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Many years ago, at the conclusion of World War II, the emperor of Japan approached

General Douglas MacArthur, who was then rep­resenting the United States military and Allied Forces in the reconstruction of Japan. He was such a benevolent leader that the Japanese loved and admired him. As a result, according to various reports, the emperor offered to declare Japan a Christian nation.

ENERAL MacArthur was not only a great military man but also a histori­an, and he remembered that Con-stantine, emperor of the Roman Empire during the fourth century, declared the Roman Empire to be Christian without the ben­efit of conversion. The result was a fiasco. So, instead of inviting the emperor to do as he offered, General MacArthur made an urgent plea for 1,000 missionaries to come help bring the gospel to Japan.

Only a handful came. And today, more than 40 years later, only one-half of 1 percent of the population of that powerful and strategic coun­try professes to be Christian. The Japanese are not indifferent to the Lord—in fact, we have found that they are very hungry for God. But because of a limited number of witnesses for Him, most of the Japanese people have not heard the good news of God's love and forgive- ) ness through Christ.

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