21 October 2012
Dear Phyllis,
I have mentioned my friend Paul and his
wife Marisa to you several times. They are a phenomenon such as I
have never seen in my life. Paul was the most unlikely, unqualified,
impossible candidate for salvation that you could imagine. He never
did get saved in the traditional way that we consider essential for
salvation. But today they are cutting a swath for God that is off the
charts. For the past ten months Paul has come over to see me almost
daily. Superlatives have become as common as salt and pepper on
mashed potatoes. His common remark has been; “The greatest meeting
ever! “It was like Pentecost!” This tops it all!”, “Nothing
like this has ever happened before.” The reports just keep going on
and on. I have warned Paul, “This isn't going to keep up
indefinitely. Sooner or later the tide will go the other way and you
are going to have real problems.”
It happened. Last week they had their
third or fourth camp. Every one up until now has been more and more
astounding. It was anybody's guess what would happen this time. They
were expecting perhaps as many as 100, but a week before the camp
Paul told me that the potential attendance had already gone well past
100. It actually topped out at about 150. There were good things that
did come out of it. Three people got saved. But it was like lighting
a fire cracker that didn't go off. Our friend, Mike, was one of the
speakers and he came to deliver the village from the grip of the
devil. He spoke on deliverance and then had a big bond fire to burn
fetishes and objects of idolatry. It is almost universal that the
hill tribe people wear strings around their writs to protect them
from evil spirits. It is usually a battle to get them to cut these
strings off. Mike said, “Alright, all you people with stings on
your writs cut them off and come forward to burn them in this fire”.
No one moved. There weren't any. Mike suggested several other things
that he expected they would come forward to burn. But this was a
Christian village and they just didn't have the things Mike expected.
The fire might have been used for a marshmallow roast, but didn't
amount to a major break with the devil.
Paul has had some amazing experiences
with the Holy Spirit. In their family with their ten children
(staying with them), they have seen some astounding events of the
Holy Spirits working. Paul felt he knew how to bring the Holy Spirit
down and turn meetings into a Pentecost. He told everyone how to pray
and then he took off praying the way he thought best to produce a
torrent of confession and tears. He closed his eyes and did his thing
for a few minutes. Then he opened his eyes expecting to see everyone
on the floor confessing sin and pleading with God for mercy. Instead
of Pentecost, he was surprised to see a room full of silent people
looking at him, wondering why he was carrying on in that way. Not
exactly Pentecost, or what was supposed to happen.
A large number of key people were sick
and didn't get healed. It was bitter cold and they were ill prepared
to deal with the weather. One couple that Paul brought to be a
blessing alienated the crowd so badly that the leader of the village
spoke to Paul saying, if he ever brought that couple back to that
village he would not be welcomed for another camp.
But the most serious thing happened on
the way home. They didn't have a bus, but carried over 15 young
people in the back of two trucks. As they started home the heavens
opened, and rain came down like Paul had never seen in his life. It
was like being drenched with a fire hose. The folks in the back had
zero protection. To say they got drenched doesn't really describe it.
Thailand is warm, but they were fairly high in the mountains and the
temperature was unbelievably cold. After driving for over an hour
Paul stopped at a checkpoint, and the kids in one truck frantically
called to him. He went over to see what was wrong, and was terrified
see two of his children out cold with hypothermia. There are no
heaters in Thia trucks and they couldn't get the truck warm. The sick
kids inside the truck took their dry clothes off and they changed the
soaking wet clothes on the two unconscious kids. Nothing Paul did
could revive them. He slapped them, shook them, and shouted; but
there was no response. Their pulse was thump...thump...thump. Barely
moving. Paul said that was the darkest moment of his life. He doesn't
know how long they were out, but it was half an hour after they got
home before Mathew and Benjua finally, miraculously, came to. It
seems that there is no lasting ill-effect from that plunge into
hypothermia, but they came as close to death as anyone I have ever
known.
When Paul came over to share with me
what had happened at their camp I said, “Praise the Lord.”
Something like this had to happen, and it was God's blessing for him.
Life is not all one way. There are as many defeats as there are
victories. Negatives are an indispensable part of the Christian
life. It is extremely dangerous for young believers when
everything turns to gold. There is something terribly heady about
success. Arrogance and self-confidence are not winsome
characteristics of a Christian. An earnest brother in a Bible school
once asked me what was a good therapy for pride. I simply replied, “A
great deal of failure”.
AB Simpson expressed as beautifully as
I have ever read when he wrote that classic hymn. Everlasting Arms
Underneath us, oh how easy
We have not to mount on high,
But to sink into His fullness
And in trustful weakness lie.
