One If By Land Two If By Sea

Old North Church
Boston, Massachusetts
(snapshot from our 40th anniversary trip)

"Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are." (1 Peter 5:8-9)

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march

By land or sea from the town tonight,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower, as a signal light,

One if by land, and two if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,

For the country folk to be up and to arm..."1

1 PAUL REVERE'S RIDE, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1860.

Call me cuckoo for cocoa puffs, but, yesterday at the farm, when Phillip accidentally shattered the back windshield on his car and, minutes later, a yellow jacket crawled down my shirt and stung my back, I sounded the spiritual-warfare alarm and counter attacked with praise to the Lord, prayer, and the Word of God. It just seemed a little too "coincidental" to me.

In Peter's first letter to believers scattered throughout a world growing increasingly hostile to Christians, he warned them to stay alert and watch out for enemy attacks and reminded them that their living hope is in the Lord Jesus: "My purpose in writing is to encourage you and assure you that what you are experiencing is truly part of God's grace for you. Stand firm in this grace. Peace be with you who are in Christ." (1 Peter 5:12,14)

Beloved, stand firm against the evil one, be strong in your faith in Jesus, strong in His grace, and steadfast in His peace!