<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

I Shall Return

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.

United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

December 7, 1941, a day which then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt predicted correctly would live in infamy.

On that day, 350 aircraft of the Empire of Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, which was then part of the territory of Hawaii.

All 8 US Navy battleships in Pearl Harbor were damaged.

4 of them were sunk, although 3 were raised and returned to the war.

188 US aircraft were destroyed, and more than 2, 400 Americans were killed and almost 1, 200 wounded.

A couple of weeks after the attack, Admiral Chester Nimitz observed that if Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor on a weekday rather than on a Sunday, casualties would have been as much as 10 times higher.

If the repair stations in Pearl Harbor had been hit, then damaged U.S.

Warships would have had to have been taken back to the mainland.

And if the massive fuel reserves just 5 miles out of Pearl Harbor had been taken out, Nimitz said the war would have dragged on for at least another year.

So as bad as the attack on Pearl Harbor was, it could have been much worse.

Japan's burning desire to become a great empire drove it to try to grab control of the Pacific.

Just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan attacked the Philippines 5, 000 miles away.

But while the United States had a military presence in the Philippines, it wasn't enough to counter a Japanese onslaught.

Forces in the Philippines were under the command of General Douglas MacArthur.

He'd retired from the United States military in 1937.

He became a field marshal in the Philippines Army and a military advisor to the Philippines government.

MacArthur came out of retirement to be the commander of the United States Army Forces in the Far East.

But it became very clear that not even MacArthur's experience and military expertise, along with combined U.S.-Filipino forces in the Philippines, were any sort of match for the Japanese.

The American and Filipino troops retreated in the face of attack by Japan.

Eventually 70, 000 men—12, 000 Americans and 58, 000 Filipinos—withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula, leaving them essentially helpless against the Japanese onslaught.

The surrender of American forces on the Bataan Peninsula took place in April of 1942.

The only American stronghold left in the Philippines was Corregidor.

The island of Corregidor at the entrance to Manila Bay covers just 2 square miles.

For perspective, Manhattan Island in New York City is 11 times larger.

Corregidor was often referred to as the Rock because that's essentially what it is.

As small as it was, the Rock was the scene of some of the most intense bombing of World War II, most of it confined to a tiny area.

Millions of dollars had been spent fortifying Corregidor, which had been controlled by the United States since 1898.

But the advent of air attack meant that those defenses became obsolete.

In May of 1942, the thousands of US troops on Corregidor couldn't hold out any longer.

American POWs were taken to Manila or sent on the catastrophic Bataan Death March.

The Philippines, as far as the United States was concerned, was lost to Japan.

On March 12, 1942, MacArthur, along with members of his staff and family, was evacuated from the Philippines.

A B-17 transported him to Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory, and from there he took a train to Melbourne in the state of Victoria.

As he was changing trains at a railway station in a little town called Tarrawee, 120 miles north of Adelaide in South Australia, MacArthur faced the assembled media.

He said, "'The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines and proceed from Corregidor to Australia for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing an American offensive against Japan, the primary purpose of which is the relief of the Philippines.

I came through and I shall return." 2000 years ago, as the battle for control of planet Earth was raging, Jesus left a group of his closest followers, his best friends, deep in the heart of enemy territory.

And he said to them, "'I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." I shall return.

History tells us that MacArthur did return, but not immediately, and not before a long, costly, bloody, drawn-out struggle.

It's been 2 millennia since He made that promise, And those 2, 000 years have been marked by loss and desperation and death.

So what does the promise of Jesus' return mean for us?

The greatest event in all of history, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

What does the Bible say that will be like?

Find out by getting today's free offer, The Second Coming of Jesus.

To receive this free DVD, call 800-253-3000 or visit us online at iiwoffer.com.

Find out what the Bible says about the Second Coming of Jesus.

Get the free DVD, 800-253-3000, iiwoffer.com.

Thank you for joining me on It is Written.

After General Douglas MacArthur was evacuated from the Philippines in 1942.

He made a promise that was heard all around the world.

2000 years ago, standing in the shadow of the cross, knowing that virtually everyone in Israel would have judged his campaign a spectacular failure, Jesus said virtually the same thing.

The Bible speaks about the second coming of Jesus again and again.

The Apostle Paul referred to the return of Jesus to the world as the blessed hope.

But the New Testament isn't alone in forecasting the greatest events since the creation of the world.

Even the book of Job, considered to be the first book of the Bible written, speaks about Jesus' return to the earth.

Job 19, 25 and 26, For I know that My Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth.

And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God." He's referring directly to the hope of the resurrection, which takes place after Jesus returns to the world.

Virtually all of Matthew chapter 24, which was spoken by Jesus, deals with the second coming of Jesus, with Jesus saying in verse 36, "...but of that day and hour no 1 knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only." Which raises an important point.

Jesus went out of His way to tell us that while we can know when His coming is near, there's no 1 who can accurately forecast the day of Jesus' return.

People who say Jesus is coming back on this day or on that day, no.

And while Jesus waits, planet Earth descends ever deeper into secularism and postmodernism and atheism.

God allowing us to see that our isms are not the way forward.

You can get a sense of the want of the world for the Second Coming of Jesus by thinking about what went on here at Corregidor in Manila Bay in the Philippines.

It was held by the United States between 1898 and 1942 and was taken by Japan as part of Japan's quest to take the Pacific.

The Philippines suffered immensely under Japanese occupation.

Thousands of servicemen, Filipino and American, were killed.

Servicemen suffered from diseases like beriberi and scurvy.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians perished.

MacArthur's biographer wrote that only Warsaw suffered more among Allied cities in World War II.

75% of Manila's factories were destroyed, 80% of the Southern Residential District, 100% of the Business District.

And after American troops retreated to the Bataan Peninsula, they were marched to what's known today as Camp O'Donnell on what's now referred to as the Bataan Death March.

The cruelty they experienced is almost impossible to believe.

But there was something that gave them hope.

General MacArthur had made them a promise.

And the people here in the Philippines, the POWs, the Filipinos who wanted their country back, American POWs who'd been taken from here to Japan to toil as slaves, They didn't think that MacArthur was 1 to break his promise.

He said he'd return, and they hung onto those words.

On October 20, 1944, MacArthur returned to the Philippines, coming ashore on the island of Leyte, 350 miles away.

And that's when things really started to heat up on Corregidor.

You look at Corregidor today and you know that the fighting here was intense.

Back to Menu

I Shall Return

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Men of Faith: George Müller

28m

How Family Life Began

27m

The Forgetful Angel

27m

Mind Cure

27m

Designed With Purpose

It’s All About the Genes

29m

Space Travel Coming

26m

The Man Who Wouldn’t Change a Word

26m

What Jesus Said About the Here After

27m

Lost

Lost Sheep

29m

Chariots Out of the North

26m

Journey to the Moon

26m

InVerse 4th Quarter 2024: The Gospel of John

09 Preparing the Disciples

29m

Sound Doctrine