Music to the Ears or Moral Decay?

12 Nov, 2000

 Dear Ted & Phyllis,

It’s Sunday again and I don’t have a thing to say. This past week has been a fairly busy one here as they have started construction on this building big time. With China pleading for more of the written Word of God, Roald has purchased a new super press but the machine is too tall to fit in our new building. To accommodate this new machine they have to sink the floor a couple of feet. I had to tear out the former dressing room and a very long table (30 ft.) where they loaded the paper to go into the presses. After demolishing that table then I had to make a new one to fit the new location. Much of the time I feel like it is charity that they keep me on staff, but occasionally the Lord does provide some project that gives me a little sense of worth to NLL. I probably will be pretty busy for the rest of this month and then I will be heading south on the 6^th of Dec. I have a 60-day open ticket so it may be February when I get back to Japan.

The big news of this week has been the US election. It is utterly indescribable. I wonder what is happening there. My favorite daily Christian broadcast his Rush Limbaugh who is on FEN for one hour from 6:00 –7:00 PM. If it wasn’t for Rush I don’t know what I would think but I was amazed that he was so far off in calling this one. He laid up a good argument for a major victory but it seems like the poor country just died. Election Day I listened frequently to hear the results and was relieved when the major net works called it a Bush victory. Now it looks like the day after a nuclear war where there is no winner. It may be settled by the time this letter gets there but today the scene looks like both sides lost.

Vance Havener once preached an interesting message on “Getting home before dark”. One of the points was that the sun is setting on this poor civilization and he didn’t want to be around after the lights went out. How I earnestly agree with him. The future for America looks desperately grim. The only bright spot might be that things could get so bad there could be open persecution of the Church in America; and that could produce some Christian heroes. I honestly fear the only thing that will save the Church is open persecution. Of course there would be heart rending failures by many, but if there is nothing there to start with you haven’t lost anything when the mask falls off and reality is revealed. I don’t know if FEN is representative of the US culture, but if it is, then it is all over folks! The music (?) is more demonic than anything I ever envisioned was possible. I can’t understand most of the lyrics, and that is probably just as well. But the most of the garbage I hear is shocking that anyone ever recorded it, and more bewildering that it should be played over the air. There is no definition whereby it could be called music and the performers are talentless demoniacs screaming into microphones like drunks who have shouted themselves hoarse at a NFL football game. I don’t believe there is any question but the main purpose for heavy-metal is to destroy the hearing of young people so they can’t hear the Gospel or Christian music. One friend told me before she got saved she didn’t enjoy music until the sound was up to the physical pain level in the eardrum. That means loss of hearing. But the stuff that I hear on FEN now seems more geared to the destruction of the main nervous system. I don’t know how anyone could listen to that stuff long without being seriously affected. It gets to me in 30 seconds.

This poor world reminds me of the fall of Dang Nang and Saigon. Both of those places were in pure pandemonium. Over a million people panicking to get out and the communist shelling the refugees with mortar fire.

But, praise God, where we are going the music will again be melodious. Do you remember the TEAM Music Night in Karuizawa in 1966? Bernie Holdritz sang I’m Am A Pilgrim. If memory serves me right I believe you led that concert that night, Ted. What an event! There was Lavern Courtney, Lucia Schone, Jim Knole, Bernie; Allen Fadel and Loren McCall were in a quartet, and I believe Betty Lyons and Jane Fadel played the pianos. You ultimately made a record, but I will never forget what it was like to sit there and soak up the Spirit in the Union Church. Oh, that was like heaven! Oh, how I admired that gang; how I looked up to those people! To me they were giants of missionaries. The Brannen family in Nagoya was a legend that has never been repeated. We didn’t realize it at the time but that was a golden moment. We all knew each other so well we saw more of the clay than the Spirit, but Christ was in our midst. There were always fights at TEAM conference, but somehow the work still went on. I wonder if Japan ever saw a finer group of servants than were here in those days. I can close my eyes right now still see where I was sitting a third of the way back on the right hand side in the Union Church as we worshipped the Lord that Music Night. I can still hear that singing in my heart as clear as it was that night. Even now tears run down my face I as relive that moment. I can hear Bernie singing “I am a pilgrim I can tarry I can tarry but a night.” And I believe it was Ted Brannen standing up there leading the music. I wonder if the angels didn’t put their harps down to listen to the singing that night. Oh Ted, Ted… Phyllis, Phyllis it is not over yet! That was just the rehearsal! What will it be when we have the real performance!

