ALL IS NOT LOST!
UK
An American friend of mine came to England to take up a post as the Minister in our local Methodist church. After a short while it began to dawn on him the general apathy, non-patriotic and un-Christian sentiments of a lot of the people he encountered. In the States, he said they look upon Britain as the birthplace of true Christianity, encouraging freedom of belief and devotion to the Lord and the nation that sent thousands of missionaries to the four corners of the world. How things have changed!
I’m pleased to say my friend did a great job in bringing people to the Lord in his tenure over here; still let us not detract from his initial comments, which were spot on.
The relevance of history
He often chatted to my children and my oldest granddaughter (their ages ranged from 21 to 44) about what they were up to and what they were studying at school and one thing he was astonished to hear that they knew nothing of our wonderfully rich history and how Britain lead the world with the industrial revolution, inventions, scientific achievements, engineering, empire building, world trade, writers and poets, the Reformation and the spread of Christianity, although they did know about Russia and the rise of communism, Israel and Palestine, Mandela, Vietnam War and the slave trade!!
It makes you wonder who determines the syllabuses in our nation’s educational studies. Not quite the history I learnt! In fact what a shocking indictment upon our country. Whereas most nations will teach their children about their glorious historical achievements; can you imagine a French child not learning about their political history, scientific discoveries and of course Napoleon, or Portuguese children not learning about Vasco da Gama, Bartolomeu Dias and Ferdinand Magellan and Italian children having no knowledge of their great artists, architects and the renaissance; plus many other nations that take pride in their historical achievements.
Have we learnt from history?
 Going back in history we must consider the criteria  adopted by Britain in its rise to world leadership and her success by examples based on a Christian structure of fair play, hard work and honesty which was the bedrock needed in attaining predominance in the world economically, industrially, philanthropically and socially. (Of course people will say we did it for ourselves, which is true but when you are blessed with so much power and influence there’s only one of two ways to go, either improve or abuse.) We believed in the betterment of people no matter who or where they were. When people understood the relevance of their initial subjugation was the success and wealth of their British rulers that would in turn have a trickledown effect eventually benefiting  them  and  creating  a  somewhat   trustworthy partnership, life wasn’t so bad after all. Some people may  disagree with that but one has to keep everything in context with what was  happening in Britain and the  rest of the world at the time , how people thought and what  was acceptable to fellow humans. One ca n’t compare and judge by today’s attitudes and standards with people ‘s circumstances and conditions over the past two hundred years or so. What we take for  granted now may not have been thought of in the past. Two hundred years ago if someone had a serious  accident, the chances of getting the person to hospital or to a doctor were pretty non-existent, so the outcome was usually, being a cripple for the rest of  their life or death. In this day and age that person would  be whisked off to hospital in no time at all and receive the best treatment possible and have a good chance  of complete recovery. Another example could quite  easily be; a man steals a loaf of bread to feed his  starving family; he is caught by the authorities, condemned as a thief and transported to Australia for up to twenty years hard labour in a penal colony. Today  a thief has his hands slapped, fined, put on probation  and sent home. We have to get everything in the right perspective!! These examples were accepted as the  norm.
Britain a safe haven
In defence of our nation; please don ‘t tell me what  a nasty bunch of people we are when we have opened our arms to floods of people entering into our country over the past four hundred years to free themselves from, religious bigotry – Huguenots, racial persecution – Jews, Zimbabweans and East African Asians, starvation and war – North Africa, Middle East, Biafra and Poland, employment – West Indians, Cypriots, Indians and Pakistanis: to name but a few. That is what we have done and are still doing it.
No other nation in this world has shown as much benevolence, kindness, security and opportunity as the British. The truth of the matter is for whatever the reason people come to these Sceptred Isles for a better  life.
People may say we are war mongers, they may be right, possibly we should have not been involved in so many wars ie, the Boer War, First and Second World Wars, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan; well we were but how we were inveigled into some of these conflicts, I find a little suspicious, still our boys went and did what they were told was right, they came back heroes. I agree one has to stand up for the oppressed and persecuted; quite right. Unfortunately though all too often the conflict is all about power and economic control; in that case I’m not so sure if we should be involved by sacrificing the lives of our boys for the profit  of a few; Iraq comes to mind.
If one wants to criticise or condemn Britain consider first the empire we created through expansionism, colonialism, trade and eventual government control, with any aggression kept to a minimum when comparing Britain with the methods  other empire building nations used, I would say we had a pretty good track record. Then attempt to understand the nations and peoples that we subjugated and what was happening in their lands and why some freely encouraged our presence and involvement. Appreciate some of these nations had never known peace and safety before the British arrived.
What we are good at
 A wonderful trait of the British people is borne out by our love and kindness in caring for the needy, poor, persecuted and starving within our nation and all over the world, by great people who gave their lives in the service of others and to mention but a few, William Wilberforce who was instrumental in the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire, Dr. Barnardo whose homes sheltered and care for thousands of suffering children, William Booth who founded the Salvation Army, Gladys Aylward who went to China as a missionary to care for hundreds of starving orphans through the Japanese occupation and later once the Communists imposed their austere  measures  upon the nation, Elizabeth Fry who was instrumental in prison reforms and caring for the less fortunate in society and of course Florence Nightingale, her reforms in caring and nursing practices are still world renowned. The one thing they all had in common was their Christian faith and an unyielding desire to serve the Lord. There are many more who left these little islands with a determined passion to care for the downtrodden and the suffering.
All is not lost
 One wonders what happened between then and now? The simple reason we lost our prominence and respect in this world was because the standards we set in gaining precedence and power through our trust in the Lord was lost to selfishness, greed, the lack of responsibility and caring for all those we served, this was the prime reason for our downfall. Yes, we have many enemies who relish the thought of our demise but our main problem is the enemy within. We have lost credibility, direction and justice as a nation and have opened ourselves to all kinds of abuse and ridicule. We turned our backs on our Redeemer so now we have to face the music.
But the song is not yet over and all is not lost, we may not be that great industrial nation again trading within the largest empire the world has ever known but when we take a step back and ponder for a moment on how we came by that position we will remember, fair play, hard work and honesty were all part of our Christian heritage and the reason for our success. Churchill once commented that he felt a greater power was overseeing and directing our nation through austere times; George VI certainly knew it, especially when he asked the nation and empire on no less than seven occasions to go to church and pray for the Almighty to deliver us from the oppression of the enemy. Be assured when we turn to the Lord and sincerely ask for forgiveness and deliverance, He will come to our rescue yet again.
I’m not trying to highlight all our successes and subtly smooth over the mistakes and disasters we should be ashamed of; heaven forbid! I want everyone to have a fare understanding of the quality of our endeavours on a world stage, warts and all. Then it will be obvious to most people looking at the big picture how much we gave to the world rather than the little we took. Start teaching the young people about this nation of ours and our glorious history and they will be amazed and proud to be British.
