Lessons From D-Day

Good afternoon, brethren. Now, I've heard so many ministers get up after special music and say, boy, how do you follow that? And now I kind of know what that's like. Great to have two pieces of beautiful music to come before you. It sort of diminishes the sound of my voice, but I guess that's the brakes. Before I go much further, I should probably, because I know I'll be asked by several people later on, mention Sue's not here today. She came down with a cold just a couple days ago, which I feel even more guilty about that because I had a cold about two and a half or week and a half, two weeks ago, and her symptoms are following the exact same course as mine. So, I'm pretty sure I know where she got it. And I don't know, she might be listening, go to the website later to hear this. She said, oh, I was looking forward to hearing your sermon. Funny thing is, I've learned that my mother-in-law tends to visit our website and listen to her sermon. So, she always tells me about them later. So, if you're watching, hi, mom! I'm not sure if you should do that in church, but I couldn't resist. But I do have a special topic I want to discuss today because this is a significant event in history. It was on this date 65 years ago, one of the largest, most significant military operations in human history began. Its codename was Operation Overlord. We commonly call it D-Day. Now, the term D-Day actually dates back to the first World War, and it would relate to any date that was set for a particular military operation. And a day before would be D plus one. As you went past the particular date, it would be D minus one, D minus two. So, D-Day in itself could be fairly generic, but Operation Overlord was such a large invasion. Many would say the largest invasion ever. It was a major turning point in the Second World War. So, in American vocabulary, D-Day has become synonymous with that operation and with June the 6th.

So, as a history teacher, when I saw that my name was on the schedule for this date, there's an obvious topic I want to talk about. And when you think about how momentous this day was, a matter of fact, I was thinking as I was sitting there, I wish I had illustrations. If you've ever seen any of those old black and white documentaries where you see the planes flying in the tanks and the troops marching, when I go into the historical parts, you can just imagine in your mind those playing behind me. But let's consider, it was in many ways a climax, at least a major turning point. June 6th of 1944 saw the long-awaited invasion of German-occupied France by the Allied nations, principally the United States and Britain. Now, they weren't able to just land peacefully. There was a very well-trained, heavily armed German army and well-prepared fortifications waiting to stop them. Operation Overlord was in many ways a big risk. If everything went exactly according to plan, it was still expected to cost thousands of lives. It was not going to be short or easy.

Operation Overlord was the most complex military operation attempted in human history. It involved 5,000 ships, 11,000 aircraft. More than 175,000 men and 50,000 vehicles were scheduled to land on the beaches on just the first day alone. 12 nations cooperated in the invasion, and troops came from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, and France.

Three-quarters of the fighting men, though, came from the United States.

When I imagine that, and I think of the context of World War II, it provides this great epic story of good versus evil. In our multicultural, political-correct society, there aren't too many groups that you're allowed to get away with in public calling evil, but the Nazis still fall in that category. You can always call Nazis evil. If you're a movie maker, you can always set something back in the 30s or 40s so you can have bad guys that nobody will criticize you for.

The war provides us numerous historic, great figures. Of course, Winston Churchill with the British, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, larger than life. Even great villains, Adolf Hitler is another one you can always portray as evil. And there have been stories through the ages of what we believe are probably miracles, many cases where the weather turned in a dramatic way. And there are some stories not so well documented of sometimes enemy soldiers seeing what we think might have been angels on horses riding to the rescue of some of our Allied troops. When I think of all this, as I said, I thought, well, D-Day, I've got to talk about this. I started wondering, could I really match the grand scale of the subject would occur or called for? A lot of times I started thinking of, well, this possibility, I could build it around this. That's, ah, well, that analogy starts to fall down. Or perhaps I could make a metaphor here that would fit with an aspect of God's plan. It seemed like everything would fall. None of them would quite measure up. So I started saying, well, maybe this is just too big. Maybe I should just give a sermonet or sermon on faith. It's a good thing I didn't. That would have been a bad thing for today. But then I thought, well, Frank, what are you doing? You're being kind of dumb. I told myself that on too many occasions. You don't have to have the perfect analogy or metaphor. And giving the perfect sermon is probably out of the question anyways. I'd like. I've got something to strive for. But face it, June 6th is a very significant date in American history.

And there are lots of lessons we can draw from it. So without saying that this is going to be the perfect sermon, that's not meant to be an apology. I'm just saying, I want to look at this date and what happened and say that there are a lot of lessons we can draw from it. So if you want a title, I call this Lessons from D-Day. And I've got a number of major themes, and then I'm going to draw some lessons as we go. First one is the fact that eventual victory usually doesn't come easy. It's not easy, and it requires a number of things. It requires enduring and surviving, persevering and preparing. That enduring and surviving, persevering and preparing, I thought I could make lessons one through four, but then I'd have way too many lessons. So I'm going to group these together in a particular way to fit the history. Because we're going to have to back up a ways before D-Day. If we want to appreciate how momentous it was for the allies to be able to make that successful landing on the beaches in France, overcoming a very powerful foe, it's worth us considering how four years earlier they were thrown out of Europe and suffered a very ignominious defeat. Now, you might think four years, well, I've got to clarify. For many of us Americans, we tend to think, well, World War II started on June 7th in 1941 with Pearl Harbor.

Well, okay, a lot of people looked at me like, oh, he's dumb. Good, good. You know that.

Obviously, the war had been going on sometime before American involvement. Go back to 1939. September 1st, Germany invades Poland with the vicious Blitzkrieg attack. Now, Britain and France had drawn a theoretical line in the sand before that. They'd finally decided to abandon policy of appeasement. You know, give these dictators a little of what they want and we can have peace. They saw that that had failed time after time. Turns out the dictators always want a little bit more. So they decided they would make a stand with the nation of Poland. They said, if Germany attacks Poland, we're going to declare war. And so Hitler did. As I said, September 1st of 1939, a vicious attack that went through Poland very quickly, Britain and France did declare war.

But the interesting thing from our perspective is they had planned a defensive strategy. They learned some lessons from the previous war, World War I with the trenches and the barbed wire and all the terrible dying. So they planned a defensive strategy behind miles and miles of very intense fortifications called the Maginot Line, bordering France and Germany. Matter of fact, I wish I had more time. If you ever get a chance to go there, once when I was doing a travel study class, I got to tour part of the fortifications that are still there. They had entire regiments staying in underground bunkers with hospitals and commissaries under the ground. And they'd get on little electric trains that would take them through a tunnel out to their big heavy guns, which were also underground, with great hydraulic pumps that would raise the cannon up above the ground into fire, and then lower back down so the Germans couldn't destroy them. Immense fortifications.

