Today, Japan is desperate.
The American Pacific Fleet, backed by powerful British units, is taking fearful toll of
enemy aircraft.
Japan's answer is the use of a new weapon, kamikaze, suicide pilots who dive squarely
into Allied ships to sink them.
Japan's growing desperation is reflected in this fanatical sacrifice of pilots and aircraft
in a crazy attempt to hold the Allies off.
Jap newsreels in our hands take us inside Japan, revealing the story behind the kamikaze.
The Japanese, long trained to blind obedience and worship of the Emperor, teach their children
that ceremonial suicide is one of the greatest acts of which man is capable.
Kamikaze pilots are men trained for death.
We all the suicide pilots are between 16 and 20 years old.
Celebrations are held to honour them when their training is finished.
Prayers are sent and they need them, for they're already as good as dead.
The prettiest Geisha girls entertain them.
Their pictures appear in Japanese newspapers as national heroes.
Garbed in ceremonial robes, their heads are shaved except for a small patch of hair.
During their last few days of life, they walk solemnly through the streets.
They're ready for their mission of death.
This is their big day.
To cries of banzai, they prepare for their last flight.
Japan is one of the nations in this world that has the lowest percentage of Christians.
There are very few Christians in Japan.
If you don't count Americans who are over there on military bases, I mean, there are
very few Japanese people who are Christian.
It's a tragedy.
It's sad.
We love those people.
We wish that they would be saved.
We would love to see them embrace the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
Shinto is by far the largest religion in Japan, practiced by nearly 80% of the population.
Yet, only a small percentage of these identify themselves as Shintoists in surveys.
This is because Shinto has different meanings in Japan.
Most of the Japanese attend Shinto shrines and beseech Kami without want or need to
belong to an institutional religion.
Therefore, the number of members is often counting those who join organized Shinto sects.
Today, there are 81,000 shrines and 85,000 priests across the country.
A Shinto religious site can be a formal temple approached by a vermilion cross-beamed gateway
or an unadorned feature of the Japanese landscape, marked off only by a white straw
rope.
The devotee presents an offering, claps their hands or rings a bell to alert the spirit
of the environment of their presence and say a prayer to respect and honor them.
Small shrines for Kami are also very common in homes and offices.
Followers of Shinto celebrate a mythical history of Japan and the special bond between
the people and its islands.
In the 19th century, Shinto was used to legitimize militaristic and fascist nationalism,
a phase that officially came to an end in 1946 after Japan's defeat in World War II
when the emperor publicly renounced the belief that he was the living embodiment of
Amaterasu, the Shinto goddess of the sun.
That because of Japan's rejection of the gospel over the centuries, rejection of the
word of God, rejection of the wisdom of God, they are suffering today and there
are many many things in their country that are just terrible as a result of rejecting
the wisdom of the Bible.
If you reject the wisdom of God in your life, you'll end up the same way.
If you've walked down the same path that these people are going down, you'll end
up at the same destination.
And so it's a cautionary tale when you look at the history of Japan and when you
look at the current condition of Japan.
Look at Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 5.
Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me that
ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.
Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the
sight of the nations.
We shall hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding
people.
When people look at a nation, they're either going to look at that nation and say, this
is a wise and understanding people.
Or they're going to look at that nation and say, wow, how foolish.
That's a bad example.
I better not go down that road.
And God is admonishing the Old Testament nation of Israel that if they would follow his word,
keep his commandments and fear the Lord, that other nations would look at them and say,
this is a wise and understanding people.
He said, the word of God is your wisdom.
This is your wisdom, not your own carnal understanding, but the wisdom that you gain
from studying the Bible itself.
Look at verse number 7.
This is what they will continue to say.
For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God
is in all things that we call upon him for?
For what nation is there so great, that have statutes and judgments so righteous as
all this law, which I set before you this day?
So what the Bible's teaching us here is that what makes a nation great is following
the Bible.
What makes a nation godly and righteous, what makes a nation wise and understanding,
what makes a nation prosperous is adherence to the word of God.
That is what makes it a great nation.
The Bible says, righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
Look at Psalm 33 verse 10.
The Bible says, the Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to not.
He maketh the devices of the people of none effect.
The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his
own inheritance.
The Lord looketh from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men.
From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.
He fashioneth their hearts alike, he considereth all their works.
What does that mean when the Bible says that God fashioneth their hearts alike?
It means that people in America are just like people in Japan, are just like people
in South America, are just like people in Germany.
Look, people are people, humans are humans, whether in Africa, Asia, Europe, we're all
human, we're all people, and all our hearts are fashioned alike by God.
So what makes one nation a great nation and another nation a failure?
Well it just depends on whether or not their God is the Lord.
It just depends on whether or not they respect and adhere to the word of God.
It's not about skin color, it's not about race, it's not about ethnicity, it's
about the word of God.
Many people would lift up today Japan as being a great positive example and say, we
should be like Japan, look how great of a nation Japan is.
But Japan is not a great nation today.
Now they went through a period where they experienced a lot of financial prosperity
about 20 years ago or so when they were really thriving in the 90s and they were
second only to the United States and Germany as far as exports and financial prosperity
and pretty much the USA, Germany and Japan were looked at as being some of the most
prosperous nations at that time.
But here's the thing, just because you have financial prosperity and a lot of exports,
that doesn't mean that you're a great nation.
That doesn't make you a great nation.
