4 August 2013
Dear Phyllis,
This past week has been a relatively
good one. As you know my life has been changing like a kaleidoscope,
and the brakes have been slammed on what I thought was a major move
in my life. The potential for stress has been high, but the other day
the Lord met with me with a verse that has blown me away. In a search
for other things, I found myself reading Zephaniah. There was a verse
that was underlined in my Bible that arrested my attention. The more
I thought about it, the more the reality of that verse gripped my
soul. There is no way I can reduce to three pages all that the Lord
has been saying to me through that verse, and it is doubtful that I
can discuss it as meaningfully as it is to me.
The verse is Zeph. 3:17 – “The Lord
thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice
over thee with joy, He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee
with singing.” Oh my goodness, the shelves would sag under the
weight of the books that should be written about that truth. It is so
wonderful it seems almost like sacrilege even to discuss it. Every
word are Load Star diamonds.
The opening remark, “The Lord THY
GOD”, got a tremendous grip on me. Oh the joy to be able to
say the Lord is my God. There are so many gods in this world. We live
in a country where 99% of the people look to a piece of stone or wood
to be their god. The emptiness; the hopelessness, the sickening
emptiness of a life where that is all you have for a god. To know
that my God is the One who made all things, He is above all things,
and He is in control of all things. That alone should be enough to
take all the stress out of life.
Then the next two reminders – in
the midst of thee, and He is mighty. To be reminded that
He is not in some distant heaven, but He is actually here with me and
in me. To know that he is slam in the middle of all the turmoil going
on in and around me. And, of course, He is mighty. He really doesn't
have His hands tied. Any problem I may have is not beyond the reach
of His arms. He is mighty. Hallelujah!
But then the next four HE s are off the
chart. He will save. He will rejoice.
He will rest. He will sing.
Oh my goodness what more can you say? When I read that declaration
HE WILL SAVE – I thought, “Well there is the end of all my
problems. He will save”. I don't need to know any more than that.
If He has promised, “He will save”, it is futile to worry about
what is going to happen. I know the bottom line – He will save.
There is one problem here that
sometimes salvation needs to be defined. The Lord's salvation and
ours may not be the same. But regardless what it is, I will buy His
salvation. Not every one with terminal sickness is healed. Not
everyone with financial problems are delivered. I'm sure Watchman Nee
and thousands of his followers believed in the Lord's salvation that
he would be released from prison. But those with terminal sickness
sometimes find themselves marvelously healed in heaven. Those with
financial problem sometimes find that their dreaded failure was only
the door that brought them out of chains of one business to the
freedom of something far more profitable. I knew a brother in Japan
that went bankrupt over a note to cosign with an unsaved brother. It
cost him his business but he wound up a pastor. In eternity I am sure
he thanks God for that release. The last word that Watchman Nee was
ever able to get out of prison was “I still remain joyful at
heart”. I believe much of the present revival in China today can be
traced to Watchman Nee's suffering in prison. Wang Ming Dao and
Watchman Nee were both contemporary mighty men of God in China. Both
were imprisoned. After 23 years Wang Ming Dao was released and
continued to have a tremendous ministry for several more years.
Watchman Nee never came out. Of the two men, I believe Watchman Nee
is by far the greatest and his salvation is the most spectacular. I
don't know what will happen to me, but I do know that He will save.
Salvation is the central point of Zeph.
3:17, but the next three He s are so descriptive, and tell us so much
about His heart – He will rejoice, He will rest, He
will sing.
When read that my mind went to Eph.
1:18,19. In Ephesians we have two Pauline prayers, that I believe are
his finest. In his first prayer in Eph. 1:17-23, Paul prayed that
they would know... .In his second prayer in Eph. 3:16-19 he
prayed that they would be filled... . Paul's prayer in chapter
one has always been a mystery to me. Somehow I always felt that Paul
got his pronouns mixed up. He prayed that they would know the hope of
His calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance
in the saints. It seemed to me that he got that backwards. If he
wanted to talk about our inheritance in Christ I can easily buy that.
But to talk about the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the
saints, that didn't make much sense.
But this is what Zeph 3:17 is talking
about – His joy; His rest, His singing. The main point of
salvation is not what we get out of it, but what He gets out of it.
With our humanistic mentality, this is a hard one to get a hold of. I
know of no way of solving the mystery, but it is highly instructive
to realize the price the Father placed on us is the Blood of His Son.
Somehow we all know that. The very concept of ransom means buying
something back. The price for a soul is the Blood of Christ. I can
see why the Apostle prayed that the Father would give to the
Ephesians the spirit of wisdom, revelation and knowledge; that they
might know the hope of His calling. We need that more desperately
than they did. Somehow the Lord gets tremendous glory out of saving
us. For one thing it is the revelation of His character. Had
Adam never sinned, we never would have known the depth of the love of
God. It is easy to love a nice person. But it is glory to love and
pay such a price for a bad person. That is the one that makes us
scratch our heads. And the Father is so pleased with His purchase
that He rejoices over it with real joy.
