Inverted Kingdom

31 July 2011

 Dear Phyllis,

I believe I told you before that I met an unusual couple on the train coming back from Malaysia a few weeks ago. In the course of the usual conversation – “Are you folks tourist or do you live in Thailand?” – I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they were missionaries living in Chiang Mai. This has developed into an unusual relationship.

Gary and Jean are the kind of Americans I like best. They had a highly successful business in the states, but felt they wanted to devote the remaining years of their life serving Christ in some sort of an mission related outreach. They wound up here in Chiang Mai. Jean is teaching in a children’s school, but Gary has a lot of time sitting, more or less, at home. I had sent them a copy of your letter a few weeks ago, and he felt the message needed a broader hearing. He has taken this on as a hobby to see what can be done to assemble what he can find of back PB letters, to put them into a more concise book. I gave him everything I had on my computer which included two books I had written.

Gary asked me how I came up with the Inverted Kingdom. Was it something had read? I don't believe I have ever read anything on this subject, and I can't recall ever hearing a message about it. But over the years, I have noticed that this is a major theme in the Bible that, strangely enough, has been ignored by the rank and file of Christianity. It is particularly maddening when you go into Christian book stores and look at the bulk of literature on the shelves. It seems to me that 90% of what is being offered is the dead opposite of what Jesus told us. No one has written a book yet on The Way to the Bottom; The Way to be a Loser, At the End of the Line, etc. Everything promoted is directed on how to get to the top.

Basically we are indebted to our Lord Jesus for emphasizing this theme, but the basic truth is found throughout the Bible. It is significant that when Jesus began His famous Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:1-12), the very first words of the Beatitudes were,“Blessed are the...”; and then most of the points are the opposite of what we call a blessing. And Jesus said the greatest blessing is persecution. Really?!!! Is this what we want? Do we consider this the greatest blessing here? Do we consider the persecuted fortunate? Who is waving the flag for this?

Then, time and again, throughout the gospels we see that what Jesus is teaching is the dead opposite of what is being promoted by most churches in America today. I am not sure that it can be said that all the laws of the Kingdom of God are reversed from the natural laws of this world – I don't know, maybe they are – but certainly most of them are backwards. And so, as I observe the laws of the two conflicting kingdoms, it looks to me like one of them is the Inverted Kingdom.

Initially, what I intended to do was to take 30 items of the reversed laws and write a small daily devotional. I started this many years ago. To date I am up to 47 chapters and still writing. The further I go on with the Lord the more I see the laws of the Kingdom are radically different.

There is nothing in this with which we are not familiar. We all know well what Jesus taught. We all know that; He that exalteth himself shall be humbled, but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted; He that seeketh his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life shall find it; Give and it shall be given you. Etc. These are all basic truths that govern God's Kingdom. There is nothing mysterious here or shocking. But somehow the overwhelming power of this world, its logic, and its intense drive for success is so dominant that these fundamental biblical truth have been relegated to platitudes of nice sounding spiritual sermons, but certainly not anything that would be the guiding compass of our life. As a result, incontestably, Christianity today is driven by the engine of this worlds goals and laws of operation.

We must be honest and admit there are two ways of doing things. They both work. There are two different set of laws. Any wise operator can take either law, implement it, and get a result. There are basic laws of business. A good businessman can get ahead. There are laws of salesmanship. A good salesman can sell his product. There are laws of politics. A good politician can get elected. In the world of the natural, ignore these laws and disaster will come. You ignore the laws of good business and you will go bankrupt. Smart people want to get ahead. Someone who starts a business wants to see it succeed.

The mantra of this world is “Use your head, man! Use your head! Don't be stupid” Who can argue with that? The name of the game is not to see who can go the slowest; who can blow out the quickest; who can be the biggest failure or who can wind up on bottom or at the end of the line. Sanity demands that we play by the rules. Find out what those laws are and follow them. That is the way to success. I like Herman Cain very much. He is a highly successful business man. The secrete of his success is very simple. He says, “Look for the best men in that field. Look for those who have been successful, and then surround yourself with them.” That is a very smart approach. Why follow someone stupid or has failed in business? Get good men and go by the rules.

In one sense we can easily understand why churches and Christians behave the way they do. Like everybody else they want to be a success in their endeavours. Any young pastor starting out with a small church wants to see it grow. Anyone starting a radio or TV ministry wants to see it succeed. Any mission wants to see it be successful. There is no glory in the opposite. A church that starts out and struggles for two or three years, only to close the door is sad. Any mission that launches out, but later comes up empty handed, is a waste of money. Any radio or TV ministry that starts out, and sees its rating fall like the re-entry of the space shuttle is no testimony. Of course a church wants to be successful.

But the problem is that in most cases earnest Christians have taken the rule book of this world and applied it to Christian service. This permeates everything in the Christian life. And as a result we have come up with a very odd looking Body of Christ. We have come up with a religion that preaches Jesus but looks exactly like the world. We talk about sacrifice, but want to live like kings. We talk about giving, but the point is to see how much money we can get. We talk about serving others, but we are totally self-centred and expect the world to revolve around us.

The message that started out by telling the story of the Son of God who came to shed His Blood for us, and sent us out to preach this Gospel to the ends of the world; has mutated into a huge industry of Christian entertainment. America is inundated with mega churches that have become highly successful by preaching a feel-good religion. Tens of thousands of people flood to theses churches to be royally entertained by a highly professional program, and then a very good speaker that makes them feel good all over. Who wants to feel depressed when they go to church? Who wants to have to sit through some painful special by a wannabe but never-will-be musician? Who wants to have to sit there listening to some boring “messenger” give a can't-remember-it-'til- lunchtime sermon, on how you should be a better person. My goodness, we have problems enough without having to put up with that! Let's get a better speaker in here. So the ways of the world govern the Body of Christ. And to suggest that the laws of the Kingdom of God are reverse looks ridiculous.

