POPULARITY
6 episodes with japanese christians
6 episodes with japanese christians
2 episodes with japanese christians
3 episodes with japanese christians
3 episodes with japanese christians
2 episodes with japanese christians
6 episodes with japanese christians
3 episodes with japanese christians
This year, Catalonia and Japan are strengthening their ties with a yearlong celebration, including Catalan Week in Japan, taking place from May 27 to June 1 at the Universal Expo in Osaka. This week on Filling the Sink we explore the relationship between both territories and visit the Expo to find out how Catalonia is promoting its culture. Head of Catalan News Gerard Escaich Folch joins host Beth Cohen to explore the concept of the Universal Exposition and its impact on the host cities, highlighting the monuments in Barcelona which are relics of the 1888 and 1929 Expos. We look back over the historical relationship between Catalonia and Japan, which dates back to the 16th century with a visit from Japanese Christian travelers Tensho Ken-oh Shisetsu dan to the Montserrat monastery. Our ACN correspondents in Osaka bring us all the details of the Expo activities, from pa amb tomàquet workshops to wine tasting, virtual reality tourist visits, videos on the history of Barça, a lesson on how to paint like Miró, and interactive architecture exhibits. We hear from Michelin-star chefs Carme Ruscadella and Joan Roca, who are ambassadors to the event, and catch up with Yoshiaki Matsumoto, leader of a Catalan rumba group in Japan. We also hear from some Japanese citizens celebrating Catalan culture in Osaka. This week, our Catalan phrase is “Fer-ne cinc cèntims - “To make five cents of it,” which means to briefly resume something, keeping it short and sweet.
Today we talk with Morgen Hildebrand, a missionary from Kansas who completed a theology degree at Tokyo Christian University. She gives a number of fascinating insights to the way that Japanese professors teach Christianity, and the way that her Japanese classmates encouraged her to fine tune her gospel message in a culturally winsome way.
Discover the spiritual challenges facing Japan and how you can pray for this incredible nation. From the lack of Christian workers to spiritual strongholds and the need for boldness among believers, this video highlights key areas for prayer. Join us in spreading awareness and supporting Japanese Christians as they strive to make an impact.
Today we talk with Kohei, who helped out at Asian Access Japan's 2024 conference 'From Embers to Flames'. Did you know that, although Japan's Christian population is only about 1% of Japan, 99% of Christians are laypeople? That' means that, if there are 1,000,000 Japanese Christians, 990,000 of them are not clergy. How can these Japanese Christian laypeople, these embers, ignite a Spiritual fire to spread Christianity among their people in Japan?
Welcome to Dive Into Reiki, an interview series hosted by Nathalie Jaspar that explores the journeys of high-profile Reiki teachers and practitioners.You can support the mission of spreading Reiki education through my Patreon for less than the cost of a cup of coffee or for free by rating this podcast on your app!IMPORTANT NOTICE: Dive Into Reiki's mission is to bring information that allows Reiki practitioners from all over the world to deepen their practice. Although this information is shared freely on my platforms, all content is tied to copyrights. Please do not repurpose or translate these interviews without previous authorization.EPISODE 61: JOJAN JONKER ON HIS BOOK ABOUT TOKIO YOKOIJojan L. Jonker is Reiki Master, Independent Scholar in the field of Religious Studies, Autho He worked for many years as an ICT consultant. In 1994, Reiki came on his path, and in 1998 he became Reiki Master. He developed a special interest for new spiritualities and healing. In 2010, he graduated in Interreligious Spirituality (Radboud University Nijmegen), continued in 2011 as an external PhD Candidate, and obtained his doctorate in 2016. His latest book, Tokio Yokoi, shares research that could make the case to suggest that a Japanese Christian reverend namedTokio Yokoi and not Mikao Usui may have been the progenitor of Reiki. Here are the links to his book, his website, and a link to our previous chat about his Reiki journey.Important note: As the host of this podcast, I'm personally keeping an open mind and approaching this with curiosity but do not endorse any specific point of view. I just want to present to you and everyone information that may result interesting and keep you up to date with some of the latest conversations about Reiki history. Nathalie Jaspar, the founder of Dive Into Reiki, is a Reiki master with over a decade of experience. She's a graduate teacher from the International House of Reiki, led by world-renowned Reiki master Frans Stiene. She also trained with the Center for True Health and the International Center for Reiki. To gain an even deeper understanding of Reiki practice, Nathalie went to Japan to practice Zen Buddhism at the Chokai-san International Zendo. She is the author of Reiki as a Spiritual Practice: an Illustrated Guide and the Reiki Healing Handbook (Rockridge Press). Support the show
Hear Joni talk about a creed that's popular amongst Japanese Christians but relatable for everyone. -------- Thank you for listening! Your support of Joni and Friends helps make this show possible. Joni and Friends envisions a world where every person with a disability finds hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ. Become part of the global movement today at www.joniandfriends.org. Find more encouragement on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.
In this twenty-eighth episode of the Inspiring Stewards podcast, Nathan Jones speaks with Yu Sato from Tokyo, Japan. Serving at a Christian center that provides a shared working space for Christian organizations, Yu shares his intention to spread the concept of stewardship in the Japanese context. He talks about the challenges of Christians in Japan and how his recent trip to the Philippines to join the GTP Global Gathering affirmed that he is not alone in this journey. He concludes by sharing his dream to have the Global Gathering in Tokyo to inspire Japanese Christians with what's happening in the global Church. We'd love to hear your thoughts, comments, or feedback. To do so, email us at mail@gtp.org. The music is Concerto a' 4 Violini No 2 by Telemann played on classical guitar by Jon Sayles. Published by Exzel Music. Length: 14:51
The story of a Eucharistic miracle gives new insight into the Feast of Corpus Christi for Dom and Melanie, who also discuss a book by a Japanese Christian; a new Bond-like spy series; Midway; two quick chicken recipes; and red skies. The post Make Your Amen Matter appeared first on StarQuest Media.
What do pocket watches, Korean prisoners, and samurai armor have in common? All of them help explain the close relationship between Portuguese merchants and Japanese warlords in the late 1500s. In this episode of Gladio Free Europe, we see how Portuguese Catholics entered the inner circles of Japan's most powerful men before a sudden change of heart turned this glamorous foreign religion into an underground cult. This episode focuses on the ways different feudal daimyo responded to the sudden arrival of Christianity. A few noblemen converted outright. Some welcomed the missionaries just to get access to their foreign guns. One very important warlord distrusted the Jesuits, would set Japan on a course to ultimately eradicate Christianity in the islands. While accounts of early East-West contact typically focus on European merchants and missionaries visiting Asia, this period saw people and goods and ideas move in both directions. We'll We go over the career of early Japanese Christians in Europe, such as a mysterious figure named Bernardo as well as an official diplomatic mission sent by three Christian warlords to the Papal States. And we can't forget the famous African samurai Yasuke, who arrived with the Jesuits only to become a close ally of the great unifier Oda Nobunaga. He and another Catholic would be a witness to Nobunaga's shocking betrayal, which would ultimately spell the doom of the Japanese Catholics. Stay tuned for our upcoming final episode of this series, chronicling the long period of Christian persecutions that ended with a brutal last stand in the city of Shimabara.
A call to set our hope fully on the future Kingdom of Christ, desiring deeply the honors and rewards He will give at that time. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - I. “What’s In It For Me?” Turn in your Bibles to Mark 10: 280-31. You might also want to refer over to Matthew 19: 27-30, the parallel passage. This is a very unusual week for me. Yesterday as I was thinking about the sermon, I felt that I had swung and missed the text, so I did what a lot of pastors do, but I never want to do, which is write Sunday’s sermon on Saturday. I know that that's a common thing, but it's just not... So I don't work well under that kind of stress, but I wanted to go a different direction, but some of the points would be similar. A week ago, my daughter Jenny sent me a text. She asked if I'd be willing to bring a pack and play to church. That's a portable crib so that they could use it this week. So I texted her and said, "What's in it for me?” Now, my kids know I do this kind of thing from time to time, my wife will ask me a favor and I'll say that, "What's in it for me?" I just like playing with that a little bit. She texted back something like this, "Not much. I'll owe you a small favor within reason." So she gave me a kind of a coupon I can turn in, but nothing big. That's how that went. If you look at Matthew's version of Peter's question, you can hear a kind of an echo there. In Matthew 19:27, Peter answered Jesus, "We have left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us?" Or putting it more personally, “what's in it for me?” That's the name of my new sermon, “What's in it for me?” It is a little bit shocking because it seems so selfish, so worldly, so mercenary. We feel like we should be at a higher moral level doing everything we do for Jesus without any thought whatsoever of personal benefit, without any thoughts of rewards. Soldiers who fight ardently for love of country are patriots, but soldiers who fight for money are mercenaries. We feel like we're called to a higher level in terms of virtue in our service to Christ, a more perfect standard. As I was reflecting on this, it brought me strongly back into one of the most significant insights of the Christian life I've ever had, that I've ever received from another teacher, another pastor in the word of God or a book that I've ever read. The kind of insight that has the power to change your entire ethic, your entire approach to life. It has been for me that insight has to do with the combination of my desire, my relentless desire for personal blessedness, personal happiness, something to come to me to make me happy and, as clearly revealed in the scripture, God's relentless desire to be glorified, to be central, to be above all things. The author of this insight, of course, is John Piper book, Desiring God. Peter's desire for reward and Jesus' response in Mark 10 and in Matthew 19 for me was, I don't mean to be facetious, but kind of a portal into Piper. It kind of went through a warm hole as I was riding my bike yesterday back into those themes and what Piper calls Christian hedonism. Let me walk through the calculus of Christian hedonism. “What's in it for me” reminds me of things I've said often about the flesh, the essence of the flesh, which begins from infancy. Some of you have newborns. I've heard how it's going for you and you are well aware of what I've called that fanatical commitment to self-interest that we see at 3:00 in the morning in an infant that isn't really used to being alive yet and isn't enjoying it. It’s a fanatical commitment to self-interest, and that seems directly contrasted with the call of Christian discipleship. Christianity seems at least at one level to be all about self-denial. We follow a savior who left the comforts of heaven to come to a cursed planet, to live a life of poverty and sorrow. Who lived every moment to bless other people, then willingly lay down his life even on a cross, even with that exquisite physical suffering and the infinite eternal spiritual suffering of being our substitute, continually saying no to himself. Did He ever ask in any sense “what's in it for me?”? No. In fact, He called on his disciples, as we've already seen in Mark's gospel, to a life of self denial. Mark 8:34, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross. Follow me for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life from me and the gospel will save it." At the end of this same chapter, Mark 10, Jesus says, "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." That doesn't seem like a life of “what's in it for me”, but Jesus gives a rather perplexing answer. It is perplexing at a lot of levels, but right away just the fact that He doesn't rebuke Peter at all. I mean, you think it'd be an opportunity to say “you're thinking all wrong here. What kind of question is that? You shouldn't be thinking about rewards. You should be willing to serve. Leave everything for me and not worry about what's in it for you.” Actually He goes into detail about what the apostles will get having left everything both in this age and in the age to come. Mark 10: 29-30, “'I tell you the truth,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields from me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age, homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children in fields, with them persecutions and in the age to come eternal, life.’" It's even more developed in Matthew's account. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or mother or father, children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life." How do we harmonize this? How can we understand this yearning for rewards? What's in it for me? What do I get? A desire, a strong desire for personal blessedness, something to come back to us in the Christian life. John Piper has sought to harmonize these things in Desiring God, indeed in his whole ministry. He puts it this way. There are two irrepressible forces in the universe as we study scripture. First, God's desire for his own glory in all of his creation and in all of his creatures. Second, our desire to be happy. The standard evangelical appeal pits the one against the other as if only one of those two can be fulfilled. It's either we're going to live for the glory of God or we will live for our own happiness, our own blessedness, and we have to make a choice., and pray God, it's the right choice. Either God gets the glory or I get the joy. Not both. The normal evangelical appeal is will you surrender to God's will for your life? Are you going to keep pursuing your own personal happiness? Then there are subthemes in the same kind of approach like Christian worship, like we should all come here on Sunday and say, “Lord, we want you to know this is all about you today. We're here for you. We want to make you central. We want to put you first. It's not about us. We want you to be glorified in my worship today, I don't want anything out of this.” It seems so holy and then also Christian service. When you serve other people, don't ever think what's in it for you. The point is their happiness not yours. You are not the point. Their needs are the point. Our selfish joy and service should never be our goal. Rather, it's an accidental byproduct of a life well lived for Christ. Kind of bump into happiness along the way as you're serving others. Piper exposed the fundamental flaw in this. It's deeply flawed actually, and he drew out quotes to help establish it. First of all, on the second desire, the repressible force that we all have to be happy. It's just a fact. We're wired this way. Blase Pascal put it this way, "All men see seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend toward this end. The cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it is the same desire in both attended with different views. The will never takes the least step, but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even those who hang themselves." He's not saying it’s good or bad, he's just saying it is. It just is what is. CS Lewis in his powerful sermon, “The Weight of Glory” said, "If you asked 20 good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, 19 of them would reply unselfishness. But if you ask almost any of the great Christians of old, well, he would've replied love." You see what's happened, a negative term has been substituted for a positive. The negative ideal of unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves as if our abstinence and not their happiness is the important point. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit this notion has crept in from Kant in the stoics which is no part of the Christian religion. In other words, it's like true virtue is making sure you personally derive no pleasure whatsoever from an act. An action is moral only if it's done from effectively sheer duty, disinterested benevolence, disinterest meaning I don't get anything out of it. Benevolence is something good done not for you, but he other person. If you seek, if you desire, or if you should happen to receive any blessing from it, it's actually morally ruined to some degree. Rubbish says John Piper, that's complete rubbish. It's not Christianity. Yes, it is true that God has a relentless desire to be glorified in all his creation and by all his creatures. God created all things for the praise of his glory, and when redemption is finished, the entire universe, the new heaven, new earth, the new Jerusalem are going to be radiating with the glory of God. But our desire for personal delight and happiness is not an enemy to that. Not at all. Actually God created it for that. He created that drive for personal fulfillment and pleasure and happiness and satisfaction to find its residence in God. So Piper adjusted the Westminster Shorter Catechism in “What is the chief end of man?” The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in him. That's his well-known slogan. The more we say to God, I want you, I want as much of you as I can get. I'm hungry for you. The more God's glorified, especially in worship, the better. I know that sounds all holy and all that, but imagine coming to God and saying, “God, I want you to know I don't really personally have any needs today, but you apparently are kind of needy. You need my worship, so I'm here to give you my worship. Hope you're satisfied with it.” I can see God saying, “Can I just tell you something about what's going on up here in heaven? First of all, before anything was made, I was fine, perfectly blessed within the Trinity. Secondly, I'm made out of fullness, not out of emptiness. I don't need any of my angels or people that praise me, but I just want you to know I got 100 million angels up here who doing a phenomenal job. You guys are pathetic. I don't need you to worship me. You need me and you need to worship me, so come hungry and I'll feed you.” That's what true worship is. It's seeking our pleasure vertically in worship is what it's all about. It's saying to God, “You are what I want. You're what I need.” Then horizontally the same thing. It's like, can you imagine serving another person and saying, “I want you to know I get nothing out of this exchange. Hope you're blessed by it.” Piper likens it to an anniversary, like giving your wife flowers and saying that to her, “I want you to know I'm not enjoying this moment at all. I'm not getting anything out of this horizontally. I hope you enjoy the flowers I bought you.” What he calls dutiful roses. That's corrupt. Love is where I find my blessedness in your blessedness, right? I find my happiness in making you happy. It makes me happy to make you happy. It makes me blessed to bless you. That's why I'm a cheerful giver, because I'm excited about blessing you. Vertical and horizontal. That's what we're talking about here. Rather than being shocked by Peter's question- “We've left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us?” - we should delight in Christ's stunning promises or rewards, both in this life and in eternity. We should yearn for him. We should be yearning for him. We should want as much as He wants to give us in that next world. C.S. Lewis put it this way, “the New Testament does have lots to say about self-denial but not self-denial as an end to itself. We are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ and find our lives in him.” It says it right there in that passage and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire for us. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We're far too easily pleased with what? What are we far too easily pleased with? The answer in the Bible is always the same, idols, creatures, created things going after them as our ultimate purpose in life. That does not satisfy. That's what the rich young ruler was doing. So that's the context. II. Peter’s Question In Context Let's look at Peter’s question in context. Remember last week, the rich young ruler, seemingly the perfect seeker coming, but he was fundamentally a flawed man. “As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him, fell on his knees before him and said, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good except God alone." Then Jesus uses the law of God to expose his need for a savior. “You know the commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not give false testimony. Do not defraud. Honor your father mother.”Unfortunately, the man thinks he passed all that test. He's basically a good person just needing a little bit more to get him over the hump. "Teacher," he declared, "All these I have kept since I was a boy." Then Jesus probes his soul, searches him. “Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One things you lacked, he said. ’Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’" Based on my introduction of the sermon, that's an appeal to what Piper called Christian hedonism. Give up what cannot satisfy you. Give up what you cannot hold onto to gain something that will bring you eternal happiness. That's the invitation here, but the man can't take it. He's shattered. He leaves. “His face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth.” Jesus then seizes the opportunity to teach about the eternal dangers of wealth. Jesus looked around, said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” The disciples are amazed at his words, but Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The disciples are doubly stunned by this. They're wiped out by this. It goes against their theology of wealth and blessedness. They wonder about salvation. The disciples were even more amazed and said to each other, “Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said with man, this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God.” Now Peter steps up and connects the dots. I think he's picking up on the treasure in heaven phrase, the treasure in heaven. He says, "Well, what about us? We've left everything to follow you." Mark just has that simple statement, he doesn't have the rest. “We have left everything to follow,” but there's an implied question, “are we in on that treasure in heaven thing?” Matthew's version is broader. He openly says it. "We have left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us?" Let's remember how the apostles had in fact left everything for Jesus. He doesn't deny that at all and how significant it was. Remember back in Mark chapter 1, “As Jesus walked beside the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake for their fishermen. ‘Come follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘And I'll make you fishers of men.’ At once they left their nets and followed him. When He had gone a little farther, He saw James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John in a boat preparing their nets. Without delay, he called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him." It's a big deal walking away from your livelihood, stepping out in faith to follow Jesus like that. And Matthew, the tax collector in Matthew 9:9, "As Jesus just went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. 'Follow me,' he told him. And Matthew got up and followed him.” Matthew walked away from his lucrative tax booth. That took courage and sacrifice. Matthew 8, "A teacher of the law came up to him and said, ‘Teacher, I'll follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus said, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nest. The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” “I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight. I don't know how we're going to eat." Remember how his disciples were walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath and picking heads of grain and rubbing them together in their hands to eat them? Why? Because they were poor. It was a big deal what they did. III. Jesus’ Promise of Earthly Rewards . . and Earthly Suffering All right, so we've left everything to follow you. What then will there be for us? Jesus promises earthly rewards first, and He asserts this with a solemn oath. "Truly, truly. I say to you." He says this a lot, but whenever he says this, it's serious. It's a very serious statement. I'm making a vow to you. Or you can take this to the bank, heaven and earth will pass away, but this promise will never pass away. You can take this to the heavenly bank promising this to you. Think of an illustration. Imagine the royal prince during a war. He's captured, but he manages to escape and he's being chased. He's a fugitive, making his way through a territory. He comes to a farmhouse where there's a simple peasant who lives with his family. He reveals who he is and asks if he can borrow the family's one horse to ride on and get away from his pursuers. Then he writes the man a note and he signs it and he seals it with his signet ring using wax from the candle on the man's table. He promises not only the return of the family horse, but 20 gold pieces, a change of clothing for everyone in the family, and the permanent status as friend to the royal household. All of that written out, signed with a signet. Jesus also in his humiliation is speaking of a future time when He will sit on a throne of glory. “I won't look then what like I look now and I'm promising you, and you can take it to the bank.” Mark focuses on earthly rewards initially. "I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields from me in the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age." In this present age, homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields. Why does He list that? He’s telling them that what they give up, they’re going to get back and 100 fold. This is a promise made to the apostles who have left their home base and have ventured out in faith to serve Jesus and the gospel. And not just them, but 20 centuries of missionaries, of traveling evangelists and servants of the gospel who have physically left places to go. There's a spiritual leaving that I want to talk about at the end of the sermon, but they physically left. I read years ago about John Patton, the missionary from Scotland to the New Hebrides Islands in the South Pacific. In my opinion, he traveled oversea farther than any missionaries ever traveled from his home to his mission site, 13,000 nautical miles. It was a long journey. The parting scene between him and his father is just gut wrenching. His father was an incredibly godly man who deeply loved his children, and his children deeply loved him, and his father walked with him to a point where they had to part and say goodbye. This is the account. It says, "My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His counsels and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting journey are still fresh in my heart as if they had been but yesterday. But tears are on my cheeks as freely now as they were then. Whenever memory steals me away to that scene. For the last half mile or so, we walked together in almost unbroken silence. My father as often was his custom as carrying his hat in his hand while his long flowing yellow hair was yellow then, but later years white as snow streamed like a girl's down his shoulders. His lips kept moving in silent prayers for me and his tears fell fast, when our eyes met each other in looks for which all speech was vain. We halted on reaching the appointed parting place. He grasped my hand firmly for a minute in silence and then solemnly and affectionately said, 'God bless you, my son, your father's God prosper you and keep you from all evil.' Unable to say anymore, his lips kept moving in silent prayer, as tears flowing. We embraced and parted. I ran off as fast as I could and when about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me, I looked back and saw him still standing with head uncovered where I had left him gazing after me, waving my hat in a due. I was around the corner and out of sight in an instant, but my heart was too full and too sore to carry me further. So I darted to the side of the road and wept for a time. Then rising up cautiously, I climbed the to dike if he yet stood where I'd left him. Just at that moment, I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dike looking out for me, but he did not see me. And after he had gazed eagerly in my direction for a while, he got down and then set his face toward home and began to return there. His head's still uncovered and his heart I felt sure still rising in prayers for me. I watched through blinding tears till his form faded from my gaze, then hastening on my way, vowed deeply and offed by the help of my God to live and act, so I was never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as he had given me.” I mean, how do you say goodbye like that to go to a mission site? He never saw his father again. That was like a funeral. So what then will there be for us if we do that? If we leave, what will there be for us? If you look at Jesus's promise for the earthly part, it's you will get what you need to do your mission. I think that's what He's saying. You'll get what you need. This is not prosperity gospel stuff. This is not health and wealth, this is not Joel Osteen's Your Best Life Now. We're not going that direction. He's not saying you'll permanently own other people's homes. Instead, it's Hudson Taylor's spiritual secret. God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. That's what it is. God's going to give you what you need and He's going to give you encouragement along the way that you're part of a vast family of God and that family is going to take you in and care for you and meet your needs and you will not be at a loss. That's what He's promising. No one who has left homes or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age, homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, fields, He says. This relates I think to the practical promises and preparations made in Matthew 10 when Jesus first sent the apostles out on the first missionary journey. Remember how He said, “Don't take any bag for your journey. Take no tunic or extra sandals or a staff or any bag of gold or silver because the worker's worth is keep. And whenever you go to someplace, find some home there and stay there at that home until you leave. And then at the end of that, he promises rewards for the host family. “Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a profit's reward. Anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, because he is my disciple, he'll never lose his reward.” So any help given to the traveling missionary and the traveling servant of God gets eternally rewarded. We have clear examples of this in the Book of Acts. Think about Peter. Remember how Peter had that vision of a sheet let down with all kinds of animals when the messengers were going from Cornelius's house and that was the beginning of the ministry to the Gentiles. Well, he was staying at somebody else's house. Simon the Tanner at Joppa, that wasn't his home. He was up on the roof and he got hungry and they were making him lunch. That was really nice of Simon, the Tanner's wife, to make Peter lunch. That's an example of the very thing we're talking about here, isn't it? Or about Paul? How many times has it happened with Paul, the resources for the ongoing mission are in the mission field itself. Paul goes over to Philippi and there's a rich woman there named Lydia. She hears the gospel. The Lord opens her heart, she comes to faith, and then she invites Paul and his missionary team to stay with her at her estate. Acts 16:15, "When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. If you consider me a believer in the Lord, please come and stay at my home. And she persuaded us, stay there." That's one of the hundred homes or more, right? It's provision for those that are traveling out doing the gospel work. Or again, Paul in Romans 16:23 says, “Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy sends, you his greetings." Who's Gaius? I don't know, a host person. It also extends to family relationship. You leave your mother, you'll get a hundred mothers. You're like, I don't know if I want a hundred mothers or a hundred fathers or a hundred brothers. It doesn't matter. You're going to get them. He says here, Romans 16:13, "Greet Rufus chosen in the Lord and his mother, who's been a mother to me too." So Rufus' mother, Paul's adopted mother. I just picture her making him chicken soup. Rufus' mother, Jesus said, "You'll get a hundred times as much in this present age." I've seen this in my life. My wife and I sold almost everything we owned and went to Japan. And when we got there, we were greeted by Japanese Christians and host people who cared for us. I've seen it in China, I've seen it in Kenya, South Africa, Germany, Poland, Macedonia, Greece, England. That's my story. I've been in so many host families. They've fed me. They've given me their guest room. They've let me use their car. I've seen the promises. In India I stayed at the home of dear Christian family there. Now this is general benefit for all Christians. We're part of a universal church, aren't we? We're part of a big family of God. We've got brothers and sisters all over the world. You haven't even met them yet. As soon as you meet them, you're going to find out that they love the same Jesus you do. They read the same Bible you do. You're part of a vast family of God. That's what he's talking about here. Now he also added, and with them persecutions, let's be honest, it's not going to be easy for you as you travel around. With them persecutions, you're going to suffer. You're going to go through very, very difficult times. IV. Jesus’ Promise of Eternal Rewards In Matthew’s Gospel, He promises more clearly eternal rewards. In Mark’s gospel He says, “and in the age to come, eternal life.” Let's not minimize that. How could we? What is eternal life? “This is eternal life,” said Jesus, “that they may know you the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” You're going to be lavishly blessed in your relationship with God for all eternity. That's what you get. But what else? Stop right there. That's enough. That's God. Remember what God said to Abraham in Genesis 15:1, "Fear not Abraham. I am your shield and your very great reward.” What do I get, God? You get me." Oh, that's enough. And I'll give you some other things too. But the other things aren't the point. You get me in the age to come, eternal life.” He does get specific in Matthew's Gospel, in some interesting ways. He says there will be the renewal of all things when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne. The renewal of all things, it's an interesting Greek word, only used twice. A new genesis, a new creation, a new heaven, a new earth. He talks about it in terms of the soul. He washed us with the rebirth and regeneration by the Holy Spirit. That's the conversion [Titus 3]. But here we've got this. "And at the renewal of all things, when the new heaven and new earth comes in and I sit on my glorious throne, then you who have followed me, the twelve apostles will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." What does that mean? I don't know. I'm not preaching on Matthew; I'm just alluding to Matthew today. But I don't know, it's just some kind of... Some people think it's millennial kingdom, some people, it's just positions of honor, positions of authority, positions of glory. That's what you get far beyond anything you ever gave up. This is part of Jesus's regular pattern of promising rewards. He doesn't just do it once or twice. He does it again and again and again. "Blessed are you, when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad." Why? "Because great is your reward in heaven." Wow. I mean, He goes down to our personal disciplines and our benevolence. When you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Don't announce it with trumpets. Don't seek horizontal acknowledgement in this world. Don't go after that. But your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, don't announce it and make everyone see how holy you are. Go into your room, close the door and pray to your father's unseen, and your father sees what is done in secret. What does He say? He'll reward you. The same thing with fasting. He'll reward you. He talks about rewards all the time. He says at the end of the Bible, Revelation 22:12, "Behold, I'm coming soon. My reward is with me and I will give to everyone according to what he has done." If we're not supposed to think about rewards, why does He talk about them so much? He talks about them a lot. He says, "I am coming soon and I'm bringing a huge bag of eternal rewards and I'm going to reward each of you according to how you've lived your life according to your service to me." V. Earnestly Desire All Rewards I think we should earnestly desire them. You should say, well, I don't know. Should I be saying what's in it for me? I'm not recommending that you say that, except as a joke, but there's nothing wrong with thinking I am interested, Jesus, in what you have to give me for my life of service. I'm interested in it. Actually, I don't just think it's not like some guilty pleasure. I think it's actually imperative to the way we think about God. Hebrews 11:6 says so. "Without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who diligently seek him or earnestly seek him.” So you have to believe in a rewarding God. But look at the verse in Hebrews 11:6. "He rewards those who seek him." He doesn't reward them with something other than himself. He rewards them with himself. We must believe that. Therefore, desiring rewards is only mercenary if it's somehow disconnected from the thing itself. C.S. Lewis put it this way, "A woman who marries for money is mercenary because money is not the natural reward of love. But a woman who marries because she expects that the man who will become her husband will make her happy and bring her lasting joy in multiple experiences of love is not mercenary. That's the essence of why you get married." In fact, it is actually wrong to serve Christ and say, “I don't care what you give me" when He has made these promises of lavish reward, that's actually wrong. Just as it is wrong for a person about to get married to say to their prospective spouse, I want you to know I don't care if you make me happy in our future marriage. That doesn't matter to me. Even if I knew that our marriage would make me miserable for the rest of my life, I would go ahead and marry you. I'd be like, what's wrong with you? That's twisted. I'm not going to say that to Jesus. “I don't care, Jesus, if you make me happy, if I follow you, I don't care if I'm eternally unhappy. I'm still going to follow you.” That doesn't make any sense. It's not the way the New Testament's written. Not at all. So we therefore should want the reward. We should actually store up as much of the reward as we possibly can. “Do not store up treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieve break in and steal, but store up treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in steal. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” You're supposed to store up treasure and you're supposed to have your heart there and think about it. What are the rewards? There are three Cs - crowns, commendation, and capacity. I’m just going to go over this quickly. First of all, crowns. It's like you’re getting a crown? Maybe, I don't know. I don't know about each of you individually. If any of you individually comes to me and says, “Do you think I'm getting a crown?” I will say, I don't know. But there are crowns and what are they? Emblems of honor for faithful and courageous service to Christ. Like in Revelation 4:4, "Surrounding the throne were 24 other thrones and seated on them were 24 elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their head." So there they are, crowns, emblems of honor, connected in some way to them, to their person. Or again, Paul in First Thessalonians 2 said, "For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? You are my crown,” he said to the Thessalonians. He led them to Christ. He planted that church. "You are my glory and my joy." He said the same thing to the Philippians. "Therefore my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown." That is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends. The people you lead to Christ, they are your crown. The people you serve. You help plant a church, that's a crown. Pastors, elders. Peter says, who've served faithfully as under shepherds, under the good shepherd, the chief shepherd. It says, when the chief shepherd appears, First Peter 5:4, "You'll receive a crown of glory that will never fade away." "What are the rewards? There are three Cs, crowns, commendation, and capacity." Peter wrote that to motivate elders and pastors to serve faithfully because they're going to get a crown of glory that'll never fade away if they do. I know that those 24 elders were casting their crowns down constantly before the throne of God and of Christ. That's their way of saying, everything I have received and achieved came ultimately from you and by your grace for your glory. All of my crowns are a subset of your glory. That's how it's married together. It's not a separate thing, but crowns. And then commendation. What's that? Praise from God that God would speak well of what you did in your life. Most famously, in Matthew 25, his master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master. Well done, good and faithful servant." That's commendation from almighty God. Or 1 Corinthians 4:5, says, "Judge nothing before the appointed time. Wait till the Lord comes. At that time, the secret motives of men's hearts. All of that will be revealed and at that time, each will receive his praise from God." Those three words, “praise from God.” I know heaven's all about praise for God. And well it should be. We're going to praise God, but there is praise from God should you want that. I'm asking brothers and sisters, should you want God to praise you? You actually should. You should want him to say, well done, good and faithful servant. You should want him to honor you. You should want him to praise you because He won't do it amiss. He won't do it lightly. It will be so meaningful to you to have your Father express pleasure in how you lived your life. Praise from God. That's commendation. "Should you want God to praise you? You actually should. You should want him to say, well done, good and faithful servant." Then finally, capacity. This is the hardest to understand, but I think it's true. God is infinitely glorious. No creature can fully take him in. But the more faithful you serve in this life, the more of his heavenly glory you will be able to understand and take in. How do I think this way? I think of God's glory as an infinite ocean. All of us are like vessels or various volumes, like a thimble, a cup, a bowl, a bucket, a vat, a super oil tanker, different volumes, but the ocean's infinitely greater than any of them. All of them 100% full, But they just have different capacities. So when He says, “Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful with a few things. Now I'm going to put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.” What He's saying is, “share my joy together. I want you to feel my joy of the service you've rendered. I want you to come into me and experience my joy and my delight." In Luke 6:38 it says, "Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, press down, shaken together, running overly poured into your lap. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you."That's where I get the different volumes. What's poured into our lap? What is the reward? It's God. You get more of God and He always has more to give you. So how much of God do you want in heaven? That's the question. There's going to be some judgment day surprises. Look at verse 31, "Many who are first will be last and last, first." People we thought were great, maybe weren't as great as we thought they were, and some obscure brothers and sisters are going to be elevated like the widow that gave the copper coins. Jesus said what? She put in more than anyone. Many who are first will be last and last, first. Therefore, Paul says in First Corinthians 4:5, "Judge nothing until the appointed time.” Wait till the day, and at that point, we'll find out. George Whitfield, one of the greatest preachers of all time, wanted this to be his epitaph on his tomb. He said, "Here lies George Whitfield. What sort of man he was the great day will discover." That's pretty simple. In other words, here lies George Whitfield, what he was like you'll find out on Judgment Day. That's the point, the final day will reveal how we actually serve the Lord. VI. Lessons First and foremost, if you're an unbeliever, you walked in here as an unbeliever, it's not for you to be storing up treasure. The Bible actually reveals if you're not yet a Christian, you're storing up wrath every day, so come to Christ, trust in him. Trust in his precious blood. This is what He says to you in John 6. When you come and ask him, what must we do to work the works of God? This is the work of God: to believe in the One He has sent. Believe in Jesus. Then you can start storing up treasure in heaven. For you Christians, I would just say in your own way, say “what's in it for me? Help me to understand heavenly rewards and store them up. Help me to store up as many as possibly can.” I want to speak specifically about the dynamic here of leaving things for Jesus. Some of you will be called, and you don't even know it right now, to leave your home, your country, your family, your friends, and go somewhere overseas, some other place to serve Christ. You're going to be called to do something you never thought you could do. Drink in the promises here. God will take care of you. He will meet your needs. Do not be afraid, but step out in faith to go do great things for God. He will provide for you. God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. He will take care of you. Most of us are not going to be called on to leave our familiar surroundings, but we are to live lives of aliens and strangers in this world, to venture out by faith in serving him. Some of us, some in this church are going to leave this church in the next year to go church-plant. You're going to join our church-planting effort. You're going to stop coming here on Sunday mornings and go to another place. It's not because I hope you don't like us, it's because God's calling you to do a work, to venture out. Be willing to do hard things, be willing to venture out, be willing to risk things in your service to Christ. Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for the time we've had to walk through this deep, powerful, complex topic. I thank you for the truth of the word of God. Help us, Lord, to seek your glory, to seek you as hungry and thirsty. You are our God. Earnestly, we seek you. We desire you as in a dry and weary land. You are all we need, all we want, and that we would go after you. Fill us, oh Lord, with a yearning to store up treasure in heaven. Treasure being intimacy and closeness with God and with Christ. Help us to be willing to risk things or be willing to go places we never thought we could go and do things we never thought we could do to serve you. In Jesus name. Amen.