Matter of fact, so immense and so powerful, the Germans never did overcome them. They finally captured the Maginot Line from behind, which is where I'm going with this. Maginot Line, as I said, covered that whole line of fortific... whole border between France and Germany.

But of course, it didn't go into Belgium, because Belgium is a separate country, and they weren't so keen on the French coming in there and building that. So, in Belgium is where most of the British army came to be on the defensive against German attack. I gotta watch out. You're getting that look that some of my students do when I'm giving a lot of details about a military operation. John, you know the look, right? Anyways, so what happened in that first winter? Nothing much happened. The British and French were waiting for the Germans to attack. The Germans weren't ready to attack. Journalists started scoffing. They called it the Phoney War. Or, in a play on words, they called it the Sitzkrieg, because everyone seemed to be sitting there on their hands.

That wouldn't last too awful long, though. Next spring, Hitler fulfilled the expectations. And one thing I can say, there's not much good you can say about Hitler, but he was punctual. He had launched his earlier attack on September 1st. Now, on May 1st, he sent his soldiers in. Not through the Maginot Line, but they saw an area of Belgium that was not very heavily defended. A very thick forest known as the Ardennes. It wasn't very heavily defended, because they thought, well, there's no way an armored army is coming through here. But, of course, that's where the surprise attack came. The dive bombers, the blitzing tanks, fast-moving equipment, managed to get a break through the thin defenses, and then come around, could attack the British from behind. They sent them reeling, defeat after defeat. They were scurrying to try to reform, backed up in a matter of days, all the way to the English Channel. And there they were, very vulnerable. They'd already lost equipment. They weren't very well organized. The Germans only needed to move in for the kill.

And the armies halted. People still speculate. Why did they do it? Some say, well, they needed to retool their tanks. They'd gone so far, so fast, they had to have service. Some have said that Hitler wanted to give the German Air Force the chance to win the victory because they hadn't played a very major part. Other people say, perhaps God wanted them to stop. I still want to tend to lean towards that. The Germans didn't have a strong reason why they had to, but they did.

And then occurred something unheard of. The British army was there with their, not their backs to the wall, their backs to the water. And they had a moment to respite. And so the British Navy decided to try to get them out. An Operation Dynamo, they sent some large destroyers there to try to evacuate the soldiers. They hoped that maybe they would get out 30,000, maybe 40,000, if everything went well. But where the army was against the sea wasn't a plan where they expected to be, so there were no docks, no piers prepared. The destroyers, you know, they're ocean-going ships, they can't pull right up to the beach. So they needed smaller boats to come and help ferry the soldiers out. Britain sent out a call to anyone there in the southwestern part of the country, if you've got a boat, we need your help. And a thousand or more showed up. They came in little pleasure yachts, sailing dinghies, lifeboats, rowboats, anything you can imagine, but not the stuff that you think of for a major military invasion. They came over and, matching the time that the Germans stopped, the seas were deftly calm. Not high waves, not wind, even though there was a very heavy cloud cover. The soldiers later were critical of their air force for not helping them. They found out later that above the clouds there was a vicious air battle going on between the German Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force, in which the Royal Air Force took down three for one or four for one in many occasions, protecting those men while that mosquito fleet, the fleet of small ships, carried men back and forth as quickly as possible. Some lining up for the destroyers. I like the fact there were some that just said, forget that, it's only a dozen miles to Britain, let's just take them across. And then they'd come back and get more. Despite the danger, these were volunteers, a ragtag group with no overall organization, just that they'd heard a call, we need boats. And they ended up evacuating about 338,000 British or soldiers. Not all British, they were about 26,000 of the French. Remember, they were hoping to get 30 or 40,000, so they evacuated more than 10 times the number. Now, this wasn't the major victory that the British were hoping for, but it was something. And here's where I want to draw the first lesson for us Christians by way of parallel. And that is, if we persevere, God can and will send deliverance, and sometimes in obscure ways or ways that we hardly expect. Unexpected small means.

If you will, let's turn to my first scripture, 1 Samuel chapter 14.

Rather than saying this in my words, I want to put it in the words of a valiant man, Jonathan, son of King Saul. This is the time when the Israelites are ready to go to war with the Philistines, and they were quite honestly rather afraid and not ready to go join this battle. But Jonathan wasn't all that afraid. Chapter 14 verse 6, he decides to go over and check out a garrison of the Philistines and see what's going on. I think the cold that I had a couple weeks ago has left me a little dry, so...

14 verse 6, Jonathan says to the young man who bore his armor, Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. May be that the eternal will work for us, for nothing restrains the eternal from saving by many or by few. God can do it with however many he wants to.

And I think sometimes God prefers to save by the few. And I want to cite another story. If you want to follow along, you can turn to Judges chapter 7, but I'm going to summarize the story. This is the story of Gideon. Because I think it does parallel somewhat this... the events of what was called the miracle at Dunkirk. It just struck me that I think I forgot to give the common name for that evacuation. That miracle of Dunkirk, like I said, the small few people that worked as great salvation, really, for the army. And there in Judges, it's the case of, once again, foreign power oppressing Israel, that time the Midianites. They'd sent a large army out there. They'd been ruling the country. Finally, the Israelites were beginning to be repentant, so God calls on Gideon to save his people. Gideon wasn't so ready for that. I'm going to skip past the part where Gideon has to test God and make sure it's really him. Finally, Gideon said, okay, it's you. He blows a trumpet, calls for soldiers to come from across Israel, and thousands of them turn up. So many, in fact, that God looks down and he says, Gideon. I can almost imagine tapping on his shoulder. Hey, Gideon. Gideon, you've got too many here. This is too many for me to save the nation of Israel. He wanted to be sure that everyone knew that it wasn't by the strength of their arms, but it was God's power saving them. So he has Gideon go out and make an announcement to the huge army. Okay, listen up. If any of you are afraid, you're scared to go into this battle, you can go on home now. And two-thirds of them did. Started out around 30,000. He's down to only about 10,000 left. So then Gideon gets a surprise because God tells him, well, you still got too many. God really wanted to make his point in this. So he tells Gideon, as you see if you're reading along, let's take them down to the water and get something to drink and watch to see how they drink. Now, most of them then just threw their stuff aside and stuck their head down, you know, slurped it up. But a small number wanted to stay on their alert, so they're using their hand to lap the water. The King James is always not all that clear on that, but so they're still at the ready. And God says, those are the soldiers I want. There were 300 of them. Out of the 30,000 or so that first appeared, God doesn't always, not only He can save by the few, but we see that He oftentimes wants to. And He did. He worked a great salvation. You can continue reading the story. As I said, I don't want to read all the scriptures for that one because I've got several other stories to refer to, but that might be a good thing to enjoy reading in the afternoon of nice weather we have.