You know there are many people today who have all kinds of money and wealth, but
I wouldn't want to trade places with them because wealth and money is not the final
pursuit of our lives.
But even that is slipping away from Japan as their economy goes downhill and as they've
lost that standing and no longer even have that financial prosperity that they had 20
some years ago.
Why is Japan in trouble today?
Well, let me read for you this article.
The Japanese now have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world and at the same
time one of the highest longevity rates.
As a result, the population is dropping rapidly.
Japan is shrinking, literally.
Inside the Pacific Island nation, more people are dying than being born.
I'm scared for the future of my children and my country.
A demographic time bomb has already exploded, threatening to cripple the world's third
largest economy.
The problem is that young women are not having enough children to keep our country
going.
Japan's population has shrunk by a record one million since 2008.
At the same time, the Japanese are living longer.
Japan is home to the fastest aging society in the entire world.
There are approximately 33 million people over the age of 65.
That's roughly 25% of the country.
And experts warn that number could reach as high as 40%.
We're dealing with an unprecedented situation.
No other country in the world is facing such a crisis.
Ruichi Kaneko is head statistician at Japan's National Institute of Population.
He says if the situation doesn't change, and change dramatically, Japan's population
will drop from 127 million today to 107 million in 2040, 87 million by 2060, and
a mere 46 million by 2100.
And the rate of aging in Japan will only climb.
We're projecting that by 2060, 40% of the population will be 65 years or older.
The government is in a panic.
Ten years ago, it created an agency to encourage couples to have more children.
Having a family is a beautiful thing.
I'm trying to encourage others to see it as a blessing and not a curse.
This is why Japan is known in the world as the country with very few children.
Kaneko also discovered that millions of Japanese aren't even dating.
A survey he did in 2011 found 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women in their 20s and 30s
were not in any kind of romantic relationship.
And if they are in a relationship, they're postponing marriage to much later in life
or simply choosing to remain unmarried.
Without a dramatic change in either the birth rate or its restrictive immigration
policies, Japan simply won't have enough workers to support its retirees and will
enter a demographic death spiral, yet the babies aren't coming.
Now, this is not the blessing of God when a nation has one of the lowest birth rates,
one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.
Let's just look at some scripture on this and see what the Bible says if this is the
blessing of God.
First of all, in Proverbs 14, 28, the Bible reads,
In the multitude of people is the king's honor, but in the want of people is the
destruction of the prince.
When people are lacking in the realm or in the kingdom, that is a bad thing.
And this is going to have dramatic repercussions when they're not reproducing over there,
the population's dropping and half the people are going to be over 65.
Who's going to care for them?
Who's going to take care of them?
We're facing something similar in the United States.
Japan's population is aging at a more rapid pace than that of any other country.
Autonomous driving technology and home robotics are two promising solutions to this
challenge.
These technologies promise to provide people of all ages and physical capacity the ability
to move around independently and freely.
I'm just going to read you a litany of verses here that show you that fruitfulness
is a blessing from God and that fruitlessness and not reproducing physically is a curse
from God.
The Bible says in Genesis chapter 1, verse 28,
And God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the
earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of
the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 9, 1,
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish
the earth.
Genesis 9, 7,
And you be ye fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth.
And did I mention multiply therein.
So God's been very repetitive here saying be fruitful, multiply, it's a blessing.
Genesis 17, another blessing.
I'll make thee exceeding fruitful and I will make nations of thee and kings shall come
out of thee.
In Genesis 17, God blesses Ishmael by telling him that he will be fruitful and multiply.
Genesis 28, 3,
And God Almighty bless thee and make thee fruitful and multiply thee that thou mayest
be a multitude of people.
Genesis 35, 11,
And God said unto him, I am God Almighty, be fruitful and multiply, a nation and a
company of nations shall be of thee and kings shall come out of thy loins.
Genesis 48, 4,
Behold, I will make thee fruitful and multiply thee and will make thee a multitude of people.
Genesis 49, 22,
Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the
wall.
Exodus 1, 7,
And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied and
waxed exceeding mighty and the land was filled with them.
Leviticus 26, 9,
For I will have respect unto you and make you fruitful and multiply you and establish
my covenant with you.
Look, when God is blessing a nation, they're fruitful, they're multiplying.
When we see an entire nation that is not reproducing, that is not the blessing of
God.
Look at the Bible.
Psalm 127, verse one,
Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.
Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for
so he giveth his beloved sleep.
Lo, children are in heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath this quiver full of them.
They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
But Japan's in trouble today.
Why?
Because they've forsaken the word of God.
They've forsaken the right way.
They've not listened to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
They've not listened to books like Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy,
righteous laws of God.
They've leaned on their own understanding.
They've developed their own philosophy, their own worldview, their own lifestyle, where it's
all about work and making money and succeeding and prospering and being honorable in the sight
of man.
According to Japanese propaganda, there were solemn rituals before takeoff.
The divine purity of their sacrifice would inspire and save the nation.
And the emperor sent his thanks.
Crowds turned out to wave them away.
The truth was very different.
But they're not worried about being honorable in the sight of God and obeying the words
of Jesus Christ.
Be fruitful and multiply means nothing to them.
They have their own ideas.
And oh, they're so smart with their own understanding that now their whole country
is in a crisis because they don't have anybody to take care of the aging population.
And now their population is dropping.
It's messing up the economy.
