Chapter 14 - The Word of the Lord Came

As the doctor lay on his back in a post-operative recovery room, unable to move, he smiled to himself. lie knew that the operation for the removal of part of his lung had been an outstanding success. Thanks to science!

It had been kind of that fellow from the Christian group in the hospital to visit him, before the operation and offer to pray for him. How glad he was that he had not weakened by accepting the offer! The fellow should realize now what he had meant when he told him that science would see him through, for his operation proved that science is the answer to everything. It had been his guide for as long as he could remember. There was no need for God in this age of scientific achievement.

The days and weeks passed and soon the doctor was up and about, making good progress. On every possible occasion he would tell members of the Christian group he met what a wonderful success his operation had been. Thanks to science!

“What can God give us that science cannot do?” he would ask them boastfully.

One wintry morning during these days, as he was looking out his second floor window just before breakfast, he saw the solitary figure of a man approaching in the distance.

It had begun to rain heavily and the man was bent forward, clutching something under his arm, obviously trying to protect it from the rain. As the figure neared, the doctor recognized it to be that of the foreign missionary whom he had seen in the hospital before with the Christian group. He guessed that it must be his Bible the man was protecting so carefully, to keep it from getting wet. He had already noticed how the Christians walked around in the hospital with their Bibles.

The figure of the missionary disappeared into the interior of the building, but the memory of it lingered in the doctor’s mind for many days to come. Morning after morning lie would look out of his window at the same time, and see the missionary come into the hospital. Rain or shine, he came without fail! The question which gradually loomed large in the doctor’s mind became almost an obsession: Why does that missionary come to minister to these poor, pathetic, almost outcast tuberculosis patients?

This compassion was something he had never met before. It had not the faintest connection with science. In fact, science seemed cold and remote by comparison. Here was something warm and living. It was, he guessed, love in action, and he just could riot get it out of his mind.

Thus it was that the skeptical, atheistic medical doctor, who up until now had not felt the slightest consciousness of his need for God, began to attend the meetings and question the evangelist, and before long found Christ as his own personal Savior. Upon his recovery he went back to work mending sick bodies, but now he also had a message of hope for the hearts of his patients, for he had discovered that science does not contain the answer to everything. Man’s spiritual need can only be met by a loving Savior.

Illness is no respecter of persons, for one day in September of 1965 I woke up feeling very, very ill myself. I could not move from my bed. I did not want Peggy to take my temperature, but when I finally allowed her to take it, it was so high she was frightened, and within minutes a doctor was at my side.

Because the Mission workers constantly visit in the tuberculosis hospitals, the doctor insisted on an immediate X-ray and a very thorough examination. After it was taken and he had an opportunity to study its results, he was so shocked that I found myself on my way to a hospital only minutes later.

When I reached the hospital I said to the doctor there, a very friendly man, “I must know what is wrong. I want you to be very straight with me, and tell me what is wrong with me.”

“At such an early stage,” the doctor answered soberly, “it is very difficult to tell. It could be one of three things. It could be lung cancer.”

He brought out the X-ray and showed it to me. There, standing out like a lighthouse on my lungs was a large mass. “That could be lung cancer,” the doctor explained, and in that case I would be very pessimistic about the outcome. It could be rapid tuberculosis, and with that size cavity in the lungs you could be hospitalized here for at least a year, and probably longer.

“It could be pneumonia,” he continued. “We’ll do everything we can to find out precisely what it is as soon as possible.”

I was put on antibiotics, but they did not seem to help. “I feel as sick as a dog!” I confided to Peggy, but I had her cancel only one weekend of meetings. I was believing the Lord to make me well soon enough to carry on with the rest of my schedule.

While in the hospital the nursing supervisor came to me and told me sternly that I must shave off my mustache. I rebelled against this in my heart. She came around again, asking when I was going to shave it off. “If you’re too sick to do it, I’ll have to do it for you!” she threatened. One of the rules of the hospital was that no beard of any kind was allowed.

After she left me I thought of the many times I had encouraged patients in the hospitals to keep all the rules of the hospital. Now I was not ready to keep the rules myself. The Lord convicted me of hypocrisy, and although I felt very sick I immediately shaved off my mustache. When the nursing supervisor came around again she looked very satisfied.

