Foot Soldiers

17 June 2018

Dear Phyllis,

Watchman Nee said the greatest poverty of the church is not the lack of gifted workers with their five pounds but the loss of simple ordinary Christians hiding their one pound (Mt. 25:14-30). If every believer would exercise their one pound the world would be won for Christ. Amen. I believe that is true. The most important person in an army is the foot soldier. Generals are important, but a general is worthless unless he has good foot soldiers to do the work.

In 1962 I was teaching in the Karuizawa Bible School. We had a fine girl there Noriko Kajiwara from Waijima on the west coast of Japan. The only thing unusual about Noriko was that she loved Jesus and was a good foot soldier. After graduation she went back to her home in Waijima and worked with Cliff Leonard, who also was just an ordinary foot soldier missionary. Good missionaries are not the spectacular ones like Hudson Taylor or Johnathan Goforth, but the nameless worker who just grinds away every day visiting people and doing all they can to promote the Kingdom of God. Cliff Leonard was one of those. Apart from this letter you will never hear his name but he was one of the great ones in my book just doing what he was supposed to.

A couple of years after Noriko had returned to Waijima she wrote me asking if I would come over there to have some special meetings. Cliff and Noriko had been praying for revival. That summer they had had a special camp for young people. It was pretty much of a disappointment. But the last night of the camp a typhoon came through. It was a relatively mild one but there was a lot of rain and fairly high winds. Cliff was up most of the night going from tent to tent making sure that everything was tied down safely and the kids were okay. He noticed that in many of the tents he could hear crying. He assured them, “Don't worry. Everything is all right.” But the next morning after the storm had passed and the sun came out, the kids emerged from their tents to say what they were crying about was not the typhoon but sin. The Holy Spirit visited that camp after the last meeting was over.

When I got there in November it was as conspicuous as could be. The kids who had been touched by the Holy Spirit at that camp looked like strobe lights sitting in the crowd. We really had a good time. Altogether I wound up going over to Waijima three or four times.

At one meeting they had a fine boy who spoke good English to be my interpreter. I like Yokoi san very much. He was about 21. I don't believe he had been to Bible school but his English was good and we worked together very nicely.

The Lord laid on my heart to preach a strong message on “If Your hand offends you cut it off. If your eye, offends you; pluck it out” (Mt. 18:7-9). I said, There is no part of my body that is more important to me than my hand. My hand is very useful. The most sensitive nerves in the body are those in our eyes. They told us in survival training in the Air Force about a man had been wounded five times and then had one case of sun blindness – sun burning his eyes. He said he would rather take five more shots from a gun than one more case of sun burnt eyes. It doesn't matter what the issue is. It might be the most useful thing in your life; or it might might be the most painful issue in your heart. The question is how does this effect my walk with the Lord? Is this a plus in helping me go on with Christ or is it a hindrance? There are a lot of things in our life that may not be bad, and they may be very useful; but is this going to be an offense or a plus? And there are many things that come up that are the most painful issue we face. It doesn't mater how useful it is. I don't care if it is your hand, If it is going to be an offense to Jesus and your walk with the Lord – CUT IT OFF. It doesn't matter how painful the issue is; I don't care if it is your eye; if it is going to be an offense – PLUCK IT OUT! I thought the Lord had helped us in a significant way preaching that message. I gave an invitation at the end and thought there would be a good response.. Zero. Not a soul moved forward. Okay.

A month later I got another letter from Kajiwara san saying they were experiencing revival and please come back again. Unbeknownst to me, after that message the interpreter went up stairs and had a serious encounter with the Lord. There were a couple of major things in his life that the Lord had spoken to him about. He knew it didn't matter if it was the most useful thing he had, or the most painful experience of his life; if it was going hold him back from fully following Jesus – cut it off or pluck it out. The Holy Spirit was gracious in taking these things out of Yokoi san's life, and he came down stairs a new man in Christ. After that he became a flame of fire for Jesus and everywhere he went people were being saved. I did go back to Waijima and – oh my goodness – we had a good time. That work that Cliff Leonard and Kajiwaa san was doing bore all the marks of the Holy Spirit. They had a group there of 70 people or more that were alive for Jesus.

Over the years I lost track of Cliff and kajiwara san. Much to their disappointment I never felt led to join them and wound up in a different direction.

It was about 20 years later I was attending the missionary conference in Karuizawa. One night as I was walking out of the church I heard a young man calling to his wife, “Over here! He is over here.”; and the couple I had never met came running up to me. But they had just been to a Japanese conference where the main speaker told his testimony how as a young man he was interpreting for Bill Cook who preached a message on, “If your hand offends you – CUT IT OFF”. They wanted to meet the man who had preached that message.