So we look back at that miracle of Dunkirk. Now, let's draw the parallel. And what I want to do is let's not put ourselves in the shoes of the soldiers. Might switch and do that in a moment, but we can compare ourselves in many ways to those volunteers with that mosquito fleet of boats, the odd-sized, underpowered type of craft that you would never expect. Because if God was behind this, and I believe He was, God sometimes will use a small, weak, scattered group to accomplish a great thing. And if you haven't noticed, the Church of God is a small, fairly weak, relatively powerless group. But God still works through us. He wants us to accomplish important things. And for one, I'm grateful for that. Rather than calling someone with the big destroyer, the powerful motorboat, He called me with my little sailing dinghy.

I don't know, I wasn't planning on that analogy beforehand, so I've got to watch where I go with those. Another lesson I want to draw on before we leave the miracle of Dunkirk behind is the fact that we see God does not like to waste resources. Now, let's consider, as I mentioned, I think God had it in His plan overall, and it fits into the prophecy of the resurrections of the Roman Empire. I believe God wanted the Nazi Empire to rise, but He also wanted it to fall, and He was going to use the nations, the descendants of Israel, to bring that about. So, it's a good bet God wanted Britain to succeed and perhaps intervene to save this ragtag—not ragtag, but the British Army, as I said, was defeated. They were reeling. They were hurting. God could have just let Him be captured and then raised up forces from some other way. He could have defeated the Germans by sending down the huge hailstones, as He had done in the Old Testament. Or, remember the case where Hezekiah has the Assyrian army surrounding him and saying, you know, you better surrender because you're not going to make it. Hezekiah went and laid out the letter before God and made a prayer, and God sent one angel, wiped out 185,000 of them. You know, God could just wipe out the Nazis on His own, but instead He chose to save a beaten and discouraged group of soldiers.

But let's look at another story that I think helps illustrate the point. That's in the book of John chapter 6. John 6, we're going to start in verse 11. Remember, I'm making the point that God doesn't like to waste resources. You know, He'll use people again, He'll use things again.

John 6 and verse 11. Now, this is going to be a story of one of the cases of Christ feeding the multitudes. And I'm going to break in part of the story because it's a familiar story. Hundreds, actually thousands of people came to hear Him teach, and after they'd been there a while, He realizes, you know, I don't know if you looked at His watch or sundial, but it's getting late. These people need to get something to eat. We don't have...where are they going to go?

So He asked the disciples, well, what have we got to feed them? Now, we got seven loaves of bread and a couple fishes. You know, that's not nothing with these 5,000 people. Christ says, well, go ahead and have them sit down. And the miracle proceeds. Let's pick it up in verse 11. Jesus took the loaves. When He had given thanks, He distributed them to the disciples and the disciples to those sitting down, likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. And so when they were filled...now, notice they were filled refers to 5,000 people, not just having a bite, but they were filled. But He said to His disciples, He, Jesus Christ, said, gather up the fragments that remain so that nothing is lost. I remembered that was in the back of my memory. I had to check. This is actually the only one of the four gospels that includes that particular phrase. But it was there, and John must have, you know, writing his gospel account perhaps later, said, this is something important. I want to make sure we add this. Jesus, you know, said, gather up those fragments. And they gathered, what, 12 baskets full of them. A lot of fragments, bread that He didn't want to go to waste. Now, did Jesus say, let's gather that up because I don't want to run out as we're making our next trip? No, probably not. There's the familiar story. Later on, He tells the disciples, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. And they're saying, what does He mean by that? Beware of the leaven? Well, we forgot to get bread. He's worried we didn't get bread. He doesn't want us to buy their bread. And Jesus said, no, don't you remember I fed 4,000 people with seven loaves and later I fed 7,000 with five loaves? What are you doing worrying about bread? Jesus could make all the bread He wanted. So why did He worry about gathering up the fragments? He said, let nothing be lost. Well, the only thing, well, not the only thing, but one thing I can conclude is that He doesn't like to waste stuff. He put that effort into it, so He's going to pick up broken pieces of bread and put it to use again. Now, we can relate that, perhaps, to that broken British army that was ferried by a whole bunch of small little boats off the coast of Dunkirk and carried back over to Britain. You know, they could have just been tossed aside and said, we've got to start over, but they were remolded and given a chance to go again.

And that, in many ways, applies to us, too. All of us have been defeated, broken, going through trials where we just plain didn't measure up, and had at least once in our life, and when we were totally repentant and going to God for baptism, we reached the point where we say, I'm totally burned out, like Mr. Armstrong used to write, I'm a burned out hunk of junk. But God doesn't just cast us aside. He says, okay, I'm going to pick you up and use you now. He doesn't want to waste these resources, and he can put us to work with the job he has to do.

And so that gives me great comfort and confidence. You know, no matter how...

Well, I don't want to go into how many times I mess up. It is true, no matter how many times I mess up. You know, God still doesn't want to cast me aside, and He's going to give us that opportunity. There's a scripture, otherwise, where it talks about Jesus said, if my disciples are silent, the rocks will cry out. Well, if He could use rocks to preach the gospel, they might be more effective than us, but instead, He still gives us the opportunity.

Now, let's look back at the war, though. There's a couple other things I want to mention.

Remember, I mentioned we've got surviving and persevering. I want to hint on the persevering a little bit more, because when that remnant army was saved and went back to Britain, they didn't have the chance. They didn't pick up some guns and come roaring back across the English Channel to take on the Germans again. Instead, they had some suffering ahead.