It's messing up their way of life because they didn't listen to God.
Look, we need to listen to God and do things his way.
And in the end, we'll end up better.
This is how you end up when you don't listen to God.
Now you say, well, what's going on, though, Pastor Anderson?
Why are they not having any children?
Why do they have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world?
What's going on here?
Well, there's clearly a subset of Japanese youth who have withdrawn from dating.
Instead, they focus on online porn and games like Nintendo's Love Plus.
More like Love Minus.
They play a Nintendo game called Love Plus in which players conduct a relationship with
an anime girlfriend.
21-year-old Sako Aruno of Asako works in a supermarket and sings in a J-pop band.
His girlfriend's name is Monaka.
She's 16.
They're a Love Plus couple.
Here Sako slips into the role of a schoolboy and meets the virtual Monaka while playing
the game.
I pretended I was the new kid at school and decided to check out the tennis team.
When I first saw Monaka, she was tending the grounds, and we had a chat.
That's how our relationship started.
Since then, we've become closer and closer.
Sako Aruno spends about three hours a day with his virtual girlfriend.
He's always with him because Love Plus runs on Nintendo DS, a mobile emulator.
Sako once had a real girlfriend, too, but not for long.
Now he's devoted to Monaka alone.
Hundreds of thousands of young men are known as hikikomori, shut-ins who eschew human
contact and spend their days playing video games and reading comics in their parents'
homes.
In Japan, nearly a million young men have locked themselves in their bedrooms and refuse
to go outside.
This phenomenon of isolation has been attributed as a side effect to Japan's highly competitive
economy and culture.
So how is Japan's economy destroying their youth?
Japanese culture generally places a significant amount of emphasis on education and employment.
But in recent years, Japan has seen a significant downturn in their economic growth.
However, Japan's recession isn't the same as in most other countries.
Stores don't go out of business, luxury spending continues, and the fabric of society
still seems comfortable.
But the lack of available new jobs does have a massive impact on younger generations.
With fewer jobs to go around, many Japanese men give up hope and withdraw from society.
Furthermore, the longer one is unemployed, the harder it is to find a job, since companies
tend to hire fresh out of high school and college.
Young adults and adolescents who confine themselves for long periods of time are called hikikomori,
They are among the generation of youths called grass eaters, which are mostly men who shy
away from sexual relationships and general social contact.
They tend to live at home with their parents, some well into their 40s.
Additionally, most Japanese youths are expected to provide for their families, putting tremendous
stress and pressure on them to succeed.
The weak economy also puts a strain on relationships, as many Japanese women refuse
to date unemployed men, considering them weak and effeminate.
Japan's government has warned that more than one and a half million are on the verge
of becoming hikikomori.
An estimated 700,000 hikikomori have already locked themselves away.
The influx of socially anxious men has created big changes for Japan, including
a massive drop in birth rates to record lows, and a shift in consumer habits away
from a more masculine driven culture.
For years Takeshi hid from the world, playing video games all night, and sleeping all
day eating from a tray his mother left outside his room.
He was a hikikomori, one of an estimated one million Japanese teens and young men
who have become shut-ins with virtually no human contact beyond their parents.
Some of the hikikomori first withdrew because of some social embarrassment, bad grades,
or a romantic rejection.
The longer they drop out, the more shame they feel in a society where one's status
and reputation are paramount and hard to change.
This godless culture in Japan says, oh well it's really important what the people
around me think about me.
And so I get romantically rejected, or I get bad grades, or I commit some dishonorable
act, it's time to just withdraw to the mother's basement and become a hikikomori.
You know, we can learn from this, that we need to not go down that path of worrying
so much what people think.
See, the problem with pastors in America today is that most pastors care too much
about what people think about their sermon.
They think too much about how the congregation is going to react, how the media is going
to react, how the community is going to react, instead just getting up and preaching
the word of God and wondering how God's going to react.
You see, that's the Christian mentality, not the godless mentality, that's so worried
about our being honorable and respected in society.
The longer they drop out, the more shame they feel in a society where one's status
and reputation are paramount and hard to change.
Parents and especially mothers often enable the withdrawal, you know, because they keep
putting that tray of food outside the door.
In Japan, mothers and sons often have a symbiotic codependent relationship, says psychiatrist
Tamaki Saito, who first identified the disorder in the 1990s.
Takeshi re-entered society after four years thanks to a government program that
sends female outreach counselors, known as rental sisters, to coax the hikikomori out
of the house.
I mean, the government is hiring women to go in and be called a rental sister and to
coax them out of the house.
But that program doesn't always work.
As one shut-in of 15 years said, I missed my chance.
Look, this is what happens when you reject the Bible, oh, the Japanese, man, they're
so smart, I mean, they're building all these great technology and stereos and they're,
I mean, look, this is in the 90s when they're shipping all the Sony, right, and the Panasonic
and the, you know, all the dirt bikes and the Suzuki and the Kawasai, I mean, look,
they were doing great, they were manufacturing a lot of great stuff, but you know what,
without the Lord, though, oh, man, we're succeeding in business, oh, man, we're
making money, oh, man, we're doing great, yeah, your kid is locked in the room playing
Nintendo low plus, okay, and you're not going to have any grandkids and there's going
to be nobody to take care of you because you rejected the wisdom of the Bible and
you didn't teach your children the Bible.
Honor thy father and mother that it may be well with thee and thy days may be long
on the earth.
