22 September 2013
Dear Phyllis,
The other day I had one of the surprising letters of my life. Jim Norton's son, Bryce, had seen a letter that I had written about Neil Verwey in his crossing the River, and wrote me that his dad was in the same condition. Both Neil and Jim have subsequently made it safely across the River, and have settled down in their permanent residence that Jesus had prepared for them. When Bryce wrote me, my mind went back to one of the unfortunate moments of my life.
We had a pole barrier at the entrance to the Union Church parking lot in Karuizawa that went up and down, like they have at some railroad crossings. It was about 12 feet long with a heavy counter weight on the short end. Kids liked to play on it by hanging on, and then another kid pushed on the short end, like a teeter-totter. That would pull the kid on the long end up in the air about six feet. The problem was when one would let go, the thing would go crashing down that was hard on the pole barrier. We had warned the kids to stay off it, but temptation was too strong to resist, and a lot of them still persisted. One night I caught a kid hanging in the air, and decided to teach him the lesson of his life. The Strom boys were the worst kids in town, and were the principle offenders. I always thought it would be a good idea to kill one of those boys, and relished the opportunity to get him. He never saw me coming. I caught him with a might blow that sent him flying. I manage to get in one more lick as he was falling, and then proceed to finish him off on the ground. But when the startled boy hit the ground, and turned to look at me, I saw he wasn't the Strom boy that I thought, but it was Jim Norton's son; who was one of the finest lads in town. I felt terrible for beating such an innocent victim. When Bryce wrote me, I wrote back asking if he was the boy I beat so severely that night. He was. He said he never forgot that hard beating, but graciously forgave me. Bryce is now over 50 and it was a rare privilege to write to him about his dad.
Jim Norton was one of the legends of Japan. If there ever was a man who was a more faithful witness for Christ, I don't know who it was. On New Years morning 1963 we had a gang of missionaries living in Karuizawa who decided to go over to Nagano to the Zenkoji temple to pass out tracts. Every year at New Years tens of millions of Japanese visit temples to pray for the new year. This always is a good opportunity to get a huge crowd in one place to pass out tracts. The name of the game is to get to the temple around midnight when the biggest crowd is there. But we got there at 8:00 in the morning, when the crowd had radically thinned down. As there was little to do at that hour of the morning, the consensus was to go over to the TEAM missionaries house in Nagano to get some coffee – and perhaps breakfast. Jim Norton wasn't that kind of a man. When everyone else went to get some coffee, Jim collared me and said, “Let's go door to door and pass out tracts.”
I thought that was a heroic effort, but that was only the beginning. After we had gone door to door for an hour or so, Jim said, “Let's go to the hospital.” That was a new one for me. We went to two or three hospitals and went from room to room passing out tracts and witnessing to the patients. By that time the day had worn on sufficiently that people were coming back to the temple. The gang from Karuizawa had finished their coffee and cake, and had gone to the temple to pass out tracts as initially planed. Jim and I went over to the temple to see what was going on, and joined the Karuizawa folks passing out tracts for a while. But Jim thought that was too inefficient to have so many missionaries passing out tracts to so few people. He laid hold of me again and suggested, “Let's go have a street meeting.” We found a fairly active street, and Jim started out by preaching the Gospel to them. “Then he said. “Bill, you preach and I will interpret for you.” Street preaching was not new to me, but that was the first time in that kind of a setting. Then we went back to the temple to see if there was something we could do to help out there. I have forgotten the details of all that happened that day, but we must have had two or three – maybe four – street meetings, passed out tracts at the temple, visited several hospitals, and gone door to door ALL DAY. Jim never let up until we got in the car to go back to Karuizawa that evening. I had never had a day like it in my life, or since. I felt like I should at least get an honorable mention in Hebrews 11 as one of the great missionaries of all time for putting in such a heroic day. I had never heard of such an intense evangelistic day. I thought Jim would put it down in his book as one of the outstanding days of his life. But I was floored when he passively remarked that that was his usual schedule, and what he did every day. I didn't think it was possible to be so literally full-time preaching the Gospel, and reaching out to souls for Christ.
For about five years, from 1960 to 1965, the Nortons lived in Karuizawa. Jim had a vision to reach every school in Nagano-ken (prefecture) with the Gospel. At first I didn't realize what a Herculean feat that was, but later my wonder turned to deep admiration for Jim in accomplishing such a remarkable undertaking. Nagano is the second largest prefectures in Japan – second only to Hokkaido. Every morning I would see him loaded with as many Bible as he could physically carry headed for the eki (train station). Then late evening I would see him returning home exhausted but empty. I don't know how he did it. He would travel hours by train, bus, or any transportation he had, to go the most remote areas of Nagano to reach every school with Bibles. He would go to the principals office, and ask for permission to place a Moody Child Story Bible in the school library. In those days there was no such thing as refusal. Any kind of dendo (evangelism) was received with open arms. There may have been cases, but I never heard of a school that refused Jim's Bibles.
