Redemptive Analogies

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. So, I want to share with you tonight a story from the jungle of New Guinea, from the mission field, a very head-hunting tribe, cannibals, you know, they ate people, they fought in these battles, they took the heads of the enemies. [00:00:54] When I told them the story of David taking the head of Goliath, I had told them ahead of time that David was a man after God's own heart. And then he was a headhunter, as far as they were concerned. And they said, well then, why do you tell us to quit taking heads if we can be like David? And they started to name their children David. And I thought, oh brother, I'm in trouble. What am I going to do now? and so I didn't talk about David for quite a long time in those churches [00:01:29] and I let him try to have him forget it and then I started talking about Herod Herod the wicked king took the head of John the Baptist the forerunner of Christ, the godly man and you know what happened to Herod I said when he took that head and became a headhunter Then he was eaten of worms. Worms got into him. And he was eaten from the inside. And these people, in their diet, their food wasn't always clean. [00:02:04] They had lots of worms. The children were always passing worms of some kind, all kinds of them. And they thought, oh man, that's what's going to happen to you, take his head. So I started talking about David. I talked about David, other things, but never mentioned his head hunting again. I talked about here, but here this verse, and I was in this village, and this village didn't want us there. They were stealing everything I had, and they were just being belligerent, and my wife just had our first baby, little boy, [00:02:44] and so we lived there at Jaffa and we were miserable there because they looked in every window well we didn't have windows we had mosquito screens they looked through them and they were always chilling around our house our house was too close to the village and they were always so noisy at night and screaming and they were beating on each other and fighting and so we We had to move away from that place and I told the mission, can we move? [00:03:15] Because we found another village that said, come to our village and come and live there. And I said, if you build me an airstrip, I'll come. And if you help me build a house. They said, we'll do that. When I come into this village, all these big flagpoles on the sides of the path as we came up from the river, And on the top of each flagpole was a skull. And I looked at that, and then there was one flagpole that didn't have a skull on the top. [00:03:50] I didn't like the looks of that one at all. And I said, I walked over with it. Well, I thought if I'm going to die here, I die here, but I'm going to do something bold. And I walked over and pulled that stick right out of the ground and said, We won't need that one, will we? And laughed at him. And I threw it away. And so I don't know how they reacted. But anyway, I picked a place where we'd build our house. It was on the cemetery. [00:04:23] They would never come late, build close beside us. They didn't like the cemetery because there were spirit worshippers and they were possessed people. And so we lived there in peace. So, that's a hint for those of you that might be missionaries. So, we bought this piece of ground from the chief. And then we got these pineapples brought in by the pilot, and they stole all those pineapples. [00:04:57] How many of you heard the pineapple story? A good many of you. Well, that's how it went. It was at this place called Abhoi. But I had to get this house built. Now, I left my wife and little child back in Jufo in that about 10 miles down river. And I shouldn't have left her there alone, should have brought her. But we didn't have a place there to stay. So I went to build this house. And some of six guys came to help us build this house. [00:05:29] And we start out early in the morning because it's so terribly hot there. We have a siesta. You know what a siesta is? You stop work in the middle of the day and then you start again at about 4 o'clock and work till dark. But we start early in the morning. We had worked several days and the posts were up and we were starting to put the floor on. And I looked down the trail and there comes this war party. [00:06:02] They were running towards us. They had spears nine feet tall. They were huge spears. I didn't like the looks of this at all. What were they coming our way for running? And I said to the men, the men working with me, Hey, who's this coming down there? But I turned around to look for my men and they're all gone. I guess they had a wrong feeling about them too. And so, I don't know, they're gone into the swamp. [00:06:35] Now, what am I supposed to do? Follow them into the swamp? We white people can't live in that swamp. I mean, it's full of snakes and all kinds of stuff in the swamp. There's