Jap-01 the Earth Is the Lord's — Art Katz

Good afternoon, children. If you're expecting lectures, I think you're going to be disappointed. Because lectures imply something ordered and neat and established. This is going to be more in the form of a birth.

Painful, dirty, unpleasant. But the end is joy. I personally am overwhelmed by many impressions. I have never felt myself more ignorant about anything than Japan.

I have been sucking up all of the impressions of these brief days.

The Spirit Reveals What Human Knowledge Cannot

And I think that the Spirit has already been giving some revelation and light. I hope you'll be patient to participate with me in this process of birth. I believe in God that it's going to be historically and eternally important.

A first speaking of its kind in Japan. And I don't know how to begin. And that's appropriate that I don't know. It's already a revelation of the faith of Jesus Christ. Which is not predicated upon the knowing of man.

But the revelation of the Spirit which comes down from above. Jesus was himself very insistent about this very thing. He said, everything must be born from above. So let's pray together. Thank you precious God that you're the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

How shall man himself presume to know how to begin? We simply pray and trust. Lead us where you will and as you will. Give us patience to wait for this fruit. But bring it forth as something eternally valuable.

Have mercy upon us who are mere men. Give us an understanding. The perspective of things as you yourself see them. That we might be fitted for your use in this hour. Come and let this time be important for this nation.

For Asia and for all the earth we say, thy kingdom come. In Jesus' name we ask it. Well maybe we can begin with Psalm 24. Something of which we all need to be reminded. The earth is the Lord's and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it.

For he has established it upon the seas, founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers. Do you really know that? Our Christian behavior does not seem to express this. We are much too timid and modest in our activity.

Our expectations are too limited and too human. Because we do not see as God sees. We see humanly and horizontally things as men see them. But there is nothing more imperative but that we should come to see as God sees.

The Earth Belongs to the Lord, Not to Satan

The scripture says that the whole world lieth in the wicked one.

But that is not the way it should be.

Because Christ has already made a triumph over him and made an open spoil of him. So he does not have any legal right to continue to possess the world as if it were his own. He is an illegal usurper and is ruling by fraud.

An illegal usurper. Do you know what it means to usurp? To steal. And he is ruling by fraud and by deceit. We have too easily allowed that to be true. There is no statement more pleasing to God than Japan for Jesus.

Yes, and Jews for Jesus.

For the earth is the Lord's. The world and all it contains. We need to have the perspective of God. That sees so much of the world yet under the rule of Satan. Because the church of Jesus Christ has not insisted upon this.

Because it has allowed the world so easily to be the possession of the enemy. We were told to pray thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. But we don't actually ourselves expect that. Unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given.

And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And it says in Isaiah 9 .7 that there will be no end to the increase of his government or of his peace. Isaiah 9 .7 On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and for ever.

Verse 7. Let this sink deeply into our hearing and into our understanding. From the day of the coming of the sun there was a government that was to be increased and without any end. From then on and for ever.

God intends that all of the earth come under the authority and the government of this child that was born and this son that was given. God intends to rule over the nations. The church is not a cultural supplement for Sundays.

The Church as God's Kingdom Among the Nations

It is the organic glory given of God to rule and to reign in the earth. Turn to Psalm 67. God be gracious to us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us that thy way may be made known on the earth and thy salvation among all nations.

We need a vision of the church which is something more than a Sunday supplement to society. But it is the society of God himself. It is already a kingdom come and is coming. The rule is already upon his shoulder.

And of the increase of his government there shall be no end. That the day will come when every knee shall bend and every mouth confess every mouth that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That thy way may be made known in all the earth and thy salvation to all nations.

That includes Japan. But it will not be if we ourselves do not expect it. If we ourselves are content with something less. Something more modest, something more religious which even the world will allow us.

So long as you are content with Sunday services, the world will allow you to continue. But start to challenge the powers that rule over the earth and over nations and it will not leave you satisfied. It will not be so pleasant for us as Christians.

The nations themselves are ruled over by the powers of darkness. And the peoples thereof are also therefore in bondage. They think that they are free. They enjoy a certain kind of lifestyle. But they have no knowledge of God or of eternity.

