Eighty-four years ago today the Empire of Japan attacked the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, thrusting this country into the Second World War. While as Christians “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal” (2 Corinthians 10:3), we can learn important lessons about our spiritual warfare by careful consideration of what occurred that day:
- Sometimes you get hammered when you least expect it. War had not been declared that fateful Sunday morning, and virtually nobody expected hundreds of warplanes to be dropping bombs and torpedoes and strafing ships and buildings. In our case Satan has, in a manner of speaking, declared war on the Lord and His church (see Revelation 12:17). We know we’ll be attacked, but we don’t know just when or how. Let us always be on high alert!
- When something doesn’t look right, check it out. Two radar operators, Joe Lockhart and George Elliot, spotted incoming planes on radar nearly an hour before the attack. Their commanding officer assumed it was a squadron of B-17s scheduled to arrive that day from California, so he told the radar operators not to be concerned. If only he had tried to establish radio contact the lack of response might have shown that the approaching aircraft were not friendly! Likewise, when we hear people teaching things that sound “off base,” or see brethren doing things that seem odd, we should check it out. Perhaps all is well – or perhaps not. We need to find out.
3. Hindsight is always 20/20. Learn the lessons and move on. Everyone from President Roosevelt to the lowest enlisted man might have wished he had done something differently eighty-four years ago. Re-living the past accomplishes nothing. Even so in the church, being consumed with wishing we had done something differently is fruitless. Let us, like Paul, put the past behind us and press on toward the goal (Philippians 4:13-14).