Peggy also came to visit me. After talking to me for about half an hour she said there seemed to be something different about my face, but she couldnÅft really think what it might be. I didnÅft tell her. She went home and to bed, but woke up early the next morning suddenly realizing what was different about my face!

Three days later, as I lay desperately ill, suddenly I felt as if God had touched me. I called the nurse and told her, “I believe the Lord has healed me, and that I am well enough to get up out of bed and leave the hospital.”

The nurse was alarmed, thinking that I was becoming delirious. She ran off to find the doctor and brought him at once to my bedside.

“Doctor,” I told him, “I believe that the Lord has touched me and that I am well enough to leave the hospital. You can take my temperature if you want to. You’ll see that I have no fever.”

The doctor took my temperature, and then after examining me he said, “Well, give me another three days, and we’ll see what our new findings will be on X-rays and other tests.”

“All right,” I agreed. “Another three days won’t matter all that much.”

I was indeed well, and was soon discharged. A few days later I received a letter from a very dear friend in South Africa, a woman who had promised the Lord at my conversion that she would pray for me continually. When I had left for Japan, this woman had renewed her promise to the Lord she said, “if he is ever in any special need, Lord, then I ask You to let me know. I promise to drop everything I am doing and pray for him.” In her letter she said that she had awakened at about two in the morning, most anxious about my well being. She did not want to wake her husband, as he was very tired.

She turned her face right into her pillow and began to weep and pray for me. She prayed that the Lord would undertake, whatever the danger was, and bring me out of that danger. She prayed until after five in the morning, and then suddenly rest and peace came into her heart, and she fell asleep until six. When she got up, she had a time of real praise before the Lord, knowing that whatever danger there had been, the Lord had lifted it from me. “I don’t know what was wrong with you,” she wrote, “but please let me know. Was there anything that was putting you into danger?”

Her prayers had come at the very time when I was so sick. Before long, I received letters from two other praying friends, telling how they had been praying for me during that same crucial time. I was deeply grateful to the Lord for friends who were in such contact with God that even their prayers were guided by the Lord Himself.

The success of the Japan Mission has been bound up with praying people, beginning my praying mother. During one three year period Miss Violet McGrath and Miss Oya from the Japan Evangelistic Band were living at the Mission headquarters and often spent the whole morning in prayer, as well as spontaneous prayers throughout the day. “Lord, bless this Mission!” was their constant cry. We considered it a great privilege to have such people living on the premises, upholding us in prayer while we often had to be actively running here and there caring fort the myriad details of the work.

Some prayer warriors lived with us for several months on more than one occasion, Mr. Bertram Friend and his wife from South Africa. Mr. Friend is one of the few men I’ve wet who could come to the end of the day and say, “Lord, I’ve prayed as much as You wanted me to!”

Most Christians at the end of the day must admit, “Lord, You know I didn’t pray as much as I should have,” but not Mr. Friend.

If the Lord wants him to pray, he’s glad to pray. If the Lord says to him, “I want you to pray all night, he prays all night, though he might try and sleep a little during the next day after the burden has lifted. It was a joy to us to give hospitality to such a marvelous man of prayer, for we knew we were the ones who profited, in the prospering of the work of the Lord.

Chiyo Kume and her pastor husband were just ready to sit down for lunch on that day in September, 1923, when they felt the beginnings of an earthquake. That morning the sky had been strange in color and texture. The sun was brilliant red. As the tremors continued, Takezo Kume and his wife fled to the church which was nearby where they were soon joined not only by church members, but by neighbors who had previously shown no interest in the church. By two o’clock there were more severe tremors, and they felt it was dangerous to stay in town. The entire group fled to a Bible College in a nearby mountain area. That night the church burned to the ground in the terrible earthquake that followed.

No less than one fourth of the world’s earthquakes occur in Japan. It is a common occurrence to feel an earthquake while sitting down, for the chair shakes and one can see the light fixtures sway. At night one can often feel the bed begin to rock as a tremor occurs. But one of the most severe quakes ever to hit Japan was the great earthquake in 1923, causing 99,331 deaths, injuring over 100,000 more, and leaving another 50,000 missing.

