Church Life

19 March 2017

Dear Phyllis,

The hills are alive with the sound of music. An auto harp that is. An auto harp has been a major item in my life for well over 50 years. Three months ago a string on my harp broke and that reduced everything to silence. Fortunate my good friend Sam Benedict in Japan was able to get me a new set and my harp burst into life again last week.

There is another sound that may not be as melodic to others as it is to me but my shop is back humming again. Three years ago I gave away all my tools, and ever since then I have been like a cowboy when his horse died. Dave Moore has given back a large potion of the tools I gave to Abba House three years ago and I have got my shop back to about 2/3^rd operational. Oh that is a joy to see a board pass through the thickness planner! It was because of Pammy complaining about dust that I closed my shop, but Pammy has decided she can tough out a little dust if we can get some work done.

Pammy tries to have devotions for the five guest we have living with us, and the other night we had an unusually good meeting. I am going through John with them and that night we came to the text - “In Him was life and that life was the light of men.” I told the folks, “Life is our one great need. Most churches are dead but occasionally you will find one with life in it.”

Takako Yamamoto was the pillar of the karuizawa Fukuin Kyokai (Gospel Church). Then after many years she moved to Tokyo and started going to Gothold Beck's Kichijoji Shukai. She went slam bonkers for that fellowship. I knew Gothold Beck very personally but was bewildered by Takako's radical change. I asked her, “What is the difference?” She fired back, “Tsukare wa nai” (No fatigue). I knew instantly what she was talking about.

There are some churches where you get up Sunday morning and the sun is shinning. You really feel great and are looking forward to going to church. But at 12:30 you go home with a head ache and feel wore out. There are other churches where you wake up in the morning with a head ache. You really would rather stay home than go to church. But then at 12:30 the head ache is gone, you feel so refreshed and alive you don't want to go home. What is the difference? Life! One church has life the other one is dead. I real admire the Japanese believers in most Japanese churches. You really have to be tough to hang in there. In 90% of the churches in Japan it is just plain shukyo (religion). There is no life in religion. Life is in Christ. In Him was (and still is) LIFE.

When I first went to Korea in 1959 I learned a new song – Where Jesus is 'tis heaven there. It was a strange phenomenon. I had only been saved two years. I didn't know a word of their language. Poverty was ghastly and sanitation was only an imagination. Naturally speaking, sitting in those chicken coop, reeking, churches that were filled with flies, was the last place you would like to spend a day. But oddly enough I far preferred being with those simple Korean believers than with GIs in the base chapel. What was the difference? Jesus was there.

I have said for years the spiritual thermometer of a church is the church parking lot. If you drive past a church at 12:20 and it is empty you know that is a pretty chilly inside. If you drive past another church at 1:00 o'clock and there are still five or ten cars sitting in the parking lot you know there is some spiritual life in there. The spiritual climate in some churches is so cold that on Sunday morning you can see your breath in July. And there are some places where the janitor almost has to call the police to get people to leave so he can lock it up. There is so much life in there nobody wants to go home.

When I was living with the Hirotas in 1991 I challenged them to have a home meeting. Miyuki called a few friends and we got together at 7:30 or 8:00 o'clock on Saturday night. Midnight came and we were just getting started. Miyuki fixed some more coffee and sandwiches. One o'clock came and we were still going strong. Two AM came and someone said, “Look we have got to close this down and go home.” But nobody wanted to quit. It was 2:30 or 3:00 AM before we finally got in bed. The next week when we got together someone said, “We can't have a rerun of what happened last week. We have got to close this down by midnight.” Yappari, it was another 2:30 – 3:00 AMer. The presence of the Lord was so tremendous. The life in those meetings was so strong you could put it in bottles.

This is our one great need – LIFE. Ten years ago my friend Scott and I were having meetings for college kids on Saturday night at his house. Oh my goodness we had some good times. One night I had been talking for an hour and a half. We had to quit at 9:00 so the kids could get back to their dorms. One night a girl looked at her watch and her head literally popped backwards. She thought it was 8:00 o'clock. Scott later told me he wondered why I was quitting so soon. He thought I had only been talking 15 minutes and he couldn't believe it was 9:00. But then Scott said even after he took the kids back home the meeting was still going on full bore as they were talking about the Lord in the truck. That is what happens when you have life.

And it is at those times when you get the greatest light. That life is the light of men. There is no light in dead churches. Why is it that so many Christians can go to church for 15 years and they are blind ignorant of the Word of God? Why is it that so many Christians can be saved 20 years and see so little growth? Most people can't remember the Sunday morning message by the time they get home for lunch. There is so pitifully little light because there is so little life But those times when Jesus is there speaking to us, those messages stick like they are on the hard drive in our mind.

But this message goes well beyond church life. The same principle applies to our personal walk with Jesus. Jesus said, “I am come that you might have life” (Jn. 10:10). This isn't church life – this is personal. How do we get that life? By spending a lot of quality time with the life Giver. It is impossible to have much of a walk with the Lord by reading one page of Our Daily Bread and a brief prayer before breakfast, and then go to work. Our Daily Bread is no substitute for spending a lot of time at the well drinking deeply of the water of Life.

The Lord certainly was with us that night. And He waits every morning to fill any sincere seeker who has patience to wait long enough for Him to fill us with His life.

