While the Japan earthquake and tsunami, nuclear disaster made headlines in every media, Dr. Thomas In-Sing Leung, honorary chairman of Cultural Regeneration Research Society, preached a hope-filled message at the Hong Kong E.F.C.C. Kong Fok Church last Sunday.
The Vancouver-based Chinese speaker quoted Joshua 1, “After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them – to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.”
In his analysis of the situation then, Leung asked the crowd why is it that after Moses, the leader who led the Israelites out of Egypt, died, God called Joshua to “get ready” or “arise” according to the Chinese translation of the text.
“There are times in our lives that we will pause. In different stages in our lives, 20s, 30s, 40s, we will feel the passing of time…changes in our appearances, which are all inevitable,” he said. “As we get older, we suddenly experience this fatigue and wonder the reason to keep moving forward.”
Joshua is in the same situation when facing the path forward; the land beyond Jordan River is for ours for the taking, but how can get pass Jericho City and cross the Jordan River. So he may have stopped and not know how to proceed, so God called him to arise.
“I am a current event commentator, so I must read a lot of world news every day. Seeing the battles in human world…the recent Middle East unrest that began from Egypt to Libya, the cruelty of (government) attacking its own people with missiles. The world of man is very ugly and scary. Then, there was the heart-trembling tsunami, nuclear power plant disaster, which causes everyone to fear the radiation.”
Reflection of Catastrophe
What kind of reflections should we have in this disaster? Leung asked. In face of the changes in nature, human beings should really pause and think about how we use so much time to deal with political battles, military drills, fight for economic gains, power, why not spent more time to understand the source of earthquakes? The earlier it is detected the more likely it can be avoided. Knowing earthquake then you would know tsunami, but human beings do not spent enough time and money to investigate about these matters, but devote so much resource in the struggle for worldly dominance.
“One giant earthquake has woken mankind. The Bible brought up the signs of end times – when hearing the sound of waves, there would be panic. (I) didn’t understand what this meant until the 2004 (Indonesia) tsunami and the huge tsunami in Japan this time, then (I) understood what it meant by panic."
Besides reflecting on why spending so much time to attack others, the second reflection is dropping the ethnic enmities. Leung said that his parents told him in the past that because the Japanese attacked China so they must escape, so he has hatred towards Japan, which he won’t travel to Japan (only when preaching the gospel), won’t buy Japanese car. But through this disaster, the people in the world see the preciousness of the Japanese people – the 50 people who remained at the nuclear power plants, Japanese first taking care of foreigners, etc.
“The suffering that Japan experiences is common to all, because losing a loved one is the common suffering of mankind,” Leung asserted. He hopes that the Chinese can come out from the complexity of hate, “Although our ethnic groups were wounded very deeply, but the Japanese are innocent, but it is just that the Japanese government won’t admit their past flaws. In the midst of disaster, the Japanese are filled with manner and order, even the place of refuge are very clean and no trash are left – these are all areas that (we) must learn from Japan.”
God’s Order in Creation
He then talked about the objectiveness of God’s order in creation; God will not interfere, because if he does then nature will not be stable, science and reasoning cannot be developed. Nature changes naturally; the earth’s titanic plates move which causes earthquakes. Only when there is special revelation will there be a miracle.
“Man’s heart is unable to adapt to sudden circumstantial changes. Where does pain come from? Because man’s heart hopes for a perfect world, but when the reality and the perfect world is different, then there will be pain. When the change occurs, God gives man the ability to know the changes in nature…one catastrophe made us reflect, we didn’t do well in our responsibility to manage nature.”
God’s Way in Dealing with Man’s Sufferings
God said to Joshua, “Arise”, because there is hope ahead. Then, Leung said that “Arise” is also part of China’s national anthem, and the ending lyrics “March on! March on! March!” also tells us to keep moving forward.
“Do we still have hope? The greatest trait of Christianity is that there is still hope ahead. Despite the world is constantly changing, greedy, and ugly, we can still move forward because God is together with us. God’s way of dealing with man’s sufferings is different than how we think; he doesn’t restore everything at once, but overcome together with us.”
Lastly, Leung said, “Jesus Christ became word in flesh and experienced our sufferings. He is a God of suffering, who was betrayed by man, beaten, insulted, but forgave our sins while ins suffering, and to resurrect after three days, giving us a new hope.”
{Editor's note: reporter Joseph Leung translated the article.]
