“THE CHARGE”
I Timothy 1:12-20
January 28, 2009
Warden Assembly of God
Pastor John L. Harper
Introduction:
I. THE TRUST(vs. 12-14) (Be thankful)
A. Jesus enabled me
1. I give thanks for His power
2. He enabled me to preach His Gospel
3. His grace was abundant and overflowing with faith and love
B. Jesus esteemed me
1. He did not give up on me
2. He counted me faithful
3. I was not counted faithful by what I did, but by who He is
C. Jesus established me
1. He put me into the ministry
2. I was a blasphemer against God
3. I obtained mercy
II. THE TRUTH (vs. 15-16) (Be merciful)
A. Jesus came to save sinners
1. I was the worst sinner
2. I obtained mercy
B. Jesus came to extend His mercy
1. His mercy is for sinners
2. Ignorance of sin is no excuse for pardon, mercy is His to give
In the early years of World War II after the United States forces
invaded northern Africa, crude airstrips were established on the
desert, and bombing runs across the Mediterranean were begun on
Axis targets in Italy. "Lady Be Good" was a Flying Fortress, B-17
bomber, that was making these long and dangerous flights. The
night this plane was tragically lost the crew had made it to Italy
and was returning on a radio beam from the desert air strip. When
the beam would come on the Lady be Good made certain it was on a
straight line toward home. The crew never knew until it was too
late that they had a strong tail wind that brought them back much
sooner than expected. With no visual point of reference they
simply overflew the directional signal and kept straight on until
they ran out of gas and came down in the Libyan desert more than a
hundred miles south of the coast and water. They were LOST. They
simply disappeared off the face of the earth-- no one knew they had
overflown their base into the heart of the desert. Their plane has
been almost perfectly preserved in the dryness-- the men themselves
survived the emergency landing only to die of thirst in the desert
with no one knowing where they might be.
DOING LOST, BEING FOUND
Luke 15: 1 - 10
I Timothy 1: 12 - 17
http://www.sermoncentral.com/outsideurl.asp?outsideurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enc.edu%2Forg%2Fwollynaz%2Frmetcalfe%2Fdad.doing_lost_being_found
C. Jesus wanted to show His longsuffering through me
1. I could be an example of how God is patient toward the sinner
2. I could give hope to those who would put their trust in Christ
III. THE TASK (vs. 17-20) (Be vigilant)
A. Fight the good fight
1. Remember what was spoken over you (prophecies)
2. Follow God’s Word into “battle”
B. Face those who oppose you
1. Keep the faith and a clear conscience
2. Confront those who are shipwrecked who are misleading others
C. Fend off blasphemers
1. There are those who have suffered shipwreck and are lost
2. Warn them from deceiving those who are weak in faith
3. If they refuse turn them over to Satan
CONCLUSION: There are so many true stories that reflect that amazing grace, but I ran across one that really seemed to say it all. It is a story written by Elisha Coffman for Christian History Magazine, entitled “Beyond Pearl Harbor”. This story is how God caught up with the man who led Japan’s surprise attack. And it is a true story.
The man’s name was Mitsuo Fuchida. He grew up in Japan, hating America for the way we treated Asians. He graduated from the military academy and became a pilot in Japan’s Air Force where he excelled and by 1941, he became the best pilot in Japan. So, when the Japanese government decided they were going to attack Pearl Harbor, they chose Fuchida to lead the attack. It was his voice that radioed back to his aircraft carrier those infamous words, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” This let the carrier know the success of the mission.
Fuchida was to learn later that out of the 360 pilots that were in the mission, he was the only one to return. Upon returning from Pearl Harbor, he inspected his plane and found 20 large antiaircraft holes and the main control wire barely held together by a thread. Although he was not in any sense "religious," this was the first of a series of near-death incidents that made him believe something was watching over him.
He later had another close call when he was shot down in an attack against Americans on Midway, but even though he was injured, he survived. Still later, he was below decks in sickbay recovering from an appendectomy when Americans started bombing the ship. He crawled up to the flight deck just as another bomb hit, and he was blown into the air and when he landed, he broke both legs. Everyone below decks was burned to death. Fuchida wrote later that, even though he was not religious, he started believing that he had a destiny of greatness ahead of him.
By 1945, he was the highest-ranking officer in the Navy’s Air Corps. He was visiting a newly built military headquarters just outside Hiroshima and received a call to report immediately to Tokyo. The very next day, Hiroshima was bombed and everyone in the military complex died a horrible death.
He went back to investigate and found total devastation. He wrote a letter to the Emperor, and it was this letter that convinced the Emperor to stop the war and surrender.
On the same day that Hiroshima was bombed, an America POW named Jacob DeShazer said he felt terribly moved by the Holy Spirit to pray for peace. He had been captured in 1942, and had become a Christian while in the Japanese POW camps. After the war, he was released and he wrote a book entitled “I Was a Prisoner of the Japanese”. In this book, he detailed his experiences of capture and how he converted and finally forgave.
In 1950, DeShazer returned to Japan as a missionary to those who had held him captive. It was on this trip that he met Fuchida, the pilot who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor. As it happened, Fuchida had read DeShazer’s book. He said he contemplated the message in the book continually, not really knowing what to do with it.
After the war, Fuchida was curious how Japanese prisoners had been treated while they were in captivity. He spoke to a friend who said they had been treated very well. Fuchida was introduced to an 18-year-old girl named Peggy Covell, who had volunteered to help the Japanese POWs.
Fuchida asked her why she had wanted to help the enemy so badly. She told him that her parents were missionaries to Japan and had been evacuated to the Philippines. After sending her home to America, they were captured by the Japanese forces and while kneeling in prayer were beheaded.
She said that she knew her parents would have forgiven them by now, so that was the least she could do, too. And when she prayed and forgave them, God put it in her heart to help them. This was Fuchida’s first encounter with the amazing grace of God.
He had already read DeShazer’s book, and after meeting this young lady, he bought a Bible. When he read the Bible, the power in God’s Word gripped him and he fell to his knees and received Jesus. This was in September 1949. He said he wept openly as he realized for the very first time that Jesus had prayed and died for him. Fuchida and DeShazer continued to work together for several years after their meeting.
Fuchida died in 1976. He said that he wanted to be remembered for His service to Jesus more than his bombing of Pearl Harbor. He wrote, ‘I lifted the curtain of warfare by dispatching that cursed order, and I put my whole effort into the war that followed, but after buying and reading the Bible, my mind was strongly impressed to evangelize. I can say today, without hesitation, that God’s amazing grace has been set upon me.”
“THE AMAZING GRACE OF JESUS by Bruce Ball” http://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly.asp?ContributorID=&SermonID=86322
