Shelton Allen and Ashes

 26 Nov, 2000

Dear Ted & Phyllis,

How I enjoy our little time of Sunday fellowship. This has been a unique experience and I am afraid that I have been the principle recipient of the blessing. I don’t know how much longer we can enjoy this fellowship as the time is drawing near for my departure for Southeast Asia. I will be in Thailand for a few days and should be able to write you from there, but when I go to Laos I won’t be taking my laptop computer. Perhaps I could try handwriting but my English is so poor I would almost be ashamed to send such letters to anyone.

Last Friday I was up to Karuizawa visiting a retired Japanese pastor that I have known closely for five years. They had the SEND church here in Hatoyama for ten years but when they retired they wanted to go to the states to thank the churches for sending the missionaries that brought them to Christ. This they did and they were sharing with me some of their experiences in the states. They said one missionary they stopped to see lived in Prescott, Arizona, but it was an especially sad time. This brother had been a brilliant linguist and an outstanding missionary but now was suffering from some serious illness and was more vegetable than virile man. They said he could hardly speak any language but could only point to a few pictures of friends he still remembered. My Japanese is quite limited and after they had been talking about this sad visit, I asked, “Did you know Shelton Allen?” And they replied, “That is the man we are talking about.” Then they showed me his picture.

Did you know Shelton Allen? He was one of the early FEGC missionaries and was a legend in his time. When he first arrived in Japan he had such a passion to reach the Japanese, he studied so hard that he nearly went seishin (mental). He told a friend that one day he was standing on the platform at Tokyo eki and held out his hand to look at it. Shelton said he wasn’t sure whose hand it was – his or someone else’s. But oh, could that man preach in Japanese! He and Rollie Reasoner did a great deal of tent evangelism together. Whenever I heard the name Shelton Allen it always seemed like they were referring to someone bigger than life. I looked at the photo of this poor man now and scarcely recognized him. I thought how strange that the Lord would let him deteriorate like that.

Fifty years ago there was a very outstanding Christian officer in the US military, General Harrison. He was the UN negotiator with the North Koreans and the Chinese Communist at the Panmomjun cease-fire treaty. He was the president of the Officers Christian Union when I was in service and a highly respected conference speaker. Fifteen years ago a young friend of mine asked me if I ever heard of General Harrison. I said, “Of course, he is famous.” Then my friend told me that he had met General Harrison in a nursing home in Charlotte, N.C.  and went over to have Bible study with him every day. The general told him how much he appreciated the fellowship of this young brother as very few people stopped to see him anymore. Douglas MacArthur immortalized the words of that West Point ballad in his famous speech before the US congress in 1951, “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” What a strange phenomenon! How strange that the servants of the Lord are not exempt, but He has exempted us from very few of the natural forces that govern nature. And in that He only exempted Himself from one – His Body did not see corruption.

Somehow we would all like to be like Enoch or Elijah and be taken up without going through the process of getting old. The Bride in Song of Solomon in talking about her Lord said, “His locks are bushy and black as a raven.” (S of S 5:11). That is true of Christ today. He was taken up in the peak of His physical development. There is no sign of decay in Christ. There was never a time when He was more powerful than He is right now. Physically I like to think that I am as strong as I was when I was 30, but my hair is thin and white and I don’t have the endurance that I had 35 years ago. Age slows us down until we come to a halt. We wished it were not so but that is the way the Lord has programmed the machine.

 This morning I was reading a book about having a passion for God. How I lament the coldness of this stony heart! I was pleading with the Lord to do for me what He did for the stones in Elijah’s alter – “the fire…consumed the burnt sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust, and licked up the water in the trench.” (1 Kn. 18:38). If God could make the fire to consume those stones, then I asked Him to ignite this stony heart and let it give off a little light and heat. That is the only hope I see for this poor man. But as I look at you I see a different scene. When the red heifer was offered as a burnt sacrifice they were told to take up the ashes and put them in a clean place (Num. 19:9).   

 There is such a thing as spiritual conversion – that is, taking a material object and converting into something spiritual. The easiest illustration is money. It is possible to take US dollars – with Washington or Lincoln’s picture on it – and converting that into riches in heaven. Jesus told us to lay up riches in heaven and obviously it is possible to have a bank account in the First City Bank of the New Jerusalem. We take something material and convert it to spiritual riches. In the Bible the way sacrifices were converted was by fire. As those sacrifices burned and turned to smoke the Lord smelled that sweet savor and the animal was converted to an acceptable sweet smelling sacrifice (Lev.1:9).

The same rule holds fast in the New Testament where we are encouraged to offer ourselves as living sacrifices unto God (Rom. 12:1). I see a young couple 60 years ago who made that decision to offer themselves as a living sacrifice to the Lord and for 60 years that sacrifice burned as a sweet smelling savor to the Lord and to thousands whose lives were touched by that dedication. Now 60 years later most of that offering has been accepted in heaven and the only thing that we have left as a reminder here on earth is the ashes. To the world those ashes don’t mean much, but to God and His people those ashes as priceless. The transaction has been made. The offering was made to God and He accepted it. What a miracle! You have offered something to God and He accepted it! But what was it that you offered? It was your very lives. If it can be said that anything is a treasure to God surely that is one. Heaven has been enriched and earth has been the benefactor of the sacrifice you offered Him. With everything thing accomplished all that is left on the alter is the ashes, but those ashes are a treasure that cannot be duplicated on this earth.

When I look at Shelton Allen I don’t see a spent shell of a man. When I think of General Harrison I don’t think of a sad sight of a brilliant Christian officer who has been forgotten in a nursing home. And when I pray for Ted Brannen I don’t see an active, gifted, missionary, lying in bed. I see these men as heroes whose lives have reached the mark. The dedication was genuine, the transaction has been made, the Father has been pleased, and the ashes testify to the reality of what has happened. Do we have anything to regret? The finished work of Christ on the Cross is more valuable than the potential of a Baby lying in a manger. Which is better, a young man going forward to give his life in the Lord’s service as a missionary, or the man who has spent his life with an outstanding record behind him? There is potential in the live red heifer but there is the proof of the transaction in the ashes on the alter. That is why the Lord commanded the Jews to gather up those ashes and put them in a clean place.

