Stairs for John

23 May 2010

 Dear Phyllis,

 Friday I went out of my mind. John has asked me to make the stairs to go to the top of his new house. The project is coming along amazingly well. We got the lid on it last week. It is a single story concrete house with a flat roof where John wants to have meetings up there to share the Gospel. It really is an excellent roof, but to make the stairs to get up there is one more REAL CHALLENGING task. Over the years I have made every conceivable stairs in many different houses, but this one is a new level for me. Being concrete there is no room for error. Wooden stairs are easy in the sense that you can adjust them with trial and error. I have made many stairs that were impossible to put on paper before hand. I have made some stairs that after I got done I still didn’t know how to make them. You just play with it until you get something that works. But you can’t do that with concrete.

John had a vision for a really unique flight of stairs. It has a single jack. (The jack is the sloping member of a stairway that holds the stair treads.) Then the treads are 120 cm (4 feet) prestressed concrete slabs, cantilevered 40 cm on both sides of the single jack, which is 40 cm wide. It has a landing at about a four foot level, and then a long shot to the top 5 meters (16 feet) away. The first part to the landing wasn’t too bad. I had done all my home work and had detailed plans drawn out for exact measurements. We got the landing put in quite well and then I made the jack. That fitted reasonably well but I had to make adjustment. Praise God that part came out amazingly well. But the next section wasn’t so essay.

I made a huge concrete form for the single jack and had to put that in place. I mean to tell you that thing was heavy! John is very good in many things. He has a very good head and a lot of excellent ideas. But there are also a number of things he flat doesn’t understand. Unfortunately, what he lacks in understanding, sometimes he makes up for with astounding aggressiveness in taking over telling us what to do. I didn’t know how to get that jack in place between the two landings but John saw no problem. “Let’s just do it. Here grab this; now push! Now lift up on that.” All we had was our Burmese worker and his wife. By John’s insistence we got the jack in the air, then he walked away leaving us holding that heavy thing with nothing under it. I came unglued. I went into a rage at the insanity in forcing us into such a dangerous position with no thought of a support under it. John was concerned that I dishonor the Lord by becoming so angry in the presence of our Burmese workers. He sternly rebuked me, “Now cool down!” That didn’t help lower the temperature. For half an hour I was out of my mind. We got some bamboo poles to put under the jack, but I had no idea how to support it while we made the adjustment that I knew were necessary. Then the Lord miraculously showed me a block and tackle (pulley set). By using a long bamboo pole overhead I was able to hook up the block and tackle so as to hold the form from above and make the adjustment.

For the rest of the day my mind checked out. The slope of the jack was different and I simply could not figure out how to make the saw tooth to hold the treads. That was an extremely bad day.

But what does all of this have to do with the Kingdom of God?

Recently the Lord has been speaking to me about one of the most essential characteristics of a disciple. By definition a disciple is a learner. The one attribute necessary for a learner is HE MUST HAVE A TEACHABLE SPIRIT. In most cases, John is very frank is saying he doesn’t know how to do a lot of things. But when he thinks he knows or sees something better than I do, he takes over, and then we have real problems.

Tragically, many of us are very similar. We have a tendency to think we know something and close our minds to the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The older I get the more I realize how very little I know of the heart of God. I have asked the Lord to make me a learner. But I fear I have asked the Lord for something unreasonable. I seriously doubt that I have the spiritual capacity to learn. When I asked the Lord if He would accept me in His classroom, I realized – if He would accept me – that might be a very bad choice. When I went to the University of Michigan I realized I was in the wrong school. That was just too high level for me. I was in class with a lot of very brainy students and I was not intellectually equipped for such an environment. I just wasn’t that smart.

Spiritually I feel like the Lord has taken a 4^th grade level student and is trying to teach him advanced calculus. Then the next thing that discouraged me was; as the Lord was standing in front of the class trying to teach something, I was gazing out the window. My attention span is measured in seconds. Every morning, as I meet with the Lord, I am very anxious for the Holy Spirit to teach me His truth, but my mind will only stay focused for a few seconds before it drifts off thinking about some stupid thing.