And they are victims and prisoners. His salvation must be made known in all nations. Japan is not being offered yet another religious option. That they can pleasantly consider together with Buddhism, Shintoism and Confucianism and all of the other faiths that have found a home here.

The Exclusivity of the God of Israel

Our God is a jealous God and he will share his rule with no one. Our faith is an exclusive faith and will not consider any rivals. This kind of insistence is infuriating for the world. How can you be so dogmatic?

Where is your respect for other faiths? America talks about the three great faiths. I guess Japan can talk about the six great faiths. But I want to remind you that there is only one great faith. It's the faith of the God of Israel.

Oh, you're insisting upon this, brother, because you're a Jew. No, I'm insisting upon it because it's true. And that truth needs to be made known. However much it will offend men in the first hearing.

I was myself offended when I first heard the faith. I was a relativist and a humanist. Many paths to truth. And I confronted this Jesus of the Scriptures. This arrogant, narrow insistence, I am the way, the life and the truth.

When Jesus said, I am the way, the life and the truth. When Jesus spoke about this narrow path.

No man comes to the Father but by me. No man. Have you noticed recently how absolute God is? Just as insistent as he is on this absoluteness? Why do I get the impression that your faith is too timid? Too apologetic.

Fearful of offending. You'll never take Japan like that. And no man comes to the Father but by me. I don't care how moral he is, how ethical he is, how cultured he is, how intellectual he is. No man. It's absolute.

And I praise God for the absolute insistence of God. Because he knows the human heart, he made it. He knows what escapists and phonies we are. As I myself was for 35 years. Very spiritual. Very lofty.

Very idealistic in my views. I had my own view of God and reality.

A very convenient view.

Which also allowed me to fornicate and to sin. But the same God who is absolute about himself is also absolute about sin. Thou shalt not. I'm just reading now about the Japanese mind. And about its whole religious history.

It doesn't matter whether you're talking about Buddhism or Shintoism or Confucianism. It has this interesting fact in common. There is no moral personal content to these religions. There is no absolute thou shalt not.

They emphasize harmony and tranquility and aesthetics and other pleasing values. But they have nothing to say about sin and eternity. Only the God of Israel does. Do you have the effrontery and the arrogance to insist upon your God before other men?

Isn't that narrow of you? What are you trying to do? Impose your western religious views on eastern peoples? I can see many of you grow weak when you will be so accused. Maybe that's true. I shouldn't insist that my way is the only way.

We really need to be more broad-minded than that. After all, you're likely to offend the Japanese people. You have to go real slow. They have to grow into an understanding. What Japan needs are some Apostle Pauls.

Paul's Bold Proclamation to the Nations

When he spoke to the Greeks, he did not mince words. I perceive in all things you are too superstitious. I see that in all things you are too superstitious.

I see that in all things you are too superstitious.

The God whom you ignorantly worship, I declare unto you. That's the way a man ought to speak who believes that the earth is the Lord's and the nations thereof. Whom whom you ignorantly worship, I declare unto you.

That's the way a man ought to speak who believes that the earth is the Lord's and the nations thereof. Isn't that an arrogant attitude?

No, that's very humility. Even your view of what humility is, has been colored by the world and not given by God. Even your view of what humility is, has been colored by the world and not given by God.

Even your view of humility has come from the world and not from God. Jesus came and he turned the money changes tables over. How can you make the house of God a den of thieves? How can you make the house of God a place of thieves?

That's very humility. I don't care that it's loud. It's humble because it's true. Because speaking like that saves men out of death. We're concerned with more than the issue of courtesy. There's something more important than offending the sensibilities of men.

It's the issue of life and death. It's interesting that when Paul spoke, they didn't grow into an understanding on Mars Hill. When Paul spoke, they didn't grow into an understanding. The reactions to his speaking were radical and extreme.

Some scoffed and said, we'll not hear again of this babbler. But some cleaved immediately to him and believed. This is an appropriate response to the radical word of God. So the men need radically to be confronted.

For the earth is the Lord's and the nation's thereof. Why should we allow them one day more to languish in darkness and bondage? We need to speak as if we have the truth. And the only truth. The truth that sets men free.

