Draws a profound parallel between Winston Churchill's declaration regarding the Battle of Britain and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It begins by highlighting the immense debt owed by many to the few who fought valiantly for Britain's freedom, emphasizing their bravery and sacrifice. The message then transitions to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who alone bore the immense spiritual debt of humanity's sin, facing unimaginable suffering and rejection. The sermon concludes by urging listeners to recognize their profound debt to Christ and to express genuine gratitude by accepting His salvation, lest they face His wrath.
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turn now to the book of the prophet Isaiah and the chapter sixty three the sixty third chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah and there can be no doubt at all about who is being spoken of prophetically here especially if you look up the meanings of the word Edom and Basra verse one reads, Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Basra, this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone. and of the people there was none with me. For I will tread them in mine anger and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment, for the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold, Therefore, mine own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury it upheld me.
And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth. I will mention the loving-kindnesses of the Lord and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us. and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which ye have bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses. For, he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie. So he was their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them.
In his love and in his pity he redeemed them, and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit. Therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. Shall we bow in prayer? Our Heavenly Father, we pray for a very real sense of thy presence. We know that thou art here. Thou hast made us a promise to that end, and we believe thy promises. We only ask that not a heart bowed before thee shall go away without a realization that they have been in the presence of the God of heaven.
We ask, O Lord, that thou would lay thy claims upon our hearts and our lives very firmly before us. and cause, O Lord, that we shall ask ourselves some very earnest questions concerning how we stand before thee. We ask, seeking thy glory in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Now what I have to say does confirm the verses that we read in Isaiah chapter sixty three, but the text that I have for you is not found in the Bible at all. It's been a long time since I climbed aboard a merchant aircraft carrier, an all-male ship, and turned my back on Britain and made my way toward the new world.
I was making for Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the end of the winter. It was all iced in, and I wondered whether it was such a new world after all. But you know, from time to time, I think about the things that go on back there. This year is a very special year. It's the celebration of the Queen's Silver Jubilee. And there will be some real happenings going on over there. And there are anniversaries that are celebrated over there that are not celebrated over here. And one of them will be coming up very shortly. It is called...
Battle of Britain Day. I don't know whether that conveys anything to you, but because I was over there during the Battle of Britain, it certainly does convey something to me. Britain's struggle during the war had reached a climax, and the war's most critical phase had opened. The Battle of Britain was actually just a three-month period during that part of the war, but it was a time of absolutely frantic activity. It was a time of, I believe, unexcelled bravery, and it was a time of violent death.
A very wicked foe had raged himself along the shores that directly challenged Great Britain. A coast that had been friendly for so many years had suddenly turned hostile because the Nazis had occupied France. The coastline that had represented Britain's ramparts had now become the ramparts of the Nazis. France had fallen, and the enemy was only twenty miles from our shores. And to prove that, they would lob shells from land-based guns in France onto the south of England.
Now it was at the height of the Battle of Britain that Winston Churchill, the British Premier, stood to his feet in the House of Commons and to a very hushed house he spoke about debt and gratitude. And what he said was this, Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. And he, being an older man, was aware of that, many of us were aware of, that it was the young men and the young women who were bearing the brunt of that battle of Britain.
Those days of dread anxiety and grave peril, Yes, as we said a moment ago, of suffering and of death. Pilots were actually flying until exhaustion overcame them, touching down, refueling, rebombing, taking off again, touching down and doing the same thing again day and night. The crews were dropping in their maintenance hangars and the girls were hanging on to their range finders day and night until they had to be removed by force. Such was their dedication to the salvation of the nation.
In five days alone in that battle across the south of England, seven hundred and fifty enemy planes were destroyed. And in the end, after three long and dreadful months, the enemy was worn down and he turned and he fled. Now it was because of what happened during those three months that the Premier, speaking of the young men and the young women, who stood in the breach and gave so unstintingly of themselves and faced such grave danger, many of whom laid down their lives. I say it was of those that he was speaking when he said never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
I believe that this generation has produced as great heroes as any generation. And I believe our own history as a Western world is going to prove that. But you know, those few have been remembered every year on Battle of Britain Day. They remember silently and earnestly those young men and those young women who in that three-month battle lay down their lives or lost limbs and eyesight and suffered in some other way, they remember those few.
Their sacrifice during those three months has been acknowledged and is acknowledged every year that comes and goes. And the world at large has not forgotten those very, very critical days. Now I've said all of that to emphasize three things. First of all, that there is a greater sacrifice. And secondly, there is a wider debt. And thirdly, there is a base in gratitude. I'm speaking, of course, of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus.