But God's laws are God's laws. If someone wants to make progress in the Kingdom of God they will have to do it God's way, or it just won't work. God's laws are as immutable and unyielding as the laws of science. Gravity always works the same. The way to advance as a Christian is through humility. The way to gather real spiritual riches is by sacrificial giving. The way to find the most rewarding life possible is by losing your life for Jesus sake. In the eyes of this world, the giants in the Kingdom of God may look pitiful, but when the day is over there is no question who will be up front. Much of this religious entertainment – I mean preaching as well as music – that supposedly is promoting Christ, is repugnant to God.

Because the laws of God's Kingdom are reversed from the laws of this world, Christians are confused when things turn out backwards to what they expected. Many is the bewildered believer who said, “I thought God would bless me, but all I have had since I started following Christ is problems.” The problem is – maybe this is the blessing of God. Maybe it is a great badge of honour to lose your job or be demoted because of a strong stand for Christ. The day may well soon come when Jesus blesses His church in America with godly pastors in jail for strong biblical preaching. If so they should rejoice and be exceeding glad (Mt. 5:12).

 It is because these phenomenons are so diametric to modern Christian thinking that Gary feels the Inverted Kingdom should be rewritten an made available to a wider audience. I questioned that what I wrote would ever be published, and am surprised that the Lord seems to have sent a man with time and interest enough to possibly make this a reality. I am not satisfied with what I have written in the Inverted Kingdom, and have felt for some time that, if it ever was made more public, it should be rewritten. Last Wednesday Gary suggested he wanted to take on that project. God bless him.

There is one more chapter that I would like to add to it. That is the time factor. One reason why people fail to see the spiritual laws workout with the same predictability as natural laws, is due to the time factor. God’s Kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and the kingdom of this world is restricted to time. Eternity is greater than time, but now is more viable than later. Natural laws are operative now. God’s laws are operative now also, but to a large degree, we will not see the full impact until later. I have thought the games that are played in this world have four quarters. The game is over at the end of the last quarter. Whoever is on top when the buzzer goes off wins. When the clock runs out the score stands. But in God's game there is still one more quarter to go. The game is not over when the clock runs out. On the contrary, we will not see who wins until we all stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ. There is no doubt that there are going to be some horrendous shocks then. Many of those who have been so immanently successful in this world will see that they have actually been on the wrong team all along. In closing the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus concluded with; “Many will say to Me in that day , 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name? And in Thy Name cast out demons? And in Thy Name done many wonderful works?' And then will I profess unto them, 'I never knew you. Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity'”(Mt. 7:22, 23).

That is the bottom line of the Inverted Kingdom. It would seem to be the better side of wisdom to live by His laws, rather than the laws that this world promotes. May God's will be done.

bill

Paul and Marisa

24 July 2011

Dear Phyllis,

Ron Blough used to say, “Bill doesn't have much of a testimony himself, so he is always giving the testimony of others.” Yes, that is true. Not a great deal has happened in this past week so I am resorting to giving another testimony of others.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote to you about God's lolly pops. John Cathcart used to say, “God seems to give lolly pops to people that is something more for their enjoyment than hard, dry, spiritual labour. I told you that my lolly pop at the moment is Paul and Marisa. Man howdy, they are something else! I don't believe I have ever seen anything like them. I know of no system of soul winning that envisions people coming to Christ like what has happened to them. I know them very well, and have heard their testimony several times, but it still doesn’t make sense.

Marisa was like a Claymore mine. You touch it, and it goes boom. They used to live next door to Scott and Kae. Scott frequently invited Paul to come to the Friday night Bible study, but I felt it was a waste of time. He didn't enjoy it, and somebody like that will never get saved. Marisa was a devout Buddhist. Scoot and Kae were moving and sold their house to Almsteads. Marisa was over talking to Kae one day, and Kae said, even though they were buying their house Scoot and Kae did not want the Almsteads putting in a spirit house on that property. Technically, once they bought it, they could do anything they want with their own property; and there are extremely few houses in this muban (housing area) that don't have spirit houses. But Scoot and Kae did not want their former property defiled with a spirit house. Something snapped inside Marisa through that conversation. She came home getting all over Paul for not warning her that Buddhism was of the devil; and he was allowing her to go to hell, because he went to the Buddhist wat (temple) with her. She was an instant Christian.

Paul was greatly confused at what happened to his wife. Suddenly she was getting up every morning at 4:30 to read the Bible and went to church every Sunday. He came to me saying his wife wanted to get baptized, and asked what baptism was. I asked, “Why does she want to get baptized?”

“Because she wants to be a member of the club.”

I told Paul, “Forget it man. God has got you in His cross hairs, and there is no way you are going to get out of this.” He got saved by default.

I might have told you this story before but it is a good one. About a month ago, his 12 year old daughter was awake in the middle of the night, when the door to her bedroom opened and a man in black walked in. Paul came to talk to me about it the next day, and asked if it was real or she was dreaming. (She swore she was wide awake.) I said, “I believe it is real. Stories like that are not that unusual.” He later asked her, “Weren't you afraid when that happened?” She replied, “No, I laughed at him. I'm in Christ!” That is amazing for a 12 year old girl.

I go over there every Saturday night for Bible study and our times have been wonderful!

The only other dramatic, instantaneous, direct, conversion, that I ever heard like that was Linda Rogers.

In 1973 we got stuck in the states for two years when Rosemary was sick. There was a fancy young couple that always sat in front of us in church. He was a fancy dude wearing loud Hawaiian shirts, and she always had a huge stack of Marie Antoinette blond hair stacked up on her head. It was a good church where we were going and they were regular attenders, but I often said to Rosemary,“That couple aren't saved.” Apart from the usual “Hi, how-are-you-today” greeting I never really spoke to them.