Britain stood alone against Germany for, I'm going to say, over a year. A little over a year. I'm trying to get my dates when Hitler broke his word and decided to attack the Soviet Union. But the United States was not going to be in it for a while. France would very quickly fall after the evacuation of Dunkirk, and there Britain stood alone against what, at that time, was the most powerful military force that had ever existed in the world.

And there they were, standing up. Hitler launched an air assault. The bombers coming over to try to destroy Britain's military might and break their will. Matter of fact, at first, he was specifically having the bombers target industrial sites and military complexes. But then, Hitler got a little bit angry, and his ego was touched, so he decided that he wanted to go after the people themselves. So he started ordering the bombers to target London and some of the other major cities. He wanted to break down the will of the British people, make them unwilling to fight anymore.

Now, that's an experience we could relate to if you want to turn to Revelation 12.

Revelation 12, I'm going to start in verse 13, but this is in the book of Revelation. Symbolically, we see the picture of the woman who represents the church, gives birth to a son, and there are various symbols here with the son representing Christ, and then the woman... Well, let me just pick up and read it instead of telling you what it means.

Revelation 12 in verse 13, the dragon representing Satan. When the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. The woman was given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly to the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time, time, and half a time from the presence of the serpent. In various interpretations of prophecy, we understand that this is probably referring to thousands of years... Well, yeah, thousands of years through the era where the church is repressed after the fall of Jerusalem, leaning up until the time God began his modern work. But we also see then the serpent spewed out water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman that he might cause her to be carried away. The earth helped the woman and swallowed up the flood, which the dragon spewed out. The dragon was enraged, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Satan is making war with us, and Mr. Brant made that point very well earlier. You know, we're somewhat like those Brits who have to hunker down and withstand the bomb blasts going off and the rockets coming over. And just, we've got to tough it out and endure it. Not let our will be broken. God's church has endured through ages.

And God's people can endure now. And we will, as long as we never give up. Never give up.

And I know in 1940 and 1941, the British people were undergoing terrible suffering, but they didn't give up. And Winston Churchill, the leader of the nation, rallied his people. I've got some of his words I want to read to you. First of all, he was reporting to Parliament after the evacuation of Dunkirk. He made the point, a very important point, in this speech he said, we must be careful not to assign—I wish I could do the British accent—we must be careful not to assign—that doesn't sound right. I mean, Mr. Stiver to read it. I just don't do accents well, but imagine Churchill—not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of victory. Wars are not won by evacuations, but there was a victory inside this deliverance. He was saying, okay, we were delivered, but there's a lot of fighting yet to go. If you want to make a note of Romans 5 verse 10, as I was rereading the sermon notes this morning, it struck me, oh, there's a point I hadn't made, but the Scripture says, we are reconciled to God by Christ's sacrifice, but saved by His life. We can be reconciled, have our sins forgiven, but we've got more fighting and overcoming to do. Churchill was recognizing a similar principle for his army. Okay, we were saved, you know, the army's saved by this evacuation, but wars aren't won by evacuations. And just like we have to resolve to fight on to overcome Satan and overcome our human nature, Winston Churchill rallied his people. I want to read part of the end of the speech he was giving to Parliament. These are some of the most inspiring words to me, and so I want to share them with you. It says, we shall not flag or fail, we shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the landy grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.

This has to be our attitude as Christians. The Brits at Winston Churchill were fighting for a physical goal, a good physical goal, but how much higher is ours? We're fighting for a spiritual goal.

We must never surrender. And remember, Matthew 24, 13 is a fairly common memory scripture. He that shall endure to the end shall be saved. As I was preparing the sermon, I thought, if nothing else comes out of this, he that shall endure to the end shall be saved. But I'm giving background, I haven't got back to the landing yet, so I'd better move ahead. But my second major theme, I want to talk about resistance fighters. After the Dunkirk evacuation, most of the British army was saved, a small number of the French, but most of the French army was entrenched in the Maginot Line or still out there. The German armies quickly turned south. Now you can imagine the tanks and the dive bombers again. I should have checked with Mike. I know the ME 109s were the fighters, but I don't remember the dive bombers, what those were. Stuka! I thought that, but I didn't think that was right. I should have trusted myself. Anyways, they quickly conquered the rest of France. They maintained the northern and western part, made a military occupation there.

The rest of France, they set up a puppet government with its headquarters in Vichy that would basically dance to the tune that Hitler would play if he played anything.

Now this is the part we can choose to vilify, the French who collaborated with the Germans. But let's look for the inspiration and the uplifting that comes from remembering that there were relatively a few, but quite a few, a good many of men and women, French men and women, who retained a loyalty to the France that they remembered. Indeed, a free French government would be established. A formerly obscure brigadier general named Charles de Gaulle, or Charles de Gaulle, if you prefer French pronunciation, he was taking over the English Channel of Vichyrchel and he established what he called the Free French Government, a government in exile. And a lot of people, a lot of French people, determined to give that their allegiance. They lived in German controlled France, but they considered themselves citizens of a different country, the country that they knew, whose government was not there on their land, but they expected it to return. Now there is an obvious parallel, but I want to point out another small group, an even smaller number. There were some French men who said, I can't even live in the vicinity of these Germans, and they left their homes and families and went out into what's called the brush, the scrub. They were known as the maquis, which is the French word for brush or scrub or outback. And I think one of the Star Trek episodes, yeah, they borrowed that term for a rebel group that was fighting against the government. But the maquis, they were freedom fighters, used guerrilla tactics to try to harass German troops whenever possible, disrupt communications, and also to help those who were trying to flee the continent to get safely out. And they did help a great many Jews who were trying to escape the Holocaust to get across, and they relayed valuable information.

The maquis and a great many of the French resistance fighters, they believed that they had a work to do, even though they were an occupied territory. And like them, we as Christians, of course, we also see ourselves as citizens of a different government. Let's turn to Philippians.

Philippians chapter 3 and verse 20. Actually, it's a very short scripture, but I think it's worth reading.

Now, if you have the old King James, it uses a different word that means what the new King James says. So a new King James, Paul writes, for our citizenship is in heaven. Not that we're going to heaven, but we're loyal to that government. From once we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Pretty good parallel with the French. Their citizenship, they believed, was with that government that was residing in London, but they were trusting that it was going to come back. And that's us. Let's turn a few pages further to the back to the book of Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11, and we're going to start in verse 13.

Which is convenience, the first verse on this page, if you happen to have the same edition as I do.

