Speakers and Jim Cook

14 October 2018

Dear Phyllis,

Living in Karuizawa for 20 years, and my association with the missionary conference center, gave me access to many of the top speakers on the international circuit. These men varied in message and personalities, and it was an unusual privilege to meet some of God's greatest generals. Two extremes were JB Friends and Jim Cook. JB Friends was one of the weakest men I ever met. He was frail in appearance and shaking hands with him was like picking up a dead fish. But when he stood in the pulpit I feared for the wood. Sometimes if you are listening to a gifted speaker you are impressed with the speaker. But with JB Friends there was no powerful personality to deal with. All you got was the unfiltered voice of the Holy Spirit.

On the opposite end of the scale, Jim Cook was one of the most dynamic, powerful men I ever met. He was masculine with a vise-like grip, and when he walked in a room you knew who was in charge. He was the type of man you really didn't want to tangle with. Jim was an MK from India as his father was a medical doctor missionary. He started following the Lord as a very young man and told about a time when he was 12 sitting beside a road. An Indian sadhu holy man in an orange robe sat down beside him. He spoke respectfully to the sadhu asking, “Holy man, have you found the eternal light?” When the Indian honestly replied he hadn't, Jim went on, “You are a great man and I am only a child but I have found in Jesus that which satisfies me”. Then he went on to share his youthful testimony. Jim told us, it was 20 years later, when he was back in India as a missionary himself attending an Indian pastors conference, that a pastor came up to him and said, “Do you remember when you were a small boy talking to a sadhu along side the road?” Then he went on, “I am that man.” What a testimony!

It was during that time, when he was in India as a missionary, that his 9 year old son came down with a serious illness. The doctor at the missionary hospital told him, “There is some medication in the states that will save his life, but we don't have it here. Without that medication there is no hope”. They contacted the states and had some sent out immediately, but Indian customs refused to turn it over. When the boy was near the end, the doctor told him, “If we can get that medication, we can still save him now”. Jim went to customs and pleaded with the custom official to please give him the bottle. It was sitting on the counter right in front of him. The custom official was chewing beetle nut and spite the beetle nut juice on Jim's white suit saying, “If one more white boy dies this world will be a better place”. Jim went back to the hospital, picked his son up and pleaded with Jesus to save him, as the lad died in his arms. Broken hearted Jim took the body of his son back home and dug a grave near his house. With a handful of local believers and his family he held a funeral. When they concluded the brief ceremony Jim said, “Let's sing a song”. Suddenly a large crowd from the village showed up. Jim thought he would take the occasion to preach the Gospel and was just getting started when his fiercest opponent in town stepped forward to interrupt him. The man turned around, facing the crowd, said, “If this man can stand on the grave of his son and sing I want his God.” Nearly the entire village was saved. Jim said that young lad probably won more people to Christ in his death than he would have with 30 years as an active missionary.

From India Jim went to the Philippines as a missionary. In the 1960s the Huks were communist guerrillas fighting in the jungles trying to topple Marco's government. They were really bad news. I don't know the circumstances, but somehow Jim as able to reach and bring to Christ the #2 man in the guerrilla forces. He said it hadn't been long after the man gave his heart to Jesus that he contacted Jim and said he must speak to him immediately. As they sat in his office Jim said the man confronted him with the most piercing look he had ever faced in his life. The man demanded, “Is this stuff you have told me about Jesus Christ true or is this just your religion?” Jim said he had never been searched so deeply in his life. At length he looked up, faced the man and answered, “I swear by my life that everything I have told you is true”. The Huk thanked him, shook hands, and left. That night he was waken out of his sleep by the police at 1:00 AM. They took him 5 km out of town, and he looked down to see the face of a man lying in a ditch who had just been murdered. The man know what it was going to cost him to take a stand for Jesus and he didn't want to die for a religion.

In 1962 I read an article in Time magazine about a Buddhist priest in the Philippines who was deeply involved with an attempt to overthrow the government. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to execution. But before his execution he renounced Buddhism and embraced Christianity. A news reporter asked him, “Why is it that you have devoted your life to serving Buddhism, but now as you are facing death you have your renounced your life's commitment to become a Christian. The man answered in one simple sentence - “Because there is no salvation in Buddhism”. I thought that was a remarkable testimony and was genuinely surprised 12 years later when I learned it was Jim Cook who led that man to Christ.

When Jim Cook came to Karuizawa for the missionary conference in 1974 he was pastoring a large Baptist church in Honolulu He told of a time when a tough marine came to his church and sat in the front row glaring at him with a hostile look on his face for one hour. As the attendees were filing out of the church at the end of the service Jim confronted the soldier, sticking his finger in the man's chest he said, “Tough guy, Jesus Christ has got an arrow in your heart and you are not going to get away until you surrender your life to Him.” The marine was back the next Sunday, but this day saw him weeping at the alter, pleading with the Lord for salvation. As long as he was stationed in Hawaii Jim discipled him. He became a blow torch for Jesus. The time came when he was deployed to Vietnam. The letters were wonderful. Every week he would write Jim sharing the testimonies of the tremendous things the Lord was doing in Vietnam. Then the letters stopped.

It was two years later that a military Chaplin stopped by Jim's church to share the story with him. He said, “I was with a group of marines one day when we got ambushed. A tremendous fire fight broke out and several of our guys were badly wounded. They got the med-evac helicopter in there and loaded the Christian boy on the chopper. Although he was badly wounded he pleaded, 'Take me off and take someone else first', They did, but the chopper never came back”. The Chaplin said, “I knelt beside him as he lay there 5 hours dying. He looked up at me and said, 'Chaplin, you have nothing to say to comfort me because you don't know Jesus'. That brave boy led me to Jesus Christ on the battle field that day in Vietnam”

Oh hallelujah, that's the way the system is supposed to work. What will heaven be like when we hear all these stories first hand?

It has been 40 - 50 years since I heard these testimonies. The Bible teaching was good. We had some very good Bible expositors and preachers in Karuizawa, but it was the real life testimonies that have stuck with me over the years. There was JB Friends who had nothing as a natural man to offer. And there was Jim Cook who was a man among men. The Lord has many vessels, but the one common denominator that was basic to all was Christ. Before I was saved I used to think Christianity was feminine religion. But I have found the Body of Christ to be the toughest organism on earth today. Perhaps the only thing that distinguishes some of these greats from the rest of us is maybe Jesus has a better grip on their lives. Surrender is not a noble thing to do, but the greatest privilege offered to us today.

Lord make it real,

                                      bill