Six years later were we home again from Japan, and went to a church supper one night. Linda was setting next to me. I introduced myself by saying, “Linda, you probably don't remember us, but we are Bill and Rosemary Cook. We are missionaries from Japan and used to sit behind you in church six and seven years ago.” She replied, “Bill Cook, I know more about you than your mother. I’d like to share my testimony with you.”

Like I thought, they weren't saved, and after we returned to Japan they stopped going to church all together. One day a friend called her inviting her to go to another Baptist church with her the next Sunday. Linda accepted the invitation, and suddenly had an intense craving to go to church. She said that week was the longest week of her life. Every morning she would wake up and wonder how many more eternities she would have to wait until Sunday came. But the big day finally arrived. She got up early in the morning, got dressed, and waited for her friend to come. But nakanaka (Japanese. I don't know how to say that in English) she didn't come. Linda despaired that her friend would never show up, and about gave up hope when she finally came. But then, oh, what a slow driver. She thought she could walk faster than that lady was driving. And every cotten-picken light in town was red. At last they got to the church, but her friend started talking to another lady in the parking lot. She thought the service must surly be over, but actually it hadn't started yet. And then the song leader droned on and on forever. By the time the preacher got around to speak, Linda was about to have a litter of 15 kittens. It was a fairly large Baptist church with over 1,500 people there. But Linda simply couldn’t take any more. The pastor hadn't told his first joke when she jumped up, and ran down the aisle. She fell down at the altar screaming “Jesus! Jesus! Save me!” The pastor, and everyone else, were startled; but Jesus everlastingly saved Linda.

You talk about a transformed woman; now there was one! But there was no peace in heaven. Linda was on her knees day and night crying to the Lord to save her husband . He was as confused and shaken as Paul was when Marisa got saved.

Jake was carpenter. About three months after Lind was saved, Jake was up on a roof one day. Three thirty in the afternoon, Jake suddenly stood up, unbuckled his nail apron, and said to his crew, “See you guys. I'm going to quit early today.”He climbed down the ladder to get off the roof.

The next morning he was on his way to work when he was suddenly killed in a horrible accident. He was DOA (dead on arrival) at her hospital.

A pastor happened to be there who had gone to the hospital unusually early to pray with a parishioner who was going in for surgery that morning. He was headed out the door when he heard an announcement asking if there were any clergymen in the hospital, to please report to the administration desk. The pastor heard the request, turned around, and went to the desk to ask what the problem was. The lady there explained that they had just brought a man in dead; they had called his wife, and – as a courtesy gesture – they wanted to have a clergyman to break the news to the bereaved woman. He asked if he could see the body. They told him it was pretty ugly, but the body was in the morgue. He went in the morgue, lifted the sheet, and looked at the face. Then he went to the front door to wait for the widow.

Ten minutes later Linda came roaring up on the scene. The pastor stepped forward and said, “Mrs. Rogers, I am Pastor Robertson. Your husband is with Jesus in heaven.” Linda glared at him and replied, “Preacher, you are a liar! My husband is an unsaved man and is in hell.” Pastor Robertson responded, “Mrs. Rogers I have something to tell you. Yesterday afternoon at 4:00 o'clock, your husband went to a phone booth and looked up the first church he could find listed in alphabetical order in the Greenville Yellow Page phone book. At 5:00 yesterday afternoon I led your husband to Jesus Christ. He died a saved man and is in heaven.”

Oh, my goodness, I never heard anything like it! What a miracle! Here was a pastor Linda had never met. Jake had called him totally at random. The pastor was never in the hospital at that hour of the morning, but the Lord had him there to tell Linda about Jake's accepting Christ the day before. That was one of the most astounding acts of grace I ever heard. That testimony had taken about 20 minutes to get that far, and Rosemary was totally dissolved in tears. She had gone through every napkin on the table and was about ready to blow her nose on the tabled cloth. But then came the punch line.

Linda said, “After the Lord took my husband to be with Himself, you and your family have replaced him in my heart. I have lived with you every day since Jake died.” Linda was not on our prayer letter list. I didn't know she knew our name. We had never really formally met. But somehow she manage to get a copy of every letter I ever sent out. She had faithfully followed every place we had been, and every event we wrote about.

Linda told us that the first thing to cross her mind every morning was the Bill Cook family in Japan. When she had her devotions every day, the number one item in her heart and prayers were for the Bill Cook family. She had somehow acquired a family picture of us. (I have no idea how she got that.) She said she had that pasted over her sink in the kitchen. When she did the dishes, she prayed for the Bill Cook family. And when she went to bed at night, her last thoughts and prayers were for the Bill Cook family.

Crash! I was floored! A woman that I had hardly spoken to – that I thought she didn't know our name –had adopted us to the degree that she said we had replaced her husband in her heart. Stunned is hardly the right word. I turned to Rosemary and said, “If we do anything while we are in the states this time, the one thing we will do is to give this dear sister maximum time, and spend as much time with her as possible.”

And then came the next big surprise. That was the last time we ever saw her. She was going to a different church than we were at the time. Why she wound up at the Christian Fellowship church supper that night I never found out. We didn't get her phone number, and she didn't have ours. Somehow our paths went in different directions, and I never saw her face again. Some years later I heard Linda Rogers remarried; but not long after that, she joined Jake in heaven I don't know what took her life, but she died a fairly young woman.

Heaven will be filled with many surprises. We have our programs, convictions, and ways of doing things. But God's ways are much different. God is totally sovereign in running His own Kingdom. He saves some of the most unlikely people in the most unusual, unassisted, ways. Paul and Marisa are a huge bewilderment to me. They are the last ones on this planet that I would expect to see them be firebrands for Jesus. Linda and Jake Rogers were just worldly, half-churchish, Americans. The unusual conviction of sin that the Holy Spirit gave to Linda, and then the most miraculous way he saved her husband, are an epic in my book of remembrance

Who knows what will happen next. But it sure is fun.

bill

SUGOI!!!