Kamekaz is costly for the Japs.
We talked about the hikikomori, which is a small part of the population, but it's
substantial, a million dudes, a million losers, a million video game dweebs eating
chips off their chest in the basement playing pornographic Nintendo games, okay, but a much
larger percentage of the population is what's known as an herbivore man.
This is a phenomenon in Japan known as the herbivore man.
Now this has nothing to do with them not eating meat.
These people are eating meat.
They're eating fish.
They're eating sushi.
But the herbivore man or the soshoku kei danshi, I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong,
is a term used in Japan to describe men who have no interest in getting married or
finding a girlfriend.
Only 10% ever get through the terrific screen of the outer ring of Akak fire.
Of these, 90% are blasted out of the sky before they reach the vital core of the
heartbeat.
Trust is the most important thing in a relationship, and Manaka is a partner I can trust.
She'd never cheat on me.
That's why I prefer her to a real girlfriend.
I don't think very much about the future.
At the moment, I'm very happy with Manaka.
I hope it always stays that way.
Listen to this.
Surveys of single Japanese men conducted in 2010 found that 61% of men in their 20s
and 70% of men in their 30s consider themselves to be herbivores.
Now listen to that.
Look, okay, there's a million dudes locked in the basement getting a tray of food outside
the door.
Okay, that's a lot.
But surely the majority of the young men in Japan, no, no, no, 61%.
More than half in their 20s.
And what does it mean to be an herbivore man?
It doesn't just mean that you're not interested in getting married or finding a girlfriend.
It also means that you eschew all things manly.
We need to watch out in America.
We're going down the same path.
Effeminate men are on the rise in both America and Japan.
They eschew the stereotypes of manliness.
Well, you know what?
Those came from the Bible.
God showed a difference in gender.
He taught in 1 Corinthians 11 that men should have short hair and that women should have
long hair and that a woman should not wear that which pertaineth unto a man and that
a man should not put on a woman's garment for all that do so or an abomination of
the Lord thy God.
God is the one who said in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 9 that the effeminate would
not inherit the kingdom of God.
And be sure you have a King James Bible.
The modern versions will try to say that it's referring to a homo.
No, no, no.
It's talking about effeminate men.
And it's not the same thing.
Just because a guy is effeminate doesn't make him a homo.
Okay?
But it's still a sin.
It's still wicked.
We need to be men.
What have we learned from the Bible today so far?
Well, we learned first of all that the greatness of a nation has nothing to do with the
ethnicity of the people.
It has everything to do with whether their God is the Lord and whether they,
and not just enough to give lip service to God being the Lord.
You have to actually keep the commandments and statutes and judgments in the Bible
because righteousness exalted the nation.
But sin is a reproach to any people.
Then we looked at Japan and saw a sign that because they've rejected the Lord,
God's not blessing them because you have a lack of fruitfulness.
And the way that that's happening is because of just strange trends amongst the young people
where they don't want to date.
They don't want to get married.
They don't want a girlfriend.
They don't want a wife.
They don't want to procreate.
That's pretty weird.
She's the first girl I welcomed into my life.
If not for her, I wouldn't have my current friends or much fun.
That's why Tisei is special.
Yes, Tisei isn't your average girl.
She's 25 kilograms of silicon.
At first, she was just a doll I bought from a store,
but I began to feel affection for her.
She's not a girlfriend or a daughter, but Tisei is very important.
The dolls are young because it meets the public's demand.
They are school age because animation films wouldn't sell if characters were in their 30s.
It could be the reason why men go for idol groups.
I think many men are disappointed by real women.
Have you been in a relationship with a human?
No, I didn't like something that complicated.
I couldn't get myself interested in pouring my energy into a relationship.
The dolls have a healing quality and make me smile when I come home.
Tisei is very important.
She's not a girlfriend or a daughter.
Episode 2
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey . Hello.
We have a message for you.
Now obviously people still have the lust of the flesh whether they get married or not,
which is why there's a huge amount of prostitution in Japan.
Basically where these type of reclusive, socially backward type men can have their
needs met in the wrong way.
Outside of the godly way of one man and one woman getting married till death do them
part, they're seeking out prostitution.
Now prostitution is technically illegal in Japan but they basically get around it and
have tantamount houses of prostitution known as soap land.
It's basically a bath house but it's a house of prostitution known as soap land.
They're going to soap land or they're looking at filth on the internet or whatever
they're doing on a video game or whatever.
They're not getting married to avoid fornication.
Such is honorable in all, in the bed under fire.
But whoremongous and adulterous, God will judge.
Whoso fineth the wife, fineth the good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord.
And then when they do fornicate actually with a real life human being and actually
commit fornication and a child is produced, it's often aborted.
Every one of these statues represents a life lost.
They're replicas of Jizosama, the guardian of dead children, or Omizuko, the water baby
who represents a fetus.
Japanese women buy them at temples like this to placate the spirits of their fetus,
lost through miscarriage or more commonly, abortion.
Tens of thousands of these statues have been placed at this one temple alone.
So many that every two years the Buddhist priests burn the effigies to make room for
new ones.
Twenty-one year old Megumi had an abortion less than three weeks ago at Dr. Chikuni's
clinic.
She's at the temple with her boyfriend Hitoshi today to buy their statue.
With
three years of nursing training behind her, Megumi was due to sit her final exams when
she fell pregnant.