The more I understand the Gospel the more it appears utterly unbelievable. A friend asked, “Don’t you believe it?” Yes, I believe, but it is still UNBELIEVABLE! I know that is the wrong verb but I don’t know one that describes it. The Gospel is so far off the scale of human thought that it seems impossible to be true.                                      

The other day I ran across something in Andrew Murray that has completely blown me away. He said, “God counts it an honor for His Son to be the Priest of poor sinners. Jesus gave up His everlasting glory for the sake of this new, which He now counts His highest glory – the honor of leading guilty men to God.”  You talk about something ridiculous, now there is one for you. I have spent five days on that one. That brings the entire message of the Gospel back on the stage. How is it possible that God gave His Son for the sake of dying in place of totally unworthy – virtually thankless – criminals? More than that, God has appointed His Son to now be our Priest to bring us to God. And God counts that an honor?! And Jesus considers this His highest glory – to bring guilty men to the Father?!!! 

Somehow this seems utterly wrong. That the sinless Son of God should take my place and shed His Blood for me... How can it be? Oh my goodness! What can I say? It is unbelievable! Years ago I knew the Gospel and it seemed so simple. Yes, Jesus died for me. Okay, what’s next? The impact of it just didn’t hit me. With the most extreme reluctance I will accept this is true. It must be true because the Lord has told us this. The Bible says so. But this is so out of line with human standards that it s almost repulsive. Paul approached the problem in Rom. 5:7-10: For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. For if when we were then enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled we shall be saved by His life.” How is it possible that God would give His Son to save vile sinners?

Somehow I can see that it was the greatest glory of Christ when He hung on the Cross. That was because of His obedience to the Father. In the Inverted Kingdom everything is backwards. The lowest is the highest. The weakest is the strongest. The Lamb is the Lion. The loser is the winner. All of this is vividly demonstrated to be true in the Cross of Christ. That was His highest point. That was His greatest victory. That was His ultimate achievement.

 

Perhaps this is an extension of that. We know that Jesus’ work was not over with the Cross. After His return to heaven; and His enthronement in heaven, He now has the ministry of being our High Priest. Hebrews 5 is very clear about this. He not only paid for our ransom but He now stands before God as our representative and ministers to us through His Holy Spirit. This is an aspect of Christ we hear very little about. But that the Father considers this an honor for His Son to do this ministry and Jesus considers this His highest glory...? This could only be possible in the Inverted Kingdom. These are theological truths with which I am very familiar, but the reality of it is impacting me so hard it seems unbelievable.

Lord Jesus, please be patient with Your dull learner. Oh that I had a heart to grasp these truths more. Oh that I had a more teachable spirit.

The Lord did a miracle at John’s house Saturday. In Japan I call myself Nazareth Construction Company. Our CEO is Jewish carpenter Who learned the trade from His father. Now He is in the construction business as He said, “I will build My church.” In Japan I call myself the Hatoyama Branch Manager. But the Hatoyama branch has opened another branch in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Friday I was afraid that our CEO was away on other business leaving me alone to do an impossible task. But our CEO saw the jam I was in and personally came on Saturday to put in that stairway for me. I couldn’t do it so He had to finish the job for me. It looks perfect.

 

And maybe He might do something like that in my heart also.

What a salvation!   bill

PS: My back is 90% healed.

Joe Carroll

16 May 2010

Dear Phyllis,

The other day a friend wrote me asking how I met Joe Carroll. Meeting Joe was one of the most momentous events of my life. He probably had more influence on me in forming my Christian convictions than any other person.

When I first arrived in Japan in 1958 talk of Joe Carroll was still was still buzzing in the missionary community. Joe had first come to Japan to be the JEMA conference speaker in 1954. They had one of the finest conferences in post-war that year. He was invited to come back again in 1955 and had made a major splash. Missionaries were still talking about him three years later. I had an intense desire to hear this amazing conference speaker.