Sometimes we rejoice over things
regardless of the circumstances, simply because it is the will of
God. Mable Carroll had a very hard time with her third pregnancy. The
sack burst at five months and she had to be immobilized for four
months in a hospital. Everything was normal except she went into
labor early. The baby turned out to be a boy. She screamed for joy.
But then the infant stopped breathing. The doctor pick him up and got
him going again. Then he quit. It was a futile struggle until the
doctor lost the battle and the baby died. Joe and Mabel were
devastated. But when they wheeled Mable back to her ward room, Joe
said, “Now we must thank the Lord for the wonderful thing He did
for us today.” That was tough. But there is nothing forced with
God. He is so pleased He rejoices with joy.
And the thing that brings Him so much
satisfaction is that He can rest in His love. You can't do much
better than that. If He had to rest in my love there might be a knot
in His stomach. If I had to rest in my love, I would say, “Forget
it. It ain't gonna hold”. My love is too shallow and vacillating.
But there is such enormous strength in the love of the Father He can
rest assured that it will prevail and I will be saved.
Perhaps the most amazing statement is
that the Father is so pleased with His salvation in saving us that He
burst out singing. After Paul commands believers to be filled with
the Spirit, he then explains one of the surest proofs of the fullness
of the Spirit is a song in the heart. How many times have we heard
that. By our own experience, and listening to the testimonies of
others, it is common that after someone is delivered from darkness
and brought into wonderful light, suddenly they have a song in their
heart. There is so much joy that it demands expression by bursting
out singing. Isn't that amazing? The Father is so pleased with His
salvation that He bursts out singing.
Oh my goodness, if this is true, where
is my problem? To know that the Lord is my God and remember that He
is with me and He is mighty. Then to hear that declaration “He will
save”. More than that this brings Him so much pleasure He rejoices
over me with joy, He rests in His love, and He has burst out
singing!!! Man howdy, what more can you say? Luther expressed it so
well when he wrote, “What more can He say than to you He has said;
to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?”
Yes, it has been a pretty good week.
Materially not much has happened. And yet some major things have
happened. Last week, Pammy''s sister came to visit us; and it seems
that Pastor Kichikun led her to Christ. When I first heard that
testimony I was dubious, but what I have heard since then makes it
sound very real. She has broken off with all known sin, and her
involvement with the devil. She is reading her Bible with joy and
seems to have song in her heart. If she sticks with Jesus, that will
be a huge victory. That makes everything else worth while.
Monday Pammy went to a doctor who said
she had thyroid problems. Tuesday Pammy went with her sister back to
Lampan, 100 km away, and went to a specialist. She had a blood test
that showed her thyroid was almost off the scale. The normal thyroid
is supposed to be 4, and Pammy's turned out to be 30. The doctor said
it was a wonder that she hadn't had a heart attack or some serious
problem. That doctors report explained a lot of things that I have
been aware of, but never took too seriously. For some time Pammy has
been complaining every morning that her eyes were swollen, and she
had a fervor. I said, “Yea, yea, you will feel better after you get
up.” But swollen eyes is a major symptom of thyroid malfunction.
And the fervor seems to be bonefide. I had so much of this with
Rosemary, who was always complaining about physical problems – most
of which were imaginary – that I never took Pammy too seriously.
But this put new light on the subject. She has chronically complained
about having no energy. Again this is a common symptom. The doctor
has given her some pills that seem to be helping. The usual dose is
one pill a day, but he told her to take four.
Pammy has been staying in Lampan since
Tuesday with her sister, and stayed down there today to take her
sister to church. I agree with that 100%. I am pleased that she found
a doctor that put his finger on what apparently is a major physical
problem. It is good that she is getting help. And I am pleased that
she is there with her sister to pray with her every day, and help her
in her initial steps in getting established in a good church, and
basic instructions in following the Lord. All of that is highly in
the plus column. Pammy says she will be home tonight.
There are some major problem that I
mentioned last week that have never been dealt with. Her attitude, at
the moment, is very good, but it is yet to be seen how we will make
out in dealing with bedrock problems that have plagued us from the
beginning.
Zeph 3:17 has been a wonderful tonic
for me, but I have told the Lord that my salvation is not the central
issue. The glory of God is! The honor of Jesus is everything. What
happens to me is of little consequence, but we don't dishonor the
Name of Jesus. That is the vital issue. Whether or not I am saved is
incidental, but I am desperately concerned that I want my life, my
wife, my marriage, and everything associated with me to be a credit
to the Lord. If the Lord will join me in this concern I will be
forever grateful. Isn't that ridiculous? Ya'll pray for us, heya.
(That is southern for please pray.)
bill
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