well for Jacob. Jacob heard the words of Laban's son, saying, Jacob has taken all that was our fathers, and from what was our fathers, he has acquired all this wealth. Jacob saw the countenance of Laban, and indeed it was not favorable to him as before. And of course, that's because what happened is Jacob and Laban would make an agreement, well, if cattle are born with an odd coloring, or with rings, or streaks, whatever it is, the thing that's least expected, those will belong to Jacob.

But God would intervene so that that's what would be born, and they change it, and then whatever they changed it to is what would be born. And in verse 9, we see Jacob sum it up. 31 verse 9, God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me. I wanted to show that biblical press in it, because we could take that principle and say in 1898, God took the strongholds that belonged to Spain and just gave them to the United States.

I'm not going to go into the details leading up to the war. They consisted mostly of the United States being very upset by Spain's treatment of the people in one of its colonies, that of Cuba. Cuba still was part of the Spanish Empire, and so the United States thought the people were being mistreated and set one of our battleships, the USS Maine into Havana, to sort of make our presence known. Well, it was there a few days, and it blew up and sank.

Of course, Americans were quick to blame the Spanish or the Cubans, but somebody did this. Later studies showed that it couldn't have been the Spanish. The explosion came from inside. I say later, long after the war was over, divers were able to examine the wreck. Now, there's all kinds of theories. Did somebody actually get inside the ship and plant a bomb, or was it the coal dust and the bunkers?

And then, of course, because I believe in God working miracles, I thought, well, could God have blown up the ship to start the war? That doesn't seem like his style. But I do know, I'm certain, that God did not prevent the explosion.

He could have done that. He let it happen. And then the results would be what the Secretary of State called a splendid little war. It lasted seven weeks. 325 American casualties killed in battle. The first remarkable victory is kind of comical in itself. We had a small Pacific fleet, and the commander of that squadron, Commodore George Dewey, was warned ahead of time to be ready to go. And so, when war broke out, he was told, go to the Philippine Islands and capture Manila.

So it was on May 1st of 1898, our six warships steamed into Manila Harbor. It was one of those bright sunny days, nice and still. The Spanish fleet of ten ships are there at anchor. And Dewey turns to his first mate, he says these famous words, you may fire when you're ready, gridly. Boom, boom, the cannon starts firing and hitting the Spanish ships.

One of the accounts says the Spanish commander stuck his head out of porthole and said, what's going on? I think there's a war. They didn't know. And they surrendered almost immediately. With only a few shots fired, suddenly the Philippines belonged to the United States. Commonly, the Philippines commonly called the Gateway to Asia. One of the most important sea gates on the world are there for us. Now, there wasn't a lot of fighting between land armies in this war. What there was gave the United States one of its most enduring heroes, Theodore Roosevelt.

He had been working in a government post, but when the war broke out, he resigned from that and volunteered to raise a cavalry regiment, which I like to talk about just because it's fun to say their nickname. They were officially the first US volunteer cavalry, but everyone called them the Rough Riders. And it was interesting. He got a combination of Harvard polo players and Western cowboys and brought them together.

And then they shipped them to Havana without horses, or not to Havana, but to Cuba. I love telling that because it's funny, they didn't plan. You know, the war came out of nowhere, so they planned to send this cavalry regiment and discovered when they got there that they didn't have the docks to unload the horses.

So some people had the bright idea, let's just push the horses overboard and hope they can swim. A lot of them could swim, but they didn't cooperate by going where the cavalry wanted them. Anyways, I'm getting sidetracked, but what I wanted to point out is when the most famous battle to charge up San Juan Hill came, none of the cavalry soldiers had horses except for Roosevelt.

You know, some of the officers managed to keep their horses. And Roosevelt was famously untouched in this battle. Now, there were casualties. Matter of fact, the reason he was in command is his superior officer had been injured in the fighting, so the lieutenant colonel became in charge of the regiment. One famous story is while he's riding up his horse, and if you're firing a gun, a man on a horse is a pretty big target. And he comes across a soldier who's cowering behind a rock, and he stops and looks at him. He says, why are you afraid to advance on foot when I'm up here exposed on horseback?