In March of 1961 Joe was the conference speaker for an OCU (Officers Christian Union) conference at Nikko. It was a great joy to be able to attend and personally meet this living legend. He was all that I expected. He really pushed my button hard and it was a privilege to be able to personally fellowship with such a man at that time.

Then one day in August of that year, on a whim, I decided to drive to Karuizawa. I had never been there and wanted to go. I knew that Joe lived on a hill in Karuizawa and when I broke over the crest of Usui toge (mountain pass) the first thing I saw was a house on a hill. I drove straight up there and enjoyed having two more hours of personal fellowship with him in his home.

In November of 1961 I was facing a crisis of leaving the Air Force and didn’t know where to go. I wrote Joe asking if he knew a place where I could come to Karuizawa and fast and pray. He invited me to stay with him, and it was at that time that the Lord clearly showed me it was His will for me to remain in Japan. Two months later I was out of the service and went to Karuizawa for language study. Shortly after that Joe and I became prayer partners meeting daily for prayer.

That summer Joe was invited to be the conference speaker at the Korean missionary conference at Taechon Beach, Korea. At the same time I was invited to be the speaker at a pastors conference in Chunju. Joe had never been in Korea and I knew the country reasonably well. My conference was two weeks before his and we decide to meet in Seoul and go together to his conference at Taechon Beach.

Korea was still a very retarded third world country in those days and living there was extremely primitive. The Grand Hotel was only one western hotel in the city and that was owned by the president’s wife. I made reservations for us to stay at the Missionary Guest House. The day Joe arrived I went to the Grand Hotel to take the van out to the airport. I missed it by 5 minutes. The only other way out to Kimpo was by public transportation which was a beat up jitney (giant size jeep). Oh my goodness, that thing was a piece of junk. It shook and rattled for an hour going out to Kimpo. When I got there I was shocked to discover the terminal empty. The flight from Tokyo had arrived, everyone had cleared customs, and was gone. You talk about a bad feeling, now there is one. I stood there in that empty airport terminal realizing that I had missed Joe. He had never been in Korea before and there was simply NO WAY of getting together in a city of 5,000, 000 with virtually no means of communication. But as I prayed I had the strangest conviction that I was slam in the middle of the will of God.

I walked back to the bus stop and found that that relic I had ridden out on was going back into town. I got on that dumb thing and felt sick. It shook and rattled for 5 km and the front tire fell off. What a perfect day! It was steamy hot. The bus reeked with the odor of kimchi, human sweat, pigs, chickens, and fish. I needed some fresh air and got off to watch them jack up the jitney and put the wheel back on. As I stood the by the front end watching them jack up the bus, the Lord spoke to me and said, “Go stand by the rear of this bus.” Just as I got there I looked up and saw a jeep coming down the road with Joe Carroll sitting in the front seat. He saw me, they slammed on the brakes, and we joyously went on our way united. Years later Joe would always refer to that day when the Lord brought us together along side that dusty road to Kimpo. That was the Lord’s confirmation that He wanted us to be partners. That was one of the major events of my life.

I was Joe’s disciple. We were partners. He was Moses and I was Joshua. But things didn’t go well. A year later I was in Yokkaichi working with the Mino Mission, and the Carrolls left Japan for a furlough in America. But that year my health failed and I had to return to the states for a medical furlough. I did see the Carrolls twice when they were in Ventnor, NJ and I helped Joe move to Ashville, NC. While we were there we went together to Greenville, SC for a meeting at the Log Cabin. That was significant as it was through that that the Carrolls ultimately moved to Greenville and the Evangelical Institute came into being.

