Three Philippinos and Mae Jo University

17 January 2010

 Dear Phyllis,

 I don’t know what is going on at Scott’s Friday night Bible study, but it certainly is different. About a month ago Scott asked me to teach Mathew 24 about the Lord’s return. We have tried to stay on that target, but each night has been different. A couple of times I thought I knew what the Lord wanted to say, and did some preparation accordingly, only to find the crowd was not who I expected. Last Friday night was another unusual time.

Scott met three Philippine girls who were teachers at Mae Jo University. He asked them if they wanted to study Japanese, and they showed up at my Wednesday afternoon Japanese class. Then Friday night they came to the Bible study bringing another Filipino boy with them. Virtually none of the Thais showed up that I expected, but our one regular, Champ, and another Thai fellow who had been there once before. Basically it was an English night for the sake of the four Filipinos.

I determined that one lady was the wife of a pastor in the Philippines and a very fine Christian. In talking to them Wednesday I felt the other two girls weren’t saved but seemed to be open. I didn’t know where the boy stood.

 

The conversation sorted of went sideways at the beginning. They got to talking about a movie they had recently seen, 2012, about the end of the world. Naka naka (I don’t know how to say that in English) I had a hard time getting started in the Word. It really wasn’t much of a Bible study. I had to ask Champ to try to interpret what I was saying for the sake of the one Thai boy that was very limited in English. It wasn’t the best Bible study we ever had. But towards the end I bore down on the theme that no one knows when Jesus is coming back, but the main teaching is that we should always be ready to for His return. Then I asked the four Filipinos one at a time if they were ready to meet the Lord. The pastor's wife said she had pushed that point with the other three with her at the university. They were amazingly honest. All three said right up front that they were not ready to meet God, but each one seemed desirous to get ready. I believe I could have easily prayed with each one for salvation right there, but I prefer to allow the Holy Spirit to bring souls to Himself rather than having them saved by Bill Cook. This has been very effective for the last three that we have had saved.

I asked one girl, “Do you know what you have to do?” She replied, “Yes, I have to accept Jesus.” I told her that I thought there was nothing wrong with her head. Apparently she knew enough how to be saved, but to take that step from darkness into light – from death into life – is not something that flesh and blood can do. It takes the Holy Spirit to do it; otherwise there is nothing that is real. I think all three are close to the Kingdom. They are going back to the Philippines in a little over a month, but I really hope they will be saved before going home.

 Many years ago I had a friend, Glenn Barnes, who had been saved as a Navy pilot. He got out of service and came to Karuizawa to serve the Lord. Glenn and I were good friends for many years, and then he went home to America. When he was about 75 he got into Andrew Murray and had a life transforming experience with the Lord. Glenn said it was like he had never been saved before, and became very fanatical trying to get everyone else to have his experience. He sent me stacks of Andrew Murray books, and pleaded with me to read Ephesians through every day for a month. I had read Andrew Murray many years before when I was first saved and thought I pretty much knew his message; but out of politeness to Glenn I read his books.

Yappari, I got bit. I have never had Glenn’s experience but ever since Glen sent me those books 18 years ago Andrew Murray has become my favorite author. This is my third time through, The Holiest of All. Oh my goodness, I have never seen salvation and the spiritual life in the light of what I am experiencing now. Recently the big message has been faith.

For many years the subject of faith has been a sore subject for me. I really dislike most messages I have heard on faith and have found it a distasteful theme. The usual approach is, “If you only had more faith…” Thanks. That message has brought me into a lot of frustration.

Then you hear a lot of, “God can do…” Thanks a lot. I don’t have any problem with that. Just as if the God that created the universe and raised Jesus from the dead would have a hard time healing a cold. I don’t have any problem believing that God can do anything. But will He? That is the question. God can do anything. But why He doesn’t do a lot of things is a great bewilderment to me. It is a real bad trip believing that God is going to do something when He doesn’t.