I believe that Mr. Churchill was a man of insight. He was certainly a man who had had a bringing up on the Bible and he was a man who knew his Bible. I don't believe that he was a born-again man, but I do believe that he knew a lot about his Bible. And I believe he weighed his words when he said, never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. Modern conflict is very horrible. When the final war breaks out, it will be more horrible still. Modern warfare is extremely intense.
You've only got to take a look at Beirut in Lebanon to realize that, and it is widespread. Modern warfare devastates homes and lives, whole cities and lands. And again, one has only to look in the direction of Lebanon to realize how true that is. Just a little while after, well, just a year or two after those three months when the tide of the war had changed, one plane called the Enola Gay, left its hangar, pulled out onto its tarmac airstrip and there was put aboard it cargo such as no plane it ever carried before.
It held a secret weapon. and from six thousand feet up dropped that weapon on a Japanese city and there were immediately in an instant one hundred and sixty thousand fatalities. It had the force of twenty thousand tons of TNT. It's an illustration of what a terrible thing modern warfare is and of the toll that warfare takes. I don't think until that bomb was exploded that the British really realized what they had been delivered from because the Nazis had already invented heavy water and they were already in the process of inventing the atom bomb.
But God was in the background and working things out and the nation was spared. But in spite of this intense and horrible warfare, there is a warfare, there is a battle, there is a conflict that is more intense and more immense than any kind of human conflict. It was a conflict that took its toll in the physical, that took its toll in the mental, that took its toll in the spiritual. It was a fight that only one could fight, and he fought it, and won it, and so we think there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin.
He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in. Going back to the Battle of Britain, there never was a time in the field of human conflict when so much was owed by so many to so few. But there's a wider, greater, deeper debt owed by a whole world to the one who went out to the place called Calvary to fight the fight with the devil that would snatch human beings from his grasp and make it possible for them to get to heaven. It was a fight that the Lord Jesus willingly undertook.
It was not forced upon him. It may well be that when the Father looked around the courts of heaven, with man's redemption in mind, his eyes lit upon other beings, but they did not stay there because even the angelic beings couldn't do this work. It wasn't until the eye of God lit upon his Son that he found one capable of fighting this fight and of winning this battle and settling once and for all this conflict. It was not a field of human conflict. It was a field in which the divine was involved, for Jesus is the Son of God.
But Mr Churchill said never in the field of human conflict was so much old. And he was thinking, of course, of the honour and the freedom, the homes and the very existence of Britain as a nation. I'll never forget those days on the South Coast when following the fall of France came the evacuation of Dunkirk, and I know that you know what a miracle that was. I was in the south of England when those troops, by their thousands, came back to the country. They came back with no equipment at all, and many of them only half clothed.
And before the week was out, those same men were standing guard on the south coast of England armed with pikes and muskets out of the British museums. That was all the equipment that they had to withstand a Nazi onslaught, had it broken out and had the enemy cross the channel. I'm so glad he didn't know. But this is an area of divine conflict and it's one in which the Lord Jesus was not joined by a few of others. It was a work he had to do alone. The enemy threatened everything that Britain had and was.
You stood in the gap and today is still remembered. With the other battle, sin threatens every man and opens the gate of hell to the human being and here the Lord Jesus stood in the gap and by so many many many he has been utterly and absolutely forgotten. I don't know whether there's anyone here and you're not conscious of the debt that you owe to him. So much owed. Not just homes and hearts not just material things, not just honor and freedom in the sense of remaining a nation.
But here we have the issues of heaven and hell. Here we have that which concerns our eternal welfare. We owe so much. We owe to the Lord Jesus everything we have and everything we are because he went so willingly to the cross and did for us what we couldn't do for each other and what we could not do for ourselves. So much owed. How often do you sit, and in the words of the poet, that we sing sometimes, count your blessings? You know, we get into a habit of complaining. Even though we may know the Lord and we are Christians and in our own way, we feel grateful to him.
There are so many times when we are discontented. There are so many times when we question, so many times when we become resent. And yet compared with so many that populate other parts of this world, we have so much, so very much. And God is the one who's bestowed it upon us, and God is the one who has made it possible for us by dealing with our sins to enjoy to the full what he has given to us. So much we owe him. But said Mr. Churchill, never in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many, and indeed that was a nation of forty millions of people, most of them sitting down there incapable of doing anything, or crouching in their air raid shelters absolutely powerless to fight the enemy.
And while the mass of the forty millions crouched and waited, the few took off and came down and took off and came down, the crews maintaining their planes and refueling them and sending them off again. Just a few. So many were being represented. That gap was being filled for the benefit of so many. A whole nation of forty millions of people who could do nothing for themselves. But what about the other battle?