And he rallies the man, and they charge up the hill, and he's never touched. You know, which might not seem that unremarkable, but I'm reminded of the many stories I've told of George Washington over the years, where people assume, you know, and I think rightly that it must have been miracles by God that kept that man alive at a time when the nation needed him. Maybe that was the case for Roosevelt.

We do know he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Now, I'll move on from there. The naval war in the Atlantic was incredibly one-sided. The U.S. easily defeated the Spanish Navy and took control of Puerto Rico and Cuba. Although we gave back almost all of Cuba, we kept one small part called Guantanamo Bay, which is why we had, you know, I wonder if 100 years ago they were planning to have a place to send terrorists.

Probably not, but we kept that. We also, in the Pacific, along with the Philippines, took Guam, and shortly after the war annexed the Sandwich Islands, which were becoming known by the name of Hawaii. So suddenly, the United States has possessions around the world at vital seagate. And all of these would be very important to the United States being able to build and control what some people consider the most famous one of all in the United States control, that of the Panama Canal.

Now, can anyone who believes that God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that the United States is the modern representatives of those people, can we doubt that the sudden rise to power was part of the wonderful works of God? I don't doubt it.

And I don't have time. Well, I'll just mention the United States gaining the Panama Canal is not an insignificant story. France had been trying to build a canal there for decades, and, you know, they had men and soldiers. Actually, when we took over, there was a lot of rusting equipment that was outdated that we had to push aside. And since they'd been unsuccessful, some people, and matter of fact, there was a movement in Congress saying if the United States is going to build a canal, shouldn't be in Panama. Let's try it in Nicaragua. Well, we know that there's not a canal in Nicaragua. I find it interesting because there was actually going to be a serious discussion in Congress to move our plans from Panama to Nicaragua. And just before the meeting started, a volcano erupted in Nicaragua. And they said, hmm, maybe that's not the best place to be digging. So we turned our attention back to Panama.

And it's a, well, involved story about the politics. At one point, you could say, do we need a miracle or a revolution? Well, we managed to get both, and we move forward building the canal. Some people would call it a miracle of modern engineering. Now, there's a book. David McCullough is a well-known author who makes a lot of stories very interesting. He wrote a book on this called The Path Between the Seas. If any of you are interested, I'll refer to that as an interesting, very interesting account. One of the things we forget, unlike the Suez Canal, which was digging up sandy soil, you know, we're familiar with the Rocky Mountains in North America and the Andes in South America. Well, that same mountain change runs right through Central America, including Panama. So digging through a mountain range has no small feet. And then they also had to learn to conquer the smallest enemy, which was probably the greatest, the mosquito. The mosquitoes in the area transferred yellow fever, smallpox, malaria, and killed thousands and thousands of men. But when the United States moved in, we very quickly found a solution, a way to control the mosquito population. Now, miracles big and small show us God does fulfill His promises. And that's where I started this message. Knowing that God is the Great Creator God and the source of power and life, it's appropriate for us to worship Him. And part of that worship should include doing what David called telling of His great works, telling these stories and remembering them. God worked great miracles in the time of our ancient forefathers that we read about in the Bible. But I think He's also worked miracles in more modern times that we can see in the history of our nation. Let's, if you will, turn with me to Isaiah 46. I'd like to read a couple of scriptures to wrap this up. Isaiah 46 in verse 9.

Isaiah 46 in verse 9 says, Remember the former things of old, for I am God. There is no other. I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel will stand. God told the end from the beginning. He determined that He would make the children of Israel into a great nation, and He had the power to bring that about. Let's go back a couple chapters to chapter 41 of Isaiah. Isaiah 41 in verse 8.

But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham my friend, you whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and called from the farthest regions and said to you, You are my servant. I have chosen you, have not cast you away. Fear not, I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I'll uphold you with my righteous right hand. So God worked miracles. I believe He worked miracles to cause the United States to be founded as a separate nation, worked miracles to cause it to grow and prosper. He gave victories to its armies, caused leaders of empires to defer to our needs. Now, we look for examples often, of course, in the fight for American independence and World War II, but we can find God's hand at work all through our history, you know, because it's not just the history of the United States, it's the history of God's people in one sense, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And considering that, that should lead us to echo the words of David when he said, I'll proclaim with thanksgiving and I will tell of all your wondrous works.

Thank you, Mr. Dunkel.