Christmas Story

23 December 2018story

Dear Phyllis,

Paul Harvey had a Christmas story that he would relate every year at Christmas. It was called the Miracle of the Sparrows. Like Paul Harvey I have a Christmas story that I like to tell every year. I heard it first many yeas ago at a Christmas party at the Manza Hotel where Roald Lidal was speaking. It was the story of a Chinese man that had happened about four or five years before then.

There was a fine Christian Chinese couple who had prayed for a son for many years. Like Abraham and Sarah, it was in their later years that their prayer was heard and they named him Isaac. But when the child was still very young an evil man in that city falsely accused the Christian brother of a serious crime that wound up in court. During the trail the Lord spoke to the Christian man telling him something that was the most horrible thing imaginable. He desperately fought this conviction but, at length, tremblingly shared it with his wife. He said, “I believe the Lord wants us to give our son to our enemy.” To his terror his wife replied, “Yes, I know. The Lord told me the same thing.” Such a thing was unheard of in China. The greatest gift that is possible, is to give your son to another person; and to give your son to your enemy was unthinkable. At length the couple submitted themselves to the will of God and gave their only son – the son of their elderly years – to their enemy. Stunningly this unthinkable gift had no effect on the implacable heart of their adversary and the Christian man was falsely convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. During his time in prison his wife died and when, at length, he was released his life was over with little left to live for.

With no other purpose in life he devoted himself to being a traveling evangelist and spent his last remaining years traveling around China sharing the good news of the Gospel of Christ. It was on Christmas day he was riding a bus in a remote area of China when the bus broke down. All the passengers had to get off and fend for themselves to find some place to stay. As he was walking alone in a snow storm he passed by a farm house and stopped to ask if he could have shelter for the night. The people there turned out to be Christian. He was welcomed to stay, but they told him they were going out that night. There was a wonderful evangelist coming to a city some distance away and they were going to a dendo kai (evangelistic meeting). He was welcome to go with them if he cared. Of course he was delighted to accept such a gracious invitation.

As they were going to the meeting, the old man shared with them his testimony. He told how he and his wife had prayed for many years for a son, and then after the miraculous birth of a son they gave him to his enemy, but to no avail. He had spent 20 years in prison. He said he had heard that the enemy had since moved to a location where there had been a serious earthquake and the entire family had been killed. With his wife dead and no surviving family he had devoted his remaining years to traveling around preaching Jesus.

They were late arriving at the dendo kai. The room was packed and they had to take a seat in the back of the room. The old mans eyes were dim with age and with the poor seating he stood to get a better look at speaker. The evangelist saw the old man standing in the rear of the room and stopped speaking. The two men stood there staring at each other. Then suddenly the evangelist burst out, “Are you my father Zhang?”

Unbeknown to the Christian brother the gift of love had born fruit. The evil man had been converted and shared with the lad the story of his true parents. He had been raised in a Christian home and developed into an outstanding evangelist. The story of the earthquake was true and the family had been killed but the lad had survived. It was on a cold snowy Christmas eve in a remote city in China that the Lord brought the father and the son back together.

I never heard a story like this in my life. The night Roald shared this incredible testimony in Manza, the meeting had been over for over 20 minutes; the room was virtually empty, and I was still sitting there with my head down weeping.

We have heard John 3:16 until it has become trite. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...” But this put a new edge on it. What happened in China was unthinkable. That a man would give his only son to his enemy and then suffer in spite of that gift. But what has happened with the Gospel is 10,000 times more incredible. Oh thank God for the places the Gospel has born fruit and millions have been saved. But how is it possible that guilty hell deserving criminals could roll up their nose and say, “No thank you”? The only son of the Chinese couple was dear to their heart, but he was not as loved as deeply as the only begotten Son was to the Father in heaven. For many years it appeared that the Chinese gift of love had gone on unrewarded. But the hidden fruit of that had gone on well beyond imagination. What that couple reaped in heaven stands as one of the greatest testimonies I have ever heard. Had they not done that, the hateful man and his family never would have been saved. Had there never been a problem they could have lived out normal lives and gone to heaven to join the crowd. The boy Isaac might have grown up to be an evangelist but there never would have been the testimony of this amazing story.

One of the great mysteries of heaven is time. We want instant results but God is in no hurry and sometimes it is decades or centuries later that we see the results of obeying Jesus. In the old mans case it was over 30 years. But what a reward he got! This morning I read again the 22^nd Psalm and relived the crucifixion. It was so painful that I couldn't imagine how John ever endured standing there watching Jesus on the Cross. And how the Father not only endured it, but at the worst time, turned His back on His Son. At that point reality goes totally beyond human comprehension. This morning, I protested to the Father, “Father how can it be that Jesus suffered all this and it seemingly goes unrewarded by the vast majority of humanity?” It has been 2000 years and 99% of Japan and Thailand are totally unresponsive. The Lord had to remind that the day will certainly come when every knee shall bow an every tongue shall confess that Jesus is the Lord to the gory of God (Ph. 2:10,11). And the day will dawn when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14). Weeping may endure for a night but joy will come in the morning (Ps. 30:5).

The Lord could not have chosen a more wonderful Christmas present for His servant than He did on the cold, snowy, Christmas eve when the bus broke down on a lonely road to bring his son back to him a mighty man of God.

Maybe this story has a message for all of us that perhaps much of what we think is lost is only in God's safe keeping when the Lord may return it to us with His ribbon on it. Nothing will ever be lost that was given to Jesus.

May you have a truly holy, prosperous, Christ-honoring, joyous Christmas, bill