But this is after the writer had been describing various Old Testament figures who had accomplished great things, who had denied themselves, who were looking forward to the world tomorrow. And he says, these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. They were assured of them, embraced them, confessed that they were strangers in pilgrims on the earth, just like those trench-resistant spiders felt that they were strangers in pilgrims waiting for the real country. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

And that's what we do. Truly, if they called to mind the country from which they'd come out, they could have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, a heavenly country, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Now, that's us. We're waiting for the true government that we're loyal to. We're serving as representatives here now, and sometimes we have to be a little deeper undercover than others, depending... well, maybe I shouldn't say that in a light tone, because we don't know that the level of persecution that might arise when it costs a lot to be a representative of that government.

But in the meantime, and even when that time comes, we know that it's not enough for us to just to survive. We can't be just like the French who said, oh, the Germans are here, I've just got to tough it out, and hopefully they'll go away. There were some of the French Resistance who said, we've got a job to do to help prepare for that coming. And Christ gave us a job to do, at the end of each of the Gospel accounts. I wrote down Mark 16, 15, where he says, preach the Gospel, make disciples. The French Resistance and the Maquis, you know, they knew that their power alone wasn't going to overthrow the Nazis. And we likewise, you know, our strength is small. We can't set up the kingdom of God here on this earth now, but we've got to have to strive to do our part in a larger work. And our part is important, like it was for those French. Before the D-Day landing came, and actually just before, in some cases, the Maquis and some of the French Resistance fighters were called on to go out and break up German lines of communication, cut telephone wires, blow up roads and bridges, spread disinformation.

They... I probably should have said and mentioned this later, because I've gotten ahead of myself in the chronology, but there are a lot of times also when they were conveyors of information.

The Allies needed to get information into key people in German-held territory, or perhaps get information out. And the French Resistance were ones that carried that information, and they got it into the hands of the right people. Again, similar to us. We hold the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. We have revealed information that much of the world is not privy to, and we pass it on to the right people. Here, directly, we pass it on to our children and to those in our family. We're prepared to pass it on to those who ask us a reason of the hope that lies within us, which I guess the French didn't have that option. They wouldn't just pass on the information to anyone that asked them.

But we've got a different opportunity, because God will call some to approach us. And, of course, in a more overt way, we broadcast the good news of the Kingdom of God. We broadcast it literally in some cases, but in other ways. We put it in print. We put it on the internet. We're trying to do this job.

One more parallel to make with the French Resistance fighters.

They did have to be patient. I've been trying to stress that they had a job to do in the meantime, but they had to wait and hope that it would come. They had to keep it going.

Because they knew that their ultimate success depended not on their own efforts, but on an invading army. They knew that allies were going to come with power and overthrow, almost said, Satan's government. Well, sort of, wasn't a way, but at least Hitler's government.

And you can see the parallel. We're also doing all we can, but we know that we can't accomplish the final victory until Jesus Christ comes with an army, an army of his angels, and overthrows Satan, binds him, and brings finally real peace to the earth.

I'll bet you all wish you had a drink of water like this. Don't get up and get one. I'll try to finish soon enough that you can. That's my pause to go to my third major theme, and that is effective leadership. Leadership is so important in so many ways, and the leaders of the countries that participated in D-Day were legends of their time and ours. They're considered the greats in their country's history. I already mentioned Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, the military figures like George Patton, Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower.

I mentioned Charles de Gaulle leading the French armies. Even on the other side, Erwin Rommel is still respected in America for his great military talents, even though he was on the wrong side.

A lot of these names would go on to become household names in our history. The subject of leadership for us in the Church is pretty broad. There's so much to be said. We have to prepare to be leaders. We're called to be kings and priests in God's kingdom.

There are also a lot of... well, what I want to say is I'm not going to try to tackle the general subject. One sermon wouldn't be enough even to cover all of it. I'm going to get to one particular aspect, but I want to mention also while I'm looking at the actual military leadership as the invasion happens, there are also a lot of military analogies we can make. I'm grateful Mr. Brandt took on one of them because I knew I didn't have enough time to cover everything, but as we think of leaders going forth into battle, we do need to remember the weapons of our warfare are not physical. They're spiritual. We need that whole armor and especially that shield of faith so that we can accomplish what we need to. But there's a particular aspect of leadership that I don't know that we hear as much about it as I'd like for us to. Well, maybe it's not something we have to hear about a lot, but it's worth being reminded of. And there's an example from D-Day where we can draw that, and it's Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery. That's a handful. I wish general is a little easier to say than Field Marshal. We don't have the rank of Field Marshal in the American Army, but in several armies they do, and it's a rank above general. Now, instead of saying Bernard L. Montgomery, he was often just called Monty by his troops, and a lot of his troops loved him. Some, of course, hated him, but that's the nature of leadership, right? He was the highest striking British military officer at the time of D-Day, and he had a fairly distinguished career. He had been an officer in World War I, fought numerous battles with distinction. Matter of fact, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in World War I and suffered injuries more than once. When the Second World War came, he was at a much higher station. He was there at that miracle of Dunkirk. Matter of fact, he can claim a lot of the responsibility for having the soldiers at least retreating in good order and being ready to get on the boats, you know, not leaving themselves totally open to where the Germans could capture them. Then, when the British were ready for some to launch a small second counterattack—I knew there was a word I was looking for—they weren't ready to go into France until 1944, but they were ready to try to take back over northern Africa. And Monty was there. He led the successful defense and victory at El Alamein, and then his army swept forward, moving westward across northern Africa, even as Americans were moving towards the east and meeting in the middle. And of course then, with a little more planning, they made the jump. Here's where I wish I had a map. But when I teach class, it's bad. I keep pointing at the map and forgetting to look at my students. But imagine northern Africa, a short jump to the island of Sicily. They cleared the Italians out of that, then moved into the boot. And the two main military leaders at this time—now Dwight Eisenhower was overall, but he had George Patton with the Americans, Monty with the British. And they developed an interesting rivalry. They were basically seeing who could move the furthest to fastest. The furthest to—Bedford Forest would say the fastest with the fastest with the mostest. But they were trying to get the gasoline. There was a competition. You know, I need the gasoline over here for my troops as they're racing up the peninsula. So what I'm trying to make the case is Monty had been at this a long time. He had a lot of expertise. He had a pretty good claim for thinking, hey, I should be the overall commander when we launched Operation Overlord. You know, he'd been in it from the start, seen defeat. You know, he had a lot of experience.