I doubt that there ever was a person who sat next to Jim Norton on a train, bus, airplane, boat, bicycle, skate board, or room for more than three minutes that didn't hear a personal testimony about the Gospel of Christ. A friend of mine was riding with Jim in a car one day when they came to a toll stop. Jim looked in the mirror to see if there was any traffic following him. There wasn't. Then he said to the man at the toll booth, “Do you want to go to heaven?” The man was startled, and nervously replied, “Yes, of course.”
Then Jim instructed, “Take your hat off.”
“My hat?”
“Yes take your hat off. We are going to pray.”
Then Jim led him in a prayer for salvation. Sam was stunned, but thought, “Naru hodo (oh I see), Well, that is one way of doing it.”
There is a great controversy over Lordship salvation. There is something to say for both sides of the fence. Jim was more or less of the decision-ism school. (Making a decision for Christ.) In 1993 I was in Oregon City, Oregon, building a church for Mountain View Baptist Church. Mike Muchler was the pastor. He was at the far edge of decision-ism. That was the most evangelistic place I have ever been in my life. The only thing they did was dendo. The only reason anyone ever took a breath was to tell someone about Jesus. They certainly were not ashamed of the Gospel. They would announce every Sunday how many had been saved the previous week. They must have averaged at least 20 a week. In the six months that I was there, there must have been at least 500 people “saved”. The problem was that we never saw them in church on Sunday. In the time I was there I can only recall one couple that came to church as a result of the enormous soul-winning effort that was made every day. Mike told me, “I thank God for the 5,000 people that have been saved since I have been here.” That was wonderful, but I only saw between 65 to 70 people in the service each Sunday. If someone is really saved I want to see them in church each week.
One night at a prayer meeting in Karuizawa, Jim was sharing about a couple of people he had led to Christ the night before. I was deeply impressed. After the meeting I asked him, “How is it you met these people?” He said, “Very simple.” He went over by Tygerts pond around sunset, and saw these people sitting there by themselves. As was his style, he struck up a conversation, and found them very open to the Gospel. What he did was not difficult. Just go out and look for them. The trouble is that very few people do this. It is the rare missionary that witnesses like that.
In 1977 Jim was in Karuizawa for the summer conference, and shared how he had a vision for 100 baptism in the next year. It is one thing to pray with people on trains and buses, but to see them so established in church that they are baptized; that is a totally different matter. I was greatly intrigued by Jim's venture of faith. A year later I asked him how he was doing. He said he was just about on target. In July he had baptized 40 so far, and had another 20 getting ready for baptism. I was tremendously impressed. The national average for missionaries in Japan is to see about one soul a year saved. Of course some see more and some less but the average is after five years of missionary effort there are about five believers going on with the Lord. For someone to baptize 40 in six months is 80 times more than the average.
But then disaster struck. In October Jim got sick, and had to suddenly return to the states for medical reasons. Within three weeks his church in Osaka nearly went to zero. TEAM had to pull Stan Barthold out of his mission station in Ikeda to go over to Osaka to try to salvage Jim's church. Stan later said, it took him two years before he was able to get the spiritual atmosphere in that area back to ground zero where he was beginning to see people come to Christ again. Japan has an unusual phenomenon of people developing a relationship with one person that does not transfer to someone else. Apparently much of Jim's converts were stronger bonds with Jim than with Jesus.
I admire the decision-ists for their aggressive witness for Christ, but disagree with their definition of salvation. I believe it takes more than saying a simple Sinners Prayer – “God, be merciful to me a sinner”. That might have worked for the fellow in the Temple that Jesus told about (Lk. 18:9-14), but I suspect it was more because he couldn't lift his eyes towards heaven, and stood a far off smiting his breast that he got justified; rather than the word he uttered with his mouth. I believe it is highly possible to utter those words, and get no where nearer heaven than if he said, “Mary had a little lamb”. Uttering words does not constitute salvation. A man must be born-again. These people we see on TV going forward for salvation at large crusade rallies, with a broad grin on their face, looking more like they were going to a carnival than penitent sinners seeking salvation; I seriously question the depth of conviction of sin in their hearts. It is pointless to mimic someone else either in words or action. The work of the Holy Spirit varies radically from person to person, but unless a person has a real encounter with Christ it is highly doubtful that that we can say with any real assurance that they are saved.
What the actual numbers are that Jim Norton led to Christ will never be known this side of heaven, but there are few men who ever was more faithful is sharing the Gospel at every opportunity.
Lord, thank You for Jim Norton, and please give us more.
bill
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