Would we run the clock back? No! Thank God! When I think of you I feel like I am looking at a holy scene. How challenged I am! Oh, that the Lord would hear my plea and have mercy on me! If His fire doesn’t ignite and consume that large stone that is about 6 inches under my chin what is the purpose for which I was born?  I don’t mean to be trite or repetitious, but when I say I am awed I mean it. I was awed 40 years ago at Yokota and I am still awed today. Omedeto gozaimasu. Yoku yarimashita!

 Do you remember that night we were in Arbys with Myron and Irene and I said to a young Christian boy, “You are looking at over 160 years of missionary service here.”? That is a commodity that is seldom matched. As a young man I would have thought that was something too sacred to touch. Ironically we become so accustomed to each other we lose the significance of who we are dealing with, but I still have a high regard for those early missionaries. They light the fire that is burning here today. Very few books mention their names, but in the archives of heaven they are listed on a special roster. Time has past; nature has done its work. The brilliance of youth is gone and all that is left is the ashes. But those ashes are precious. When the trumpet is sounded and the roll is called in heaven, these are the people who will be on the stage up front.

Thank you again for the honor you have afforded me to be your friend;

                                                                                     In our wonderful Lord Jesus, bill

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Ted Near the Summit

22 Nov, 2000

Dear Phyllis,

This is really bad. I’m supposed to be working but your letter just came a few minutes ago and I feel so compelled to respond that I am cheating on NLL to take a few minutes out of their time to write you. We have a prayer meeting tonight and if I don’t answer now it will be a day or two before I can get to it again.

You would be embarrassed if I told you how much I admire you and what mean to me. My world is extremely small. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people that write to me these days. The Bill Cook Fan Club has got to be one of the smallest in the world, but it is a very unusual event to receive such encouragement as you have sent me. I seriously doubt that my little thesis will get much further circulation than our small circle of friends, but if there is anything in it that can help anyone, then we must take our hats off, bow our heads, and worship God who uses foolish things.

You said Ted is failing. May I suggest you are wrong? I believe he is making very good progress on the last lap of his journey here. What a blessed position! Have you ever climbed Mt.Asama? There are several approaches. The most common one is from Mene no ochaya – the Karuizawa side; and that is very similar to climbing Mt Fuji. It is just a steady walk up hill on volcanic ash. But the Komoro face is more interesting. You can get a long ways up there by car; then for the next hour or two it is a lovely walk through a beautiful canyon. You would never believe where you are. When you come out of the east side of this canyon you are in a saddleback between Asama and the two hills on the west side. There is a sulfur spring there and very shortly you are in a different world. Suddenly you are very near the top of Asama but it is a real killer from there up. Each time I have gone up that face I have vowed I would never do it again. What in the world am I doing here? My mother would be very disappointed if she knew she raised such a foolish son. At best all I could do was take about three or four steps and pant while I waited for my legs to catch up. They don’t make stairs as hard to climb as that steep slope. But there is one thing about it. It might be hard work but you make an awful lot faster progress going vertically. The pain is pretty intense but the progress is rewarding and it isn’t long before you are standing on the summit. When you stand on the top you wonder, what was all the fuss about twenty minutes ago? Man that was a good short cut!

Dear Phyllis, I don’t mean to belittle the terrible trauma you are going through. I can only speculate how heart-wrenching it must be to watch a man that has been so active for so many years go down. Your life is so intimately tied together that it is even harder on you than it is on him. But we all know in our hearts where we are and we know we are watching Ted near the summit. Praise God!

My mother was the greatest miracle I have ever seen in my life. It would take a very large book to describe that one and I will let the Lord tell that story later. But to skip the first thirty chapters and just read the last page – her funeral was one of he highlights of my life. The Lord took me back 40 years when I was first saved and everyone was bewildered and concerned. What in the world kind of religion had I gotten into? I kicked the daylights out of our old family Methodist church and called them a bunch of liars to call themselves by the name of Wesley but deny his message. For years my prayers were an insult to God. Such heartless lip-service can hardly be called prayer. In my wildest imagination in those days I never could have envisioned what I was looking at in that church when we celebrated my mothers coronation. She was fantastic! It was like being at the Olympics and watching someone stand on the box to receive a gold medal. Everyone in the room was saved and all rejoicing in the translation of my mother. She was on a dead sprint all the way to the wire. What a finish!

Ted has run well. Don Hoke shook me to the core one day when he expressed his concern when I shared with him what I was thinking about for the future. He said, “Many start well but FEW RUN WELL TO THE END.” Those sobering words made a deep impact on that young man. We have all watched heart-breaking lives falling by the way. But Ted has stayed on his feet and did exceptionally well. Thank God! And as he nears the wire we can cheer him on, and the Lord Himself will take over from here. There isn’t much chance for failure. It is highly unlikely that Ted will be unfaithful to you and run off with another woman. His heart really can’t swerve from the road too much – just a Gladys Henry can’t go into JWs at this point. The Lord has preserved the record of what has been accomplished and the rest is assured.

At my son, TJ’s, funeral I started my remarks by sharing the story of John and Betty Stamm and what the Lord said to their brother Harry in Africa. Then I said, “The Lord has given me three sons; one is safe – the other two I am concerned about.” Praise God Ted is safe now from veering from the way. He is making progress nearing the summit and that should be an encouragement.

 So what if he does beat us by ten or fifteen minutes? We will all get there sooner or later and he will have the joy of sharing with us a little of the vista of heaven when we catch up.

Gomen, Phyllis, but you are special and we all need you to stay with us for a few more minutes to help us drag our feet in Ted’s footsteps. You get a chance to have a double ministry. You can help Ted get to the top and then you can reach down and help some of us to come along.