no place to walk on there. It kind of made it, I had to make a decision whether to die fast or die slow. And I'd go for the fast ones if I have a choice. And while they were all around me, there was this old guy, I'm telling you, he looked so bad. [00:07:12] I never, you know when I looked at him? I started to believe in evolution. That men came from monkeys, he almost believed it. His teeth were so bad. I mean, he had a big mouth to start with. And then he had all these bad, most of his teeth were broken off. Thank you for watching. [00:07:59] Thank you for watching! A man could lift that nose right up to his forehead. I mean, that was one ugly sight. And he says, come with me. Now, I didn't know much of that OU language at the time. But I understood what he meant, come with me. And I took one look at him and said, I'm not going anywhere with this guy if I can help it. But I had no choice. [00:08:52] The younger men with their spears, man, they were all around me, and they took me by both arms and almost lifted me off the ground and headed down the trail. Man, they were running, they were going fast, man, I barely could get my toes touching the ground, how am I going to get away? And I don't know where they're going, we're going up past the village of Abhoi, up another trail there, which I'd never been, And we're going into the jungle, into the swamp, and we had to walk on these logs, and I'm always sliding off, and they, you know, falling into the muck, and they just laugh at me, they're a cruel bunch, they were, and they laugh at me, but the old fellow, sometimes he'd pick the bloodsuckers off my legs, and so on, so he treated me better than the rest of them, but they would laugh at me, [00:09:45] and I'd fall off the logs and covered with mud, now my tennis shoes were covered with mud and I couldn't even stay on them, they were so slippery. And so I'm going there and I couldn't get away from them because they were all, they were in front of me and behind me and there was nowhere else to walk but on these logs and on these trenches. And I'm sure praying that God would help me because I don't know where I'm going. I asked God once, do you know where I am? You know, if I get away from these guys, which way is home? Because this log path, wherever the tree falls, that's where your thing goes and zigzags around. [00:10:20] Finally, you can't see the sun hardly with all the leaves and all the trees overhead. And, man, I'm hurting. I don't know where to go. And I keep falling off into the swamp. And I ask the Lord, I said, Lord, help me to walk on these swamps. They said, your feet are so dumb, you've got dumb feet, you can't even walk good. And I fought back and said, give me something decent to walk on and I'll show you I can walk. But I fell in again. I gave myself a talking to, see. [00:10:56] I ought to quit acting like an old lady, walk on the blocks and act like a man. So I chewed myself out good, and then I can do it for a while. But then I forget again and fall back in. First they helped pull me out. Later on they just stood and laughed. I thought, what is going on? I get back undetermined to do better. We went on and on and on. It took me an hour to get through that swamp, which now, later, I could do it in half an hour. [00:11:28] But at that time, that was bad. Anyway, finally we got to a village. Got to some dry ground. Great. This was the village of Amenda. And in Amenda, we had a church service later on, and the dogs and the pigs came into the church. Any of you heard my tapes? You heard about that story? That was Amenda. Okay, I came there, and we walked all the way through that village. They weren't afraid of anybody there. They didn't hurry as much. [00:12:01] They were afraid of the Ahboy people, and that's why they escorted them to the village. And we got to the river and they had a canoe there, a big old canoe. I've seen eleven guys standing up behind each other in this canoe all with their long paddles. They had the spear tip on the end of the paddle. They could just whip that thing around. They're always trying to spear fish or to spear crocodiles. And I'm sitting in the middle of this canoe because I'm too tall. Man, they were going every which way, especially after hunting at the same time I was traveling. [00:12:36] And we were going and splashed water in there. Man, I'm glad I had some bark there to sit on. And they're chattering away. Oh, man. You know, what was they talking about? They're headhunters. And I'm a white man. And they've never had a white man, you know. And at one point, I was much skinnier then than I was now. I was just a beanpole, and I have small bones, and I held up my arm, and look, there's not much here, you're wasting your time, you know, and they just kept right on chatting, and I thought, oh man, and I do my praying, you know, you were too, and you wonder, where are we going, how am I going to get away from these, we went down this river, and