17 July 2011

Dear Phyllis,

I just finished reading Andrew Murray's, The Holiest of All, for the third time this morning. (I have been reading that continuously for four years.) I can't wait to get started reading it again. The closing doxology just blew me away. I can't imagine anything in any human language more wonderful, more marvellous, more pregnant with meaning, truth, instruction, encouragement, and more frustratingly glorious than that doxology and the final crescendo note:

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the Blood of the everlasting covenant; make you perfect in every good work, to do His will; working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be GLORY for ever and ever; Amen.

Oh my goodness, has there ever been anything written more glorious than this?! I am just peeking through a key hole into heaven but if I could see any more my heart would burst. Oh, what volumes could be, and should be, written about this theme! Oh, the inadequacy of human speech to express the truth that is alluded to in these few words! O Lord, haste the day when we can more adequately express our wonder, appreciation, and praise to God for who You are and what You have done!

This is so wonderful I am reluctant to even comment on it. Any words that I try to write can only detract from the enormity of the truth of this … (I don't know what to say. Is it the Gospel? Is it the work of Christ? Is it salvation? I don't know what it is ; but for whatever it is, or you call it, PRAISE GOD!)

For several weeks, I have been reluctant to go to heaven. I said a few weeks ago, I am so ashamed of myself, I can't imagine entering into heaven through the front door; and hoped God had a back door or – if possible – I could crawl into heaven through a side window. After reading about some of the real soldiers for Christ, I have quickly stepped out of that line, and hope I can fade into the crowd of on-lookers, and those cheering the heroes of the faith.

But this morning I got a different view. Andrew Murray blew the top out of it when he wrote the last note – TO WHOM BE GLORY!

In his opening remarks Andrew Murray writes:

TO WHOM BE GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER. No wonder that the author bursts out in adoration. In the closing prayer he had summed up all the glory of what God has done in Christ, and now waiting to work in us. He has pronounced over his readers the blessing of the God who hath revealed Himself in His Son, and longs to reveal Himself in us for our complete deliverance: and his whole soul bows in wonder, joy, and worship. The sight of the God who has raised Jesus from the dead, drawing nigh to do His mighty work in us too, brings the song to his lips: TO WHOM BE GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER! Oh that we may ever learn to study and admire and appropriate the mysteries of redeeming grace, that every mention of it leads to the spontaneous outburst; GLORY TO GOD!

He couldn't have expressed it better. The very mention of it causes my heart to nearly burst. As I thought about this, my mind went to the seraphims who stand in the presence of God ceaselessly crying, “Holy! Holy! Holy!” Maybe this is nitpicking, and maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me that their cry and ours is different. I have never been comfortable with that cry. There are several praise songs that go, “We cry, holy, holy, holy”.I don't like to sing it. I'm not sure that is true. Somehow those words sound very artificial to me. In communist countries, school children are given little flags, and told to stand beside the road and cheer when the dictator rides by. They dutifully wave their flags and cheer. But it is not real. They are only doing what they are told. Singing some of those praise songs feels the same way to me. What I am singing is not what is in my heart, but only what I have been told to sing. Somehow it seems plastic.

I am sure that I have told you this before but it is well worth repeating. Years ago I wanted to learn how to pray. I was told that the best prayers were to memorize the prayers in the Bible and repeat them. I thought there is no way you can get higher than what the seraphims who stand in the presence of God say – “Holy! Holy! Holy!” They never quit. They do that 24-7. Try it! I did. I nearly went nuts. You can't do that ten ,minutes before you get concerned that someone might call for the fellows in the white jackets with their wagon. I wondered, “How in the world do they do it?”

One summer we were over on the west coast of Japan at Kashiwazaki for a Bible camp. There is a nice beach there, and we were swimming every day. While we were there, a typhoon came up the Sea of Japan. It missed us, but the waves of it hit us the next day. I never saw anything like it in my life. We went down to the beach where we had been swimming in shallow waves every day, and what we saw looked like Mt. Fuji coming at us. Oh my goodness, those waves were monstrous! I stood there in awe and watched one of those towering waves come in and crash on the shore; and I cried, “SUGOI!” (awesome, great, spectacular – the Japanese superlative adjective). Another wave came in and I cried,“SUGOI!!” Another wave came in and I cried, “SUGOI!!!” I stood there for twenty minutes and I couldn’t get another word out of my mouth. I tried to talk in English, but that just didn't work. I tried to use English adjectives, but they just didn't fit. What I am trying to say is, I mean to tell you those waves were SUGOI!!!!

At that moment I knew what was going on in the hearts of the seraphims. The sight of those waves just blew me away, and all I could do was cry, SUGOI. The angels stand in the presence of God observing the character of God, and what they see blows them away. All they can do is cry, HOLY! Why doesn't that blow us way? Because we don't see what they are looking at. And holy is not a meaningful word in our vocabulary. Take away God, and holy is almost a non-existent word in the human lexicon. They talk of holy men of India, but those poor creatures are anything but holy. I used to think the reason God was holy was because He didn't smoke, drink, or read pornography. A friend of mine told me he had a dog that didn't do any of those things, but he wasn't holy. Then I had to look for a definition of holy. What is it that blows the angels away so that all they can do, day and night, is cry holy?

It is impossible to measure anything if you don't have a standard. What is God's standard? I saw that the measuring stick of heaven is God's own law. It is the Ten Commandments. But the Law has two sides –positive and negative. The negative side is – you don’t do it. The positive side is the reverse of the negative. The opposite of to steal is to give. The opposite of to kill is to make alive. The opposite of to lie is the truth. The opposite of adultery is to keep clean. (Basically this is to honour the sanctity of marriage.) When someone asked Jesus what was the number one law, He summarized the entire law by expressing it in reverse – to love God and love the neighbour (Mk. 12:31,32). Galatians 5:14 tells us that love is the fulfilment of the law. That sums up everything on the positive side. The angels see the character of God and it just blows them away. That is why they can't quit crying holy.