 Thank you for that special card. I’m not sure how accurate some of your words of appreciation were but you are a unique encouragement to this poor man.

                                                                        With much love and prayers in Jesus, bill

My Only Regret

20 Nov, 2000

Dear Phyllis,

 I have got to get to work in a few minutes but just want to jot off a line before I have breakfast. Enclosed is a copy of another chapter for the Inverted Kingdom. I had written a chapter on Worth a year ago but wasn’t satisfied and deleted it. Saturday it came to me afresh with new emphasis so I wrote this one down. Actually I thought it was better than several of the other marginal ones that I sent you in the pack of the first 32.

I don’t have time to write much at the moment, but last night as I was writing my letter to you and Ted something triggered in my mind when I quoted that verse in Rom. 11:36. I have mentioned this to you before, but I am sure that verse was the key to the failure of our marriage. We had chosen that verse to be the foundation of our marriage but Rosemary never embraced it. Had she accepted that the ALL THINGS that are OF God actually included our marriage she could have allowed the Lord to work in her that she could do the marriage THROUGH HIM, and then we would have had something to present TO HIM. But to this day she has adamantly maintained that the marriage was never OF GOD. As a consequence she was never able to appropriate the grace of God that it would take to live with me. As a consequence we are both bankrupt today. We have nothing to present TO GOD. Rosemary was terrific! She was outstanding! I loved her and appreciated her very much. I was never seriously challenged whether or not the marriage was of the Lord and if I had it to do all over again I would still choose Rosemary. She was the greatest treasure the Lord ever gave me. She was highly respected among hundreds of friends and folks that passed through our doors. People came to us and said we were the model family that they wanted to be like. She had twenty years of great reward in heaven but I fear now she has lost that reward and will stand before the Lord empty handed.

 I was thinking recently what a debt of gratitude I owe her. She was the most faithful prayer warrior I ever had. She was on her knees daily for twenty years pleading with the Lord for my demise. Few people have been as consistent in prayer as Rosemary was for me that the Lord would take me. And that was exactly what I needed the most. When she left something in me died and I have never been the same since. I feel like the Lord has made me an unusual specimen of creation. I used to be a ningen (human) but now it is as if I live in a different world and look through a glass window at the ningens inside. There is a certain amount of envy that I would like to be a ningen again, and yet there is a satisfaction and a gratitude to the Lord for the way He has made me. This has freed me from most of the things that tie people to this world and I can live in a world that is different.

My only regret is the dishonor we have brought to Christ. I cringe every time when I think that we are a living testimony of the inadequacy of Christ to enable two people to accept and live harmoniously with each other. Most counselors, and Rob included, accept that there are some people that just can’t get along and it is best for them to be separated. Who am I to argue with PHDs who have studied psychology, but it would seem to me that the Scripture looks at marriage in a different way. For Rosemary’s sake I have accepted her argument that the marriage was never of God. We both made a mistake and I have apologized to her for my error in asking her to be my wife. But I wonder if maybe there wasn’t something prophetic in that banner you made for our wedding that proclaimed that ALL THINGS were (are) OF GOD and perhaps that marriage was of God after all. If Rosemary would ever change her theology I certainly would be delighted to recant on my acceptance of her position.

I don’t mean to load you down and burden you with personal problems more than what you already have on your plate. Again, please don’t speak to Rosemary about this. I don’t want to be guilt of using the Scripture to force her to do anything that she doesn’t want to do from her heart. But that verse struck me with renewed emphasis when I wrote it yesterday.

Thank you again for all the love you show Rosemary. I feel you are the most important person in her life at this time and am tremendously grateful that she has such a wonderful mother/friend. I want to see Rosemary truly happy and have prayed much that perhaps something might come of her relationship with Junji. She really loved that man and if the Lord would give him to her she might be able to help him into the Kingdom. Personally I would like to take a short cut and try to join Ted at the Table before you all get there. That would seem to be the solutions to a lot of problems – but that is something for the Lord to decide. And thank you for the great honor that I enjoy to have you as my friend.

                                                                                    In our wonderful Lord Jesus,

bill

Memories

19 Nov, 2000

Dear Ted & Phyllis,

 Here we are again. Last week was a genuine surprise to me. Frankly I dreaded sitting down to try to compose a letter, as I had absolutely nothing to say. My heart was cold and filled with nonsense. But midway through that letter the Lord suddenly presenced Himself and I wound up the happiest I had been all week. Thank you for the privilege you afford me of writing to you on my favorite subject – Jesus and heaven.

 Have you ever noticed the pronoun transition in Song of Sol. 1:2? This is – of course – the book where we see the relationship of our Lord Jesus with His Church depicted like we find it no other place. It starts of very objectively with the simple declaration “The song of songs which was Solomon’s”. Solomon here, is very clearly a type of Christ as the son of David, heir to all the promises of God to David, and king of Israel. We see in 1 Ki. 4:32 that Solomon wrote 1005 songs but this one is in a category by itself. In it we find the whole spectrum of the Christian walk. Verse 2 starts out with a desire for the Lord; “Let Him…”, but then right in the middle of the verse, at a comma, the pronouns change from “Him” to “You” (Thy); and then it stays with the personal pronoun on through the end of verse 4. This teaches us a very basic spiritual principle – talking about the Lord brings us into a sense of the presence of the Lord. I remember praying with Joe Carroll one night when he quoted Malachi 3:16 in prayer; “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them.” That tells us a little of the unique nature of fellowship in Christ. That was one of the first signs of life I was aware of when I first got saved. I couldn’t explain it but suddenly there was nothing that I enjoyed more than Christian fellowship. A month previous I would have been looking at my watch and edging towards the door. But now mysteriously, all week I began to look forward to Friday night when I could go out to the farm and talk with my spiritual family. Somehow as we talked about the Lord there was a sense of the presence of the Lord and our hearts burned within us. Malachi tells us that this is one Christian activity that catches the attention of heaven. Jesus told us that He Himself would grace such an event whenever two or three of His people would get together, but even the Father stops what He is doing to eavesdrop in on that fellowship. And He thinks it is so important that He summons a heavenly scribe to write it down and put it on file in heaven. When we get to heaven the shelves will be lined with books filled with years of our fellowship in Christ so we can live them all over again. It will be just like going through an old picture album, only better. I can almost quote some passages now that happened 41 years ago. There was a fine TEAM family that we invited to come out to speak at the Church of The Open Door at Yokota. It was a rainy Sunday but we spent most of the afternoon at the O’Quinn’s house, then Russ and Mary Alice and a young Lieutenant, Bill Cook, took them up to the Officers Club for supper. We had filet minion for supper and then went over to the church for the evening meeting. Russ gave a flattering introduction of the ministry of this outstanding missionary family and concluded his remarks by saying, “Now I would like to introduce to you our speaker tonight whose name I just forgot.” That brought the house down. I’m sorry, Ted, I can’t remember your message but I know it was a good one. I will have to refresh my memory by looking at the text that the Lord has recorded in heaven.

