Illusion of Security

The British people continued to seek the comforts and pleasures of life. They wanted the easy way of self-indulgence.

On March 4, 1937, Churchill addressed the House of Commons: “I must say that I am astounded at the wave of optimism, of confidence, and even of complacency, which has swept over Parliament and over public opinion. There is a veritable tide of feeling that all is well, that everything is being done in the right way, in the right measure and in the right time” (emphasis mine throughout).

The Labour Party refused to even support rearmament in spite of Churchill’s warnings. Most people had convinced themselves that there would never be another war after World War i. Nobody who understands human nature could reach such a conclusion. Such naive reasoning always leads into dangerous deception.

Our self-deception before World War ii also reveals a greater potential danger. Many people also thought World War ii was the war to end all wars. Because we don’t understand our evil human nature (Jeremiah 17:9), we are easily deceived (Revelation 12:9), which puts us in much greater danger today. We can ill afford such deception in this age of potential nuclear destruction.

Churchill also warned, “We are in the midst of dangers so great and increasing, we are the guardians of causes so precious to the world, that we must, as the Bible says, ‘Lay aside every impediment’ ….”

Martin Gilbert wrote: “On October 3, [1936,] Churchill was present at the Oxford High School for Boys, for the unveiling of a memorial to T. E. Lawrence [Lawrence of Arabia], who had been killed in a motorcycle accident in May 1935. ‘All feel the poorer that he has gone from us,’ Churchill said. ‘In these days dangers and difficulties gather upon Britain and her empire, and we are also conscious of a lack of outstanding figures with which to overcome them’” (op cit).

Lloyd George, one of Britain’s most prominent leaders (prime minister in World War i), praised Hitler as the greatest German leader of the age. He said this in 1935, after Hitler had murdered political opponents and instituted racism. Such statements were criminal—the opposite of what a great leader should have said.

It takes great men to lead us to face huge problems. This is a sobering truth that also escapes us today. Today, as before World War ii, politics and the press often keep outstanding leaders out of office.

Winston Churchill didn’t get a leadership role until after the war began. Politicians, educational institutions and the press kept him out of office. Today, nations have nuclear weapons and the power to deliver them in minutes. If we make the same mistake Britain and America made in World War ii, our nations will not survive!

That is why I keep saying we must learn from the horrendous mistakes we made before and during World War ii—or we will wake up too late. And just as Churchill warned Britain before World War ii, we are experiencing the same lack of will against strong dictators today. History warns about this disastrous kind of retreat. Churchill said, “Parliament is dead as mutton.” The leaders and the people had no real sense of the approaching danger of World War ii. They didn’t see the danger, so they didn’t prepare for it. And they drifted into this precarious condition. They were moving “towards some hideous catastrophe.” Today Britain and America are drifting toward a far more hideous catastrophe! That is why the World War ii lesson is so vital.

If we drifted so recently (World War ii), is it alarmist to think we could do it again? “I feel our country’s safety is fatally imperiled both by its lack of arms and by the government’s attitude towards the Nazi gangsters,” Churchill said. “It is fostering in them the dangerous belief that they need not fear interference by us whatever they do. That can only encourage those savages to acts of aggression and violence of every kind. I have, therefore, chosen to go my own way and to act independently in order to further the safety of our country and of the civilization without which we cannot survive as a nation” (ibid).

Churchill knew that if Britain fell, Europe would also fall and perhaps the whole of Western civilization, including America. Some people may have forgotten how close we came to destruction in World War ii. It will be to our own deadly peril if we fail to remember.

Neville Chamberlain tried to make friends with Mussolini and Italy. One of Chamberlain’s strongest cabinet members, Anthony Eden, resigned. This was one of Churchill’s blackest moments. “I must confess that my heart sank, and for a while the dark waters of despair overwhelmed me. … From midnight till dawn I lay in my bed consumed by emotions of sorrow and fear. There seemed one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawling tides of drift and surrender, of wrong measurements and feeble impulses. My conduct of affairs would have been different from his in various ways; but he seemed to me at this moment to embody the life-hope of the British nation, the grand old British race that had done so much for men, and had yet some more to give. Now he was gone. I watched the daylight slowly creep in through the windows, and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of death” (ibid).