But I believe the thing that will cause our hearts to burst is Glory. I can't express it, but somehow this is what it looks like to me. I believe the closest to this here on earth is a congratulatory scenario. If someone does something congratulatory here, the minimal expression is a hand shake. When someone does something special, I compulsively want to shake their hand. If someone does something really sugoi for me, I compulsively want to hug them. We see the extreme of this in sports. In the NFL, when a wide end receiver catches a touchdown pass, and scores the winning touchdown, a common practice is for that player to run to the stands at the end of the goal line, and jump up in the stands. Of course, he can't get all the way in, but he jumps up half way, and the fans there grab the players jersey, and pull on him. Everyone gathers around as much as possible pounding him on his back congratulating him for that spectacular touchdown. On the soccer field, when a player makes a winning score, the entire team gathers around him, knocking him down. Then there is a big pig pile of the entire team jumping on the pile to congratulate the poor winning player on bottom. If it would be possible, the entire stadium of fans would pour out on the field to jump on the pile to celebrate. The stands go wild in celebration of a winning score. Everyone is frustrated screaming at the top of their lungs celebrating. In 1998 I was staying in the CMA missionary guest house, in Bangkok watching the Super Bowl on TV with the manger’s husband. Kurt Warner threw the ball 80 yards keeping it one inch inside the line. His wide end receiver was running down field at the speed of sound. The ball fell out of heaven into his outstretched arms as he ran in for the winning touchdown. Steve and I went out of our minds. We were screaming and hallering so loud his wife came and asked,“Would you fellows calm down. The neighbours will think you are drinking.” Man howdy, we couldn't help it! That was glory!

This is what is happening at the end of Hebrews. When the writer sums up all God has done in revealing His Son; what Jesus has done in opening the way to the Father and inviting us in; and the inexpressible.. (I don't know what the right word is) salvation offered to us; all we can do is spontaneously cry, “GLORY TO GOD!!!”

Oh my goodness, that was my experience this morning! I am so frustrated at my inability to express what the Lord has revealed to me. For several weeks I have been concerned about how I was going to get into heaven. When I compare myself with the real soldiers of Christ, I am too embarrassed to go in through the front gate. But this morning all I could say was, “Hang it! I don't care how I get in; if only I can stand in the innumerable throng before the Throne of the Lamb crying Glory to God!”

This is not some staged ceremony like children standing along side a street waving little flags saying what they are supposed to. This is real. This is is spontaneous. This is something, if we can't get it out of our mouths, our hearts will burst. Why? Because what Jesus has done is so astounding! How is it possible that we could do anything less?

 But why is it that our times of worship occasionally are so dry. With cold hearts and frozen lips we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy”. Why is our worship so plastic? Revelation. That is the difference. I could stand on the beach in Kashiwazaki looking at a calm ocean, and cry“Sugoi”; or the angels in heaven could stand in front of a blank wall and cry “Holy”, with only our imagination to draw from, and it would be pretty flat. The difference is; it is what we are looking at that impacts our hearts. That is why the apostle prays for the believers in Ephesus that God would give to them the spirit of revelation and knowledge of Him; that they might know what is the hope of His calling... (Eph.11:17-23). If He does that, perhaps Christ might live in their hearts by faith, and they might be filled with all the fullness of God. 3:16-19). After Paul prayes that, he concludes with“Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end, Amen.”

Gomen, Phyllis, but I can't add to that. May God make it real.
bill

The Lost Spirit

10 July 2011

Dear Phyllis,

CT Studd's favorite saying was, “When the captains come to call, may my body be nearest the wall.” Oh, the spirit of that man! Oh, the passion of that man! Oh, the intensity that he devoted his life fighting for the cause of Christ! The loss of that spirit is perhaps the greatest tragedy of present day Christianity.

If there is anything to learn from reading the figures of the number of Israelites that came out of Egypt in the book of Numbers, it was that the census was taken entirely of those who were “Able to go forth to war” (Num. 1:20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 45). Obviously, there were a lot more Israelites than just those. (It is also significant that women were not included in the ranks of the military.) But when God numbered His people, the only ones that counted were those who were “able to go forth to war”. If this doesn't say something to us, I don’t know what does. God was raising up an army. Of course women, children, and elderly were part of His people, but the only ones who really counted were those who were capable of fighting.

We have lost the significance of this today. From the first moment in the Garden, when the serpent raised his ugly head and hijacked humanity, God has been at war with that serpent winning back His lost humanity. We like to emphasize, “for God so loved the world”; but the flip side of that is: “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested; that He might destroy the works of the devil.” (1 Jn. 3:8), and “For as much then as the children are partakes of flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the same: that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death; that is the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” (Heb. 2:14, 15). One of the greatest books I ever read was John Bunyan's, The Holy War. The thesis of that was that Prince Emanuel went forth to reclaim the lost kingdom of Mansoul for His Father, King Shaddai. I was seated while reading that book, but when I came to the chapter when Prince Emanuel breached the wall and took the city of Mansoul I had to stand. I couldn't read that chapter sitting down.

Incontestably, there is a fierce war going on today . Jesus is the Captain of the host of the Lord (Josh. 5:14). Joshua didn't know that until he met “the Man with the sword drawn in His hand” that night sanding by Jericho (Josh. 5:13). Jesus had the drawn sword in His hand that night, and in the last scene we see in Revelation is when He gets on His white horse and goes forth with a sharp Sword with the armies of heaven following Him (Rev. 19:11-15). Would to God that Christians would be infused with this vision today.

