From Oregon to Calvary:
The Story of Jacob Deshazer
Romans 10:9
… if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved
In last week’s sermon I told you the story of Mitsuo Fuchida. He was the top gun commander that ordered the raid on Pearl Harbor and later, after receiving a gospel tract on a street corner in Tokyo, became a Christian. I hinted last week that there was more to this street corner meeting than I had time to tell you.
Fuchida tells it like this:
As I got off the train one day in Tokyo's Shibuya Station, I saw an American distributing literature. When I passed him, he handed me a pamphlet entitled I Was a Prisoner of Japan ... Involved right then with the trials on atrocities committed against war prisoners, I took it.
What I read was the fascinating episode which eventually changed my life.
The story of this American is itself a testimony to God’s grace. May I tell it to you this morning?
His story begins at the exact same time and date as Mitsuo Fuchida did. December 7, 1941 at 7:49 am Hawaii Time. But Jacob DeShazer was an ocean away.
Sergeant Jacob DeShazer was on KP duty peeling potatoes at a U.S. army base in Oregon. When news of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese came over the loudspeaker, DeShazer became enraged. He threw a potato against the wall and shouted, "The Japs are going to have to pay for this!" At that moment, intense hatred for the Japanese was born in young Jacob DeShazer’s heart, and it grew with every passing day.
DeShazer began to make plans to personally provide “payback” to the Japanese.”
He soon volunteered for a secret mission as a bombardier in a squadron that became known as “The Doolittle Raiders.” In April of 1942, four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, DeShazer and the other Raiders made a surprise raid on Tokyo, Japan. But after completing their mission, DeShazer’s B25 ran out of fuel. He and the crew were forced to parachute into enemy territory. DeShazer was captured the very next day and was held in a P.O.W. camp for 40 long months—34 of them in solitary confinement. During his captivity, DeShazer was severely beaten and malnourished. Three of his buddies were executed by a firing squad, and another died of slow starvation.
DeShazer’s hatred grew – it began to consume him. He later wrote:
"I began to ponder the cause of such hatred between members of the human race, … I wondered what it was that made the Japanese hate the Americans, and what made me hate the Japanese."
He was about to find out.
Freedom in Christ
DeShazer remembered hearing about Christianity and how it changed hatred into
love. Suddenly overcome by a longing to examine the Bible to see if it held
the secret, he began begging his captors for one. Finally, two years into his
imprisonment, a guard granted his request, but said he could have it for only
a few weeks. DeShazer dove in with wild abandon, eagerly reading chapter after
chapter—first the Old Testament, then the New. He began to understand that his
sin—including his hatred for the Japanese people—was keeping him separated from
God. But it also became clear that he could be reconciled with his Heavenly
Father through Jesus Christ.
On June 8, 1944, DeShazer came across Romans 10:9: "… if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." With a believing heart, DeShazer confessed his sins to God and discovered what true forgiveness is all about.
Freedom in Forgiveness
Something miraculous happened in DeShazer’s cell that day. Though his physical
body was battered from beatings and lack of food, God gave him a new spiritual
life in Christ—one filled with joy. Reveling in the freedom of God’s forgiveness,
DeShazer suddenly saw his captors in a new light.
He writes:
I discovered that God had given me new spiritual eyes. When I looked at the Japanese officers and guards who had starved and beaten me and my companions so cruelly, I found my bitter hatred for them changed to loving pity. I realized they did not know anything about my Savior and that if Christ is not in a heart, it is natural to be cruel.
Just as Christ prayed on the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," DeShazer began praying for God to forgive his torturers. And he vowed to someday return to Japan and share the message of salvation with its people, that they too might be reconciled to God. On August 20, 1945, the war came to an end and prison guards released DeShazer and the others. True to his commitment, he entered a Christian college and began studying to be a missionary, equipping himself to return to Japan and make Christ known.
A Changed Heart —A New Mission
As a missionary DeShazer, the one who formerly vowed “the Japs are going to
have to pay for this” kept his new vow that he would share Christ love with
the Japanese. As part of his missionary endeavors he wrote a small pamphlet,
a Gospel tract, which told of Christ love and his testimony. It was titled:
I Was a Prisoner of Japan.
In God’s grace and mercy a unique event was now set to occur. This former hater who had that hatred instilled in him by Mitsuo Fuchida’s bombing of Pearl Harbor would stand on a corner and hand out his tract and … and … Mitsuo Fuchida would come by and take one of those tracts from his hand!
I cannot help but be overwhelmed by the scene and hater and hated come eye to eye – one with a changed heart and one’s heart to be changed!
Fuchida was moved as he read how the dynamic power of Christ had transformed DeShazer’s life and his attitude toward his former captors. The peace that DeShazer had discovered was exactly what Fuchida had been seeking. Since the American had found it in the Bible, Fuchida purchased one, despite his Shintoist heritage, to see for himself. It was the account of the crucifixion that grabbed Fuchida’s heart, particularly Jesus’ prayer at the time of His death, as recorded in Luke 23:34—"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
Fuchida would later write:
I was impressed that I was certainly one of those for whom Jesus had prayed. The many men I had killed had been slaughtered in the name of patriotism, for I did not understand the love which Christ wishes to implant within every heart.
Reconciled to God...and Each Other
Fuchida began to tell others about Christ, as did DeShazer. In fact, they both
spent many years as evangelists—DeShazer in Japan and Fuchida throughout Asia
and the world.
Perhaps as important, the two former enemies became friends—a testament to God’s miraculous healing of hearts. Only after DeShazer and Fuchida were reconciled to God were they able to find forgiveness in their hearts for those who had sinned against them. They learned that without God’s forgiveness in their lives, they lacked the capacity and desire to forgive others.
The forgiveness that DeShazer and Fuchida found through Jesus Christ is as available today as it was during World War II.
• Maybe you have never experienced the pardon – the forgiveness - of Jesus. If so, you can follow Jacob DeShazer and ask Christ to forgive you and save you from sin’s destiny.
• Maybe you have “issues” with others. They could be spurred by any and all sorts of reasons but the consequence is the same, the hurt keeps you from experiencing God’s peace. You can seek God’s grace today to help you to forgive them. You can know the freedom available in Christ.
