Title: People Who Changed the World
Contents
1. The man of faith - Abraham
Let me tell you a story from a very distant past, about 4,000 years ago.
A man over 70 years old lived in a city in Mesopotamia.
One day, whether in a dream or not, he hears a mysterious sound. But it was a very clear story. It was something I had never experienced before. It was a sound that called for an important decision in life.
“Leave your father’s house and go to the place I am showing you. I will make you into a great nation, and all nations will be blessed through you.”
It reminded me of the stories of my ancestors that my grandfather told me when I was a child that I had long forgotten. It was the story of a great flood that wiped out all people and animals in the world.
Only Grandfather Noah survived at that time, but Abraham was a descendant of Shem, Noah's first son.
It was. I was reminded of the old story that God judged a sinful world with water. And he realized that the one who appeared to him and spoke to him was God.
When Abraham heard the word of the God who made the heavens and the sea, the God who judges iniquity, he was terrified for a moment. I have lived without worries by making and selling various idols since I was young. After meeting God, the Creator and Judge, I was also amazed at the mystical experience and afraid of God's judgment because of the sin of serving one idol.
But God had promised, “Leave your father’s house and follow me, and you will receive blessings from heaven and all nations will be blessed through you.”
Abraham was determined to believe the word of God.
Then he called his family and talked about his religious decision and started packing up in a hurry.
Abraham forsook idols and believed and followed the living God. He never looked back after he left. We walked towards the Canaan that God had promised.
Toward a better hometown, the kingdom of God, I lived my life on this earth as a stranger.
The Bible records his life, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted as righteousness, and he became the father of the faith of God and of all who believed in Jesus.”
It is amazing to believe in an invisible God. Not only that, but it is even more amazing to believe in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. How could a virgin bear a child, and how could the Son of God suffer the disgraceful death of the cross? How can a dead person come back to life?
Even the disciples did not believe when Jesus was resurrected. When Mary and the women heard the voices of the angels saying that Jesus had risen, they ran and told the disciples, “They marveled and did not believe.”
Peter and John also ran to the tomb and saw the empty tomb, but they could not believe in the resurrection. When the resurrected Jesus entered the room where the disciples were gathered and asked, “Are you in peace?”, the disciples thought a ghost had appeared, but never imagined that the dead Jesus had risen.
Believing in God is not easy. However, if you are moved by the Holy Spirit, you will believe in all that God has done. Rather, it makes people think strangely of those who do not believe in the living God.
Faith is a gift from God. Salvation is received by the grace of God. Because we believe in God, we are the richest people with eternal life and heaven.
Those who believe in God, those who believe that Jesus is the Savior, those who believe in the heaven that God has prepared for those who are saved, those who are not afraid of worldly power, money, fame, or even death. These are the people who can't afford it.
2. Man of Prayer - Daniel
Have you ever heard of an 85-year-old man arrested for praying?
There was an old Jewish man in Babylon who was sentenced to death for praying to God.
He was brought into captivity as a boy when his country was falling, and he was a successful man in Babylon.
Do you know who he is?
This is Daniel.
His most famous prayer is the sending of Daniel to the lion's cage (Daniel 6:11), but we see him praying at other times as well.
Daniel 9 gives an example of how he prayed. Daniel was reading the book of Jeremiah, which was prophesied that his nation's captivity would last for 70 years, and his nation had been in captivity for 67 years (Jeremiah 25:8-11). He longed for an end to that captivity.
God commanded his people to live righteously, but they did not live that way. However, Daniel was determined to keep his faith until the end and live according to the word of God. He began to pray to God not to prolong the end of his captivity.
In prayer, Daniel focused on worship and repentance. His prayer methods give us important insights into our conversation with God. We must recognize that the Lord is “great and dreadful” (v. 4) and that “we have sinned” (v. 15). So we praise and repent in prayer.
Let us follow Daniel's example. To him, prayer was as precious as life.
Approaching Heavenly Father's Throne
privilege given to me
Speak to the Lord in earnest prayer
He knows all my hopes.
