From Infamy to Eternity

By: Steve Huston

 

Just before 8 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941— “a date which will live in infamy”—Japanese bombers launched a surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii where they destroyed or damaged nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 airplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. The emotional scars are innumerable as sailors watched their buddies evaporate into nothing, families were forever changed, and a nation that had desired to stay neutral and out of the war now, mostly, set their sights on a common enemy. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.

Some may wonder why Japan attacked the United States if we had desired to stay out of the war. The fact is, they took a gamble and they lost.

Japan’s expansionism led to an increasingly belligerent attitude toward China. “The Japanese government believed that the only way to solve its economic and demographic problems was to expand into its neighbor’s territory and take over its import market.

“To this end, Japan declared war on China in 1937, resulting in the Nanking Massacre and other atrocities.

“American officials responded to this aggression with a battery of economic sanctions and trade embargoes. They reasoned that without access to money and goods, and especially essential supplies like oil, Japan would have to rein in its expansionism.

“The Japanese had wanted to goad the United States into an agreement to lift the economic sanctions against them; instead, they had pushed their adversary into a global conflict that ultimately resulted in Japan’s first occupation by a foreign power.”(www.history.com)

Ironically, today, China works at the same kinds of expansionism that Japan did, often to the detriment of American interests. It could be argued that their push for territory and natural resources surpasses that of Japan’s 71 years ago.

As mentioned above, the Nanking Massacre made Americans stand up and take notice, feeling a need to act. Here is a short excerpt from history.com regarding this brutal time. “In late 1937, over a period of six weeks, Imperial Japanese Army forces brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people–including both soldiers and civilians–in the Chinese city of Nanking (or Nanjing). The horrific events are known as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking, as between 20,000 and 80,000 women were sexually assaulted. Nanking, then the capital of Nationalist China, was left in ruins, and it would take decades for the city and its citizens to recover from the savage attacks.”

Today, China’s vicious inhumanity against its own citizens should once again make American’s take notice and do something.Yet, when President Trump takes action, the Left is quick to criticize and American investors are quick to stand with their pocketbooks rather than against the government of Communist China.

As much as things have changed, they have stayed the same; only the actors have changed, and seemingly, the soul of America with it.

Another thing has not changed. Seventy-one years ago many souls stepped from “a day of infamy” into a day of eternity; they will forever be as they were on that day.  Many were thrown from an earthly hell into a literal and eternal hell. Certainly there were others who will only have known of that earthly hell and now stand in the presence of their Saviour and King, Jesus the Christ. Today, many more souls around the world will step into eternity. How are we affecting their eternal outcome? Are we living holy as examples that will help to draw them to Christ, the only way of salvation? Are we willing to show grace and forgiveness to our enemies, affecting change in their lives?

I would urge you to read about one little known story surrounding Pearl Harbor; it’s how Captain Mitsuo Fuchida of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, who led the attack at Pearl Harbor, came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. Also, how Jacob DeShazer, who was one of General Doolittle Raiders whose B-25 planes bombed Japan during 1942, returned to Japan to evangelize in the very cities he had once bombed. Click here to read about these things and how these two men could one day embrace as Christian brothers, allowing the forgiveness of Christ to flow through them to the other.

Within our own nation we are witnessing inhumanity, hatred, and there are truly enemies within as well as without. Nonetheless, as Christians we must stand for what is right and still be forgiving and loving to those who would be considered our enemies, those who would do us and our nation harm.  Unless we stay focused on the loving forgiveness of Jesus, we will surely lose our way. If that is the case, we will have lost the battle regardless the outcome. While looking for justice, share the truth, the whole TRUTH, and nothing but the Truth, with God as your help and strength.

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