my tailbone got so tired of sitting on that hard bark there in that bottom of that canoe, and I'm glad they never got a crocodile, [00:13:27] Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. [00:14:27] I didn't know what to say. Well, that village is bad. Anyway, we had to go through that village and we went through that village and finally got out of there, got away from those people and we went down this other, through this swamp, which wasn't so bad, but bad enough because you get tired going through that. And finally, got back to another river, crossed it, and then up ahead we saw this village with tall coconut trees. They must have been 60, 70 feet high. Those coconuts come down. You can't walk too much under them, not when the wind is blowing, because, man, those coconut trees, they come down and they kill a guy. [00:15:08] Anyway, walking through that village, and all these guys with the spears and paddles, they just disappeared into the houses, and I'm left alone with this old guy with the bad nose. And now I'm sitting across the fire from him. What else could I do? I told him I needed something to drink and he sent one of his grandsons up to Coconut Tree and got a coconut down and they cut them off somehow and they throw them down and then he cut it open for me and I had some coconut milk to drink [00:15:39] because they were drinking that dirty river water no wonder they're sick and diseased but I'm sitting across the fire from him and he's talking to me he is talking fast I said, not a word. Slow down. Don't talk so fast. My ears can't listen that fast. And he starts talking slower, but he couldn't understand me much and I couldn't understand him at all. And he's talking and all of a sudden he's quiet. And he's looking at me. What do you got to say now, white man? I'm just sitting there scared. [00:16:15] I don't know what to say to him. I don't know what he wants. and he banged that floor with his hand. Now the floor is a bamboo material and it claps, it rattles. All of them, you hit it hard and just that rattle goes all the way around. It scared me to death. I thought, man, he knew I was scared. I have a word of advice. Any of you ever in a situation like that, don't show fear, okay? But I'd already blown it. and he knew I was afraid because he scared me with that blast of bamboo [00:16:49] and after he did that he started talking to me again trying to explain more fully what he wanted and I don't know what he wanted I have no idea and he spit in the fire and he was frustrated and I knew he was getting madder Thank you for watching. [00:17:42] I couldn't talk to them because they didn't know the language. I begged God for the gift of tongues. And I can't believe myself that I prayed for that. Because I come out of Bob Jones University, a very conservative Baptist college. And man, tongues is the, you know, you stay as far away from people that speak in tongues as you can. And I was educated that way. and I can't believe it that I asked God for the gift of tongues there so that I could hear or speak to him, but I did. [00:18:14] And the Lord never answered that prayer, so he says, come on, let's go. I'm walking in the middle of this pack of guys with spears again, obviously going to the execution grounds. I didn't know where else we would be going at this time. and I prayed and asked God for help to keep me and thought of my wife and young boy back home and will I ever see him again and I said Lord I ask you for the gift of tongues [00:18:44] so I could defend myself and tell them I mean no harm and I'm here to help them to tell them about Jesus and I didn't even have a chance because he couldn't, he has no English and I didn't know how you and so I thought man where are we going so we're going down this trail through it was a mud bank and I thought oh and I hope you pray for missionaries because sometimes the missionaries get so tired so scared they don't know how to pray for themselves anymore they just kind of give up [00:19:18] and we've got to hold them up in prayer anyway we got through this walk through this mud and then we Thank you for watching! [00:19:56] Thank you for watching! I couldn't even reason. I didn't even realize it. [00:20:30] So, I'm sitting in this canoe praying the best I could. And we're moving right along with about all these guys paddling. I mean, those things really go. It's one hollow tree. I've seen 21 guys stand in one of those hollow tree canoes. Just going like crazy and paddling. Well, we had about, oh, I don't know, about five guys behind me paddling and about five guys in front of me paddling. And so I don't know how many were. [00:21:00] Anyway, finally we get to another village and I thought, what are we doing here? I have no clue where I am. And I just say, God, I hope you know where I am. I can't go home myself because I don't know which way home is. And we get to this village and that was the village of Amenda again. No, that, first