"the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ" - Farewell Weapons

Shinagawa Station, Tokyo

Farewell Weapons

Human beings are only the animal that uses a sword for fight, attack, defend or showing his status.

The sword must be the first invention of mankind, though probably it was made of wood for use against other animals.  And then the second invention must have been the bow and arrow.  Armed with these weapons, mankind became the final winner on the animal planet.

When mankind started to make bronze or iron swords, the situation however changed drastically.  These metallic swords were clearly intended for use against other human beings.  Now the enemy of a man was not other animals but other men.  So, the fate of mankind started to become bloody and ominous.  Mutual destruction might have been destined mankind for.

Accordingly Christ Jesus told truth about a man and the sword.

Matthew 26:52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Now handguns and rifles have become common hardware in the US and other regions in the world.

 In 2010, 358 murders were reported involving a rifle while 6,009 were reported involving a handgun; another 1,939 were reported with an unspecified type of firearm. 

In 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 66.9% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm.[5] Two-thirds of all gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides. In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicide deaths, and 11,078 firearm-related homicide deaths in the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States

So, when you sell a gun to a client, you have to read for him or her the above passage of the Bible.

They that take a gun shall perish with the gun.

No more assassinations like the JFK killing, since Caroline Kennedy arrived at Tokyo today as the US Ambassador to Japan.

YURIKO NAGANO, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
POSTED: Friday, November 15, 2013, 2:49 AM 

TOKYO (AP) - Caroline Kennedy arrived in Japan on Friday to take up her position as U.S. ambassador with one important strength: She has the ear of the American president. 

"I bring greetings from President Obama," she said in a short statement after getting off the plane with her husband Edwin Schlossberg at Narita airport.
Japan hopes the 55-year-old daughter of late President John F. Kennedy will work closely with Barack Obama to tackle some urgent U.S.-Japan matters, analysts said. 

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation_world/20131115_ap_f665e96450504cd5ae38daf0cb403b43.html

Her grandfather was the US Ambassador to England while Hitler was rising in the German political circle.  He didn't contribute much to peace at the time.

But Caroline Kennedy has a great chance, since China and South Korea are still tenaciously attacking Japan for matters which happened during and before WWII.



*** *** *** ***


Rev 11:14 The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Rev 11:16 And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
Rev 11:17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O LORD God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.

"let him hear" - Beauty is Vain?

Shinagawa, Tokyo

Beauty is Vain?

In the Bible there are some descriptions about beauty:

Pro 31:30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

So, the most important thing for a woman is neither being charming nor beautiful but being fearful of the Lord.

So, you had better know who your sister, your girl friend, or your wife is afraid of.  If it is God, you ca be relieved from various evils her worldly charm and beauty might invite.

http://rimaroom.jugem.jp/?eid=580





*** *** *** ***





Mat 11:11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Mat 11:12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
Mat 11:13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.
Mat 11:14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.
Mat 11:15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

"the time of figs was not yet" - Godlike Moment

Tokyo International Airport

Godlike Moment

Today's lesson of the King James Version of the Bible is on a very strange scene.

It is Christ Jesus vs. a fig tree.  And the fig tree seems to have outflanked Christ.  The tree refused to provide its fruit for hungry Christ.  And Christ a sort of got angry, which was observed by His disciples.  It is very strange.

But Christ was living as a mere man but not as the God.  And an ordinary man sometimes meets an incongruous situation with his personal or inner integrity.  Matter in the universe moves according to conditions of the universe the God had set on His creation of it but not to the human ideal. No matter how holy or powerful a man or a woman is, he or she would have to face a very uncomfortable situation.  For example, a Pope might be treated as a criminal, and a queen must face a very mean incident of her family.  And Christ met with a rebellious fig tree.

As the God even created the Devil, He must have given a chance of existence to such a tree.