The O’Quinns and everyone else went back to the states but the Lord was gracious to me and allowed me to enjoy years of fellowship with that family each summer in Karuizawa. The Lord only knows how many times someone came up to me with a huge scroll of a banner that Phyllis Brannen had made for JEMA or the Deeper Life Conference, and asked me if I had a ladder or could help them put the banner up. Each year we would put up a new banner and looked at it during the conferences. Then it would stay up until the next year when someone would show up with a new one. Then there was one that we hung up in Kai Hall that said “Of Him, Through Him, and To Him”. That was in 1970.

 There was the time when I wrestled in vain trying to develop an attractive letterhead stationary for the Karuizawa Language School. Finally it dawned on me that this was a job for a professional. I spoke to my good friend Phyllis Brannen and asked if she could draw up something for us. She was a very busy gal and naka naka didn’t get to it. I called down to Nagoya to see when she might get it done and she apologetically suggested that perhaps it would be best if I came down there where we could sodan together. I jumped in my truck and went down to Nagoya to see the Brannens. We talked about it a little in the afternoon and then after supper we went in Phyllis’ studio and she began to draw. Two hours later I rolled up a treasure of the finest letterhead art work I had ever seen and sent it down to NLL to have the stationary printed up. It was so attractive I used the same picture of Asama and a white birch tree for my personal meishi. I have never seen a finer meishi.

 It was a sad moment when the Brannens finally called it a day in Japan and that was the last I heard of them for years. Then Dough Hopper told me of a retired Japan missionary couple that was going to his church. It was a couple weeks before I got Dough to introduce me to this couple but he finally grabbed me one night and dragged me up forward though the crowd after church. This couple was sitting on the left-hand side of the isle about a 1/3 of the way back from the front. Dough tapped the brother on the shoulder and as he turned around he asked if we knew each other. Oh, the floodgate burst again. That was the beginning of some of the happiest moments Rosemary and I ever enjoyed. Every Sunday night at Arbys it was just like heaven all over again. How we hated to go home and we usually made the poor girl or fellow a little late closing up. Then on the way home Rosemary and I would bask in what we had enjoyed and always say, “That was just like being back in Karuizawa at the JEMA Conference.” Small wonder the Lord stopped what He was doing to eavesdrop on our fellowship. Small wonder He thought it was so important He commanded the angels to write it up in a book for us. That is one book I want to read again.

 Now I have a new type of fellowship. Each week I look forward to when I can sit down with my laptop and write to my dear friends in the states. Ted, I must apologize to you that the Lord had to make you horizontal to make this possible. If you were still running around as before I could never have the opportunity of this unusual fellowship. But as the Lord has moved you into a higher station this opens up a new vista of fellowship for us. Reminiscing like this used to make me sad, but this fills me with joy. Joy for two reasons. The first is that what we have enjoyed up to now is all eternal and will not fade away in some forgotten archive. It is said of the wicked that their remembrance dies with them. Try as I might to recall and relive some of the events before I was saved the flavor is different. There was something living about our fellowship in years past and that still seems to be alive today; and it will be even more alive when we can sit down and go over the books together. But the greatest joy is the knowledge that our fellowship is not terminal. It has been great up to now and is guaranteed to just keep getting better. Each phase has been different. That fellowship at the O Club at Yokota was great but that was nothing compared to what we enjoyed at Arbys. Oh, my goodness, the tales we went over at Arbys! Had someone shown me an advanced video when we walked in the O Club at Yokota of the events we would be talking about in Arbys I wouldn’t have believed it. There is no way we could have envisioned the goodness of God that would be poured out on us in the next 37 years. And that is even more true today. We are standing on the threshold of the greatest moments we have yet to enjoy. Undoubtedly the next time we sit down together won’t be the O Club at Yokota or Arbys in Tacoma, but AT THE TABLE WITH THE LORD! Can you imagine that! Of course that is impossible, but we know for sure that it will be a lot better than what we can imagine. If Solomon took the breath away from the Queen of Sheba and she said, “The report that I heard was true but the half hath not been told me.” I believe we haven’t heard the hundredth part of the good things that the Lord has stored up for us – and it is just a mile or two in front. We are standing on the very threshold of the Kingdom. It will be fun to reminisce but I believe it will be even more fun to soak up the indescribable joy of the eternal present when we get seated at the Table. I hope I can get a seat near you but even if I can’t I will rejoice with you in the fellowship you will have with those around you up front. If you hear some idiot hollering in the back of the room waving a cowboy hat you might quietly say to the person seated next to you, “Well, yes. We used to know him. He was sort of a strange fellow from Japan.” But even so, you know I love you all deeply.

Isn’t Jesus wonderful?

                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                             Bill

Music to the Ears or Moral Decay?