With no follow-up counseling, the temple is her only outlet for grief.
In fact, in Japan, there are 340,000 abortions a year.
And keep in mind, their population is much lower than that of the United States.
It's about a third of the United States population and they're aborting 340,000 abortions
a year.
That's about a thousand a day.
And that's about a third of the United States population and they're aborting 340,000
abortions.
Something's wrong with this picture.
Something's wrong.
But God fashioned all our hearts alike.
It's not because they're Japanese, friend.
It's because they rejected the God of the Bible over and over again for centuries.
Every time the Gospel was brought to them, every time Bibles were brought to them, they've
rejected it and turned away from it and rejected it.
I mean, for hundreds of years, they had policies of locking out missionaries, not even
letting anyone trade with them, rejected.
After World War II, a lot of people tried to go in there and evangelize.
Japan is flooded with Bibles and now it's just a handful of people over there that
are Christians now decades later.
And this is where it takes you, my friend.
Yeah, you want to be free from all the restrictive guidelines of the Bible, right?
I want to be free.
You know, they promised them liberty, it says in 2 Peter 2.
I want to be free of all God's commandments and rules.
Yeah, you're also going to be free of manliness because, remember, that's what it said.
Like, they're not bound by manliness.
You know what?
Bind me with manliness, please, because I don't want to go down this path.
People in Japan have long prayed to deceased ancestors and have shared a belief that the
spirits of the dead watch over them.
In the 6th century, Buddhism arrived in a Japan where ancestor worship was very important.
In 686, Emperor Tenmu issued a directive for every home in Japan to make an altar
with a Buddhist image or scripture.
People were to pray at the altar and make offerings.
The directive was intended to spread Buddhism, which until then was confined to the nobility.
Later, during the Kamakura period, the Confucian practice of memorial tablets for the deceased
arrived from China.
This led to butsudan being used to pray to both Buddhist images and ancestors, but
only among samurai and noble families.
The spread of butsudan to the common people came in the mid-17th century.
A shogunate policy of registering everyone through Buddhist temples was a major factor.
The temple registration system was adopted by the shogunate to suppress Christianity.
Every family had to be affiliated to a Buddhist temple.
People all around Japan started keeping an image of their affiliated temple's Buddha
at home and putting it in a cabinet.
Ancestor worship eventually became a standard feature of prayers before a butsudan.
Each morning and evening, family members pray at the altar.
Whenever they have something important on their minds, they will kneel at the butsudan and
seek guidance in the presence of their ancestors.
Later, they will report how things turned out.
A daily butsudan ritual helps children to learn the family's spiritual values and practices.
The butsudan first appeared in Japan 1,300 years ago, but it remains an essential factor
in spiritual well-being.
But he that sinned against me wrongeth his own soul.
All they that hate me love death.
Look at what Japan's doing.
Look at the rejection of Christ.
Look at the rejection of the principles of the Bible.
Look at the rejection of traditional marriage.
Look at the rejection of having children.
Look at the rejection of normal dating.
And look at the embrace of, you know, pornographic video games and just prostitution and just
embracing godless culture and meaningless life and realize that that is something that
could happen to us or our nation if we don't follow the principles of the Bible.
But one last thing I want to bring up is suicide in Japan is a major problem as well.
One of the highest suicide rates in the civilized world, in the advanced cultures,
is in Japan.
And the reason why, I'm going to read this article here, it says, when it comes to suicide
Japan has a very different way of viewing it and has an attitude more complex than
probably any other country.
They have something called Inseki Jisatsu or the act of responsibility-driven suicide.
There has been a code of honor associated with suicide since the 12th century when samurai
warriors used to commit seppuku, literally meaning cutting the belly, to avoid surrendering
to the enemies.
The idea of this honorable suicide was revived again during World War II by Japan's imperial
government and particular emphasis was laid on the virtues of militarized suicide attacks.
Hello kamikaze.
While seppuku is no longer practiced in the modern day Japan, the idea of an honorable
death by suicide has evolved in parallel to its modern day form of Inseki Jisatsu where
people committing suicide as an act of responsibility is deemed an act of great honor.
For instance, people committing suicide to alleviate the burden of debts on their
family through a life insurance payout comes under the category of Inseki Jisatsu and
is considered worthy of honor.
It's wicked.
Killing yourself is wicked.
There's nothing.
It's dishonorable.
It's one of the most hateful dishonorable things you could do is to commit suicide.
You're ruining the lives of the people that you leave behind.
But over there, it's an act of great honor.
Why?
Because this book is not the guiding light over there.
That's why.
That's the kind of crazy stuff you come up with when this book, when Shinto guides you
and Buddhism guides you and you know, the sermon on Buddhism, I showed all the examples
of suicide and Buddhism and how it's glorified in certain aspects in Buddhism and everything
like that.
Look, when you don't have the Bible, you're following Satan.
Buddhism's of Satan.
Shinto is of Satan.
Atheism is of Satan.
I mean, look, you're following the devil and the devil would love for you to kill yourself.
That's why in the Bible when people are demon possessed, they threw themselves in the fire.
They threw themselves in the water.
They were very self-destructive, cutting themselves and all.
And we see that even today in America, the cutting themselves and the suicide and all
these things.
We're talking about what a society looks like that has been one of the most closed
off to the gospel societies in the history of mankind.
Are you listening?