And we find or humbling failures
Saves us from the strength that
harms.
We may fail, but underneath us
Are the Everlasting Arms
Oh thank God for those failures! They
are God's merciful means for our salvation. Strength and success are
dangerous. Failure is a wonderful cure to save us from the strength
that harms.
Paul has made some significant advance
since that camp. One lesson he learned is that spirituality is not a
formula. This a common deadly disease. We do something and get a
certain result. We think we have it figured out. Just do it that way
and we can get the same result each time. Lots of luck.
Unfortunately this error goes clear to
the top. We can excuse young believers to think that spirituality
can be reduced to a formula, but some of the most advanced Christians
make this mistake. I saw Joe Carroll do it. Neil Anderson's book,
Bondage Breaker, is the best book I have ever read on deliverance.
But Anderson shot himself in the foot when he added the appendix with
the 1 - 10 formula for dealing with demonics. Hopefully, Paul will
learn that just because the Holy Spirit did something one time in a
certain way, that does not guarantee that he can always get the same
result every time.
Secondly, Paul is a much more mature
believer after this disastrous camp. It has calmed him down
considerably. I have been amazed how he had such outstanding success
for such a long time. It seemed he had a magic bat, and every time
he swung it the ball went over the fence. While the rest of us were
swinging our bats only to miss the ball much of the time. We wondered
why he was in such a different league. Now he has joined the rest of
us who are not always so successful.
But in a more significant way I believe
the Lord has honored Paul in moving him to a higher level. He was
over last night going out of his mind. Sickness has plagued him. He
had been sick for two weeks but now several of the children are quite
sick. Some of the parents have come to take their children home until
they recover. The fallout from the one couple who so distinguished
themselves by alienating the Christians in the village is still
rumbling. Almost unprecedentedly, one of the village heads came to
visit him saying that they never wanted that couple back in their
village. The Karen are extremely hospitable people and that is almost
unprecedented.
The near death experience of Mathew and
Benjua has rattled Paulo to the core of his being. The best thing
that can be said about it is that it is miraculous that they
survived. Paul's daughter, in the states, is a nurse and said that
they had crossed the medical line where death was almost certain.
Paul feels terribly responsible that he allowed such a dangerous
situation to develop, and is equally grateful to the Lord for His
mercy is saving those two young folks.
In retrospect Paul has searched his
heart what he would do if they had died. Heroically, he came to the
conclusion that he would just keep on serving the Lord even is such a
disaster fell on him. As I sign of his maturity, he said a year ago
he couldn't have handled it. He said a year ago he would have packed
up, closed the shop, and turned back from serving the Lord. Last
night, as we discussed the terrible sufferings and disasters that
many great missionaries have swum through, he suggested he couldn't
imagine following their path. He mentioned reading the life of
Adoniram Judson of Burma, and all he endured. Paul said he had to put
the book down. He couldn't read about it.
Many of God's greatest saints have
suffered the most severely. Jesus led the way in suffering more than
any of us can imagine. And He warned that many of those who would
follow Him would drink from the same cup. All but one disciple were
martyred. The 2,000 year Christian history has been soaked in blood.
Because we live in an unusual bubble of security and affluence,
Christians in America think that this is the norm. But the historical
big picture is much different. And many of those who have been in the
forefront of the fight have suffered the most. Sickness, the loss of
children, extreme privation, have been common. But it is through
these testimonies that God has been glorified the most.
The question may be asked, which
glorified God the most – Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral with a
parking full of Mercedes Benz and Cadillacs; or Adoniram Judson
hanging inverted in a Burmese prison? Which one glorified God the
most, Joel Olsteen and his feel good message to 50,000 in Dallas; or
the courageous young Russian soldier, Vanya, who was tortured to
death for his faith in Russia? We are so conditioned to measuring
success by numbers and $ that we are offended by affliction and
sorrow. But in God's Inverted Kingdom His glory is revealed in
suffering. Jesus won the battle for eternity and glorified God the
most when He was crucified and killed on that Cross.
The problem is that God can find so few
people that He can trust with problems, that His glory is greatly
restricted. The Bible tells us clearly that God will not allow us to
be tempted (tested) above that which we are able (1 Cor. 10:13). The
Lord, with great consideration, measures out our trials; and won't
over load us. Paul told me that he never could have handled the wagon
load of problems he had last week a year ago. I told him,
“Congratulation, God has honored you. He knows that you can be
trusted with some hard blows. He knows there are very few that can
bear the heavy ones.”
Paul has had an amazing run of
tremendous miracles for over ten months. But this past week – with
all its problems – has easily been the most profitable, and the
time when he has made his finest advance.
Praise the Lord,
bill
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