12 Nov, 2000

 Dear Ted & Phyllis,

It’s Sunday again and I don’t have a thing to say. This past week has been a fairly busy one here as they have started construction on this building big time. With China pleading for more of the written Word of God, Roald has purchased a new super press but the machine is too tall to fit in our new building. To accommodate this new machine they have to sink the floor a couple of feet. I had to tear out the former dressing room and a very long table (30 ft.) where they loaded the paper to go into the presses. After demolishing that table then I had to make a new one to fit the new location. Much of the time I feel like it is charity that they keep me on staff, but occasionally the Lord does provide some project that gives me a little sense of worth to NLL. I probably will be pretty busy for the rest of this month and then I will be heading south on the 6^th of Dec. I have a 60-day open ticket so it may be February when I get back to Japan.

The big news of this week has been the US election. It is utterly indescribable. I wonder what is happening there. My favorite daily Christian broadcast his Rush Limbaugh who is on FEN for one hour from 6:00 –7:00 PM. If it wasn’t for Rush I don’t know what I would think but I was amazed that he was so far off in calling this one. He laid up a good argument for a major victory but it seems like the poor country just died. Election Day I listened frequently to hear the results and was relieved when the major net works called it a Bush victory. Now it looks like the day after a nuclear war where there is no winner. It may be settled by the time this letter gets there but today the scene looks like both sides lost.

Vance Havener once preached an interesting message on “Getting home before dark”. One of the points was that the sun is setting on this poor civilization and he didn’t want to be around after the lights went out. How I earnestly agree with him. The future for America looks desperately grim. The only bright spot might be that things could get so bad there could be open persecution of the Church in America; and that could produce some Christian heroes. I honestly fear the only thing that will save the Church is open persecution. Of course there would be heart rending failures by many, but if there is nothing there to start with you haven’t lost anything when the mask falls off and reality is revealed. I don’t know if FEN is representative of the US culture, but if it is, then it is all over folks! The music (?) is more demonic than anything I ever envisioned was possible. I can’t understand most of the lyrics, and that is probably just as well. But the most of the garbage I hear is shocking that anyone ever recorded it, and more bewildering that it should be played over the air. There is no definition whereby it could be called music and the performers are talentless demoniacs screaming into microphones like drunks who have shouted themselves hoarse at a NFL football game. I don’t believe there is any question but the main purpose for heavy-metal is to destroy the hearing of young people so they can’t hear the Gospel or Christian music. One friend told me before she got saved she didn’t enjoy music until the sound was up to the physical pain level in the eardrum. That means loss of hearing. But the stuff that I hear on FEN now seems more geared to the destruction of the main nervous system. I don’t know how anyone could listen to that stuff long without being seriously affected. It gets to me in 30 seconds.

This poor world reminds me of the fall of Dang Nang and Saigon. Both of those places were in pure pandemonium. Over a million people panicking to get out and the communist shelling the refugees with mortar fire.

But, praise God, where we are going the music will again be melodious. Do you remember the TEAM Music Night in Karuizawa in 1966? Bernie Holdritz sang I’m Am A Pilgrim. If memory serves me right I believe you led that concert that night, Ted. What an event! There was Lavern Courtney, Lucia Schone, Jim Knole, Bernie; Allen Fadel and Loren McCall were in a quartet, and I believe Betty Lyons and Jane Fadel played the pianos. You ultimately made a record, but I will never forget what it was like to sit there and soak up the Spirit in the Union Church. Oh, that was like heaven! Oh, how I admired that gang; how I looked up to those people! To me they were giants of missionaries. The Brannen family in Nagoya was a legend that has never been repeated. We didn’t realize it at the time but that was a golden moment. We all knew each other so well we saw more of the clay than the Spirit, but Christ was in our midst. There were always fights at TEAM conference, but somehow the work still went on. I wonder if Japan ever saw a finer group of servants than were here in those days. I can close my eyes right now still see where I was sitting a third of the way back on the right hand side in the Union Church as we worshipped the Lord that Music Night. I can still hear that singing in my heart as clear as it was that night. Even now tears run down my face I as relive that moment. I can hear Bernie singing “I am a pilgrim I can tarry I can tarry but a night.” And I believe it was Ted Brannen standing up there leading the music. I wonder if the angels didn’t put their harps down to listen to the singing that night. Oh Ted, Ted… Phyllis, Phyllis it is not over yet! That was just the rehearsal! What will it be when we have the real performance!

 I mentioned in a previous letter an unusual vision Rick Joiner had of heaven. He said he stood with that innumerable crowd before the Throne and he had to sing or he felt like he would explode. To his amazement went he opened his mouth, simultaneously everyone else burst out with the same praise right on key. Surely that is the way it is going to be. We won’t be thinking about singing in a choir. I will be like everyone is singing a solo at the top of their lungs except the whole thing is in perfect harmony. If that is sectioned off and they have the Japan group. I hope Ted Brannen is up front and I want to sneak in there. How could we do anything but sing? Even now singing is 1/3 of the Lord’s ministry. Heb. 2:11-13 tells us that the three things Jesus is doing right now is declaring the Father’s Name to His brethren, singing in the church, and trusting – declaring, singing, and trusting. Joe Carroll used to say the infallible proof of a man filled with the Holy Spirit is that he has a song in his heart – Eph. 5:18,19.

How I wish I was with you now. I would love to sit down together a listen. All week I have been wondering what is going on in your hearts. I am not so spiritual as to ignore the reality of your limitations. I talk about envy but I also realize there is a price to pay for the people who sit in the box seats. I have spoken with people who have suffered unimaginably in prison and yet – with tears – say they almost miss the blessing of those days. Richard Wurmbrand said, “Oh blessed communism that has given us such rapturous hours with our heavenly Bridegroom!” I can believe that. Those folks who have been wrenched from their families and everything that is dear and tortured beyond our comprehension have entered a different dimension of communion with Christ that is unknown in the free world. People who pay such a high price have the advantage of getting better seats to hear the singing in heaven.

