Last Saturday was the day i had been waiting for over 4 weeks. Around the beginning of January, i called a retired SDA pastor in Chiba who was scheduled to come to Himeji to preach on the 31st. I explained what i was doing trying to promote the first edition of The Great Controversy book, and he said he had a one hour study in the afternoon after lunch at the church, and i could introduce the book there. Well, in my enthusiasm, i understood him to mean that i would be given one hour to have a study, but what he meant is just that he would have a study, and i could have a minute or two to introduce the book.
Sleep left me at 1:10am as the friend i was staying with woke up, turned on the light, said it was one o’clock, then went back to sleep. He did that several more times until it turned 5 o’clock, when he said he was going to sleep, and i could get up now. He seemed a bit surprised when i said i hadn’t slept since around 1 o’clock. I leave at 5:30, ride the subway to Umeda, then wait for my friends who are going with me, at JR Osaka station. Our train is pretty full, and i have to stand up a while, but after about 20 minutes a space opens, and the husband of my friend and i sit down and start eating breakfast. It takes about 1:30 to Himeji, and we just barely make the bus to go to church. After getting off at Aoyama-saka-no-shita, we turn left and walk about 5 minutes straight up a hill to a nicely-built “house-style” church.
Later, 3 other church friends arrive by car, and including the regular members, there are around 20 people present. Pastor Yanaga has recently finished a great work – a Protestant New Testament in Japanese. He translated from the Greek using the KJV as reference. I didn’t read it, but it sounded like it would be just the thing to help strengthen the Christian church in Japan. I’ve pinpointed this as the biggest problem keeping Christians in Japan in a stupor — of the 3 current translations of the Bible in Japanese, all of them are based on the bad Westcott and Hort Greek text, and are translated “dynamically”, meaning the words are not preserved faithfully, as the translators believe only the ideas are from God, not the words. So if Christians in Japan can get solid food — the real Word of God — in their own language, they should be able to be led by the Holy Spirit to a deeper experience in things of God.
The work i’m trying to do in turning people to read the original Spirit of Prophecy material is very much along the same lines, so the first part of his talk in the Sabbath School Lesson period was very interesting to me. However, i noticed he was circular at times in his talking and answers, but chalk that up to age, as he is probably nearing 80. What concerned me most tho, is that he rejected the idea that the words in the Bible are from God, and said that only the ideas are from God. I shook my head in disbelief, wondering what in the world he spent 15 years doing then, trying to get the pure word of God to the people in Japanese……
He gave the sermon which sounded like the earlier talk, and then in the afternoon he gave a one hour “Bible study”, which was basically just a continuation of his talks in the morning, driving my friend’s husband upstairs to a bed for a nap. He had to catch the 4pm Shinkansen train back to Tokyo, so left with a few church members around 3:30. I was a bit desperate in my heart, but didn’t want to seem like i was trying to push this 1858gc book on the people, so didn’t say much, but fortunately, one youngish family sitting behind me who i had talked to about the book a couple of minutes during lunch time asked if i could give a study. I looked around, and the 3 friends who came later in the morning were eager too, so we used the newly-printed-in-thailand study guides, and covered chapter 32. Before doing that tho, there were several questions about whey there are different editions of The Great Controversy book, and it turned into about a 30-minute talk about how the SOP books have never really been treated as the Words of God, so especially after James White died in 1881, there have been lots of changes and editing done to the books. They seemed to accept this information.
The study went very well, and i was very, very happy to finally have an opportunity in my beloved adopted country to have a chance to spread the words of God in this manner. One lady gave a donation which i gratefully accepted, and one man tried to pay for the book which i rejected (it was still Sabbath), and one family took us back to Himeji station where we purchased discount train tickets at a small shop near the train station, saving us around 900yen, and then got in the train for the ride back to Osaka where we parted, and i ate some “stand-up” noodles, then walked for 55 minutes back to the place where i was staying.
Praise God for working things out in his own, mysterious way. I’m still left with the feeling that i could be, should be, doing a lot more here in Japan as i speak the language, but somehow doors are just not opening like i had hoped for. Please Lord, open doors, i will follow wherever you lead. Please accept my small talents which you have lent me, and use me in your service.