I hadn't heard of Yokoi san in 20 years. I had no idea what had happened to him. Sometime later I asked a Japanese pastor in Nara if he had ever heard of Yokoi sensei. He said, “Of course. He is one of the most famous pastors in Japan. He has written several best-selling books”. Some time after that Neil Verwey had Yokoi sensei come to Ikoma to be the speaker at the Japan Mission annual Bible conference. I didn't attend but Neil told me that his main message was “If your hand offends you cut it off”.

I don't get much credit for that. Here was one of God's great men of God in Japan who was winning thousands. But he was the product of two unknown foot soldiers for Jesus in an obscure place on the Japanese west coast who were just plodding along doing what they were supposed to. They got an unknown young missionary from Karuizawa to come over for some meetings, and the fruit of that was to produce one of God's top men in the country.

Mary Baker was a single lady missionary in China. No one has ever written a book about her. But in her later years, Watchman Nee and several other young men who later became some of the greatest Christian leaders in China, use to go to her simple home just to fellowship with her. Watchman Nee told about the tremendous formative influence she had on his life.

There was a simple humble man in Romania who had a deep love for Israel. He begged God to give him a Jewish convert. I don't know his name or if the Lord gave him any more than one, but I do know that the name of one Jewish man he led to Christ was Richard Wombrant.

These are not five star Christians but ordinary one pound believers but from these simple seeds that fell in the ground came tremendous fruit.

Lord, keep us faithful, bill

Why God Hides

17 June 2018

Dear Phyllis,

As a young man I used to wonder, if God wanted people to know who He is, why has He hidden Himself so thoroughly that only a few ever find Him? Obviously, it is only a very small percentage of people who truly know the Lord. I believe there are two reasons for this.

First of all, pride, arrogance, and cleverness are so repugnant to God that He has hidden Himself so that man by his own wit cannot find God. After one meeting Jesus thanked God for the people who weren't saved, and only a few children responded (Lk. 10:21).

But another more basic reason is that man simply cannot look at God and live. When Moses asked to see God, the Lord responded, “No man can see My Face and live” (Ex. 33:20). The best the Lord could do for Moses was to place him in a cleft of the rock, cover him with His hand, and then allow him to see some of His back parts. Even then, that had such an impact on Moses that when he came down from the mountain he had to cover his face with a veil because the people couldn't look at his face (Ex. 34: 29-35).

In the early 1950s the US was detonating quite a few atomic bombs to get a better understanding about the power and effect of a nuclear explosion. Anyone involved and was in a position to physically see the blast had to wear dark welders glasses. To look at a nuclear explosion unprotected would simply burn out their eyes. I have had a few encounters with the Lord where I had to ask the Lord to turn down the dial. I had hit the limit of what I could take.

Sixteen years ago I stuck my hand in a large table saw and virtually took off most of the fingers on my left hand. The ambulance first took me to the Saitama University Hospital, which was a very good hospital. They took one look at my hand and said, “Gomen nasai, but we can't deal with anything like that here.” Next they took me to the largest medical facility in Saitama-ken that had one of the three doctors in that prefecture that could do that kind of surgery. When he first examined my hand he told me, “I will give you 3% chance that we can do anything to restore your hand. 97% you will windup with a usable little finger and a stiff thumb that you won't be able to move.” (Three years ago the wife of a friend had terminal cancer and the doctor told her, “You have 30% chance of living”. Her husband said, “Praise the Lord. That means that Jesus has 70% chance of saving her.” Today she is just fine.) The doctor gave me 3% chance of recovery and today Jesus has restored 98% usability of my left hand. But for the first week the nerves in my hand functioned just fine. They worked just like they were supposed to. For nearly a week my hand felt just like I had placed it palm down on a hot frying pan and couldn't get it off. The pain was tremendous. Every night the nurse would ask me, “Would you like a pain killer and a sleeping pill?” I always answered, “No thank you. I can handle this pain.” But I spent much time at night walking the floors of the hospital as I couldn't sleep for the pain. That was one side of the equation, but on the other side, it was during those long painful night that Jesus turned on the speakers in heaven. I could hear the angels singing. The volume was just above a whisper but I had to plead with Jesus, “Please don't turn up the volume any louder. If You do my heart will burst.” Roald Lidal was out of the country when the accident happened and as soon as he got back, the first thing he did was to rush to the hospital to try to console me. He was concerned that I would be in deep depression over losing the use of my left hand. As he tried to comfort me I told him, “Roald, that isn't the problem. The problem is that the Lord has met with me and revealed Himself to me to such an extent that I can't talk about it.” For many months every time I tried to share with someone what I heard during those long weary nights I could only get two or three words out of my mouth before I would burst into tears and be rendered speechless.