In 1965 I was back in Karuizawa and got forced to move into the Carroll’s house to take care of it. I mentioned that story last week. In 1972 we were in the states for furlough when Dave was born in Pennsylvania. Rosemary was bad sick. I had to put her in a hospital for anxiety attacks. In June she got well enough to travel, and we headed back to Japan driving across the states with our new son. We stopped in Greenville to see the Carrolls for what was supposed to be one night, but we wound up staying there six weeks as I was working on the first dormitory building for the new Institute. We went on south to see my spiritual family, the Stadsklevs, in Florida. While there, Rosemary had a horrible relapse. The only placed left on this planet for us to go was back to Greenville. We wound up living with the Carrolls for three months as Mabel and the Carroll girls took care of us and our baby son.

The next two years was a dark tunnel of life. Rosemary was terrible. We were commuting every week to Atlanta to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Penny Smith, but she just didn’t get any better. I was working full time building the buildings and the furniture for the Institute. Joe and I were praying together daily. But I was in a limbo status. Then in 1974 the Lord did an amazing miracle in sending us back to Japan. That was the time I paved the driveway to the house.

I said at one time Joe Carroll was the greatest Christian I had ever met. He certainly was the most outstanding preacher I have ever heard. I have heard them all but Joe Carroll stands by himself in that category. My dear friend, Otto Stadsklev, was active with the Gideons, One year Joe was the speaker at Gideon International meeting in Chicago. Otto knew that I was close to Joe and went up to Chicago to hear him. Otto later told me he never heard anything like that in his life. He said there were 5,000 of the finest Christian men in the world gatherered there. There was such a hush in the building that you could hear a pin fall on a feather. It was as if everyone just stopped breathing. At the close, Joe gave an invitation, and the entire assembly of 5,000 men stood as one man to come forward. Joe had to stop the invitation.

Had he wanted, Joe Carroll could have been perhaps the most famous conference speaker in the world. He was a top Keswick Conference speaker. He told me that he continued to be invited to major conferences world-wide but refused nearly all. He wanted to devote his life to a hand full of young men and women who would be apostles for Christ.

 

Dear Sister Baker, that old warrior from Canada, was close to the Carrolls and once told me, “In the Spirit Joe Carroll is the greatest man in Japan. And in the flesh he is the worst.” She had great respect for Joe but that was close to being an accurate estimation. Joe was a mighty man of God, but he was also a man with clay feet. I have known a number of very famous, outstanding, Christian leaders, and most of them have serious flaws. The problem with big men is that it is difficult for them to take a rebuke. It is difficult for them to fellowship with others on a horizontal level. Joe was a highly secretive man. He wouldn’t let his left hand know what his right hand was doing. And that made it tough if you were his right hand. I doubt that he ever had a close friend. I was probably the closest man he ever had to him, but I always felt he regretted taking me into his confidence so closely.

In 1980 we returned to the states for a furlough and I planned to give another year of my life working for free as a carpenter at the Institute. But things had changed. I had taken a hammering in Karuizawa the year before and was glassy eyed when I got back to the states. Joe said to a man, “Bill seems to be a little warm under the collar, but the Lord has shown me how to handle this. I will just put him in the freezer until he cools off.” Man howdy, that was a bad year. Everything you could imagine went wrong and my relationship with Joe was terrible. He hurt me harder than any man I knew. Several years later I was in Greenville. I drove out to the Institute to see it, but I was so wounded on the inside I never stopped.

 

But two years ago I was in Tennessee with Harold Carman. I had to go to Greenville and Harold called the Institute telling them that I was coming and planned to stay there. I never would have gone there if Harold hadn’t forced me. Joe was in advanced Alzheimer and was virtually a vegetable. Someone said, “You must go up to see Mr. Carroll.” I really didn’t want to, but if he was a vegetable it couldn’t hurt. I went in his room as he was lying there liked in a coma. Mabel said, “Talk to him. He is awake.” As I began to reminisce about old times in Japan, his eyes changed. He reached out and took my hand. It was like an out of the body experience. It was something like what will probably happen heaven. I cried, “Mabel, look at that face! I haven’t seen that face since 1962.” The Lord took us back 46 years to the day when I loved him passionately. What an unforgettable 45 minutes we spent together!