 I complain bitterly about my loneliness, and yet this is what the Lord has prescribed for me to shut me more up to Himself. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be partially paralyzed and not be able to speak, but I can believe the Lord would do something like this to shut someone up to Himself. At first it would be terrible. Wurmbrand said it was a long time after his arrest before his soul caught up to him in prison. He said his soul remained behind with his family. But as time passed his soul settled down in the prison cell with his body. I suspect it would be the same way with you there. It would take some time to acclimate to your new environment. I know the first several months after Rosemary left; just living seemed almost impossible for me. Jay was with me and we were grasping at straws like drowning men. I must have been a terrible trial to the few friends around me. Most people thought I was a little seishin (mental) and it is true that I certainly wasn’t normal. But ultimately things do settle down and then we can listen better. I wonder what you can hear. You should be close enough to get glimpses of the City and hear a little of the singing.

 The first year after Rosemary left I was meeting with the Lord one morning and read about the mountains of myrrh and the hills of frankincense in Song of Sol. 4:6. I had taught S. of S. several times and had done some exposition on that passage but wasn’t satisfied with the standard answers; so I asked the Lord what it meant. Several hours later I was alone driving a truck when the Lord took me back to LA when I was staying with the Dave Hansons. One night their daughter Margaret was singing a Twilla Paris song, Lamb of God, as a special in their church. As I relieved that evening suddenly the Lord filled my truck with the fragrance of the frankincense and myrrh. It was just like I had wandered into a candle store. Rosemary and I used to go in those stores just to smell the candles and then our clothes still had the fragrance even after we left. For ten minutes I just sat there are reveled in the intoxicating fragrance of the frankincense and myrrh. I asked the Lord what it meant, but rather than explaining it to me He let me experience what it smelled like. You should be getting a little bit of this Ted. And I know the Lord has been sharing some very special things with you too Phyllis. He has some very special things He wants to whisper in your ear. That is why He has called you into the closet by yourself. 

Perhaps we should forget the moral decay around us and fix our eyes on heaven. Perhaps the time of singing has come. (Song of Sol. 2:12). Thank you again for the privilege of writing you. This is the best I have felt all week.

                                                                                    In the gracious arms of Jesus, bill

Re-marry Rosemary?

7 Nov, 2000

Dear Phyllis,

You may have to forgive this letter. Whether in the flesh or spirit I know not, but there is a subject on my heart that I would at least like to discuss with you.

Rosemary is very much a dead issue with me. I have given up all hope of seeing the Lord’s salvation. Everything that has happened to me in the past 12 years and 99% of what I see around me substantiates a very strong argument that there is no salvation. When families come unglued I know of extremely few happy endings. The Bill Rees situation is one of the most appalling testimonies in Japan. What has happened to both of then is unbelievable. The family that was the greatest testimony in Japanese history has become a showpiece for satan. They have polarized like you wouldn’t believe and Roberta has become one of the strangest women I know. I have become her prime enemy and last spring she moved out and went into hiding for three days when she learned I would be in Karuizawa working on the NLL cabin. She has dug her heels in has applied for a permanent visa in Japan and the church in Miyota is the most disgusting a situation I have ever seen in this country. I have written Bill that if things go for him as they have gone for me, and nearly everyone I know, he can forget about getting any help from heaven in saving the marriage. I don’t mean to speak blasphemous against our Lord, but there are some amazing things – for His own good reasons – that He has chosen not to do. I have felt that Rosemary is one. I have abandoned hope of seeing the family saved because all that I so earnestly believed turned out to be a bad trip. But last night I had a dream that we were remarried.

I seldom think this way but in my heart THERE IS NOTHING THAT I WOULD LOVE TO SEE MORE THAN CHRIST BEING HONORED IN OUR MARRIAGE. I was amazed at the silence of the Lord in never speaking to Rosemary about what I thought was BASIC. But four years ago He did speak to her about returning and fulfilling her marriage vows. The MIRICAL LETTER was indeed an answer to prayer and the kind of activity that I would expect from the Lord. The Lord is very reticent in using strong arm tactics but four years ago was as close to strong arm tactics that I believe we can expect from Christ. When Bill Goodman ask Rosemary why she asked me to come home she replied, “Because the Lord strung me up by my thumbs.” She was on the verge of hospitalization and probably would have gone under if I had not returned immediately. But as soon as she got on her feet she began to flex her muscles and kept me at arm length. I’m sure I have told you all about the various things that I thought were unfortunate during the year I was with her. I believe a large responsibility for the failure lies at the door of Bill Goodman. He taught her the doctrine of “Boundaries”, that I call “Barriers”. It might be a good message for a battered woman but, biblically speaking, it is the perfect antithesis of dedication. I listened to the tapes and read the books and the missing note is – they never talk about the will of God. Their whole message is “You don’t have to take it. Draw the line and say ‘this far and no further’”. I asked Rosemary if she thought we should draw the line on the Lord and at first she said “yes”. But then she corrected herself and said it would not be necessary because the Lord would never be a brute or ask us to do anything we didn’t want to do. Anyway, Rosemary drew the line on me all over the place. Secondly I insisted that we have a public service to reaffirm our wedding vows to each other but we couldn’t agree on wedding vows. Goodman offered us a suggested set that was so offensive I refused to have any part in something that was that odious to the Bible. For one year I unilaterally gave myself to her mujoken (unconditionally) but that seemed to be a mistake. I believe I should have set higher standards and stuck to them.

What I am saying now is that I very much would love to be remarried to Rosemary but I have very firm standards that I would insist on and this would require a radical reversal of the theological position Rosemary held while we were together the last year. I would insist on the headship of the husband and the submission of the wife as spelled out in Eph. 5:22-24. I would insist on a relationship such as you had (have) with Ted. I would insist on her coming to Japan and she follow me as the church is supposed to follow Christ. And I would like to see her pay back some of the money she stole from the government and her creditors when she was so irresponsible. I believe stolen things should be returned even if it is the US government.

