One of the generals who presented when the Japanese signed the instruments of surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri was Gen. Wainwright. As you remember, Wainwright was taken prisoner by the Japanese and for many, many months he was a prisoner of war. Ho lost weight, became a very emaciated man, and they put him through all kinds of things in that Japanese prisoner of war camp.
They began to tantalize him and tell him that America was losing the war and that he was going to be killed and that he would never see his home again. And, of course, he had no communications. He didn't know how the war was faring. He didn't know but what they might be correct.
Day by day his captors would fill him with all of that pessimism and all of that despair. Then one night some of US men were able to slip secretly into that Japanese prison and they were able to get into the room where Gen. Wainwright was and they told him that the war was over and it would be just a matter of hours when the American forces would come to the prison and would liberate him.
So the next morning when his captors came in to begin their mockery and to begin their browbeating of him again. Gen. Wainwright, emaciated, skin and bones, sat up in that bed and began to give them orders and to tell them what to do. Those Japanese captors went rushing out of his room and they said, “He's been told, he's been told, he's been told.”
Well, I've got news for you, friend, when the Devil whispers in your ear, “it's all over.” And when the Devil whispers that death is going to be the end for you, you can start giving orders to the Devil, you've been told that Jesus is going to come again one of these days.
ⓒ Pastor Lee Hangyu http://www.john316.or.kr