Proclaimed by men who themselves believe it. And demonstrate that same freedom. Let the peoples praise Thee, O God. Let all the peoples praise Thee. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. For Thou wilt judge the people with uprightness and rule the nations on the earth.

Verse 67. For Thou wilt judge the nations. Are we proclaiming that to men? Paul did on Mars Hill. The Greeks had never heard of this before. It was not part of their cultural perspective. It came to them abruptly by a despised Hebrew.

But he spoke to them the foolishness of the faith. And he spoke to them about a day of judgment. It says in verse 31 of Acts 17 Because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world. Verse 1731.

He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness. Japan will also be judged. It will be a fearful day. Or we may have a very short historical memory. We might forget the rape of Shanghai or Korea.

The rape, the looting, the destruction that came to Asia through Japan's militarism. Violence. But God has not forgotten. There will come a day when He will judge all nations. The world. Men need to be prepared in anticipation of that day.

National Repentance Before Revival

I don't know whether to smile, laugh or cry when I hear you use the phrase, Japan for Jesus. What, do you have a program for them? Are you going to put on some skits and dramatic activity? I have another view to propose to you.

If Japan is to be one for Jesus. If there is going to be national revival, it must be preceded by national repentance. The sins of the fathers must be acknowledged as the sins also of the sons. The powers of darkness need to be broken up that are in the heavenly places.

Through repentance. For the sins of murder and violence and destruction need to be acknowledged and repented. God says in the book of Ecclesiastes, that which is past is now. And God requires that which is past.

Jesus said, as your fathers did, so do ye also.

You also do murder the prophets that are sent unto you.

How bewildered those Jews must have been when he said that. We have never murdered any prophets. But until you acknowledge that your fathers have, you are guilty of their sin. This is a spiritual principle.

And to act in ignorance of the prophets is a sin. The ignorance of it is to be defeated. There is no way that this nation is going to be taken for Christ until this foundational thing is understood. The same thing is true for Germany.

There will never be a national revival there until there is a foundational recognition of national repentance. For God has appointed a day in which he will judge the nations. Who shall inform the nations of this soon coming judgment?

And who shall show them a basis for such repentance? Because if we judge ourselves, we need not be judged. Only the church can perform this in the world. Because only the church alone enjoys the perspective of God.

This will require more than skits and dramatizations in the street. And I'm only at the beginning of this in my own understanding. So I was afraid I was going to be overwhelmed and I wouldn't know where to begin.

But brother, is it enough merely to speak and to acknowledge World War II? No, that's not enough. What was the origin and cause of it? What do we need to understand about Japanese nationalism and racial pride?

Shintoism, Nationalism, and Japan's Imperial Identity

The deep thoughts in the history of Japan that they believed that deity itself had established these islands. That deity was even in the race. And that they were to rule over all of the nations in the seas.

It was the land of heaven. Japan is the land of the heaven. The heaven shining goddess. Its emperors were divinely descended. All the nations were to come under her light. She was to be the fountainhead of all nations.

And in all matters she excels all peoples. These views came to Japanese thought through Shintoism, through Buddhism, through all of its religious gods. All of Japan's false religions have reinforced both its government and its society.

And gave it an ethnocentric view of superiority, racially and nationally, over other nations. The war is over. But have these things ever been dealt with? It still continues. And the spirit of it. Which is arrogant and proud and offensive to God.

And for which he will judge the nation. The church is more than Sunday services. It is God's prophetic presence in the world. Proclaiming the view of God to nations that could not have it for themselves.

That they might repent. And believe the gospel. Believing is not a process of intellectualizing. It is a function of repenting. That's why you always read these conjunction of words. Repent and believe.

Believing the gospel is an utterly supernatural phenomenon. You do not come to it by process of intellect. It is an understanding of foolish things that are supernaturally given from above that you might believe.

Grace, Faith, and the Necessity of Hearing God's Word

By grace are you saved. And that by faith. And not of yourself. Lest any man boast. Repent and believe ye the gospel. There is only one thing that a proud man can do.

Is to humble himself before God.

And trust to God for all the rest. But even in this God must take the initiative. In the beginning was the word. And there is no repenting without hearing God's word. How shall men repent if they have no understanding of their sin?