I would be very surprised if Rosemary has any inclinations at all to embrace that life. I suspect she still considers herself a fortunate woman to at last be free from the oppression of a tyrannical husband. I would imagine my conditions would be utterly unacceptable to her and she would have no desire to submit herself to such harsh demands. I am not a suitor trying to make a bargain with her. I put up with too much nonsense for 30 years and I am not going to unilaterally prostrate myself before her and subscribe to something that I consider to be a blatant violations of fundamental Bible teaching. And, of course, I am well aware of the verses that follow verse 24 in Eph. 5. I failed miserably, but I did try to fulfill the Lord commands on me even if it meant giving up my ministry. I gave up my ministry for Rosemary three times and the last two times only made the situations worse.

The reason I am writing you like this is that I like to believe you have some love in your heart for the both of us and would like to see us happily married again. I am not asking you to be a promoter. I am not asking you try to persuade Rosemary to return to me. Please don’t try to influence her. All I am doing is stating my position. If the Lord would ever work in her heart giving her any desire to have a husband and see the family united again, I believe you are in a unique position to help. You are the only one Rosemary has been close to for the past 12 years that I believe has a proper view of marriage and I would have confidence your consoling. She had that friend in Burley that she had Bible studies with for two years that was very conservative but somehow I got catty whompus with them. The last time I talked with her husband he railed at me and said, “I haven’t seen a thing of Christ in you!”; so I suspect they were pretty sympathetic with her. I have not found it very helpful doing much thinking or praying about the possibility of seeing the marriage saved, but that dream last night was the first time in a long time that I considered the possibility of the Lord’s salvation.

Years ago I used to try to outgive the Lord and sometimes I did get a stroke of two ahead. But then the Lord would always come along with a bigger shovel than I did. In recent years I have felt that the Lord has taken me off His payroll and stopped supporting me. I have had to work to support myself and I still have done a lot of work for which I have never been rewarded. A year and a half ago I did a tremendous amount of work for a family in Nara and never got anything more than my meals for it. Years ago I worked for free here but we had support from churches in the states, but now I have neither. Roald told me yesterday that the brother in Nara called him and was going to send up a gift for my next trip to SEA. I think this is the first time in 10 years that anything like that has happened. I was recently was thinking that I had an account with the Lord of unpaid wages but I thought the Lord must figure that I just am not worth much. Of course God is no mans debtor. He rewards us far more than our worth or what we could imagine. Of course my ministry is unto Christ and if I am not rewarded here it will show up on the books in heaven. But I was tremendously encouraged by this gift from Nara.

Last Saturday I went up to Minakami to do the bungee jump. I came away with mixed emotions. We didn’t find the place where they jump off a bridge 200 feet in the air but we did find a bungee jump off a 70-foot tower. I was pretty disappointed, but the price was less than half of the bridge so I paid my money and jumped off the tower. I was surprised that it was a little bit spooky. That was a first time experience and felt funny to jump headfirst off a tower 70 feet in the air, but it was disappointing that the bungee was so gentle. One thing that was surprising was that the bungee did jerk me back up almost as high as the platform but the second drop wasn’t as exciting as the first free fall. Then it settled down to oscillations that was like riding a high vertical Tarzan swing.

This month I am the busiest I have been in a long time. I have a big list of high priority jobs that have to be done right now. We are putting in a new large press, which means we have to make major renovations to the building. Lord willing a month from now I will heading south. It would be nice to have a little more funds to play with than I have enjoyed up to now. If I did have money I could fly places like missionaries do, but I have always gone the cheapest local transportation which often is unbelievably Spartan. I have been on a lot of buses that would have been a challenge to Hudson Taylor. You remember we used to tough it out in early years here in Japan. Vietnam and Laos are a like that only multiplied by a factor of five. I have ridden buses that were jammed like a Shijuku train for thirty hours over roads that were all but impassable. I think that would have tested the metal of any pioneer missionary. I am grateful for the privilege of these experiences but I am also grateful that those are only on trips and the rest of my life is very luxurious. One of the objectives of this next trip is to try to penetrate the remote area of Laos and that could be a new experience. Back there one of those buses would be a luxury.

I had better close this letter and go to bed with much love and prayers.

                                                                       In our worthy Lord Jesus, bill

Saying Goodbye to Ted

5 Nov, 2000

 Dear Ted,

 I say I envy you, and I mean it. In one sense it doesn’t look like a real good swap to trade bodies, but realistically you are way ahead of me. Marathon runners are supposed to be a little glassy eyed, sweat pouring down their flush face, and fighting a fair measure of pain as they come around the last lap and see the goal in front of them. Who do you think is better off; that front runner or the guy that doesn’t look half as shot but is still trotting along the street two miles behind? The guy two miles back may not be in as much pain but neither is he in the same position as the fellow who sees the goal 100 yards in front of him.

Apparently you have entered a new phase of your journey but that is perfectly normal for the way you are supposed to be at this point. When I was in school we always seemed to play one football in the mud each year. It was a lot more fun on sunny days, but it was more revealing playing in the mud. By the fourth quarter you could always see who was really playing hard and the turkey that was just going through the motions. The real guys were doro darake (covered with mud) and the one just going through the motions still had clean uniforms. If you go at it hard you are supposed to get a little muddy. Tires that have been run 50,000 miles are supposed to be smooth. That means they are normal.

 Phyllis hasn’t gone into much detail in her letters to me other than to say you have had a couple of strokes. No one wants to have a stroke and we aren’t supposed to say omedeto gozaimasu, but on the other hand having a stroke at this point in the program is not that unusual. I would say you are pretty normal. More than that you have long since left the pack of the national average behind and lived far longer than most. I have often thought about our Lord’s words to Peter in John 21:18; “When you were young you girded yourself and walked about wherever you wanted to go: but when you get old, you will stretch forth your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you don’t want to go.” I believe this is a general prophecy applicable to many believers. When we were young, independence was the rule of the day. We would be offended if someone else had to clothe us and we would chaff if we couldn’t walk around wherever we wanted to go. But as we near the end of our course the Lord takes us into a new phase that is not what we had in mind thirty years ago. Obviously this is where He has taken you at this point. I can only speculate what it must be like to be in your tent.

