TWO DIVIDED BY WAR,
UNITED THROUGH CHRIST
Text Isaiah 2:1-4
Isaiah 2:1-4 gives us a wonderful picture of God’s peace. Verse 4 poetically states that the weapons of war will be transformed into items that are constructive. Swords will beaten into plowshares. Spears will be beaten into pruning hooks. At that time, nations will no longer train their militaries for war any more. The transformation of these weapons as instruments designed to kill are transformed into tools that are used in farming. They become instruments that support the ways of life.
It is God who gives us the fruits of the field . It is also God who makes peace possible. Therefore, as the Bible tells us "man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). Physical food nourishes our bodies, but the word of God nourishes our souls. For that reason we cannot have the peace that God offers unless we endorse the path of peace that comes from God’s word.
This morning I want to share with you a true story of two men who were divided by war, but later united through Jesus Christ. They did not cease to be enemies until they met the PRINCE OF PEACE (Isaiah 9:6). It was not until their conversions that they surrendered their swords and spears so that they could emotionally and spiritually be transformed into plowshares and pruning hooks.
There is an expression that is phrased having an axe to grind, that means having an agenda in a negative way. The agenda of enemies at war with one another is to destroy or defeat one’s enemy and thereby gain superiority. Today I am going to tell you about two enemies who were on different sides of the war, during World War II. The Gospel of Jesus Christ destroyed the barriers that existed between the two military aviators in this story.
THE BATTLE CRY
The United States did not enter the war until after WORLD WAR II until after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Both civilians and service men alike remember that event. That event marked a time in the history of our country when no one living at that time would forget where they were or what they doing when they heard the news of that day on December 7. 1941. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt described that day as a day that would live in infamy. Those who were not living at that time have learned about the events of that historic day from the history books. From the moment that Pearl Harbor was bombed onward, the name of the place known as Pearl Harbor became known as a battle cry.
An old battle of the 19th century like Pearl Harbor was a place whose name became a battle cry. The name of that place was the Alamo. The Alamo was a Franciscan mission in San Antonio, Texas, that was the scene of a massacre that was carried out by Mexican troops in 1836. Remember the Alamo became the battle cry of revenge in that day just as remember Pearl Harbor was the battle for the U. S, in the last days of 1941. In fact, the next day the U. S. entered World War II.
The Japanese at that time were obviously eager for battle when they made their unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese provoked the situation when they made their attack. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U. S. was not even involved in World War II except for one exception. The only involvement that the U. S. did have prior to their entry into World War II (that I know about) as a small group known as the Flying Tigers (they were also known as the American Volunteer Group or AVG for short). They were a group of American pilots who fought for the Chinese against the Japanese.
For the Japanese, Pearl Harbor was a victory. Years before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, there was a young Japanese boy by the name of Mitsuo Fuchida who at the age of three aspired to become a national hero like the Japanese national hero Admiral Togo who had at one time destroyed the Russian fleet in a surprise attack. Years later, Mitsuo Fuchida became the equivalent of the modern day American TOP GUN in Japan. It was Mitsuo Fuchida who lead 360 Japanese planes in the attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. Listen to the results of their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor ...
Updated reports in 1991 suggested that there may have been as many as 5 Japanese submarines that were involved in addition to their 360 planes
- 2,403 Americans were killed
- 1,178 Americans were wounded
- Of the 18 American ships that were present, 11 were sunk, (8 battleships, 3 cruisers)
- 347 American planes were destroyed
BETHLEHEM
Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ was born in a town called Bethlehem. Far too many times we make light of the significance of this fact. Jesus is the PRINCE OF PEACE (Isaiah 9:6). The name "Jesus" means Savior (Matthew 1:21). Jesus is our Immanuel which means God with us (Matthew 1:23).
He died in our place as the sacrificial lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
Jesus’ blood is the blood of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31: 33-34, Hebrews 8:10-13).