Lord tighten Your grip on us,

                                                bill

Judas

5 March 2017

Dear Phyllis,

The other night we had what was probably the best meeting we have ever had in this house. Pammy has a lot of contact with Lahu minority people and we had about ten over for a meeting. The Lord had been speaking to me about Judas and I decided to speak on that subject.

Recently I saw Judas in totally new light. The name Judas has been universally accepted as the symbol of the ultimate evil and betrayal. But I look at him as much different. Judas must have been a good man. My goodness, Jesus selected him to be one of the twelve. Unquestionably there has never been a more elite group of men on this planet than the 12 - and Judas was one of them. These men would have been celebrities in Israel. Along with the 70 other disciples, on occasion (Lk. 10:1,7-10), Jesus sent the 12 out to minister; and undoubtedly they cast out demons, healed the sick, and did a number of amazing miracles (Lk. 9:1-6). It is hard to believe that Judas was any different than the other 11 in his ministry. The Scripture doesn't tell us how Judas was selected to be the treasurer and hold the bag, but that was an indication that he appeared to be the most reliable trusted man. At the last supper he had the place of honor as he was the first one that Jesus gave the “sop” to (Jn. 13:26). In His discussion at the last supper Jesus clearly spoke of the betrayal, and it is utterly amazing that, after all the indication that it was Judas, none of the other disciples suspected he was the villain (Jn. 13:28,29). He must have had a good testimony and reputation among the disciples. And that is after three years of close fellowship. No one suspected that he was a thief.

I believe the Lord has shown me that Judas never intended his dealings with Jesus enemies would turn out the way they did. It seems obvious that what Judas had in mind was a clever way to make some money and no one would ever find out. He could make some money, rip off Jesus enemies, and no harm would come of it. Time and again Jesus had established that He could not be captured. On several occasions Jesus was in the midst of a crowd intent on killing Him, and He just quietly walk right through them (Mk. 3:6; Lk. 4:2-30; Jn. 7: 44-46; 8:58,59). When Brother Yun walked out of the highest security prison in China he passed by two locked doors, but his last challenge was to walk through the court yard that was filled with guards who had just come to work. He walked right through them to the main gate, that was open, and it was as if no one saw him. I believe Judas was sure no one would ever be able to arrest Jesus. It was like someone who had a fish pond with an expensive fish that no one could catch. He could sell the fish, but in the end he would have their money, and the customer would go home without the fish.

From Matthew's account it seems obvious that Judas never dreamed that things would turn out the way they did. He was totally overcome with the consequence of what he did. Suddenly that easy money was the filthiest stuff in the world. He went back to the priests and cried, “I have betrayed the innocent blood” He threw the vile money on the floor, went out, and hanged himself. Judas had no intention of being a traitor. His clever scheme just went sideways.

From two other references it seems this plot came from the devil. Luke 22:3 tells us that the devil had entered into Judas suggesting to him this way to make some easy money. And then for the final betrayal, again, it took the devil to strengthen him to do it (Jn. 13:27).

The lesson here is the blood chilling danger of harboring secret sin. Eleven years ago the church in America was rocked when the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard, was exposed as a pedophile having sex with young boys. Haggard was the pastor of a fine church in Colorado Springs and had the reputation of being one of the top pastors in America. But he had a secret weakness to pervert sex that he had successful covered up for many years.

Jim Bakker thought he was safe by paying off Jessica Hann to silence his affair with her and the fraud scheme he and Tammy were running with their hotel Heritage USA. But the Lord was gracious to him in exposing his secret sin that eventually led to five years incarceration in prison and deep repentance.

There is nothing as dangerous and deadly as successful secret sin. Living in darkness leaves the door open to the devil and when he gets in who knows where a person will wind up. I'm sure that Haggard and Bakker never thought that their weak point in character would lead them to the disastrous pit where they wound up. I feel convinced that Judas never intended to be a traitor. When I say he was a good man I am not discounting or excusing the historic sin he committed. Apart from his weakness to money and opening himself to further exploitation by the devil, he probably was a good man. He never intended it to go the way it did.

When the Lord showed me this side of Judas I was badly frightened. What man is there that doesn't have a few skeletons in the closet? Samuel Rutherford was probably as holy a man as any in Scotland but he considered himself worse than the vilest devil. Thank God the disgusting thoughts that pass through our minds each day are not posted on You Tube. But when these thoughts find a welcome home in our heart that is the seed that killed Judas and ruined Ted Haggard and Jim Bakker.

We have the OT example of Achan who thought there was nothing seriously wrong with hiding a Babylon style garment, a little sliver, and a wedge of gold (Josh. 7); and the NT example of Ananias and Sapphira who thought they could get by with pretending they gave their all when in reality they had held back part of the price (Act 5:1-11). By these two examples God has shown us what He thinks of secret sin. But the most frightening one is Judas who thought he was getting away with it by helping himself to the money in the bag from time to time and then a clever way to get some fast cash.

This has set off the alarm bells in my heart and jolted me to my senses to be careful that the devil doesn't have any welcome areas in my heart. Why Judas wound up like he did and 60 years later I am still on my feet is a great mystery. All I can say is that it is the grace of God and the amazing ability of Jesus to keep His own.

Oh, thank You Jesus,

                                  bill