Japan is one of the places in this world that has been the most closed off to the
gospel, the most isolated from Christianity, where they're killing missionaries and for
hundreds of years.
You know, we're talking about going back to 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, just for years and
years and years saying we don't want to listen to anybody else.
We know everything.
Our culture is better than everyone else.
We're wise in our own sight.
We're wise.
We don't need the Lord.
We don't need His commandments.
We don't need His word.
We don't want Moses.
We don't want Jesus.
And you know what?
This is where you end up.
All right, everybody, how are you doing today?
Good?
All right.
My name is Pastor Steven Anderson.
I'm from Arizona in the United States of America.
But today I want to talk to you from the word of God.
And the title of my sermon today is that the devil is a deceiver.
The devil is a deceiver.
The Bible talks about the devil a lot.
And the one thing that it emphasizes over and over again is that he is a deceiver,
meaning that he wants to trick you or fool you or beguile you.
Now the Bible says in Revelation chapter 12 verse 9, and the great dragon was cast
out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world,
he was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.
So the Bible calls the devil a great dragon and a serpent.
And it says that he deceives the whole world.
Now notice it doesn't say that he tries to deceive the whole world.
It said he deceives the whole world.
Why?
Because most of the world is deceived today.
Most people do not believe the truth today.
The Bible says, broad is the way which leadeth to destruction, and many there be
which go in there at, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth
unto life, and few there be that find it.
So most people today are deceived.
Most people are being lied to when they don't even know it, because the serpent,
the devil, has deceived them.
Now in Revelation chapter 20 verse 1, the Bible says, And I saw an angel come down
from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand.
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan,
and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit,
and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more
till the thousand years should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed
a little season.
So the Bible talks about the devil again, deceiving the whole world, being a snake,
being a serpent, being crafty, and tricking people.
It says in Revelation 20 verse 10, The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake
of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are,
and shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever.
But not only is the devil a deceiver, but the devil has his workers, his minions,
his henchmen, if you will.
And the Bible says that the devil is transformed into an angel of light,
and that his ministers, or his workers, are transformed into the ministers of light.
The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3, 13, But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and
worse, deceiving and being deceived.
The Bible says in Matthew 24, Take heed that no man deceive you.
It says in verse 11, And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
So one of the ways that the devil deceives people is through false religions,
through false preachers that lie to you, and beguile you, and deceive you.
Now the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 3,
But I fear, lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,
so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached,
or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received,
or another gospel, which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him.
So the Bible's warning that there are deceivers that would preach another Jesus,
another gospel, another spirit, and he's warning us about these people,
and we want to make sure that we're not deceived by them,
because there's only one Jesus, and there's only one true gospel,
but there are a lot of false prophets, a lot of deceivers out there that would lie to us.
And the Bible says that they want to corrupt your minds from the simplicity that's in Christ.
Now, what does simplicity mean? What does it mean when something's simple, basic, easy?
So if something is simple, I should probably be able to explain it to a 7-year-old,
and they can understand it, right?
Or if I explain it to a 6-year-old, if it's very simple, they might understand it, right?
Now I was looking at some of this stuff, this doesn't look very simple, you know?
A lot of this stuff, I know I used to do this back when I was in school,
but a lot of this, I have no clue what a lot of this even means.
This is not simple, all right?
But see, a lot of preachers, this is how they make the gospel.
And you're sitting there like, what? You know, what?
And you're trying to figure out, like, how do I get to heaven?
How do I get saved? And they're like, oh, it's just right here.
Yeah, I mean, right there.
So here's the thing.
God did not make the gospel this complicated, okay?
The gospel is actually very simple,
but there are a lot of preachers that will beguile you or deceive you.
They'll come at you with something like this,
and they'll use a bunch of complicated words and complicated language,
and they try to make the gospel complicated,
where you ask people, hey, do you know for sure you're going to heaven?
And they don't even know.
People go to church their whole life, and you're like,
hey, what do you have to do to go to heaven?
Well, I don't know.
Or, hey, do you know for sure you're going to heaven?
I hope so. I mean, I'm living a good life. I don't know.
Because they've complicated the gospel to deceive you.
The Bible says don't let the devil deceive you
from the simplicity that's in Christ.
See, being saved is actually very simple.
The Bible compares being saved to drinking a glass of water.
The Bible compares being saved to eating a piece of bread.
The Bible compares being saved to opening a door and walking through it.
Pretty simple, right? It's easy to be saved.
And I'm going to tell you exactly how to be saved right now,
very simply, very easily, from the Bible.
And in fact, I'm going to use a Bible verse
that you've already heard your whole life to do it.
Okay, John 3.16. Who knows John 3.16? Put up your hand.
Okay, let's say it together.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
Now that verse right there tells you how to be saved,
but I can't even count how many times I've told somebody that verse.
And as I told them that verse, they started to quote it
because they already had it memorized.
And then I asked them, so what do we have to do to be saved?
And they said, live a good life.
Does that verse say live a good life and you'll be saved?
No. That verse says that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.
So what's the one thing we have to do to be saved,
according to John 3.16? Believe.
Now is that hard? Is that complicated?
Is that simple? That's pretty simple.
All you have to do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.
But other people will complicate that and say,
well, there's seven steps to salvation.
No, no, no, there's one thing we have to do to be saved,
and that's believe in Jesus Christ.