German theologian Karl Barth once said In Christ both creation and humanity are reconciled. Forgiveness and reconciliation are one in the same. The reason that they are related is that if two or more parties are at odds with one another, then reconciliation cannot take place without the element of forgiveness. We are not supposed to have a double standard on forgiveness where we might forgive one and not another. For God forgives us of our sins through Jesus Christ. If then we are Christians, we, too, are obligated to forgive as God has forgiven us. Matthew 5:48 says, "Be as perfect as your father in heaven is perfect". If we intend to be like our heavenly Father, then we must forgive as He has forgiven us. We might argue that those that we refuse to forgive do not deserve forgiveness for reasons X and Y. But, the truth of the matter is that we ourselves do not deserve the forgiveness that God gives us through Jesus Christ. It is a unmerited gift called grace. It was given to us through the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at a place called Bethlehem. It is through that gift that the ability to have peace on earth and good will toward men is possible (Luke 2:14). Christ paid the price for our sins on the cross. In doing so, He gave us His righteousness in exchange for our sins that He took to the cross (Second Corinthinas 5:21).
BORN AGAIN
It was only through Jesus Christ that Jacob Deshazer, U. S. soldier and ex-POW, that he (Jacob) was able to get rid of his hatred for the Japanese. Jacob Deshazer had just finished flight school when he heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As a result, Jacob began to hate the Japanese with a Passion. He had an axe to grind, a score to settle. In fact he was so hot with passion that he even volunteerd for a bombing mission in Japan. The mission was known as the "Doolittle mission". While he was on that mission, he ran out of fuel. Shortly thereafter, he was captured by the Japanese. The next 40 months of his life were spent as a POW. 34 of those 40 months he spent in solitary confinement. One day, he saw a fellow POW die of starvation that enraged him all the more in his passionate hate for the Japanese. However, instead of building on that hate any more, he reflected on the idea of how he once heard that Jesus Christ could turn hate into love.
He spent the next few months begging for a Bible. Finally, his captors got him one. After his conversion, he would pray for his captors even when they beat him. Obviously, through Jesus Christ, God had changed Jacob’s axe to grind and his score to settle into a cross to carry as a disciple of Jesus Christ. God had emotionally and spiritually turned his sword and spear into a plowshare and a pruning hook.
One day Jacob Deshazer and Mitsuo Fuchida ran into each other. This meeting was one that changed Mitsuo’s life forever. He had been called as a character witness for war crimes at a court house. He had been sent as an investigator to Hiroshima and back to Tokyo along with twelve others after the atomic bomb had been dropped in Hiroshima. Of those thirteen who went to investigate what had happened to Hiroshima, Mitsuo was the only one who did not die from radiation. Mitsuo stepped outside the court house as he saw a crowd around Jacob Deshazer. He noticed that Deshazer was handing out pamphlets of his testimony from hateful U.S. soldier and POW to a new creation in Christ (Second Corinthians 5:17). Paper was scarce. Therefore, while others were lining the soles of their worn out shoes with these pamphlets, Mitsuo took one and read its contents. As a result, he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He, too, had allowed God to emotionally and spiritually turn his sword and spear into a plowshare and a pruning hook.
The spiritual battle had already been won. But, the victory that comes from Jesus Christ cannot be our victory until surrender takes place. Sometimes we have been guilty of having an axe to grind long after the initial conflict between us and the other parties or party had lost it’s fire. We do not have to bear bear arms to find ourselves fighting with God and each other. All we have to do is refuse to be the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9) that Christ has called us to be as His disciples and we will discover that we have allowed the devil to get a toe hold for his bidding as trouble makers who will in the end only keep biting and devouring one another until we have destroyed each other (Galatians 5:15 paraphrased). If these two men who were enemies as a result of the war that they fought in can become brothers in Christ, then why is it so hard for some of us to do the same? The reason it is hard might be because we have not been willing to surrender those swords and spears so that Christ can reconcile us to each other and God. We cannot proclaim God’s peace unless we have proclaimed it in our own lives.
Is there anyone here this morning who has had an axe to grind fighting unnecessary battles with friends, family members, God or even one’s own self, when it is peace that you want? Turn it over to God and ask Him to help you bury the hatchet and make peace. God wants to make you at peace and have you reconciled to Him and others that you may have been at odds with which is why He gave us the most wonderful gift in Jesus Christ. Let God have your swords and spears so that He can turn them into plow shares and pruning hooks so that you may find at last that peace and goodwill that He wants all of us to have. AMEN.
Note: I got a lot of the facts about the true story of the conversion of Jacob Deshazer and Mitsuo Fuchida from a Christian comic book from my childhood. The source: Mitsuo Fuchida as told to Elizabeth Sherril and Al Hartley. "Attack". Old Tappan: Flemig H. Revell, Co., 1975).