 

A year later his care-giver was leaving at midnight. His mind was amazingly clear. She asked, “Mr. Carroll, is the anything you would like?” He clearly said, “Fifteen minutes more with Jesus.” Three hours later his care-giver looked at him, and the Lord had not only given him 15 minutes, but an eternity with Jesus.

Looking forward to seeing you – and Joe – soon.

                                                                               bill

Okay. Do it!

9 May 2010

 

Dear Phyllis,

 All my life I have always tried to have as dark a tan as possible. Working on John‘s house has given me the best chance for a tan in many years. For a month I have worked every day with my shirt off and now I am as dark as I have been in a long time. But something has gone wrong. About a week ago my back started to itch like crazy. It was covered with one solid mass of pimples. The skin is so dark there is no problem about it blistering up and peeling. This was much deeper. The only thing that helped was scalding hot showers. For several nights I got up to take HOT showers to relieve the itching. Then my Tee shirts started to get covered with a mass of little dots of puss. My friend John’s wife nearly got sick when she saw my back and went to a pharmacy to get something for it. But the pharmacists told her, “If his back is as bad as you describe, it has gone too far. He will have to go to a doctor, get a shot, and some medicine.” I thought about going to a pharmacy myself to get something for it but then decided, “Why bother? Jesus has promised to heal all my diseases (Ps. 103:3).” He has always kept me in excellent health. I am much better now.

The work on John’s house is coming along quite well. This is the first time I have built a concrete house and we are doing things that I am sure have never been done that way in Thailand. I doubt that anyone would ever follow our example of building, but if they would, I believe it would greatly improve their construction method here.

The other day we talking about concrete and that reminded me of my concrete story in Karuizawa.

 In 1965, because I was Joe Carroll’s responsible man in Japan, I was forced to move into his house in Karuizawa to take care of it. It was one of the finest properties in Japan and a very well built house, but it had no access, and was plagued with many serious problems, making life difficult there. Two families found it too difficult and had moved out. As a single man I was able to manage better and slowly began to solve some of the major problem. But the access was huge one.

The house was built on a hill. Joe had a road dug part way up, which was very steep. But from there, you had to walk up a long flight of steeps. The Lord had given me a vision of putting in a tunnel. After I was married, in our first year, I was able to do that which gave us 110 meters (120 yards) of driveway starting from the bottom, going part way up, and then straight into the bank for 45 feet. It curved around coming out to a covered garage behind the kitchen. It was wonderful. On rainy days we could drive right into the garage and take everything into the house without getting wet. By doing that, we had a wonderful large lawn with the road going under it. This made it one of the most desirable houses in Japan. But the road needed to be paved.

 

The story of the tunnel itself was a huge miracle. I still don’t know how we were able to pull that one off, but to pave it looked like an even larger mountain. For several months in the winter time, with snow and ice, it was extremely difficult to get up that steep slope, but in the spring, with mud, it was impossible. I prayed about that problem for a year when we were in the states for furlough, and decided as soon as we got back to Japan I would go ahead and have it paved.

Our support level was about 1/3 of what would have been required if we were with a mission. We were always the poorest folks in town, and yet we lived in houses that made the wealthy envious. To pave 110 meter driveway with concrete would be a staggering cost which went totally beyond anything we were close to being able to pay for. As fall dragged on and winter approached, I knew it was do or die. If we didn’t get that driveway paved before winter we were in for a real hard time for the next several months. Finally at the beginning of November I decided to take the plunge. I contacted the contractor that had helped me put in the tunnel and got an estimate from him for the driveway. In desperation I said, “Do it!”. His crews started to do the preliminary preparation.

 I was the director of the Japanese language school at the time, and had a morning prayer meeting with the teachers each day before classes. One morning, during the prayer meeting, the gigantic project that I had started overwhelmed me. I panicked. I promised the Lord as soon as the prayer meeting was over I would rush home and stop the work. But before I could get out of the language school there was a phone call. Then someone came to see me. It was terrible. It was late morning before I could get away to run home to stop the construction.