Some people will say, oh, you got to get baptized,
you got to get catechized, you got to confess,
you got to go to the priest, you got to do all...
And they'll make a big complicated process,
but the Bible says the gospel is simple.
The simplicity of Christ is this.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
That's what the Bible says.
The Bible says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus
and shall believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved.
You just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died
and was buried and rose again,
and confess that with him to your mouth,
and the Bible says you shall be saved.
Isn't that good?
Isn't that simple?
Now, why is that so important?
Well, because a lot of people think they're going to heaven
because they're a good person, right?
Well, let's see how well that lines up with the Bible.
I can't even tell you how many times I've asked someone,
why do you think you're going to heaven?
And they say, because I'm a good person.
Okay, well, here's what the Bible says.
There's none that do it good, no, not one.
Jesus said there's none good but one, and that's God.
The Bible says no one's good.
Why?
Because the Bible says for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God.
Has anyone in here never sinned before?
Everybody's sinned, right?
I've sinned, you've sinned.
So if we go to heaven by being good, none of us are going
because we've all sinned.
Not only that, but the Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin.
So even just thinking of bad thought is a sin.
And I'm sure we've all thought many bad thoughts.
We've all sinned.
We probably sin every day because none of us is perfect.
So if we had to go to heaven by being good,
no one would go to heaven.
Another thing I hear is that some people will say,
well, you got to be baptized to go to heaven.
If you get baptized, that's how you get to heaven.
I heard that a lot.
Well, here's the problem with that is that first of all,
that's not what John 3 16 said.
That's not what the Bible said anywhere.
The Bible said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.
The Bible said that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have eternal life.
But here's the other problem.
You don't baptize yourself, do you?
You go to church and the church baptize you.
Well, here's the thing.
That means you're relying on someone else to save you.
You're relying on a church or a preacher or a pastor to save you
instead of just putting your faith and trust in Jesus to save you.
Now it's a man that decides whether or not you get baptized
and whether or not you go to heaven.
That's not what the Bible says.
The Bible says that we are all the children of God
by faith in Christ Jesus, not by baptism.
Baptism is a good thing to do,
but that's not what gets you into heaven.
We're saved by believing in Christ.
Another thing that people will bring up
as being a way to heaven is they'll say,
well, you have to repent of all your sins.
You know, if you repent of your sins, you'll be saved.
Well, the word repent means to turn from.
So if I have to turn away from all my sins to be saved,
then that would mean I have to stop sinning.
And guess what?
That's impossible because nobody's that perfect.
Nobody's ever turned from all their sins.
Now we could try, we should try,
we should try to turn from our sins,
but are you ever going to really turn from all of them?
Are you ever going to be perfect?
No, because we're human.
The Bible says that if we say that we have no sin,
it says that we make him a liar.
It says if we say that we've not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
The Bible says if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If you say, hey, I turned from my sins, you're a liar
because all of us are still sinners.
None of us is righteous.
None of us does good all the time, right?
I mean, is anybody here going to stand up and claim,
Pastor Anderson, I'm perfect.
I've never sinned.
I've turned from all my sins.
I've repent of all my sins.
No one would say that because if you did,
it'd be ridiculous because we know you.
And so the Bible says that we're not saved
by turning from our sins or repenting of our sins.
That's a works-based salvation.
And the Bible says we're saved not of works,
lest any man should boast.
So it's not by being good or we'd all be going to hell.
It's not by repenting of your sins
or we're all going to hell.
It's not by baptism because then we'd be relying
on a church or a man to save us when in reality,
salvation is a personal thing between you and Jesus.
It's in your heart.
The Bible says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart
that God has raised them from the dead,
thou shalt be saved.
A lot of people will say this,
well, yeah, okay, believe on Jesus to be saved.
But then if you don't live right,
you'll lose your salvation.
Who's ever heard somebody say
you could lose your salvation?
You could lose it.
You heard that before?
Like you'll lose it.
Okay.
But here's the thing.
The Bible says the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Eternal means forever.
So if God gives you a gift that lasts forever,
how many times do you have to get that gift?
If it's going to last forever.
One time.
Now, if God were to take that away from you,
He lied when He said it was eternal.
The Bible says that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish but have eternal life.
Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life
and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
The Bible says, verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me
has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation,
but is passed from death to life.
Once you believe on Christ,
you've already been passed from death to life.
You'll never come into condemnation.
You have eternal life.
You cannot lose your salvation.
Now, let's say you did something really bad after you got saved.
Let's just get crazy and say that you killed somebody.
God's going to punish you for that, obviously.
You're going to prison or whatever.
He's going to make sure you get your punishment in this life,
but you would still go to heaven if you believed in Christ.
Why?
Because once you believe in Christ,
there's nothing you could ever do to lose your salvation
because God has promised us eternal life
and He will never break that promise.
That's why in the Bible there's a famous quote
about the people who go to hell
that Jesus will say to them one day,
depart from me, I never knew you.
Who's ever heard that before?
Depart from me, I never knew you.
He didn't say I used to know you.
He said I never knew you.
Because once He knows you,
He knows you.
You're saved.
Once you're born again,
once you're a child of God,
you'll always be saved
and there's nothing that could ever cause you to lose your salvation.
Now, it's sort of like this.
I have nine children, okay?
This guy in the green shirt here is my oldest son,
but he has eight younger brothers and sisters.
Okay, so I have nine children.