He wanted that command, but he didn't get it. Instead, he had to stand by and watch it be given to a younger, less experienced American, Dwight Eisenhower. Now, this is not at all to imply that Eisenhower wasn't well qualified. He actually, when we look back and see what was necessary, Eisenhower was more qualified because he had to do a lot of things for the job that weren't just military. But I don't want to stress that. I want to look at Monty's attitude. Now, I don't want to imply that he accepted this, you know, what some would call slight with perfect grace and dignity.

He wanted the top job, so he didn't accept it with, like I said, perfect grace and dignity, but he did accept it. He accepted an American who was, like I said, younger and less experienced, taking the top job, being the overall commander. And then Monty went on, I want to say, to perform well. He had that problem with going a bridge too far, which is a good reference. If you can watch the movie, we'll explain it a bit more. But might we ever find ourselves in a similar situation?

I suspect that we could. As I said, we're training for leadership positions. Let's turn to the book of Matthew, chapter 20.

Matthew 20, I'm going to begin... Oh, and... and verse... Yeah, and verse 1. Sorry, I didn't look right because I was looking at the wrong chapter.

It's the parallel of the workers in the vineyard. And this one, I'm not just going to skip through. I want to read it. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

Now, when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day... I'm not sure exactly how much a denarius is, but it's probably about a day's wage for an agricultural worker. Anyways, they agreed, they went out. So then he goes back to where he hired those guys at the third hour of the day, sees others standing idle. So he said, you go to work in the vineyard too, and whatever's right, I'll give you. So he didn't negotiate with them, so they went.

He goes out again at the sixth hour, at the ninth hour, does a similar deal. He even goes out at the eleventh hour. Now, he's only planning on 12 hours, so I'm not going to keep up with this all day, but from the eleventh hour, he goes out and finds some still standing there not doing anything.

He says, why have you been standing here idle all day? And they said, well, no one's hired us. They said, okay, you go into the vineyard, whatever's right, you'll receive. Okay, so then they reach the end of the 12 hours or so of work. Evening comes, and the owner of the vineyard says to a steward, you know, his foreman, you could say, okay, call in the laborers and give them their wages. Start with the last, those ones that I just hired at the eleventh hour, and work your way back to the earliest. Now, Christ wants to do it this way to make a point.

So those ones that were hired at the eleventh hour came, and each one of them got a denarius, you know, a day's wages. And then the ones at the ninth hour got the same, the ones at the sixth. So you can imagine the guys that had been there all day are saying, hey, he's feeling generous, we're going to get more. Sorry I'm getting off script here, but that's what they would have said.

Yeah, on verse 9, when, uh, no, verse 10. But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more, and they likewise received each a denarius. When they received it, they complained against the landowners, saying, hey, these last men have worked only one hour, and you've made them equal to us who have borne the burden in the heat of the day.

But the landowners answered him, said, friend, I'm not doing you anything wrong. You agreed with me for a denarius. Right up front, you said, I'll work all day for this set amount. So take what's yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as you. Isn't it lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil, because I'm good?

And the first will be last, and the last first many are called, and few are chosen. Now, you could say, for those of us who have been in the church for a while, and I hope you've probably heard this analogy here and there, we're bearing the heat of the day. Many of us have been bearing it working for a long time. And we might start developing certain expectations for what reward we're going to have in God's kingdom when Christ returns.

What position we might get. Just as Field Marshal Montgomery might have had expectations that he would be the supreme allied commander. But we need to remember this, what Christ told those workers. You agreed with me for this. With us, we didn't go to work or we're not fighting a battle, but he said, you endure to the end and you'll be saved. They did tell us we're going to be kings and priests also. There's a reward that we look forward to. But as we think about it, in a vast kingdom that's going to eventually encompass everyone, there are probably different levels of responsibility.

You know, higher levels people wouldn't charge over others. I don't want to strict the military analogy too far because I don't know if the kingdom of God will have a strict line and staff organization like the U.S. Army. But we know there are going to be some. For instance, we're pretty, you know, Christ told the disciples or the 12 apostles each of them would have a throne over a tribe of Israel.

But two of them wanted a little bit more, apparently. You know, James and John went, well, actually they didn't go. They got mom to go do it for them. They said, hey, give my sons, you know, the right and left hand, the two top positions.

And Jesus said, oh, you know, can't do that for you. They're going to, you know, the people that are going to have those jobs are the ones that my father is prepared. And we don't know exactly who it'll be. We speculate, you know, probably Abraham's going to be way up high. King David, you know, if each of the apostles is over a tribe, perhaps David will be over all of them. This is somewhat speculating, but since I got a lot of this out of the wonderful world tomorrow, it's not speculating too far.

The point is, though, that you don't always get to choose what position you'll have. And we all have to fulfill the same training and be ready to serve in whatever job that our commander in chief gives us. You know, things change over the years, even in the current day. You know, I've heard, you know, various ministers talking about times of change in the church, and the common proverb comes out. They say, be careful to those who are underneath you, because one of them might soon be your boss. I remember actually a leading minister who was teaching class when I was an ambassador, and I can't remember how he got into the subject, but he was talking about one of these times when it seemed like people were moving positions and people were being elevated and lowered. And so he was about to go out visiting for the day, and he told his wife, if the boss calls, get his thing! I'm glad. I finally got the timing for that one right. I thought it was hilarious when I said that. But, you know, consider for us, if this era of the work continues much longer than we anticipate. Now, the way things are looking, it could be very short, but it's looked very short before. You know, say that the work is going to go on two or three or four more decades, and I'm being totally speculative, but if it does, God is likely to call a lot more people in. We hope He'll call a lot more people into the church. And if so, some of them, He'll probably start calling into positions of leadership. And leadership, perhaps, over us. And we just need to be ready. And as I was preferring this, it stopped and hit me. It's like, you know, most of the years in the church, I thought of myself as being one of the young guys. And I looked in the mirror and said, boy, there's a lot of gray in that beard for being the young guy. And it occurred to me, it wouldn't, it could very easily happen that sometime I might, in the future, I might have a pastor who's younger than I am. That doesn't sound shocking, especially for many of you out there who have experienced that long ago. But when you grow up in the church, you always have these expectations. The end of the world's going to come, you know, I'll never be at that level. It's like, boy, it could happen. And like I said, there's a younger generation moving up who are going to take positions of leadership. And then think about the millennial. Now, one thing we know when we're made spirit, our current gender isn't, isn't going to matter. We're not going to be men and women in the same way. I'm sure our personalities will be there, but you know, women don't hold positions of leadership in the church today in the same way that men do. But we don't know that about the world tomorrow. There could be, it's easy for me to imagine a number of women I've known in the church having high positions of leadership. And part of me says, well, it's easy to imagine, say, I could would expect to serve under, say, a resurrected Stella Baldwin, old and wise, having a lot of experience. And I thought, well, what if there's several decades before Christ returns? And then I find in the world tomorrow that I have in position over me someone, perhaps Sophie Hand or Madison Kelly. Couldn't it happen? Well, in that case, I just have to say, be ready. Take the job that is, I have to tell myself, take the job that is given you.

