A biblical example of this is the deliverance of the Israelites in the days of Deborah and Barak. Through the prophetess Deborah, Yahweh had announced that deliverance from Jabin, the king of Hazor, and his general Sisera would come by the hands of a woman (Judges 4:9). Indeed, Sisera was delivered into the hand of a woman, but not into the hand of Deborah or another Israelite woman. Instead, he was killed by Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, who drove a tent peg into his head while he lie sleeping in her tent (Judges 4:17-24). But how did Jael become a party to an Israelite-Canaanite battle. Judges 4:11 indicates that her family had migrated away from the major Kenite settlement and had set up camp near the eventual battle site of Kadesh. The Lord was working upstream!
Most readers of this article are somewhat familiar with the broad contours of the story of DCC’s founding and the story of the key figure in its founding, Vernon Newland, DCC’s first president. Before the Second World War, Newland served as a missionary in China / Tibet and then in the Philippines. With the outbreak of World War II and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1942, Vernon Newland, his wife, and three of his four children were captured by the Japanese and interred in the grounds of the Santo Tomas University, along with over 3,000 American and European citizens gathered from across the Philippines. They were held there until the camp’s liberation by a special rescue mission of U.S. Army troops in late February, 1945.
Upon his return to the United States, he acted upon that profound sense of gratitude. He became a champion of the power of biblical faith in people’s lives, in churches, and in higher education. He would go on to found multiple Bible colleges. One was Dallas Christian College.
Our God always works upstream! As we celebrate the 65 years of influence Dallas Christian College has had, we believe the same Yahweh, the God of Israel, who parted the Red Sea, who brought the Israelites into Canaan in fulfillment of his promises to the patriarchs, who preserved his people through the exile, and who sent his Son Jesus Christ to live, to die, and to rise within history, has acted in our story. We believe he orchestrated the decision made on July 26, 1944 in Washington, DC that changed the course of a war in the Pacific and that changed our lives and the lives of thousands (maybe millions) who after 1950 would be touched by the work of Dallas Christian College.
Dr. Mark Hahlen is Bible department chair and professor of Old Testament at Dallas Christian College.