Let's Go!

23 December 2012

 

Dear Phyllis,

 

Last week I told you that, as a result of my discussion with Pastor Kichikun in October, we came up with a plan for a double punch for Christmas. The first was a caroling event last Friday; and the second was a follow-up special Christmas program on the 21^st. I briefly mentioned what happened last week. It was miraculous. An hour before the caroling we had the biggest mess on our hands that the devil could provide. I could see nothing but disaster – but it came out amazingly well. I had no idea what was going to happen at the program on the 21^st. That was Friday night. Again it was amazingly good. We didn't get the turn out that we had hoped for, but it was good, and we must believe that the Lord brought the ones that He wanted there; and spoke to them about the things He wanted then to hear. Really, it would have been hard to put on a better program. Kichikun had asked me to have the message. He said five minutes, but we both knew that was impossible.

I felt the Lord would have me speak on Isa. 9:6; “For unto us a Child is born...” But when I stood up, the Lord suddenly reminded me of the testimony of General Tha Dam.

It was exactly nine years ago that General Tha Dam died in a hospital in Saigon. He was the top general for the North Vietnamese who was responsible for the final assault on Saigon in 1975. In 2002, his wife was saved through the testimony of a woman that she met at a market. The General was furious when she got saved, and stopped worshiping idols. But shortly after that, he came down with cancer. He fought a losing battle with cancer until they put him in a hospital for the last time in December.

On the 13^th of December, a Vietnamese pastor visited him in the hospital. The General knew nothing about Christmas other than it was Jesus' birthday, and it was the most celebrated religious holiday world wide. He thought that Jesus must be about the top of the line to have His birthday celebrated more than Buddha or anyone else. He told the pastor, “Pray exactly as I tell you.” Dutifully, the pastor prayed as directed.

“God, if You are God, I want You to save me on Christmas day. If You don't save me on Christmas day I know that You are not God and I just want to die anyway, Amen.”

He hoped that he might have surgery on Christmas day that would save his life. But the hospital told him that Christmas was a holiday, and there would be no one there. He thought “Shigata ga nai (Japanese, there is nothing you can do about it. Those are my words, not his.) Well, I will just die”.

On Christmas morning, at 7:30, a Vietnamese pastor visited him in the hospital, and left at 7:45. At 8:00 o'clock a nurse checked on him, and found him dead. They thought the pastor had killed him, and sent out an arrest warrant, but never found him. Then the hospital panicked. They had let the top General in Vietnam die without doing everything they could to save him. To cover themselves, they tried to get a surgeon to come in to carve up the cadaver, but couldn't get one. So they called in a general physician who had never done surgery to cut him up. Two hours later the General opened his eyes and said, “I want to go home”.

I was on blacklist in Vietnam at the time, and couldn't get in. But five years later I did get to Saigon and stayed in his home for five days. I asked the General what happened when he died. He told me:

“When I died, it was like my spirit went out into space. I saw, in the distance, a bright light, and started going towards it. As I was going towards that light I heard a Voice above and behind me saying, 'Open your eyes, and take your life back'. I tried but couldn't. As I continued towards that light, I heard the Voice the second time. Again I tried, but couldn't. As I went on towards that light, the Voice came the third time, 'Open your eyes, and take your life back'. This time I opened my eyes, and heard a voice saying 'It is finished'. That was the doctor who had just finished sewing me up speaking to a nurse. I said, 'I want to go home.' The startled doctor replied, 'You can't'. But I insisted that I wanted to go home. So they loaded me in an ambulance, and took me home.”

That was on Christmas Day 2003. Two weeks later he was totally healed of everything riding his motor bike around Saigon. He came back from the dead an active born-again Christian witnessing to the top men in the Vietnamese government, and started a church in his home. I had the privilege of preaching the first message in that church. I spoke on the text “But God”, in Eph. 2:4.