it was a village hypo again where there's people later on threatened me so bad. Got through there without any problems. [00:21:31] They saw all the guys with the spears with me, so that was good. They saw the guy with the bad nose with me and that was good too. Because everybody respected that guy I found out later. And we got back in the canoe and so on. It was almost getting dark. I was hungry, I was thirsty. and they drank that dirty river water. And we came to the village of Abahoy. That's where I was building a house, but I didn't know we came in from the other direction. I'd never come in from the other direction and see that village. [00:22:03] And finally, we walk on down there, where I find that I made the airstrip there. And all of a sudden I see a house there. Hey, there's somebody building a house there. That was me. That was my house that I was building. They brought me right back there again. And I stood there and I said, now I know where I am. I know my boat is the other way, two and a half hours through that swamp, but I'll never get there before dark. But I'm getting out of here because this guy with the nose is kidnapping me and he's after me. [00:22:34] I've had the worst day of my life. Never worried so much and fussed so much and prayed so much. And so I had a corner of that house a little bit of the roof put on so I had a place to sleep. and I blew some air in that air mattress and got my mosquito net up because the mosquitoes were bad and I tried to sleep. Man, I couldn't sleep. All I could see was that guy with the bad nose, that ugly guy, most ugly guy I'd ever seen. And I prayed and I couldn't sleep. [00:23:06] I'm waiting for the morning, okay? Have you ever had a day and a night so bad that you waited for the morning? I, one person says, she has, most of you are too young, you haven't lived long enough, it'll be there sometime. Waiting for the morning. And when the light came in, then I got up and I tied up my net and packed my stuff and packed my tools. I went to the village of Aboy there, I said, some of you guys carry my stuff to the river. [00:23:40] And I'll pay you for it. And they said, you mean, aren't we going to finish the house? I said, no way. You know, I couldn't explain this, what had happened to me that day. I guess they were glad to see me alive, so they'd get their job back. But, so I took my boat all the way down that river by myself and came home. My wife says, did you already build the house? Are we going to move now? And I said, we're not going to build the house. It's partly there, but I'm not going to move there. [00:24:13] There's a guy after me. He kidnapped me to some place, and I thought I was going to die all day long. And I'm not going to meet that guy again if I can help it. We're going to stay here. She said, well, we can't stay here. This village here is nobody wants us here, and they steal from us. And I didn't go back for two or three months. Finally, she talked me into it and she says, go back and finish the house. I'll pray for you. Well, I should be praying for her alone in that enemy village of Jufo. And she says, I'll pray for you. You go back, finish that house. So finally, I did. And we came back and they helped me and I finished that house after a couple of weeks. And we were ready to move in. And then a great day came when they carried all our stuff through that slum. I was in a three and a half hour swamp and they brought it all there. [00:25:10] And those people were actually willing to see us and they built a church already. And they said, you preach to us. So here's all these people sitting in church and me standing up here and I don't know what to say in all of you. I mean, but we had church anyway. Taught them a few little songs and church was over. And then they worked on the house again. We kept working on the airstrip to someday a plane would land in this place right through the middle of the village. [00:25:40] We moved the houses all back and right through the middle there we made this airstrip. And later they did land on it. But that was the introduction to the village of Abahoy. And I wondered what this was all about. Oh, how I prayed about it. and how I needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit and how I asked the Holy Spirit to fill me in and learn to language. I saw that guy with the bad nose come. [00:26:13] Man, I hid in the house and closed all the curtains and man, I never came out until he was gone. I just outlasted him. And finally he'd go. He had no place in that village. And so he walked back to his Hashima village. I saw him so often. Every village had contests. Nosebone contests, I call them. You know, so every village had these guys with bad noses like that. And I thought I've seen the same guy. [00:26:43] You know, they have no clothing. They're all dark skinned and all curly black hair, you know. He was getting gray. But I saw so many of them and I didn't know which one was which