No one stands as tall as a Christian on his knees.
No one is greater than a kneeling Christian.
He was a man who not only kept his faith and holiness all his life through prayer, but also saved the nation.
Not only that, he made King Darius of Babylon to praise and worship Almighty God.
Daniel 6:26-27
God is glorified by hearing those who pray and changes the world.
You can also change your life through prayer.
Even your home can be transformed by prayer.
Our church can also be revived through prayer.
Our country can also achieve reform and reunification through prayer.
North Korea can also bring down the Juche Tower and the idol of Kim Il-sung with prayer.
World missions can also be accomplished through prayer.
Augustine wrote in his autobiography:
Now Thou hast reached out from above and took my hand, and has rescued my soul from the deep and deep darkness. For my mother, your faithful servant, will cry before you more than ordinary mothers cry for the physical death of their children. Because he cried out for me earnestly. Aren't you in a rush to pray for your children to God while meeting the standards the world demands? A child in a dark world before praying for physical comfort and a tangible and prosperous life We must first pray so that the Spirit of God does not fall. To lose the Spirit of the Lord is to lose everything. Do not stop praying for the soul of your children.
3. The One Who Acts - Nehemiah
One of the Israeli independence activists was a man named Nehemiah.
He was one of the servants of King Nebuchadnezzar. One day, I met a priest from Jerusalem, and after hearing that Jerusalem had been destroyed, I fasted and prayed for several days.
And soon put into action.
He asks the king to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, obtains the king's permission, and returns to his homeland.
Arriving in Jerusalem, his native capital, he persuades the Israelites to rebuild the city.
According to his words, all the Israelites take the lead in rebuilding the city.
Nehemiah succeeded in rebuilding the destroyed city in 52 days. He was a man of faith.
And he was a praying man.
Not only was he a man of action.
Even now, we need people of faith, prayer, and action.
The performance of 'Senpo Sugihara', which tells the story of Chiune Sugihara (1900-1986), a Japanese Christian who saved the lives of 6,000 Jews during World War II, will be held in Japan. Based on the biography 'Visas for Life' written by Sugihara's wife Yukiko, the musical will be performed in Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe from April 4th.
In 1939, when the Nazi government in Germany forcibly detained and massacred Jews, Sugihara was working as a Japanese consulate in Kaunas, the capital of the Soviet-controlled Republic of Lithuania. Germany and the Soviet Union entered into a non-aggression pact to divide and occupy Poland and invaded Poland together. Polish Jews were forced to flee to other countries to escape Nazi persecution.
Jews tried to go to third countries via the Soviet Union and Japan. A transit visa was required. The Soviet Union requested the Japanese consulate to stop issuing visas for Nazi cooperation, and the Japanese government accepted this request. Lithuania was a region bordering Poland. One morning in July 1940, thousands of Jews applied for visas at the Japanese Consulate in Lithuania.
Sugihara immediately sent a telegram to Tokyo asking for permission to issue a visa. But the government did not allow it. Sugihara, who made the third request, had to make an important decision.
"I couldn't possibly give up the lives that were in my hands. It's against God's command." Sugihara violated the government's order and issued visas to as many as 6,000 people with his wife Yukiko over 29 days, saving their lives.
On August 28, 1940, the Japanese government ordered Sugihara to withdraw the consulate. He continued to issue visas until the last minute. When the train left and he couldn't sign any more, he threw a consulate visa stamp to a Jew. However, for violating government policy, he was fired.
In 1969, the Israeli government found him and awarded him the Order of Merit for National Founding. After the German businessman Oscar Schindler who saved 1,200 people during the same period by hiring Jews, Israelis call him 'Japanese Schindler'. Yukiko, wife, said, "God is love. Love is God. My husband issued a visa because he believed that giving up his life was against God's will."
Let's become people of faith who act like Sugihara.
Let's teach our children to be people of faith who act for God, for the nation, and for society, even if they make sacrifices.
All of us Christians are responsible for our times and history.
Let's become the people this time is looking for.