 I mentioned in a previous letter an unusual vision Rick Joiner had of heaven. He said he stood with that innumerable crowd before the Throne and he had to sing or he felt like he would explode. To his amazement went he opened his mouth, simultaneously everyone else burst out with the same praise right on key. Surely that is the way it is going to be. We won’t be thinking about singing in a choir. I will be like everyone is singing a solo at the top of their lungs except the whole thing is in perfect harmony. If that is sectioned off and they have the Japan group. I hope Ted Brannen is up front and I want to sneak in there. How could we do anything but sing? Even now singing is 1/3 of the Lord’s ministry. Heb. 2:11-13 tells us that the three things Jesus is doing right now is declaring the Father’s Name to His brethren, singing in the church, and trusting – declaring, singing, and trusting. Joe Carroll used to say the infallible proof of a man filled with the Holy Spirit is that he has a song in his heart – Eph. 5:18,19.

How I wish I was with you now. I would love to sit down together a listen. All week I have been wondering what is going on in your hearts. I am not so spiritual as to ignore the reality of your limitations. I talk about envy but I also realize there is a price to pay for the people who sit in the box seats. I have spoken with people who have suffered unimaginably in prison and yet – with tears – say they almost miss the blessing of those days. Richard Wurmbrand said, “Oh blessed communism that has given us such rapturous hours with our heavenly Bridegroom!” I can believe that. Those folks who have been wrenched from their families and everything that is dear and tortured beyond our comprehension have entered a different dimension of communion with Christ that is unknown in the free world. People who pay such a high price have the advantage of getting better seats to hear the singing in heaven.

 I complain bitterly about my loneliness, and yet this is what the Lord has prescribed for me to shut me more up to Himself. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be partially paralyzed and not be able to speak, but I can believe the Lord would do something like this to shut someone up to Himself. At first it would be terrible. Wurmbrand said it was a long time after his arrest before his soul caught up to him in prison. He said his soul remained behind with his family. But as time passed his soul settled down in the prison cell with his body. I suspect it would be the same way with you there. It would take some time to acclimate to your new environment. I know the first several months after Rosemary left; just living seemed almost impossible for me. Jay was with me and we were grasping at straws like drowning men. I must have been a terrible trial to the few friends around me. Most people thought I was a little seishin (mental) and it is true that I certainly wasn’t normal. But ultimately things do settle down and then we can listen better. I wonder what you can hear. You should be close enough to get glimpses of the City and hear a little of the singing.

 The first year after Rosemary left I was meeting with the Lord one morning and read about the mountains of myrrh and the hills of frankincense in Song of Sol. 4:6. I had taught S. of S. several times and had done some exposition on that passage but wasn’t satisfied with the standard answers; so I asked the Lord what it meant. Several hours later I was alone driving a truck when the Lord took me back to LA when I was staying with the Dave Hansons. One night their daughter Margaret was singing a Twilla Paris song, Lamb of God, as a special in their church. As I relieved that evening suddenly the Lord filled my truck with the fragrance of the frankincense and myrrh. It was just like I had wandered into a candle store. Rosemary and I used to go in those stores just to smell the candles and then our clothes still had the fragrance even after we left. For ten minutes I just sat there are reveled in the intoxicating fragrance of the frankincense and myrrh. I asked the Lord what it meant, but rather than explaining it to me He let me experience what it smelled like. You should be getting a little bit of this Ted. And I know the Lord has been sharing some very special things with you too Phyllis. He has some very special things He wants to whisper in your ear. That is why He has called you into the closet by yourself. 

Perhaps we should forget the moral decay around us and fix our eyes on heaven. Perhaps the time of singing has come. (Song of Sol. 2:12). Thank you again for the privilege of writing you. This is the best I have felt all week.

                                                                                    In the gracious arms of Jesus, bill