that was after me. So, man, I had a bad time those years until I fully learned the language. And then I asked one of the men, I said, what is this guy with the bad nose? Who is he? And he would say, which one, from which village? And I said, from the village. I didn't even know the name of it. The guy that came and kidnapped me that first day. [00:27:16] And he's rubbing his nose, that's how they think. Man, it's bad when they never blow their nose, you know, it's a mess. But that's how they think. There are a whole bunch of people thinking together, it's amazing to see. The more they rub, the more they're thinking. So, I couldn't explain who this was. And finally, I saw him again. And I said, Yesi, and I called Yesi and told him, I said, the guy is around here again. [00:27:50] Who is this guy? And he says, oh, that's Naraway. I said, Naraway. He kidnapped me, took me to some place, some, oh, he's from Hashima. And Yesi told me, he says, why does your missionary, your white man, Always hide from me. I never get to talk to him anymore. He says, Jesus says, why are you that way? I'm scared of him. I'm afraid that he's going to kidnap me again. [00:28:21] And I nearly died the first time. Ah, Tuan, don't be afraid of him. He's wanting to know about Jesus. I said, what? He says, yeah, he's all right. and so finally I learned enough of the language from Yacy and from the others and not a way excepted the gospel. He says, I want Jesus. And Yacy and him were the first two converts [00:28:53] and they were the only two converts I had for the first seven and a half years and in the pastor's meeting I told about how then the revival came and then it broke out and many started to turn to the Lord all over the place But these were the first Christians. Ah, we didn't have long baptismal services. No, we didn't. We got them in there and dunked them under and got out of there. Too many crocodiles. You don't want to hang around in the river, see? [00:29:24] And I did that twice. The second time I baptized my own son and a couple more of his friends that wanted to follow. But that was years later. But I only did it twice, folks. And from then on, I did the coaching from the shore. And I'd tell them what to do. And I'd read the Bible or whatever verses I had. And I'd say, now, you put them under now in the name of Jesus. [00:29:55] Say this, you know, in the name of Jesus Christ and so on. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Well, they did it. And they did it fine. So they sense the crocodiles and those poisonous snakes that are in the river and so on much better than I can. So, hey, that's the way it was. Then Nottoway said to me one day, he says, come to my village. I said, where is your village? Ah, it's past Haibu. [00:30:30] I didn't know the name of the village of Haibu yet. And I said, okay, I'll come Sunday. I said to Yeshu, will you come with me? He said, yeah. So now I started to take a few guys with me from my village. And we got to that... Well, he said, no, we'll come and get you. So Yeshu was with me. I usually take one guy with me. And I'm sitting in this canoe. And these guys are paddling. Some of those... I seem to have seen them before. [00:31:00] But that was years before, and maybe four years before. And Nadaway had come look for me so many times, and he never was able to talk to me. But now I could talk, and he brought me there, in that same canoe ride, in the same swamp. I was doing better now because I learned to walk in the swamps and on those roads, slippery logs. And so we got to his village. He sat in this place, in this house, across the fire from him, and he says, [00:31:35] Tuon, when you were here before, the first time you were here, why were you so scared? I said, I've never been here before, as far as I know. He says, yeah, Tuon, remember when your baby was very small, many moons ago, you sat right there, across the fire from me, right in this corner of the house. He says, it wasn't this house, that house fell down, but we built another house right in the same spot, right by this fire. And he says, I said, not a way, I don't think I was here before, I can't remember. [00:32:09] It's been so long. And then he lifted up his nose. I said, yeah, I've seen you before. And all of a sudden I remember, you're the guy that kidnapped, you're the guy that brought me here. He says, yeah, I do. I wanted you to tell me about Jesus. I wanted you to tell me how I could get to the right side of the river up there. The wrong side of the river is fire, the other side of the river is, it's nice. And so many crocodiles in that river nobody can get across, for me to say. [00:32:44] And I said, how did you get that idea? He says, my father told me. I said, how long? Oh, many moons ago. He said, he used to sleep on that side of the fire where you're sitting. And he told me, not only, if the white spirit comes in your day, you listen to him. If the white spirit comes in your day, you