During the three months of desolation and havoc which followed this terrible earthquake, Pastor and Mrs. Kume looked after the folk who had fled with them, until conditions became more normal.

They had not been Christians when they had married in 1918. Pastor Kume had been working as a broker of pig iron, but when his business began to fail he became so nervously depressed that he contemplated suicide. But as he was walking in a Tokyo park one day, in great despair, he came upon an open air meeting.

He was deeply impressed by what he heard, began to attend church, and urged his wife to go with him. Within a few months he had accepted the Lord, and not long after she too yielded to the Savior. They studied in Bible College together and entered the pastorate. Their lives were so utterly devoted to the Lord now, that they never ate breakfast nor read the newspaper until afternoon, in order to spend unhurried time with the Lord. Years of joy and blessing followed.

One day, on June 26, 1942, Pastor Kume was sitting quietly in his study reading the Word of God. A persistent fine rain of the rainy season was falling unrelentingly outside, and its damp stickiness pervaded every corner of the house.

His heart suddenly froze as he heard the sound of a police car grinding to a halt at his door, and the commotion of policemen forcibly entering his entrace hall. “Where’s Kume?” shouted a rough voice.

“IÅfm right here,” Pastor Kume said, hurrying into the hall and bowing politely. Before he could say more than a brief farewell to his wife, he was dragged out of the house and driven off to the dark, barren Detention Center. He was completely ignorant of any crime committed except that as a Christian he had refused to bow to the god of Japan, the Emperor.

The police were convinced that he was a spy. For six months they kept him in the Detention Center, completely cut off from his loved ones, a prisoner simply because of his devotion to Jesus. And then one day he was suddenly handcuffed, forced to cover his face, and led away in an armored car to the dreaded Sugamo Prison.

Here he was put into solitary confinement. But how he thanked God that the officers had not found his most priceless possession, his Bible! The dreadful day came, however, when a warden passing his cell saw him reading that precious Book. “What is that?” he demanded roughly.

“When told, he said, “You’ve come into this prison to get Christianity out of you, and you’ve brought it with you. You cannot read that Book a moment longer! Give it to me!” He ripped it out of Pastor Kume’s hands and marched away.

With his Bible gone, Pastor Kume faced long, barren days completely alone, with nothing to do. One day he heard a fellow prisoner being led away down the corridor, raving mad from the awfulness of solitary confinement. But God was in Pastor Kume’s heart, and His Presence carried him through the darkest hours. No one could take Him away! The indwelling Christ proved more than enough to bring him through to a triumphant end.

When war ended at last, and Pastor Kume was suddenly free, broken in body but not in spirit. God had brought him through the fires pf persecution, and had given him a faith greater than before.

During the war years Mrs. Kume continued working at the church until her husband was released and able to return, after the war was over. For another twenty years he continued as a faithful minister to his little flock. God prospered the work, and the church flourished under his ministry.

But one day when he was almost 70 years old, Pastor Kume said to his wife, “The responsibility of the church is too much for me now, but I don’t want to retire. I would like to spend the rest of my years exclusively devoted to personal evangelism. What do you think about this?”

“I would like it too,” Mrs. Kume replied, “but how could this be possible?” She knew that her husband’s gentle, compassionate nature, developed through long years of shepherding his people, was not suited to the aggressive dynamic evangelism that would be needed to penetrate the hearts, of the hardened people in society at large.

Obviously he should go to those who were suffering and needed comfort and relief but where could this be? They knew of the Japan Mission, so Pastor Kume applied to join the Mission as a hospital evangelist.

Without interviewing him, I said at once, “This would never do. Such a highly respected evangelical expositor would command such reverence in the Japanese order of things, that we would be despised if we didn’t place him at the head of the Mission. His age alone would demand obedience to him over every one else.

“Besides,” I added, “How do we know what kind of old-fashioned methods arid prejudices he might bring with him?” Without ever meeting him, I felt certain that as a matter of principle, Rev. Kume would be most unsuitable. Sato Sensei was the Senior Evangelist, the head of the Mission, and it would be unthinkable to bring in a newcomer who would usurp his authority.