In mocking the timidity of Christians in England, CT Studd, in Africa, wrote his famous Chocolate Soldiers. In like manner, Amy Carmichael, in India, wrote her famous Daisy Chains, describing the desperate need of dying souls while the Christian world is busily engaged in making daisy chains. Fifty years ago I didn't know one Christian who wasn't familiar with CT Studd's Chocolate Soldiers or Amy Carmichael's Daisy Chains. but today even those classics have been covered by dust. I know extremely few Christian who have ever heard of them.

Mission conferences, which were popular fifty years ago, have been replaced by poorly attended strategy sessions on how to evangelize with modern electronics. But where is the spirit of the warrior? Where are the heroes who are laying down their lives at tremendous cost to take on the devil for souls and win? It was Studd's passion that when he went down he wanted to be in the hottest part of the battle, leading the charge; and he wanted his body to be found nearest the wall. Today our basic concern is that when we pass from this life into the next, we want to be sitting in a Lazy Boy chair surrounded by loving family and friends, as we blissfully step into heaven. This is our great ideal. No! No! We don't want to be like Henry Martyn whose bones lye in an unmarked grave in the desert somewhere in Persia, or like Jim Elliot or Nate Saint who were speared to death in a river in Ecuador. That is not what mission is today. We don't want to join any mission that doesn't have full insurance coverage, and an attractive retirement plan. I want to vomit when I see mission boards holding this up as an attraction for new candidates. We don't want to go to any place that is more than a few hours plane flight away from home or be deprived from Skype so the kids can talk with Grandpa and Grandma every night. And no missionary wants to be consigned to the hardship of living some place without air conditioning. Am I wrong?

Perhaps the most positive feature of then 2nd WW was spirit of total national mobilization. The entire nation rose up as one man to engage with ferocity in the war effort. Men lied about their age so they could get in the army and go to the front lines. Men vied to be in the front rank as the Higgins boats discharged wave after wave of soldiers storming ashore in the invasion on the Pacific islands. The situation was no less intense on the home front. As young men went to war overseas, parents at home were totally engaged in anyway that they could to assist the war effort. As husbands went to war, wives at home left their house work to fill the ranks of workers in war factories. We saw the day of Rosie the Riveter where, for the first time, women were running rivet guns in factories to make airplanes for the husbands to fly against the enemy. Even in school play grounds the main scene of children playing was fighting the enemy. It was war! It was universal! Everyone was totally engaged in a single cause – WIN THE WAR!

Japan was even more intense. Suicide Kamikaze airplanes were the most famous, but they were only one phase of a national commitment to fight to the death. Banzai charges in the islands were typical Japanese tactics. Hundreds of thousands of young men were totally committed to suicide missions for the cause of the emperor.

I personally knew one dear lady who felt personally responsible for Japan's defeat at the end of the war. To atone for her prayerlessness and lack of personal sacrifice, she decided the only thing she could do was to go to Tokyo to commit suicide. She got on the Imperial palace grounds and took a massive dose of sleeping pills, to apologize to the emperor. Miraculously, in her sleep, she vomited up her sleeping pills, and awoke with the horrible thought that she was so bad even the gods wouldn’t have her. It was some time later that she learned of another God who would not only accepted her – but had sent His Son for her salvation. Dear sister Inoue was one of the most dedicated Bible women in Mino Mission.

It was worldwide. Everybody in the world was in the fray. Anyone holding back was termed a traitor.

But that spirit is gone today. During the Korean War, Truman established a no-win policy. For the first time in history a war was fought with a goal not to win, but to fight to a stalemate. In the Vietnam War, Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara was careful to maintain a delicate balance of power to avoid the US having a decisive victory. The news media and 6:00 o'clock evening news regularly reported how bad the American soldiers were, so that returning GIs were greeted with curses and spit. Today war is an issue of political posturing. Politicians are primarially concerned to see which way the wind is blowing If the political poles are hawkish they are hawks. If public sentiment goes the other way they are doves. Ronald Regan was the rare exception who made decision on the basis of right and wrong rather than political expediency.

It is doubtful that America will ever again be energized with a fighting spirit. As Christians we might somewhat dismiss that except the same passive, self-serving, spirit has permeated the church as well. The Salvation Army cry of blood and thunder in the days of William Booth has been silenced. Churches, mission boards, and missionary candidates have lost the vision of going to war for Jesus. Onward Christian Soldiers has now become an entertaining melody in the nursery for CT Studd's Chocolate soldiers. It is only in our minds and fantasy that wars are being waged with powers of darkness.

Recently, I reread the story of JO Fraser, Behind the Ranges. It was very enlightening. He saw the battle for the Kingdom of God waged on two fronts. There were the spear-head front line warriors going into remote areas with the Gospel. But he saw an equally important force on the home front putting up a heavy barrage of prayer. He felt the front line soldiers would be as powerless without a solid backing of intercessory prayer at home as the WW II soldiers taking on the enemy without the home front Rosie the Riveter working in war factories making guns and planes for their husbands to shoot and fly. Had it not been for total mobilization, America never could have defeated Hitler and Japan. This lack of total mobilization and fighting spirit maybe one explanation for the stalemated we find ourselves in, in many places in missions today. Certainly Japan is in a dead stall. We are seeing some progress here in Thailand, but nothing like Fraser saw 80 years ago in Lisuland.

Oh, for an intense burden of prayer! Without that nothing will happen. I go to a Tuesday night prayer meeting. If God ever had problems with insomnia, the level of prayer at that meeting certainly is enough to make Him drowsy. When I was living in Siberia, the Russian lady of the house, where I was staying, frantically grabbed me one day, and dragged me to the living room. The husband of a close friend of hers had gotten drunk and killed a man. He was arrested, and her life appeared to be going up in smoke. You talk about prayer. Those women cried and prayed hysterically. They were like women trapped in a burning house screaming for help. It wasn't, “Now, Lord, we ask You to please help Natasha's husband.” She was desperate! Why shouldn't we have the same spirit of desperation in pleading with God for souls today?? If we got a little more serious, perhaps God might get a little more serious.