God is training all of us for positions of leadership, but He's the commander in chief. None of us are going to get that job. And we don't know what job we'll get, but hopefully we'll be happy with it. I'm sure we'll be happy with it because He wants what's best for us. So it's lead that. I don't know if I gave Sophie and Madison a shock there, but...

My fourth theme, and I should get this all in, but the information. Good information is vital. It's terribly important. Modern military operations require just tons of information, and they call it intelligence, which leads to the question of, are they doing that on purpose to be funny? Because everyone knows military intelligence. But, you know, this includes things like maps, weather forecast, status updates for your own troops, the condition of your resources, and also as much information as you can get about the enemy. What is the condition of his troops? What resources does he have? If you can find out, what plans does he have?

Now, you might guess, of course, that the planning and the information that was required for Operation Overlord was a mess. Just tons of information. I think I said tons earlier, but I'm not sure how... I guess I better develop my vocabulary. Mass quantities of information.

There was a flood of communication between military units, between top commanders. What we sometimes overlook is how much disinformation was involved in this operation. This is also important in modern warfare. Nowadays, propaganda holds a high place in preparing for battle. And, as I said, spreading disinformation is very important. Preparing for Operation Overlord or D-Day, an entire command center was set up to implement a plan that was called Operation Fortitude.

And I could go on. I got a book out of the library this thick, which was a report of the British commander who was overseeing that operation. But their job was to mislead the Germans. Now, as the British and Americans were building up this army, preparing an invasion, they realized, well, we can't keep it a secret that we're planning to come and invade. But maybe we can keep the Germans guessing. When will the attack come? Where will it come?

Let's try to make them think the wrong thing. Now, the Allied plan set Normandy as the target. Normandy, if you think of where the British Isles are and France, you go almost straight south from Britain to get to the Normandy beaches. And one reason they wanted to do that was because of the beaches and also because they had found out that that's not what Hitler was expecting. He thought that they would go to the east across the shortest distance, where the channel is only 11 or 12 miles wide. So Operation Fortitude was designed to make the Germans think that. Expect the attack in the shortest distance. And they were hoping to make the Germans think the attack is going to come in late June, maybe July. Whereas, well, actually Dwight Eisenhower was hoping to have the attack in May. As it turned out, he didn't have quite enough landing craft gathered, so he had to put it off towards June. And to create this deception, though, entire armies were created on paper. Regiments and army groups that didn't exist, but the documents were there. And then they simulated radio communications as though they were there. They actually had—and I'm not sure how the engineers designed this—they made a large number, hundreds of tanks made out of rubber, blew them up like big props, and hundreds—and I'm not sure if it was up to the thousands of landing craft—that they just hammered together a cheap plywood. And then they put them near Dover, you know, southwestern part of Britain, to where they could be seen by spies and photographed by aerial reconnaissance. So they were doing everything they could to give the Germans the wrong idea. And part of the reason for this—I just realized I skipped over in my notes, that's what happened when you don't look—but the Germans, you know, had built fortifications all along the wall. They caught—well, not the wall, the ocean, but Hitler called it the Atlantic Wall. They put in underwater water traps on the beaches to try to rip the bottoms out of boats. Four heavy concrete bunkers with cannon. You know, the idea was fight off the British before they can even land. And they also kept a large number of troops back in reserves. If the coast is here, sorry, you know, you could line up all your troops there, but that spreads them out. If you have a big number back here, when you find out where the invasion is, you move your troops in to stop it. The British wanted to keep that body of reserve troops back away until it was too late to stop them. That's why they worked hard to convince the Germans the invasion will be at Calais, not in Normandy. As a matter of fact, even as D-Day was being launched, they had a number of ships move right across the channel towards the area where they wanted the Germans to expect it. And planes flew overhead and dropped dummy, you know, mannequins, many of them outfitted with firecrackers to go off. So it sounded like soldiers were coming and shooting. I learned that from the movies, too. But I read later and found out it was true. And actually, it worked. When Operation Overlord was launched, the top German general in the army, General von Rundstedt, said, nah, that's just a faint. You know, they're landing over there in Normandy to make us think that's where it is, but really, they're coming over here at Calais near Dunkirk, where they'd left. And Hitler believed that, too. So they did keep some of their best troops back away, and it ended up being until it was too late.

Now, you might wonder, what has this got to do with any of us? Well, the lesson that we need to draw as Christians is not by comparing ourselves to the Allies who are trying to spread this disinformation, but put yourselves momentarily in the shoes of the Nazis. Now, that's a little distasteful to do, but just for the disinformation's sake. Because we also have an enemy who's very skilled at disseminating disinformation. He wants to fool us. Ephesians 2, verse 2, tells us that Satan is the prince of the power of the air. He's got the means to spread all the information he wants, but he wants us to believe things that aren't true. And let's turn to the Second Corinthians, verse 11. Let's get a little bit more of that. Second Corinthians 11, verse 13.

Because this tells us what enemy we're dealing with and how he wants to deceive us, fool us, about what God's intentions are. I knew I'd do that. I'm in 1 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 13. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder, Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Now, he doesn't literally transform. Not changing, but he changes his appearance. And therefore, it's no great things if his ministers transform themselves, because they transform their appearance to look like ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. So, Satan is trying to fool us, giving every false information he can. But we have a warning. You don't need to turn to this scripture, but in Luke 21, verse 8, Christ said, take heed that you be not deceived.