When I got there I told the job foreman, “Please stop.  I don’t have the money and there is no way I can pay for this project.” The foreman told me, “If you had been here two hours ago we might have been able to quit, but the forms are in, and we are putting in the tekkin (steel rebar) now, and we can’t take it out.”

“Okay. Do it!”

 The day we poured the concrete was miserable. It was snowing. We had a pump truck to pump the concrete up to the top which was a good 30 meter (100 feet) rise. Starting from the top we worked down pouring the concrete in the forms and screeding it down. It was almost dark when the last meter was poured and the job was finished. If concrete freezes, it ruins it, and we were right at 0 C (32F). There is a certain amount of self-generated heat in concrete which kept it above freezing the first night. For the next three days it warmed up to stay just above freezing and then I dropped down below freezing for the rest of the winter. We had done that job on the last possible day that year. Had we tried it a week later, it certainly would have frozen the concrete and been one huge mess.

I was so busy working on that project and running the language school that I scarcely had time to worry about how I was going to pay for it. But just as we finished the job, on the 5^th of December, I had a phone call from a friend in the states. There was a major problem and they were pleading with me to come to the states immediately to try to help them, and sent me a round trip ticket to fly to Denver for a week.  

I made no promise that I could solve their problem but I did stay with them for a week and gave it my best shot. The Lord did more than I expected, but I still left there with that mondai (problem) unsettled. But while I was in the states, I flew on east to see my mother in Pennsylvania, and down to Greenville, SC where we had stayed during our furlough. While in the states, money poured in like water. Wherever I went there were major offerings. It had only been four months since we had left America to return to Japan, and the Lord had done astounding miracles during that time. It was wonderful to be able to share with believers in America of the amazing thing the Lord did for us in keeping Rosemary up and allowing us to return to our home in Japan. I may have talked about the driveway project, but I don’t recall it. But money poured in. I was able to spend Christmas with my sister, Dorie, in Los Angeles.

 On the 28^th of December I arrived back home in Karuizawa. It was wonderful to be able to drive all the way to the house on our new beautiful concrete driveway. But I had caught a bad cold while in the states. That greatly impaired my joy. My attaché case was filled with money but it had to be converted to Japanese yen. I was too sick to go to Tokyo. My niece, Pam, and her friend were staying with us at the time. I gave them the US dollars that the Lord had given me two weeks before and asked them to go to our bank in Tokyo to convert the dollars to yen. She came home with a huge roll of 10,000 yen notes that would choke a cow.

 The next day was my birthday, December 30^th, but I was flat in bed. Around ten that morning the contractor came with the bill and wanted to be paid for the concrete job. It was Y1,100,000 (about $10,000). I was so sick I didn’t bother to count the money out. I just handed him the roll Pam had gotten from the bank. He counted out Y1,100,000 and handed me a receipt “paid in full”. Oh my goodness, that was the greatest financial miracle of my life that far. I had never stuck my neck out so far with nothing to back me up except the Word of God and our faithful Father who has promised to meet our needs. And all that money came in after we poured the driveway. But I was like the walking dead. Somehow it just didn’t register. I could scarcely thank the Lord for that miracle. The bill had been paid and there was still a stack of 10,000 yen bills left over.

  I went back to bed and twenty minutes later there was a phone call from the bank in Tokyo. It was the politest man I had ever talked to. He explained that a new teller was working there, and she had made a big mistake in over paying Pam the day before. Would I please send the money back?

“Of course. How much is it?”

“Y180, 000.”

I went back and got the envelope with all the money in it and found exactly 18 Y10, 000 notes. I sent that back to the bank and we were dead even. The money the Lord gave me for the project came out exactly to the dime.

That was 35 years ago. Concrete that is poured in cold weather, where it cures slowly, is very hard. That concrete is like granite. There has never been one crack in it.

 Stories like that sound good. The Lord has been extremely good to me. I am not a man of faith. In most cases the Lord has had to take me by the scuff of the neck and drag me through the major things He has wanted to do for me.