But Sato Sensei felt quite differently about the matter. He had met Rev. Kume, and been deeply impressed by his obvious saintliness. “Can’t we make an exception to the rule?” he asked me.

I felt that an exception to the rule might establish a precedent that would lead the progressive Mission backwards. What if we needed further staff members, and could only find old people to serve? In many cultures this would be no handicap, but in Japanese society it would pose many special problems that might be difficult to overcome. “Please inform him,” I told Sato Sensei, “that we have nothing against him as I person, and that we highly respect his ability as a Gospel preacher, but explain that we must keep to our policy.”

Sato Sensei relayed the message to Rev. Kume, who was obviously extremely disappointed. But he took the news with great grace and dignity. This dismayed Sato Sensei even more, and he determined to press me into meeting Rev. Kume before a final decision was made.

When Rev. Kume was finally brought to me, he bowed low and said humbly, “I want to join you as if I were a beginner. I do not want any position whatever. I want to spend the rest of my years simply bringing souls to the Lord. I ask that you teach me. You must not treat me in any special way, or give me any kind of authority. I only want to be an ordinary worker for you.”

My pride in “policy” melted before the utter humility of such a man, so obviously called of God to advance His cause with the Mission. I almost wept over the fact that my obstinacy might have caused us to miss this privilege.

After all, we had been praying fervently for workers to serve in Kyoto province and there was a great need, and I had not even recognized the Lord’s answer. During the last nine years Rev. Kume and his wife, with their quiet ways and godly influence have helped maintain the high spiritual standard of the Japan Mission. They have led many TB patients to God.

Among the hospital patients whom the Mission evangelists visited were many old people. Ten percent of the Japanese are over 60 years old. They have little else to do but read the newspaper, listen to the radio or look at television. They are especially vulnerable to tuberculosis. One elderly lady in Habikino Hospital was suffering from diabetes as well as tuberculosis. She went into a coma one day and would have died, had she not been found by one of the Christian patients. This kindness opened her heart to hear of Jesus, and she yielded to His love.

Another trophy of grace was a lady of 77 years who had no one to visit her. When she found Jesus as her Savior, He filled her days with praise. Even though she often falls out of bed in her helplessness, she says that Jesus is her eyes and her legs, and she depends on Him every moment of the day.

A 72 year old lady one time began to wonder who made Sunday. That was the day her daughter could stay home from work, tidy the house, do all the washing and such things. It was a real blessing, Sunday. But where did it come from? No one in Japan had invented it, she was sure of that. whoever it was, he was a miracle worker!

It took her a year to find out Who made Sundays. The mystery was solved when she met one of the Mission workers who invited her to come to a women’s meeting. Here for the first time she heard about God and sin, Heaven and hell. She began to go to church regularly and had her daughter buy a big Bible for her. As she studied the Bible, she readily believed it, and invited Jesus into her life. She destroyed the Buddhist godshelf in her home, even though that year was the 23rd anniversary of her husband’s death, the time when Buddhists hold a very important memorial service.

At the age of 81, her eyes and feet are now failing so badly that she can no longer go to church. But she still receives visitors, and tells of the goodness of the God Who made Sundays. If only someone had told her earlier!

The Japanese people are in bandage to innumerable gods. There is a god for every occasion. There is a god to worship if you have a toothache, another when you make money, another when you want to catch a big fish, and so on. Having so manly gods is quite confusing, even to the Japanese. It is tragic to see how they sometimes drift from god to god, from temple to temple, in order to be able to worship the true god.

One day when I was speaking in an old peoples’ home I said to them, “I’m only able to come here this once, so please listen very carefully to what I have to say about the real, true God, the God of the universe.”

I had a most attentive audience, and afterward two elderly ladies came to me, and bowing very low, said, “You said you could just come here one time. But that is not enough for us to take in everything you have told us about your God. So now we’ve come to worship you. As far as we can see, you are God’s servant, so from now on we will worship you.”

For a moment I didn’t know what to say, I was so deeply grieved that these people, in their eagerness to know God, would actually worship a human being. My heart went out to them in pity, as I began to explain to them again more carefully the way of salvation.

