Wartime Speech by Churchill, "We Will Never Surrender"
On the fifth of June, 1940, not even a month after he became prime minister, Winston Churchill spoke to the British people to encourage them of their desperate situation.
Bear in mind that in September of the previous year the Nazis had invaded Poland, with no effective resistance. Thereafter, with swift and sudden violence Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, all had fallen prey to Nazi imperialism. And now, just a few days earlier, France had also collapsed, with thousands of British soldiers having to be evacuated from Dunkirk. It must have seemed that nothing stood in the way of the destruction of all of Europe. Truly a desperate plight.
Mr. Churchill’s strong speech, however, helped keep the British people in fighting trim, for he knew that defeat comes not simply because the enemy is stronger. He knew that defeat comes because people think they can be defeated; defeat comes when you believe that you can be defeated. So his speech to the British public:
’Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival ... we shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
Churchill’s mighty words are so very much like the defiant confidence of Paul in today’s text: "We will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up." "We shall never surrender" "If we do not give up" These two men are saying something to us about the power of persistence. They are speaking about the value of staying with something over the long haul.
But contrast, if you will, the rock-solid confidence of a Churchill, who had every human reason to think that his cause was lost ... contrast his rock-solid confidence with the pessimism and defeatism that characterizes some Christians. With nothing like the threat of annihilation facing us; with nothing nearly as destructive attacking us, still too many of us, modern Christians, have given up the ship and have decided it’s all over for the church.
From a sermon by Joseph Smith, Churchill or Church, Ill?, 10/29/2009