A Poem

24 September 2017

Dear Phyllis,

Since I cut my thumb two weeks ago I have had a lot of time to sit in my chair and ruminate of my life. My thumb is much better – I think. It is bandaged up so I can't see it, but a week ago I had surgery where they dressed up the wound, cut back the bone, and sewed up the end of my thumb. All I have to do now is to wait for Jesus to heal the wound.

Over the years it has been my privilege to know a large number of some of God's greatest servants. In the archives of God's Hall of Fame, one that would be near the top of the list is JB Friends. I have mentioned him to you several times before. He is one of my favorites. He was one of the weakest men I ever met, but, oh, the presence of Christ in his life! There is much I could say of him, but one startling incident was when he was speaking at a Japanese conference. One night he stood up and said, “Konban wa” (Good evening). We all snickered. Then he said, “Konban, watakushi wa Nihongo de inoritai to omoimasu” (Tonight I want to pray in Japanese). We were startled. We had never heard a visiting speaker say such a long sentence in Nihongo (Japanese). Then we were all dumbfounded as he poured out his heart to God speaking Japanese. After the meeting I asked him, “How in the world did you learn that?”. He said, after he was saved he wanted to be a missionary to Japan. The Lord said, no, South Africa was to be his field. But for his love for Japan he had read the entire Japanese Bible through on his knees in South Africa and looked up every word. I have lived in Japan for 50 years and never done that.

I don't know how many times JB Friends had been in Japan as a visitor – maybe half a dozen – but one year when he was back I spoke to his wife saying, “Mrs. Friends, you wouldn't know me but my name is Bill Cook, and I met you and your husband when you were here in 1965”. She utterly floored me when she replied, “Bill, we looked for you when we were here three years ago, but we were told you were in the states at that time”. But the real shock came when we had the Friends up to our house for lunch. I introduced Mrs. Friends to Take chan, who was living with us. (Take had had serious mental problems but the Lord had wonderfully saved and healed her.) When I said, “Mrs. Friends, this is Take chan...”; she turned to her husband and said, “Burtrum, Burtrum, this is the girl we have been praying for in South Africa”. Take burst into tears. I have no idea how the Friends ever got a copy of our prayer letter. I never sent them one, but obviously they had been praying for us for years.

In unforgettable message Brother Friends told the story of a young missionary, around the turn of the last century, who was going out to preach one morning. As he was walking through a village he noticed a man lying on a mat in a house reading a book that looked like a Bible. Bibles were so unusual in those days he stopped to see if that was what it really was. The man was dying of TB but somehow had come to possession of a Bible. The man had never met a Christian in his life but simply by reading the Word of God he had been saved and brought into the deeper life. As the missionary was leaving the dying man said,”I have written a poem. If you care I would like to give you a copy”. This was later translated by Buckley Buxton.

The poem.

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With Him, with Him upon the Tree, ah this, yes this is rest at last. Here is the souls felicity, here is the crown of victory, here is all sorrow past.

With Him, with Him upon the Tree, here all my pain and grief have died. I look in vain for misery, for joy is all that I can see, with Jesus crucified.

Strong pain hath held me in its sway for six long weary, weary years, and yet my heart is always gay, my lips are singing all the day; I have no time to tears.

No tears... and yet the more His grace doth this my joyful heart o'r flow, the more 'tis torn by fierce distress, the while I see a wooing grace rush to its form of woe.

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I never heard anything like it. Here is a man, in Japan, dying an agonizing death with TB – he has never met a Christian in his life - but simply by reading the naked Word of God he has been taught by the Holy Spirit the deepest truths of our identification with Christ. More than that he experienced the paradox of the Gospel; always suffering and yet triumphant. “No tears and yet the more His grace doth this my joyful heart o'r flow, the more 'tis torn by fierce distress, the while I see a wooing grace rush to its form of woe”. This is one of the great mysteries of the Gospel that is seldom taught. Paul told us about it in his own experience of always dying and yet living. Always chastened but never killed. Always sorrowing and yet always joyful (2 Cor. 6:9, 10). That was one of the most amazing messages I ever heard.

The testimony of that man is utterly unique. He wasn't a hardened sinner who had thumbed his nose at Jesus for years and then, when he got in serious trouble, thought he would be kind to God and accept His offer of salvation. He wasn't a man with a Christian background who was surrounded with Christian friends praying for his salvation. He didn't have a dust covered Bible on a shelf in his house and a waste basket full of tracts. He hadn't heard endless hours of TV evangelists. He hadn't sat in church for 15 years hearing Bible expositors explaining to him the deeper truths of the Gospel. He had never heard the testimony of anyone who had been born-again. And yet, with no other witness than the printed Word of God, he had accepted the truths of what is written there, and the Holy Spirit had taught - and imparted to him - the life of Christ like few people ever experience.

But the miracle doesn't just end there. No doubt this suffering man died and went to heaven having never seen another Christian other than that young missionary who stopped for a brief one hour of fellowship. Little did this nameless man realize that 120 years later, his testimony and poem would have been translated into English by one of the most famous British missionaries; it would be quoted by a man from South Africa and then 52 years later sent out by email to many from an American living in Thailand who remembered it just like it had been said last night. Most of us can't remember a Sunday morning message by the time we get home for lunch. I sat in church listening to a Japanese preacher for five years and cannot tell you one message he ever preached. But JB Friends message has been engraved in my mind like it was cut in stone.

Little do we realize the importance of little things. One man that I want to look up in heaven is this Japanese brother and tell him how those words he wrote in his loneliness and sorrow had such an impact on my life. Of course I am looking forward to seeing JB Friends in heaven and renew fellowship on a much deeper level than we ever enjoyed here.

And, of course, I am looking forward to seeing you in heaven and give you a big hug, if I don't see you before hand. Oh Jesus is wonderful. It can't be far from here.

Hoping to see you soon. Sayonara, bill