So, coming back to His holy sense, Christ as the God ordered the fig tree not serve anybody since it denied serving Christ who was the God in his inner nature.  Indeed if a subject refused to server a king, he is not allowed to serve anybody in the kingdom, in order to protect honor of the king.  So, it meant that Christ took back His authority as the God to a kind of save His face for Himself.

So, this episode is very human if He is a simple human being like us, but we have to probably say that this episode is very godlike since He is such God.

But all the 12 disciples there looked like misunderstanding something.

Although the Gospel states that Jesus "found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs.", we should not read this passage as if it were a horticultural manual. As these events bracket the cleansing of the temple we are meant to see that the fate of the unfruitful tree symbolizes the character and fate of the magnificent temple of Jerusalem. Jesus expected the temple to be a house of prayer, for the temple authorities to conduct their affairs unobscured by commercial exploitation. As Jesus saw it, there is never an off season for the Temple. Yet the temple authorities failed to produce fruit. In the words of writer Joseph O'Hanlon: All leaves, and no figs.answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.

http://iconsandimagery.blogspot.jp/2010_11_01_archive.html

Christ Jesus however did not abhor the fig tree especially, since He mentioned it in His teaching, giving a kind of credit to it:

Luk 21:29 And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees;
Luk 21:30 When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.
Luk 21:31 So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. 

So, the fig tree is, nonetheless, not far from Heaven.



*** *** *** ***


Mar 11:11 And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.
Mar 11:12 And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:
Mar 11:13 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.
Mar 11:14 And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.

"the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence" - Heaven and the Hell

Haneda Airport, Tokyo

Heaven and the Hell

There is one vivid story Christ Jesus told: A beggar was sitting by the gate of a rich man's house.

As time went by, both the beggar and the rich man died to leave this world.  Then the rich man came to God, asking Him to mitigate his pain and thirsty.  Indeed the beggar was in Heaven held by Abraham, looking so satisfied.  The rich man asked God to have the beggar give him water even using the tip of his finger.  But God said, "You enjoyed fine and nice foods, clothes, articles, houses, and so on.  But now the beggar is given everything he needs.  Between you and the beggar a deep crevasse you cannot jump over lies."

It is so simple.  A rich man who simply neglects the poor is condemned to falling into the hell.  A poor man who doesn't do any things bad but just sits before the gate of a rich house can be allowed to enter Heaven.

The key to understanding this story is existence of Heaven and the hell.  And it tells Heaven is a good place for human souls whether they are good or bad.  The hell is a place where human souls suffer so much.  And human souls cannot freely move between Heaven and the hell.  The fate is decided by God who takes into account a state of living of each man.

So, it is very strange that no schools in this world teach Heaven and the hell to children and students.  No serious professors study Heaven and the hell to present results of his study to make people who are stupidly trying to be bad and rich repent.

However, in old days, or specifically in the Middle Ages in Europe people were told about Heaven and the hell so often in homes, communities, and churches.  Accordingly, there must have been more people who entered Heaven in those eras than in today.      

Luk 16:19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:  

Luk 16:20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,

Luk 16:21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 

Luk 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; 

Luk 16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 

Luk 16:24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. 

Luk 16:25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

He said,

“I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house; for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.”

But Abraham said to him,

“They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.”

He said, 

“No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”

He said to him,

“If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.”

— Luke 16:19–31

http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2013/04/17/here-endeth-the-first-lesson/



*** *** *** ***


Mat 11:12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

"And Jesus entered into Jerusalem" - The Answer is the Devil?

Haneda International on Tokyo Bay

The Answer is the Devil?

One day the Devil, disguised as an Islamic angel, showed poor men in Islamic nations and rich people in the US to Osama.

The Devil asked Osama what he would do.  Osama answered that he would attack the US.  Then the 9/11 Terror was carried out in 2001.  The US Government sent military planes and ground troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to kill tens of thousands of Muslims, most of them were so poor.  President Obama finally sent a special attack unit to Abbottabad, Pakistan, to take on Osama in 2011.

