A Miraculous Covering part 2
EACH OF THESE ARTICLES ARE EXCERPTS FROM
AMERICA’S EPIC ADVENTURE TM - CTF'S NEWEST VBS CURRICULUM
From Lesson 3:The Patriots, Jesus covers our sin – Romans 4:7
A Miraculous Covering part 2
Something Really Big Happens
On the night of April 18, 1775 at 10:00 pm, a British force of 900 men took off from Boston to the town of Concord to seize the colonists’ weapons they were storing there. Two lanterns were held up in the steeple of the Old North Church to alert the riders watching across the river. They rode off to warn the people that the British were coming!
At sunrise, the British soldiers came to the town of Lexington where around 70 militiamen from the Lexington church were standing. To this day, no one knows what happened, but a gun went off. In response, the British opened fire on the militiamen. This was the first bloodshed of the American Revolution (“The Shot Heard ‘Round the World”).
Eight Americans were killed with ten more wounded. The British proceeded to Concord, where they found nothing, as the people had time to move the weapons. The British now had to walk 19 miles back to Boston. They ran a lot of the time as many people came out to shoot at them for everything that had happened.
The British took siege of Boston, while resistance forces gathered outside. A force of 3,000 to 4,000 men came to Boston to try to free it from the British. They were militias from churches in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Back then, the local militia was made up of the men from the local churches. Additionally, the preachers throughout the First Great Awakening had been preaching about rights, liberties, and proper government as taught by the Bible.
Is it any wonder British officials despised American preachers and referred to them as the “Black Regiment” or the “Black Robe Brigade” (due to preachers wearing black robes when they preached)? So great was their animosity, the British often burnt, plundered, or seized church buildings throughout the colonies.
Now What Do We Do?
When the congress got back to Philadelphia in May of 1775, there were now some 10,000 patriots sitting outside Boston waiting to attack! The congress appointed Colonel George Washington to be General of the new “continental army” while they hoped to figure out some resolution to all of this.
What they didn’t know was that Henry Knox, Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, and the Green Mountain Boys were on a secret mission to steal the cannons from a British fort in Canada and bring them back to Boston.
In March of 1776, General Washington was able to sneak the cannons at night into the perfect place where they would be pointing right at the British ships in Boston Harbor. The British then agreed to surrender Boston and not burn it if they could leave without anyone shooting at them. George Washington accepted this deal, and when news of the victory arrived in Philadelphia, the congress, after much debate, ended up voting for independence on July 2, 1776 (the Declaration was signed two days later on the 4th)!
The British, however, sent around 100 ships to New York. General Washington had already arrived to set up forts, but this time they were greatly overmatched. After losing several battles, Washington and his generals decided they had to get out of there before all of his soldiers were killed or captured.
They would attempt a dangerous escape by crossing the East River at night. On the morning of August 30, 1776, the sun was about to rise, but they didn’t have all the soldiers across the river yet! The British would soon see them and start shooting at them!
But then, a heavy, dense fog settled over the whole area so that the British couldn’t see them. One soldier said he couldn’t see another soldier six yards away. On the other side where they were unloading, there was no fog.
The fog remained until General Washington and the last soldiers arrived safely a little after 7:00 that morning – and then the fog lifted. Not a single soldier had been lost. The British stood in absolute astonishment – the patriots gave praise to God for the protective covering they had received.
Covered With Jesus
We, too, need a covering. When Adam and Eve sinned, God provided a covering for them in Genesis 3:21. They had a sin and death problem and to fix this, something innocent (with no sin) had to be sacrificed (give its life) so that Adam and Eve could be covered with forgiveness and eternal lif
Animal sacrifice became the practice throughout the Old Testament for 4,000 years. But then Hebrews 10:4 was written, which said an animal sacrifice cannot save us. Why?
Because
WE ARE NOT ANIMALS!
We are IMAGE BEARERS! People are not animals and did not evolve from animals; we are made very special in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). Therefore, an innocent image-bearer would have to give His life for us to be saved. Jesus did exactly that (Hebrews 10:10-12). If we are covered with Jesus (Galatians 3:27), kind of like how George Washington and the soldiers were miraculously covered by the fog, then we can have forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus! (Romans 8:1)