If we want to compare Christ's second coming to D-day in this analogy, I hope that's what I just said. I do this in class all the time, by the way. I'll get on a roll and explain something, then look, and I'm way off my notes. But what I wanted to say is, okay, the enemy is trying to give us false information. We don't have to be deceived. We don't have to just filter through everything out there to try to find the truth, because we've got it here. We've got a more sure word of prophecy. God's word is true. If we use that as our filter, you could say as our decoder, any information that comes to us, we can decode and see if it fits with that word, and what does will be true. Anything that doesn't isn't.

So we don't have to be wondering. Now, there are some things we're going to wonder about, but that's the stuff we'll find out later. As a matter of fact, that'll lead me to my fifth point, which is good, because that's the last point I have, and I'm running out of time.

And my fifth point, ironically enough, is timing. Timing is so important.

And as we've been taking this sort of hurried overall look at D-Day and what went into making that successful Allied invasion, we need to keep in mind that it took years of preparation and planning. Entire armies had to be trained in advance. Eventually, two million would go across. They had to be moved into position. They had to be loaded onto transport ships. Thousands of vehicles have to be coordinated, put in the right place at the right time, fueled, and given a man by drivers. They also expected preparatory work. I mentioned the French freedom fighters. The Macquis had assignments to do that needed to be done not too soon, but certainly not too late. And then finally, for the final attack, they needed a window of time when the tides would be just the right level at the right time of day. Too low, and the boats could get hung up on traps that the Datsiids had set for them. Too high, and they'd have trouble getting in and landing on the smooth beaches. They also needed a bright enough moon so that the bombers could go overhead and see their targets, and so they could drop paratroopers into the right place. I mentioned earlier Eisenhower had wanted the landing in May, but he had to put it off towards June. So they set their target date for June 5th. Okay, with June 5th as a target date, on June 3rd they started loading troops into the transports. And then why did they start so early? Well, they needed to get 200,000 soldiers and sailors ready to go. And they did. They got them on, started moving the ships in position, and then a storm hit. Huge atmospheric disturbance, which that's not the kind of vocabulary we want. Big storm, rain falling in sheets, huge cloud cover totally obscuring the moonlight that they needed. Eisenhower postponed the invasion for a day and then had to decide, can we even go a day later?

So about midnight on June 4th, he calls a meeting with his top generals. And they're all there discussing, and they've got one low-level military officer who comes in, once again, the importance of information. He's a low-level officer, but he works in the meteorological department. He's been studying the weather charts and all the forecasts. He comes in, he says, okay, it's going to break.

We're going to have a good 24 hours, maybe a little longer, of calm seas.

You know, when the storm breaks, Eisenhower's got to decide. Do we go at this time? Do we wait? He surveys his other commanders. Monty has the famous quote. He says, I would say, let's go.

But the final decision is Eisenhower is alone, and he ponders it. And finally, you know, once again, timing. He can't put off the decision too long, so he says, okay, let's go.

And many historians look back and say, this was probably the single most important command in all of World War II. It certainly ranks up there. And thus it was June 6th of 1944, 65 years ago today, this dramatic Allied invasion begins. In that window of time, and I neglected to mention, if they delayed, they would have to wait at least two weeks before the tides and the moon would be right again. So it's not a small thing to just delay it a little bit longer. But they went with the time that they had. And I want to point out, timing is also very important to God's work. He works with perfect timing. You know, we consider the timing when we think about launching a new media effort. Is it too soon? Do we have the resources? What will be the results? When we want to conduct an educational program in the church, we've got to consider the timing of when it's right. And God, when He calls one of us, He waits for just the right time.

He doesn't want to call us when we'll be too weak. We might be easily tempted. There are a lot of analogies I can make. It just popped into my mind. Perhaps when He brings you the perfect woman to marry. For me, the timing was much later than I intended. But He has the timing He wants.

And we've got one other event that we're really wondering on the timing. When is Christ going to launch His invasion? The big D-Day, if we want to call it that. Of course, the answer is we don't know. We know that it'll be at the right time, but if you want to turn there to Matthew 24, verse 36, that's worth it. As a matter of fact, this is one. I don't always remember the numbers, but I keep this in my head because I've seen enough of the charts with the numbers and people figuring and looking at the prophecy of weeks in Daniel and then for the Nebuchadnezzar, which was insanity and add seven years of takeaway. People want to get it down, but Matthew 24, verse 36, Jesus said, that day and hour no one knows. Not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only. And actually, let's turn towards the back a few pages to Matthew chapter 13. I probably could have just referred to Matthew 24, 36. No one knows. So what then do we do? What do we do with the time? Here's the answer to that. Matthew 13. I'm going to begin in verse 33.

I'm still hearing pages turn. Matthew 13, 33, Take heed, watch, and pray, for you don't know when the time is. It's like a man going to a far country who left his house, gave authority to his servants and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. So watch therefore. You don't know when the master of the house is coming. In the evening, at midnight, crowing of the roaster. Roaster. Rooster. You put him in the pot. He'll be the roaster. Or in the morning, lest suddenly coming, he finds you sleeping. What I say to all, I say to you, watch. The proper timing is important, and we've got to be ready because we don't get to set the time. But it's worth us remembering also that timing is important for how we remember and how we learn. Stepping back from, you know, guessing about when an operation will happen, there are things that we do know the timing of. On a weekly basis, we celebrate the Sabbath. God gives us that time and commands us to come together for our own benefit. And of course, the annual holy days are set on a schedule. So God does work with timing, and we use that as an opportunity for us to learn. Now, of course, June the 6th isn't an annual holy day. It was just handy for me that it happened to fall on a weekly Sabbath this year. But it gives me this opportunity to talk and look at some of the lessons we can learn. And on this anniversary, you know, it's worth us for us to remember a momentous event in the history of our country and our brothers across the sea in Britain. I think it is sad that one of the largest endeavors in human history was for the sake of war. But since it happened, it is worth us still trying to learn the lessons from it. The struggle in World War II was against an evil force. But it illustrated some lessons for us as Christian soldiers. In doing that, in fighting that spiritual warfare, we need to remember that timing is so important as part of God's plan. We know that good leadership is a vital part of the equation, but that as we prepare to be leaders, we have to accept whatever assignment our Commander in Chief will give us. And we know that the inevitable final victory will come through enduring, preparing, struggling, surviving. And then the time will come when God will win the ultimate victory, and He'll share it with all of us.