I Shall Return

Once you spoke in a vision, to your faithful people you said: "I have bestowed strength on a warrior; I have raised up a young man from among the people..."

-- Psalm 89:19

March 11, 1942 was a dark day for America--as well as for the entire free world. Just three months earlier, the Japanese had launched a devastating surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The result was a crippled American Pacific fleet, 3,478 servicemen killed or wounded plus an additional 103 civilian casualties. Now the Japanese had trapped 85,000 American and Filipino troops on the Philippine's Bataan Peninsula and the island fortress of Corregidor.

Under orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Douglas MacArthur (the American commander) and his family evacuated the area for the relative safety of Australia. The thousands of troops MacArthur left behind were eventually forced to surrender to the mighty Japanese military. But the general refused to turn his back on his men--or on the Filipino people. "I shall return," MacArthur promised in his statement to the press. And on October 20, 1944, he kept that promise when he waded ashore with an invasion force at the island of Leyte. "People of the Philippines, I have returned," MacArthur declared in an unforgettable radio broadcast.

Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, Douglas MacArthur was a warrior known for his bravery, heroism and faithfulness. And although his promise was both historic and world-changing, it pales in comparison to another promise kept more than 2,000 years ago. Mankind had for centuries been enslaved by an enemy called sin, and freedom was just a dream. Keeping a vow he made at the foundation of the world, God himself paid mankind's enormous sin-debt in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. He came to earth in the form of a helpless infant, grew up and lived a faultless, sin-free life, and was unjustly executed for crimes that he didn't commit. The message of his brief ministry declared the Good News of God's coming Kingdom, and it's summarized in one of the best-known passages of the Bible (John 3:16):

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

It was through Jesus that God kept his promise of forgiveness and salvation for those who ask for it in faith. And one day--perhaps in the very-near future--he'll keep another long-anticipated promise when another warrior, Jesus, returns to once and for all defeat the enemy and forever free his people.