Eat The Apple

13 January 2019

Dear Phyllis,

This is my second letter to you today. Yesterday I wrote another letter to send you but this morning during devotions my heart was burning so hard I decided to forget that and try to write a new one. Oh I can't tell you what I have seen. All I can say is that it is indescribable - if that means anything to you. There is much I would like to say but words are not an adequate means of expression. There is only one way to share with another person the inexpressible flavor of a Japanese apple. That is, to have them eat one. Words just don't do it.

The first letter I wrote for you was about the Song of Solomon. I have found in it the greatest treasure of the Bible and I spent several pages discussing why people don't like it. This morning I went to my computer to do some research about Xiao Min and my heart got overloaded. Now there is so much in my mind that I don't know how to reduce it to a simple letter.

The theme I wanted to share with you yesterday was the relationship Jesus has with His Bride. Perhaps the most bewildering feature of the S of S is the amount of space that is devoted to Jesus talking about the beauty of His Bride and His love for her. This speaks to us about two subjects – an unusual glimpse into the heart of Jesus and the beauty of His Bride. Both of which are impossibly unknown to the natural man. Only the Holy Spirit knows these two things and He alone is able to share them with us.

Let me start with an unusual thought the Lord gave me this morning. The face of the Body of Christ has changed. When we talk about the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ we are talking about the same person. The Bride of Christ is the Body of Christ presently living on this planet. And the Body of Christ is that mystical cooperate gathering of all the people where Jesus has chosen to take up His residence by living in their hearts.

We might have a tendency to think that the face of the Body of Christ is white. For two millenniums Christianity has basically been centered in Europe, England, and America. These are Caucasian countries and for 2,000 years Christianity has been 90% a white mans religion.

I believe in the Back to Jerusalem movement. I believe the Gospel is a spiritual tsunami that is traveling from east to west around the globe. It started in Jerusalem, and in the 1^st century it basically went across the Mediterranean. For nearly a thousand years there was little movement out of Rome or the Middle East. At the time of the Reformation under Luther and a few others, the Gospel moved up to Germany. The Moravians were probably the finest Christians the world has ever seen and they were Germans. Then in the 18^th century the Gospel moved from Europe to England. There were some might men of God in Scotland and Ireland in 1600 at the time of Knox, Rutherford and a few other giants of the faith along with some fairly stiff persecution, But at the time of Wesley in 1700 the Gospel transformed the British society..

At the beginning of the 20^th century the center of the Gospel crossed the Atlantic to America. For most of the nineteen hundreds the USA had the strongest churches and was responsible to 90% of world evangelism. But then around 1980 we saw a new phenomenon where the Gospel jumped the Pacific rim to go to Korea. Today Korea has overtaken the USA as being the #1 mission centered country in the world. But at the same time the Holy Spirit was also doing a hidden work in China. Today China is on its way to being the strongest Christian county in the world and will probably take over as the greatest mission sending society. Significantly the strongest military and economic power of the world has always been associated with the center of Christianity and soon China will be the lone super power in the world.

Along with the amazing rise of Christianity in the Orient, today Africa is seeing an unusual moving of the Spirit, and several African countries are nearly totally Christian. This is the first time the Body of Christ has taken on a black face. Obviously the Father is concerned that all flesh worship His Son. I believe it is safe to say the tsunami of the Holy Spirit is basically in the northern hemisphere, but God is also saving millions in both Africa and South America.

Quite obviously both Europe and America have entered into the post-Christian era. The sun has set so totally on Europe and England that in a very few years they will be Islamic countries. This is almost demographically incontestable. At the same time the sun is rising in the Orient and today the Body of Christ has an Oriental face. The prayers of millions and the blood of tens of thousands of martyrs has brought forth fruit. And what has sprung up is beautiful. Tears flow every time I look at You Tube of worship services in China. And China has produced probably the greatest hymnologist of the 20^th (and maybe the 21^st ) century.

Xiao Min is a simple minority peasant girl from central China. She was saved as a young teenager 30 some years ago. She had no music training but shortly after Jesus came to live in her heart she began to hung and sing new songs. People asked, “Where did you learn that?” Xiao Min replied, “I don't know. This song just came to me.” Today there are over 1,000 Canaan hymns that have been published and they are the most beautiful music I have ever heard.

I can hardly listen to that music without weeping. My friend Scott had an unsaved Chinese girl frequently coming to his house. I asked Scott to please let that girl hear some of these hymns. I was stunned when the girl was totally unimpressed by these hymns in Chinese. That was one of the clearest illustrations of the working of the Holy Spirit (or lack of His working) I have ever seen. To me they are indescribably beautiful and to that unsaved girl they were boring. To me the Body of Christ has never looked more beautiful than she does with her new Oriental face.

What does all this have to do with the Song of Solomon and the heart of Jesus? Vaguely we know that spiritual truth can only be understood by the Holy Spirit. The natural man can learn much about the Bible. An unsaved man can teach biblical facts as well as any saved man. But it is only by the Holy Spirit that we can see spiritual reality. And there is a huge difference between knowing something in your head and seeing something in your heart. That is why the Body of Christ looks so beautiful to me with her new Oriental face, and the Hymns of Canaan melt my heart every time I hear them. In the Spirit, I agree with Jesus. His Bride is absolutely gorgeous. To the world most of the Body of Christ is hidden. I fear very few people know what the Holy Spirit is doing today in the Orient. Tragically most of the visual portion of Christianity is fleshly religion. It doesn't matter if a man is liberal or evangelical, the natural man is the natural man and that belongs to a different world than the Kingdom of God. That is spiritual. To try to read the Song of Solomon through the eyes of the natural man, is as much foolishness to him as the Gospel is to an unsaved man (1 Cor. 1:18).

Tragically we live in a culture and society that has so horrible polluted our minds that it has nearly rendered us incapable of reading the deepest recesses of the heart of Jesus and the relationship that He has with His Bride. God has taken a terrible risk in sharing some of this truth with us and to the natural man much of this looks pornographic.

I have spent 60 years living in the S of S. When I first found it in the Bible I was stunned and wondered what in the world is this? I felt that it was a treasure box with a locked lid. I asked Jesus to give me the key. He did. And the treasure I have found in it blows my mind. Today I read it and it is as clear, and makes as much sense, as the gospel of John. To me nearly every verse is as clear as John 3:16. But this brings me back to my original dilemma. How can I explain this to someone else? I can't. It is like talking about Japanese apples. You've got to eat it. I could spend pages talking about the problem of seeing the Body of Christ and the way Jesus loves His Bride, but I won't.

On a totally different subject, this coming week is a very critical one for me. Tomorrow I plan to go to Laos to get a new Thai visa. I shared with you last week how Jesus, in such an incredible, miraculous, way, provided for the expense of getting this new visa. Now that I have the money in hand all I have to do is get on a bus and go. The visa agency assures us that they will handle everything on that end. It is going to take longer than I thought and I will have to spend most of this week over there. I have spent many years traveling the length and breadth of Laos but it has been a long time since I have been there for several days. The only question is what does the Lord have for me this week?

Ya'll pray for me now - heya, bill