What about the other conflict? Not just one nation of forty millions of people, but two billions of people, and they return a welfare hanging in the balance. More than that. because there have been those who have lived in the past. You put every man beside every other man and see the population of the world that has been since Adam and that is today, and you're looking at a whole world that can do nothing for itself, but for whom the Lord Jesus willingly paid the price. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Not just the fate of a nation hung in the balance, but the fate of the world of all time and every human being. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many. But then it says to so few, just a handful of young men and young women, a handful of pilots, a handful of engineers, a handful of girls with range finders, a handful of lookouts, so few. But at least there were a few of them, and those few stood together. But I read to you here, I looked, and there was none to help.
And I wondered that there was none to uphold. No one stood with the Lord Jesus. Every man forsook him and fled. They spat in his face. They mocked him. They finally nailed him to a gibbet. And then they hung him an object of derision between heaven and earth. But it didn't just happen. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't just an incident in history. There was no other way, and so God planned it. And through his Son, he carried it out.
There were just a few that stood in the gap for Britain. But here the Lord, they did stand together. But here the Lord Jesus stood alone. There were some of the few that stood in the gap for Britain that knew survival. But there was none for him. I lay down my life, he said. Again for the few, there was a sense in which their death was glorious, if indeed we can use that word of death. But they lay down their lives unselfishly, and they have been afforded a nation's gratitude. But the Lord Jesus died in nakedness and shame and was put in a tomb with a mass of men feeling glad about his demise.
So few. But he, the Lord Jesus, was alone. Supposing one of these pilots who came through the Battle of Britain Perhaps in a Veterans Hospital still to this day maimed and disfigured through a crash, supposing in his life, into his life there came a deep need. And supposing that he made his approach to the heads of the country and said, only you can help me.
Remembering what I did, are you willing to do it? That would be a test of the nation's gratitude, and indeed it has happened, and the nation has risen to the occasion in its remembrance of some of these when special needs arose. Let any of this few suffer and he has a right to expect the nation to do all that it can to repay him, to help him in view of what he did for the country in those three dreadful days. Don't you think of the Lord Jesus who stood alone and who suffered alone and who died alone?
doesn't have the right to expect that some move that manifests and demonstrates a real gratitude should be made. I heard about a little girl in Britain who running down a sloping incline between two houses, footsteps echoing from wall to wall, plunged into a busy street of traffic. A man approaching the entry, heard the noise, realized a child was running fast down the slope, and so he flung himself as she shot out of the opening, against the child, knocked her down, swept her out of the path of a cab, and was himself struck instead.
He was taken to the hospital unconscious and very, very badly hurt. When a nurse sitting beside his bedside saw him regain consciousness, she bowed to hear what he was saying and he said, Nurse, has anyone come yet? She said, We don't know who you are to sin for anyone. Can you tell us your name and your next of kin? But he was too woozy and slipped back again into unconsciousness. And it happened a second time. And once again he asked, Nurse, has anybody come yet? She tried again to get some information from him but couldn't get any.
Again he lapsed into unconsciousness and when he regained consciousness again it was for the last time. He asked the same question. Nurse, has anyone come yet? She said, please tell us, who were you looking for? He said, I did think that someone would come and say thank you. but no one appeared to express gratitude for the fact that he had been prepared to and had actually laid down his life. I think, you know, as the Lord Jesus looks around, it must grieve his heart that men and women take so much for granted. To come through such a week as we have just come through, looking back upon what we've called Passion Week, and realizing what a tremendous price the Lord Jesus paid, isn't it staggering that people who celebrate Easter in any way, shape or form can go their way following such a week and forget all about what it demonstrates or what it represents?
I hope there's no one here who has held back from coming and saying to the Lord Jesus, Thank you for dying for me. I remember the night I did it. I recall being in a service one Sunday night at which a young man was preaching that I thought was going to marry my sister. And because the rest of the family were going to the service, I had no excuse for not going. And I sat at the back, making up my mind that I would leave as soon as I respectively could. The preacher preached, and I found the Spirit of God speaking to me.
And as we stood up to sing a last hymn, and I stood up with the rest to sing it, I couldn't get through it. Sinner, how thy heart is troubled. God is coming very near. Do not hide thy deep emotion. Do not check the falling tear or be saved. His grace is free. I'd stood up to sing it and I couldn't get through it. I sank back into my seat. And that preacher noticed me. He left a platform. He walked all the way up the aisle to the back and put a hand on my shoulder. And I stumbled after him through my tears. And I dropped on my knees in a little back room.
and I got rid of my burden by saying from my heart and meaning it, Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for dying for me. I'm ashamed that I've gone thirteen years without saying this before. Am I to take it for granted that every one of you here has thanked the Lord Jesus for dying for you, has opened the heart's door and received him? The plea of that last hymn was, All be saved, his grace is free. All be saved, he died for thee. I realized it that night, and I gave to him my heart and my life, and that night I was born again.
