The Three Hour Sermon on God, Sin and Salvation

I take it for granted now that you are convinced of your sins. Now you can see and understand how all men without exception are sinners. But some one may say at this point " All right, I am convinced now that I am a sinner. I know that every man on earth is also a sinner. What, then, does it matter to us though we are all the blackest of sinners? Why should we be so much afraid of sin? Why is sin such a dreadful thing? I don't see anything dreadful. Is not sin simply a misdeed or shortcoming, or weakness of human nature? Is it not all right, even after committing sin, if we are sorry for our misconduct and try to 'correct it and reform our characters? Is it not the teaching of our old sages that ' If a man commit sin he must at once correct it without hesitation/ and that is all which is required of us and no need of bothering ourselves any further? If we only correct our misdeeds and reform our characters all the sins we have committed will be wiped out forever, just like an ink spot from the face of a man, or a dark film from the face of a mirror."

But no, my friends, sin is not such a light thing. Sin is not like an ink spot or dark film. Such illustrations are always misleading. You know illustrations are not truths, people sometimes mistake them for truths, but no, they are not truths in themselves; they are simply used to explain truths, and in many cases they do not fully explain and make the truths clear to people's minds. In some cases they misinterpret and mislead people. This illustration of an ink spot or dark film for sin is a very good instance of a misleading illustration.

Sin or crime, you know, is a legal term. Read now the law books. What do you find there? The laws says, " You must not steal." But what if you have already stolen? Does it say, " Correct your misdeed and you shall be all right "? No, the law says at once, " Such shall be punished by an imprisonment of so many years." The law says again, " You must not kill." But what if you have already killed some one? The law does not say, " Reform your character and you shall be free." No; it says again, " You shall be punished by death."

Yes, every law of the state has punishment attached to the violation of the law. If there is no punishment then the law is powerless. Nobody would be afraid of violating the law if no penalty were attached to its violation. The reason people are so afraid of breaking the law of the state is that if they do break it they will be punished; no matter who they may be there is no respect of persons in the eyes of the law, although some lawbreakers may manage to escape punishment for a time. Every lawbreaker must sometime receive his due recompense. And there are two ways of executing the punishment the police and the prisons. If it were not for these two wellknown means of executing the laws of the state they would be quite powerless.

So, you see, sins can not be looked upon as such light things as some people would like, f for they will surely bring sooner or later upon the offenders a terrible punishment.

Right here some one may raise another objection. " All right, we agree that the laws of the state have punishment attached to them, but how about the laws of heaven, even God's laws? Have they also punishment attached to them? Does heaven punish sinners as the state punishes its offenders? And is heaven's punishment as direct and quick as the punishment of the state?"

Yes, my friends, there is a swift and sure punishment from God in this world. Everybody knows that. We have the word Tenbatsu [Heaven's punishment] in our language, which has been in use from very old times. What does Tenbatsu mean? It means precisely punishment from heaven. It is not punishment by the state. It is not punishment by man. It is punishment by the King of Heaven.

Everybody in this country fears that Tenbatsu. And very often it comes swiftly and soon. And nobody can escape it. We also speak of the heavenly net whose meshes at first sight look very big, but on close examination we find them to be very small, so that even the tiniest fish can not pass through them.

Now all these sayings establish our belief in punishment from heaven for our sins. It is clearly stated in the law of God that even an idle word which a man utters on earth will not escape its deserved punishment in the day of judgment.

I must make a few remarks about this punishment from heaven.

If you regard man simply as an earthly creature whose existence ceases at the end of this life, then it seems as if there are imperfections in this punishment from heaven and much injustice. Not always in this world are good men honoured and bad men disgraced. Not always do honest men get wealthy and dishonest men become poor. Not always are the righteous prosperous and the wicked unfortunate. Do we not often find the reverse of it? How was it in the case of our national hero Kusunoki Masashige?

Though he was a good man, loved and honoured by all men of the country, his family did not continue even for three generations. Whereas, Ashikaga Takauji, the founder of the Ashikaga Shogunate, whom every Japanese knows to have been a bad man, was so fortunate as to have his descendants for fifteen generations rulers of Japan. His family prospered while the other family was short-lived.

Because of such instances as these there are many men who doubt the existence of heavenly punishment or heavenly justice.

They say this world is ruled by chance or fate and not by the wise providence of God.

Of course many good people have tried to explain these seeming injustices. I have heard many explanations myself, but I confess I am not satisfied with them.

