Our mission has a special vision to go out into the world. We set this year as one of spreading out the Gospel into every part of the world. Having a new year, we would like to examine ourselves. Being a Christian for a pretty long time, when we read today's scripture verse, we tend to take it as one of our best known verses. However, let's think about what it is saying carefully this morning. When the event here occurred, it was the 51st day since Jesus was hung on the cross. This was the first church born after His cross. True, there are over 8,000 churches now in Japan. In the Meiji period, a few Christians visited Oita to start a church. All of them were English teachers, spreading out the Gospel. In the first year after they had begun, 22 people were baptized! The leader of that group was Weighnlight. He is famous in Japan as one of the first Christians to build a church. On New Year's Eve, Weighnlight, Lambus, and those newly-baptized Christians were gathering to pray together. The prayer meeting lasted for 2 hours, which was very unusual then. At first, they had been praying with reason (using their own words) but as time went on, they started to repent of all of their sins with tears, and some were filled with the Spirit so strongly.

This was the revival that was experienced in Oita over 90 years ago. At that time, revival happened in several places in Japan as well. But what happened in Oita was one demonstrating the strong work of God's Spirit. It was such a strong and clear work of the Holy Spirit that those Christians started remarkable works afterwards.

Acts 2:14. The power of the Spirit is to raise us from our negative situations. We all have hardships, troubles, sorrows... We tend to let ourselves be beaten up by so many negative things. There are so many temptations in our world. Sometimes, we are easily tempted. But, the Holy Spirit can give us victory over these things!

Secondly, with the strength of the Spirit, we can say loudly and clearly that Jesus is the Lord. We can't be cowardly in confessing this, if we are with the Spirit. All of the world needs God, and to Him, they are to come. So, we Christians who know the truth should speak out.

Acts 2:25. Before being filled with the Spirit, Jesus' disciples wanted to be leaders of the group, and even sit on Christ's right-hand in Heaven. They always thought of earthly things. Living in this world, we encounter troubles many times in life. But we are to look at those troubles through Jesus. We need to know that there is Jesus (in spirit) standing by our sides to help us and guide us. We know that revival happened in Oita. But, having a new year, we do have a dream that revival will happen again, some time soon in the future.

Last week, a certain meeting was held for pastors in Oita City. I also attended it and mentioned my dream of the revival in Oita. They became so excited, and started to have dreams of their own. The year 2000 is just around the corner, the twenty-first century is just ahead. What do we expect in the new century?

In Argentina, there was a revival. Right now in Pensacola, in the States, we can see a revival. There, a Jewish pastor is being well-used for the people. In that town, there are serious sexual problems. Men love men, and people just leave each other like that. There was no way to save them. They were so fallen that they committed adultery and became drug addicts. But, this Jewish pastor and other Christians prayed hard for them, and this led them to repentance. These people began repenting with tears in their eyes with the strong work of the Holy Spirit.

There are three definite things that will help us experience a revival: We are to pray. We are to be thirsty for revival. We are to offer our sacrifices willingly. Read II Chronicles 7:12-16. This part was also given to me for this new year.

Translated by Junko Okamoto - Edited for the Net by Shido
For another sermon see: Oita Evangelical Christ Church
For all sermon indicies see: cHaPeL nOaH sErMoN iNdEx