Samuel Rutherford and many of the old divines use to speak much about the Lord's absence. Rutherford spoke much about Jesus coming and going and hiding His face behind a veil. He was right. I know exactly what he was talking about. Of course, Jesus promised - and in reality is – to always be with us. But the overwhelming sense of His presence is a fluctuating thing.

The reason I am writing about this subject today is that recently Jesus has been pulling back the curtain about 10 cm (4”) allowing me to see something of Himself. I can honestly say I am grateful He doesn't open it any further as my heart couldn't take it. Sometimes I have to say, “Lord, that is enough. I can't handle any more”. I would refuse to go to heaven except that I know in heaven Jesus will change me to enable me to look more openly on His Face. But at this point 10 cm is my limit. It is a fact that God has chosen to hid Himself but He does reveal Himself to some of the more unworthy ones to such an extent as they can handle.

But there may be one more reason why He has hidden Himself. You talk about a disguise, who in the world would believe that that Man working with His dad in their wood shop in Nazareth was the creator of the universe? You can't get more disguised than that. What John wrote about Him in the first chapter of his gospel about: “all things were made by Him and for Him; and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”; is so profound and off the board that the greatest minds on earth completely stumble at it. As I read the gospels and see those heated debates that Jesus had with the Pharisees and high priests, I frequently think, what would happen if Jesus would take off His robe of humanity and they could see directly Who they were talking to? They would be clawing the dirt with their finger nails trying to dig a hole to hid in. As it is, it was a miracle that they were actually able to pull off the crucifixion. A year before then the high priest had sent soldiers to arrest Jesus and bring Him in. And they came back empty handed (Jn. 7:44-46). The night of the final arrest, when the soldiers came to the garden to take Jesus, He asked, “Who are you looking for?” They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth”. When He replied, “I am He”, they went backwards and fell to the ground (Jn. 18:3-6). It took the veil of human flesh and the grace of God to enable His enemies to finally pull off what was written in the Scriptures. Theologically we can accept that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19), but in that day He was perfectly disguised in human flesh.

But there is one more area where God has hidden Himself to such a degree that it is almost unbelievable. Do you believe that Jesus actually lives in your heart? He says He does, and the undeniable fact that we are born-again of His Spirit is proof that He does. Why doesn't He reveal Himself more clearly to us? I believe it is because He has so blinded our eyes to live a life just as if Jesus was a million miles away in heaven leaving us alone here on earth to live out our lives as if He wasn't watching. If Jesus was actually standing right beside me watching everything I do there are a lot of things that would be impossible. But Jesus leaves us along to do whatever comes to our mind. In one sense He has left us to live out our Christian life on our own. It was a great mystery that the God of creation was in the Body of that carpenter in Nazareth. But it is a far greater mystery that that same Jesus also lives in me.

To the vast majority of humanity God has hidden Himself so that natural man cannot find Him. He is here but they don't know it. And to us, who He has called to Himself, He has revealed Himself to such as degree that our spiritual eyes have been opened to know Him, but even so He is so hidden that the bulk of our life must be lived by faith. Thank God there are those times when His great love overcomes Him and He sticks His head out from behind the veil to say, “Hi there.” At such times all we can do is burst into tears and say, “Jesus, Jesus, Lord Jesus!”

Oh thank You Lord,

                                            bill

Nikka

10 June 2018

Dear Phyllis,

It seems that testimonies are my most popular letters. In view of the fact that I am a poor man with little to talk about I am constrained to writing repeats which is like showing reruns of 1955 I Love Lucy.

In 1983 the Russians shot down the Korean Airline 007 right off the coast of Japan. There wee 40 Japanese on board that were killed. At a subsequent government sponsored ceremony for the victims I was stunned to see the testimony of a lady who was the wife of one of the victims who boldly said on national television that she was a Christian and declined to bow before an idol. But the shocker was that her address was in my immediate neighborhood. Knowing that she was a Christian and a recent widow I had a deep concern to reach out to help her. A girl who had previously worked for me in Karuizawa was now a worker in our neighborhood church. I asked Yumi chan if she knew the lady. Yumi said she didn't but she did know that a widow with a young son had been in church the previous Sunday. I said, “Please introduce me”. The next Sunday Yumi pointed out the lady, so I went over to introduce myself to her and invite her to our house for supper. Tuesday night Nikki showed up. She was the wrong lady but had the most interesting testimony.

Nikki san was the middle girl of a three sister family whose father was a lawyer. She had been happily married for five years but unable to have a child. At last the happy day came when she successfully conceived. Like many Japanese women she returned to her home in Ikoma to be with her mother for the birth of the child. After one month her husband called saying he was coming to pick them up the next day. Nikki told him that she had to go to Osaka for the child's one month check up, and her husband said, “That is even better. I have a thing I want to get checked and will meet you there'”

“Is there anything serious?” “No, but there is something that has been bothering me that I want to have checked.”