Now, if my son disobeys me,
do you think I just smile and tell him,
that's okay, that's all right,
just do what you want to do, man.
Just express yourself.
No, if he disobeys, I'm going to punish him.
But am I going to throw him out of the family?
Tell him, you're not my son anymore.
Who here wants to give me a rule?
What's a rule in your house?
Who's got a rule in your house
that you want to share with us?
What's one of the rules that you have in your home?
What, you got something?
Don't be disrespectful, right?
So what would be an example of being disrespectful?
Cursing?
So what's your name?
Ariel?
R-E-N?
All right, so let's say R-E-N comes home today
and says, hey mom, blankety blank blank.
Hey, what the bleep is going on, mom?
Now, do you think that she's going to say,
all right, R-E-N, you will leave this house
and you can never live here again,
you're not my daughter anymore.
Okay, or is she going to say,
or is she just going to say,
wow, R-E-N, you learned a new word in school today.
Now, the true story is she's not going to do
either of those things.
You know what she's going to do?
She's going to punish R-E-N.
R-E-N's getting a whooping.
Okay, but she's still their daughter.
Okay, and here's the thing.
Even if R-E-N were to run away from home,
she's still their daughter.
That's not going to remove the DNA from her body
that those are her parents.
Because your parents will always be your parents
no matter what happens, they're your parents.
Now, if you disobey your parents,
you're getting a whooping.
But they're not going to throw you out of the family
and say you're not our daughter anymore
because you've used the wrong language.
That's not going to happen.
You understand what I'm saying?
Now, who do you think is a better parent,
our parents or God?
God is our father in heaven, right?
Well, here's the thing.
If we break God's rules,
he's going to punish us just like R-E-N's mom
would wash her mouth out with soap
if she came home talking that way.
She'd shove a bar of soap in her mouth.
But here's the thing.
God's going to punish us for our sins on this earth
if we're a Christian.
But if we're truly a Christian,
if we believe on Jesus,
if we've received Christ as Savior,
he's never going to throw us out of the family.
Does everybody understand?
He'll discipline us, but we still have eternal life.
We're still going to heaven.
So look, no matter what I do, I'm going to heaven.
But if I go out and live a sinful life,
God's going to punish me.
And if I live a good life, God's going to bless me.
But at the end of the day, I know where I'm going.
And I'm going to heaven for one reason.
Not because I'm good.
Not because I turned from my sins.
Not because I got baptized or did anything else.
It's because I do what?
I believed on Jesus Christ as my Savior.
I believed on him.
So do you see how simple the gospel is?
You could express the plan of salvation in one word, believe.
It's just believing on Jesus.
That's it.
His death, his burial, and his resurrection.
Now I want to ask you a question today.
Who here believes what I just preached to you?
Who here believes that Jesus died for all your sins
and that he's the only way to heaven?
Put up your hand if you believe that Jesus died for all your sins
and that you go to heaven by believing in him.
Just if you believe in him, you'll be saved.
It's a free gift.
Who believes that?
Put up your hand nice and high if you believe that, okay?
All right.
Now here's the thing.
I want to lead you in prayer right now
to tell God that that's what you believe
so that you can know for sure you're going to heaven.
If you believe that.
Only if you believe that, all right?
So let's bow our heads right now.
And if you believe that, you can pray with us with me out loud unto God.
Say, Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner.
I know I deserve hell, but I believe that you died on the cross
for all my sins and rose again.
Please save me right now and give me the free gift of eternal life.
I'm only trusting you, Jesus.
And thank you for making it simple.
Amen.
Now who just prayed that prayer?
And you meant that right now.
Put up your hand nice and high.
Look, that right there is what the Bible says you have to do to be saved.
Just confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus
and just believe that Jesus died and was buried and rose again,
and thou shalt be saved.
I mean, it's that simple.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus
and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be.
He didn't say you might be saved.
Thou shalt be saved.
So you're saved now.
If you have trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, you're saved.
You already know that no matter what happens
between now and the day of your death, you will be in heaven.
But the question is, how do you want to live your life in between?
You could just say, Oh, well, I'm going to heaven no matter what.
I'm just going to go out and party.
Well, here's the thing.
If you do that, if you do that, you will still go to heaven.
But you're going to screw up your life on this earth bad,
and God's going to whoop you harder than Ariene's mom will whoop her
when she comes in and starts blankety bleep blank blank.
Okay, so God is going to punish you if you do that.
You don't want to do that.
But if you choose to live a life that follows the Bible,
that follows God's word, you know what?
God's going to bless you.
It's a much better way to live your life.
Plus, if we love God, we should obey Him.
We should want to serve Him and please Him.
You know, I don't want to just go waste my life getting drunk
and sleeping around and being an idiot and getting diseases
and and hurting other people and hurting myself.
You know, I'd rather live a life trying to get other people saved,
trying to get other people to heaven with me by preaching the word of God.
Isn't that a better way to live your life than just puking your guts every morning
because you're out partying the night before?
I'd rather do something valuable with my life.
I'd rather study God's word, preach God's word, and get people saved
so that when I get to heaven, I want there to be a whole bunch of people there
that got there because I preached to them.
Wouldn't that be a good thing to have up in heaven for all eternity?
That's how you want to live your life.
And I want to thank you very much for listening so well and being so respectful.
Nobody cursed me out or anything.
I appreciate it.
And so God bless you all and have a great day.
Thank you.