If we can trust Jesus to forgive our sin and get us into heaven, maybe I can trust Him to heal my back, and maybe He will continue to meet my financial needs in spite of my abysmal unbelief. What can I say? Jesus is amazing! What a savior!

                                                                                            bill

Think Outside the Box

2 May 2010

 Dear Phyllis,

 The rainy season has come to Thailand. Thailand has two seasons – dry and wet. They sure are distinctive. For five months, from December to April I doubt that we had two hours of rain. For three or four months we had zero rain. But now, from the end of April until October or November, we will have rain every day. But the rainy season isn’t that bad. When flying over this country in the summer time, the cloud coverage is about 50%. That means we get a lot of sun. And when it rains it is only for half an hour or so. Basically it is thunder storms or squalls.

The Thai’s attitude to rain while riding a motor bike is more or less to ignore it. A couple of years ago I was riding my Honda up to Burma in the summer. I knew I was going to get wet, so I took my rain gear. When I saw rain in front of me I stopped and put my rain gear on. But then I noticed that very few others were wearing rain gear. I got so tired of putting it on and off every twenty minutes, I finally joined the crowd and just got wet. No big problem as you will dry off in about the same time. Last night, coming home from work, I rode through heavy rain. I was soaked to the skin when I got home. But it was Saturday and I was going to wash my clothes anyway, so I just wore them in the shower to wash them.

 

Several months ago I was preaching in the local Thai church and had a bad time. I really felt bad when I sat down. I make no apology for what I said. I am satisfied that my message was scriptural sound, but that wasn’t the message those people needed to hear. I doubt that very many had any idea what I was talking about. It is possible to have a subject that interests the speaker very much, but that is not where the folks in the church are at that time of their development. What I was trying to share with them is a subject that has been very meaningful to me.

I believe it is safe to say in order to understand spiritual things we must think outside the box. 1 Corinthians 2 tells us clearly that the natural man cannot understand spiritual things. It is only by the revelation of the Holy Spirit that we understand spiritual truth. Therefore the Holy Spirit must be our teacher. He must be our master – not our own intellect. When the human intellect steps forward to take the chair of the sensei (teacher), the Holy Spirit is sidelined. There are some things that anyone with an IQ of over 75 can understand. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to understand that there is a God who made all things. If man will accept it, anyone should be able to understand that God sent His Son to this world to save it. But to understand the deep things of God, this can only be gained by the revelation of the Holy Spirit.

I believe most people will accept that heaven is much different than this earth. When we read Ezek. 1 and Rev. 4 & 5 we are confronted with a description of things that goes well beyond our imagination. In one sense we are confronted with a problem similar to what a Stone Age savage in the Amazon might face if someone was to describe to him life in America today. How could you explain a computer to him? In order to understand spiritual truth, I believe we must accept that there are things that don’t make a lick of sense to us here. If we were restricted to living in a two dimensional world, how could we understanding a three dimensional world? In a two dimensional world a dot does not have a dimension. In a three dimensional world a dot can be a line which has a dimension. If we were restricted to only having four senses rather than five, and no one on this earth had eyes, how could you explain some things to them? There would be some things true in one world that are not true in the other. In the world of the blind the number five can only have one meaning. But in the world of sigh it can be different colors, that makes it different. Red and green lights mean nothing to a color blind person but they have a radically different function in a traffic light. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that there are things in the spirit world that are true that don’t make sense to us here.

To a limited degree all Christians will accept the doctrine of the Trinity. It is impossible for three to be one. And yet we all accept that there is one God Who exists in Three Persons. By the rules of this world that is impossible. To get around that problem we use the illustration of water existing in three different states. That is; the same cup of water can be solid, liquid or gas, depending on the temperature. Or a woman can be a daughter, wife or mother. But the doctrine of the Trinity goes well beyond our natural explanation.

I have found so many things in the Bible that seem to be contradictory that I have come to the conclusion that in the world of the spirit things are different and all these things are true – even if they don’t make sense here.