As long as you regard men as creatures belonging to this world alone for whom there is no future life, you can never explain this vexed question. But I believe that man is not created for this world alone. Man has his future life also. He has an existence beyond the grave. Our earthly life is simply a pilgrimage to that life. We are simply travellers in this world. And our pilgrimage on this earth lasts only fifty or seventy years, but our life in the next world is eternal. What are these short periods of fifty or seventy years of our earthly pilgrimage compared with that eternal life of the next world? Can they be compared? This present life when it is passed will seem like a half-forgotten dream of the night.

Moreover, the very object of our coming into the world is not achieved in this present life. Here we are simply voyaging to the next world where our real destinies lie.

Suppose you go to Yokohama and buy a ticket for America and get on board the ship. It will take about twenty days to cross the ocean. And now during those twenty days of your sea voyage to America you will meet with all kinds of experiences, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant. Some days you may have dancing, music, moving pictures, theatrical performances and various other enjoyments. Surely you will have a good time. But at the same time you must be prepared to meet unpleasant experiences too. But whether good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, it is only for the twenty days, that is all. When you get to America you will forget all these experiences, or perhaps remember vaguely for a time. These are not the object of your voyage. You did not buy your ticket for America to enjoy the ship life. Your object was not on the boat. What was your object in going to America? Were you not going there for study or for business or on a visit? Surely, you had some reason for going there and for which you made your sea voyage of twenty days. The voyage was simply a means to reach the end you had in view.

So, I think, our life on earth is a voyage.

When we were born we all bought tickets for our voyage and entered the ship of life. We are all on board the ship of life now. Every one of us has a ticket in his hand which entitles him to the eternal haven at the other end of this early life. And now I think some of you are already far out on the ocean. Perhaps many of you have already gone as far as Hawaii. Old folks like myself may be almost within sight of the Golden Gate. May be there are some among you who will reach your destiny tonight. We can not tell. We do not know how near we are to that eternal haven.

I see many young people here tonight. Perhaps you may be saying to yourselves, " Oh no, we are not so near to that haven, certainly we are yet very far out. We have plenty of years to live yet on this earth. We need not yet bother about our arrival there. We are quite safe for awhile."

But no, my young friends, even you are not safe. How many of our young people are dying now very early in life. No, no, not one is safe from that final call from heaven. Maybe the youngest of my hearers tonight will hear that call before the next dawn.

Moreover, life is very short on this earth. It is like the twinkling of an eye. It is a dream of the night. When I was young I said to myself: " Oh, I have a long voyage yet to make. I need not hurry. I need not bother myself about the future life. I have plenty of time to deal with such matters in the future." And now I am sixty-three years old. Do not people say that fifty years is the ordinary length of a man's life here on earth? Then I have passed already thirteen years beyond the span of the ordinary human life. But how.quickly it has passed. How short it seems to me, after all. When I look back upon the years of my life I feel that human life is but a dream. When it is passed it seems like the twinkling of an eye.

Moreover, when it is passed it becomes valueless. Good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, all look alike. I have had good times as well as bad times. I have had happy days as well as unhappy days. But when they are passed they become altogether of no account.

There are some old folks who are always talking about the past. Their thoughts are turned toward the past. They can not talk about anything but their past deeds and past events, and their conversation is not interesting to young folks, because the young folks are looking ahead while the old folks are looking back.

But the real joy of life is not in the past; it is in the hope of the future, and we are all hastening to that land of our hopes.

When we get to the shore of the other world where are we all going? Can we go wherever we wish to go? Shall we still have freedom of choice in selecting our eternal habitation?

No, my friends, then we have no freedom. I tell you that there is but one place after death whither we must all go without a single exception and that is into the presence of God. Every man when he reaches the shore of the other world must appear at once before the judgment seat of God. This is not the result of choice but it is of necessity. Man may talk of liberty and freedom as much as he pleases, but there are two points in human life where he has absolutely no choice. At both ends of this life, entrance and exit, man has absolutely no freedom to choose. Who on earth has ever come into this world by his own free choice? And who again can choose the place to which he will go? You were not born in this city of Tokyo by your own free choice, were you? You did not come into this world by your own will nor by the will of any man, but by the will of the Almighty God who or- dained you to be born into this world. And, in the same way, you will not go out of this world by your own choice, but you will be taken away from this world by that final call from heaven which no man on earth can resist.

Can kings or emperors, the mighty or the wealthy resist this final call from heaven a single moment?

When you appear before the judgment seat of God you will receive your just recompense for your life on this earth. Then if you are found righteous and perfect you can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven with joy and gladness. And you shall enjoy eternal life in that land of perfect peace and happiness.

But if, on the contrary, you are found sinners and transgressors of the law of God, you will be punished by being thrown into eternal hell.