Churchill believed that Britain’s great empire, built over centuries, would be destroyed suddenly. He was in deep sorrow, fear and despair as he watched his beloved nation drift toward disaster. But that was a mild crisis compared to the one we face today. We first must experience some of Churchill’s sorrow and fear to be motivated to change. There is hope only if we face reality and have the vision of what is on the horizon.

Austria Falls

Most people today believe that when Germany seized Austria, only 25 to 35 percent of Austrians supported Hitler. “Within 24 hours of the German invasion of Austria, all the brutal apparatus of Nazi tyranny was put into effect. Throughout Sunday, March 13, [1938,] and in the days and weeks that followed, all those suspected of hostility to the new order were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Many hundreds were shot. Others, fearful of Nazi terror, committed suicide” (ibid).

The weak-willed press continued to deceive the people, even after Austria was conquered, aiding Hitler more than many of his own soldiers! “The division of opinion was exacerbated by the attitude of the press. The Times in particular urged the Czechs to make concessions to Germany, and argued that it was Czech obstinacy that was the main obstacle to a peaceful settlement. Yet even the factual reports in the Times did not give a true picture of the nature of Nazi rule. On March 18 Churchill was sent a first-hand account of events in Vienna since the German occupation from a young acquaintance, David Hindley-Smith, who had been angered by reports in the Times that Hitler had received an enthusiastic welcome from an overwhelming majority of Austrians. …

“‘Is our system of government adapted to the present fierce, swift movement of events? Twenty-two gentlemen of blameless party character sitting round an overcrowded table, each having a voice—is that a system which can reach decisions from week to week and cope with the problems descending upon us and with the men at the head of the dictator states? [Churchill was wondering if a democracy was adequate in times of war. He was making a case for stronger rule from the top.] It broke down hopelessly in the war [World War i].

“‘But is this peace in which we are living? Is it not war without cannon firing? Is it not war of a decisive character, where victories are gained and territories conquered, and where ascendancy and dominance are established over large populations with extraordinary rapidity?’

“Churchill went on to warn of the dangers of allowing any momentary easing of tension to lead to complacency. ‘After a boa constrictor has devoured its prey,’ he said, ‘it often has a considerable digestive spell.’ There had been a pause after each German move—after the revelation that a secret air force had been set up, after the proclamation of conscription, and again after the militarization of the Rhineland. He went on:

“‘Now, after Austria has been struck down, we are all disturbed and alarmed, but in a little while there may be another pause. There may not, we cannot tell. But if there is a pause, then people will be saying, “See how the alarmists have been confuted; Europe has calmed down, it has all blown over, and the war scare has passed away.” The prime minister will perhaps repeat what he said a few weeks ago, that the tension in Europe is greatly relaxed. The Times will write a leading article to say how silly people look who, on the morrow of the Austrian incorporation, raised a clamor for exceptional action in foreign policy and home defense, and how wise the government were not to let themselves be carried away by this passing incident’” (ibid).

The Times was considered by many to be the greatest newspaper in the world. It had thundered many accurate warnings in the past to build its reputation. It was recognized as the voice of the British government. Now, it had descended to this: rebuking the Czechs as being “obstinate,” since they would not voluntarily give a large portion of their country to the vile Nazis! It labeled the Czechs as the obstacle to peace—not Hitler! How could a revered institution pollute the truth so badly? And its reports grotesquely distorted Austria’s image in a dangerous way. It was a powerful support to Hitler’s people-enslaving and people-destroying war machine! Its own weakness and fear stained its reputation for years to come. Much of its reporting in the 1930s was a crime against humanity!

Because it was consumed with fear, the truth was cast aside. Such powerful institutions must be held more accountable. And we trust them at our own peril!

Has the press learned from their shameful mistakes of the 1930s?

The press deceived themselves about what was really happening. But not Churchill. He kept writing and speaking against this tragedy.

Most of the newspapers that had printed his speeches and articles stopped doing so. Even the people, on average, were more inclined to agree with Winston Churchill than the press.

