14 April 2013
Dear Phyllis,
Gomen nasai for beating on the same
drum, but the thesis of the inverted Kingdom keeps ringing in my ear.
I told you how years ago I got mad at the Father for calling His Son
the Lamb. I was genuinely angry, and told the Father, “This is
insulting! Jesus is not the Lamb. He is the Lion!” And then the
Lord showed me that, in heaven, the Lamb is the highest symbol of
power there is. The Lamb is the victor. Recently the Lord has shown
me a new truth – the
flower. I believe the flower is more powerful than the sword.
Several years ago I heard an amazing
testimony of a missionary in Kenya. There was a legless beggar who
sat on the street near his house. Occasionally, as he would pass by,
he would drop a few coins in the beggar's cup. One day the Lord told
him not to just give him money, but share the Gospel with him.
Dutifully, the missionary turned around to go back to speak to the
beggar. And then, going the second mile of grace, he sat down beside
the beggar. What a wonderful gesture! But the fruit of that was to
get spit on. In enraged disgust the missionary wiped himself off and
got up to go home. But then the Lord spoke to him the second time
saying, “That could have been you sitting on the sidewalk.”
Humbled by this second remark, the missionary went back and sat down
the second time – just outside spitting range. Every day he went
back to share Christ with the man. He noticed that the spitting range
kept decreasing, until he finally was able to sit next to him without
getting wet. One day the beggar said, “I can't believe this fairy
tale you are telling me.” The missionary replied, “If you can't
believe it, why are you crying.” It was a wonderful conversion.
The missionary discipled the man, and
bought him a skate board so he could navigate around town. One day
the beggar said, “I must return to Ethiopia to my home to tell my
father this wonderful news.” When he was a small boy his father
had gone to a witch doctor and asked advice about his son who had
been born legless. The witch doctor advised the father to carry him
out in the jungles, and feed him to the hyenas. Miraculously, the boy
had survived the hyenas, and wound up in Kenya as a street beggar.
He worked his way back to Ethiopia on
a coastal vessel by digging the goat dung out of the cracks in the
wood for passage. During that trip he led one of the seamen to the
Lord who left the ship to carry the beggar back to his home in the
jungles. Forty years had passed. His startled father told the other
sons to beat him to carry the man back to the jungles and feed him to
the hyenas again. The Christian survived that and made his way back
to the house to speak to his father about Jesus again. The beating
and the hyenas routine was repeated two more times. Finally the
father gave up, and cried, “I treat you like the devil and all you
do is to continue to show love to me.” His father was his first
convert in Ethiopia. He later won hundreds to Christ. The flower
conquered the sword.
There are a great deal of mystical
things in the world of the spirit. The laws are backwards, and yet
the same five senses that connect us to the material world – smell,
sound, sight, touch, taste – are functional in the realm of the
spirit. I fear one of our mistakes in dendo (evangelism) is too much
emphasis on the intellectual (soul), and not enough on the spirit.
If we were stronger in dealing with the five senses of the spirit,
perhaps we might make more progress. The laws of the spirit world
apply to the natural world also, but we are too natural worldly
minded to use them.
At the turn of the 19th
century there was an unsung missionary with the CIM (China Inland
Mission) who offered a cash reward for the winning essay he
sponsored. A brilliant Confucian scholar thought that was no
challenge and won the prize. But the condition was that he had to
personally receive the reward money directly from the missionary. The
winner was terrified as he had heard that the foreign devils could
cast spells on people. But he devised a scheme where by he could
collect the money without risking the spell. He simply wouldn't look
at the foreign devil's face. He went to the missionary's house, and
waited in the waiting room until the foreigner came in the room.
Keeping his eyes glued on the floor he cautiously approached the
missionary. The missionary held out the envelope with the money. But
in a moment of weakness of curiosity he lifted his glance to look
into the eyes of David Hill. In an instant it was all over. He had
never seen eyes like that, and was instantly won over. The world has
never heard much of what happened to David Hill, but Pastor Xi became
one of the mightiest men of God in Shanxi area of China. The Lord
used the Word of God to establish Pastor Xi and deliver him from
opium addiction. Pastor Xi certainly was a mighty preacher of the
Word of God, but it was David Hills eyes that first attracted him to
Christ.
Orientals are considerably more
sensitive to spiritual impressions that westerners. The Japanese in
particular are highly sensitive. The Japanese expression for someone
who has western mannerisms is “batta kusai” (he smells like
butter). Before westerners came to Japan, they has never seen butter,
and they said the gaijins (foreigners) smelled like butter they ate.
That expression persists to this day. A foreign visitor was speaking
in the Karuizawa church one time. After the service a friend of mine
asked a native Christian what she thought of the speaker. She replied
he was “gaijin kusai” (he smelled like a foreigner). It wasn't
the content of his message but the spiritual aroma that he displayed
that impressed her. His message smelled foreign-ish.
In Thailand, the wife of a friend of
mine was commenting about another person she had just met. She said,
“That person is very attractive but she smells like raw garbage”.
It wasn't that the other person didn't use deodorant, but her
character was very unpleasant.
