Roots by the River

  This is a ministry letter written by my wife Bessie in 1974 for Inland Christian Laymen, now Community Christian Ministries (ccmbooks.org). It is good, so I am putting it out again: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels,” Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:7. Looking at the passage before this, we see he has likened the light of the gospel coming into the heart to the light of creation. “For it is the God who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." It is light with a purpose. The face of Christ is illumined to us, not in visions necessarily, but in our coming to recognize that the Christ of the Gospels is indeed the Son of God, our Lord and Saviour. This then is our treasure, the personal knowledge of Jesus Christ as He comes to make His home in our hearts. Paul says “earthen vessels,” and this represents our bodies, or more specifically our whole lives. When I was in Ja...

  Why pray? Christians do not pray enough. “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:7–8). Why do we need to pray when God already knows what we need? First, we should pray because God commands us to. We are to obey Him. “Rejoice always, pray continually , give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:16–18). “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests . With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people” (Eph. 6:18). The quality of our obedience is inextricably linked with the closeness of our walk with God. A major component of that walk is prayer. For a strong Christian life, look to the Lord continually. Seek His face. Pray the prayers of Scripture. God has chosen us to fulfill His will. He taught us to...

  All of this so far has had to do with the mobility of our firepower, or, in other words, our witnessing. But from the chapter on the offense we recall that our offense is directed with prayer in addition to preaching. We must be mobile here, also. Like the Word of God, prayer has no limitations. The limitations are in us. Prayer of intercession has greater range, accuracy, speed, and power than the greatest intercontinental ballistic missile we will ever produce. The prayer of intercession is one that agrees with God in His desire and purpose to win men to Himself. We can use as our guide the prayers of Jesus and of the apostles, both for Christian brethren and for those who are still under the command of the enemy. Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Let us ask for big things, things that we have never previously experienced. Mobility serves no purpose if we have no intention of going an...

  Another important means is the mobility gained through Christian books and literature sent via mail or passed from hand to hand. The ministry of moving Christian books, magazines, booklets, and Bibles is hardly being used at all. The Christian may be physically immobilized because of his profession or state of health, yet if he used Christian literature, he would not find the Word of God limited just because he himself was immobilized. The objective would be taken in near or distant places, though the Christian was absent. The giving and sending of books is just the beginning of fast mobile communication of the gospel. The internet can bring to anyone’s living room the most powerful preaching and teaching that is available today. Christian leaders are broadcasting the gospel of Jesus Christ on hundreds of radio stations and podcasts weekly. But this does not guarantee that people will be listening. A phone call, an emailed link, or a blog post to our friends would greatly incre...

  The British Army was defeated in France in 1940. If it had reached the coast and found that it was immobilized, it would not have suffered defeat only; it would have been annihilated. It was the British mobility at sea that saved the army at Dunkirk. If the Germans had been as mobile at sea as they were on land, they could have followed the British across the Channel. In this case the defenders were mobile, and the victors became immobile. In World War II, mobility was demonstrated in the existence and actions of the U.S. Third and Fifth Fleets. One component of the Third/Fifth Fleet (Under Admiral Halsey it was the Third Fleet. When Admiral Spruance was in command, it was the Fifth Fleet.) particularly exemplified mobility. This was the Fast Carrier Striking Force, Task Force 38 (or 58, under the Fifth Fleet) under the command of Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher. This force could move hundreds of miles overnight in any direction and strike hundreds of miles farther with the Air Grou...

  “And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord’s passover.” —Exodus 12:11 “But God’s word is not chained.” —THE APOSTLE PAUL, 2 Timothy 2:9 After four hundred years, some of which had been spent in slavery, six hundred thousand men of Israel, besides women, children, and possessions, moved out of the land of Egypt in one night. That is mobility! If we undertook the same feat today, we would use trains, planes, trucks, and ships. We would have better equipment, but we might not prove as mobile. Mobility as a principle of war is not absolute. It must not be measured against how fast we could move yesterday; rather it must be compared with the enemy’s mobility. We must move more quickly, farther, and for a greater period of time than the enemy. Mobility was defined in the statement of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, “I git thar fustest with the mostest.” The French of World...