Churchill was great enough to rise above the press, educational institutions and politics. Do we have any such leaders today?

American Tragedy

Churchill kept encouraging America to support the defense of Europe. “‘America’s attitude is vital to … morale,’ [Sir John] Colville noted in his diary, ‘but America is the slowest to act of all the democracies’” (Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939–1941, Vol. 6).

Even some of America’s news networks were against Edward R. Murrow’s strong cbs broadcasts condemning Hitler. They feared that America’s neutrality would be compromised.

But neutral is a heinous word under those conditions! Being neutral between Hitler’s Nazis and Britain was a shameful evil. And when would we have stopped being neutral if Japan hadn’t bombed us into the war at Pearl Harbor?

Our press often fails to make strong judgments against evil deeds committed today. They too often behave as though God and the devil should have equal time. This lack of judgment and courage allows the political leaders and their “spin doctors” to play the press like a fiddle. They are used and abused by politicians. As a result, many people become confused and deceived.

America should be ashamed of this history, before and during World War ii—and not just in words. A radical lesson must be learned, or we are destined to repeat the history—which will mean a deadly calamity!

Many authorities say World Wars i and ii were the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. I disagree. The worst catastrophe is that we failed to learn a lesson from Churchill’s warning! That means we have retained our deadly capacity for deception into the nuclear age. That is why we are destined to experience a nuclear holocaust unless we wake up!

“‘What price have we all to pay for this?’ Churchill asked. ‘No one can compute it. Small countries in Europe will take their cue to move to the side of power and resolution’” (ibid).

Other nations did move closer to Hitler because of his power and strong will. At the same time, they were turning away from Britain because of its weak will.

That is exactly what is happening today with the U.S. Though we have a greater military than any nation on Earth, we lack the will to use it. That is a major reason why other nations hate us and fail to support our policies.

“So they go on in strange paradox,” Churchill continued, “decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent. So we go on preparing more months and years—precious, perhaps vital, to the greatness of Britain—for the locusts to eat” (ibid). America shared that deadly pacifism.

‘Fool’s Paradise’

Winston Churchill’s own Conservative Party was turning against him. “The House of Commons listened to him with what he later described as ‘a patient air of skepticism.’ There were frequent, angry interruptions, and his criticisms of Chamberlain were widely resented by his fellow Conservative m.p.s. Bitterly he told them: ‘You are casting away real and important means of security and survival for vain shadows and for ease’” (ibid).

The people wanted to continue in a peacetime atmosphere. Churchill tried to get them into an emergency posture, in tune with what Hitler was doing. Churchill served as an outstanding watchman for the whole Western world. But it hated the messenger and rejected the message!

The people wanted to believe they were living in ordinary times. “On June 8, [1938,] Brigadier-General [Sir James Edward] Edmonds, his former literary assistant, wrote from the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defense: ‘Providence looks after us and confounds our enemies, but expects “works” as well as faith. To ensure peace we must be strong.’ But many people took it for granted that Britain was already strong, and even the News of the World, which had on May 1 published Churchill’s major warning, began to assure its readers that all was well” (ibid).

Even those who published Churchill’s major warning didn’t believe him! It’s as if they were in a coma of deception! Those institutions that should have helped Churchill worked against him. As Churchill said, this helped the people continue “living in a ‘fool’s paradise.’”

“On June 24 George Harrap published the selection of the speeches which Churchill had made on defense and foreign affairs in the 10 years since 1928. Entitled Arms and the Covenant, the volume had been both suggested and edited by Randolph [Churchill’s son], and was welcomed by his friends. … The South African writer Sarah Gertrude Millin, whom Churchill had met during her visit to England that summer, wrote on December 15, 1938, ‘The book reads like a toll and knell of doom. All that heartens me is that you yourself, as I saw, have still more heart than any other person I have met in England’” (ibid).

This book helped those who would listen to see how accurate Churchill’s prophecies and warnings were! Anybody who sought the truth could find it. But the people didn’t want to hear the truth. That was at the heart of the problem. The people wanted to hear “smooth things” and “deceits” (Isaiah 30:10). They wanted to be deceived! That is the biggest challenge each one of us must always face: Do we really want to hear the truth?