Like it or not, just as we carry around
a distinctive body odor, we also have a spiritual smell about us that
is impressing everyone we meet. We can pass out tracts and do our
best to persuade people with our intellectual arguments, but that
will not carry as much impact as the spiritual fragrance that others
detect. Years ago I was witnessing to several people sitting around
me on a train. A high school girl was sitting next to me to whom I
gave a tract. A week later I received a letter from her saying she
wanted to come to Karuizawa to visit me. In her letter she said, “I
don't recall what you said but I remember your beautiful blue eyes”.
Needless to say, I didn't invite her to my house, but took her up to
see Mary Ellen Goodman. She was saved the first 30 minutes and went
on to Bible school. The tract I gave her didn't impress her, but
there was something spiritual about me that drew her to Christ.
Unfortunately, that applies both ways.
Just as there is perfume, there is also BO (body odor). Some is
attractive and some is repulsive. One time I was visiting Mino
Mission with another friend. A third missionary was there that night,
and the discussion at the dinner table got pretty much out of hand.
In the middle of the meal, my friend, Tom, got up and went outside. I
went out to see what was wrong with him. He remarked, “That man is
sick!” I knew the other brother and knew what to expect, but it
was a first time experience for Tom. I must admit that the fragrance
at the table that night wasn't like a rose garden. It did smell more
like a pretty rank barn.
Recently the Lord spoke to me through
the verse in Song of Sol . 4:11 – “The smell of thy garments is
like the smell of Lebanon.” This was not a first time lesson for
me but did remind me that our garments do smell like our
environment. In the 1960s, the trains in Japan were like smoke
houses. The cigarette smoke in those trains was so thick you couldn't
see from one end of the coach to the other. Whenever I went to Tokyo
my clothes reeked like cigarette smoke in the closet for three days
afterwards.
In 1965 Dick and Millie Dennis came out
to work with Earl Tygert. Dick and Millie had come to Karuizawa with
stars in their eyes. I knew what was coming. Earl was very well known
by the folks in town, and his reputation was not good. When I got
back to Karuizawa two months later, Dick's eyes were glassy. He was
like he was punch drunk groggy. For the sole purpose of his survival,
I prayed with Dick everyday for the first year. Earl was a strange
man who gave a very good first impression but he also had a dark side
that turned off every missionary whoever worked with him. Dick's
first year in Japan was a hellish nightmare. His home pastor didn't
understand what was going on and Dick got it hard from both ends.
During those many hours of prayer, Dick's main prayer was, “Lord,
when I get out of this fire, please don't let the smell of the fire
be on me” (Dan. 3:27). The next summer Dick's home pastor came to
Karuizawa as the conference speaker. While he was in Japan, Pastor
Didden, saw the other side of what Dick was dealing with; he
apologized, and gave him permission to leave.
Dick seldom spoke of his fire
experience, but one day he shared with me a wonderful squeal
testimony. Eight years had passed. Earl had left the country but
would occasionally come back for a brief visit. Dick was going to
Tokyo one day and ran into Brother Tygert on the train. At first
there was a little apprehension how that ride was going to turn out.
That certainly was not an encounter Dick would have asked for. But as
they sat together on that train, the Holy Spirit took all the ranker
out of Dick's heart and filled him with the love of Christ. Dick said
it was really an enjoyable time of fellowship. There was no smell of
smoke on his garment whatsoever. Only the fresh fragrance of
Christ.
In my early years I admired Joe Carroll as the
greatest Christin on earth. I had a burning passion to work with him,
and would have joyously given my life for him. It was my great
privilege to be in the inner circle with Joe for several years. But
as time went on various problems arose, and I became a very bitter
man.
It had been eight years since the last
time I had been in the states, and was visiting Greenville. I
happened to be in the Christian health food store when Mable Carroll
came in. She was delighted to see me, and exclaimed, “Bill, you are
coming out to have lunch with us aren't you?” Somewhat cynically, I
replied, “No, I don't think that is going to happen.” Mable
looked me straight in the eyes and said, “May I speak to you
outside?” Stepping out the door, Mable said, “Bill, you have the
smell of smoke on your garment.” I knew she was right. The
unresolved bitterness of my fire experience was still clearly
detectable. That made me face up to my unclean heart. With
reluctance, I repented and had a very good time of fellowship over a
delicious lunch.
My last encounter with Joe was one of
the highlights of my life. It was twenty years after the health food
store experience and I was back in Greenville. Joe was in last stage
of Alzheimer, and was virtually a vegetable. I stopped by the house
to pay my respects and was sitting beside his bed. He seemed like he
was in a coma but Mable said, “Talk to him. He is awake.” As I
began to reminisce over old times, suddenly;y he turned to me and
took my hand. What happened after that was like an out-of-body
experience. For half an hour the Lord ran the clock back 45 years as
we silently fellowshipped in the Spirit. Oh it was so good to have
the smell of the smoke gone.
But I wonder what do people sense about
me today? S. of S. 5:15 says. “His (Jesus) countenance is like
Lebanon” Is this what my garment smells like today? We will smell
like the environment where we live. Oh Lord, let me so live in Your
presence that my garment might have the fragrance of Lebanon to draw
others – for Jesus sake.
bill
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