What does this 2016 film, based upon the novel of the same name, tell us about the moral dilemmas faced by Christian missionaries in Japan during the late 1600s? Why does apostasy (carried out by stepping on a carved image of Christ) present such an agonizing choice if the people doing so remain Christian in their hearts? How do the contrasts between the characters Kichijiro, Fathers Rodrigues and Feirrara reflect differing levels of moral compromise? Who is the most cowardly of the three, and why? Does Rodrigues make the right choice in choosing to step on the image in order to save Japanese Christians, members of his flock, from being slowly bled to death? Is his experience of Jesus's voice giving him permission to do so genuine? Who are the braver Christians in the film, the Europeans or the Japanese?
I was saved in college in 2000 in the USA, where the pastor told me to ‘put off your old life of sin, everything Japanese, and put on the new life in Christ.' I tried very hard to do that for 18 years in the States through marriage, childbirth, my husband's affair, separation, single mothering, running a social enterprise, and my art. And now I'm trying to find Christ in Japanese culture. ...
Almost 40 years ago, one of the fastest growing religions in Japan was officially established. Happy Science as it is known is rooted in the principle of doing good within the world. Happy Science Members focus on attaining enlightenment through activities such as daily self-reflections, giving love, and helping create a modern utopia. This week on The Malliard Report, Jim welcomes one of the key speakers of the movement Yoichi Utebi to the show to discuss the faith, his career as a producer, and much more. “Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science and a producer on The Cherry Bushido.” This is a great episode and Yoichi's outlook is certainly infectious. You can learn more about his teaching over at selfdiscoverymedia.com. For all things Malliard, head over to malliard.com for merch, past shows, and the live chat every Tuesday 9 P.M. EST. Remember to rate and subscribe through your favorite podcasting app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Few know that Japan has a very rich Christian history that is older than the church history of America! Few know that one of the fiercest persecutions was inflicted on the Japanese Christians. Join Pat as he concludes the little know Christian history of Japan and courageous stories of the Japan Christian martyrs.
Few know that Japan has a very rich Christian history that is older than the church history of America! Few know that one of the fiercest persecutions was inflicted on the Japanese Christians. Join Pat as he concludes the little know Christian history of Japan and courageous stories of the Japan Christian martyrs.
Church historians state that some of the fiercest persecution was inflicted on the Christians of Japan. Few know that thousands of Christian men, women, and children were tortured and died for their faith in Christ. Join Pat as he tells some of the inspiring stories of the courageous Japanese Christians who gave their lives for Christ in one of the fiercest persecutions in the history of the church.
Church historians state that some of the fiercest persecution was inflicted on the Christians of Japan. Few know that thousands of Christian men, women, and children were tortured and died for their faith in Christ. Join Pat as he tells some of the inspiring stories of the courageous Japanese Christians who gave their lives for Christ in one of the fiercest persecutions in the history of the church.
The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins is a new film from Japan about three young high school students who summon the Divine Protectress, Master Salt, to repel the curses plaguing their friends and acquaintances. Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science's and a producer on The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins. For more information, visit https://mastersaltmovie.com
The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins is a new film from Japan about three young high school students who summon the Divine Protectress, Master Salt, to repel the curses plaguing their friends and acquaintances. Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science's and a producer on The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins. For more information, visit https://mastersaltmovie.com
The fierce persecution of the hidden Christians of Japan by the Tokugawa daimyo is well known. It lasted 291 years. The Far East podcast is narrated by John Doherty. Subscribe to the Far East magazine at goo.gl/5ukmQX
The Far East Magazine is published 8 times a year by St Columbans Mission Society. It features articles and photographs by Columban Missionaries from those countries where the missionaries work. The magazine was originally launched to promote mission interest in Catholic homes in Australia and New Zealand. The Far East Magazine is a major fundraiser for Columban Missionaries and was first published in Australia on 15th October, 1920. The Far East podcast is narrated by John Doherty. Subscribe to the Far East magazine at goo.gl/5ukmQX
The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins is a new film from Japan about three young high school students who summon the Divine Protectress, Master Salt, to repel the curses plaguing their friends and acquaintances. Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science's and a producer on The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins. For more information, visit https://mastersaltmovie.com
The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins is a new film from Japan about three young high school students who summon the Divine Protectress, Master Salt, to repel the curses plaguing their friends and acquaintances. Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science's and a producer on The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins. For more information, https://mastersaltmovie.com
Yoichi Utebi discusses concepts of positive and negative thinking through his film The Divine Protector.Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After years of working in the tech world, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science's and a producer on The Divine Protector - Master Salt Begins, a new film from Japan about three young high school students who summon the Divine Protectress, Master Salt, to repel the curses plaguing their friends and acquaintances. https://mastersaltmovie.comHost Bonnie Burkert melds the worlds of media and higher consciousness, sharing tools for transformation for wellbeing and spiritual awakening . www.instagram.com/yogi_bon
Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan.After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science and a producer on The Cherry Bushido.The Cherry Bushido is a film from Japan about a young Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) devotee and group of friends who unite to protect Japan from the threat of extinction by its neighboring country. The Cherry Bushido will be released in limited theaters in North America this March.https://cherrybushidomovie.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We hope you all had a wonderful Easter and are excited to be back in your ears! On this episode we are joined by Hannah Chao of SOLA Network. SOLA Network is a Christian platform designed to influence the next generation of Christians (and current & older ones as well) specifically with a focus on Asian Americans, both creating content directly relevant to their experiences as well as being a platform to highlight and publish writers within that community to the larger American Church. We cover a number of topics: the unique experiences that members of varying Asian American communities endure (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.), California geography, the benefits and challenges that Asian Americans are currently experiencing due to their increased representation in pop culture, the state of "Women's Ministry" in the modern Church, the "controversy" surrounding the Disney Pixar movie Turning Red, and more! If you enjoy the show, consider taking 30 seconds and writing a 5-Star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and sharing with a friend who would also enjoy it!
A new film from Japan, “The Cherry Bushido,” lands at the perfect time to remind us to re-examine our convictions and spiritual fortitude in the face of today's daunting challenges. Similar yet distinct from chivalry, the western code of honor handed down from the gallant knights of yore, Bushido is the organizing principle of samurai moral values and ethics that has been at the heart and soul of Japanese culture for centuries. Like chivalry, Bushido is typified by virtues like righteousness, benevolence, respect, honor, fidelity, and courage. Unlike the chivalric code, the true Bushido spirit is based on the belief that we are spiritual beings who will eventually return to the spiritual world. Having experienced relative peace and prosperity in recent years, many have relaxed their self-vigilance and blurred the convictions that can mean the difference between victory and defeat on the spiritual as well as physical plain. With the pandemic and the social, political, and geopolitical turbulence we are experiencing today, now is a good time to consider the Bushido spirit and virtues that can anchor and guide us to act on our beliefs in these trying times. Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science's and a producer on The Cherry Bushido. About The Cherry Bushido, The Cherry Bushido is a film from Japan about a young Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) devotee and group of friends who unite to protect Japan from threat of extinction by its neighboring country. The Cherry Bushido will be released in limited theaters in North America this March. Available on VOD summer 2022. For more information, visit: https://cherrybushidomovie.com
A new film from Japan, “The Cherry Bushido,” lands at the perfect time to remind us to re-examine our convictions and spiritual fortitude in the face of today's daunting challenges. Similar yet distinct from chivalry, the western code of honor handed down from the gallant knights of yore, Bushido is the organizing principle of samurai moral values and ethics that has been at the heart and soul of Japanese culture for centuries. Like chivalry, Bushido is typified by virtues like righteousness, benevolence, respect, honor, fidelity, and courage. Unlike the chivalric code, the true Bushido spirit is based on the belief that we are spiritual beings who will eventually return to the spiritual world. Having experienced relative peace and prosperity in recent years, many have relaxed their self-vigilance and blurred the convictions that can mean the difference between victory and defeat on the spiritual as well as physical plain. With the pandemic and the social, political, and geopolitical turbulence we are experiencing today, now is a good time to consider the Bushido spirit and virtues that can anchor and guide us to act on our beliefs in these trying times. Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science's and a producer on The Cherry Bushido. About The Cherry Bushido The Cherry Bushido is a film from Japan about a young Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) devotee and group of friends who unite to protect Japan from threat of extinction by its neighboring country. The Cherry Bushido will be released in limited theaters in North America this March. Available on VOD summer 2022. For more information, visit: https://cherrybushidomovie.com
A new film from Japan, “The Cherry Bushido,” lands at the perfect time to remind us to re-examine our convictions and spiritual fortitude in the face of today's daunting challenges. Similar yet distinct from chivalry, the western code of honor handed down from the gallant knights of yore, Bushido is the organizing principle of samurai moral values and ethics that has been at the heart and soul of Japanese culture for centuries. Like chivalry, Bushido is typified by virtues like righteousness, benevolence, respect, honor, fidelity, and courage. Unlike the chivalric code, the true Bushido spirit is based on the belief that we are spiritual beings who will eventually return to the spiritual world. Having experienced relative peace and prosperity in recent years, many have relaxed their self-vigilance and blurred the convictions that can mean the difference between victory and defeat on the spiritual as well as physical plain. With the pandemic and the social, political, and geopolitical turbulence we are experiencing today, now is a good time to consider the Bushido spirit and virtues that can anchor and guide us to act on our beliefs in these trying times. Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science's and a producer on The Cherry Bushido. About The Cherry Bushido The Cherry Bushido is a film from Japan about a young Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) devotee and group of friends who unite to protect Japan from threat of extinction by its neighboring country. The Cherry Bushido will be released in limited theaters in North America this March. Available on VOD summer 2022. See the movie trailer here https://cherrybushidomovie.com
A new film from Japan, “The Cherry Bushido,” lands at the perfect time to remind us to re-examine our convictions and spiritual fortitude in the face of today's daunting challenges. Similar yet distinct from chivalry, the western code of honor handed down from the gallant knights of yore, Bushido is the organizing principle of samurai moral values and ethics that has been at the heart and soul of Japanese culture for centuries. Like chivalry, Bushido is typified by virtues like righteousness, benevolence, respect, honor, fidelity, and courage. Unlike the chivalric code, the true Bushido spirit is based on the belief that we are spiritual beings who will eventually return to the spiritual world. Having experienced relative peace and prosperity in recent years, many have relaxed their self-vigilance and blurred the convictions that can mean the difference between victory and defeat on the spiritual as well as physical plain. With the pandemic and the social, political, and geopolitical turbulence we are experiencing today, now is a good time to consider the Bushido spirit and virtues that can anchor and guide us to act on our beliefs in these trying times. Yoichi Utebi is a producer and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently a minister and world lecturer for Happy Science's and a producer on The Cherry Bushido. About The Cherry Bushido The Cherry Bushido is a film from Japan about a young Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) devotee and group of friends who unite to protect Japan from threat of extinction by its neighboring country. The Cherry Bushido will be released in limited theaters in North America this March. Available on VOD summer 2022. For more information, visit: https://cherrybushidomovie.com
My special guest is Yoichi Utebi, a producer of the new movie, Cherry Bushido, and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. The Cherry Bushido is a film from Japan about a young Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) devotee and group of friends who unite to protect Japan from the threat of extinction by its neighboring country. Utebi shares the meaning of Bushido, the 3 maxims to live by, and the code of Bushido. The movie has a powerful message!! Bravo!! Learn more about the movie: https://cherrybushidomovie.com
My special guest is Yoichi Utebi, a producer of the new movie, Cherry Bushido, and world lecturer for Happy Science. Born in Japan in 1968, Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. The Cherry Bushido is a film from Japan about a young Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) devotee and group of friends who unite to protect Japan from the threat of extinction by its neighboring country. Utebi shares the meaning of Bushido, the 3 maxims to live by, and the code of Bushido. The movie has a powerful message!! Bravo!! Learn more about the movie: https://cherrybushidomovie.com
This week, we're taking some material from the cutting room floor of last series to talk about the stories of two Japanese Christians, both of whom became ordained priests--and both of whom apostatized. What led these men to the faith? Why did they leave it? And what do their lives tell us about the course of Japan's Christian century? Show notes here.
On February 5 1597, 26 Christians were killed by crucifixion in Nagasaki, Japan, part of a centuries-long persecution of the Christian faith in that country. Catholic missions to Japan began in the 16th century and were initially successful. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese converted, including some Daimyo (feudal lords). However, starting with the rule of Toyotomi Hideyoshi brutal persecutions started against the Christians. The 26 martyrs commemorated today include both foreign missionaries and Japanese Christians, the youngest a boy of 12 years old.
Thomas is from the suburbs of Central New Jersey in the US. By day, he thrives on coming up with solutions for the commercial insurance needs of his clients as an account manager. Outside of work, some things he enjoys are the church, Japanese, Cantonese, and Taiwanese food…as long as it's not spicy. He has also been to Japan twice for short-term missions with his church. In this episode, we talked about the importance of being transformed by the gospel and how Japanese Christians really have to count the cost before following Jesus because Christianity is not the social norm in Japan. The purpose of this podcast is to showcase how much God loves Japan through different stories of people. It is like God sending a care package to the ones He loves in Japan! If you would like to share your experience with us, please email carepackagetojapan@gmail.com, and we would love to have you on the podcast as well! Let's all continue to pray and praise God for the beautiful country of Japan. #prayforjapan
Episode 10: The Bombing of Nagasaki & the Catholics of Urakami Brief Chronology: 1549 - St. Francis Xavier arrives in Japan; Nagasaki eventually becomes heartland of Japanese Christianity 1587 - Persecution of Japanese Christians begins. 1865 - Hidden Christians reveal themselves at Nagasaki and are promptly persecuted. 1925 - Original Immaculate Conception Cathedral finished in Urakami 1930 - 1936 - St. Maximilian Kolbe in Nagasaki 1933 - Japanese takeover of Manchuria 1934 - Conversion of Takashi Nagai after living with Moriyama family, descendants of leaders of the Hidden Christians of Nagasaki 1937 - Beginning of Sino-Japanese War 1941 - Aug. 14 - St. Maximilan Kolbe dies at Auschwitz; Dec. 7 - Japanese attack on Pear Harbor leading to U.S. entry into WWII 1945 - Night of March 9-10: Firebombing of Tokyo, killing approx. 80 to 100,000 - May 8 - Germany surrenders - Aug. 6: First atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, killing approx. 70,000 - Aug. 9, 11:02 AM: Second atomic bomb dropped on Urakami valley area of Nagasaki, killing approx. 30,000 - Aug. 15: Japan surrenders 1951 - Death of Takashi Nagai 1958 - Reconstruction of cathedral in Urakami 1981 - Pope John Paul II visits Japan Summary: We discussed the story of the dropping of an atomic bomb on the historic Catholic area of Urakami in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 at 11:02 AM. The bomb exploded extremely close to the area where the Immaculate Conception Cathedral stood, and where Catholics were gathered in preparation for the upcoming Feast of the Assumption. The cathedral was reduced to ruins which burned through the night. Catholic priests and nuns, as well as about two thirds (about 8,000) of the city's Catholics perished in the bombing, in which approximately 30,000 people total were killed instantly. Ironically, the commander and pilot of the B-29 bomber which dropped the atomic bomb was an American Catholic, Major Charles Sweeney (then only 25 years old), who professed to never regret the bombing. Those who survived faced many struggles - they were stigmatized as irradiated persons, called hibakusha; they faced local pressure to leave the devastated cathedral in ruins as a peace memorial; they experienced "survivor guilt"; and struggled with traumatic memories of losing family and homes. Although the writings of Dr. Takashi Nagai explained the bombings as providential, many Catholics felt dissatisfied with his views . These different perspectives began to be shared after Pope St. John Paul II's 1981 visit to Japan, in which he spoke of the evils of atomic warfare and stated at Hiroshima, "War is the work of humanity; war is destruction of human life; war is death." (Dangerous Memory, p. 75). Survivors took this message to mean they did not need to accept uncritically Nagai's sacrificial theory of the bombing. Among the survivors we discussed were: • Dr. Takashi Nagai - He was a radiologist working in a hospital at the time of the bombing. He was diagnosed with leukemia shortly before the bombing due to his exposure to radiation in his work and nearly died of his injuries after rallying the survivors from the hospital to help the wounded in and around Nagasaki. He eventually returned to Urakami with his two young children to live in a hut where he wrote the first book allowed to be published providing an eyewitness account of the bombing, The Bells of Nagasaki. Nagai used proceeds from the book to plan cherry trees throughout the city. He is controversial for his theory that the bombing of Nagasaki was providential and provided an acceptable burnt offering of the good and innocent to God for the sins of mankind in waging World War II. He has been designated a "Servant of God," meaning he has an open sainthood cause. • Brother Ozaki Tomei (Tagawa Koichi) - A Franciscan monk who was working in an underground factory at the time of the bombing. He was haunted by his turning away from helping others in the immediate aftermath of the bombing as he desperately tried to get home. In his home he was unable to find his mother's remains, only what was left of her rosary. He later entered a monastery founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe, about whom Ozaki has written a book. Sources and Further Reading Movie: All that Remains (Ignatius 2016) - Includes a short documentary with Paul Glynn. Specific Focus on Nagasaki Bombing: • The Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai, translated by William Johnston (Kodansha International, 1984) (originally published in Japanese in 1949 as Nagasaki no kane). • We of Nagasaki: The Story of Survivors in an Atomic Wasteland by Takashi Nagai, translated by Ichiro Shirato and Herbert B.L. Silverman (Duell Sloan and Pearce, 1951). • A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai by Paul Glynn, S.M. (Ignatius Press, 1988). • Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives by Gwyn McClelland (Routledge, 2020) • Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard (Penguin Books, 2016). • Nagasaki: The Massacre of the Innocent and Unknowing by Craig Collie (Allen & Unwin 2012) • Resurrecting Nagasaki: Reconstruction and the Formation of Atomic Narratives by Chad R. Diehl (Cornel Univ. Press, 2018). General Background on the end of WWII in the Pacific and the atomic bombings: • The Fall of Japan: The Final Weeks of World War II in the Pacific by William Craig (Open Roads Media, 2015)(originally published in 1967). • Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank (Random House, 1999). • Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath by Paul Ham (Thomas Dunne Books, 2011). • The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan by Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011). • War's End: An Eyewitness Account of America's Last Atomic Mission by Charles W. Sweeney (memoir of the pilot on the Nagasaki mission). Image Credit: *"Urakami Cathedral" by Jake (based on stained glass image at Nagasaki's Immaculate Conception Cathedral) *Music Credit: *Special Thank You to Paul Spring for allowing us to use his song "Itasca" from the album Borderline EP (2014)!
When a Japanese Christian came to San Francisco for a visit, he attended a church service where Ralph Sockman spoke on the Life of Jesus. Asked by a friend how he enjoyed the message, the guest replied, "Well to hear him tell it, Jesus was an American, a Methodist, and an Armenian. But everyone knows that it is not true, for Jesus was really a Japanese, a Baptist, and a Calvinist." Right!
Michael Matt again speaks at Jason Morgan and Paul de Lacvivier's conference in Tokyo, Japan, albeit not in person this year due to COVID restrictions. Michael's talk on the Enlightenment's connection to Globalism was streamed in Tokyo on April 29, 2021. A transcript of this talk also appears in the May 15, 2021 issue of The Remnant. https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/subscribe-today Please keep our Japanese Christian allies in your prayers as they struggle to keep the Faith as a tiny Christian minority living in the largest (non-Christian) city in the world. Japanese Subtitles: https://youtu.be/jGiCnOr6aGQ Support RTV: https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/donate-today Michael Matt's 2019 Visit to Tokyo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frNXsT4n_w4 RTV at 2019 Tokyo Pro-Life March:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdNjTQHAcJE
https://www.lightingthevoid.comLive Weeknights Mon-Fri 9 pm, PacificOn The Fringe FMhttps://thefringe.fmBorn in Japan in 1968, Yoichi Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently leading Happy Science’s International Media Division and is the Executive Vice President of HS Productions and producer of Twiceborn.https://www.twicebornmovie.com DJ Steezy Stevie https://www.steezymusic.com/Music by Chronox at https://www.chronoxofficial.com
This week I will be discussing another great movie from the people of Happy Science in Japan. The new movie, "Twiceborn" is based on the life of Ryuho Okawa, the founder of Happy Science, Japan’s fastest-growing and most influential spiritual movement with 12 million members across 100 countries. Based on true events, Twiceborn tells the story of Satoru Ichijo, a highly successful businessman who relinquishes everything to pursue his true calling, the happiness of humankind. The film opens in July 1991 with Satoru lecturing to more than 50,000 people in Tokyo Dome. The story then flashes back to the months leading up to his college graduation when Satoru, a top scholar, and athlete, begins receiving messages from the spiritual world. After graduation, Satoru is invited to join a highly respected international trading firm, where he soon becomes very successful and is positioned for a vault to the executive suite. Meanwhile, he is spending all of his leisure time reading spiritual philosophers, recording the messages and insights he is constantly receiving from his spirit guides, and coming to terms with the astounding and overwhelming message his spirit guides have for him: “Your mission as the Buddha reborn is to save all people by spreading the Truth.” Yoichi Utebi, Executive Vice President of HS Productions Born in Japan in 1968, Yoichi Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently leading Happy Science’s International Media Division and is the Executive Vice President of HS Productions and producer of Twiceborn. Limited theatrical release: October 16 in Chicago; San Francisco; Bergen County, NY; Tampa; Honolulu; San Diego; and Orange County, CA. October 23 in New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta Available on DVD and all VOD platforms January 19, 2021.
This week I will be discussing another great movie from the people of Happy Science in Japan. The new movie, "Twiceborn" is based on the life of Ryuho Okawa, the founder of Happy Science, Japan's fastest-growing and most influential spiritual movement with 12 million members across 100 countries. Based on true events, Twiceborn tells the story of Satoru Ichijo, a highly successful businessman who relinquishes everything to pursue his true calling, the happiness of humankind. The film opens in July 1991 with Satoru lecturing to more than 50,000 people in Tokyo Dome. The story then flashes back to the months leading up to his college graduation when Satoru, a top scholar, and athlete, begins receiving messages from the spiritual world. After graduation, Satoru is invited to join a highly respected international trading firm, where he soon becomes very successful and is positioned for a vault to the executive suite. Meanwhile, he is spending all of his leisure time reading spiritual philosophers, recording the messages and insights he is constantly receiving from his spirit guides, and coming to terms with the astounding and overwhelming message his spirit guides have for him: “Your mission as the Buddha reborn is to save all people by spreading the Truth.” Yoichi Utebi, Executive Vice President of HS Productions Born in Japan in 1968, Yoichi Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently leading Happy Science's International Media Division and is the Executive Vice President of HS Productions and producer of Twiceborn. Limited theatrical release: ? October 16 in Chicago; San Francisco; Bergen County, NY; Tampa; Honolulu; San Diego; and Orange County, CA. ? October 23 in New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta Available on DVD and all VOD platforms January 19, 2021.