The issue of the sovereignty of God and responsibility of man is an unsolvable academic one. It seems to be, that, just as God has left the cultivation of a corn field up to the farmer, He has placed the responsibility of the propagation of the Gospel up to man. The extreme Calvinistic brethren in Scottland warned John G. Paton, “If God wants to evangelize the heathen in the South Pacific, He doesn't need your help to do it”. Paton went anyway and saw multitudes of savages saved. Since the moment Jesus commissioned the apostles to go forth and preach the Gospel, the Kingdom of God has moved exclusively on the feet of Christians. Where missionaries have gone, the Gospel has moved forward. Where no one has gone, the devil has reigned unchallenged.

What is the answer? I am not so naive as to believe that grunting flesh can produce Spirit. If God does not move in our heart, there will be no movement. But is it possible that He is waiting for us to ask Him to baptize us anew with fire? And if anything should be a cause for alarm, is it not the lethargic condition in which we have fallen? Oh, for the spirit of Studd! Oh, for men pushing forward to be in the hottest part of the fight. When I go down I don't want it to be in a bed or Lazy Boy chair. It is highly unlikely that my body will be nearest the wall, but I sure don't want it to be in Sarasota playing shuffle board. Lord save me from that.

bill

Visa Run to Penang

3 July 2011

Dear Phyllis,

Hi, I'm home again. It was with a sense of awe and mixed emotion that I walked into my darkened house at 1:00 AM yesterday morning after my six day trip to Malaysia.

First, may I apologize for being a little late last week. I was writing my letter to you Sunday afternoon when Paul came over to discuss a minor problem. He stayed so long that I never got my letter finished before I had to head for the bus terminal. I arrived in Bangkok at 6:00 AM the next morning, but had to wait until 2:30 that afternoon for the train to Butterworth (the terminal for Penang). With half day to kill, I went to Khao san Road (the backpacker Mecca of Bangkok) for breakfast and to get to a cyber café to finish and send my letter to you. As a result, the letter I usually send out on Sunday afternoon had to wait until noon Monday to be sent out from Bangkok.

The 22 hour train ride from Bangkok to Butterworth was uneventful, and after the 20 minute ferry ride to Penang, I got to the guest house where I always stay around mid afternoon Tuesday. They have an excellent visa service there, and the man remembered me from previous trips. (This was my fourth) It really was with much confusion that I decided to go to that place again. An advisory had been sent out to foreigners that the Thai consulate in Penang was a very poor place to try to get a Thai visa. In talking to the man at the visa service, he confirmed that there had been so many false documents submitted for visas in Penang that the consulate had clamped down and became quite strict. Last years one year visa had been a miracle. I told you last week that when I went in there they told me they could guarantee it was almost impossible. When I got my passport back, all they could say was “Very lucky”. If it was that tight last year, what chance did I have to get a new visa this year?

Penang is expensive, but a great place to apply. In four years I have never filled out a form or seen the consulate. I just sign at the bottom of a blank form. The visa service fills in every thing else and handles going to the consulate for me. The man at the visa service said he could not promise anything, but hoped, at a minimum, I could get a three months visa.

As I shared last week, my heart has been in much confusion ever since the disastrous Laos Bible run. It still is. There is much indication my time in Thailand is drawing to a close, and my next station in life may, perhaps be, west China. The Bible courier ministry has changed greatly from what it was 13 years ago, when I first left Japan to go to Vietnam. In those days there was a desperate need for Bibles in several dangerous, difficult, countries. The situation in many places has eased up considerably, and I am doing very little travelling these days.

I am highly critical of lukewarm Christians whose goal in life is to spend their twilight years playing shuffle-board in Sarasota, Florida. I have said, “Let them stay in Sarasota and play shuffle-board. God grant me my desire to be a Christian terrorist to carry the Gospel to Moslem in dangerous countries.” Instead of that, the relaxed life that I now have in Chiang Mai is so pleasant, it would make the retirees in Sarasota envious. Is this what God wants me to do? I'm the most expendable turkey God has in His inventory, and here I am basking in the sun in Chiang Mai. I was totally committed that if my request for a one year visa was rejected, as soon as I finished my present job of making a custom kitchen for Mark's family, I was on my way back to Kashgar, China, and see if I could get a job and a visa to serve the Lord there. That seemed like the most logical move.

Thursday morning I walked back into the visa service office to get my passport, fully expecting to have a three months visa stamped in it. To my utter amazement the man smiled and said it was another top-of-the-line one year permission for Thailand. Now what do I do?

This visa was expensive. I don't know where all the money went, but I do know that I spent right at $300 for everything. Rather than getting a motor bike and touring the island, and spend a day sunning on a beach, I cut expenses to the core, and spent most of the time reading two books.

The first one was a very interesting story of a fellow who road (tried to ride) a motor bike down the Ho Chi Ming Trail. This was especially interesting to me because that has been a priority for me for 13 years. Two years ago I got close when I went to Laos for the express purpose of going down the Ho Chi Ming Trail from the mid point of Lao Bao. I got a bike and road from Vientiane to the Vietnam border of Lao Bao. I had every intention of picking the trail up at that point and going as far as I could go by bike – or perhaps on foot.