They need to be told. That God has a controversy with Japan. That God is angry with the sinner every day. That Japan's present prosperity is not a sign of the approval or the blessing of God.

That there is a day in which he will judge the nation. And judge all men.

They need to hear such a word. That is preached boldly and without compromise. That will insist on the truth as Paul insisted. This is part of this birth now. This is part of birthing. There is another spasm coming.

It says some clave unto him and believed. Acts 17. Some clave unto him and believed. Some scoffed. Some said we'll hear again of this. And some claved unto him and believed. Stuck. Clung to. They clave to him.

They hung on to him. Maybe I just want to end with this point for this session. This kind of message cannot be brought in some impersonal way. This is not some easy glib kind of word that anyone can speak.

Personal Knowledge of God's Judgment

Paul said knowing the terror of God, I persuade men. What made his message so compelling was his own personal knowledge of God. He knew God as judge. And he trembled. And therefore was able to make men to tremble.

Something is required first with us. We are going to bring the message of repentance to the nation. Would we ourselves have never repented? We are going to tell them that their religions were self-serving and deceitful?

Would we have done the same with our own faith? You can take that which is true and make an idolatry out of it. What we have done in the name of Christ is often as bad as what they have performed in the name of Buddhism or Shintoism.

In the name of the Lord we have thinly disguised our own selfishness and self-seeking. And by such a process made of the true faith of false religion. Could you understand that our very willingness to be part of a religious system that is satisfied with Mia Sunday services is itself a lie?

It needs to be repentance in the church. We need to pray for the revelation of God as judge. Paul says, for God has appointed a day. The whole apostolic church lived in the anticipation of that day. They lived in such a way as they thought it was going to come tomorrow.

They lived in the fear of God. We have not this sense. And we therefore cannot communicate these things. Judgment begins first in the house of God. The government shall be upon his shoulder. In the church first before it comes to nations.

For example, is the government of your life upon his shoulder? Well sure brother, I'm in YWAM. Yeah, but how did you get there? Was it a divine appointment? Or a matter of religious convenience? What, you had nothing better to do?

And you thought that was sufficient reason? You are a rebel. If you have not moved in direct obedience to the explicit call of God. You would do Japan a favor to leave. If you are here for your own self interest.

You would do Japan a favor to leave. How shallowly we have dealt with God.

Do you understand my point?

I don't want to wear out my interpreter. Do we really have a message for Japan? They clave unto Paul and believed. The man cannot be separated from his message. This is more than the saying of correct things.

Becoming the Message of Repentance

It requires men and women who are the message. Japan needs to see the word made flesh. In the beginning is the word. The word is confrontation. The word requires radical response. It requires repentance or rejection.

My prayer is that such a word will come to this nation. I want to stop here now. And pray for this much. That the Lord will establish something in our heart already. A higher seriousness than when we first came into this room.

This is something more than lectures. This is God troubling us. The hour is very short. The day of the Lord is much nearer than when Paul spoke it. Men need to be confronted now. Who are worshipping God ignorantly.

Willing to hear any new thing. But unwilling to be converted. To the God who owns all the earth and the nations thereof. And before whom every knee must bow. And every tongue confess. Ours first. That Jesus is Lord.

Not our convenience. Precious Jesus. My prayer is that these words will be as a hammer upon the rock. My intention is more than to inform these minds. More important if you break their hearts. Start with us.

Have a place of beginning. A day of small beginnings. That Japan can hear the word of God. By those who really can bring it with conviction.

By those who can believe in you. By those who can know the consciousness of sin clearly. Start with me. I pray. I pray in the name of Jesus. Please lower your head as it is. As you lower your head now.

Bring your heart to God. Maybe what you are doing now is for your own benefit. Have you repented for that?

It doesn't matter that it is a religious work or a good work. If you are not in the Lord's place by the will of God. It is a lie.

It is self-seeking religion. A false idol. It needs to be repented of.

Trust the Lord for His mercy. Allow Him to establish His way in you in truth. Or you have no message for anyone. Lord have mercy. For Japan's sake. For a dying world's sake. Begin your judgment with us.