In/Out Flow Gospel

29 August 2010,

Dear Phyllis,

 Recently I received the New Life League monthly news letter from Roald Lidal. Roald’s letters are always good but the August one poignantly pointed out the basic flaw in Christianity today. Roald Lidal is one of the most impressive phenomenon I have known in Japan. In his letter he said that he and his wife were celebrating their 40^th anniversary as missioners in Japan. In those 40 years I have seen Roald rise from a young boy who came out to sweep the floor in the print shop and drive a truck to being one of the most significant Christian statesmen world wide. I believe it can be safely said that Roald Lidal has been more singularly responsible for supplying Bibles to the millions of believers in underground churches world wide than any other person. For the past decade NLL has been the main source of fuel for God’s furnace in China that is the hottest raging revival fire the world has ever seen. For the past 15 years, millions upon millions of Bibles have poured off the NLL presses in Japan that has produced such astounding results in Asia and some other countries. It is hard to believe that Roald Lidal is in less than the top 1% of Christian leaders having the greatest impact for the Kingdom of God today. Certainly he and Billy Graham are not to be listed on the same page. In the award lines in heaven I believe Roald will be in the front of one line while Billy Graham will be towards the back in a totally different line.

 Billy Graham has been universally hailed as the greatest prophet of God for the last half of the 20^th century. He has been adoringly referred to by the secular press as the Prophet of Love. He is held in high honor by everyone from drunks in bars to the rank and file of Christians world wide. The only place where he is held in low esteem is by those who dislike his associating with the despised Gospel message and a few hard core fundamentalist – of whom I am one.

If we evaluate a man by the fruit of his ministry, the record is not good. England was saved by Wesley. In the days of Wesley, Whitfield, Finney, Booth, Goforth, Paton; societies were radically transformed for righteousness. Tragically, during the tenure of God’s greatest modern day prophet we have witness America plunge into the worst moral catastrophes in history; to where sexual perversion is now being taught as normal behavior in public schools. We have come to the place where the US President has triumphantly declared America is no longer a Christian nation, and a huge mosque is to be built next to the site of the worst attack on American soil. Billy Graham’s impact on America has been negligible. Cotrawise, at the close of his ministry America has become an unprecedented moral sewer. How is that possible? To be honest, and give Billy Graham a little slack, we must also consider the ministry of Jeremiah and Isaiah who saw a similar moral decline. But their messages were different.

Billy Graham is one of the most political correct evangelist in America. He would never refer to homosexuals as perverts. He would never criticize an evil politician by name. He has been cordially entertained by many of the most evil dictators in the world including North Korea’s Kim Jong Il. He would never denounce an evil man or name a false prophet. He called Pope John as the greatest moral revivalist of the past century and said no man had a greater influence on him than Norman Vincent Peal. (It is questionable that Peal was saved.)

In his defense, it is frequently said, “Billy Graham as seen millions saved. Perhaps more than any man in history”. That is extremely questionable. Statistics show that the retention of Graham converts is about 1%. That is, if you go back to a city five years later, you can only find 1 in 100 that is going on with the Lord as a faithful follower of Christ. If we would look at the face of people going forward at Graham crusades this should not be surprising. As the TV camera pans the crowd of thousands streaming forward, an amazing percentage have a grin on their face like they are going to a carnival. Why shouldn’t they? They are going forward to receive a freebie. Why not go forward? It won’t cost you anything and salvation is passed out free. This is in radical contrast to the hearers of Wesley, Edwards, Finney, and Goforth. At those meetings people groaned, wept, or fell prostrate on the ground.

I say all of this to contrast the spiritual situation in America to what is happening in China. Of the millions being saved – largely through the Bibles being sent in – these converts have an astonishing evangelistic zeal. They are laying their lives on the line to tell others the Good News of Jesus. If China is not already there, it will soon be the #1 missionary-sending nation on earth. What is the explanation for the radical difference between western Christians and Chinese? I believe it can all be expressed in one word – the REALITY OF CHRIST. It would not be fair to say that American Christians don’t have Christ. But I believe the problem is that Christ has so little of them.

The infallible sign of the Holy Spirit is this – “OUT of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water”. The infallible sign of the Holy Spirit is not the manifestation of various spiritual gifts, but which way the flow is going. We all know that in Israel there are two bodies of water – the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. We know the difference between these two lakes. The water is flowing OUT of the Sea of Galilee and the water only flows IN to the Dead Sea. This is the difference between life and death. The Spirit of Life is to flow OUT and the spirit of death is to only flow IN.

In hydraulics there are two systems of moving water. One is by the bucket and the other is by a pipe. With the bucket system you put water in and out. But the pipe is different. There is a continual flow. The more you put out the more that comes in. I believe this is true of the Holy Spirit. The more that flows out the more we are filled. Which is more efficient? You can only fill a bucket so much and that is the limit. But with the pipe it is endless.

Tragically I suspect that most western Christians are living by the bucket system. Or to use a different expression – “to charge your battery”. People go to church or conferences to get their battery charged. But the battery soon runs down. A worship service is not to get your battery charged, but to pour out your devotion and appreciation to Christ. And again, the more we pour out the more we are filled.

This is one reason why I am not fond of Bible schools. A Bible school is undeniably a bucket system. Young people go to Bible schools for four years to get their buckets (empty heads) filled with knowledge. But they would learn so much more – so much faster – if they simply got engaged in sharing Christ and teaching others the things the Lord had taught them. The Law of the Kingdom is – to get we must give. The more we give the more we get. This certainly applies to knowing the Bible. And the flavor is different. The flavor of listening to someone sharing what the Lord has taught them is much different than what some professor just told them. One has life, the other has information.

Gomen nasai, Phyllis, for this rambling, negative, grammatically defective letter. It is just that Roald’s letter triggered a thought in me of contrasting the situation here and what you have in America. In Roald’s letter he quotes KP Yohannan when he said that American Christian mail boxes are jammed with magazines and devotional books, while there are untold millions in the world who have never seen on scrap of paper with John 3:16 written in it. Why is it that millions of dollars of Christian literature are flowing into American homes while only a small trickle is flowing out to reach the over two billion people who know nothing of the Jesus who shed His Blood for them? This is more than bewildering – it is down right disgusting! Staggering billions of dollars are flowing into American Christian entertainment while a small trickle is flowing out to reach the 10-40 window.

I am not suggesting that things are perfect here. We have all the same problems in the Orient that you do in any western culture. We have lukewarm Christians. We have immoral pastors playing hanky-pank secretly. We have organizational leaders with sticky fingers pocketing money designated for other projects. We have all those problems in addition to hostile governments persecuting the church. But we also have a church that is doing an amazing job in going forth with the Gospel. We have an army of courageous Christians waging a heroic battle for Jesus. Much of the flow here is going out. Living here on the west side of the Pacific gives a much different perspective than what you see living there.

You can’t say that the difference is all because of the Bible. Certainly there are far more Bibles in America than there are in China. What then is the difference? Unquestionably it is the Holy Spirit. You can have the Bible without the Holy Spirit, but the Bible is the written Word of God, which is the primary tool of the Holy Spirit. Without the Bible the work of the Holy Spirit is tremendously restricted. That is why the efforts of Ronald Lidal have produced such astonishing results. Bibles printed in Japan are feeding the fire of revival in China.

For 50 years American has feed on an in-flow Gospel – what Christ can do for me. But here in the Orient we are seeing an amazing out-flow of people filled with the Holy Spirit pouring their lives out for Jesus sake.

May God help us to join them,

                                                           bill