Recently I have been reading quite a bit of Richard Wumbrand, the Romanian pastor who was imprisoned and tortured for 14 years. One very interesting book is titled. “If Prison Walls Could Speak”. He tells of experiences of being in solitaire confinement for years and months of constant torture. It is impossible for us to imagine what that would be like. But suffice to say these were areas where the Lord led some of His people and shared with them things in these prisons that you couldn’t learn outside. In the same way He has brought you to a place to share things with you now that you didn’t learn in Bible School or seminary. I believe it must be true what Paul said, “Though our outer man perish the inner man is renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16). Though your outer man has been subjected to severe limitations I believe your inner man is as genki as always, and will continue to improve for the next several hundred years. You are probably in the most mysterious time of life. John the Baptist had one of the most unusual walks with the Lord as any man that ever lived. The spiritual power he had moved the nation like no man had for centuries. His unique ministry to be the man who was appointed to officially introduce God’s Messiah to the nation, and his tremendous satisfaction when he saw Christ’s early success (John 3:25-36), must have given him a great sense of fulfillment. But then after his arrest and nothing went the way it was supposed to, this left even John in danger of being offended with the Lord’s ways (Luke 7:19-23). That must have been terrible for John to be shut up in prison and wait in vain for the Lord to do something commensurate with the character He was supposed to have. What a humbling disastrous end for John. By every measure it was a clear victory for the guys in the black hats. Where were the angels? Why didn’t Christ make a move to help him? Why did God leave him in such a miserable end? Strangely enough, the story is not isolated to John the Baptist, but a huge number of the Lord’s finest servants just quietly fade from the scene. Such is a mystery. But if we accept that God does all things well, we must leave this unanswered mystery in the hands of our Father and trust someday He will explain His strange purpose to us. I will be very interested in hearing your testimony when you share with us how this deep valley that you are presently in was one where you left the deepest wells (Psalms 84:6). One thing I do believe is that your inner man is being renewed everyday, right now, but we will probably have to wait to hear your testimony.

All spiritual things being aside, one visible blessing is the loving care you are receiving. In this alone you are the envy of many. What tender loving hands that fluffs your pillow every day! What a faithful devoted partner that sits and reads to you! Brother I don’t believe it is inaccurate to suggest you are the object of tremendous devotion and love of many. My spiritual father had to go in for serious heart surgery and the doctors weren’t taking bets on how the operation was going to turn out. The whole family was at his side before they wheeled him off for surgery. He later told me that was like one of the crowning moments of his life; to look up at the faces of all the children and his wife and see the goodness of God that surrounded him for the previous forty some years. His life was just like Jacob surrounded by his children. Ted, your life has been a uniquely blessed one and now you are visibly seeing the fruit of it. In this alone you are in a small minority of uniquely blessed people. You have been a faithful loving husband and father and now life is bursting forth in blazing color of the beautiful fruit of what you have sown. Homma ni omedeto gozaimasu!!! I live by myself in a single room in the NLL dorm. After being homeless for 5 years I am grateful for this accommodation, but it is lonely. If life continues for me as it has for the past 10 years someday Rosemary and her sons may hear a rumor, “Oh, by the way, did you hear Bill died last winter?” There is no one to hold my hand, to stoke my brow, or to kiss my check. Please forgive a little fleshly divergence on my part, but I really don’t think you would care to swap positions with me.

This morning I spoke in our little chapel on the text “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink…” (John 4:10). Six years ago I was with a Japanese team doing dendo in Siberia. Because of the language problem our team leader asked me to take the responsibility of doing the preaching and that brought me out of five years of silence. One night I spoke on this text to an auditorium full of Russians. At the end of the service we had nearly 50% coming forward to ask of the Lord for living water and I turned the personal evangelism over to our Russian team members. As I stood on that stage and looked at the faces of the crowd of people standing up front, my heart broke. I went back stage and wept. Thirty minutes later my interpreter. Natasha, came back stage and saw me weeping. She asked, “Bill, why are you crying? We had a tremendous response tonight.” All I could do was sob, “Natasha, they don’t know the gift of God, and they don’t know who Jesus is.” This is our problem. You have been saved for more than 60 years, and I have known the Lord for 43 years, but we don’t know the 1/100^th part of what is the gift of God. I asked the believers this morning what the gift was and they were pretty good – it is Christ Himself. It is Christ in us; this is the mystery of God (Col. 1:27). Oh, my goodness, what happened when Jesus came into our hearts! We hadn’t the first clue that night when we accepted Christ. A divine life was born in Ted Brannen’s heart and that life has continued to grow ever since. I have asked some people if they want eternal life and they say, “Man, NO! This life is bad enough. Why should I want this to go on forever? But that isn’t eternal life. Jesus is eternal life: and that Life, that has come into our hearts, is life eternal. It knows the Father and that Life will go on forever. That Life cannot be separated from us because He has made us to be intrinsically part of Himself, just as He has made Himself to be part of us. It doesn’t matter what happens to the outer man. Of course it will wear out – it is supposed to; but that inner man can only be renewed everyday, and I’m putting all my money on you. That inner life has got to be genki and keep getting better. But it will only really get rolling when it sees Jesus – for then we will all be just like Him. 

Please forgive these foolish letters. I know you know all of this far better than I do and your walk with the Lord has gone well beyond anything that I hope to attain to in this life. But it makes me happy and I get blessed just thinking about you. Thank you for the great privilege of being your friend.

                                                                   In the grace of our marvelous Lord Jesus,