Devotional Guide
For the week of December 5, 2004
THE PLIGHT OF MAN AND THE POWER OF GOD
A second life begins
To Read: Lamentations 1-3
To Know:
"Jesus answered him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Nicodemus said to him, 'How can a man be
born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and
be born?' Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of
water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do
not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born anew.'" (Jn. 3:3-7)
Mitsuo Fuchida was in Hiroshima to attend a weeklong military conference
with the Army. On August 5, 1945 Fuchida received a call from Navy
Headquarters summoning him back to Tokyo. The next day Hiroshima disappeared
in flames when "Little Boy," a single bomb, showed the world the power
packed by atoms. The hand of the Lord was on the man who, at 7:49 am on
December 7, 1941, ordered his squadrons to "plunge in to attack" Pearl
Harbor. That fateful morning Jake DeShazer was on KP duty in California. He
vowed revenge. DeShazer volunteered for a secret mission with the Jimmy
Doolittle Squadron and was forced to parachute into Japanese-held territory.
He was captured and tortured, but after 25 months in captivity a Bible
surfaced in the P.O.W. camp. DeShazer read the written Word of God and found
the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ.
Jake DeShazer wrote his story and published a pamphlet. When the war crime
trials opened in Tokyo, Commander Fuchida was summoned by General Douglas
MacArthur to testify. When he stepped off the train at Tokyo's Shibuya
Station someone handed him DeShazer's story. Because the American had found
his answers in the Bible, Fuchida bought a copy of the scriptures. He read
Luke 23:34, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Fuchida
asked the risen Lord Jesus to forgive him for the slaughter of thousands
that died at his command at Pearl Harbor. On April 14, 1950 Commander Mitsuo
Fuchida began to live for the second time. He wrote, "That date became the
second day to remember of my life."
12094$-12094
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