I stopped first at the US Embassy in Vientiane, and talked to the director of the MIA program in Laos. He told me that he had been the director of intelligence during war giving instruction to the US bomb crews where to bomb. And he had spent some time actually grubbing around the trail looking for crash sites of American planes and

bones of airmen. He told me that the trail was, in most places, totally overgrown with jungle, and in many places washed out. When I got to Lao Bao, I got stuck in a guest house for two day with torrential rain. When I did finally set out, I went to the exact place where the trail crossed present day highway 9, and couldn't find anything that even slightly resembled what formally was the main artery for North Vietnamese supplies headed south. I was greatly interested in reading the account of this fellow who actually set out from Hanoi for the express purpose of retracing the famous Ho Chi Ming Trail. It was a fascinating book as I have been most of the places where he got to, and my experience was similar to his. Except for a few rare places that have been preserved by the Vietnam and Laos government for historical purpose, the Ho Chi Ming Trail simply does not exist today. But it was a great book.

The other book, The Dogs May Bark, but the caravan moves on, was the story of the Morse family who did a historic work among the Lisu people in China, Tibet, and Burma. I personally know Eugene Morse, who was one of the main characters in this account. JO Fraser was the apostle to the Lisus, and his biography, Behind the Ranges, by Mrs. Howard Taylor, is probably in the top 10% of classic missionary biographies that are mandatory reading for any Christian serious about serving the Lord. The work among the Lisu people is one of the most successful missions ever done. Fraser went to Lisuland of west China/north Burma around 1910 and was the first missionary to carry the Gospel to that unreached area. It was about ten years later that the Morse family went into a very close area, but still untouched, to take the Words of life to more Lisus. Two things about the Morse book impressed me very much.

One was the unique response to the Gospel by the Lisus. They had been in chains of darkness by evil spirits for centuries. When the missionaries brought the Good News that Jesus had broken the power of satan, the response was immediate and tremendous. It spread almost like wild fire. Other villages saw, with amazement, what Jesus did for the believing Christians, and pleaded that someone would come and free them. What a contrast that is to what we are seeing today! We plead with our listeners to please accept the grace of God and free salvation. But disinterested sinners refuse God's amazing offer, preferring their own life of sin. We celebrate when one person gets saved. Twenty years after the Morse family began their ministry, the Kingdom of God had gone from zero to thousands in west China/north Burma. Forty years after Fraser first penetrated that area, it was estimated that the Lisu people were 80-90% Christian. I have attended Eugene Morse's Lisu church and preached in another Lisu church here in Chiang Mai, and marvel that the Lisus here are still highly responsive to Christ.

The other thing that impressed me about the Morse account was the horrendous difficulties they faced. I have been in several places mentioned in their travels, but what took them weeks, by the most arduous and dangerous means, I covered in hours by plane and bus. It would be unthinkable for 95% of the missionary force today to consider making such a total abandonment of comfort and safety for the sake of advancing the Kingdom of God in difficult areas.

One of the most depressing events of the historic tsunami in Japan in March was the astounding exodus of missionaries when the nuclear reactor in Fukushima was damaged. At the first suggestion that there might be some slight increase in nuclear radiation, there was whole-scale panic among foreigners. I could not believe it! In Tokyo, that was 300 km away from Fukushima, and upwind, mission boards pulled the entire staff of missionaries out. The Japanese looked in utter bewilderment, as they went on with normal life, to see these gaijins (foreigners) flee in panic. The one positive thing that could be said about this mass exodus is, that these people – whatever they were – certainly were not soldiers for Christ. It is to be hoped that they never return to Japan to face their bewildered neighbours. What they did was a shameless disgrace to the Name of Christ, and it would be unbelievable gall if they returned as missionaries (?) to represent our Lord. In defence of some very good people who got ordered home, very much against their wishes; it has been suggested that perhaps some of these mission boards prudently ordered their missionaries home to avoid being sued by churches for allowing missionaries to be exposed to danger. Such is the state of the mission field today. UNBELIEVABLE!

This is in dramatic contrast to the mentality of missionaries 100 years ago. The last time I was in China, a sister gave me a chart of the number of missionaries – men, women, and children – who were slaughters in the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1901. I knew there were a number of martyrs, but that chart looked like the battle casualty list for the invasion of Okinawa or Normandy. It was shortly after that, that JO Fraser and Russell and Gertrude Morse thought nothing of braving the most horrific hardships to travel for weeks to carry the Gospel to souls for whom Jesus died. They took their children in there and lived for three generations. Yes, some died, some were killed. Sickness and hardship was a way of life. But look what happened! In areas where Satan had held unchallenged reign for centuries, now there were thousands – yes, a million – rejoicing Christians. It has been my great privilege to come along 70-80 years later and see first hand the fruit of their labour. When the Moses first went into north Burma, the Kachin people were an unreached minority group. A few years ago I was fellow shipping with a Burmese pastor in Tachileik, Burma, and asked how many Kachin Christians there were. He replied, “What a stupid question! They all are Christian!”

After reading the Morse book I quickly stepped out of the line for missionaries. I don't want to be called a fraud, and that is certainly what I would be if I pined on a badge as a missionary. I know it is not more spiritual to put rocks in our bed, dirt in our coffee, and walk barefoot when we have shoes. Suffering hardship does not make a missionary. But to choose the safe and comfortable path rather than following Christ in difficult areas is a disgrace. There are many outstanding servants of God who are real soldiers for Christ, in every sense of the word, and yet still live in comfortable environments. It is what is inside the man that determines whether or not he is a missionary. But when I see the relaxed life I am enjoying here in Chiang Mai, I see little difference between me and the retirees playing shuffle-board in Sarasota.

I hope the Lord has a back, or side, door to heaven. I will be delighted to stand with the watching angels cheering the real soldiers of Christ as they come triumphantly through the main gate. But, for myself, I hope I can quietly crawl through a window into heaven. And hope no one sees me.

I am grateful to the Lord for another one year visa to Thailand; but, oh, Lord, please do something in this poor man's heart that I not dishonour You, but somehow bring honour to Your Name. Lord Jesus', please do it – for Your Own Name sake.

bill