Every Day is Resurrection Day

4 April 2010

Dear Phyllis,

It’s Resurrection Sunday again – the day in which the calendar reminds us of the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus. How many more Resurrection Sundays will there be until every eye will see Him (Rev. 1:7)? What an experience to be like Mary and fall at His feet! But until then perhaps will are consigned to be like the Emaus

disciples where “Jesus Himself drew near and went with them – but their eyes were holden…” (Lk. 24: 15, 16). Phillip could say to Jesus, “Show us the Father and it will suffice us. Jesus replied, "Have I been with thee so long and thou hast not known Me.” (Jn. 14:8, 9).

In like manner we might say, “Lord, oh that we might see You.” And have Him reply to us, “Have I been with you so long and you have not known Me?”

“Lord when did we see You?”

“I was hungered and you gave Me meat: I was thirsty and you gave Me drink…”

“Lord when did we do those things?”

“Inasmuch as ye have done this unto the least of My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” (Mt. 25:35-40).

The Lord could say to Saul, “Why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 9:4) How little we realize that Jesus Himself is in His brethren and what we do to those who compose His Body is actually being done to Jesus. In both cases – those in Matt. 25 and Saul in Acts 9 – the reality of Jesus being in His believers was so genuine that that which was done to believers was actually being done to Jesus Himself. How little we realize that Jesus is with us today. But still in all we want to look in the eyes of the resurrected Christ.

Several years ago a speaker came down from Tokyo to bring an Easter message to our fellowship in Kobe. I was talking to the brother the night before and ask, “What are you going to preach on concerning the resurrection tomorrow?” He replied, “Every day is Resurrection Day.” I don’t recall what he preached on only that I do remember that it was not about the resurrection. In like manner I prefer to not write some devotional about the resurrection today.

 Things are going slow but rather well at the gemba (job site) where I am building a house. My friend John, is a real perfectionist, and I like to keep my tolerances down to Angstroms. (1Angstrom is 1/250, 000, 000^th of an inch). We are doing extremely precise work. John knows very little about construction or wood but he is a magician with metal. If pigs ears were made out of metal, John is the kind of man who could make a silk purse out of a sows ear. We have a very good combination. He does miracles with metal and I know construction and wood. Together we are making a concrete house. And the Lord has provided some good Burmese workers to do the grunt work. I believe it can honestly be said that we are doing some unprecedented work in building this house.

Last Sunday I had the privilege of speaking at a Thai church. I like the pastor there very much. He is as good a pastor as I have ever met in the Orient. A month ago they were having a baptism for a couple who got saved through Scott’s Bible study. I simply went to be there when these two new believers were baptized. Pastor Getchkun stunned me when he asked me to help him with  the baptism. I don’t know a pastor in Japan who would do that. A year ago Pastor Getchkun asked me to speak at his church. I said I couldn’t do it in 30 minutes, so they gave me the entire morning. I stood up to speak at 9:30 and finished at 12:30. There was a break in between but that was stilt the longest I have ever spoken at one Sunday morning service. I am amazed that he invited me back. But I did much better this time. I kept my message down to 1 hour and 2 minutes. I apologized to the interpreter for being so long winded. She was kind in replying, “I know you have so much in your heart that you want to say.” That may not be an excuse for double length sermons, but it is true that there are an enormous amount of things that burn in my heart that I want to share with others.

When I stood up to speak last week I began by saying, “I do not have a sermon, but there are some things that I want to speak out of my heart.” I began by hammering on the point that there is a fundamental difference between religion and life. Jesus never came to start another religion. He came to give us LIFE (Jn. 10:10). This is a very major problem in Japan and I fear they have the same problem in Thailand. Many people think that the name of the game is religion and they don’t experience the life.

The Lord said a very important word in His prayer in John 17 when He said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” This is one of the truly unique features about those who are saved – they know the Lord. I called on a boy who was saved four months ago and asked, “Champ, do you know the Lord?” He beamed and replied, “Yes I do.” Again I asked, “Did you know the Lord six months ago?”

“No, I didn’t.”

That is an amazing phenomenon. All believers know the Lord. This is one of the four points in the New Covenant in Heb. 8:11 – “All shall know Me.” This is the main goal in life. Some might protest, “No, the main goal is to be a witness for Christ.” But I believe witnessing is a result rather than a cause. If someone truly knows the Lord, the overwhelm reality of that relationship will burn in their heart so intensely that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to remain silent. How can a person know the Lord and not tell others about Him?

My next point was to go to the Song of Solomon to tell the folks at that church how to know the Lord. Very clearly the S of S is the relationship of Jesus with His Bride. No other interpretation is possible. And in it we find the entire spectrum of the Christian life beginning with the first moment we are saved (S of S 1:2) to His second coming (S of S 8:14).

The S of S is undoubtedly the oddest book in the Bible. It uses such embarrassing language it is almost pornographic. It must be read spiritually. But in it we find the most basic principles of the Christian life. Being the book about our relationship with Jesus, it is natural that it would begin with instruction on how to know the Lord. There are five prayers and nine commands of Christ in the S of S. There is one more, but rather than a prayer, it is more simply an expression of a desire for the Lord.

One of the keys to reading the S of S spiritually is to consider the verb that is associated with the body part noun. That is the verb that goes with eyes is to see. The verb with ears is to hear. The verb with mouth is speak, etc. When verse 2 says “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth”, the spiritual meaning of that is a desire for the Lord to personally speak to me. Mouth is to speak and a kiss is a very personal word. But the essence of this verse is almost an inexpressible desire for a personal relationship with the Lord.

I told the folks that this is perhaps the most important thing in their life. How much desire do you have for the Lord? This – more than anything else – will determine how far you will go with the Lord. To illustrate this point I told the story of Sammy Morris.

 Sammy Morris was the little African boy who had an insatiable desire for the Holy Spirit. He bugged the missionary who told him about the Spirit of Christ that lives within us until she replied, “If

 You want to know more you will have to talk with the man who told me.” He asked, “Who was that?”

“Stephen Merritt.”

“Where does he live?”

“America.”

“Where is America?”

“The other side of the ocean.”

And so Sammy Morris walked to the ocean, got on a ship, and went to America to talk with Stephen Merritt. I have no explanation why, but as I was sharing the story of Sammy Morris I was so overcome by his desire for the Lord that for several minutes I was unable to speak

I had first heard the story of Sammy Morris from Joe Carroll 50 years ago. I had never read the book, but Scott had the book and loaned it to me. Oh my goodness! This past week I read that book for the first time. I was totally dissolved. What an astounding testimony! Jesus was so intensely visible that all I could do was weep. Oh, if only I had one tenth the passion for Jesus that possessed Sammy Morris.

 This is what it is all about. This is why Jesus came, died, and rose again – so that we might know the Father.

 Gomen nasai, Phyllis. This is not much of a Resurrection Sunday letter. But it’s real. Jesus is real. He is alive. He has sent His Spirit to be with us and to lead us to the Father. Perhaps if we knew Him better we might be more like Him.

Lord grant it – for Jesus sake.

                                                             bill