Sometimes hearing truth can be the most painful experience of our lives. It often means ripping wrong ideas from our proud minds. But the truth sets us free and greatly enriches our lives.

Czechoslovakia Falls

Hitler soon demanded that the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia be given to Germany. He said it was because many Germans lived there. But most of the Germans there did not want his rule!

Here is a shocking statement only made known to the public after the war. “Unknown to anyone outside his secret circle, Hitler was already contemplating a dramatic outcome. ‘I will decide to take action against Czechoslovakia,’ he had informed General [Wilhelm] Keitel on June 18, ‘only if I am firmly convinced, as in the case of the demilitarized zone and the entry into Austria, that France will not march, and that therefore England will not intervene’” (ibid).

Hitler was going to take action only if he was firmly convinced that France and Britain would not intervene!

This statement greatly exposes the mind of a tyrant, which America and Britain generally refuse to understand. It is not complicated. It’s very simple. But it also reveals a lot about our nations. It clearly shows that we are weak and fearful nations when facing tyrannical dictators.

It was vastly different in much of America’s history. Theodore Roosevelt, for example, never backed down from a tyrant!

There is a very strong and clear message in all this: Tyrants always prey on weakness. The only thing they understand and respect is superior force.

Why can’t our well-educated people understand this? Because they reason out of vanity, weakness and fear. That means your greatest enemy is yourself! Until we face our own weaknesses and fears, we are condemned to repeat our past mistakes.

Germany started and lost World War i. The Allied powers imposed upon the Germans the Treaty of Versailles, which prohibited them from entering into a demilitarized zone in their own nation. In the 1930s Germany broke that treaty in every way. It took military control of the demilitarized area. The world watched and did nothing, fearful that opposing the Germans would lead to war. Then when Hitler seized Austria in 1938, again the world watched and did nothing. People feared that Germany would cause a war if they stood up to the Nazis.

Hitler marched into those areas because he saw how weak Britain, France and America were. The same evaluation was being used with Czechoslovakia.

Now we can better see why Churchill called World War ii “the unnecessary war.” He believed it could have been prevented if the democracies of Europe had stood up to Hitler in the beginning.

Churchill was the only British leader the Germans feared. That fact alone should have gotten him into the British cabinet. Instead, it was the main reason he was kept out! “On August 7, the British military attaché in Berlin, Colonel [Noel] Mason-MacFarlane, reported secretly to the Foreign Office that Hitler had already decided to attack Czechoslovakia in September, whatever agreement Beneš [the Czech leader] might reach with the Sudetens. Six days later the Conservative M.P. Charles Taylor, who had been traveling in Germany, informed the Foreign Office of massive German troop movements between Nuremberg and the Czech frontier. That same day Churchill wrote to Lloyd George: ‘Everything is overshadowed by the impending trial of willpower which is developing in Europe. I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very little doubt what the decision will be.’

“As the German troop movements grew, with over 1.5 million men under arms, Hitler announced that he was holding the usual peacetime maneuvers. His announcement was widely accepted by the British and French public, for, as Orme Sargent noted in a Foreign Office minute on August 15, the French press had probably received the same ‘hint’ as the British ‘to write down the German mobilization as much as possible so as not to create a sudden panic.’ Churchill, however, in an article in the Daily Telegraph on August 18, warned that ‘if the optimists were proved wrong,’ the governments who shared their views would find themselves ‘at an enormous disadvantage in the opening stages of a world war.’ His article continued: ‘It would be only common prudence for other countries besides Germany to have these same kind of maneuvers at the same time and to place their precautionary forces in such a position that, should the optimists be wrong, they would not be completely ruined’” (ibid).

What logical and practical advice. But it was rejected. Of course, the democracies ended up getting war—and shame!

Churchill thought America would come in sooner than it did in World War i. “The feeling in the United States against Germany is now far stronger than it was even in 1914,” he said. “In fact, there never has been in time of peace so fierce a feeling against any European country. It seems to me very likely that the United States would not wait so long this time before coming in themselves” (ibid).