In this way the Devil caused deaths for thousands of rich Americans and tens of thousands of poor Muslims in addition to rich Muslims such as Osama and President Hussein of Iraq.

The point at issue is that if Osama had been able to see that the Islamic angel was the Devil he would not have launched the 9/11 Terror.  And then there would not have been deaths of thousands of rich Americans and tens of thousands of poor Muslims in addition to rich Muslims such as Osama and President Hussein of Iraq.

But one day the Devil without disguising himself as nobody else, showed poor men in the US and super-rich people in the US to Wall Street guys.

The Devil asked Wall Street guys what he would do.  Wall Street guys answered that they would have poor Americans contract subprime loans in late 1990s.  Then in 2007 this scheme came to a dead end.  Total 7.5 million subprime loans were packaged into mortgage-backed securities (MBS).  The amount outstanding of subprime home mortgaging as of March 2007 was 1 trillion 300 billion dollars.  It triggered the Great Financial Crisis of the US which started in September 2008.

The point at issue is that if Wall Street guys had not been servants of the Devil, they could have avoided the 2008 Financial Crisis which is still making the US unemployment rate kept high.

Of course the Devil was talking for decades to Japanese elites in the nuclear industry, nuclear reactor makers, electric power companies, regulatory authorities of the Japanese Government, political communities, academic communities, media organizations, and so on that Japanese nuclear power plants were all safe and 15 meter tsunamis would not attack those nuclear plants which were however all built on seas.    

And on March 11, 2011, an M9.0 earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean 200 km off Honsyu Island where Tokyo is also situated.  It triggered huge tsunamis which rushed to several hundred kilo-meter coast lines northeast of Tokyo.  As a result the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was attacked by a 15-meter high tsunami, so that its three nuclear reactors got into a big trouble losing a power source for circulating cooling water.  Within a day, nuclear fuel started to melt down in Fukushima Daiichi, leading to huge leakage of radioactive substance.  This nuclear accident is not yet completely fixed even today.  Still radioactively contaminated waste water is flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the plant.

The point at issue is that if Japanese elites had not been brainwashed by the Devil, they should have built more robust and higher seawalls around the Fukushima No.1 (Daiichi) Plant to avoid such a critical nuclear accident at the level of Chernobyl.

So, it is the Devil that is making mankind suffer here and there.

We need more fighters against the Devil.  But who would be, facing terrorists and US troops, Wall Street greedy and arrogant executives, workers and clients, and big earthquakes, tsunamis and high doses?



*** *** *** ***


Mar 11:11 And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.

"to him that knocketh it shall be opened" - The Japanese Koran

A Museum in Suburbs of Tokyo

The Japanese Koran

There are only three Japanese translations of Koran.

The most sold version of Koran in Japanese was translated by Toshihiko Izutsu.  In fact, the first Japanese Koran was a work of translation by Izutsu.  　

Toshihiko Izutsu (1914 – 1993) was Professor Emeritus at Keio University in Japan and author of many books on Islam and other religions. He taught at the Institute of Cultural and Linguistic studies at Keio University in Tokyo, the Iranian institute of Philosophy in Tehran, and McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He was fluent in over 10 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Greek.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshihiko_Izutsu

Izutsu was a genius in language.  He once said that he had mastered English, German, French, Italy and other European languages, taking only three months for each.

It is because those European languages pose no resistance to learners.  But languages used in regions with longer history than Europe have a kind of resistance confronting learners, according to Izutsu.  So, he had to make more effort to master Arabic, the Hebrew word, Sanskrit, etc.

When Izustu was young, he studied Arabic day and night.  He studied various types of Arabic day and night.  He also taught Arabic to students.  But Izutsu learnt himself various aspects of Arabic, including the Koran and ancient Arabic poets, day and night.  However he had foreign teachers, too.  One of them was Musa　Bigiev (1875-1949), a Tartar, who visited Japan before WWII when Izutsu was a young scholar.  Musa　Bigiev was also called Musa Carullah.