To such longing souls as this the Word of the Lord came, through the ministries of the Japan Mission. Among those to whom it brought the greatest joy in contrast to their former despair, are the lepers. There are 13,000 lepers in Japan, spread out in some 13 leper colonies. Few of, them know the Savior.

But there is joy on the faces of those lepers who know Jesus Christ, even though Many of them are badly disfigured. One of them has lost most of both arms and legs and has had his voice box removed so that he can only talk by covering the hole in his throat. Then he can only whisper, “Sensei’ Sensei!” (“Teacher”)

What is it?” I asked.

This dear man rasped, “it is joy, JOY! to serve Jesus Christ!” Only a coarse noise came out of his throat, but the message was clear.

This man calls himself a Daruma Doll. The Daruma Doll is made without legs, weighted at tile bottom so that if it is pushed over, it will flop straight up again. It is given to persons in Japan to wish them well, as a way of saying, -“Whatever your trial, I hope that you’ll bounce right back again.”

Armless, legless, voiceless, this man joyfully calls himself a Daruma Doll! “Just think,” he croaked to me, “the Holy Spirit is actually living in a body like mine! When people see me they run away. But Jesus Christ is living in me by His Spirit.”

The Word of God is a great treasure to these people. Many lepers spend much time diligently applying themselves to being able to read the Word of God. This is not as simple as it sounds, for 10 percent are blind, and must first learn to read braille. Some are not only blind but have also lost their fingers. Yet with these distorted stumps they persistently pursue the Word of God.

Others have even lost all sense of feeling in the extremities, and yet they rejoice that God has provided them with a substitute. For with their tongue or the inner part of their lips, they seek to delve in braille into the Word of God, sometimes reading until the blood runs down.

Christian lepers are not the only ones to whom the Bible is the greatest treasure. Every Japanese Christian revered the Word of God. If a stranger enters a church without a Bible, they assume he is not a Christian!

A copy of the New Testament came into the hands of a young woman one day, and as she started reading she realized that she had discovered the truth for the first time in her life. She couldn’t put it down. She read for three days and three nights, and then her eyes gave out. Excitedly she phoned a friend and exclaimed, “I’ve found the truth! But my eyes have given out and I can’t read any more. Please come and read for me.”

The friend came, and as a result both of them found the Savior. By the time the Mission evangelist called on her, it wasn’t necessary to lead her to Jesus Christ, for she had already found Him through the power of His Word. Later on this lovely young lady came to the Mission, was accepted and sent to Bible College for further training.

There is a Japanese school boy who is a friend of the Mission who has lost both his arms. At school his desk is flat on the floor, while the other children have regular desks. The reason is that he is writing with his feet. He grabs a pen in his toes and makes the most beautiful letters. He does everything with his feet. He can pick up a spoon and eat some soup. He combs his own hair, dresses himself, and does everything with his feet which serve as hands for him. It’s most wonderful of all to see him paging through the Bible with his toes, for the Bible has become his favorite book.

Another girl has the sight of only one inch left in one of her eyes, and her other eye is completely blind. Yet she loves to spend time reading the Bible. Since the characters in the Japanese bible are written from the right hand side, top to bottom, the second line top to bottom and so on, she has to shift the Bible up and down in front of this one eye of hers, holding it just an inch away, so that she can read it.

Another believer is a helpless invalid with a rare disease that has caused the flesh of her body to become bone. She lies on her bed stiff and straight, unable to bend her joints. The only parts of her body which she can move are her eyes and the fingers on one hand. With these fingers she manipulates two long sticks, and thereby accomplishes an amazing number of tasks.

Much of her time and energy is spent in turning over the pages of her beloved Bible by means of the sticks, for in the midst of her suffering she has found Christ.

I once heard a Japanese minister telling his congregation that it would be a shame to he a fu-fu, pan-pan Christian. I reached for my dictionary to find out what these new words might be, but it wasn’t necessary, for the minister explained. “There are people, he said, “who put their Bible on the book rack, and before they get around to using it, it gathers so much dust that they have to fu-fu, blow on it and pan-pan brush the dust off with their hands. Let’s not be fu-fu, pan-pan Christians!”