Our chapter reads like this, Who is this, that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Basra? You know, Edom and Basra both speak of desolation, and they speak of reproach, and they speak of waste, and they speak of curse. Now here is the picture of the Lord Jesus having turned his back upon Edom, having turned his back upon Basra. Here we have a picture of the Lord Jesus with his garments dyed with blood. He's turned his back upon the waste and ruin and curse that his sacrifice meant. He's turned his back upon desolation and reproach.
And now we sing, tis past the dark and dreary night. And, Lord, we hail thee now our morning star without a cloud of sadness on thy brow. I have trodden, he says. I have trodden the winepress alone. And he did. He trod the winepress of the wrath of God. and he trotted by himself, hence those stains upon his garments. But his treading of the wine press is over, and now he says of his enemies, I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood, their blood shall be sprinkled on my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.
Isn't it a solemn thing that the one who said, I have trodden, also said, I will tread, that the one who came so willingly laying aside his glory, to die in agony and shame upon the cross, to tread there the winepress of the wrath of God, and to actually be made sin for us, who knew no sin. Is it surprising that those who turn their back upon him eventually are going to be trampled in his anger? He's a loving God, a gracious God, he's a precious Savior. He's the one who has paid all the price that was necessary to make possible your salvation.
But if you don't receive him, then you are guilty of rejecting him. And the Word of God says that if we reject him, the one who wants so much now to bestow his salvation upon us, we'll have to pour out his wrath and his judgment. and the preacher to be faithful to you has to remind you that just as there is a heaven to gain there is a hell to shun if you are not sure whether your sins are washed away if you have never said thank you to the Lord Jesus for dying for you you have a quiet moment coming up in which you can do it the sufferings of the Christ of God are past his honor and his glory are resting upon him.
And he, the Lord Jesus, one day is going to come back and every eye shall see him. Every knee shall bow to him. Even those that pierced him are going to look upon him. I am so glad that in advance of that day I have bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus, acknowledged him, and accepted him as my own personal Savior. Now the question is, have you? or if maybe there's someone here and you're actually backslidden in your life. There was a time when you served the Lord Jesus so willingly and so joyfully. There was a time when so readily you nailed your colors to the mast.
There was a time when you had first things first in your life and the will of God mattered to you. But other things have come in and they have driven a wedge between you and God and you're not really appreciative. If you were, You wouldn't have allowed things to come between you and him. Are you willing this morning to tell him again how much it means to you that he was prepared to pay so great a price? Are you willing to come and say, Lord Jesus, forgive me for my turning away from you. Please restore unto me the joy of your salvation. Please take afresh my heart and my life.
Shall we pray together? Lord Jesus it is because we know that thou hast suffered for us and because we know too that the day is coming when we are going to have to stand before thee Because we know these things, we pray so very earnestly that in this quiet moment, Thy Holy Spirit shall put a finger on anything in our lives that is standing between us and thee, that is making us backslidden. We ask that today might be a day of restoration for someone here, and perhaps a day of salvation for somebody else.
We ask him that thou would impress upon our hearts, leaves things. And grant, Lord, that we shall not go away and forget them. For thy name's sake. Amen. Let's sing together two verses of a hymn. We don't usually do this, but we'll do it this morning. I don't know why I'm so exercised to do. It's number three hundred and fifty eight. And it's entitled, Why Not Say Yes Tonight. Now I realize that it's today, and you can sing that if you prefer to. But here is a question that you ought to answer.
Why not say yes to the Savior today? He is tenderly pleading with thee, to come to him now with thy sin-burdened heart, for pardon so forth. and so free. And mark you, those are words that apply to the heart of the backslider, as well as to the heart of the one who doesn't know the Lord Jesus. Oh, why not sayeth to the Savior today, He's tenderly pleading with thee.
to come to him now with thine burdened heart for pardon so rich and so free why not say it today why not why not while he so tender, so tenderly please, all accept him today.
For with you the Spirit will not always lead for do not reject him today. Tomorrow may bring you the darkness of death. Unbroken by heavenly light Why not singing today? Why not? Why not?
While he so gently, so tenderly please, O accept him today. Take Christ as your Savior, then oh, shall be well, the morrow, let bring what it may. His love shall protect you, His Spirit shall guide, And safely keep you in His way.
Why not say it today? Why not? Why not? While he so gently, so tenderly please. Oh, accept him today. Shall we pray? And then the instrument will play and the service will be over.
Lord Jesus, thou art the only one that can read the human heart. Whatever our need may be this morning and whatever the challenge thou art anxious to impress upon our hearts, grant that we might recognize it and heed it and respond to it. Asking ourselves, why not? right now. Amen.