[NOTE: While we typically remember those who died in our nation's wars on Memorial Day weekend, this article points out that others also sacrificed by coming here to find and then leave us a legacy of religious freedom that we dare not take for granted.]
Remembering Those Who Sacrificed,Posted on May 1, 2012 by Truth In Action Ministries
http://www.truthimpact.me/index.php/2012/05/remembering-those-who-sacrificed/?utm_source=Impact+e-Newsletter&utm_campaign=ef89947701-Impact_Newsletter_5_8_2012&utm_medium=email
On Memorial Day weekend, we should with gratitude remember those who laid down their lives to protect and gain our freedoms, and especially, freedom of religion.
America is unique in that this was the first nation in the history of this planet that had freedom of religion. Religious tyranny prevailed all over the globe. Gradually some nations, like England, rose to religious tolerance. But only in America was full religious freedom granted for the very first time.
This continent, hid between two great oceans, was reserved by God for that expression of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, and for our sake, has shown Himself as the invisible Hand of Providence.
For example, since Europe was the birth place of America, we could have become Muslims. In 711, the vast North African hordes of Arabs, the Moors, who were fanatically committed to Islam, crossed over at Gibraltar and conquered all of Spain.
They began to cross the Pyrenees into Central Europe and France, conquering one city after another, until they came to Tours, where they were met by Charles “The Hammer” Martell and his army.
It seemed that the soldiers of the crescent were so laden with booty they had gathered in Spain, they were not fit to fight, so their general told them to lay down this vast collection of gold and silver and jewels. As the fighting began, God sent a whisper: “The enemy is stealing our spoils.” And suddenly the Moors reeled and turned to go back to defend their goods. Martel and his forces attacked and when the day was over there had been tremendous defeat, and that effort to overtake all of Europe by Islam came to an end.
Or, we could have had a Spanish form of religion which repressed the Bible, distorted the Gospel and defended religious tyranny with the Inquisition. But God said, “Nay.”
Christopher Columbus and his ships were heading right for Florida. Things were getting very bad. The sailors were ready to panic and mutiny. But God sent a flight of seagulls that crossed the bow of the ship. The sailors thought the birds were heading for land. The command went out, “Follow those birds,” which took them southeast and they missed America altogether.
After the British had developed New England, the French were determined to change that to “New France.” Duke Danville, with thousands of soldiers, sailed down from Nova Scotia to attack New England.
But in a Boston church, the Reverend Mr. Prince, having received intelligence of the invasion, began to pray earnestly. Suddenly the shingles on the roof began to shudder and then the sound of a strong wind, and the French ships were sunk beneath the waves by the invisible Hand of Him who is the God of storms.
In December 1620, the Pilgrims finally arrived at Plymouth. But because the land seemed inhospitable, they decided to sail farther south. What they didn’t realize, though, was that all along the eastern coast of America were hostile Indians, and there was hardly one spot where they might have survived. But He that rides upon the storms blew again and the Mayflower turned and returned to Plymouth — the only place they could have survived, because two years earlier the Indians that had inhabited that area had died in a plague and left the corn that they had gathered, which the Pilgrims used to survive that first winter.
On this Memorial Day, may we remember the invisible Hand of Him who brought this land to be what it was founded as, a nation whose God is the Lord.
[bold and italics emphasis mine]
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