Please, please, share this extraordinary photograph with as many others as you can. In these frightening times it will show them that there is hope and help available, provided of course, it is sought for in the right place and in the right spirit.
The scene at Westminster Abbey, May 26th 1940. The National Day of Prayer.
When Britain was close to defeat during the 2nd World War, and the entire British Army was trapped at Dunkirk, in desperation George 6th called for a National Day of Prayer to be held on 26th May 1940. In a national broadcast he instructed the people of the UK to turn back to God in a spirit of repentance and plead for Divine help. Millions of people across the British Isles flocked into churches praying for deliverance and this photograph shows the extraordinary scene outside Westminster Abbey as people queued for prayer. Two events immediately followed. Firstly, a violent storm arose over the Dunkirk region grounding the Luftwaffe which had been killing thousands on the beaches. And then secondly, a great calm descended on the Channel, the like of which hadn’t been seen for a generation, which allowed hundreds of tiny boats to sail across and rescue 335,000 soldiers, rather than the estimated 20-30,000. From then on people referred to what happened as “the miracle of Dunkirk”. Sunday June 9th was officially appointed as a Day of National Thanksgiving.
(A full account of this and similar extraordinary events, can be read in, “We have a Guardian” by W.B. Grant, Covenant Publishing Company. Available in print or Kindle format. See also, articles under “National deliverance” on www.internetpulpit.co.uk)
National Days of Prayer where held at critical times throughout the War. After each one, God responded with His Blessing and protection. Looking back, the Bishop of Chelmsford Dr H.A. Wilson wrote, “If ever a great nation was on the point of supreme and final disaster, and yet was saved and reinstated it was ourselves…it does not require an exceptionally religious mind to detect in all this the Hand of God.”
But something has gone very wrong with our Country. Nationally we have been reduced to a position of weakness in an increasingly hostile world, we experienced apocalyptic flooding during the winter of 2014, (the worst for 250 years), have a National Debt of over a Trillion pounds and the fallout from the referendum on Scottish Independence in September 2014 has created numerous constitutional problems. People are asking “What is happening to our Nation?” “What has gone wrong?”
The answer is not hard to find. In Ps 107 v 34 it warns “a fruitful nation will become impoverished because of the wickedness of its people” and in Proverbs Ch14v34 it adds “Righteousness will exalt a nation, but wickedness will destroy a people”.
Sadly our Nation has ignored and rejected the moral Laws of God which are clearly written in Scripture for all to see. Without God’s blessing of protection upon our Nation, we are no longer shielded from evil and disaster. In Deuteronomy Ch 31v17 when referring to an immoral and corrupt nation God said “I will forsake them…and many evils and troubles will befall them so that they will say at that time …‘Have not these disasters come upon us because God is no longer protecting us?’ “. This is precisely the position our Nation finds itself in today.
May we, like the Wartime generation before us, turn to God in a true spirit of repentance and plead for Divine help for our Country. In 2nd Chronicles Ch 7v14 God promises, “If people humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin and heal their land.” If our Nation, once again sought God’s help as it did during Wartime, now, just as then, miracles of blessing and protection would begin to happen..
Daniel Ch12v10