The corona virus pandemic has forced limits upon Christians' ability to gather in churches to pray and celebrate liturgy. In some places, churches are closed. In others, the number of those who can join liturgies is limited to a fraction of what used to be normal. In this episode, Father William Grimm, who lives in Japan, shares experience of Christians in Japan during centuries of persecution that may have something to teach us today.Produced by Binu AlexFor news in and about the Church in Asia, visit www.ucanews.com
This week, we'll cover the striving of Japanese Christians to be accepted as genuine patriots by the government during the pre-war era. This striving will lead to closer and closer ties between the state and religion; it will also invite danger once we get into the war years. Show notes here.
In part one of this two part conversation, Matt and Paul discuss the great irony that a "Christian Nation" should choose as ground zero the center of the Japanese Christian population in Nagasaki. The myth it was a necessity, along with the myth of redemptive violence is challenged. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Music: Bensound
Loretta's guest today is Yoichi Utebi, Executive Vice President of HS Productions. Born in Japan in 1968, Yoichi Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently leading Happy Science’s International Media Division and is the Executive Vice President of HS Productions and producer of “The Real Exorcist.” The Real Exorcist was # 1 at the weekend box office for FIVE CONSECUTIVE WEEKS in Japan and the film has won over 30 awards including Best Feature Film and Best Supporting Actress at the EKO Film Festival!!! This Supernatural film from Japan dramatizes the effect of negative energies and illuminates the power of a positive mindset “The Real Exorcist” follows Sayuri, a young coffee shop waitress, as she uses her spiritual powers to help customers troubled by supernatural phenomena. The supernatural drama by HS Productions, which is set to open in the United States this August, explores the laws of attraction that govern our lives and afterlives and characterizes the mindset we can all employ to stay the right path, ward off negative influences, and lead happy, fulfilled lives. Limited theatrical release August 7 in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Tampa, Honolulu, and Orange County, CA. Available on VOD early September 2020. For more information, visit: www.RealExorcistMovie.com
Loretta's guest today is Yoichi Utebi, Executive Vice President of HS Productions. Born in Japan in 1968, Yoichi Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. After 12 years of experience in marketing and senior management at various American IT companies in Japan, Utebi joined Happy Science in 2010, where he quickly rose to Director of International Communications. Utebi is currently leading Happy Science's International Media Division and is the Executive Vice President of HS Productions and producer of “The Real Exorcist.” The Real Exorcist was # 1 at the weekend box office for FIVE CONSECUTIVE WEEKS in Japan and the film has won over 30 awards including Best Feature Film and Best Supporting Actress at the EKO Film Festival!!! This Supernatural film from Japan dramatizes the effect of negative energies and illuminates the power of a positive mindset “The Real Exorcist” follows Sayuri, a young coffee shop waitress, as she uses her spiritual powers to help customers troubled by supernatural phenomena. The supernatural drama by HS Productions, which is set to open in the United States this August, explores the laws of attraction that govern our lives and afterlives and characterizes the mindset we can all employ to stay the right path, ward off negative influences, and lead happy, fulfilled lives. Limited theatrical release August 7 in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Tampa, Honolulu, and Orange County, CA. Available on VOD early September 2020. For more information, visit: www.RealExorcistMovie.com
Caleb Eby (CAJ 2003) Missionary Caleb was born and raised in Tokyo and attended Christian Academy in Japan (CAJ) from K-12. After receiving a degree in Intercultural Studies and a Minor in TESOL from Emmaus Bible College, he returned to Japan and worked several months in the headquarters of CRASH (Christian Relief, Assistance, Support, Help) during the initials months of the Tohoku disaster relief work. Later that same year he moved to Gifu where he worked 5 years in the Japanese public schools as an English teacher while doing missionary work on the side. Since 2016 he has been working as a full-time missionary in the Tokai region while still based in Gifu. He is part of a network called No Place Left that seeks to empower Japanese Christians to take the message of Jesus to their own circles of influence until all have had a chance to hear. He is currently still living in Gifu city with his wife, Amy, and two sons. EPISODE Summary -Rescue work with CRASH (Christian Relief, Assistance, Support, Help) after the Tohoku earthquake, -The demographic of Christianity in Japan and in Gifu, -Changes needed with the way Japanese churches recruit, -How No Place Left networks and operates, -What the day to day operations like being a missionary, -Bible College, and why "Gifu prefecture". -CAJ in comparison to schools in Gifu, -Strengths and weaknesses of Christian Academy Japan (CAJ) from an alums perspective.
Yoichi Utebi, Executive Vice President of HS Productions “The Real Exorcist” Sayuri works as a waitress at Extra, a small coffee shop in Tokyo where regular customers enjoy the owner’s authentic coffee as well as "Free Consultations", as the storefront sign says. Sayuri uses her spiritual powers to help those who are troubled by supernatural phenomena, including a group of high school girls who encounter a haunting ghost and others who suffer from family problems. Through her unique consultations, Sayuri touches the hearts of her customers and helps them by showing the truths of the invisible world and the state of mind that determines our happiness or unhappiness in life. Born in Japan in 1968, Yoichi Utebi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and New York City. Raised in a rare Japanese Christian family, he was deeply touched by Muslim culture and the beauty of Lebanon during his formative years in Beirut. However, the Middle East also exposed Utebi to the horrors of war, as he and his family dodged bullets and bombings before fleeing to London and back to Japan, leaving everything behind in a sudden evacuation. In the 7th grade, Utebi moved to New York for 10 years, where he was exposed to friends from multiple cultures and ethnicities. His rock band produced a popular album and gained quite a following in the city before Utebi decided to forego his musical pursuits and return to Japan. Theme music for Madame Perry's Salon composed and performed by Denton Perry.
The award-winning novel Silence by Shusaku Endo has been made into an epic movie directed by Martin Scorsese. This movie is about the persecution of the Japanese Christians during 1600-1800 when nearly 300K Christians were martyred for their faith in Christ. Listen as Pat presents his critique of this epic movie.
The award-winning novel Silence by Shusaku Endo has been made into an epic movie directed by Martin Scorsese. This movie is about the persecution of the Japanese Christians during 1600-1800 when nearly 300K Christians were martyred for their faith in Christ. Listen as Pat presents his critique of this epic movie.
Questions about apostasy in a time of persecution, balancing citizenship in Heaven and patriotism, and whether or not God hates Satan.Were the Japanese Christians in the film Silence who agreed to step on the picture of Christ committing an act of apostasy?How do you advise Christians to balance citizenship in Heaven and patriotism? If it’s wrong to hate, then does God hate Satan?
In the age of exploration, Catholic missionaries fanned out across the world, meeting with extraordinary success but also extraordinary opposition: nowhere more so than in Japan, where the fast-growing Catholic community was brutally suppressed in the early seventeenth century. This lecture will explore how this bloody crisis shaped myths of Japanese cruelty and cults of Catholic sanctity in Europe, while also precipitating the 250-year 'closing' of Japan and the intense piety of a small remnant of underground Japanese Christians.A lecture by Alec Ryrie 11 MarchThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/japanese-martyrsGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege
5 Books I Love, That You May Have Never Heard Of... I love what Socrates said about reading and learning, “Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.” This is the heart of my passion for reading great books. In this last episode of 2019, I provide 5 books from have shaped me, guidelines on how to read books, and links to some of these books that many haven't heard of... Book #1: "Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith" by Dr. Marvin Wilson. (Theological) Wonderful theological and challenging work to how you look at and study scripture. Although the roots of Christianity run deep into Hebrew soil, many Christians are regrettably uninformed about the rich Hebrew heritage of the church. This volume delineates the link between Judaism and Christianity, between the Old and the New Testament, and calls Christians to reexamine their Hebrew roots so as to effect a more authentically biblical lifestyle. Book #2: "Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews" by James Carroll. (History) Carroll maps the profoundly troubling two-thousand-year course of the Church’s battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has provoked in his own life as a Catholic. More than a chronicle of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture. Book #3: "Silence" by Shusaku Endo. (Historical Ficiton) Seventeenth-century Japan: Two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to a country hostile to their religion, where feudal lords force the faithful to publicly renounce their beliefs. Eventually captured and forced to watch their Japanese Christian brothers lay down their lives for their faith, the priests bear witness to unimaginable cruelties that test their own beliefs. Book #4: "Tatoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion" by Gregory Boyle. Gregory Boyle has run Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world. In Tattoos on the Heart, he distills his experience working in the ghetto into a breathtaking series of parables inspired by faith. Book #5: "Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer" by Richard Rohr. This popular and bestselling book of the renowned Franciscan challenges people to move beyond the comfort of a settled life toward an understanding of themselves that is rooted in their connection to God. Only when they rest in God can they find the certainty and the freedom to become all that they can be. Contemplation has its place at the heart of Christianity, a place that allows people to experience how “everything belongs.”
Second episode with Haji! In this episode, you will hear Haji's perspectives and experiences on Japanese ministries in the U.S. and what God is doing among them.
As voted on by our patrons, we look at three non-Europeans who saved the lives of Jews during the Holocaust of WWI--a Japanese Christian, an Indian Hindu, and a Moroccan Muslim--and were honored as Righteous Among The Nations. Documentary Support the show Music by Kevin MacLeod and Audionautix Read the full script. Reach out and touch Moxie on FB, Twit, the 'Gram or email. You can also leave a question or fact of your own on my voicemail at 804-404-2669.
From a traditional Chinese religious background, J encountered the grace of God through friends and church. Even her mother submitted to Christ through reading the Chinese Bible. While listening to a talk by Patrick Johnstone, J responded to an altar call to submit herself to missions in Japan. After attending another church, she came to ARPC and immediately became involved in the photography ministry, Drawn by Light. During this time J began exploring the Japanese Christian work in Singapore in the Japanese churches. She found a group reaching out to Japanese expatriates in Singapore led by a Japanese Christian couple. When they left, after much prayer she and her team started a Japanese/English language exchange cafe. This was paired with one-on-one meetings with the Japanese participants. Listen to this amazing story of God’s grace.
In this episode, Dr. Garrett Washington reinserts Christianity into the history of the Meiji Restoration, detailing the activities of early missionaries to proselytize while promoting Japanese modernization. We discuss the illegality of Christianity and the Hidden Christians in Nagasaki in the early Meiji Period, the impact of Christian values on Japanese women, and the hybridized worship spaces constructed by Japanese Christian congregations.
Over and over again Endo used the Japanese word ‘dohansha’ – one who travels a journey with us. This aspect especially appeals to Japanese Christians.
sermon transcript Introduction My kids know that I cannot stand computer upgrades. I just checked — attached to my App Store, there is this little number 52, meaning there are 52 upgrades for apps that are on my phone, to enable my phone to do clever, interesting, beneficial things. But those software people think I need them continually — so generous of them to provide these upgrades. Microsoft also thinks about me continually, and they have coming up with new ways that my operating system can improve. They hijack my computer for a while to make the computer better, but it has been my experience that not all of the upgrades are an improvement. Perhaps you agree. In contrast, as we study the new world that is coming, described in Revelation 21 and 22, we find an upgrade, if we can use that low word, that will be infinitely perfectly satisfying to us. We will in no way be disappointed. Romans Chapter 8 says, “Hope does not disappoint.” We will find that what we have hoped for is vastly small compared to the reality we will inherit; we will be overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty of the place. The more we have a sense of that now, the more energetically and courageously and fruitfully we will live. The more heavenly-minded we are now, the more we will put sin to death by the power of the Spirit, the bolder we will be in evangelism and missions. In every way, it will be better. We have a sense of this in Philippians 1. The Apostle Paul was incarcerated for the Gospel, facing the possibility of his own execution for Christ. He weighed his preferences to the two options of, on one hand continuing to live and serve Christ and his people on earth; or on the other hand, to die, to be executed, to depart and be with Christ. As he evaluated, he was torn between the two. It is remarkable that he wanted to wait to go to heaven so that he could benefit his brothers and sisters in Christ and benefit lost people by preaching the Gospel. Paul was imitating Christ’s attitude, how Jesus left Heaven to come to earth to save us. Paul imbued that attitude, wanting to stay on earth as long as he could, “…but to depart and be with Christ is better by far.” We will not be disappointed in that upgrade. It will be better by far. That is a heavenly world that is in some mysterious sense incomplete. The world we read about here in Revelation 21 and 22 is better by far than what we would go to today if we were to depart from the body. The New Heaven, the New Earth, the New Jerusalem, are better by far than the present reality of where the saints dwell now. Absent from the body means present with the Lord. That is better by far than this. But we will be so deeply, richly, fully satisfied with Heaven. The first half of Revelation 21 describes, first, the New Heaven and New Earth generally in broad terms. There will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain in that new universe. Then it zeroes in on the New Jerusalem, the capital city of that new empire of God. The city is described in architectural terms, telling of the heavenly architecture and layout of the city. We learn about its gates and foundations and dimensions and building materials. The remainder of Revelation 21 describes the New Jerusalem in mostly negative terms, what will not be there — no temple in the city, no sun, no moon, no lamp, no exclusions from the kings of the earth, no shutting of the gates at night for indeed there will be no night, no wicked persons, nothing impure at all — all that will be filtered out or changed in the world. Earthly Temple Fulfilled in Heavenly Worship The Ultimate End of the Temple We begin with the observation in Revelation 21:22: “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” The earthly temple will be fulfilled in heavenly worship. Here, the history of the tabernacle and the temple, and of what God intended for those structures, reaches its final destination and fulfillment. The Tabernacle The tabernacle, then the temple, represented the idea of an earthly place where God would dwell in the midst of His people, where He would put His name. That would be the place where people would go to meet with God. The mystery is that because God is omnipresent, in some sense no more in one place than He is in another. But amazingly, He has chosen in this present age to reveal Himself more in some places than He has in others. When Jacob fled for his life from Esau, he came to a certain place, Bethel, where he lay down and had a dream in which he saw a vision of a stairway to Heaven with angels ascending and descending. Genesis 28:16-19: “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’ Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel (which means house of God).” He looked on that as a holy place. When God called Moses from the burning bush, God said, “Do not come any closer” but told him to take off his shoes, for the ground on which he was standing was holy ground. The place where Jacob met with God was an awesome place, the gateway to heaven. And the place where Moses met with God, at the burning bush, was holy ground. So in the Old Covenant, God chose to reveal himself more in certain places than in others. Jonathan Edwards, in his marvelous sermon “Heaven is a World of Love”, said, “Heaven is the palace or presence-chamber of the high and holy One... Of course, God ...is everywhere — he fills both heaven and earth. But yet he is said, in some respects, to be more especially in some places than in others. He was said of old to dwell in the land of Israel, above all other lands; and in Jerusalem, above all other cities of that land; and in the temple, above all other buildings in the city; and in the holy of holies, above all other apartments of the temple; and on the mercy seat, over the ark of the covenant, above all other places in the holy of holies. But heaven is his dwelling-place above all other places in the universe; and all those places in which he was said to dwell of old, were but types of this. Heaven is a part of creation that God has built for this end, to be the place of his glorious presence, and it is his abode forever.” Exodus 25-40 lays out how God ordained a tabernacle, or tent, where He would meet with the people. It was movable because the nation was out in the desert at that time, moving around. God gave Moses the details of the tabernacle — its building materials, how it was to be built, its dimensions — in a heavenly vision when He met with him on the mountain. The tabernacle was a representation of that heavenly vision. When it was built, God descended in a cloud of glory cloud and filled the tabernacle. This was symbolic of God’s desire to dwell together with His people. He wanted to be with His people so that they would be where He was and see His glory. The tabernacle was only a type, or a shadow, as the author to Hebrews makes it plain in Hebrews 8:5: “The [Levitical priests] serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven.” In the tabernacle, the Levitical priests poured out the blood of animal sacrifices, showing that it was only by the atoning blood of sacrifice that God would meet with sinful people like us. While the tabernacle was still standing, the way into the true most holy place was not yet disclosed because it was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. It was a type and a shadow of what was to come. The Temple Later, after David was settled as king over Israel, he lived in a beautiful aromatic palace of cedar. He began to be jealous for the glory of God and said, “Here I am in a palace, in a building, a structure, but God is in a tent.” Nathan the prophet told him, “Do whatever is on your heart.” But then God, a few moments later, had a different message for Nathan to give to David: “Are you the one to build a house for me? No, I will build a house for you.” 2 Samuel 7:5, 12-13 says, “Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? … When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” David’s own son, his biological son Solomon did build the physical structure of the temple. He dedicated it in 1 Kings 8:10-13: “When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple. Then Solomon said, ‘The LORD has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.’” But Solomon did not really understand the future, that the real temple would be built by David’s greater Son, the Son of David. Jesus would build the eternal tabernacle, or temple. Solomon did realize the insufficiency of that wood and gold box that he had made called the temple, saying in 1 Kings 8:27, “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” In the course of time, the Jews desecrated the temple by their wickedness and sins, their perversions and idolatries. God took the prophet Ezekiel on a secret journey in the Spirit through the guts and the basement of the temple where the elders of Israel were worshipping crawling things and defiled things and bowing down to idols. Because of the wickedness of the Jewish people led by their leaders, the cloud of the glory of God departed from the temple. Soon after, the Babylonians destroyed the place because of the wickedness and the sin. After 70 years, the Jews returned from exile in Babylon. Under the prophets Ezra and Haggai, they rebuilt a smaller, less glorious temple. The animal sacrificial system was re-established and ran until the time of Jesus. As Jesus began His public ministry, he cleansed the temple, and did so again as he ended his public ministry. The first time, he made a whip and drove out all who were buying and selling, as well as the money changers, who were all trying to make money wickedly in the temple. His enemies approached and tried to stop him, saying, “‘What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’ “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’ They replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple he had spoken of was his body.” [John 2:18-21] He decisively redefined the temple. In his spiritual discussion with the woman at the well in Samaria, he brought up her sin concerning her husband, so she changed the subject. In witnessing situations, people will often deflect like that — “Since you’re talking about my sin, let's talk about the proper place of worship.” That is a smokescreen. Amazingly, though, she took the conversation in the direction Jesus wanted it to go. The Samaritans believed that the proper place of worship was Mount Gerazim in Samaria. The Jews argued that it was Mount Zion, in Jerusalem. Jesus soared far above both of them, telling the Samaritan woman in John 4:21-24, “Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.’” He was saying that the time was coming when there would not even be a specific place to worship God, but that believers would worship anywhere and everywhere by the Spirit. Furthermore, Jesus predicted the destruction of the last temple of the Jews. Matthew 24:2 says, “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” On the cross, he shed his atoning blood, forever ending and making obsolete the animal sacrificial system, as well as the need for a Levitical priesthood, a tabernacle or a temple. Jesus fulfilled all. Matthew 27:50-51 says, “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom…” Now a way was opened for us. We are no longer excluded, but invited to come into the very presence of God by the atoning blood of Jesus. Hebrews 10:19-22 says, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.” Living Stones The Romans confirmed this in AD 70 by destroying the building in direct fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction. The Jews have not had a physical temple since. Paul, in his ministry among the Gentiles, saw very clearly that not only was Jesus’ own body the temple, but the church had become the body of Christ. He used an architectural image of the church in Ephesians 2, as the Gospel was spreading not only to Jews, but now to Gentiles too, every tribe, language, people and nation. People were coming to Christ, and he saw this vision of a holy temple, Ephesians 2:19-22: “…God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” Peter adds to that image in 1 Peter 2:5: “…you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” For 20 centuries, this spiritual temple has been rising. Living stones have been rescued out of Satan’s dark kingdom and put in the walls, so to speak, as this temple rises and becomes more beautiful and diverse and glorious and magnificent as people from every tribe and language, people and nation are being saved. Elect from every nation are being brought into this marvelous structure. It is a glorious building project. It is not finished yet but it is getting close. No Temple in Heaven Why is there no temple in heaven? Revelation 21:22 says, “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” The reason is clear: God’s atoning work through Jesus is fulfilled and we are perfectly cleansed of all of our sins, so there is no need for sacrifices any longer. Furthermore, God will be so present everywhere that we will not need a special place. Every place will be special, an encounter with the radiant glory of God. It will be impossible to look any direction north, south, east or west and not see the glory of God. We will have an immediate experience with the glory of God. There is no need for a special place to assemble. It is the fulfillment of the vision Jesus gave to the Samaritan woman — not a place, but together, intimately connected with God by the Spirit. John speaks of the Lord God Almighty, God the Father, who rules over everything, God is the temple, and so is Jesus the Lamb. Again, this is clear indication of the deity of Christ. The city will be the Holy of Holies, a perfect cube. Solomon’s Holy of Holies, also a perfect cube was 20 cubits by 20 cubits by 20 cubits, 1 Kings 6:20. The new Jerusalem is 12,000 stadia by 12,000 stadia by 12,000 stadia, massive. Every place in the city is perfectly holy, because we will encounter the living God. Earthly Light Fulfilled in Heavenly Glory Light in the New Jerusalem Second, we see earthly light fulfilled in heavenly glory. Revelation 21:23 says, “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.” When God created the heavens and the earth, the first thing he said after that statement was Genesis 1:3: “And God said, 'Let there be light,’ and there was light.” The sun and moon and stars were not required on the first and the second and the third day of creation — they did not exist. God does light very well. He did not need the sun or the moon or the stars. He delegated the job of light to them on the fourth day, and now He will take the job back. The Sun and Moon Will Disappear The awesome sun will be obsolete. It will be fulfilled. This incredible burning ball of nuclear reaction is 93 million miles from us, 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit on the surface, 27 million degrees Fahrenheit at the center. No probe has gone to the center of the sun to tell us, but it is hot, and its light has given us the light of day throughout creation, but now God will reclaim the task. The moon will also disappear — the softer gleam of pale reflected light. There are aspects of the description in Revelation 21 that some people regret, like no sea and no moon. One night, I rented motor scooters with a friend of mine from college. We rode out to see the full moon on Nantucket Island. The moon and the sea, two things that we will not have in Heaven, were spectacularly beautiful, the shimmering light of the moon on the pretty quiet sea that night. Another time, the night was not so peaceful to me. Every year I ride up to Lake Gaston on my bicycle, 72 miles. On this ride a year and a half ago, I got a late start. I could have done simple mathematics: it was in October, and I started around 3:00 for about a four-and-a-half-hour bike ride. The sun was going set during that time, but I had no lights on my bike and no reflection on me. I was riding up there in northern North Carolina or southern Virginia. The shadows were getting longer and the light began to fade. I was momentarily struck by the realization, as though I had never seen a sunset before. Then suddenly it was dark — there was no moon that night, and no stars. It was one of the scariest nights of my life. I had to dismount my bike and walk it for long distances. There were barking dogs and probably some Remingtons to protect the property from people like me out walking at night when they should not be doing that. I wondered if I would survive the night. I could not see the left side of the road or the right side in the pure, scary, inky-black darkness. Light at night is beautiful, but there is nothing beautiful about night itself without light. In the Bible, frequently, we have the images of the light, but it seems like God is going to fulfill that. There will be no more night, no more darkness. Isaiah 24:23 says, “The moon will be abashed, the sun ashamed; for the LORD Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously.” Why would the sun and moon be ashamed? Because they cannot do anything compared to God’s glory. It is like bringing a little flashlight to a spotlight party, and you want to hide the little thing you brought. The sun and the moon will be like that; they will be ashamed compared to the glory of God. Again, as it says in Isaiah 60:19, “The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.” Earthly Exclusions Fulfilled in Heavenly Openness No More Dangers Third, earthly exclusions will be fulfilled in heavenly openness. Revelation 21:25 says, “On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.” This is speaking about the exclusion of people kept outside the city. Look ahead in Revelation 22:15: “Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” These are all the wicked, the sinners. God will weed all of them out, as well as all the dangers of the night which now prowl around. Day = “Good”; Night = ? God called the day good, He did not say anything about the night. Though there is a beauty to a star-spangled night sky and a softer gleam of the moon, there is no beauty in pure darkness, so darkness is frequently used as a metaphor for evil. 1 John 1:5 says, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” Or John 3:19: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” In John 8:12, “Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” This happened the night that Jesus was arrested. He predicted that one of his disciples would betray him. It was the one who took the bread that Jesus dipped, took it out of his hand. In John’s Gospel, Jesus dipped the bread and handed it to Judas, and Judas took it. When he took it, Satan entered into him. John 13:30 says, “As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.” That is not an accident. Jesus said to his arresters and his persecutors in Luke 22:53, “…this is your hour — when darkness reigns.” So darkness is an image of rebellion against God. In the new universe, there will be no darkness at all. There will be a universal light of the glory of God. There will be no shadows in the New Jerusalem, like a stage lit by brilliant spotlights in every direction — no shadows anywhere. Furthermore, it says the gates will never be shut. In the ancient world, gates were shut to keep the dangers on the outside — wild beasts, marauding invading armies. All of the wicked, rebellious people and all the demons and Satan will be in the Lake of Fire, so the gates will stand open all the time. Earthly Sacrifices Fulfilled in Heavenly Diversity Earthly sacrifices will be fulfilled in heavenly diversity. Revelation 21:24-26 says, “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.” The Light of the New World This is the light of the new world — the new Jerusalem, the New Heaven, the New Earth — a pervasive brilliant beautiful light of the glory of God. The nations and the kings of the earth will walk by that light. The light by which we will operate and do our things will be the light of the glory of God, not the sun, the moon, the stars, or the lamp. More than that, it means that we will walk by the principles that flow from the character of God. The moral law of God will be perfectly fulfilled in us. We will walk by God’s character, by his nature — that will be our rule, the way by which we will live our lives. Isaiah 2:2-5 says, “In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’ The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD.” Many commentators say that passage refers to the millennium. I can say only that all of that will be perfectly fulfilled in Heaven. The law will flow from the heart of God and we will resonate and glow with it and walk by that light. Who are these nations and kings of the earth? There are many speculations, some connected with the millennial reign. Keeping it simple, let us say they are, together with the Jews, all of the redeemed from the earth, from every tribe, language, people, and nation (Revelation 7). They are recognized by their expressions of amoral ethnic cultural diversity. They will be identified as trophies of God’s grace from every tribe and language and people and nation. I have worshipped with African brothers and sisters in Nairobi, primarily from the Kikuyu tribe. They love rhythmic worship, lots of drums, they love to clap and sway and sing. That worship is beautiful. They are mostly modernized in their dress and attire, but their culture is very clear. On that same mission trip, I also worshiped with Maasai tribespeople in the Rift Valley. They are herdsmen, tall and graceful. They put red ochre in their hair and on their face and wear a lot of beads and jewelry. The Maasai were some of the most violently opposed to British rule and among the last to be pacified when the British ruled that colony. The Maasai tribespeople we worshiped with were Christians and had been kicked out of their tribe, ostracized by their other Maasai, but they maintained their culture. What an unforgettable time of worship that was, under a tree, sitting on rudimentary wooden benches. I have worshipped in a Lutheran Cathedral in Dresden with Calvin a couple of summers ago, listening to baroque music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. The German people worship in a different style than the Kikuyu people do. Though they are different displays, those who are born again and love the Lord, worshiping the same triune God, celebrate in the same redemption. I worshiped in a cell church in Shanghai in China, in a high rise. They used a boombox with a CD to play Western praise and worship songs. They spent a lot of time in prayer. I have worshiped with Indian believers in Pune near Mumbai. I was there during the Hindu festival, the Diwali, the Festival of Lights, These believers had broken off from their false religion of Hinduism and come to faith in Christ. There were thousands of them there listening to me unfold the book of Philippians. Many thronged to me afterwards to say they had been hungry and thirsty for the Word of God. These Indian believers maintain their amoral cultural distinctions. I have attended an Easter sunrise service, overlooking the Pacific Ocean with Japanese Christians. We were convinced that we were the first Christians on earth that year to celebrate Easter in the Land of the Rising Sun. It would have been about 1:00 a.m. here. It was sweet to be with those Christians in Tokushima. In the New Heaven and New Earth, we will see all of that cultural diversity in some marvelous way. They will bring their riches and treasures into the New Jerusalem, so we can at least simply say that they themselves are converted and they bring their uniqueness into worship Jesus. Heavenly Work Produces Heavenly Riches To take it a step further, we will be in resurrected bodies with resurrected minds, hands and feet, and we will have limitless strength and energy in an entirely new earth. We will surely have work to do — things to work on, projects to make, there will be no more curse on our work. Work was not the punishment, but work was cursed. Our efforts crumble, and thorns and thistles come after plowing and watering and planning and waiting. In Heaven, we will work and it will come to full fruition. We will have limitless time to work on projects. As things are finished, the kings of the earth will bring their glory into the New Jerusalem to show Jesus what they made by their creativity and strength. “Kings of the Nations” Why will they be kings of the earth? There will be different, smaller kingdoms in the Nw Heaven and New Earth. Jesus will be the King of kings and Lord of Lords. This is clearly taught in Scripture in Daniel 7:27: “Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.” Luke 19 tells a parable of a man who gains 10 minas, an amount of money like a talent, through his stewardship of resources given by his master. He is therefore given ten cities to manage. There will be kings of the earth. They will stream into the capital city of New Jerusalem to honor and worship Jesus, the true King of kings. Earthly Impurity Removed for Heavenly Purity Perfectly Pure Earthly impurity will be removed and replaced with heavenly purity. Revelation 21:27 says, “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” The New Jerusalem will be perfectly pure. Modern cities are patterned after wicked Babylon. Revelation 17 depicts the great horror of Babylon drunk on a cup of immorality, drunk on the blood of the saints, rich and prosperous through sin and idolatry, but she will fall, as predicted in Revelation 18:2: “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!” Imagine landing by plane at night at JFK. You can see the beautiful, spectacular side of New York City in all the lights — the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, other landmarks; the headlights and tail lights of the traffic like diamonds and rubies and jewels. But once on foot in the city, you need to be careful all the time and especially at night, when wicked forces are prowling and at work. They will not hesitate to trade your life for their next fix. In the New Jerusalem, all of that is gone. There will be no impurity. Best of all, our impurity will be gone. Our hearts will be purified, we will be glorified, we will perfectly love righteousness and perfectly hate wickedness forever. We will have our robes washed in the blood of the Lamb, and we will have the right to enter the city and eat from the Tree of Life. Only the Elect Can Enter the City Only those whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world will be allowed to enter. That is election, or predestination. Every single one of those named by name before the foundation of the world will most certainly be in there. Each one of those elect has ratified it, confirmed in space and time when they heard the Gospel of their salvation. Having believed, they were marked in Him with a seal and crossed over from death to life. But their names were known before they responded; before the foundation of the world, they were called and summoned to follow Christ, and they will enter. Applications Hear and Believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ First and foremost, hear and believe the Gospel now. If you are on the outside of all this looking in, I ask you to let the fear of the Lord be the beginning of wisdom for you. Realize that you do not know how much longer you have in this body, how much longer you will be alive. The Bible says that today is the day of salvation. I am begging you, as though God Himself were making His appeal through me, be reconciled to God, acknowledge that you have sinned, that you have violated God’s laws. Acknowledge it. Be honest about it. Ask Him for the forgiveness that Jesus provided by shedding his blood on the cross, one atoning sacrifice for all time. All you have to do is trust in Him, not by works, but by faith. Trust in Him and you will be welcomed into the New Jerusalem when the time comes. Help Make Heavenly Diversity a Reality For the rest of us who have done that some time ago, recognize your responsibility to speak a version of what I just said to a lost person this week. We have a responsibility to reap now into the New Jerusalem, a responsibility to share the Gospel. We are surrounded by people who are without hope and without God in the world. We have an evangelistic responsibility. Let us be faithful to it this week. Do something bold for Jesus, invite someone to church. We will be celebrating the resurrection and salvation every week. The Future of Worship Understand the future of worship in Jerusalem. We will all be bowing down and worshiping. The more you can do that now, the better. I urge you to spend more time personally in worship this week. Find a sweet Psalm or a hymn you like, and sing it to God, sing it to Jesus because you love him. Look forward to heavenly work!! Finally, look forward to heavenly work and do your work as to the Lord this week. Yes, the work is cursed now, but it is a foretaste of the work we will do in Heaven. Work with all your heart as working for the Lord. Do the projects God gives you so that people sit up and take notice and wonder why you have such an energy and a zeal for your work. Work as unto the Lord, because some day you will be in the new world and your works will not be cursed then. Do them as much as possible now for the glory of God. Share why you work that way, that you are looking forward to that future day. Closing Prayer Father, thank you for the time we have had to study today. Thank you for the good things that we have learned. Thank you for the joy and the delight that is waiting for us at the upgrade, a word that does not capture what will be infinitely satisfying to us. Oh God, fill us with hope, and help that hope to energize us to do the good works. I pray for any who are lost that are here, that they would hear Jesus calling to them, crying to them, saying, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Trust in me and I'll forgive you of all your sins.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Scriptorium is a new project I’m undertaking with Apologia, in which I’ll be seeking out interesting discussions about interesting books. These will typically have a theological or philosophical context, and I’ll be inviting people from both sides of the religious fence to participate with me. For the first in this series, I sat down with erstwhile Inquisition subject, Dan Ray, to talk about the historical novel “Silence” by Shūsaku Endō. “Silence” was recently adapted into a feature film by Martin Scorsese, and I found both the book and the film completely fascinating. The story involves two Portuguese Jesuit priests who journey to Edo Japan under threat of torture and death, seeking to support the persecuted Japanese Christians as well as to discover the truth about their reportedly apostatized mentor.