  In February, my book Answered Prayer: The Faithfulness of God Made Manifest was released.  Here is the introduction I wrote for the book: "As I am writing this book and meditating on the Bible’s commands to pray, to thank God, and to intercede for others, and on the promises of answer to those prayers, I look back at my own history of answered prayer, and I wonder why I am not praying all the time, especially when I get such wonderful answers when I do pray. The answers are so good—I am just amazed. "The stories in this book reinforce the biblical teaching on prayer, the commands to pray, and the explanations of prayer. As you read these stories, you might apply them by praying for the believers in your city, that they would be convicted of sin and confess their sin to the Lord. I keep a list of all the churches in the two cities nearest me in my Bible. I regularly pray for the Christians in those churches. When Christians get back into the love and the joy of their salvat...

  The Bible speaks of the sins of whole nations in many places. Here is one of them:  “This is what the Lord says: For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath…” (Amos 2:6). Scripture also speaks of the sins of cities (e.g., Amos 1:3, 6). Jesus spoke of judgment on Chorazin and Bethsaida in Matthew 11:21 and of possible judgment on five of the seven churches in Asia in Revelation 2 and 3. The collective sins of the people brought about these judgments. The people of the Church today are not known for confessing their sins. We are even less known for confessing the sins of the whole church or city or nation as Daniel did in Daniel 9: “Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kin...

  The Scripture says there are certain gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. I am a teacher and an evangelist—but I am an evangelist by obedience. I may have the gift also, but it is certainly obedience. The Great Commission says, “ All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20). Just by being a Christian, I am an evangelist. Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me,” and He said, “Make disciples of all nations.” That means all Christians who obey Jesus Christ are evangelists. They are to make disciples of all nations. They are also to teach these disciples to obey everything that Jesus commanded. Just by obeying that, I am an evangelist and a teacher. If you are an obedient Christian, you...

  “Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in Him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John 12:42-43). There seem to be two reasons for this unwillingness to confess Jesus Christ: fear and love . It is the fear of men instead of God and love of the praise of men instead of the praise of God. The fear anticipated something bad happening in the future, i.e., being “put out of the synagogue.” The love is past tense. They already knew what it was like to be praised by men, and they liked it. they wanted the pleasant things from men and did not want the unpleasant things from them. In other words, they were concerned about the opinions of the world and, in this particular instance, that part of the world that controlled the existing church.

Many years ago, I was talking with a young woman, and I asked her what she thought of Jesus. Her reply was a good answer but qualified with this phrase, "but I don't think he was very polite." The more I read the Gospels, the more I am convinced that her qualification is a true one. The problem was that, to her, politeness was a high virtue, and since Jesus was not polite, He was not perfect. Many of us, like this young woman, interpret Scripture in the light of our cultural mores . We do this because obedience to the text as it is might mean crossing or offending our Christian and secular friends. The issue is clear in a place like India or Japan where the religious culture is so opposite to the claims of Christ. If a person does not follow Christ there, he knows he does not, and he knows why. In our society, we have compromised for so long that we think we are following Christ when in reality we are only following the evangelical American culture. One good way t...

  Non-Christians and the powers of darkness out­number us along the whole front in the spiritual warfare. We can make advances along this front by using two-by-two concentration. This is necessary; however, it may not bring a decisive victory. In order to win a decisive victory, we must seek the will of God to determine the decisive points. Then: ·    Christians along the whole front will con­centrate on prayer for the decisive points. ·   The physical transfer could be made by taking time off and traveling to the decisive point. This would weaken portions of the front temporar­ily, but no more so than when Christians take leave under ordinary circumstances. When Jesus gave the Great Commission, the apostles were not sent immediately to the uttermost parts of the earth. They were told to remain together in Jerusalem until they were “endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). Notice the elements of concentration: ·    They were all together. ·...