Mercy

Dear Phyllis,

Several people have asked me, about my eye. With the corona virus shutting down America, what are my plans concerning going to the  states? Praise God, last week I got my one year visa for Thailand. That is one huge hurdle overcome. Technically we are nearly in a position to go to the states, but there is no open America to go to.

Kamawanai (it doesn't matter). My eye is just fine. I challenge anyone who says they are in better health than me. My eye has been closed for a year, but I have another one that is working fine and I am in absolutely no discomfort. But oh, what He has done for my soul. At the moment this is probably the finest time of my life. I don't know how far I am from the River (heaven) but the breeze occasionally brings wisps of air from the other side and the fragrance of it is wonderful.

Living in Karuizawa was one of the highlights of my life. I know of no place on earth like it. The roof of my house was exactly at 1,000 meters (3,000 feet). But the air! Trains in Japan in 1960 were like smoke houses. The Tabasco smoke in those cars was so thick you could hardly see from one end to the other. The smoke in there was so bad you could make jerky by simply taking strips of raw meat and waving it around. You could smoke salmon by taking slices of salmon and laying them on the seats. And then when you would get to Karuizawa and get off the train; just standing there on the platform breathing was a sensual experience. The air in Karuizawa smelled like steak and the water tasted like wine. I know of no place on earth where it was such a sensual experience just to breath and drink that mountain water. And the sky! There was absolutely nothing west of Karuizawa with any pollution. In the summer time we used to climb Mt. Asama at night. The stars were so clear I used to say, “Some time I'm going to take a 6 foot ladder with me up that hill so that when I get to the top I will be able to climb up that ladder and pick a few stars.”

Where I am now, when the breeze brings some of that air from across the River now it is almost like being in Karuizawa. I have wandered through enough desert where I nearly chocked to death on the dust, but where I am now, my view across the River and the fragrance that occasionally comes to me is almost like being there.

Samuel Rutherford wrote, “I am confounded daily that He has done so much for my soul and received so little from that that is worth speaking of. If I cannot love God with all of my heart, oh that He would give me leave to wonder. If men can do no more, at least if they could WONDER.” Oh what cause we have to WONDER!

I know I am a little man in the Kingdom of God, but oh the things He has shared with me. I feel like a man who has the cure for cancer and yet is stranded on a desert island with no one to speak to but the sea gulls. I have pleaded with the Lord, if I cannot be a soul winner and if I cannot speak for Jesus, Lord, please, at least let me point with my finger. I don't know about Rutherford, but I know about the desperation inside of me. I feel like a little boy sitting in church with a great desire to be able to put something in the offering plate. I beg my Father daily, “Lord, please, please give me a quarter that I might put it in the offering plate”. But now I would settle for a dime.

You talk about WONDER, my goodness, when we look at the goodness of God to Israel, it is mind boggling. If there ever was a nation where the Lord demonstrated His fundamental character it was His dealings with Israel. Ezekiel 16 has got to be one of the most (I don't know what word to use), but it has to be... This morning before I got up the Holy Spirit was speaking to me. I got up, got my Bible out, and began to read Ezekiel 16. I got six verses in and let out a wail like a little boy whose puppy dog had just been run over by a car. I closed the Bible and said, “That's it. I can't read any more.”

After the war Eisenhower made the citizens of Auschwitz go through the prison and see what the Nazis had done in that extermination camp. It was awful. Twelve thousand people were cremated every day. Woman came out of there almost hysterical to see the unimaginable carnage that had happened in their city. I feel a little like that in reading the Bible. I can't handle it. It's too much.. How can we look at Israel without lying flat on the floor sobbing? What a history. Oh, I am reluctant to talk about it. You can't put it in words. Here they were a bunch of worthless slaves in Egypt. He said, “I gave Egypt for your ransom (Isa. 43:3). He destroyed Egypt to get them out. He took them out into the desert to speak to them and make a covenant with them. Basically this was the marriage covenant. The word that destroyed me this morning was “You became Mine”. Even now the pain is terrific just to write it. Oh what the Lord did for Israel. What He had to put up with in the desert. But grace prevailed. He got them in the land and established them as a nation. My goodness, the clock runs slow. We are talking about hundreds of years. But if we could put Israel in a fast film and compress hundreds of years into a few minutes, what would that film look like? You talk about long-suffering; never in human history has this planet seen anything like that. But then the cap-stone;. God sent His Son. Oh, I can hardly talk about it. John put it in the most mild, gracious terms, when he wrote, “He came to His own, but His own received Him not” (Jn. 1:11). Worse than that; the leaders of Israel cried, “Away with Him! We will not have this Man rule over us.” They brought on themselves, the most horrible consequence that Israel has been paying the price for for 2,000 years. If ever a nation worthily brought on themselves national destruction it was Israel. But God, in His amazing grace had something else in mind. He didn't intend to utterly wipe out Israel, but to momentarily set them aside in order to open the door to let anyone, any nation, whosoever-will to come in He set Israel down so He could embrace the world. But the bottom line is, the Lord re-embracing Israel as His people and all the world will flow to Jerusalem. If that isn't a marvel I don't know what is. That has got to be the greatest wonder in human history. But there is more.

Samuel Rutherford wrote, “If Jesus wasn't God, my sin and hard heart would have placed an iron bar across the door to salvation that mercy and grace could not break through. But God be thanked, Jesus is God and He has prevailed to keep me in His arms.”. That was very poetic of Rutherford, but he didn't live to see a more astonishing wonder. Take his wonder and multiply it by ten and you could write that above the name of a man living in Thailand today.. Oh, wonder, wonder, wonder! What cause God has given to us to wonder. Now if we could only move up a little from that to love the Lord a little more.

Tragically that has been postponed. What we are dealing with is something that does not exist within the confines of human comprehension as we know it today. To understand the Lord and the magnitude of His love, graciousness, pity, long-suffering, goodness (you name it) is as far beyond our ability to appreciate as it is for us to wrap our arms around Mt. Fuji or hold the ocean in a tea cup.

Robert Murray McChyne said it best when he wrote: When I stand before Thy Throne, dressed in beauty not my own: when I see Thee as Thou art; love Thee with unsinning heart – then, Lord, shall I know, and not til then how much I owe.  But, Lord, even now, let me love Thee somehow.

Oh Lord, be merciful, be merciful, be merciful, let me love You just a little.