I have had enough experiences intensely believing God was going to do something only to see it go the other way. I have had tons of faith only to prove that I was wrong. This message about “If you only believe hard enough you can move mountains”, is a massage I really don’t like. Watchman Nee said, “Praying out of the will of God will only prove that mountains of faith cannot move a single mustard seed of difficulty.” Amen.

 But Andrew Murray has brought faith out of the closet and presented in a light such as I have never accurately seen before. Even now I see it like “men look like trees walking” (Mk. 8:24). That is, I don’t see it clearly but I think is do see something.

Andrew Murray says the faith is the organ of the spirit by which we receive God. Wow! I’m not sure I know what that means but he might be right. Just as our eyes are the organ by which we receive light and our ears are the organ by which we receive sound; it may be true that faith is the organ of the spirit by which we receive God. Faith is also the means by which God communicates things to us. That is; God can speak to us by His Holy Spirit, very clearly, but if we don’t believe what He says, that truth is never really communicated to us as a real spiritual substance. Lack of faith can certainly hinder God from doing many things He would like to do for us (Mt. 13:58). We have got to let that lie on the desk by itself and go on.

Andrew Murray also accurately brings out that faith is a gift that comes from God (Eph. 2:8; 1 Cor. 12:9; Rom. 12:3, etc). This business of “If you only grunt harder and believe more you can do anything”, is nonsense. Faith is not something that is resident within us that we can pull out of the drawer and use anymore than the gift of healing or anything else. If God doesn’t give faith you ain’t gonna have it.

Andrew Murray points out that one of the major problems is that we tend to think of faith in terms of the intellect rather than of the spirit. We approach it from a position of reason. We try to lay things out with reason in our mind; if the dots line up, we believe something with our intellectual reason and call that faith. There is a fundamental difference between intellectual faith and the spiritual gift of faith. Intellectual faith does not have life or power. Spiritual faith has both.

 This is a major problem with soul winning. We approach it from an intellectual position. We think if only someone can understand the plan of salvation they will automatically be saved. We point out a verse in the Bible and ask, “Do you believe that?” The person half hearted replies, “Uh hugh.”      “Praise the Lord, brother! You’re saved!” And the person goes home with an intellectual salvation minus the witness of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:16). A person isn’t really saved until the Holy Spirit confirms that he actually is with the witness of the Spirit. When that comes you have real saving faith.

That is what I am trying to avoid with the Filipinos who were at the Bible study last night. I want to get them to Jesus. If they get to Jesus, He will give them saving faith that will stick.  I don’t know what is holding them up at the moment. Very often there is one issue that the Lord is dealing with in their life. It may be pride. It may be fear of man.  It may be some pet sin. It may be ambition. This varies from person to person, but until that object is taken out of the way, it is highly unlikely that they will make much progress with the Lord.

This morning I read that Jesus is the perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2). Oh my goodness how I have fed on that! Jesus has not only given me faith in Himself, but He is going to perfect that faith in me. It is not as I read the Bible more and understand better theology. But as Jesus lives in my heart by faith that He will perfect that faith which will enable God to give me more of Himself.

Some of that may not make sense, but somehow I believe this is the real nature of faith. I kinda like that message. The name of the game is knowing Jesus. As He is more real in my heart, that enables Him to do more of the work that He came to do. Man howdy that is a good message!

Gomen, Phyllis. This may be an old to you, but much of this is fresh to me. Tonikaku (anyway), Jesus is real and He is still working in our hearts. Praise God!

                                                                      bill

PS: I am leaving for Malaysia tonight. I have to go down to Penang to get a new one year visa for Thailand. Last year I went down there and went to two visa agencies that told me flat out that it was IMPOSSIBLE to get a one year visa. Two days later I had it in my hand. They said, “Very lucky! Very lucky!” Not really. The obvious explanation for that was Jesus. I am up against that difficulty again this year. If you see the Lord this week you might mention to Him that I need His assistance in getting another Thai this year. Arigato (Thanks)