ANZAC

Standing at the Anzac Day parade this year, two things struck me: Many people were present because their father, grandfather, or great‑grandfather came home. We came to give thanks to God. Others might have been born just before their father left, like my cousin, whose dad was shot down over Norway. And there were veterans, but all of us stood there to honour those who never returned, who sacrificed their lives so we could live ours.

Secondly, world war 2 was not all about aggression but about people who believed some values were worth defending. A man may pray for protection, but love for his home and children sometimes demands action, and there came a time when the “Christian West” felt its people and values must be defended. When Hitler’s war machine rose, Churchill warned of “The abyss of a new Dark Age.” He wasn’t talking about lost territory. He was warning of a collapsing moral framework and the erosion of human dignity, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, and freedom of choice. These have long been understood by many as rights given by God, not granted by governments.

Totalitarian systems — whether Nazi, communist, or radical Islam, claim ownership of the mind. They demand that the state or leader become the ultimate authority, leaving no room for individual conscience. By contrast, God gives us the right to choose and to bear the consequences of those choices.

Anzac Day reminds us that the liberties we enjoy were purchased at a cost. Men marched believing their families, Christian culture and its freedoms, were worth protecting. We honour their sacrifice, but we must recover the values they fought for.

This is why national sovereignty matters. A nation is like a home — held together by shared values. When those values fragment, the will to defend them weakens. Today, freedoms once seen as God‑given are being eroded by laws, censorship, and cultural pressure. My friend Steve Maile, preaching in his own town square, was recently arrested in Britain while holding a British flag and expressing concern about the loss of Christian values.

Friends, nobody wants war. But the real question is this: Before Jesus returns, will the West live in peace because there are no wars, or because people in the West no longer have values worth defending?