Two weeks later they had a call from the hospital saying that they wanted him to come back for further examination. And two weeks later he was dead. What a blow! Poor Nikki had been trying for five years to have a baby and after she finally had one she had only two weeks to live as a family before her husband died.

With her husband dead Nikki returned home to live with her family. But when her younger sister got happily married, that only accentuated her own grief. It wasn't fair. After five years of frustration she only had two weeks to have family life, and now her younger sister got blessed with a happy marriage. Bitterness filled her heart and she refused to speak with her sister.

Nikki's mother took care of Tetsu chan so Nikki could go to work, but then a further tragedy struck the family with the death of her mother. Surprisingly, there was a kind Christian lady that lived in the neighborhood who stepped forward offering to take care of Tetsu chan so Nikki could continue working. The kind neighbor lady identified herself as a Christian and invited Nikki to go to church with her. Nikki had no interest in religion but went once or twice out of obligation.

.

The Japanese have a very deep thing in honoring the dead to do ohaka maeri (to visit the grave). At four years, to fulfill her ohaka maeri, Nikki went to Wakayama to visit her husbands grave sight. While down there she spent a night staying with her elder sister and brother-in-law. Her sister told her that they had recently become Christians. Okay. So what? Christianity wasn't a bad religion and if they wanted to be Christians she saw nothing wrong with that.

But the next year was a rocker. When she went to Wakayama to do her ohaka maeri she stayed with her sister again. Her sister's appalling husband had become a marvelous gentleman. What in the world kind of a power had changed that disgusting man into such a gracious husband? Her sister apologetically said they were having Bible study in their home that night. They would be delighted to have her stay but if she didn't care to attend they would understand. She stayed.

Rosemary and I sat in our living room listening to this amazing narration. I asked her, “What kind of a service was it? Who led the meeting?” Nikki said, “I don't know. There didn't seem to be a leader but about a dozen people just sat around in a circle reading the Bible.” “What did they study?” “I don't know. It was some story about a man who had died and Jesus brought him back to life.”

(John 12). Then she went on, “Please don't laugh at me. I know this is crazy, but I had the strangest impression that they were reading about me, and when they came to the point where Jesus said, 'Take away the stone', I thought He was speaking to me. I felt like my heart was a tomb and there was a huge stone in front of it. If I took away the stone life would come out of that tomb.” (That was Johnathon Goforth's great revival message in China in 1905 - “Take ye way the stone”.) After the meeting in Wakayama a man gave her two books. He asked if she had ever gone to church and encouraged her to go to church in Ikoma.

The next Sunday she had the strangest inclination to go to church. She had every reason why she shouldn't but surprised herself when she got there. Tetsu chan had never been in church and was acting up. Because he was so unruly she went out in the foyer to listen to the message. Some gaijin (foreigner) was preaching about a fountain (Zech. 13:1) and she thought in her heart, “I am thirsty. I would like to drink”. She thought the gaijin was the pastor and was surprised that the next week a Japanese was speaking. Then the third week, as she was getting things together to go home, she looked up to see the gaijin speaking to her inviting her to come to his house for a meal. (Me)

When Nikki got to this place in her story Rosemary and I were exploding. Tetsu chan had to go to the bathroom and while Nikki was taking him potty Rosemary said, “We have got to get this girl some literature, and got two Kichijoji books we gave to people. When Nikki came back from the bathroom and saw the books lying on the table, she gasped, “Those are the books I received in Wakayama!” She picked up Hikari yo Are and read in the back a beautiful prayer Gotthold Beck had written for sinners seeking salvation. I asked Nikki, have you prayed that prayer?” She told me, “I thought it was so beautiful I wrote it out in long hand to carry in my purse and say it every day'” I replied, “Congratulations. You are born-again of the Spirit of God”. Nikki burst into tears.

That was in September 1983. Nikki's sister and brother-in-law came up to Ikoma for her baptism and I got a chance to meet them then. Nikki bought herself a comfortable lazy-boy chair to put beside her telephone where she also kept a Bible. For the next few years she had a nightly tradition of sitting in her chair as she fellowshipped with her sister in Wakayama for an hour every night. Nikki went on to be a Sunday school teacher in the Megumi church and was one of the strongest pillars of the church.

Oh my goodness, that was 35 years ago. I haven't seen Nikki or heard of her in many years. I have no idea what ever happened to her but one thing I am certain of is that she is still a shining light for Jesus. There are some people who are just flat unusual and Nikki is in that category of rare saints. I was just a small link in the chain that Jesus used to bring her to Himself and it is strange that the whole reason I was involved was because of that Russian shooting down KAL 007.

How strange are His ways.

                                    bill