Faith is a difficult concept to explain to non-believers. I was never raised religiously, or even with any sort of a belief in a god. As such, I generally struggle to connect to stories of faith and to characters who so strongly experience faith, and it takes something special to make me truly understand what these people are going through. But Martin Scorsese, with his latest film Silence, has managed to do just that. Himself a lapsed Catholic, he may just be in the best position to convey the intricacies of faith. Silence is the story of two Portuguese Christian missionaries in Japan in the 17th century, a time when Christianity was forbidden and severely persecuted. It’s based on a novel of the same name by Shusaku Endo, a Japanese Christian author, which in turn is based on a real set of historical events. The two missionaries, Rodrigues and Garupe (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver), travel to Japan in pursuit of another priest by the name of Ferreira (Liam Neeson) who had gone to Japan many years earlier and of whom all traces had been lost. Over the course of the film, the priests hide in small Japanese villages and attempt, unsuccessfully, to evade the authorities who are determined to make the priests apostatise, to renounce their religion, and who aim to stamp out the roots of Christianity in Japan. The more the priests persist in their attempts to find Ferreira and to hold on to their dogma, the more ruthless the Japanese officials become, not just towards them but also towards the villagers who hide them. For the most part, the narrative is centred on Rodrigues, and the themes of wavering faith, the silence of god and the point of missionary work in general, are all explored through him. Rodrigues is so deeply embedded in his religious system and indoctrinated role as a missionary that he fails to realise that true faith is in one’s heart, not one’s church. There’s a moment in the middle of the film where Rodrigues hands out religious artefacts to the church-starved locals and observes that these people seem more obsessed with the symbolism of religion than religion itself. It’s a thought that Rodrigues himself does not seem to fully grasp in relation to the manifestations of his own faith: repeatedly, the officials try to make him renounce his faith by placing his foot on an image of Christ, and repeatedly he refuses, as indeed do the persecuted villagers. He too, then, like the villagers, is more interested with preserving his status as an emissary of the church and of god than of accepting true belief, and as a result cannot bring himself to reject a physical symbol. To add to his inner turmoil and the difficulty he faces, the longer he takes to reject his status as a priest in front of authorities, the more the Japanese civilians are tormented and tortured. Even the officials continually state that the act of apostasy is a pure formality, that they would be satisfied with the simple gesture of stamping on the engraving, and even though this statement comes from a place of heartless bureaucracy, it nevertheless encapsulates the very lesson that Rodrigues is destined to learn. Most of these narrative twists, thematic ideas and religious dilemmas come, of course, from Endo’s original novel, not from Scorsese or his co-screenwriter Jay Cocks, so I can’t pretend that they’re specific to this film. Having said that, the novel doesn’t really work for me. It seems to presume a basic personal understanding of the problems faced by people of faith and in doing so alienates someone like me who does not necessarily appreciate the faithful mindset. Endo almost relies on the (albeit intriguing) philosophical and ethical questions to be the start and endpoint of the narrative and as a result the narrative itself falls flat. There was even another adaptation of the novel filmed in 1971 by Masahiro Shindo, co-written by Endo himself, and even that felt very unengaging, though technically well-made. Scorsese’s adaptation, however, succeeds in constructing a deeply personal and affecting portrayal of the young priest and took me on a journey alongside him, allowing me to empathise with the weight of his doubts. Ironically, it seems that he has achieved this by toning down the first-person perspective in comparison to the original, though we do get a voiceover in several sections of the film, and consequently the film becomes more subtle and more balanced as a depiction. On top of this, Scorsese pays a great deal more attention to the Japanese villagers and their suffering, the very suffering that is at the core of the moral quandary facing Rodrigues. It all makes for very engrossing and moving viewing. In other words, while Scorsese hasn’t come up with the seeds of the story and themes, it’s the way he expresses them that is significant here. On a technical level, too, Silence is astoundingly well-put-together. The majority of the film is shot with striking cold, foggy tones, echoing the harshness of the political environment which the priests are thrust into. Yet there are several notable moments that seem surprisingly warmly-coloured, made even more notable by the overall coldness of the film. These warm moments predominantly seem to have some connection to faith, such as a night-time prayer session in a tiny hut. It’s almost as if to emphasise the extent of the meaning people derive from their faith and the intimacy of their beliefs. I should note that cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto has been nominated for an Academy Award for Silence, and it’s very much well-earned. Scorsese’s longtime collaborator and film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, too, continues her masterful work, as does legendary set and art designer Dante Ferretti. The period detail is meticulous, even in scenes we barely see. And even though superficially this film mightn’t appear to shout “Scorsese”, there’s enough of his familiar camera movements to divulge his directorial presence. Several startling zooms and pans, particularly in the prison sequences, still stick in my mind and are well and truly characteristic of Scorsese’s work. Not to mention the stark and brutal imagery that has become synonymous with his reputation. Excellent, fascinating and absorbing, a story about faith that even non-religious people like me can get into. All that’s left to say, I suppose, is that Martin Scorsese’s Silence is golden. Silence is out in cinemas on February 16th. Written by Ben VolchokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Faith is a difficult concept to explain to non-believers. I was never raised religiously, or even with any sort of a belief in a god. As such, I generally struggle to connect to stories of faith and to characters who so strongly experience faith, and it takes something special to make me truly understand what these people are going through. But Martin Scorsese, with his latest film Silence, has managed to do just that. Himself a lapsed Catholic, he may just be in the best position to convey the intricacies of faith. Silence is the story of two Portuguese Christian missionaries in Japan in the 17th century, a time when Christianity was forbidden and severely persecuted. It’s based on a novel of the same name by Shusaku Endo, a Japanese Christian author, which in turn is based on a real set of historical events. The two missionaries, Rodrigues and Garupe (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver), travel to Japan in pursuit of another priest by the name of Ferreira (Liam Neeson) who had gone to Japan many years earlier and of whom all traces had been lost. Over the course of the film, the priests hide in small Japanese villages and attempt, unsuccessfully, to evade the authorities who are determined to make the priests apostatise, to renounce their religion, and who aim to stamp out the roots of Christianity in Japan. The more the priests persist in their attempts to find Ferreira and to hold on to their dogma, the more ruthless the Japanese officials become, not just towards them but also towards the villagers who hide them. For the most part, the narrative is centred on Rodrigues, and the themes of wavering faith, the silence of god and the point of missionary work in general, are all explored through him. Rodrigues is so deeply embedded in his religious system and indoctrinated role as a missionary that he fails to realise that true faith is in one’s heart, not one’s church. There’s a moment in the middle of the film where Rodrigues hands out religious artefacts to the church-starved locals and observes that these people seem more obsessed with the symbolism of religion than religion itself. It’s a thought that Rodrigues himself does not seem to fully grasp in relation to the manifestations of his own faith: repeatedly, the officials try to make him renounce his faith by placing his foot on an image of Christ, and repeatedly he refuses, as indeed do the persecuted villagers. He too, then, like the villagers, is more interested with preserving his status as an emissary of the church and of god than of accepting true belief, and as a result cannot bring himself to reject a physical symbol. To add to his inner turmoil and the difficulty he faces, the longer he takes to reject his status as a priest in front of authorities, the more the Japanese civilians are tormented and tortured. Even the officials continually state that the act of apostasy is a pure formality, that they would be satisfied with the simple gesture of stamping on the engraving, and even though this statement comes from a place of heartless bureaucracy, it nevertheless encapsulates the very lesson that Rodrigues is destined to learn. Most of these narrative twists, thematic ideas and religious dilemmas come, of course, from Endo’s original novel, not from Scorsese or his co-screenwriter Jay Cocks, so I can’t pretend that they’re specific to this film. Having said that, the novel doesn’t really work for me. It seems to presume a basic personal understanding of the problems faced by people of faith and in doing so alienates someone like me who does not necessarily appreciate the faithful mindset. Endo almost relies on the (albeit intriguing) philosophical and ethical questions to be the start and endpoint of the narrative and as a result the narrative itself falls flat. There was even another adaptation of the novel filmed in 1971 by Masahiro Shindo, co-written by Endo himself, and even that felt very unengaging, though technically well-made. Scorsese’s adaptation, however, succeeds in constructing a deeply personal and affecting portrayal of the young priest and took me on a journey alongside him, allowing me to empathise with the weight of his doubts. Ironically, it seems that he has achieved this by toning down the first-person perspective in comparison to the original, though we do get a voiceover in several sections of the film, and consequently the film becomes more subtle and more balanced as a depiction. On top of this, Scorsese pays a great deal more attention to the Japanese villagers and their suffering, the very suffering that is at the core of the moral quandary facing Rodrigues. It all makes for very engrossing and moving viewing. In other words, while Scorsese hasn’t come up with the seeds of the story and themes, it’s the way he expresses them that is significant here. On a technical level, too, Silence is astoundingly well-put-together. The majority of the film is shot with striking cold, foggy tones, echoing the harshness of the political environment which the priests are thrust into. Yet there are several notable moments that seem surprisingly warmly-coloured, made even more notable by the overall coldness of the film. These warm moments predominantly seem to have some connection to faith, such as a night-time prayer session in a tiny hut. It’s almost as if to emphasise the extent of the meaning people derive from their faith and the intimacy of their beliefs. I should note that cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto has been nominated for an Academy Award for Silence, and it’s very much well-earned. Scorsese’s longtime collaborator and film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, too, continues her masterful work, as does legendary set and art designer Dante Ferretti. The period detail is meticulous, even in scenes we barely see. And even though superficially this film mightn’t appear to shout “Scorsese”, there’s enough of his familiar camera movements to divulge his directorial presence. Several startling zooms and pans, particularly in the prison sequences, still stick in my mind and are well and truly characteristic of Scorsese’s work. Not to mention the stark and brutal imagery that has become synonymous with his reputation. Excellent, fascinating and absorbing, a story about faith that even non-religious people like me can get into. All that’s left to say, I suppose, is that Martin Scorsese’s Silence is golden. Silence is out in cinemas on February 16th. Written by Ben Volchok
Dan and Patrick delve into Martin Scorsese's new film "Silence," starring Andrew Garfield. The film, which is based on a novel by Shusaku Endo, deals with the persecution of the Japanese Christians in the 17th century. Spoilers begin 22:43 - end 43:38
We have the honor of speaking with a Japanese Christian! He tells us about his journey and shares with us what it's like to witness to the Japanese people. Check out his website hiromedia.com
Martin Scorsese directed and released Silence, a film starting Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver. More than a stellar movie, it tells the story of brutally persecuted Jesuit priests and Japanese Christians in 17th century Japan. The film compels the Jesus follower to ask the question, where is God in our pain and suffering? Why does he allow evil? Pastors Mike Bell and Rick Henderson respond. We promise, no spoilers if you haven't seen the movie yet.
So last week in Ephesians 2:11-17, we saw how Christ's death on the cross has demolished the “barrier, the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles, by abolishing the Law with its regulations, thus making peace between Jews and Gentiles.” The Law of Moses excluded uncircumcised Gentiles from the assembly of the people of God. God Himself established that barrier. God set it up, and it did in fact keep the Gentiles out. But God also removed that barrier, in Christ, by establishing in Christ a new covenant in His blood, and welcoming anyone, Jews or Gentiles, into close fellowship with Himself. Jew and Gentile unity in Christ, therefore, is possible, it is promised, it is commanded as a result of this New Covenant in Christ. Now today, the basic thesis or idea of this sermon is this: If barriers between people that God did set up have been completely removed by Christ, then how much more are barriers that God didn't set up get removed in Christ. That's the basic idea. It's a "how much more" argument. If barriers that God did set up had been removed, then how much more those He never set up. The dividing walls of hostility between people that destroy peace on Earth have been addressed at the cross. So Christ's death lays the foundation for the removal of every “barrier, every dividing wall of hostility,” resulting in a supernatural unity between Christians of all racial, and ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. A World Divided Now, in this sermon we're going to address two of the most controversial, two of the hardest topics facing us in America today; the issue of racism on the one side, which has been very much in the news over the last year, but not just the last year. And then, the issue of immigration and illegal aliens, and other issues like that, which are very much in the news in this campaign. So, we begin by looking at our world, which is a world divided. We live in a bitterly divided world, with many dividing walls of hostility separating people. They're around us constantly. We think about racial conflict in the U.S. over the last year or more, honestly, over the last century and a half, honestly, even beyond that. The issues of race connected with police incidents led to open racial conflict in Ferguson, Missouri, and demonstrations in Baltimore, Maryland. It's given rise to the movement Black Lives Matter. The level of hostility between blacks and whites has been one of the greatest disgraces in American history, and continues to be a bleeding wound in our national identity. Sometimes, we must wonder if anything can ever heal the rift, the rupture, this wound between us. But honestly, black-white hostility America is not the only example of the deep divisions that continue to rend our world. What I'm going to call in this sermon, “us versus them,” the dynamic of us as a group versus them as a group is all over the world. Just go to the hot spots in the last century and you'll know what I'm talking about. For example, if you went to the Balkans with a long history of racial and religious conflicts between Serbs, and Croats, and Muslims there have bubbled over again and again into war. And when that happens, then revenge creeps in, memories, bitterness, a steel curtain, a “dividing wall of hostility” comes between people. Or think about recent events like Russia's invasion of the Ukraine. Russian troops under the command of President Vladamir Putin. That is leaving scars between those people's national hostility and hatred that those actions have caused. In 1994 in Rwanda, there was a terrible genocide of the Tutsi people by the dominant Hutu majority. A 100-day period in which 800,000 people were slaughtered. Today, the survivors of that conflict live side by side in the same communities trying to forgive and forget, but they know what other folks have done to their loved ones, their ancestors, their relatives, husbands, wives, children, etcetera. Many in Korea and in China retain an intense hatred for the Japanese for the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during World War II, as well as ongoing historical revisionism in Japanese textbooks in which past events are not dealt with honestly. In Nanjing there's a massacre memorial dedicated to the memory of 300,000 Chinese people wantonly slaughtered by occupying Japanese troops. Many Chinese feel an obligation to hate the Japanese forever, a nationalistic obligation. Every year on December 13th in Nanjing, the date the massacre began, then alarms are rung throughout the city so that people will never forget. I could go on and on. You know what I'm talking about, we live in a divided world, a world of “us versus them.” A deeply fragmented wall, fractured by sin and hatred, memories, bitterness, the “dividing walls of hostility.” This is the very thing that Jesus Christ came to remedy. By reconciling, vertically, sinners to God, and then as a result, horizontally, sinners one to another. God’s Plan for Unity Now, God's plan for unity is established throughout the Scriptures, but we see it right in the book that we're studying. Look back at Ephesians 1:9-10. There in Ephesians 1:9-10, God talks about what He planned to do through Jesus, what His purpose is, in Christ. So look at verse 9, Ephesians 1:9-10, "And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in Heaven and on Earth together under one head, even Christ." Now, that is so breathtakingly glorious and overwhelming that you could meditate on it the rest of your life. You probably have read over it several times, and didn't even notice it was there, you were more focused on the election and predestination verses that precede it a few verses before that. And your head was spinning, and you missed that one, what God is doing in verse 10 of Ephesians chapter 1. God is intending to “bring everything in the universe together under one head, Christ.” It's what He's doing. So, as we said when I preached through in Ephesians 1, sin has had the effect of a fragmentation grenade in the universe, blowing things apart into bits. First and foremost, vertically, humans with God. Then secondly, horizontally, humans one from another. And then, thirdly, the physical creation, the universe around us, which is groaning in its bondage to decay, falling apart. Sin blew the universe apart. The Gospel of Jesus Christ reverses and brings all things back together and makes them one, in Christ. That's what's going on in the world, that is the story of human history. This is the supernatural unity of the human race that only the work of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit can achieve. The United Nations cannot achieve it with all of its diplomats, its diplomacy, its rule and reign. No treaties can. No laws, we cannot look to the federal government or to local officials to do this. It's something that is vastly beyond any force on earth to achieve. The memories are too deep, the bitterness is too real, the hatred, the yearning for revenge. Conversely, the ongoing pride and arrogance that's at the root of racism. We'll talk about that. No external force, the United Nations, no human force can remedy that, it's impossible. But the Gospel of Jesus Christ can, it has, it's going on right now, and it will win in the end. So, I actually stand before you extremely filled with hope and optimism even though this is a dark topic. I'm looking forward to a world, New Heaven, New Earth, a New Jerusalem, in which there will be no racism and no divisions. God's going to win, and that's exciting, isn't it? Perfect Unity Based on the Trinity But Jesus died on the cross to bring about perfect unity between people. In John 11:51-52, it said that Jesus would “die for the Jewish nation, and not for that nation only, but also for the scattered children of God to bring them together and make them one.” Let's ponder that. Ponder that. That is what God is doing. So, how great is that unity that Christ is affecting? Well, it is perfect unity. Absolutely perfect unity in the pattern of the Trinity. If you look at John 17:20-23, just listen, you don't have time to look there, I'm going to be moving fast in this sermon. So if you're incredibly fast with your Bible or whatever, you can keep up, otherwise just listen. But there are just so many verses that teach about this unity. John 17:20-23. Jesus prays, He says, "My prayer is not for them alone," present apostles, "But I also pray for those who will believe in me through their message. That all of them may be one, Father. Just as you are in me and I am in You. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one." Do you hear that? As we are one, it's a trinitarian pattern of unity. "I in them and you in me, may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." So, if you look carefully at what Jesus prays for there, He's praying that all of them “may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” “All of them,” is all the elect. Those who will one day believe in Jesus through the message of the Gospel. Revelation 5:9-10, "And they sang a new song, ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.’ " That is marvelous, Revelation 5:9-10. So astonishing diversity along with a perfect heavenly unity. That's where we're heading. Now, the unity between the Father and the Son is absolutely perfect. There's never the slightest disagreement, or shadow of conflict between the Father and Son. Never has been, isn't right now, and never will be; they are perfectly one. So what that means is, they agree about everything. I mean, down to the smallest detail. Jesus said in Matthew 10:29, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." That's the incredible detail of the mind of God the Father over everything. What I say to you now is, the Son agrees about everything the Father thinks about all those things. ‘You mean the Father and the Son have agreed how many hairs should be on my head?’ Yes! They are in total agreement, there's never been a disagreement about how many hairs should be on your head. You may disagree about how many hairs should be on your head, but the Father and the Son have never disagreed about how many hairs should be on your head. They agree about everything all the time. This is mind-boggling. That's where we're heading, with a multitude from every nation on the face of the earth. We’ll have that level of agreement about everything. Disunity: Addressed in the Epistles Now, unity in the churches then, is a huge issue in the Epistles. How many New Testament Epistles plead with the churches to be one, to be united, to get along with each other? Answer: Almost all of them. And frankly, probably if you look at it closely, all of them. For example, later in Ephesians, look at Ephesians 4. Just flip over maybe one page, verses 1-6. There it says, "As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is overall and through all and in all." That's a strong appeal to unity in Ephesians 4. But so also you see the same in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians was about a church ripped apart by factions and divisions. “One followed Paul, one followed Apollos, one followed Cephas, one group followed Jesus,” I don't know what that meant. Sounds good, I don't know, it sounds divisive, too. We're the Jesus party, don't know about the rest of you. And Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 1:10, "I appeal to you brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another, so that there may be no divisions among you, and that you may be," listen to this, "perfectly united in mind and heart." Perfectly united. Does the same thing in Philippians chapter 2. He says, "Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or in vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others." Unity. Same thing in Romans. In Romans 14, he deals with Jew/Gentile divisions over controversial issues; meat sacrifices to idols and special religious days and all that kind of thing, and he pleads for unity among Jewish and Gentile believers. It's an issue in all over the New Testament. Unity Makes for a More Powerful Witness Now, here's my point: The greater the unity within a church, the more power that church will have to preach the Gospel in that community. The more that unity is surprising and super naturally based, the more power will come in preaching the Gospel to that community. So, if you look again at John 17:22-23, as Jesus prays that they may be one as we are one, John 17:23, "I in them and you in me, may they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me." So, that's not talking about Heaven, that's talking about right now, as the world watches us and as we become more and more united, the world will want to know more about Jesus, will want to learn more about Jesus, because they know how hard it is for this unity to happen. It's something that just doesn't happen. So, surprising unity glorifies Christ. So, in Palestine, if you have former Muslims and Jews converting and becoming Christians, and they're living out that unity in worship, let's say on a Sunday morning, that is a powerful witness to the Gospel and to the surrounding community. It shines in a very dark place. Just ripped apart by factions and divisions and dividing walls of hostility. And that's happening. Reading about the church in Bethlehem, the Baptist church in Bethlehem, look it up, it's an interesting place. Imagine being the Pastor, of First Baptist Bethlehem, Israel. Not Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I'm sure they're having a good ministry, too. But the focus there, it's amazing, putting the Gospel on display. So in the Balkans, when Serbs and Croats and former Muslims come together and come to faith in Christ, and then shine with a supernatural unity, it just makes the Gospel more powerful in that community. In Korea when Koreans and Japanese Christians come together and worship, the same thing. So also in Durham, North Carolina. What would be the most surprising unity? I think it would probably be the issue of the black-white division, the African-Americans and Caucasian people coming together in a supernatural show of unity that will make the Gospel very powerful and shine in this community. Jew/Gentile Unity: Pattern for Worldwide Reconciliation Gentile Exclusion Now, let's go back to last week just to root all this in the text. I am preaching Ephesians 2:11-17, just in case you were wondering. “I thought we were an expository kind of preaching church though.” But I want to root it in that. So, home base for Ephesians 2:11-17 is Jew and Gentile unity. The spiritual work that Christ did to make Jews and Gentiles one stands as the pattern for all surprising unity all over the world. That's my basic thesis here. The Jew and Gentile issue was a special case in redemptive history, because it involved the Law of Moses. It involved God's direct action in separating people up. He put up the barrier, the dividing wall. It was erected by the Law of Moses, the Law of God. So that included dietary regulations, circumcision, other certain rules, a focus on genealogies, all those kinds of things, the Gentiles were excluded. And again, the basic thesis of my sermon, then if barriers between people that God did set up have been removed in Christ, how much more then barriers that God never set up have been removed by Christ? Christ's death lays the foundation for the removal of every barrier, every “dividing wall of hostility,” resulting in supernatural unity between Christians of every racial, ethnic, linguistic, national background. So how was it back in the day before we were Christians? Look at verse 11 and 12, "Therefore, remember that formally, you who were Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision, that done in the body by the hands of men. Remember, that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world." That's what we were. We were aliens. We were strangers. We were outsiders. How it is Now If I can push it to one of the application points at the end, we were illegal aliens in the Kingdom of Heaven, we were. We were outsiders. There were laws against us. So what has happened then? Christ has come. Look at verse 13, "Now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ." Verses 14 and 15, "For He himself is our peace who has made the two one." That's what Christ has done. So Christ has brought us near, we are near to God. And being near to God, we are near to each other, near vertically, near horizontally. We've been brought near. Christ is our peace. First, we're at peace with God, “having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Romans 5:1. And then, horizontally at peace with each other as well. What Christ Has Done to the Law In order to achieve this, though, Christ had to do something to the Law, and He has. Look at verses 14 and 15, "He himself is our peace, who has made the two one, and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the Law with its commandments and regulations." Do you see that right on the page? These are strong words, very strong. The ceremonial laws, what excluded Gentiles from the Assembly of Israel. Do you remember in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down? Do you remember how residents of that area went out with sledgehammers and started pounding on that wall, breaking it apart, and later selling fragments of it with the graffiti for lots of money? But they were breaking down that wall, and what joy. Can I tell you, this wall was unbreakable by anyone but Christ, and He did it in an afternoon, in a single day, removed this forever. So look at the language. The language is powerful here. The ceremonial law that excluded Gentiles from Assembly of Israel. It required circumcision, established dietary regulations. It forbade intermarriage between Jews and the Canaanite nations. It required national unity among the Jews and annual pilgrimages. It upheld genealogies and the ability to prove that you were physically descended from Abraham. But this Law, this barrier, this dividing wall of hostility has been removed. Christ has destroyed the barrier. He broke it down, tore it down. He has abolished the “Law with its commandments and regulations,” abolished it. Hebrews 8:13 goes beyond and says He's made it obsolete. This is language that we would never dream to use of the Word of God, but Christ has done this. “Destroyed,” “abolished,” “obsolete,” and established in His blood a New Covenant that is the basis of our unity. And in the New Covenant these old racial distinctions are obsolete also. They're gone. They don't mean anything. What Jesus Has Done to All His People So what has Christ done? That's what He's done external to us. What has He done within us to bring about this unity? That's staggering as well. Look at verses 15-17. “His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God by which He put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who are far away and peace to those who are near.” So, Christ has made us one, “He has made the two one,” our spiritual union with Christ is also a union with one another, a mystical, spiritual union we have with every true Christian all over the world. And He's made one new man out of the two. So this means we have been transformed. We're different men and women, different boys and girls. We have been changed. We've had the “heart of stone taken out and the heart of flesh put in.” We have been made new in our minds and in our hearts. That's the only way it can happen. We're “new creations.” And so Jesus has made peace vertically with God, and peace horizontally with one another. Verse 17, "He came and preached peace to you who are far away, and peace to those who are near." And so, on that evening of the first day of the week, resurrection day, the greatest day in history, Jesus came to the upper room where the disciples were, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, came right in and stood in their midst. And then He said these marvelous words, "Peace be with you." And then He showed them His hands and His side. You understand the link between the two? Again He said, "Peace be with you." And so, our peace is blood bought. It's expensive. It's been paid for by the blood of Jesus on the cross. And by His resurrection, we are transformed. We're made new. So Jesus has put to death our hostility by the cross. How is that? By reconciliation, by reconciling us vertically to God through His blood. He has, as I said last week, reached down and taken the sword of revenge and hostility and bitterness right out of our hands. You understand He's done that? Do you remember the parable of the 10,000 talents? Remember that? There's a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants, and there was a man there who owed him 10,000 talents; 750,000 lbs of gold. Some of you may collect gold, you don't have 750,000 lbs of it. The gross national product of the Roman Empire, that's what you and I owed before God, and God cancelled all that debt. But then that servant went out and found horizontally, found one of his fellow servants who owed him about a third of a year's wages. It's a lot. It's a lot of money. And he grabbed him and began to choke him, "Pay me what you owe me!", he said. And that servant fell on his knees and said, "Be patient with me. I'll pay it back." But he refused; would not forgive. Instead, he had that man thrown into prison until he should pay back all he owed. Well, the king hauled that guy back in. He said, "I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to, you worthless servant. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?" In anger, his master threw them into the jail to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. And Jesus said this, "This is how my Father will treat each of you if you will not forgive your brother from the heart." Well, that reaches down takes and takes the sword right out of the hand, doesn't it? I cannot horizontally be unforgiving to anybody if Jesus vertically is going to forgive me for all of my sins. That's the power of unity. That's the power. Jesus has opened a door of access. Look at verse 17 and 18, "He came and preached peace to you who are far away and peace to those who are near. For through Him, we both have access to the,” same Father, “to the Father by one Spirit." So the same Father, same Son, same Spirit, same access, that's unity. That's what we have. So, we're at peace with one another, and we have access to the “Father by the same Spirit.” But we can't go into the Father's presence covered with the muck of unforgiveness, bitterness, and racism, and arrogance. We can't. We must give all that up. How This Destroys Racism So, how does this destroy racism? Well, racism is essentially self-worship. We worship our own skin. We worship our own culture. We worship our own particularities and differences. The cross destroys self-worship along with all idolatry. The cross humbles all lofty, arrogant, proud hearts; and racism is lofty, arrogant, proud in a matter of the heart. The cross enables, empowers forgiveness. The cross teaches the truth about race. For what is it? Acts 17:26, "From one man, He's made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole Earth. And He determined the time set for them, and the exact places where they should live.” So, we are genetically one. And God willed a marvelous, amoral diversity among us. We don't look all the same, thank God! We look different, we have different hair colors, we have different eye colors, we have different physiological things about us. But we also have been settled in different places on Earth and in various mountain valleys and other places, and allowed to just flourish and do culture and develop post Tower of Babel, some languages and other aspects of culture, and those are cultural issues of cultural diversity. Again, I am not using the word diversity the way some educators use it these days. I'm talking about amoral diversity, the differences that God delights in. So, color blindness is not part of my message here. We are different, and we will celebrate. I think we'll be different in Heaven. I think that's marvelous. And so, the ultimate end of this in Revelation 7:9-10, "After this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every tribe and language and people and nation, standing before the throne in front of the Lamb, and they were wearing white robes, and they are holding palm branches in their hands, and they cried out in a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.'" Dealing with the Problem of Racism in the U.S. and at FBC Long, Difficult History: Race-Based Chattel Slavery Now, let's zero in on the special problem of racism in the United States. This is a long and difficult history, race-based chattel slavery is the basis of it. The first slaves came to the New World, to Jamestown in 1619 on a Dutch ship, which brought 20 Africans captured from a Portuguese slave vessel. Actually, the records aren't clear, they may not have been slaves, but indentured servants, as many poorer white people were, who came over across the ocean for economic opportunity, and they would sell themselves in indentured servitude for seven years, and then they would have their freedom. And so, the records would show of the white indentured servants, their names and then their date of release. But interestingly about the Africans, there was no date of release. So, that might have been right where it started, right there. Slavery was made legal in the colony of Virginia in 1640, though there are only a few dozen slaves at that point. But lucrative crops, like especially tobacco, greatly increased the desire for field workers in Virginia and other colonies. However, even at that point, most of them are white indentured servants coming from England, but The Great Plague and The Great Fire of 1660 in London wiped out a stream of indentured servants flowing to the New World. There was plenty of work to be done in old England at that point, and they didn't want to make the perilous journey, and they didn't need to be indentured servants. They could just work there. So, now what do the plantation owners do? And they turned at that point to chattel slavery among Africans, and the slave trade began in earnest at that point. And over the next 200 years, somewhere between six to seven million Africans were transported in inhuman conditions to America. The issue became intensely regional, as we know, leading to the Civil War. 1845: FBC Durham and the Southern Baptist Convention In 1845, two things happened, relevant to us. The Southern Baptist Convention was founded that year, and First Baptist Church Durham was founded that year; 1845. Now, the SBC, The Southern Baptist Convention, was founded because of a split among Northern and Southern Baptists who were meeting together to foster missions, and to pool their resources for missions. But they couldn't agree on whether a slave owner could serve as a missionary and bring their slaves with them. And so, the Southern Baptists divided over that issue. That's our denomination. For me, growing up as an Irish Catholic in Massachusetts, not an awesome thing. I didn't know that at first when I got involved in the SBC. But isn't it amazing how the Lord said what God has made clean let no one call defiled? God has the ability to clean things up, and I'm grateful for that. Praise God for that. Well, we know about the Civil War reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, lots of history many of us know somewhat, some of us know very well. The Civil Rights Era During the Civil Rights era in our nation, the first half of the 20th century, began the focus of the Civil Rights Movement, the segregation that was involved there, blacks and whites were separated in society. Blacks couldn't use the same drinking fountains, attend the same theaters, eat at the same restaurants. Here in Durham, the Woolworths on 124 West Main Street was the site of a historic sit-in at a lunch counter, and Martin Luther King Junior was present at that time. This was one of the first presentations of non-violent, but direct responses to segregation laws, right here in our city. This pattern became a major strategy for Dr. King's non-violent approach to overturning unjust laws. Now, in 1963, Dr. King, Martin Luther King Jr., was in prison, was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, for his involvement in a demonstration. And he wrote a letter from a Birmingham jail, April 16th, 1963. The letter was written to white clergy who were urging him to be patient and not take such radical steps against racial injustice. "Slow down, be patient." He wrote out of the passion of his heart. I'm going to quote some of it. "For years now, I have heard the word, wait. It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This wait has almost always meant never. We have waited for more than 340 years for our God-given and constitutional rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it's easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will, and drown your sisters and brothers at whim, and when you have seen hate-filled policeman curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity, and when you have seen the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society, when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and you see tears welling up in her little eyes when she's told that Funtown is closed to colored children. And then you see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people. When you're forever fighting a degenerating sense of nobodiness, then you'll understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope sirs you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience." Are We All Racists? There's a sense of urgency even now in our nation to address the issue of racism. I say that we Christians have the only answer, there is no other answer. This past year, I don't know when, but someone found a photo right from the steps of First Baptist Church, Durham, of two white men standing in suits with a serious look on their face and a black couple on the other side, and we don't know what's going on there, but what was happening here during those years? I wasn't here, most of you weren't either. I went through the phone book, the church phone book about six months ago to count the people who I still regularly expect to see attend worship here on Sunday mornings, whose date of joining FBC precedes mine, 57 of you. That number is getting smaller all the time. You know it can't get bigger. Think about that one, you'll figure it out. But there's a certain number of you that were here in those days. And it's difficult to look back. And there's two categories, always sins of omission, sins of commission, and it's hard, but that's what happened, that's where it was, and they are just questions. I don't know what this church was doing then. So it brings us to this poignant issue. Are we all racists? All of us? So, talking to Matthew about this, he says, “Racism,” he calls me Doc, “Racism, Doc, racism sneaky, kind of hides in there.” Would it shock you, FBC, if I told you that I don't struggle at all with any temptations toward tobacco or alcohol use? Would that shock you? Well, I don't. I would guess that a lot of you could say the same thing. No big achievement. Some of you maybe couldn't. But it's no big achievement. Alright, well, would it shock you if on the other hand I said to you, "I don't struggle with pride at all."? "Thank God, I have learned to conquer my pride so completely, I know it will never trouble me again." Would that bother you? “Yes!”, alright, thank you. Can I get a witness, right? Yes. Okay. Well then, apparently there are some sins that only some people struggle with, and we can honestly say “I'm not struggling with that,” I'm not saying I couldn't in the future, but it's just not a problem for me. And I need put no effort toward killing temptations in that area. But there are others that are so pervasive that we know that probably we struggle at some level. I think that racism tends more toward the second, not the first. It's more subtle than you may think. And just because you're not racist toward one category of people, doesn't mean you might not have a latent racism toward another category. So, it's sneaky and it's difficult. How it is Now So, how is it now? Well, this church, FBC Durham, has grown a lot since the mid 60s. There are many fruitful ministries that cut across ethnic lines and put Christ on display. But the actuality is that there is a clearly dominant ethnic flavor to this church. If you don't know what I mean, then just take a minute and look around. See, everybody is too embarrassed to do it. But you know what you would see if you looked around. People who study these things sociologically say you have to reach a 20% level before you could genuinely be called multi-ethnic. 20%. If 20% of those that worship in a church on Sunday morning are not of the dominant ethnic background, the dominant, then you're multi-ethnic. Also, statistics show that less than 7% of the congregations on Sunday morning are multiethnic. So that leads to a statement that I've heard, that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week in America, and it is so voluntarily. It's not like there are segregation laws on this, just people, and here we go, homogenous unit principle, you ready for this? People like to worship with people like themselves. Someone once said there should be a corollary to that, saying, "Yes, but they ought not be permitted to do so.” But what are you going to do? How do you stop it? I have yearned for years, to see FBC Durham to be a genuinely multiethnic community, and we're not, not yet. And just because we yearn to make it so it doesn't mean it will happen, it's very difficult to have it happen, it's hard. Now, I praise God that across an average year, not just blacks and whites, but many different ethnic backgrounds worship here on Sundays. It's fantastic, I love to see it. We have a flourishing international connections ministry, people from many different nations worship here as a result of that. The black and white issue is not the only one, I praise God that we have African-Americans that worship here with us. Application But we have here a tremendous opportunity for ministry, and that's what I want to transition to now briefly, just some applications. Come to Christ! First and foremost, can I just plead with any of you that are here that are not Christians to come to faith in Christ? I am offering zero advice to non-Christians on the issue of racism. I have no advice. Now, you could say that's extreme. We can influence non-Christians. I think that's actually true, I think we can, we can be salt and light, but to the heart of the issue, only the Gospel can transform the human heart. So I am appealing even beyond the issue of racism, which is temporary, for the sake of your own souls that you flee to Christ while there's time, that you find forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ. Self-Examination Secondly, if I can just say to Christians, would you please take Psalm 139:23-24 and say, "Search me, O God, and know my heart on the issue of racism. Show me if there's anything in me that's offensive to you. O God, help me not assume I'm not racist in some way. Please God, drive it out of me. Please make me, as much as possible, heavenly in my outlook now, before I ever get to Heaven. I know, Lord, if you will do that, I'll be far more fruitful and effective in ministry. Make me heavenly, forgive me, God, for what I've done. Forgive me for things I've said. Forgive me for sins of omission, forgive me for sins of commission on the issue of racism. Please change me, God. Search me and know me." Delight in What God is Doing Here And then delight in and get involved in the kind of ministries that are going on here. There's a lot of good things you can do. International Connections. Any chance those brothers and sisters would like a little help? Talk to Ron Halbrooks and others. Chase, can you guys use volunteers? Yes, he's saying yes. If you would like to get involved in teaching English on Wednesday evenings or other forms of ministry, fantastic. One of the best things you could do is say, "We would like to host some internationals in our home, we'd like to have them over, we'd like to get to know them." Many internationals never visit a home. You'd like to get involved in that. Now, concerning racism, can I just tell you the very fact that overt racism could never be tolerated in this church is something to celebrate. If I ever, if the elders ever heard that anything like that ever happened, it would be a matter of immediate church discipline, and we should praise God for that. That's progress. So the spirit in which I'm commending some change to you is this, 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10. "Now, about brotherly love, we do not need to write you for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other, and in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet, we urge you brothers to do so more and more." So, we're doing better than we were, but we can definitely be urged to do so more and more. That's all. So get involved. Get involved in International Connections, get involved in Prison Ministry. In a couple of weeks, we're going to have a chance to hear a testimony from a brother in Christ who was saved in Prison Ministry. We need men, specifically men, to get involved in that ministry. So, pray for it and see if you can get involved in that kind of thing. There are so many things we can do in terms of City Outreach. Talk to Matthew, he'll tell you the kinds of opportunities that we have here. Let's see if we can more and more pray toward our church being genuinely multiethnic, pray toward the 80%-20%, pray toward the 20%, and then 25% and 30%, whatever God wills. Pray that God would make us a genuinely multiethnic church. Matthew Hodges gave me a bunch of applications. Three pages, I think, Brother. If you want the full list, and it's good, alright. I'll tell you what, I'm going to bring these papers to the back of the church. I'm going to hold them in my hand until someone says, "I would like them." All you have to do is just promise to read them all. I don't have time to read them all, but I'm going to say a few things. The window for racial and ethnic unity at First Baptist Church is now open. Let's use it, let's employ this open window, this opportunity. Racism is a complex issue that needs the whole plan of redemption applied to it. It is easy to become defensive, deflective, and dismissive on the issue of racism. Don't let that happen. One of the best ways to heal racial strife is to fellowship with Christians of different races. Let's find out African-American churches that are working well, here in our community, and let's pray for them and see if there's ways we can partner with them. We should go out of our way to befriend people of different backgrounds. We should be open to others who don't see the race issue the way we do. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. When we are in the very large majority, we do not even operate in the category of ethnicity, race. We are humans, they're the ones with the race problem. Don't think like that, that's not true. Dealing With Immigration One final word I want to say, and then I'll be done. It's the issue of immigration. What's called illegal immigrants, sometimes called undocumented immigrants. This may be the second most controversial "us versus them" issue facing us today behind racism. Lots of powerful political rhetoric going on right now from presidential candidates on this issue. I'm not saying their names, but you know who I'm talking about, saying very potent and clear things about illegal immigrants, and citing dangers of ISIS, and dangers socioeconomically to our health care system, all kinds of things, issues of fairness, etcetera. And many of those comments are finding presently a resonant chord in the evangelical community. So I know I'm probably on thin ice with some of you out there. Where are we going with this? So, help me not to fall through. I did that once when I was 11, it wasn't fun. Russell Moore, President of the Ethics and Religious Life Committee, ERLC of the SBC, said this, "There are 12 million undocumented immigrants or aliens in our country. Our approach cannot be basically saying in Spanish or any other language, 'You kids get off my lawn.' That can't be our approach. This is a Gospel issue," says Russell Moore. “Jesus was a so-called illegal alien in Egypt when He fled for His life with His parents. In that way, he patterned the Jews who were, in some ways, undocumented aliens in Egypt. So much so that God said to Moses in Deuteronomy 10, "God executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing." Listen to this, “ ‘Therefore, you should love the alien, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.’" Deuteronomy 10:18-19. Jesus said in the sheep and the goats, “I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty you gave me something to drink, I was naked and you clothed me." What was the next one? "I was a stranger and you invited me in." There are serious political issues, I do not deny them. Borders should be secure. Businesses should be held accountable to what they do with their undocumented workers. Some of them bully them and threaten them with deportation if they don't do what they say. The Bible has a lot to say about wages withheld from workers and issues of justice. So there are gnarly issues here, but there's also, do you not see it? An incredible ministry opportunity for us. Talk about the Hispanic community for just a minute. In our community, the numbers have risen since I've been here, in the 17 years from, I think, something like 2,000 to well over 30,000 in the year 2010, and probably far more than that now. I don't know. Estimates are about 80% of them are undocumented. They are not an issue. They are people. And the issues of legality are real. But as Richard Lan said it, “Our country is saying to the world two things: Borders closed, and open for hire.” Both of those things are going on right now. So it's not as easy as it may seem. Ministry with Undocumented Immigrants David Platt, in his book Counter Culture, spoke of a flourishing ministry a pastor friend named Tyler, and as a senior pastor in Arizona. Tons of illegal immigrants, tons of rancorous political debate, Tyler and a handful of people began just simply serving migrant workers in Arizona, giving them food, clothing. Personal relationships started to develop. They listened, they learned from the people that they were serving. He said this, "It wasn't long before people we were asking to help us began donating more than food, they began donating their lives." It led to the construction of a Community Center in a Latino neighborhood. At that Community Center, there are weekly English classes, after school programs, life skill training, Bible studies, and conversions going on, and discipleship going on. Tons of opportunities to share the Gospel and lead people to Christ. Also, tons of controversies and difficulties, too. What do we expect? And so I'm asking that some of you who have a heart for this city, who have a heart for racial reconciliation, a heart for African-American connections, a heart for the Latino community, step up and say, "How can we begin serving? How can we begin ministering?" I don't know what the answers are. To me, this is the scariest part of the whole sermon; what are we going to do about it? Is it just going to be rhetoric, or are we actually going to act?" But I know this, in the end, every elect person will be standing around the throne, they'll be in a white robe, and they will be praising God. And no one's ethnic or socioeconomic background will in any way hinder them from being there. Close with me in prayer. Prayer Father, we thank you for the Gospel, thank you for the truth that we have in Ephesians 2:11-17, how Christ has made a way for us to be reconciled to God and to one another. Help us to find ministries in this community that will be fruitful evangelistically. For the praise of your glory, in Jesus' name, amen.
"What is the Christian response to the Supreme Court ruling?" This was a direct question asked of Pastor Marshall in India by two Christian Indian leaders and a Japanese Christian leader. The world is looking on. Ezekiel's call gives us guidance during troubled times. We are all called. Will we answer?
When one thinks of the connection of religion and imperialism in Japan, one automatically thinks first of Shintoism and second of Buddhism. Christianity does not usually figure into that story. However, Emily Anderson, in her new book Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan: Empire for God (Bloomsbury, 2014), shows how and why it must be included. Through her detailed and rich study of Japanese Protestants, particularly Congregationalists, Anderson illustrates the disparate ways these Christians related to empire. Some fully supported the Japanese empire, believing that through it Japanese Christians could both solve the problems faced by Western Christianity and bring “civilization” and Christianity to Chinese and Koreans. Others, through the dissemination of Christian understandings of anarchist and socialist ideas, challenged the very idea of empire and called for a small Japan. Anderson's eye for detail and her careful presentation of these different views make this a must-read for anyone interested in Asian Christianity and the relationship between religion and empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When one thinks of the connection of religion and imperialism in Japan, one automatically thinks first of Shintoism and second of Buddhism. Christianity does not usually figure into that story. However, Emily Anderson, in her new book Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan: Empire for God (Bloomsbury, 2014), shows how and why it must be included. Through her detailed and rich study of Japanese Protestants, particularly Congregationalists, Anderson illustrates the disparate ways these Christians related to empire. Some fully supported the Japanese empire, believing that through it Japanese Christians could both solve the problems faced by Western Christianity and bring “civilization” and Christianity to Chinese and Koreans. Others, through the dissemination of Christian understandings of anarchist and socialist ideas, challenged the very idea of empire and called for a small Japan. Anderson’s eye for detail and her careful presentation of these different views make this a must-read for anyone interested in Asian Christianity and the relationship between religion and empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When one thinks of the connection of religion and imperialism in Japan, one automatically thinks first of Shintoism and second of Buddhism. Christianity does not usually figure into that story. However, Emily Anderson, in her new book Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan: Empire for God (Bloomsbury, 2014), shows how and why it must be included. Through her detailed and rich study of Japanese Protestants, particularly Congregationalists, Anderson illustrates the disparate ways these Christians related to empire. Some fully supported the Japanese empire, believing that through it Japanese Christians could both solve the problems faced by Western Christianity and bring “civilization” and Christianity to Chinese and Koreans. Others, through the dissemination of Christian understandings of anarchist and socialist ideas, challenged the very idea of empire and called for a small Japan. Anderson’s eye for detail and her careful presentation of these different views make this a must-read for anyone interested in Asian Christianity and the relationship between religion and empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When one thinks of the connection of religion and imperialism in Japan, one automatically thinks first of Shintoism and second of Buddhism. Christianity does not usually figure into that story. However, Emily Anderson, in her new book Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan: Empire for God (Bloomsbury, 2014), shows how and why it must be included. Through her detailed and rich study of Japanese Protestants, particularly Congregationalists, Anderson illustrates the disparate ways these Christians related to empire. Some fully supported the Japanese empire, believing that through it Japanese Christians could both solve the problems faced by Western Christianity and bring “civilization” and Christianity to Chinese and Koreans. Others, through the dissemination of Christian understandings of anarchist and socialist ideas, challenged the very idea of empire and called for a small Japan. Anderson’s eye for detail and her careful presentation of these different views make this a must-read for anyone interested in Asian Christianity and the relationship between religion and empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When one thinks of the connection of religion and imperialism in Japan, one automatically thinks first of Shintoism and second of Buddhism. Christianity does not usually figure into that story. However, Emily Anderson, in her new book Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan: Empire for God (Bloomsbury, 2014), shows how and why it must be included. Through her detailed and rich study of Japanese Protestants, particularly Congregationalists, Anderson illustrates the disparate ways these Christians related to empire. Some fully supported the Japanese empire, believing that through it Japanese Christians could both solve the problems faced by Western Christianity and bring “civilization” and Christianity to Chinese and Koreans. Others, through the dissemination of Christian understandings of anarchist and socialist ideas, challenged the very idea of empire and called for a small Japan. Anderson’s eye for detail and her careful presentation of these different views make this a must-read for anyone interested in Asian Christianity and the relationship between religion and empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When one thinks of the connection of religion and imperialism in Japan, one automatically thinks first of Shintoism and second of Buddhism. Christianity does not usually figure into that story. However, Emily Anderson, in her new book Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan: Empire for God (Bloomsbury, 2014), shows how and why it must be included. Through her detailed and rich study of Japanese Protestants, particularly Congregationalists, Anderson illustrates the disparate ways these Christians related to empire. Some fully supported the Japanese empire, believing that through it Japanese Christians could both solve the problems faced by Western Christianity and bring “civilization” and Christianity to Chinese and Koreans. Others, through the dissemination of Christian understandings of anarchist and socialist ideas, challenged the very idea of empire and called for a small Japan. Anderson’s eye for detail and her careful presentation of these different views make this a must-read for anyone interested in Asian Christianity and the relationship between religion and empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For almost a hundred years Japanese fighting men were employed across a wide area of Southeast Asia as mercenaries in the service of the kings of Siam, Cambodia, Arakan, Spain and Portugal and for the directors of the Dutch East India Company. This activity is described and discussed in the context of contemporary international relations and the spread of European colonialism in the region, noting in particular the impact on the recruitment and activity of mercenaries caused by Japan’s progressively strict regulations from 1621 onwards regarding the employment of its citizens, their overseas travel and Japan’s relations with neighbouring countries. The Japanese ‘Wild Geese’ (a colloquial term for mercenaries) were used in dramatic assault parties, as staunch garrisons and as willing executioners. A stereotypical image of the fierce Japanese warrior thereby developed that had a profound influence on the way they were regarded by their employers. Although this image, which began with the wakō (Japanese pirates,) was a positive one at first, their reputation acquired a negative sheen when employers experienced difficulties in disciplining them or began to question their loyalty. Two contrasts will be noted. First, the mercenaries’ role with regard to the rulers of Southeast Asian kingdoms was largely that of acting as long-term palace guards, while recruitment by European powers tended to be of shorter duration for specific campaigns. Second, whereas the Southeast Asian monarchs tended to trust their well-established units of Japanese mercenaries the Europeans admired them but also feared them, and in every European example a progressive shift in attitude may be discerned from initial enthusiasm to great suspicion that the Japanese might one day turn against them, as illustrated by the long-standing Spanish fear of an invasion of the Philippines by Japan accompanied by a local uprising. Ironically this fear was matched by a similar concern on the other side that Spain would invade Japan with the assistance of Japanese Christians who had been exiled and a ‘fifth column’ of Christian sympathisers within Japan itself. The part played by the suppression of Japanese Christianity in the creation of the independent groups of exiled warriors who posed such a threat is also discussed, and suggestions are made as to the reasons for the profound change of policy with regard to the employment of Japanese mercenaries which took place under the Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada. It is finally suggested that if, during the 1630s, Japan had chosen engagement with Southeast Asia rather than isolation from it the established presence of Japanese communities overseas may have had a profound influence on the subsequent development of international relations within the area.