I thought that testimony would be appropriate for a Christmas service. But then tried to share something from Isa 9:6. Oh I wished I had weeks to speak from that text! But I only spoke on “Us”. The verse says, “For unto US a Child is born, unto US a Son is given”. The question is, who is the US? Jesus answered that question 500 years later when He was taking to Nicodemus one night. Jesus told His visitor, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”. Obviously the answer to US is the world. Oh my goodness, what an astonishing truth! How could it be that God so loved this filthy world enough to give His Son? How can it be that the object of the promise in Isaiah is us? I shouted at the crowd Friday night and said, “Do you know who the US is? IT IS YOU ! You are the us! It is unto you that this Child has been born, It is unto you that this Son is given! What more can you say? What more can you tell folks? It is unto them that Jesus came. God sent His Son to be their savior. And I told them the only thing they could do is say, “Thank You”. And accept the gift that God has given them. Oh, my heart aches! Oh I wish I could grab everyone by the throat and demand “Take it!” But God Himself won't jam a gift down anyone throat if they don't want it.

Kichikun had asked me, “Make it brief”. I did my best. Most of that was unprepared. What I had intended to talk about – and actually did talk about – was my three Christmases. I told the folks how Christmas is the biggest day of the year in America. The whole country goes bonkers for one day, and everything revolves around it. It is the biggest money making day of the year. When I was a boy I would look forward to Christmas from summer on. That was the day when I would get the biggest presents of the year. Things I begged for all year would be there Christmas morning. Christmas was a new bicycle, new skis, new skates, new tools, new clothes, etc. Mono (Japanese, things) was everything.

But the night I graduated from high school, my dad fell over with a heart attack, and died. Crash! I was 17. My world came to an end. We were a fairly wealthly family, and I wondered what would happen to me from here. That Fall I went to college in Michigan, and came home for Christmas. It was awful. My father had always put up the lights around our house each year; and he wasn't there. My mother tried to fill in the gap, and went outside to put up the decorations. It was gut-wrenching. I wished she hadn't done it. There is nothing worse than trying to be happy when your heart is torn up. I just wanted to forget it. I despised Christmas. That was the worst day of the year. For many years Christmas was a bad day. It was a day to forget. The name of the game was to just try to put it out of your mind and forget about it until it is over, and then get on with life.

But then four years later something wonderful happened to me. Christ came in my heart. Oh my goodness, what a difference! It was then that I discovered that Jesus wasn't just some sort of a historical figure who appeared on the earth 2,000 years ago. I was astonished to discover that the Bible is true. It actually is the Word of God. What that Book says is true. Jesus did come. He did die. He did rise from the dead. But more than that, He is a personal savior – right now. Today! When Jesus came into my life, gifts and material things ceased to be important. I found that mono (things) is not what life is all about. And I found that the greatest satisfaction is not what you can get, but what you can give.

Jesus said, that of anyone who drank the water that He offers, that OUT of their innermost being would flow rivers of living water (Jn. 7:38). The flow of life goes out – not in. When Jesus was born in my heart, for the first time, I knew what Christmas was all about. That has been my third Christmas. Ever since then, Christmas has been a time to tell others why He came. It was for them.

I don't know. I don't know what happened. Kichikun really did a good job. The program was about as good as you could get. We didn't see everyone in the Muban (housing area) saved. There were a few there. There seemed to be some interest. The Lord seemed to bless His own Word. But life goes on.

This year I have been impressed anew how quiet it was in Bethlehem that night. We are restricted to imagination to suggest to us what was going on. Undoubtedly there was some commotion in the inn with all the visitors in town for the tax. It is doubtful that there were very many who came out to see what was going on with a crying baby that had just been born. Unquestionably, the main event was happening in a field a few kilometers from town with some shepherds listening to the choir of heaven sing. But who would believe that? It isn't much different today. Only, the main commotion is in churches rather than in the inn. Still in all, the Holy Spirit is doing His work in quiet places, totally unobserved by humanity. Wouldn't it be great to be with the shepherds and listen to what they heard that night? Or better still, to see that Baby that was just born.

Much has happened since then. That Baby grew to be a Man, and finished the work for which He came. And the blessing of that is actually available to us today, but we might have to go into the barn to find Him.

Let's go!

bill