One of them is the contradictory doctrines of the sovereignty of God and the free will of man. Naturally speaking you can’t have it both ways at the same time. You can’t have a totally sovereign God who can do anything He wants. He can save or not save anyone He wants; and at the same time have the total unrestricted will of man who can thwart the grace of God, reject the pleadings of God, and refuse His salvation. And yet I see both arguments presented with equal clarity in the Bible. You can take either side of the argument and establish an irrefutable case. I have come to the position that both sides are absolutely correct. In this world it is impossible but in the realm of heaven I see where both sides equally exist.

 Another issue is the age old controversy of Calvinism verse Armenianism. Theologians have disputed this issue and fought like tigers over their respective positions for centuries. Again I see where both sides have equal validity. The problem with choosing sides is that in order to espouse one side you have to explain away a tremendous amount of very clear scripture and say “This cannot be true because the Bibles says… (then you insert your favorite verses)”. I find this extremely difficult as you must reject a great deal of very plain scripture.

Recently I have come to a new position in my Christology. First of all, may I adamantly declare that I see Christ in His deity in the highest sense of the word. I totally believe what John said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” … All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made” (Jan. 1:1, 3). There is no question about Who John is talking about when he further says, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (Jan. 1:14). The Word is Jesus. There are numerous verses in the Bible that clearly teaches that Jesus was the creator. Not only was He the creator but He was also with the Father from eternity past. You can’t get any more clear than what John said “In the beginning was the Word”. Christ was there with the Father in the beginning and the first act of creation was done by Christ.

And yet I have recently been shocked when I began to consider what the word “begotten” means. This is clearly the verb used in most of the genealogies that talk about someone’s son (or child). In reading my Japanese Bible the other day, I was very surprised when I saw in Heb. 1:5 – in quoting the 2^nd Psalm ‘This day have I begotten Thee’ – the translators used the Japanese verb “umu”; which means to give birth. In that they are correct as this is exactly what “begotten” means. That means that Christ was born of God. This could be difficult. Andrew Murray brings out that there are clearly two begottens in scripture. In his message in Acts 13:33, Paul quotes the 2^nd Psalm – This day have I begotten Thee – and applies it to the resurrection of Christ. But the use in Heb. 1:5 applies directly to Christ relationship with the Father establishing that He is the Son of God, and considerably more than an angel. Some commentators suggest that the two begottens are referring to His incarnation and His resurrection. But Andrew Murray forwards the position that Christ was literally born of God. That argument makes more sense of the claim Jesus made of Himself in talking to Nicodemus when two times He refers to Himself as “the only BEGOTTEN” (Jan. 3:16, 18). When did this happen? That is a date and an event that we cannot discuss on this earth as it precedes eternity. It precedes “the beginning”.

The reason this came to the surface was what Andrew Murray had to say about Heb. 2:11 – “He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all OF (literally out of) One”. This clearly teaches that the sanctifier – Jesus – and those who are sanctified – us – are both out of the same source. That is; we both are born out of God – born of His Spirit. That one rocked me. But it does make sense. No one will argue what the new-birth is. That is nothing less than the very Spirit of God being born, or coming into, our heart. All Christians agree that when a person is born again, the very Spirit of God comes into our heart. And this birth is the same as Jesus was born of God. It is because we both are born out of the same source Jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren.

 

This has given me a new perspective of Jesus and His relation with the Father. Again, if you try to understand this by the tools of earthy understanding it is impossible.

But by accepting the position that things are much different in heaven, and the laws of heaven go beyond the rules that govern earthly understanding, I have become very comfortable in taking the entire Bible in and believing every verse is true just as it says.

If you think this letter is hard to swallow, you should have seen the perplexed looks on the faces of the poor Thai people who had to listen to a small modified version of this thesis. But may I again declare that Jesus is real and someday He will make all of this plain to us.

Shu ni kansha shimasu (thank the Lord),  bill