But the U.S. again waited a long time before entering, as it did in World War i.

Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet

Winston S. Churchill, an excellent watchman, could just as easily be called a prophet. All he did was simply remember history and learn from it.

After entering the demilitarized Rhineland zone in 1936, a clear violation of the Versailles Treaty, Hitler and the Nazi machine gobbled up Austria in 1938. The West stood by and watched as more catastrophes followed. “Negotiations between the Czechs and the Sudeten Germans continued. ‘Our latest information from Prague is rather more encouraging,’ [Neville] Chamberlain wrote to Churchill on August 26. But Churchill did not share Chamberlain’s optimism. ‘The fabricated stories of a Marxist plot in Czechoslovakia,’ [Churchill] told his constituents at Theydon Bois on August 27, ‘and the orders to the Sudeten Deutsche to arm and defend themselves, were disquieting signs, similar to those which preceded the seizure of Austria’” (Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. 5).

Churchill saw “disquieting signs,” but they were not signs to Prime Minister Chamberlain. That is because he refused to learn from the recent history of Hitler’s Austrian invasion.

Today, we refuse to learn from the signs of history. And some of those signs are happening inside that very same nation—Germany! Our peoples are again refusing to see what is really happening. Germany is prophesied to rise one last time, again to be the enemy of America and Britain (Isaiah 10:5-7; “Assyria” is the ancient name of Germany). God helped us in World War ii. But God has prophesied that He will oppose us in World War iii, unless we repent.

Any good watchman looks for disquieting signs and warns his people. God has given me a watchtower from which to warn our people today. If they don’t heed, their blood will be on their own heads. If I don’t warn them, that blood will be on my head! (Ezekiel 33:7-9). Either way, there will be much bloodshed, unless our people repent.

“In an anonymous paragraph which Churchill had written for the Evening Standard Londoner’s Diary on September 1, he warned of the dangers of ‘a marked decline of the will to live, and still more of the will to rule.’”

Churchill said there was a “marked decline” in Britain’s will to live and will to rule. He wondered if his people would just surrender to the Nazis without even a war—did they no longer have the will to truly live?

Martin Gilbert summed up Churchill’s position: “In this single paragraph the Times gave its support to the most extreme of the Nazi demands, the complete cession of the Sudetenland, a demand which, if met, would have condemned Czechoslovakia to disintegration, and placed a majority of the Sudeten Germans under the grim rigors of Nazi rule. That same day, the Foreign Office publicly disassociated itself from the leader, but the damage had been done. Throughout Europe it was believed that the Times, in advocating a German annexation of the Sudetenland, spoke for the British government, and that, as a result, Britain clearly would not fight to protect the Czech frontiers against German attack. On September 8 [1938] Churchill drafted a ‘letter to a correspondent’ in which he set out his views. But the letter was never made public” (ibid).

The leaders certainly no longer had the will to rule as the British Empire had in the past. They weren’t willing to challenge Hitler and demonstrate that will to rule! If there was a “marked decline” of their will then, how about now? It’s far worse—and what’s more, it was prophesied!

Media Bias

The Times newspaper now had a shameful history to remember—and perhaps try to forget! Not only did it distort the available facts, it refused to print Churchill’s view! And his view had been amazingly accurate for years. It had a blatant bias visible to the whole world. This was no small crime by the prestigious Times. Its supposed purpose was, and is, to print the truth—and the spirit of the truth. What great lessons we all have to learn.

Many readers were deceived because they failed to “prove all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). We simply cannot escape our individual responsibility. Sooner or later we must face the truth.

But again, have the press learned lessons from their own lack of will? The evidence I see shows they have grown even worse today. Since this matter involves our survival, surely each person needs to be concerned!

Our lack of will before World War ii almost caused the Western world to be destroyed. Are we making the same mistake—before a nuclear World War iii?

The Times thought it was proper to give Austria and a part of Czechoslovakia to the Nazi demons!

Would they have thought the same about their own nation? Certainly not. But this is why we lack the will to fight for righteousness anywhere: We are too selfish to be strong!

The Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia was given to Hitler without any real resistance. On September 21, Churchill immediately issued this statement to the press denouncing Chamberlain’s policy: “The partition of Czechoslovakia under pressure from England and France amounts to the complete surrender of the Western democracies to the Nazi threat of force. Such a collapse will bring peace or security neither to England nor to France. On the contrary, it will place these two nations in an ever weaker and more dangerous situation. The mere neutralization of Czechoslovakia means the liberation of 25 German divisions, which will threaten the Western front; in addition to which it will open up for the triumphant Nazis the road to the Black Sea.

“It is not Czechoslovakia alone which is menaced, but also the freedom and the democracy of all nations. The belief that security can be obtained by throwing a small state to the wolves is a fatal delusion. The war potential of Germany will increase in a short time more rapidly than it will be possible for France and Great Britain to complete the measures necessary for their defense” (ibid).

That is blunt language. But it’s true! Churchill knew that the issue was far more than just Czechoslovakia. It was “the freedom and democracies of all nations” that desired it.

If we truly believe in freedom, then we must support other nations and perhaps even fight for their freedom. But we lacked the will to do so before and during World War ii. We also lack the will today.

The Law of Moses

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. … And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end” (Daniel 12:4, 9). This is an end-time book. It is only for us today.

Daniel prophesied what would happen to us today. “As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice” (Daniel 9:13-14).

Moses, the man who wrote the first five books of the Bible, also prophesied that this evil would come upon us! Unless we repent, the problems are going to get worse. God is bringing this evil upon us. It has been prophesied from man’s very beginning!

Here is one of Moses’s prophecies: “And I will break the pride of your power …” (Leviticus 26:19). I have said many times that we cannot win the war against terror—because we fear facing the origin of state-sponsored terrorism, which exists because of our weakness.

The U.S. refuses to confront the Iranian leadership—the real power behind terrorism.

We simply lack the will to deal with tyrants and finish the job. We have a pathetic lack of will in a very dangerous world. It always gets back to the will to lead and the will to follow a strong leader.

That weak will was afflicting us badly in World War ii. But the good news is, we can change that weakness if we turn to God.

The Beast reawakens

Today, Winston Churchill’s philosophy is becoming less and less popular as Britain and America grow weaker. Germany has begun to show some of the same ugly aggression of the past. It recognized the breakaway states of Croatia (allied with the Nazis in World War ii) and Slovenia (a Nazi puppet state in World War ii) from Yugoslavia. Civil war immediately broke out, and there has been internal war ever since.

Almost all of Europe and the U.S. were against Germany recognizing these states as independent powers. But Germany’s view prevailed and the civil war began.

The U.S. secretary of state at that time, Warren Christopher, said that “Germany bears a certain responsibility.” This view was quickly silenced by Germany’s strong complaint. As usual, America meekly submitted, and that silence continues today. Leaders are already fearful of criticizing Germany again! But they almost always criticize the Yugoslav Serbs—Germany’s bitter enemy. What an amazing turn of events.

If Germany and the Vatican were deeply repentant of what they did in World War ii, they would never have recognized these two states and challenged all the Western leaders on this issue. They would have been too ashamed to even mention it! What the Nazis and the Catholic Church did in Croatia is some of the most evil history ever recorded; it explains a lot about why the Serbs hate Croatians today! But, of course, you never hear this side of the story presented in mainstream media. Their repentance is shallow, and the West’s will is too weak to even speak out!

Meanwhile, a powerful Germany continues to rise and bully Europe and the U.S. Your Bible reveals that what the Nazis did in World War ii was child’s play compared to what they are going to do in the near future—unless we wake up! And we don’t have much time to do so.

Germany started both world wars during the 20th century—still in the memory of some older people. The Allied powers promised to never allow Germany to rearm so it could start another war! But all those promises have now been forgotten—to our great peril!

There has been an alarming increase in right-wing extremism in Germany. So it isn’t alarmist to discuss such issues. It seems unbelievable if we don’t!

Continue Reading: Chapter 5: Winston S. Churchill: The Leader