For almost a hundred years Japanese fighting men were employed across a wide area of Southeast Asia as mercenaries in the service of the kings of Siam, Cambodia, Arakan, Spain and Portugal and for the directors of the Dutch East India Company. This activity is described and discussed in the context of contemporary international relations and the spread of European colonialism in the region, noting in particular the impact on the recruitment and activity of mercenaries caused by Japan’s progressively strict regulations from 1621 onwards regarding the employment of its citizens, their overseas travel and Japan’s relations with neighbouring countries. The Japanese ‘Wild Geese’ (a colloquial term for mercenaries) were used in dramatic assault parties, as staunch garrisons and as willing executioners. A stereotypical image of the fierce Japanese warrior thereby developed that had a profound influence on the way they were regarded by their employers. Although this image, which began with the wakō (Japanese pirates,) was a positive one at first, their reputation acquired a negative sheen when employers experienced difficulties in disciplining them or began to question their loyalty. Two contrasts will be noted. First, the mercenaries’ role with regard to the rulers of Southeast Asian kingdoms was largely that of acting as long-term palace guards, while recruitment by European powers tended to be of shorter duration for specific campaigns. Second, whereas the Southeast Asian monarchs tended to trust their well-established units of Japanese mercenaries the Europeans admired them but also feared them, and in every European example a progressive shift in attitude may be discerned from initial enthusiasm to great suspicion that the Japanese might one day turn against them, as illustrated by the long-standing Spanish fear of an invasion of the Philippines by Japan accompanied by a local uprising. Ironically this fear was matched by a similar concern on the other side that Spain would invade Japan with the assistance of Japanese Christians who had been exiled and a ‘fifth column’ of Christian sympathisers within Japan itself. The part played by the suppression of Japanese Christianity in the creation of the independent groups of exiled warriors who posed such a threat is also discussed, and suggestions are made as to the reasons for the profound change of policy with regard to the employment of Japanese mercenaries which took place under the Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada. It is finally suggested that if, during the 1630s, Japan had chosen engagement with Southeast Asia rather than isolation from it the established presence of Japanese communities overseas may have had a profound influence on the subsequent development of international relations within the area.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God 1741 in New England, one of the great times in church history, world church history, certainly in American church history, the Great Awakening was spreading like wildfire in many communities in New England and across the colonies, from north to south, from south to north. Many, many people being brought into the kingdom. Up in New England, the church was already ancient at that point, many, many decades. There have been people who had heard the Gospel, who had been infant-baptized, their ancestors were Puritans. They lived a certain kind of life, but now in the second and third generations, and beyond, they had a kind of a light attitude towards the things of God. They really didn't take them very seriously. The time was right for a renewal, a revival, an awakening, and it was spreading like wildfire under the Ministries of men like George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, preaching the gospel. The revival had come with great power to a small community in Connecticut Suffield. Lots and lots of people had turned 95, people had pledged their commitment to Christ, so they had been churched before they knew that they were lost, and that they had turned to Christ through the hearing of the gospel and they had believed. And they were meeting daily for prayer and they were concerned that the Gospel continued to spread throughout Connecticut, and Western Massachusetts, different parts and in neighboring community of Enfield, nothing like that was going on at all. Revival was just seemingly bypassing that community. And so they sent some missionaries to the neighboring town. Some people to preach the gospel, some people to reach out, and those people were met with basically a yawn; nothing really going on. July 8th, 1741, the next missionary was Jonathan Edwards. He came and spoke, it was the middle of the week, it was a Wednesday service. And eye witness that was there said that the crowd that gathered was indifferent and close to unruly and rude. These were church people, if you asked them if they were Christians they would have said yes. Edwards of course, preached the most famous sermon in church history, I think certainly American church history, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." The text he preached from, Deuteronomy 32-35, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them." The doctrine from the sermon was there is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of Hell, but the mere pleasure of God and that God is incensed that their sin. So, there you have the sermon text, and the doctrine, but the title comes from the text that we're preaching on today. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, look at verse 27, it speaks of "a fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." And look at the very end of verse 31. "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." And if you just put all that together, you end up with this sermon title, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, comes from our text today. Now that sermon is famous or I really should say more infamous. It's in anthologies of literature, which is an odd place for it to end up, but I think it's the providence of God, Amen. So you're reading along, and you're reading all of these works of literature and you come across this oddity from American church history, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, but it's usually mocked by those that present it, that teach it in school settings, etcetera. John Piper thinking about the effects of that sermon and the way it's been treated in subsequent generations, even up to our present time, he asked these questions, and just thinking about it said, "What high school student is ever asked to come to grips with what is really at issue here in this sermon by Edwards? If the Bible is true, and if it says that some day Christ will tread His enemies like a wine press with anger that is fierce and almighty, and if you are a pastor charged with applying biblical truth to your people so that they will flee the wrath to come then what would your language be? What would you say to make these people feel the reality of texts like these? And if you're asked why is it that English Literature teachers and that many pastors who use kind of circumlocutions, and maybe skip the text entirely or just never preach on hell, or judgment, or wrath, why is it that they behave like that and Edwards preach like he did? So plainly, so clearly, working on language, working on illustrations? Doing whatever he could to stimulate inside people inside their minds, a sense of the gravity of the judgment and wrath of God. Why is that? Piper surmised that if a bright student was there, he would pipe up and answer something like this. It's because he, Edwards, really believed in hell and they don't. And so, in today's text, in Hebrews 10:25-31, we come face-to-face with the wrath of the living God. It is not a popular doctrine, it's not an easy thing to preach on. People frequently come to church looking to be entertained, and in some way, diverted from the general pain and suffering of their lives to feel good for a little while before they go back to the fray. And so they're looking for something light and airy and something entertainment-oriented, and that's what's popular. : This is not popular. But the question that's in front of us today, is, is it true? Is it true that the living God, the God, that really exists, the God who sits on His throne and who rules the universe has this kind of an active passionate response to human sin? Does he have this kind of wrath? And not just against any sinners, but against those who had, in some sense, embraced the truth for a while and turned away from it. Is it true? That's what's in front of us, and in this text, we come face-to-face with these questions. The context here of our passage today, Hebrews middle of Chapter 10, we have had nine-and-a-half chapters of doctrine on the superiority of Christ who brings a superior covenant, resulting in a superior life. This is what we are talking about here, how Jesus Christ is superior in every way to all of the Old Testament figures. Superior to the prophets who spoke of old, superior to the angels who mediated the old covenant. Superior to Moses, who was merely a servant in God's house while Jesus is a son over God's house, superior to Levi, superior to Abraham himself, superior in every way. And his priestly ministry, as we've looked at in detail is a superior ministry. He offers not the blood of bulls and goats in a temporary tent, a tabernacle, set up by human hands, but he offered for all time, once for all time, his own blood offered in the heavenly sanctuary for our final salvation, a superior work. And so these were Jewish people who had made some kind of profession of faith in Christ but under certain temptations and pressures, were being pulled on to turn their backs on Jesus and go back to Old Covenant Judaism, go back even more significantly to a life of sin. Away from their profession of faith in Christ. And so, in the previous test we had a bunch of encouragements, a statement of what we have in verses 19 up though 24, chapter 10, "Therefore brothers since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God." And how marvelous is that? And so he's presenting the beauty and the attractiveness of the Gospel. But now in this text, he turns, the author does and gives us a serious warning. And so the combination of the enticement of joy and blessing, and happiness in the presence of God, plus the dire warning, concerning those who reject this gospel together as God's persuasion to you. I. The Terrifying Reality of God’s Wrath So we're looking at this warning, and the Book of Hebrews is rich with statements of grace, God's lavish grace to sinners is a unifying theme of this book. Way back at Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3, After Christ had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven. So right from the very beginning of the book of Hebrews, we have mentioned purification for sins. And then at the very end, which we haven't reached yet in Hebrews 13:20, it speaks of the "God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant, brought back from the dead, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep." And so you have at the very end, the blood of the eternal covenant, and Jesus as our Shepherd, resurrected from the dead. Bookends of grace, of the Gospel of grace. And right in the middle, statements like in Hebrews 9:14, how the blood of Christ cleanses us, cleanses our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God. And the essence of the New Covenant in Hebrews 8:12, "I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more." Friends, this is the gospel that God sent His son. Born of a virgin at the right time and He lived a sinless life, and He died on the cross in our place. Suffered under the wrath of God, and that there is, at the essence of the sacrificial system of what Jesus did, an exchange, a transfer that happens, where our guilt has taken off of us 100% and laid on Jesus, and He suffers under the wrath of God for us in our place. God raised Him up on the third day, showing that that sacrifice was acceptable to Him, and that all we have to do to be justified is belief that gospel. Simply by faith. We're going to see at the end of this chapter, chapter 10. "My righteous one will live by faith." It's just justification by faith. We are made right with God simply by faith. And so, I plead with you, I don't know all of you, I see some strangers here, I don't know. And even those of you that I know well, I don't know what's going on in your hearts, but I tell you this is the gospel. Don't leave here lost. You are under the sound of the Gospel right now. This and other places like the most powerful places on earth right now. You're hearing the Gospel, this is the gospel that can rescue you from the dominion of darkness and bring you into the kingdom of the beloved Son, trust in Him, believe in Him. And if you're hearing these words and you're just saying, your heart's rejoicing and saying, "That is the Gospel. I've been believing, now for decades," that's fantastic, keep believing that good news and proclaim it to lost people, out there. So you're hearing me say these words, memorize them and say something like it to a lost co-worker this week. This is the good news, and so what I'm telling you is the Book of Hebrews is just woven through with the Gospel of grace. It's just woven through. But Hebrews also is powerfully clear about the wrath of God against sinners, just as clear. So back at Hebrews 2:3, it says, "How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? That's a threat, that's a warning, we will not escape God's wrath if we neglect or ignore such a great salvation. And then in Hebrews 3:11, "So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'" And there God's wrath and His swearing, His promise, "You will not enter my rest." His rest is heaven. And God swearing in wrath that they will not enter. And then in Hebrews 6, that the dreadful picture of those who had once been enlightened, have tasted the Holy Spirit, have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, who then fell away saying it's impossible to renew them again to repentance and then gives us this analogy of land that drinks in all this rain and all these blessings and all this good stuff and produces nothing but thorns and thistles. "It's worthless," it says. In danger of being cursed, in the end it will be burned. These clear warnings throughout of the wrath of God against those who reject the gospel. But in the entire book there is no clear description of this wrath than in the text we're looking at today. Look at verse 27, it speaks of "a fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." In verses 28 and 29 it says, "Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished," et cetera? And then at the end, for we know Him who said, "'It is mine, to avenge I will repay.' And again 'the Lord will judge His people.' It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And so we have clear descriptions in the text we're looking at today, of the wrath of God against sinners. We have a legal description in verse 27. It speaks of the judgment of God, fearful expectation of judgement, and so it's based on truth, it's based on God the judge. It's based on that heavenly court scene in which the court is seated and the books are open, and the whole human race is assembled and God judges by right judgment, and there's no deceiving the judge. The judgment of God, clearly depicted here, leading to wrath. There's also an emotional description of all this, it speaks of a fury of fire, a fury of fire is one of the translations here. Which results in terror, and terror is an emotion, it's an emotion here. And so we have God's emotions, and then a corresponding human emotion that comes from it. So God has a zeal, there's a fire here, a passion. And God's zeal is for the glory of His own Son. You remember how it said in Hebrews 1:13, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot stool for our feet." God zealous for that. He burns with a passion that His son be glorified. And so there was a zeal, a raging fire of God's zeal, and I think we could extend it also to the fact that these folks are insulting the spirit of grace. And so, He is zealous also for the honor of the Holy Spirit. And so there is a sense of God's zeal for the glory of His own person. And that zeal is like a fire, a raging fire. And it results in a human emotion, an expectation of judgment. Expectation, what does that mean? I would contend that this is the dead opposite, the exact opposite of biblical hope. Biblical hope is. I'm looking ahead to the future, and it's bright and glorious. It's going to be wonderful. I can't wait for it to come. Oh how beautiful it's going to be in the new Heaven, the new earth and I'm going to be there and I'm excited about that. And I'm happy about it, it brings me joy. That's hope, that's biblical hope. Examples of the Fear of Judgement Fires This is the exact opposite, a fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire, it's exactly the opposite. And so these folks when they think about the future, their heart starts to well up with terror. They think about the judgment of God. Now, sometimes there are testimonies about how sometimes this will happen even on people's death beds. Reading about the death of Joseph Stalin, for example, his daughter Svetlana testified what it was like to watch him die. She said, "the death agony was terrible, God grants an easy death only to the just. He literally choked to death as we watched. At what seemed like the very last moment he suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance, insane, or perhaps angry and full of fear of death, then something incomprehensible and terrible happened that to this day I can't forget. He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something up above and bring down a curse on us all, the gesture was incomprehensible and full of menace. The next moment after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh." and he was dead. Foretaste perhaps. Thomas Paine who wrote, the terrible book, "Age of reason," an atheistic book in which he openly stated that the New Testament accounts of Jesus's birth, life, resurrection are clearly frauds. It's what he wrote in age of reason. But at the end of his life, this is what he said, "I would give worlds, if I had them, that the Age of Reason had never been published. Oh Lord, help me, Christ help me." And he cries out to people standing around, "No, don't leave me, stay with me, send even a child to stay with me, for I'm on the edge of hell here alone. If ever the devil had an agent, I have been that one." So Thomas Scott said this: "Until this moment, I thought that there was neither God nor hell, now I know and feel that there are both, and I'm doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty." So, Francis Newport who was the head of an English atheist club. On his death bed said this, "You need not tell me there is no God, for I know that there is one, and I am in His presence. You need not tell me that there is no hell. I feel myself already slipping, wrenches cease your idle talk about there being any hope for me. I know I am lost forever. Oh that fire the insufferable pangs of Hell." That's how he died. "Fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." That's what the text is talking about. Voltaire that great mocker, French enlightenment philosopher. The end of his life said this, "I am abandoned by God and man." And he said to his doctor, Dr. Fu-shin who was ministering to him, he said, "I would give you half of what I'm told I'm worth, if you would just extend my life by six months." The doctor told him it was impossible. He said, "Then I shall die and go to hell." And his nurse, who was caring for him after he died said this, "For all the money in Europe I wouldn't want to see another unbeliever, die all night long he cried out for forgiveness." But on the other hand there is the atheist Thomas Edison whose final words were, "It's very beautiful over there." Truly God is a God who hides Himself, it's not always the same. But the text does say, it seems in some cases that people have a fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. And there's a physical description of it here, it's consistent. So consistent biblical expression; fire. It's always fire, it's always fire. The lake of fire. Beware of people who tell you? It's just a metaphor, I don't know what that means, a metaphor of what. Something lighter something easier, something better? No, it's better to be burned with physical fire than to go to hell. It's better. So it's a metaphor expression or an analogy of something worse than the thing you think of when you think of that word. A Punishment Worse Than Death But it's not annihilation either, you're not consumed in that sense. I don't believe in that doctrine. The worm does not die. There is a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked, and so in some mysterious way the physical body is sustained and supported throughout all eternity. It's a terrifying thing. The text in effect calls it a punishment worse than death. And the author uses a, how much more argument. Look at verses 28 and 29, "Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses." How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished, who has trampled the Son of God under foot…?" So he's using a "How much more" argument, comparing two things and say that this is true. And how much more would that be true? Now, throughout the book of Hebrews, we have been celebrating the superiority of the New Covenant to the old, it's greater, it's better, it's a clearer revelation of the glory of God. The new covenant, the gospel of Jesus Christ is a clearer, brighter, better revelation of God than the Old Covenant was. It's better in every way. And the biblical mentality in judgment is the more you know the more you're accountable for, you see, that's how it works, the more you know, the more you're accountable for. And so I do not believe in equality of punishment in the end. Someone who's never heard of the Gospel is in a different place than someone who has heard for years and rejected, and just in different place. And so the argument here is, now that we have received the new covenant instruction, it is a much worse thing to turn away from the New Covenant than it ever was to turn away from the old covenant. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punish? There's a sense of justice here. And the punishment in the Old Covenant's right in the text was death, right? Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy. And so therefore, this has got to be worse, and it is. Jesus said, "Do not fear those who kill the body and after that they can do nothing more to you, but I tell you the one to fear, fear the one who after the death of body has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." Those are Jesus's own words. So there's a punishment worse than death. Now the roots of God's wrath in the text, God's holy character and His sovereign position, His holy character comes from the statement, "For we know Him who said..." What do we know about him? He's a God who does not speak in idle word you see. He doesn't speak an idle word, he doesn't give an idle promise and not, neither does He give an idle threat or warning. What God has said he will do. And so, we know Him, who said this, We know his character, he is the God who upholds His word. And it also says He is living. Look at Verse 31, "It's a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." It's a common title in the Old Testament to call God the living God. The reason is there He was being compared to the false gods of the nations, they weren't alive, they didn't exist. Like Baal on Mount Carmel, "Oh Baal hear us." Well, he couldn't hear because he doesn't exist. But Yahweh, now he's the living God, he actually is alive, He is real whether you believe in him or not, he is the living God. And so therefore, these are not idle warnings, these are not idle threats. He is alive, He rules, He reigns. There will be a judgment day. Vengeance Belongs to the Lord He is truthful, and He is alive, that's His character. What of his position? Well, the text says, "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay." "Vengeance is mine." In other words, it is right for me to take revenge on my enemies. It is just for me because that is my position, I am the judge of all the earth, it is right for me to do this. Vengeance belongs to me. Now, this is quoted in Romans 12, but it's much more of a human horizontal aspect. That we will not repay our enemies with unkindness, we will be, we'll pray for them, we'll deal well with them, we will not take revenge, because it's not our place. Vengeance belongs to God, it's not our place to take revenge. Well, that's the human aspect. Here in Hebrews 10, it's really totally about God and saying, this is God's position, it's right, it's his office and he will execute it, He will take vengeance. And the sense of vengeance is, you know, when you think of vengeance, somebody wants to take revenge, some grievous affront or assault has been done by person B on person A, and person A wants to take revenge for that. It's because something serious has happened. Taking revenge. Something serious here has happened. The Son of God has been trampled under foot, you see. The spirit of grace has been insulted? This is not a minor thing, the gospel has been rejected. And so that's the root of God's wrath. II. When Does God Display This Wrath? Now, when does God display this wrath? Well, the root cause of course is sin. Look at verse 26, "If we deliberately keep on sinning…" Of course, the wrath of God is produced by sin, it is sin that brings on this wrath. But Christ's sacrifice is sufficient for any sin. We've learned that. The blood of Christ is infinitely adequate and sufficient for any sin. This seems to be in some way and unpardonable sin, how can it be that Christ's blood is not availed for this situation? Well, the text tells us, in effect, God pours out his wrath when there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Well, that's what the text tells us, it's when there's no longer any sacrifice for sin. Well, when is that, when is it that there's no longer any sacrifice for sin? We knew that the blood of animals, the blood of bulls and goats never took away sin, never. It was never effective for that. And besides which it is now obsolete, so it can't refer to that. Well, I think the text tells us what we're talking about. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses, you see, died without mercy. So these are people who in some way, reject the new covenant the way that these folks rejected the Old Covenant. Now, there were lots of death penalties set up in the Old Testament in the old covenant under the Law of Moses. You died, you could die for adultery, you could die for murder, etcetera, but there was a special phraseology for people who ran after other gods and incite others to do it. And so, in Deuteronomy 13 it says, "If you're very own brother or your son, or daughter, or the wife you love or your closest friend, secretly entices you saying, 'let us go and worship other gods,' gods that neither you nor your fathers have known gods of the people around you, whether near or far from one end of the land to the other, do not yield to him or listen to him, show him no pity, do not spare him or shield him." And so it says, and in our text anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without pity, without mercy. I think that's what it's talking about here. It's somebody that turns their backs on God and runs after another religion basically another god, they die without mercy. And even the husband or the wife or the brother of the friend must be the first to act in putting them to death. That's how serious this was. III. For What People Is there No Longer a Sacrifice? Okay, well for what people then, is there no longer a sacrifice? What does it say about them? Well, who are they now? Well, they go on willfully sinning. Again in verse 26, "If we deliberately keep on sinning, after we've received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sin is left." This is a habitual commitment to sin. This is a determined commitment to sin, this is not an accidental commitment, this is not something that happens. Like the Puritans called it surprisal. You know what I'm talking about, where you going along and then suddenly a temptation hits you and down you go. That's called a surprisal. We're not... This text isn't referring to that. And I don't think it's referring to that struggle with the flesh, that all of us has again and again, although more on that later, I'll talk about that more later. If I can just say pause, anything that gives you confidence in indulging the sins of the flesh, is the enemy of your soul, and I think a journey to apostasy. We'll get back to that later. I'm not giving you permission to sin and indulge the flesh because this text isn't talking about that. End of warning. But this text is talking about the deliberate commitment in a certain direction in a certain way. That's what it's talking about here. Matthew Henry said this, "This text has been the occasion of great distress to some gracious, that is genuinely converted souls. They have been ready to conclude that every willful sin after conversion and against the knowledge of the gospel is this unpardonable sin." You can't live your Christian life that way friends. We all stumble in many ways. And if you're going as soon as you stumble, you run to this text and you cry out against your soul, saying, "I am lost and I can never be redeemed. That's not the way to fight the battle, you already told in Hebrews 4, go to the throne of grace, receive mercy and grace to cleanse you, cleanse your guilty conscience, that's what sanctification is all about sanctification, not for perfect people, it for sinners. Matthew Henry says, "This has been their infirmity and error." That's not what this text is talking about. The sin here mentioned is a total and final apostasy when men with a full and fixed will and resolution despised and reject Christ himself. That's not the way I sin and it's not the way you sin, right? I sin, and grieve Christ and it grieves me very quickly, you see. I want Jesus to love my life, I want Him to be pleased with me and when I know I've sinned against Him, it immediately grieve me and I want to run back to him. Deliberate Rejection of Christ This is talking about something else. It is a deliberate commitment, a long-standing pattern of sin a rejection of Christ and of everything he stands for. The text also calls them enemies, they are enemies. Look at verse 27, "A fearful expectation of judgement and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God." Oh, what a dreadful thing this must be to have Almighty God as your enemy. I can't even ponder what that must be like, to have His omnipotence directed toward the destruction of your soul for all eternity. Like some kind of focus laser beam heating you up forever and ever. It's a terrifying thing to have omnipotence and omnipresence and omniscience directed against you, because you are the enemy of God. And thirdly, it says of them, that they trample the Son of God under foot. This is a total despising of Christ. How much more severely, verse 29, do you think a man deserves to be punished, who has trampled the Son of God under foot? There's a movie about Mozart called Amadeus, I watched a number of years ago, and in the movie the enemy of Mozart is this Italian composer named Salieri, and he admires Mozart's compositions, but hates his moral character, and feels himself morally superior to Mozart but clearly musically inferior, and it makes him angry at God. And his feelings of jealousy just keep driving him further and further, but he keeps them hidden because they're shameful, I think. And so no one knows about it, but he is deeply jealous of Mozart. At one point, Mozart's wife comes and brings a bunch of Mozart's compositions which are originals, have never been published or even played yet. He was just working on them, his music. Brought them to Salieri for him to use, Salieri to uses his influence to get a position, a paying position for her husband Mozart at the court. And so she shows him the music and he looks at it and he's being friendly to her, and all that, and he said, "Just leave it with me." And he says... She says, "I can't leave it, these are originals and he'll miss them, he'll want them back, you have to look at them right now." He said, "Now these are original, there's no other copies?" That's it. So he opens up and he starts looking. There's not a single mark or blemish on the page, everything like taking dictation from heaven. And the music was unbelievably beautiful. He could hear it in his mind, he is a composer himself, and he could just hear piece after piece after piece how beautiful it was, until finally, he's just overcome with both the ecstasy of the music and the rage toward God for giving this gift to such an immoral person, that he just is blimp, and he drops the music all over the floor, and Mozart's wife is stunned, and says, "Is it not any good?" And he looks at her and says, "Madam, it's miraculous." "Oh, then you'll help us?" And he just glares at her with a cold, icy glare and walks on the music, and walks out. Now, what is the significance of stepping on the music? He was really stepping on Mozart himself, right on his neck, you see. Right on his neck, stepping right on his face, it's total rejection. And that's what's going on in this text here, stepping on Jesus, trampling Jesus underfoot. Do you see what we're talking about here? That's not what happens when a Christian indulges the sin of the flesh, this is somebody who now hates Jesus. When we were missionaries in Japan, we visited a site of some martyrs, Christian martyrs under the Shogunate, these Japanese Christians were forced to step on a picture of Jesus and anyone who would step on the picture of Jesus, they reason wasn't a Christian. And so that in that way were test... They were tested. These were Catholic... Christians who had been led to the Catholic faith through Jesuit missionaries. And it really was a fork in the road to trample on this picture meant you're not a Christian, you could save your life. But if they refused to do it, they would be slowly burned to death. Now, that's an extreme example obviously, but these people are in some metaphorical way trampling on Jesus, they are trampling the Son of God under foot. It says also that they treat as a common thing, the blood of Jesus. Now, what do we mean by that? The NIV gives us treating as an unholy thing, but I don't think that's a good translation. It just means common. Jesus's blood is common, it's just like yours and mine. He was crucified with two other men. There's no difference between the blood of Jesus and that of the two thieves that were killed with him that day. This is the way an atheist will reason, Jesus was a good moral man, his blood was shed, he was a victim of political crime, and then He died a bloody death, and there's nothing special about the blood of Jesus at all. But we have found out that the blood of Jesus is the most precious substance there has ever been on earth by the blood of Jesus, my sins are forgiven, the wrath of God averted. But this individual doesn't think so anymore. It may they relate also to the Lord's Supper, how we sit down and we eat the bread, and we drink the cup, and it's symbolic of the blood of the New Covenant. This is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. But these folks have drunk of that. They've partaken in the Christian life in the church life, but now they're trampling it under foot and they're treating it as though it were a common thing, it's nothing. And then finally it says, "They have insulted the spirit of grace." The Holy Spirit is entrusted with the glorious task of taking the finished work of Jesus Christ and applying it to people all over the world. And so He moves out, and by the Spirit, He moves in missionaries and evangelists. And at that time, it says in Hebrews 2:4, "God testified to it by signs, and wonders, and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will." And so this is the lavish display of the Spirit of God and these folks have insulted the spirit of grace. They've insulted it, and I find it fascinating. John Owen brought this idea to my mind and he said, "Talk about Ananias and Sapphira? You remember what happened to them, how they sold a piece of property and then they lied about it and they were struck dead?" And it says, Peter said, "You have not lied... You have lied to the Holy Spirit." He specifically says you lied to the spirit. John Owen said this, "If lying to the Holy Spirit is so great a sin, then what is it to make the Holy Spirit a liar?" Greater, friends, greater sin. That the Spirit, as He has testified to Jesus Christ, is a liar. Jesus is not the only way. Well, that's what they are now. That's what these people are now. What Were They Then? What were they before? This is where it gets painful. Well, they received the knowledge of the truth. If we deliberately keep on sending after we have received the knowledge of the truth. Now, what does that mean? They've heard the gospel. They've heard doctrine. They've heard good instruction. They've heard good preaching and teaching. They have not only heard it but in some sense, received it, maybe they once received it with joy, like in the parable of the rocky soil, and all that. They have taken it in, they've run with it for a little while. They've received a knowledge of the truth, they're not ignorant of the Gospel. This text has nothing to do about those who've not heard of Jesus. These people have heard. And secondly, it says that they are His people, God's people. And says The Lord will judge his people. Why did the author bring that text in? Because it's relevant. These were in some sense, His people. Well, in what sense were they his people? Well, in the same sense, the Jews as a nation in the Old Testament were God's people. They were under the name of Yahweh. They had come out under the miracles and with Moses through the Red Sea. They were Yahweh's people and so therefore, God had married his name to them as a nation, His reputation to them. Well, whatever you can say about that in the Old Testament and just because you were a Jew, didn't mean you were going to heaven. Lots of those people died under the judgment of God, but they were God's people in a big sense. So we now say about the church. We are Jesus's people in the world. The church is. We meet every Sunday. We come together under the name of Jesus Christ. We hear this gospel. We are God's people in that sense. Publicly, openly, Jesus has united his name to the church in the world. And what else does it say about them? Well, they were sanctified. Now it gets really hard. This is the joy of verse-by-verse exposition. It would be nice to skip the word, but we can't. It says that they treat it as an unholy or a common thing. The blood of the covenant that sanctified him. But what does that mean? How do we understand this word? How do we understand what's happening here? Well, there are three possible options. Maybe more, but there's at least three. Option number one. It is possible for someone who is genuinely regenerate, justified to lose their salvation and end up in hell. That's how some people argue, and they say this text is plain. A plain example of those who were in that condition, they were justified, and they end up under the wrath of God through their own sins. It's even harder when you look at verse 14, in the same chapter, look at 10:14. It says, "For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time, those who are being sanctified." So these people are perfected. What does it say "for all time?" Well, that doesn't fit. How can you be both "perfected for all time," and then later "under the judgment of God?" That doesn't line up? So what do we do with that? Well, this is what we do with it. We already learned in Hebrews 3:14 that truly justified people show that they're truly justified by running the race to the very end. That's how they show it. And so it says in Hebrews 3:14, "We have come to share in Christ," past tense, "if we hold firmly to the end, the confidence we had at first." In other words, if you run to the finish line, then you are truly justified. I tell you, there is no one who is genuinely justified who will not finish the race. None of them drop out. And so therefore, I reject this first option. I think it overturned so many clear teachings of scripture. You can't be genuinely justified and God later changes his mind and say, "I didn't know this was going to happen." A second option is, this is merely a hypothetical case. This isn't true of anybody but the author wrote it. Does this sound hypothetical to you as you read it? Does it come across that way? Or do you have a sense that this is actively truly happening with some people? I don't think this is a good answer either. More likely, I think the word sanctified here in this verse, in verse 29, means something different than it did in verse 14. The author uses the word in a different way. Okay, I think in verse 14, it's talking about an inward work of God's sovereign grace by the Holy Spirit in which He changes you from within, so that His laws are written in your minds and in your heart. It's called the taking out of the heart of stone in the giving of the heart of flesh, and he has perfected you, and then he begins to transform your whole life and you're living a holy life now by the power of the spirit walking in the pattern of God's laws. That's sanctified in verse 14. In verse 29. I think it has to do with being set apart from the world, as special unto God. And as I already told you, that will happen if you come and hang out with Christians for a while. In some outward ways celebrate the Word of God. Fool a pastor into baptizing you. And then live generally okay for a while until things start to fall apart. You see what I'm saying? And for that while, you were set apart from the world, under the ministrations of the Gospel, under the ministrations of the Lord's supper and the baptism and the preaching of the Word and the spiritual gifts and all that stuff's going on. But now you have turned your back on it. This individual has said no to Jesus, rejecting aggressively. This is apostasy. That's what's going on here as John tells us in 1st John. They went out from us, because they were never really of us. Is it possible to fool a pastor? Oh yeah, yeah. I shudder sometimes to think of the percentage of people I baptized, water baptized, that will not end up in Heaven. It's a terrifying thing, to go to hell. I don't know who they are. I wouldn't have baptized them had I thought they would be like that. You remember that the 11 apostles thought Judas was going out to buy supplies for the feast. They were wrong about Judas. It's easy to fool people. IV. Clear Warning for Us All So the real warning here is for us. Test yourselves to see if you really are in the faith. Is it a genuine work of grace that's been done in your life. Are you genuinely resting on the promises of God? That's what this text does to me. I read this warning and I just say, "I've got to take this warning and take it seriously. I need to be terrified of sin. I need to live a life of total dependence on Jesus, away with any independent salvation here." This text makes me run and cling to Jesus more. You see what I'm saying? If you're ever thinking like this. Well, because of this doctrine, I know that I can sin and still be saved from apostasy. Woe to you, if you think like that. I warn you not to think like that, anything that gives you the sense that it's okay to sin is from the devil. It's not okay to sin. You're not safe in sin. Sin is never safe. And as I've said before, I think every sin, even of the flesh, even those surprises and all of those assaults, they tend toward apostasy. Do you know what I'm saying? That's where they're heading. They would lead you there if they could. And so, what causes you, when you're starting to indulge in sin of the flesh and that you don't really do a thorough work in your heart. And then you do it again, and pretty soon it's a habit and then you're starting to drift. But you are genuinely born again, genuinely justified. What is it that gets you to turn around this text and others? It warns you. Don't go that way. And you know who heeds these texts? The truly regenerate, the elect, they heed them. You know who doesn't? Those that aren't. They just keep on going in the same direction. And so be terrified of sin. Don't be comfortable in it. And I guess what I would say to you, I need to be so careful here, but I have to preach the text as is. I know there are sensitive souls among you. I've talked to some of you who struggle with assurance. You struggle, struggle, struggle, with assurance and for you, you may think this is the last term and I needed to hear today. Well, know you're here, providence of God. God wanted you hear this sermon. You need to have a healthier assurance. Get your assurance healthy. Justified by faith alone, look to Christ, trust in Him. Spirit works in you, you follow by the ways of the law. When you sin, you come back to the throne of grace and you ask forgiveness. That's the Christian life. I said it on Thursday, Men's Bible study, to have two things side by side, this is health for your soul. Complete total assurance that all of your sins are forgiven through the finished work of Christ on the cross, plus a settled determination to fight sin with every fiber of your being by the power of the Spirit. Those two things together, you're healthy. If you only have one of the two you are decidedly unhealthy. If you only have the determination to fight sin, but not that settled assurance of the finished work of Christ enough for you, you're going to be a legalist. You're going to try to earn your salvation by works of the law. If, on the other hand, all you have is that "once saved, always saved" doctrine, you're not fighting sin, then it's a licensed for you all the time. Hold them together. And understand and weigh the danger of apostasy. This is a serious thing. Don't take it lightly as though you're reading someone else's mail today. Assume that God brought you here to hear this message and look after your souls. Look after your souls. Meditate on the terrors of hell, the seriousness of what we're talking about. And look back one passage to Hebrews 10:19 through 26, to get some clear applications. Just read through it this afternoon, Hebrews 10 19 and following. Daily esteemed the greatness of Christ provision for you, think about that. Nurture your confidence. Full assurance of faith, be in the word. Feed your soul on the word so that your confidence is strong. Draw near to God in prayer and worship, and in your thought life, your daily life. Draw near to Him. Protect the sincerity of your heart. Don't violate your conscience. Don't willfully sin against your conscience, but when your conscience has been violated, quickly allow the blood of Jesus to cleanse it, and to restore you back in a walk with Jesus. Live a clean lifestyle. Your body washed with pure water. Feed your hope in the future glory. Feed on that. And stay actively involved in a good church. Don't think, hey, I'm not like the others. I'll be fine going to church, 20% of the time. Warning. Danger. For able-bodied you need to be there. So, stay actively involved in a good church and receive and give encouragement. Encourage and be encouraged. Feed on that and keep focusing on the coming judgment day. And finally, let's together, as primarily entrusted as leaders to the elders to be under-shepherds. But let's look for straying sheep shall we? Look around at your home fellowship. See who's not there. Look around at your Bible for Life class, see who's not there. Look around at Sunday morning worship, see who's not there. Let's go look for those that are wandering and drifting, and struggling. Because it could be that this process is begun. And then through tenderness, warnings, love, promises, bring them back. Close with me in prayer.
