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PEARL HARBOR
REMEMBERED
Psalm 18:3-14
I. "December 7, 1941, a date which will live
in infamy." (F.D.R.)
A. One of first events all Americans
heard simultaneously.
1) My father was six years old.
Many school children were heard asking "Where in the world is Pearl Harbor?"
2) Disaster shook America's
self-confidence to the core.
3) It also galvanized the nation,
which had been deeply divided
by
isolationism and pacifism.
4) In the end, it changed our
place in the world.
B. Through all the suffering, God's
hand can be seen in the events
of
that day, and what followed.
Spiritual lessons:
1) Catastrophes can happen
suddenly. Be ready for God now!
2) The essence of the Gospel is
God's forgiveness.
If we accept God's forgiveness,
can we forgive others?
3) The best peace is God's
peace. Only it will last.
II. Pearl Harbor was a remarkable chain of
events.
A. Admiral Yamamoto, who had lived in
the U.S., knew that America
would have to be put out of action
quickly, so he planned
the
infamous sneak attack.
B. Leader of the attack was a pilot
named Mitsuo Fuchida.
1) As he flew in toward the
harbor, homing in on an American
jazz radio program from
Honolulu, he radioed back,
"Tora, tora, tora!"
(We have begun the attack, and
totally surprised them)
C. That Sunday morning, two waves of
planes descended on Pearl
Harbor and destroyed 8 ships,
200+ planes, 2,403 lives.
III.
"Overwhelmed by torrents of destruction." Psalm 18:4
A. Scores of sailors were trapped in
their ships at Pearl Harbor
and
there was no way to rescue them.
32 were saved out of the capsized
Oklahoma but others could not
be
reached.
65 on the West Virginia were
abandoned.
Louis Grabinski,
a 21 year old sailor from Erie, PA, had been
sent back to the West Virginia for
sentry duty on the night
of
Dec 8 when he heard pounding coming from below.
He reported it to his superiors.
Trying to reach them had so many
problems, Navy officials finally
came
to the conclusion that doing so would be impossible.
"There were so many other
things to do" - so the trapped men were
abandoned.
Richard Goings and 20 others went
out to the Oklahoma, which had
been
hit by 5 torpedoes and was laying on its side.
Torches caused the paint and cork
to form gases which killed the
first
two men.
Pneumatic chipping hammers were
used next.
Each time they broke into a
compartment, the water rushed in and
they had to get the men out
while the water was rising - and
before
they drowned.
Many lived two weeks or longer
while entombed in those hulls -
-some even survived until
Christmas.
Eventually they suffocated, died
of thirst, or starved to death.
B. Psalm 18 and cries for help in a
desperate situation.
1) The tragedy of being a
captive.
a) (Terry Anderson, last
captive in Beirut: found strength in
a well-used Bible, and
doesn't hate them because he is a
Christian.)
2) Where you turn in such a
situation?
IV. Changes in America.
A. Religion became important again.
1) Church attendance increased.
2) Popular Bible conferences
sponsored by Rev. Earle, with
approval
from gas rationing board to attend.
B. Racism flourished: Japanese portrayed as near-sighted
buck-toothed
"Japs."
1) 110,000 Americans of Japanese
descent imprisoned in camps.
a) Relatives of two of our
church families were among them.
(Jean Lee herself, and
Karen McCollum's parents)
b) They still find it
difficult to speak about it; most
lost
almost all their possessions.
V. Most tragic war in human history
unfolded.
A. Mitsuo Fuchida fought at Midway, the Marianas "Turkey
Shoot,"
and
Leyte Gulf.
Many times he escaped death.
He was in Hiroshima both one day
before and one day after the
atomic
bomb exploded.
B. Americans retaliated by bombing
Japan in the Doolittle Raid,
then
great firebombings, and finally the Atomic bombs.
1) Nagisaki
was famous Christian center.
2) In 1600's hundreds of Catholic believers were executed
for
their faith.
3) Atomic bomb went off directly
over Christian cathedral.
VI. Spiritual harvest following Pearl
Harbor.
A. Pearl Harbor as a day of decision.
Before the attack on Pearl Harbor,
Gideons placed 50,000 on
ships
in the Pacific fleet.
After attack it was found that
many of the dead sailors had been
reading
their Testaments.
Some had signed their name on the
blank line for salvation.
A nurse who had not communicated
with her sailor son for two
years
came across him in the morgue.
His personal effects contained a
water-logged Testament,
unreadable,
but with his name signed on the line.
She asked a chaplain for a
Testament of her own (she had been
non-religious)
and she read it thoroughly.
She then signed her name below
that of her son's.
B. Conversion of Mitsuo
Fuchida.
After the war he was handed a
Bible to read by a former
"Doolittle Raider"
turned missionary to Japan - Jacob Deshazer.
Mitsuo
took the Bible home to his farm where he made a living
raising
eggs for US Army occupation forces.
He read the Gospel of John and
realized for the first time that
Jesus Christ's death, burial
and resurrection were all
personally
for him - Mitsuo Fuchida.
Accepting his position as a lost sinner,
Fuchida in childlike
faith
asked Jesus into his heart to save him.
There were no accompanying visions
or flashing lights; just
personal
assurance from God's Word that he was now born again.
After his salvation, Fuchida grew as a Christian.
He'd read the Bible, meditate on
what it said to him, and then
try to
put the principles he learned into practice in his life.
Fuchida
served faithfully as an Methodist evangelist for the
remainder of his life traveling
across the world telling the
good
news of salvation.
1) National Geographic - Fuchida asked to join American
survivors'
group but was turned down.
2) But on an ABC documentary, one
American survivor spoke of
meeting
a Japanese airman at the USS Arizona shrine.
The Japanese man apologized
and asked for forgiveness.
The American hesitated, then they embraced.
VII. Correlation
of Pearl Harbor and baptism.
A. Conflict.
1) Just as the nations of the
world fought each other in WWII,
Christians must fight both
the visible and invisible
forces of
evil.
B. Decision.
1) Each person must make their
own decision to follow God,
before
it is too late.
C. Death.
1) Those who died within the
ships of Pearl Harbor are an image
of how our
old-nature is drowned in baptism.
D. Hope.
1) Out of the hatred of WWII, a
lasting peace has grown.
2) Baptism tells us of the hope
of new life.
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