Japanese Scholar Toshihiko Izutsu, has many books on the Qur'an and other subjects. He is believed to be a turning point in the field of Qur'anic semantics. His books are highly accepted by the scholars worldwide and translated into several languages. His masterpiece Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur'an was from his earlier books in the field of Qur'anic semantics. Professor Dr. Muhammad Khalid Masud, Izutsu's student in Canada, has translated this book into Urdu language in Pakistan with a very valuable introduction about İzutsu and his relations with several muslim scholars. Musa Carullah of Kazan, Izutsu's master in Arabic and Islamic sciences had very deep influence on izutsu. In his introduction to the translation Khalid Masud stresses on the Izutsu's method of understanding of the Qur'an: In fact Shah Wali Allah of Dehli was the first scholar who has underlined the importance of the study of Qur'an as a whole. But izutsu and some other schoiars such as Hamiduddin Farahi and Amin Ahsan Islahi have developed this method of understanding. This introduction tries to show Izutsu's relation with muslim scholars and muslim world and his importance in the field of Qur'anic studies.
http://www.islamiarastirmalar.com/magazine/tr-Izutsunun-ethIco-relIgIous-concepts-In-the-qur-an-adlI-kitabInIn-urduca-cevirisi-uzerine-151.html?page=archive           

Musa Bigiev had very excellent power of memory, which even Izutsu was surprised at.  One day when Izutsu was sick, Musa Bigiev paid a sympathy visit to Izutsu.  Then in a room where Izutsu stayed in bed, Musa Bigiev found many books.  He asked, "What do you do with these books?"  Izutsu replied that he would carry all these books with him to study them even when he was traveling.  Then Musa Bigiev said, "Don't be like a snail, carrying a bookcase!  You have to remember all the contents of these books!"

Indeed when Musa Bigiev asked Izutsu to get him a certain Arabic book, Izutsu found it to bring it to his Arabic teacher.  Then, a week later, Musa Bigiev returned it to Izutsu.  But Izutsu found that his teacher almost completely remembered contents of the 600-page book.

Even when Musa Bigiev was teaching contents of a certain classic Arabic grammar book, he remembered each word of the book without reading the 1000-page book, so that he could write and show its important sentences to Izutsu.  Musa Bigiev really looked like keeping contents of all important books in his head.

Izutsu read classic books of ancient Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, Hindi, etc. in original ancient languages.  Izutsu became not only a language expert but also a philosopher in this way.

Nonetheless there was also one Japanese whose support benefited Izutsu very much.  It was Shumei Okawa who was arrested as an A-class war criminal by the American military which occupied Japan after WWII.

Shumei Okawa (1886 – 1957) was a Japanese nationalist, Pan-Asian writer and Islamic scholar. In the prewar period, he was known for his publications on Indian philosophy, philosophy of religion, Japanese history, and colonialism. He is frequently called a "right-wing" writer, although he described himself as anti-capitalist and rejected the label "right-wing".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%ABmei_%C5%8Ckawa  

Shumei Okawa had once worked in the South Manchuria Railway Company, a Japanese national policy concern during and before WWII.  Okawa purchased some precious Arabic and Islamic books using a company budget.  But as the books were too difficult nobody read them.  So, Okawa invited Izutsu to come to the office of South Manchuria Railway to study these books.  It helped Izutsu greatly advance his knowledge in Arabic and Islam.

Anyway, only unique Japanese learn Arabic and Islam even today like before WWII.  But Japanese study on Arabic and Islam owes much to the Japanese genius in language Toshihiko Izutsu, the prodigious wandering Tartar scholar Musa Bigiev, and the politically unique Japanese Islamic scholar Shumei Okawa.

http://www.keio-up.co.jp/kup/izutsu/cw.html
Japanese Islamic Scholar Toshihiko Izutsu in an International Conference in 1979





*** *** *** ***


Luk 11:10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.