In this last of 4 parts, I interview Daiwu and discuss making it in Japan, Danger Zone soundtracks, the Rude Guy from Maui, Fidel Castro's Cuban future, French presidents, the terrorist from Lost on ABC, Hollywood business, hip hop prison love, gay rappers, Japanese Christians, "I'm Huge In Japan", beaches in Japan, Daiwu's breast size, etc. Show ends at 29:41. Never mind the 4:30 mns of silence afterwards. DAIWU'S LINKS http://daitime.podomatic.com http://www.daitime.com http://myspace.com/daiwu http://www.styleaholics.com http://www.AnthonyXGilbert.com http://www.theflowlive.com PODCAST LINKSSubscribe/ RSSBecome a fanAdd as friendJoin the list Send PodMailView ShoutoutsArchived Shows 206-337-1517doctormo @ podomatic.comListen Online
I. Introduction: 1630 in Massachusetts and Japan I'd like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy, as we continue our series in 2 Timothy: Boldness and faithfulness in preaching the Gospel. On March 22, 1630, an English Puritan leader named John Winthrop, stepped on a ship called the Arabella, and began a voyage crossing the Atlantic Ocean with 11 other ships. 700 Puritan fellow-worshippers, 240 cows, and 60 horses, it was the largest migration from England to the New World up to that point. Now they were leaving England and coming to Massachusetts, as a matter of fact, to found a colony, the Massachusetts Bay colony, the basis of which would ultimately establish our government. Now, they were coming to establish a government which was based on their own convictions, but later, came religious freedom in our country. And if any of you study history, you know that it was really some Baptist leaders that espoused the principles of separation of church and state. However, as a result of that legacy, we have generations of Christians who have never known what it means to suffer, I mean, really suffer, for their faith. All around the world today, there are, however, people who are suffering because they are Christians, people who are in prison, people who are dying, who have lost property. As a matter of fact, more people have suffered in this century, that kind of persecution than all the other centuries combined. Now, at the same time that Winthrop stepped on that ship to begin his journey, and halfway around the world, there was a handful of Japanese Christians who were suffering that kind of persecution. The Japanese government at the time, a military government, hated Christianity and looked on Christianity as a foreign import, somewhat like a tumor that needed to be cut out. So what the government did was, they put a picture of Jesus Christ or of the cross on the ground and gathered the local populace and they had the people walk on the picture. Their theory was that no true Christian would ever walk on a picture of Jesus Christ or on His cross. And between 5,000 and 6,000 Japanese Christians refused to walk on that picture. They were then tortured and put to death. Some historians believe that that persecution represented the greatest percentage of Christians who ever died for their faith in all of church history, because there really weren't that many more Christians than that in all of Japan. Now, when we were missionaries in Japan, we actually went to visit one of the places where they were held before they died. Some of them actually were pushed over a cliff and they died, they were dashed on the rocks below. And before they were pushed, they prayed and they said, "Lord Jesus, receive our spirit." Now, any of you who know the Book of Acts, know that that's exactly what Stephen prayed before he died. And so there is a heritage of suffering, persecution for our faith. We as Christians in America, however, are somewhat ignorant of that heritage, of that connection between bold and faithful witness to Jesus Christ, and the suffering of persecution. However, any of us who have tried to be faithful witnesses for Jesus Christ, whether to our friends, to our family, co-workers, we know the sting of persecution perhaps at a lesser level. Any of you today who are thinking of non-Christians you'd like to witness to, thinking of people you'd like to share the Gospel with, perhaps there's something inside you that holds back a little bit. There's some fear or lack of boldness. Our passage this morning addresses that fear. I think it's one of Satan's greatest weapons in preventing the advance of the Gospel. And we as members of First Baptist Church, we as Christians, we need to understand the principles of 2 Timothy and of other scriptures, so that we can push past that barrier of fear and be faithful and bold in preaching the Gospel. What I'm going to do is, I'm going to read beginning at verse 6, we're going to read to the end of the chapter. I'm going to begin my discussion at verse 8, but I want to get a running start into the passage. So let's start at chapter 1 of 2 Timothy verse 6, and following. "For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us the spirit of timidity but of power, of love, and of self-discipline. So, do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or ashamed of me, His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the Gospel by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done, but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. And of this Gospel, I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I'm suffering as I am. Yet, I am not ashamed, because I know Whom I believed, and I'm convinced that He is able to guard what I've entrusted to Him for that day. What you have heard for me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you. Guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me including Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day. You know in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus." II. Overview of the Chapter Now, in this first chapter, there are three charges that Paul gives to Timothy. Now let's understand again the context, which I explained last week. Paul is in prison, in a Roman prison, because he's suffering under the persecution of the Roman Emperor, Nero. Now Nero was a madman, he was crazy, and he had burned half the city of Rome and decided that he would blame it on the Christians. Now, it's fascinating to me at that early stage in the mis that Christianity had already made such an impact on Rome that he could blame such a large thing on the Christian body. The Gospel had had already permeated Rome to a great degree. The power of the Gospel is awesome, and in just one generation, it already reached the heart of the empire, the city of Rome. But Nero began this persecution, and Paul would eventually die under it. Paul was sitting in a prison, somewhat like a dungeon, a hole in the ground, with a little light above... A little hole above him for light and for air, and he was writing a final letter to his friend Timothy. He was preparing him to receive a serious Gospel charge. Paul had finished his work, and he knew he was about to die. He now wanted to commit the ministry over to Timothy. Timothy was his young lieutenant, his right-hand man, and the time had come for Timothy to step up and take the responsibility of leadership in those New Testament churches. And so he's going to give him throughout this letter, not just here in this first chapter, but throughout this letter, a series of charges to get Timothy ready for that serious commitment of carrying on the Gospel. Now the first charge, we talked about last week, mainly that in verse 6, that Timothy should fan the fire or the flame of the Spirit, the gift of the Spirit that is in him, the gift, the spiritual gift, of preaching and teaching the Gospel. And then he says, "Timothy, God has given you the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish everything that God has given you to do." And that spirit is not a spirit of cowardice. That's really how I used to translate verse 7, "God has not given us the spirit of cowardice, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline." And so, for that reason, Timothy, I'm charging you: Don't be ashamed of Jesus Christ, and don't be ashamed of His testimony, and don't be ashamed of me." So that's his second charge, and that's the one we're going to spend time with this morning. Next time I preach, not next week, but two weeks from now, I'll be talking more specifically about verses 13-14, the charge that Paul gives Timothy to guard the message of the Gospel. It's going to be a very important sermon. III. Paul’s Second Charge to Timothy: Don’t Be Ashamed of Christ (vs. 8-12, 15-18) But today we're going to talk specifically about Paul's charge to Timothy, that he not be ashamed of Jesus Christ. Now the context of course, is one of persecution, as I've mentioned. And we have to ask the question, why does the world persecute Christians? And also, how does the world persecute Christians? Well, the question, "why does the world persecute Christians?" has already been answered by our Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus was getting His disciples ready the night before He died in John 15:20, He said, "Remember the words I spoke to you. No servant is greater than his master." Do you hear that? "No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." If you are a Christian, you are under a master, and that master is Jesus Christ. If they treated the head of the house like Beelzebub, the king of flies or prince of demons, if they handled Jesus or treated Jesus that way, how are they going to treat you? Any better? Can you expect to be treated any better? In John 15:20, Jesus said that we must expect persecution because they treated him that way. Well, the question we have to ask then is, why did the world treat Jesus the way it did? John's gospel answers that as well. In John 3:19-20, Jesus says this: "This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." Do you hear that? They love the darkness because they want to continue living the kind of lives that they live. We live now in a dark world, a world full of people who want to continue to live in darkness. If we bring the light of Jesus Christ, they will hate us the way they hated Jesus. It's the same thing, they want to keep on living the way they've always been living: In darkness and in sin. And so they persecuted Jesus. In John 7:7, Jesus spoke to His brothers, and His brothers at that point did not believe in Jesus. And they were somewhat arguing with the way Jesus was going about his ministry. And so, Jesus said in John 7:7, "The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify that what it does is evil." Now, you can see now why the world persecuted Jesus Christ, because he always told the truth. What's interesting in that passage in John 7:7, is that Jesus really was rebuking his brothers, even though they didn't know it. He was saying, "The world can't hate you. It's impossible for the world to hate you, because you belong to the world. And so, the world will love you, it will welcome you, it will be kind to you. But the world can't welcome me, because I don't belong to it, and so, I'm going to be persecuted." Now, ultimately, Jesus' brothers did believe, and so the world could hate Jesus' brothers. Now, the question I have to ask the First Baptist Church is, "Can the world hate us?" Can the world hate us or is it impossible for the world to hate us, because we belong to the world, we're just like the world. We talk like the world, we eat like the world, we entertain ourselves like the world, we're no different than the world. And so the world loves us and accepts us as its own. May it never be. We have to be so radically different that the world can hate us. And that the world rejects us because of the light we bring, the Gospel message we bring. Martin Luther is one of the boldest men in the history of the church, gave us this charge and this is a beautiful thing, I like to think about this. He said, "We should always preach the Gospel message the way Jesus Christ did, so that after our preaching, men who have heard us will either hate us or hate their sin." Did you hear that? We should always preach the Gospel, so that when we finish preaching, men will hate us as the messenger or hate their sin. Faithful Gospel Ministry always produces two things, converts to Jesus Christ, and persecution, always. And when I see those two things flowing into this church, I will rejoice, because I know we're being faithful to the Gospel message He's given us. We are to be in effect, a fork in people's road. When they come along to a member of First Baptist Church, when they come to us, they have a decision to make. They come to a fork in the road. We shouldn't be one that makes no impact whatsoever on the flow of their life, but we are a fork in their road. We preach the Gospel to them, we explain to them the danger that they're in apart from Christ. And the eternal life that God promises them, the fullness and the richness, "I've come that they may have life and have it fully," and we present it, we lay it out openly for them. Come out of your sin, come out of the darkness, come into Jesus Christ and know His peace and His forgiveness. We're offering them such a message of forgiveness and a power, but we're also telling them to repent, because the Gospel is a command to repent. Well, guess what? We're going to be a fork in their road, and at that moment, they're either going to hate their sin or they're going to hate us, and that's when the persecution starts. How the World Persecutes Now, we have to ask, secondly, how the world persecutes? And I've noticed in my own life, the world tends to persecute in two levels or perhaps two stages. Level One: Societal Rejection The first level, you could call societal rejection. Society begins to spit you out, reject you. Doesn't want you. It doesn't like you. They begin to avoid you or ostracize you, make fun of you, tell jokes about you. They don't include you in their company, they go out to lunch, and they don't ask you. Now, they just don't really want to be around you. I remember early in my own Christian life, I'll never forget this. I was led to Christ by a guy in my fraternity when I was at MIT. And at first I liked to be around him, I guess, but as it went on, he seemed strange and I felt funny around him. He wasn't doing anything other than just living a Christian life in front of me, and inviting me to Christian meetings and doing various things, but I started to dislike being near him. And it got to the point where he would come and sit near me at dinner and I would get up and go over and put my plate down, and I'd come back and I'd get my fork and knife and get it and put it back, and I'd come back and get my glass and put it down. What a rebuke! And Steve just bore it all patiently. But in a way I was saying, "I really don't want to sit near you. I don't want anything to do with you." That was me. Someday, I would be on the other side of that, once I began to preach the gospel. But I praise God for Steve's faithfulness and he never gave up, and he kept inviting me, kept praying for me and ultimately, I came to Christ. Why is this such a powerful persecution? Why is it that societal rejection matters to us? It's because of who we are as human beings. We like to be together. We like to have friends, don't we? We like to enjoy times. That's why as Christians, we enjoy fellowship together. But from a very early age you can see people, little babies, who like public acceptance. I remember, Nathaniel, my son, when he was, oh, about 18 months old, we were in a small group Bible study in my home and there was a group of about 15 people and we used to meet in our homes for Bible study. We had a wonderful time. And he was there with us and he was sitting on the lap of one of the people in the study, and he said, something or did something, I can't remember what it was and everyone laughed. And I saw the look on his face, I was watching him and he was looking around and he felt happy and he did the same thing again. Do you know why he did it again, because he wanted to be liked. He wanted to be included, to be part of the group. Well, God has put that inside us, there's just nothing wrong with that. The problem comes when we put it above our call to be Christian witnesses. And when the world begins to reject us, it stings. And nothing's going to take that sting away, it's going to hurt when somebody turns away and walks away from you. But that's the first level of rejection. Level 2: Active Opposition The second level however, is a level that I would say most of you have never faced. It's active persecution. Maybe physical attack, on your life, on your possessions, on your livelihood, on your freedom, on everything you are, because you're a Christian. Now, as I said, many of us have not experienced that, but it is going on all over the world, it's going on in China. It's going on in parts of Russia, it's going on in India, it's going on in Pakistan. I've seen a lot of these places, where people are... They lose their job, they lose their homes, they lose everything that's dear to them, because they're Christians. Now, Christ called to the church for the first level of persecution. He says to us, "Don't be ashamed. When society begins to reject you, you're tempted to be ashamed, don't be ashamed." For the second level, a more aggressive persecution, He says, "Don't be afraid." These are the two commands he gives us. Now, as I sense that society and culture is getting more away from Christian principles, have you seen that in our society? I would say, if we use our imagination within two... Maybe one or two generations, the kind of persecution we see in China may happen in our country, I don't know. We need to be ready for it, get our children ready for it, our disciples ready for it. But that's not going on right now for the most of us. We have to face shame, the temptation to be ashamed and we have to deal with that properly. 3 Types of Shame Now, I think there are three types of shame. We are tempted towards three types of shame by Satan. Ashamed of the name of Christ The first is that we are tempted to be ashamed of the name of Christ. Now, if you look at Verse 8, he says, "Do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me as prisoner." So we're tempted to be ashamed to testify about the name of Jesus Christ. Ashamed of the people of Christ The second temptations, we're tempted to be ashamed of the people of Christ. He says, "Do not be ashamed of me as a believer, as a messenger of the Gospel." And we're tempted to be ashamed of the people of Christ, want to stay away from them in times of persecution. Ashamed of the gospel of Christ And the third is, we're tempted to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. We're tempted to be ashamed of all three. Overcoming Shame Now, most of the time with temptation, we want to do what? We want to run away from it, we need to get away from it. Flee temptation, right? Flee. And it's good, it's good to get out of temptation. In the Lord's prayer, it says, "Lead us not into temptation," right? "And deliver us from the evil one." Can we escape this temptation though in a Godly way? I don't think so. I think it's impossible, actually to escape the temptation. Because the only way we can escape it is to stop preaching the Gospel. We can't do that, we've got to face this and we have to deal with it properly. Now, Jesus said in Mark 8:38, "If anyone is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His Father's glory with His angels." And do you see what Jesus is calling us to? He's calling us to look ahead, to look to the future. When Jesus comes in mighty power as a king and sets up His reign, we're called to look ahead to that time. We don't want him to be ashamed of us, so we cannot be ashamed of Him. Jesus is lifting our eyes above it. And here in these Verses, Paul gives us all the help we need to overcome shame in these three ways. To overcome shame of the name of Jesus Christ. To overcome shame of the People of Christ being associated with the people of Christ. To overcome shame of the message of the Gospel. The first in Verse 8, he says, "Join with me in suffering for the Gospel. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or ashamed of me, as prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the Gospel," verse 8. Now, in the original language there's a sense there of taking on your portion, taking on your share of suffering. Be a fellow partaker with me in this suffering. If you are a Christian, you have a portion of Jesus Christ suffering to bear. You can't escape it and be faithful to him. And why do I say that? Numerous verses, I quoted this one last week, Philippians 1:29. "It has been granted to us on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him." You get them both together. If you believe in Jesus, you're also granted a portion of his suffering. Also in Acts 14:22, Paul said to a small church, they're strengthening them, getting them ready for the journey. It's going to be a hard journey into heaven. He says in Acts 14:22, he says, "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of heaven." I feel like I have to persuade American Christians of this. I don't have to persuade Chinese Christians of this, they know. We have to go to Heaven through many hardships and difficulties, but we're not used to it, we have to be ready for it, and we have to expect it. Everyone who wants to live a Godly life Will be Persecuted In 2nd Timothy 3:12, right in the book we're studying. "Everyone who wants to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." Have you ever noticed that that's a promise? I've seen Christian book stores, books of 100 Promises or a thousand promises from God. I've never seen 2 Timothy 3:12 in there. Do you all notice that? It seems kind of gloomy, but it actually is very realistic. Everyone who wants to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Can I ask you First Baptist Church, do you want to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus? If so stand under Verse 12 of Chapter 3. That's the call that we have from Jesus Christ. Paul's portion is our portion, Christ's portion is our portion. Understand that. Be ready for it. The second is to focus on God's power. He says, join with me in suffering for the Gospel, by the power of God. By the power of God. Can you stand up under a world system, which under Satan, his sole purpose is to keep you quiet, to shut your mouth from preaching the Gospel, can you stand up under that by yourself? Absolutely not. But with the power of God inside you, you can do anything. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," says Paul. And that includes preaching the gospel in this sinful world. Join with me in suffering for the Gospel, by the power of God. God's power is an awesome thing. And we as the church, we should be demonstrating His power in the way we live our lives. Why in the world should we be ashamed of Jesus Christ, when He is the most perfect man who's ever lived. He led a sinless life, He died on the cross for others, for their sins, and He rose with power on the third day triumphant and over death. How could we ever be ashamed of that? Ashamed of Jesus Christ, who someday is going to come in the heavens, He's going to part the heavens, and He's going to come down with a display of power such as the world Has never seen. And we are His children, we belong to Him. We belong to Him and His power is in us. We're ambassadors of the king. It's the world that needs to be ashamed of its sin, and someday it will be ashamed as it stands before the judgment seat of God. But we are free from all that. Join with me in suffering, he says, by the power of God. Well, let's understand that power though. Is this a power that takes away all those feelings OF butterflies you get when you go to your neighbor to share the Gospel? Is that what the power of God does? No, the power of God doesn't take away those butterfly feelings. The power of God enables you to preach the Gospel, anyway. And then when you're done, you rejoice that those Satanic traps did not trip you up. It doesn't take away all the sting, it doesn't take away all the trouble, it just gives you the power to push through the barrier. Now listen to this, 1 Corinthians 2:3-5, here's the mighty Apostle Paul, powerful, he says, right? Now only with the power of God. 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, he said, "I came to you in weakness, and in fear, and with much trembling." He says. "My message in my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but rather with a demonstration of the Spirit's power. So that your faith may not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Weakness, fear and trembling, the power of God conquers all. It does not take it away, it enables weak, simple people like us to be faithful anyway. That's the power of God. "Join with me and suffering for the Gospel, by the power of God." He says. The third point he makes is that we need to study role models, both positive and negative. Now, I'll start with the negative. In Verse 15, he says, you know that everyone in the province of Asia, has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes. Let me ask you a question, have any of you ever heard of Phygelus and Hermogenes? Any of you know anything about them? No? I don't know anything about them, either. I can tell you I've studied the New Testament from one side or the other and there's only one mention of Phygelus and Hermogenes in the whole scripture. Do you know what that mention is? Right here. Their shameful desertion from Jesus Christ. Do you want that written about you in the book of life? Shameful deserter of Jesus Christ. Study negative role models and say, "I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be like Phygelus and Hermogenes. Here's another one, 2 Timothy 4:10, "Demas," he says, "Because he loved this world has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica." Why did Demas desert him? Because he loved this present world. "He has deserted me and gone as Thessalonica." Do you want to be a deserter, because you love this present world? No. And how about this one, Verse 16 of Chapter 4. "You know at my first defense, no one came to my support. Everyone..." What? There's that word again, "deserted me. May it not be held against them." Negative role models. Well, thanks be to God, There are positive role models here too. The Apostle Paul, he says, "Join with me in suffering for the Gospel." In Verse 12, he says, "I'm suffering because I'm a herald, an Apostle and a teacher. Join with me and be like me." Timothy, I'm not asking you to do anything that I haven't modeled for you. Join with me. And then there's Onesiphorus. Onesiphorus was a Christian layman who came from Ephesus, made a long journey, perhaps a business trip to Rome, but when he was there, he made it his business to search hard for Paul until he found him. And he did find him and he ministered to him, he refreshed him, maybe brought him some food, maybe some clothing. He prayed with Paul. Now, why was that so courageous? It's because, it was a time of persecution under Nero. Onesiphorus was linking himself to Paul, as a Christian. And he was saying, in effect, I too am a Christian. He was willing to bear up under that, and so Paul prays for Onesiphorus family, who he left behind in Ephesus to come and minister. God take care of them, because Onesiphorus has been faithful and he may well soon be suffering for his faithfulness. Positive role models. Stare at them. Covet their faith. Covet their boldness, want to be like them. Called to be Holy Also, review your calling, review your calling. In Verse 9 and 11, in Verse 9, he says, "God has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we've done, but because of His own purpose and grace." You are called to be holy. Now, what does it mean to be holy? We tend to think of holiness in terms of not sinning. I think of holiness in terms of separation, we're called to be separate from this world, to be different from this world. As you walk in holiness, and in Jesus Christ, you're going to be different from the people around you. Remember your calling, you're called to be holy. But you're also called to be faithful in preaching the Gospel. Be faithful in preaching the Gospel. Paul says, "I was appointed as a herald and an apostle and a teacher." That's my calling, and with it comes to suffering. And in Verse 12, remember your reward. Now, some people say, personal reward should be no motivation for Christian service. I don't think that's true. If that were true why would Jesus have said this to us in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." That's what Jesus promised, any who are willing to stand with him and to suffer with them to preach the gospel. Rejoice and be glad he says, for great is your reward in heaven. Think about that reward. Paul says, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord will give to me, and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing." All of us can have that crown of faithfulness in service to Christ. Paul himself says in this epistle, if we died with Him, we will also live with Him. If we endure, we will what? Reign with Him, what a promise. And my feeling is as we stare at the future, as we understand what Jesus Christ Has promised us, we will be faithful to preach the gospel. But more than anything, we have to know Jesus Christ and the glory of Christ. He says, "I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He's able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day." Jesus Christ is a glorious king, and He is the one who calls us to be faithful. And He's the one who will reward us on that final day. Paul says, "He is guarding everything I passed up to Him," years of service, times of being faithful, going to my neighbors, going from door to door in various cities and preaching the gospel. Every one of them Jesus treasures, He's holding on to it, and on that final day he's going to reward me. He's guarding what I've entrusted to him for that day. And not only that, He's with me. "At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. Yet the Lord, stood at my side and gave me strength. So that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it." That's what Paul said. Jesus Christ was faithful to me and gave me the strength, as you meditate and fix your eyes on Jesus, you will have the boldness and the power to preach the gospel. Hebrews 12 says that we should "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." Jesus scorned the shame of this world because it's a shameful thing. And he said, "It means nothing to me. If only I may be faithful to my father to finish the work that he's given me to do, to die on the cross for sinners." Let us have the same attitude as Jesus Christ and Paul. Origin’s Zeal for Martydom I want to finish with a story that I read from church history. It's a story of a 17-year-old boy. He lived in Alexandria, Egypt. His name was Origen and his father was about to die as a martyr for Jesus Christ. Origen wrote his father a letter and exhorted his father. 17-year-old boy, he wrote a letter. Leonides was his father's name, and he said, "Be faithful to Jesus Christ right to the end and he will give you a crown of life, Revelation." He said, "Don't give in, but be faithful." And his father did die in that persecution. Origen himself wanted to die in that persecution as a witness, a testimony, as a martyr for Jesus Christ. But his mother hid his clothes. He looked everywhere for his clothes and couldn't find them. And he had a different kind of shame at that moment, didn't want to run out into the streets without his clothes. And so his mother hid his clothes, and he couldn't go out and give his life. However when he was 69 years old, he did give his life in persecution under a different Roman emperor. Origen's zeal inflames me. I want to be like that. I want to have the same passion to preach the gospel that transcends any fear I might have of societal rejection, or even a physical danger. I'm praying that for each one of you. We come now to the time of our service that we call an invitation. I've given to each one of you who are Christians today a charge, the same charge that Paul passed to Timothy, God is inviting you to be a faithful and bold witness to Jesus Christ. This is a time for you as Christians to commit yourselves again to preaching the gospel, perhaps to your neighbors or at your work. To be willing to stand with Jesus in this world system that stands so opposed to God. But there may be some here today, who have never given their lives to Jesus Christ. The gospel has been preached this morning in part. Jesus Christ died on a cross for sin. And He can take away from you all of your shame before God if you'll just give your lives to Him. There's going to be a moment, Reverend Scott Markley is going to be standing in front, you can come and say to him, "I want to become a member of this church or I want to give my life to Jesus Christ." For all of us, may we be faithful to the command that He has given us to believe the gospel and live it out.
