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October 20, 2006
The Fragrance of Authenticity
I first heard about North Korea's October 9th nuclear weapons test while riding in a taxi in Ōsaka. I don't know how many times I sighed to myself that day, but I think you can sum all this up as an absolutely insane choice on the part of the North Korean government.
The following day, we had our Getsureikai monthly meeting in Ōsaka. The message I had prepared was entitled, "New Religions For the Internet Age" (which was the subject of last week's blog post). I figured that I might have to change the content of the message in light of the situation in North Korea, so I quickly looked it over. I decided, though, that nothing really needed changing. When you preach biblical truth, your message is always relevant. That's a great thing, isn't it?
Maintaining your sanity in a chaotic age is not an easy thing to do. What can a person do? Yoshihide Matsumura, an expert in detecting counterfeiting operations, was our guest on the program the third week of September. This was one of his comments:
The genuine article has a "taste" of authenticity to it. If you "feed" on the words of the Bible daily, its deliciousness gradually comes through. A counterfeit may initially taste sweet, but that fades pretty quickly. One of the most important rules for life -- whether it's in regard to objects or ideas -- is this: always go after the real thing!Our greatest need for living in chaotic times, then, is the ability to tell the difference between the genuine and the fake. In Jesus Christ we have this "fragrance of authenticity." If a person would merely consider these words of Jesus with sufficient seriousness, I think it would soon become obvious that Jesus Christ is, indeed, "the real thing":
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6, NIV)I'm convinced that if one would open his heart to the truth of this passage, this alone would enable him to become a believer in Jesus.
Furthermore, Jesus' disciples had a "fragrance of authenticity" about them. With the exception of Judas Iscariot, all of Jesus' remaining 11 disciples laid their lives on the line and this was their testimony:
For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. (Acts 4:20, NIV)This is the real thing. The Apostle Paul wrote this:
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. (Philippians 3:12, NIV)This attitude also reflects "the genuine article."
The "fragrance of authenticity" also hangs about Christian believers living in these times. On October 2nd, a tragic event took place in the U.S., at an Amish school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (the Amish are a Christian community noted for their refusal to use modern conveniences as part of their lifestyle). A man named Charles Roberts (32) entered the school, rounded up 10 female students ages 6-13 and went about to execute them all. The result was that five of them died and the others were injured. Afterwards, the assailant killed himself. We later learned that during the ordeal, the oldest girl, Marian Fisher (13), had begged the killer to shoot her first and let the other children go. Her younger sister, Barbie (11), appealed to him to shoot her next.
One of the families that lost a child invited the gunman's widow, Marie, to the funeral and tried to give comfort to her. The leader of the Amish community announced the creation of a fund to provide support for Marie and her three children.
People have evaluated the Amish lifestyle in various ways over the years. However, it can't be denied that they are actually living out Jesus' command to love others. Even in the midst of grief and pain, they offered forgiveness, love and blessing in return. There's a "fragrance of authenticity" about this.
Indeed, in this day and age, there's no other way to survive apart from joining this band of "authentics" ourselves. Have a wonderful weekend in Y'shua's precious name!
Kenichi Nakagawa
Posted by HarvestTV at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2006
New Religions of the Internet Age
As of October 1st, our new Internet TV website went on-line. We had a little trouble at first with visitors who couldn't create new member accounts, but we got that smoothed out and everything's functioning normally now. Much thanks to the large number of you folks who registered for free accounts with us to watch Harvest Time on-line. This is a real groundbreaking development in Harvest Time's history. It makes me feel like we're really "plugged-in" to the times. Visitors to the site can access and view our programming (with English sub-titles included) from anywhere in the world and at any time of day. We currently have about 200 of our past programs available on-line with plans to make it 500 programs in the near future. We'll also be adding an Internet Radio section featuring various audio presetations, as well. Access it for yourself by going to www.harvestinternet.tv and sign up for a free account.
With all this interest in the Internet, I thought I'd share with you some information I recently came across about a new religious movement just made for the Internet Age. Have you ever heard of "Yoism"? Yoism is a new religion proposed by American psychoanalyst Dan Kriegman in 1994. Here's what it's all about:
This kind of new religious thought, of course, is an outright rejection of biblical authority. No matter how much finite thinking you pile up, it will never become the Infinite. The wisdom of sinful human beings will never equal the wisdom of God Almighty. The well-known truth is that the Wikipedia contains plenty of errors. The way things are these days makes one realize how close we're getting to the "Great Tribulation" period of history that the book of Revelation prophesies about.
- The governing principle of Yoism is known as "Open Source Theory." This theory and its application seeks to incorporate various standards and information from a wide range of spheres into itself. Average people participate in the movement to seek out truth and cobble together an authoritative system based upon group thought. One example of how the theory works is the "Wikipedia" website. The number of people who reference the various Wikipedia sites for everyday research is quite large.
- Applying Open Source Theory to religion works like this: in traditional religion, doctrine is handed down from authoritative sources and accepted passively by the body of believers. However, with Yoism, participants put their energies together and create the doctrine out of whatever mutually acceptable or beneficial ideas they can come up with.
- New religions like this typically take on various forms, but Yoism touts itself as the world's first "Open Source Religion." Of course, in the background of all this is the growth of the Internet itself.
- Adherents refer to themselves as "Yoan" and typically reject the authority of traditional religion and, in its place, emphasize such diverse ideas as community, evolution, democracy, environmentalism, development, etc. Open Source software continuously changes and improves as regular folks participate in its development. In the same way, they maintain, adherents of Yoism pool their personal experiences in an attempt to develop their own faith and community scriptures. "The prospects for our pursuit of truth," they say, "depend upon whether or not the diverse life experiences of many people can be fully integrated together."
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. (I Tim. 4:1, NIV)It's in times just like these that the necessity of proclaiming the unchanging Word of God -- over the Internet or by any other means -- becomes so very clear. Please pray with us that the Harvest Time Internet TV website would be greatly used of the Lord.
In closing, I'd like to mention two important items. First, we're still needing more participants for our 39th Harvest Time Holy Land Tour: "New Years in Israel 2007." We have about 10 open slots, so if you're interested, be sure and write us for a pamphlet as soon as possible.
The other item is an announcement that the final volume in The Bible For the Japanese (sub-titled, The Nations) is complete and will go on sale in bookstores around the country the first part of November (Japanese-language only). Our publisher, Bungeisha, has plans to make all four volumes available in a special boxed set which includes a set of commemorative postcards featuring the book's artwork as drawn by water-color artist Katsuyuki Fujii. I'm so grateful. Rich blessings upon you all in Y'shua's precious name!
Kenichi Nakagawa
Posted by HarvestTV at 06:22 PM | Comments (0)