Hi Friend,

British Professor David Starkey walked through a graveyard in Bayeux in Northern France.  He observed there 4,000 headstones of British Commonwealth soldiers that died in WWII in Normandy to liberate the French from Nazi tyranny.

The inscription carved above the classic columns of the war memorial reads:

We, Conquered by William,

Have Liberated the Conqueror’s Native Land

Now that’s a view of history.  Nine hundred years after William the Conqueror had sailed from these shores to invade England the sons of the conquered returned to free the sons of the conqueror.

Those who wrote the inscription above the fallen soldiers in Bayeux were not present when William entered England.  Nor did the people in 11th Century England rise from the grave to remind the 20th Century world that William had conquered their nation.  It’s more than DNA that connects a man to his ancient ancestors.

Maybe that’s what Peter had in mind when he wrote, “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8) Here is the basis for the concept that the “prophetic day” of scripture is one thousand years.

Today we read about men like Abraham or Moses who lived over 3,500 years ago—almost four days in prophetic symbolism.  Such men were connected by something that transcends time.  Both Moses and Paul had a DNA connection to Abraham.  But there was more.

Abraham “obeyed [God’s] voice and kept [God’s]charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”  (Genesis 26:5) This implies more than simply the Ten Commandments.  It’s an entire system of justice.  Moses was given two tablets of stone written with the finger of God as well as a system of justice that was from God.  The Apostle Paul said that “the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.”  (Romans 7:12)

As important as DNA is, the system of justice was more so.  And it is as valid today as four thousand years ago.

One could say that less than one prophetic day after William brought troops to England, Churchill rallied troops to defend Christian civilization.  While Sir Winston rarely attended church, he described himself as a “flying buttress” to it, an architectural device that supported the building from the outside.

Churchill correctly recognized that biblical justice as expressed through Christianity and Judaism was responsible for the great civilizations of the world.

What Churchill saw was the fulfillment of the words of Moses who spoke to ancient Israel as they prepared to enter the Promised Land.  “See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them…  Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’  What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?  And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?”  (Deut. 4:5-8)

It’s no irony that the nations that supplied soldiers for the Normandy invasion were, with one exception, nations that embraced Christianity and expressed its values.  The soldiers that faced death that day were a combined American, British, Canadian, Indian, Australian, New Zealand and South African troops who hit those cold, windswept beaches in Normandy that June morning nearly eighty years ago.

Our connection to Abraham is our belief in the system of justice that gave the world the greatest civilization ever known.  It was worth fighting for in Egypt, at Normandy and in America.

Until next time,

Jim O’Brien