I. Introduction: Our Place in History I'd like to ask all of you, if you would, to turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy, we're going to be considering 2 Timothy 1:1-7. I don't know if any of you saw the Herald Sun article about me? There was a little bit of misinformation there. I'm not going to be covering all 83 verses, this morning, so just rest easy at my pace that would take about nine hours and I know that would push it a little much. The Puritan's used to preach that long, but I'm not going to do that to you. We're just going to look at seven verses this morning. But it does open me up to say to you that that is my style and my strategy in preaching. I don't think that God wastes anything. Everything's in this book for a reason. And so we're going to go through this whole book and we're going to try to see whatever God would say to us. We'll never exhaust all the truth. But we're going to be going verse by verse. So let's look at 2 Timothy. I love to study church history, and I love to have a sense of our place in history I feel as a pastor, it's important for me to constantly remind you where we fit into the flow of what God has been doing and what he will be doing, because we as Christians are always somewhat caught in the middle between eternity past and eternity future, we're living in a constant tension between what God has done in Jesus Christ and what God will do in the future in Jesus Christ, as Christians, we are preaching A History. A Biography, of Jesus Christ who came and lived His life here on Earth. And who did miracles and teachings and died on the cross for sin, who rose again on the third day. And who ascended to heaven. That's a history and we're preaching that gospel history. We're also preaching a promise, that that same Jesus one day will return to this very Earth, that He will end this universe as we know it, bring in a new universe, and bring each one of us to our eternal destiny, whether heaven or hell. And so we here, at this moment in time, are caught in eternity past and eternity future. And it's good for us to understand that, it's also good for us to understand that we have received from the past, a charge. A commitment to the Gospel and to the purity of the Gospel. We have it like a relay race like an Olympic torch for a short time and it's our duty to pass it on undimmed to the next generation, if Jesus Christ should tarry. And that is our charge. And so I think the timeless charge that God gives us today is boldness and faithfulness in preaching the Gospel. Boldness and faithfulness in the gospel. And as I looked through the scriptures. I couldn't find any place better than 2 Timothy, for establishing that message in our hearts. 2 Timothy is Paul's final word to the church, somewhat of his last will and testament and throughout its verses over and over, comes that charge, to Timothy and through Timothy, really to all of us, to be bold and faithful in preaching the Gospel. I'm going to read the text and then I'm going to divide my comments this morning into three sections. I'm going to be giving you a brief, I really should say re-introduction to Paul and Timothy, all of you are well familiar with these two. But then I'm going to be looking at Paul's motivational methodology, how he got Timothy ready to receive a weighty charge, the charge of continuing in Paul's apostolic ministry after Paul died and went to be with Jesus. And finally, I'm going to look at the first charge that he gives to Timothy, namely that he should fan, his spiritual gift into a flame. So let's look at the first seven verses and then begin our study. Starting at Verse One, "Paul an Apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my dear son. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father, and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God whom I serve as my forefathers did with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers, recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I've been reminded of your sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded it now lives in you also. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you, through the laying on of my hands, for God to not give us a spirit of timidity, but of power of love and of self-discipline." II. Paul and Timothy: Leaving a Spiritual Heritage (verses 1-2) Now, Paul begins his letter here in a very interesting way, "Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus." Now, why is that interesting? Certainly, isn't interesting in that all his other Epistles begin this same way? But it is interesting in that he's speaking to his dear friend, Timothy, who he calls his son or his child in the faith. An apostle is someone who is sent with a mission, with a message, and with a sense of authority from the one who's sent him. And Paul definitely had that sense of authority. He had it from his sense of the origin of his apostleship. He believed that he was an apostle called specifically by Jesus Christ for a task. “He says Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God." Now, this is a fascinating thing, Paul throughout his ministry kept going back to the fact that he received his apostleship specifically from God. And that it was the will of God that had transformed his life. What had been the will Saul of Tarsus? It had been to crush the church. And to seek to destroy Jesus Christ. What was God's will for Paul? To build the church by the proclamation of Jesus Christ. Now, whose will won? It was God's will that transformed Saul of Tarsus. And he says, I am "an apostle…by the will of God." Now, don't get me wrong, Paul wanted to be an apostle, but it was God's will that transformed his heart. It was God's will that changed him on the road to Damascus. And so he says in Galatians 1:1, "Paul, an apostle, sent [that's the word for apostle] not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead." so there's his authority. Now again, Paul is writing to his good friend Timothy, now why is he reminding Timothy of something he knew so very well, that Paul was an apostle, called by God. Liberal scholars say this proves that Paul couldn't have written this. I think that's foolish. Because throughout this letter, 2 Timothy, there's a sense of seriousness. A sense of earnestness. Blood earnestness, in the preaching of the Gospel. And he's going to begin by saying, "Now Timothy, you know who I am, and you know how I've lived my life. I'm going to give you a serious charge." And so right from the onset he starts by establishing his authority. And he says that he's "an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus." This is a clear reference to the Gospel message. The gospel message is a promise of life in Christ Jesus. It's a promise of life to those who are dying, who are dead in their transgressions and sins. And there is life in no other name. And as we go out here from the walls of this church, our Church, First Baptist Church, we have a message to bring to people here in this community, people in the universities, people all around us. Which is the only message which can save them from eternal death, apart from God. Jesus made this promise of life time and time again, He says in John 10:10, "I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly." He also says in John 14:18, "Because I live you will live also," a clear reference to His resurrection. I'm going to be raised from the dead. You also by believing in me will have eternal life, the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, and Paul lived for that promise, he preached it everywhere he went. That was the purpose of Paul's apostleship. That was the message, committed to him and he was faithful to it. But there was another purpose that God had for Paul, it's one that it's easy to forget. "For it has been granted to us on behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also suffer for Him." Philippians. And so, God willed that Paul be a savor of life everywhere he went, but also a savor of death. And you could see the death in Paul, in the suffering he went through everywhere he went. You know the man who laid hands on him, prayed that he might receive his sight, that he might be filled with the Holy Spirit and baptized him a man named Ananias, one of those unsung heroes, in church history. He was afraid to go to Saul of Tarsus when Jesus came to him. And Jesus commanded him to go. And then He gave him a prophecy about Saul. Who we know as Paul. He said, "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." Now how'd you like to have that prophecy hanging over your head? I will show him or I'll show her how much she must suffer for my name. But it has been granted to all of us on behalf of Christ, to believe in Him and also to suffer for Him. And so Paul was suffering, as a matter of fact at this very moment, he knew that his death was imminent because of that kind of suffering, he was sitting in a Roman prison, a dungeon. This was nothing like that comfortable house arrest he had at the end of Acts 28, when friends could come and go and visit and he could do some evangelism, it was comfortable. No, this was nothing like that at all. For the Emperor Nero, that insane man, had burned half the city of Rome and was blaming it on the Christians. This was the first in a long series of Roman persecutions of the church. And Paul would die under that persecution, under the evil of Nero. So he's sitting there in prison, he's alone, he's cold, he feels that everyone in Asia has deserted him, and at that moment, he's writing to Timothy, and he's demonstrating that suffering. Timothy: Paul’s “son” in the faith Now who is Timothy? Timothy, he calls his "dear son in the faith" or his beloved child. Isn't that a precious way to think of someone? A beloved child in the faith Now, we meet Timothy for the first time in Acts 16:1-2. Timothy was a believer in Jesus Christ through the ministry of the apostle Paul. I think he was converted on the first journey through Lystra in Asia Minor. Oh by the way, at that time, on that occasion Paul was stoned and left for dead. Some people believe he actually did die and God raised him from the dead. That could have been Timothy's first glimpse of Paul, what a picture. The preaching of the Gospel, maybe even a healing of a crippled man, Powerful. But at the same time, the picture of Paul lying almost dead by the road. That was Timothy's first introduction to the ministry of the apostle Paul. Timothy was a believer, his mother was Jewish and a believer, his grandmother a believer, but his father was not. He's father was Greek. And so Paul adopted Timothy and in fact took him under his wing and began to train him to disciple him. And we see a beautiful picture of Discipleship in the way that Paul dealt with Timothy. Turn over, if you will, one page to. Chapter 3 verse 10. In 3:10, he gives us a beautiful bifocal picture of the goal and the pattern of discipleship. In 3:10. He says, "You However, know all about My teaching and my way of life." Let me just stop there. "You, however, know all about my teaching and my way of life." Paul committed to Timothy, a body of doctrine, the teaching of Paul, it was the gospel and more, but also a way of life how to live as a Christian. And he married the two, he lived it out in front of Timothy. This is true discipleship, this is what I'm calling from mature believers here in this church, live out your Christianity in front of those who are not as mature. Disciple and train some people. I'd like to ask, any of you. Do any of you have spiritual children, I don't mean are your children Christians? Let's not even talk about people who are your actual sons and daughters, have you led anyone to Christ? And how much more have you trained them? Brought them up in the faith, prepared them for ministry. Sent them out and seen them bring others to Christ. That makes you a what? Spiritual grandfather or grandmother. It's my vision within 10 years that these pews would be filled of spiritual grandmothers and grandfathers, people who know how to lead people to Christ, disciple them and send them out. Win, build and send. That's what I want to see, but that's what Paul did in Timothy's life. Now Timothy had some strengths and some weaknesses. Probably Timothy's Greatest strength was his sincere, genuine faith in Jesus Christ. Which poured out into a life of faithful service to Him. I love Philippians 2:19, and following. Paul commends Timothy, in very high language he says, "I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy too soon. I have no one else like him. Who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself. Because as a son with his father, he has served with me in the work of the gospel." What high words of praise. Timothy doesn't look out for himself, doesn't care about his own interest. He cares about the interest of Jesus Christ. He wants to build Christ's kingdom. That is the heart of Timothy and that was his greatest strength. But Timothy also had some weaknesses, I can think of three. The First was his youth. He was a young man, inexperienced. Perhaps, many could think not ready to take on the mantle of responsibility that Paul was putting on him here in 2 Timothy. Now don't think he was a child, he probably was in his early 30s at this point, but it says in 1 Timothy 5, "Let no one look down on you because you're young." Also realize that Jesus died around that same age as well. But it still was somewhat of a burden to be carried around by Timothy in that he was young and inexperienced. Secondly, he was a sickly person, he was frequently given to illness. He had a weak stomach and other troubles. But perhaps the greatest weakness that Timothy had, was the fact that he was naturally shy, and timid, perhaps even in some settings, cowardly. And throughout this book in 2 Timothy, Paul is calling Timothy to preach the gospel with boldness in the context of persecution and suffering. To stand up and be counted. He can't be a leader unless he's willing to do that. Those are his weaknesses and his strengths. And then Paul gives him a benediction, "Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Grace to cover all of his sins. Mercy to cover all of his weaknesses, and peace to encourage him along the way. Now, that's our brief introduction to Paul and Timothy. III. Paul's Motivational Methodology (verses 3-5) What about Paul's motivational methodology? How did Paul try to get Timothy ready to receive the weight that was going to be laid on him? I see four ways. a) Constant Prayer He starts out in verse 3 with constant prayer. Constant thankful prayer. He says, "I thank God as night and day I constantly remember you, in my prayers." Now, again, picture Paul, he's sitting in this dark dungeon. Perhaps with a small circle over his head letting in air and light, he was using that light to do the writing. At that moment, he knew he was about to die, he says in 4:6. "I'm already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure." He knows he's going to die. At that moment he could have started to look inward and feel sorry for himself, or start to think about his own misery. But he gives people, all of us, a pattern of Joy and contentment, how to behave in a situation like this, when your circumstances aren't the best. I know in this church, I heard a story, I don't know the man's name, of someone, I think he's gone on to be with the Lord now. But when he was home bound and shut in, he couldn't get, out bed-ridden, but he used to call people in this church and encourage them, and say, "I can't do anything for you, brother, but I want you to know I'm praying for you." Continuing to minister right to the end, and that was Paul. So Paul was receiving some therapy in a way by his outward focus. But in a way, he's also preparing Timothy, he's saying, "Timothy, I want you to know, I constantly pray for you. I'm always praying for you," and furthermore he's committing to all of us. A theological principle. We only thank people or thank ones, for things that they are responsible for. Anything you thank God for you're in effect making a theological statement saying that God is responsible for it. And when Paul thanks God for Timothy Salvation, He's saying, God's responsible for it. When Paul thanks God for Timothy's faithfulness in the ministry, he's saying, "God you're the one who motivated him to do it." When Paul thanks God for Timothy's readiness to take on this charge, he's laying it all to God, and saying it's to your glory. Thankfulness. Constant thankful prayer. b) Personal Example Second of all, he cites a personal example. Now do you see how this dovetails with what I was talking about earlier. Paul lived out his Christianity in front of Timothy, and he's saying I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience as my forefathers did, as night and day I serve him. He had a clear conscience. I think it's a good thing to have your sins forgiven in Jesus Christ. It's a good thing also, if there's some grievous sin in your life, to experience the grace and forgiveness of God for where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. But I think it's an even better thing to have a clear conscience before God. And Timothy, Paul is charging Timothy to keep a clear conscience before God. The fruit of Paul's clear conscience, you can see at the end of this letter. He says, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." Essentially, "I stayed at my post until the job was done. My conscience is clear." And in a way, he's motivating Timothy to do the same, "Timothy. I'm not asking to do anything I didn't do. I'm asking you to follow me as I followed Jesus Christ." Keep a clear conscience and be ready. c) Cultivating Deep Relationships The third and I think most beautiful one here is the cultivating of deep relationships, in verse four, he says, "Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy." Isn't that beautiful? Recalling your tears. I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. We are delighted to be here and to be able to serve with you but it was hard for us to leave our friends in Louisville, Kentucky. They were tears and it was difficult. Now, we live in a technologically advanced age, in which you can always get on a plane or drive. But it's never quite the same when you move out of the community, you're never really with them again, and it is sad. I remember a time when I left Japan, we had been missionaries there for two years, and I for a full year met with one of the rarest of all things in Christianity, a Japanese Christian man, it's very rare. And God had done great work in Hiroichi's life, and I used to meet with him for discipleship at a big Japanese pharmaceutical company. We met every week for lunch, and we went through experiencing God, and when the time came, he'd never really been that emotional or showed me much emotion, but we just had a prayer time and I committed him to God. And when we got done praying, I noticed that tears were streaming down his face. I'll never forget it. See, when we serve with the Lord Jesus, we bond together in love, and when the time comes and God calls us apart, there are tears, and there's evidence in the book of Acts of this kind of crying when there's a time of separation. But do you see the deep love that Paul had for Timothy and the deep love Timothy had for Paul, and it really was mutually, he said, "I remember your tears and I want to have joy to see you again." Now, I think that's so important. I think we have to be open and honest with each other, and we have to confront each other if we see each other in sin, challenge each other to be faithful in preaching the Gospel, but before any of that happens, there has to be a sense that this person really loves me. And Paul did, that he poured his life into Timothy, and Timothy knew, that yes, there's some serious charge is coming here, but this man loves me, he really does. d) Constant Encouragement The forth aspect of the motivation is constant encouragement. Constant encouragement. Now, I think Paul was constantly finding something in people that God had done and saying, "This is a good thing that God's doing in you." And he does it with Timothy here, he says, "I've been reminded of your sincere faith. Which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice." We'll talk about them later. Not this morning, but when we get to Chapter 3. "Grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, and I'm persuaded now it lives in you also." Now, really, I think you have to understand from the Apostle Paul, you don't get a higher compliment than that. He says his faith is sincere. You really could translate it from the original un-hypocritical. He's not a hypocrite Timothy. He's a true believer. Now, that was especially poignant, to Paul at this moment, because He says later in this chapter, everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me under this persecution. They've all left. They're running away, they don't want to come visit me in prison, nobody wants to be with me. But Timothy you're a true believer. So he's encouraging is finding something in Timothy. So you see how Paul prepares Timothy through his motivational methodology. He cites his constant prayer, thankful prayer for Timothy. And his own personal example of faithfulness and clear conscience. And he shows that love he has for him, that cultivated deep relationship that he has for Timothy. IV. Paul's First Charge to Timothy: Fan Your Gift into Flame (verses 6-7) And that constant encouragement and then he's ready to give him that first charge, and that's in verse 6. He says, "For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you, through the laying on of my hands." Now, what is this gift of God? He doesn't say what it is, but I'm just going to cut to the heart of the matter and tell you I think it's his spiritual gift. It's his special spiritual gift that Jesus Christ had given to him. Now, it could be seen that this was the Holy Spirit. The gift of God was the Holy Spirit. Obviously the two are very closely related. Now the laying on of hands, something that Jesus had done in healing, moved over into the church in the book of Acts to be connected with the coming of the Holy Spirit. Do you remember I told you that this man and Ananias came to Paul, when Paul was first converted, Paul couldn't see and Ananias laid hands-on on Saul of Tarsus and Saul could see again, and he received the Holy Spirit at that moment and he was baptized. And throughout the book of Acts there's this connection between the laying on of hands and the coming of Holy Spirit. Paul himself laid hands on people in Ephesus and they received the Holy Spirit. But I think that this is actually referring to Timothy's spiritual gift. If you look over back one book in 1 Timothy 4. There's a parallel passage here, which refers to Timothy's spiritual gift. In Chapter 4:13-14. He says, "Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture to preaching and to teaching [And then he says] Do not neglect your gift, which was given to you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid hands on you." Our minds are being taken back to this occasion, in which Timothy perhaps knelt before the elders of the church, and the elders gathered around and laid hands and Paul was there, and there was a prophetic message spoken about Timothy, perhaps that Timothy would be carrying on Paul's ministry, after Paul was finished. I don't really know what that message was, but there was a prophetic message about Timothy. And there was, at that moment, I believe a spiritual gift given to him, and that gift was the preaching and teaching of the Word. And there in 1 Timothy 4, he says that he should not neglect His gift. Back in our passive in 2 Timothy, he says that he should fan his gift up into a flame. I think that's two sides of the same coin. The fact is that each one of you who listens to me this morning, every one of you who is a believer in Jesus Christ. Each one of you has a Spiritual gift, at least one. Now what is a spiritual gift? A spiritual gift is a special ability. A spiritual ability which God has given to you which Jesus Christ has weighed out to you, and apportioned to you, it says in Ephesians 4. For the purpose of building his body into maturity. You all have one. It doesn't belong to you, it's yours only temporarily, when you die, you'll have to give it back, and God will ask you what you did with it? Spiritual gift. So each one of you has a spiritual gift. And this church will be healthy and growing to full maturity in Christ as each one of you uses your spiritual gifts, and it will not be healthy and will not grow to maturity if you don't. It's not up to me alone to use my Spiritual gift and build the church into maturity and health. All of us have to use our spiritual gifts. Your gifts don't belong to you alone, they belong to each one of us and to God. And so it is possible for a spiritual gift to lie in neglect, like an un-weeded garden just sitting there. Now, I'm not saying that that was the case with Timothy, just because Paul is exhorting Timothy to fan his gift up into a flame, doesn't mean that Timothy was neglecting his gift. But just that he should be vigilant not to do so. Vigilant. But I love this picture of fanning a fire up into a flame. Even into a bonfire. It speaks to me of zeal and passion, of as I mentioned before, blood earnestness, seriousness in the gospel ministry. The Christian life is not a trivial life, it's not insignificant, the Christian life on the other hand, is the only thing that matters in this world, it's the only thing that builds for eternity. As I'd mentioned, when I preached to you before. So we have to be serious about this life while we walk in joy. And we have to make the most of every moment, using our spiritual gifts. But fix this picture of a fire into your mind, that inside of you, a flame can burn up as you add fuel to it. Zeal and passion. In the ministry that God's given to you. Woe to us, if anyone comes to us and says we're a cold lifeless church, Heaven forbid, we should be on fire for Jesus Christ. On fire through the Holy Spirit in all that we do. Passion and zeal should characterize us. The Example of George Whitefield I love the picture of this great evangelist, George Whitefield, many of you perhaps have never heard of George Whitefield what a tragedy. George Whitefield, actually taught John and Charles Wesley everything they needed to know about doing revivals and street preaching. It was George Whitefield who did it. But Whitefield was not the organizer that the Wesleys were as they started Methodism. And so we don't know as much about him. But he died before the American Revolution, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean 13 times in a sailing vessel. To preach the gospel both to England and to the 13 colonies. Talk about zeal, took his life into his hands to do that. Went up and down the colonies, really unified the colonies through his preaching. I'm captured by the story of his death, an incredible story. Up in the area where I used to live, Newburyport, Massachusetts, he died young in his mid 50s. Burned out for Jesus Christ. He was lying in his death bed. People heard that he was sick perhaps even dying, and they wanted to hear him one more time, preach the gospel. And he got up out of his death bed, and came to a window and put the window up. He had a candle there to give light, it was night time, and he began to preach his final sermon. And he preached with all the strength and zeal he had left. Whatever he had left he gave. And the candle burned down, there was a pool of wax at the bottom and then it, it extinguished and went out. He finished his sermon and closed the window, and laid down and by next morning he was dead. An incredible picture of fire and zeal, surpassed perhaps only by the Apostle Paul himself, for Paul said, "I'm already being poured out like a drink offering." That's what Paul uses, poured out for Jesus Christ. Zeal in the ministry. I want that to characterize our church. I want it to characterize my life. I want to be characterized by a sense of burning passion to serve Jesus Christ. And I want Him to be glorified by all of that. And I want you to want that too, as I'm talking about it now. I want you to move along with the flow and in the spirit. Keep in step with the Spirit, don't resist, or quench the Spirit's fire. But move with it. But we need to know finally how that fire burns because there's been a lot of misunderstanding about that, in church history. Earlier this year, there were terrible forest fires down in Florida. I know you remember, just went on and on and on. Nobody could put it out. That's not my picture of the burning of the spirit's fire. For God did not give us a spirit timidity, but of power of love and of self-discipline. There's a structure to the passion of the fire, it's not a raging fire that burns and destroys but rather one that burns for glory, for the glory of God and for the building of His church. Too many people think I am a Spirit-filled person and therefore I can hurt anyone that I want, I can insult people I can be rude to people, all in the name of zeal and passion. No, it's not that way. But first we have to understand more than anything, it is not connected in any way with cowardice. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity. Christianity has nothing to do with cowardice. You really should translate it that way. Faithless cowardice. Next week I'm going to talk to you about how to overcome fear in preaching the Gospel, if that characterizes you or even if it doesn't, please come and listen, because I'm going to show you some things from 2 Timothy and how God can move us past that. But the power of the Spirit comes in a controlled way to build and to strengthen His church. And it's controlled by love and self-control, self-discipline. The ability to rein in all your passions and everything you do for one purpose. As I conclude today, I want to call each one of you, to go to God today in prayer. And to ask Him to show you. What your spiritual gift is. You might as well know what it is now, if you don't know it, because He's going to ask for it back on that final day. Don't be like that, foolish servant that took that talent and stuck it in the ground and never used it. Find out now what it is and ask God to begin lighting a flame of passion in your heart. Draw us all together. Ask God to draw us all together with a sense of passion in serving him. Let your fire burn with love, not burning each other, so that we are rude or unkind to each other but rather building His church in love, and self-control. We come now to the part of our service called; an invitation. For the most part, we tend to think of this as reaching out to those of you who have never given your life to Jesus Christ. You know, I've been speaking for the most part, to Christians, this morning, but it could be that there are some here who don't know the indwelling Holy Spirit. Who do not as yet have a spiritual gift. Who have no life in Jesus Christ. I bring you back to the beginning of my sermon, the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus reaches out to you today. Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly. If you're not in Jesus Christ today, you're dead in your transgressions and sins. But today can be for you the day of new life in Jesus Christ. Let today be the day of today you hear His voice do not harden your hearts, come to faith in Christ. All of you who are Christians, we're going to have the music playing. Come forward and pray if God calls you, or kneel right where you are, or in your hearts begin praying and asking God to show you how He wants you to serve in this church.
This episode of CS is titled, Back in the East – Part 1In our last foray into the Church in the East, we stopped our review with the Mongols. You may remember while the Mongols started out generally favorable to Christianity, when later Mongol Khans became Muslims, they embarked on a campaign to eradicate the Gospel from their lands. That rang the death knell to The Church in the East, which for centuries boasted far more members and covered a wider area than the Western Church.And again, let me be clear to define our terms, when I speak of the Church in the East, I'm not referring to the Eastern Orthodox Church HQ'd in Constantinople; not the Greek Orthodox Church or it's close cousin, the Russian Orthodox Church. The Church in the East was also known as the Nestorian Church and looked to the one-time Bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius who was officially labeled a heretic, but who became the patriarch of a wide-ranging church movement that reached all the way to Japan.While today, Nestorianism is officially labelled a heresy in its view of the nature of Christ, it's doubtful Nestorius taught that. Nor did The Church in the East believe it. The Nestorianism that bears the label “Heresy” is more a thing found in books than in the hearts and minds of the people who made up The Church in the East.In any case, the once vibrant Church in the East came to a virtual end with the Mongols. It wasn't till the 16th C that the Faith began a renewed mission to the East, and this time it was by a concerted effort of Europeans. It came because of the expansion of the Portuguese and Spanish empires in the 16th and 17th Cs, then to Dutch, English, French and Danish traders in the 18th and 19th.Even before the Jesuit order was recognized by Rome, Ignatius Loyola was aware of the need for an able overseer of missions to the East. Though loath to lose his assistant, in 1540 Loyola sent his ablest lieutenant and close friend, Francis Xavier to the Portuguese colony of Goa in India. Xavier remains one of the greatest of all Christian missionaries. He possessed an immensely attractive personality and a Paul-like determination to preach the Gospel where Christ had not been named.Xavier moved from Goa to the fishermen of the Coromandel coast of India, where he baptized thousands and engaged in discipleship, though by his own admission his command of the language was marginal. He visited Sri Lanka from 1541–45, and Indonesia for 2 years before entering Japan in 1549. He established a Jesuit mission there and had a couple Christian books translated into the language. Exposure to Japan, with its, at that time, deep respect for all things Chinese, convinced him to do whatever it took to enter China. He was poised to do so when he died in 1552.Allesandro Valignano was born to Italian nobility and obtained a Doctor of Law degree at the University of Padua. But a profound religious experience we'd have to call a dramatic and genuine conversion, hijacked his previous career path and set him on mission. He became a Jesuit in 1566 because they were about the only ones doing missions at the time. He was appointed Visitor to Eastern Missions in 1573 and sailed to Goa from Lisbon in 1574.After a period of study in Macau, he came to the conclusion the Church was going about the task of spreading the faith to new people all wrong. He was determined to take the Gospel into China, but realized that meant he'd need to learn the language and customs. The Chinese were an ancient and proud race. They weren't going to be wowed by relatively uneducated and backward Europeans, regardless of how superior they might think they were. Valignano knew learning Chinese would open a door for the Gospel.He vehemently opposed the conquistador approach to China and Japan both Portugal and Spain used in their conquest of the Philippines. He made 3 trips to Japan from 1578 to 1603. Like Francis Xavier, Valignano was convinced of China's importance as a mission field but failed to make it there.That would be left for 2 other Jesuits who carefully followed his missions philosophy - Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci [Richie].Ricci and Ruggieri entered China in 1583. They and their successors earned the deep respect of the Chinese, not least for their mathematical and astronomical abilities but because of their high regard for Chinese culture.Ruggieri, a lawyer from Italy, worked with Ricci in Portuguese Macau before moving to the mainland. Together, they produced a Portuguese—Chinese dictionary, and Ruggieri later composed the first Chinese-Catholic catechism. He was proficient enough in the language to compose Chinese poetry.Ricci, an outstanding intellectual, mastered the Confucian classics and came to believe that the kind of grounding he'd received in the works of Thomas Aquinas and his use of Aristotle was compatible with the moral ideals set out by Confucius. Ricci's work of 1603, titled The Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, adopted this approach in reaching the Chinese literati, among whom he was deeply admired. Ricci believed participation by Chinese Christians in ancestor rites did not compromise their faith.And yes: We'd probably disagree with him on that one.From 1600, Ricci was allowed to live in Beijing. His successors, like Ferdinand Verbiest and Schall von Bell, were also greatly admired by the Chinese and were given official positions by the first Q'ing emperor in the late 17th C. They carried such influence, they were able to secure positions of honor for other missionaries.It's a tragedy that after the influence of Valignano's policy was followed through with such success by Ruggieri, Ricci and their fellow Jesuits, it was eventually overturned in Rome. The so-called Rites Controversy at the opening of the 18th C, hinged on how far the honoring of ancestors was a civil versus a religious act. Rome ruled against Valignano's position, saying Chinese Christians were engaging in superstitious and unbiblical acts. This led immediately to an alienation of the Jesuits and the loss of all the good-will they'd earned. Christianity became viewed as a religion of foreigners.The issues raised by the Rites dispute weren't laid to rest until 1939, when Catholics were finally allowed to take part in ancestral veneration and the rites were accepted as mere civil demonstrations of honor, which had lost any of their earlier pagan associations.In India, another Jesuit apostle of accommodation, Robert de Nobili immersed himself in the philosophy and culture of Hinduism as a way to first understand, then build a bridge to the people of India to share the Gospel. Like Valignano, the Italian de Nobili was determined to detach himself from European models of Christianity and incarnationally manifest the Gospel in India. He succeeded and was able to see several high-caste Brahmins become Christians. But his methods raised controversy among his superiors and for a time he was forbidden to baptize.In Vietnam of the 17th C, Jesuit pioneer Alexandre de Rhodes followed the same accomodationist policy and advocated ordaining national clergy to carry on the work of evangelism and church-planting. This was unheard of and got him into trouble with his superiors.The idea of the religious superiors was “You can lead people to faith all day long. But you can't make them priests! Priests come from Europe, for goodness sake. Everyone knows that. I mean, just imagine what a nightmare you're making if you start ordaining Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese as priests. I mean come on! Let's not get carried away.”De Rhodes knew it was right to ordain nationals and disregarded the ban placed on him, eventually leading to his expulsion from the Jesuits. Nevertheless, by 1640, there were some 100,000 Vietnamese Christians.After Francis Xavier left Japan, it enjoyed a period of great progress. Valignano was deeply impressed with the quality of Christianity found there. By 1583 there were 200 churches and 150,000 Christians. In one town south of Kyoto, 8,000 were baptized in 1579.But there was a sharp change in attitude by Japanese political authorities later in the 16th C due to a fiercely-resurgent nationalism. In 1614, all Jesuits were expelled. Persecution broke out for the 300,000 Japanese Christians in a population of 20 million. Christians were crucified in Nagasaki and there were more mass executions in 1622. The policy was pursued with great savagery between 1627-34 and resulted in many, what came to be known as ‘hidden Christians', whom 19th C missionaries found retained their knowledge of many of the symbols of the Christian faith, when Japan opened 2 Cs later. Despite the eventual persecution of Christians in Japan in the later 16th and early 17th Cs, Andrew Ross, a Protestant, judged the Jesuit mission in Japan to be the most successful approach to a sophisticated society since the conversion of the Roman Empire.We'll continue our look at the Eastward Expansion of Christianity in the 16th and 17th Cs next time as we consider how the Dutch and English began to reach the East.
After Don's father gets saved when Don is in high school, his parents put him in a Christian high school for his senior year, and Don gets saved. He goes to a Christian college, where he's called to the mission field. But World War II interferes. He's invited to pastor a church while he's in graduate school and meets Martha. They marry. Don becomes assistant to the president of a Christian college, which seems like a detour. But God has plans. After Don goes to Japan on a mission survey trip, the couple go there as missionaries. Don helps found a Japanese Christian college and radio station. After 22 years he then helps with the world evangelism conference. Then he became a pastor again. Now with the Lord.
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