listen to the words he says. You take his hand, you walk with him, you go with him, you take care of him. [00:33:16] He says, that's what my father told me. And I said, how did your father know I was coming? He said, all the older people knew you were coming. I didn't know I was coming. I mean, this probably happened a long time ago. And he says, and they're all waiting for you to tell them how to die right. That's heathen people, way back in the jungle, waiting for somebody to tell them how to die right. And he says, my father lived the longest of all the people that saw the one-armed man. [00:33:50] I said, what did he see? He said, well, this big canoe, this cold-skinned canoe came up the river. And it was a diesel boat, a patrol boat of the government that had come all the way a hundred miles up the river and the water was high so he could come all the way to where the Hashima village was. They'd never heard, can you imagine them hearing that booming sound of a diesel motor and they'd never heard a motor before. And he says, they came all the way up and we're here and we're all talking to each other and wondering what this was. [00:34:25] And when we see them come around the bend we all jump, flood into the jungle, scared. And he says, they kept coming, kept coming, they came right to where we were, hidden in the jungle. They couldn't go any further, it got too shallow for that big, he says, it was a big canoe, it was a big canoe, all right. And he said there was a one-armed man stood on the very bottom, very, very front end of it. His arm was probably bit off by a crocodile or something, I don't know. [00:34:57] He's still alive and it had healed over and then he was stumped there. And he says he stood on the front of the boat and we started peeking out from behind the brush and the trees and they said, you know, finally we got brave and stood on the shore. And he says, why are you all so scared? Hey, you don't need to be afraid. There's a white man, white-skinned devil or spirit is going to come. [00:35:32] And he's going to give you this message. He's going to tell you that you've got to believe in me and believe in Jesus. That's what they said. So he didn't remember the name too good. And he's going to tell you how to die right, how to get to the right side of the river. Remember, take care of him when he comes. Believe his talk when he comes. And that was the message. And I said to Naderay, how did your father hear this message? [00:36:04] Did he know the language he spoke? He said, he had to, and everybody understood what he meant. And that's the first miracle in the story. How did the man on the boat, who was not an Avio, who was obviously from Asmat, a hundred miles downriver, how did he speak the same language that our people understood that day? And they got the message clearly. And so the boat went back. The message had been given. They said a white spirit is going to come, a white-skinned spirit. [00:36:39] And he's going to tell us how to get to the right side of the river when we die. How to die without crying, without screaming, and without fear. And I said, did your fathers and all the men believe that he was telling the truth? He says, oh, Tuan, he was telling the truth. I said, how do you know he was telling the truth? He says, Tuan, because he had only one arm, that's why. Now, what does having one amputated arm, a stump, have to do with telling the truth? [00:37:12] And he says, Tuan, Tuan, you don't understand. Everybody that's ever had a stump like that or had a finger missing or a leg or a foot missing, they would die from infections in that jungle. You couldn't survive without getting infection because they're so dirty and everything's so dirty. And he says, this, he already died. He already died from infection and got there and saw that river. [00:37:44] And he came back. And he knows what he's talking about. He says, there's a good side of the river. And he got the message. And so he, they said, oh, that's why we know he told the truth. And then we heard that you were coming. You know, later on, that's what Nodaway said. And they thought, he's come in my day. His father died and he was waiting. He said, son, take care of this white spirit, whoever he is, because he's going to tell his truth. [00:38:15] And can you imagine, this guy can't pray. He doesn't know God. He's sitting in a jungle. Where's this white spirit going to come from? And will I be able to talk to him? Well, then they heard that in Jufo I'd come with my wife and so on. And then they said, oh, but he couldn't go to Jaffa because, man, those are enemies, they would have really messed him up. They probably would have killed him. And so the white spirit is so close and yet he can't get to him and he can't pray. [00:38:47] And he waited and he said, I got older. I was, he says, by the time you came, I was the only one that still talked about the spirit that is going to come. and because his father was one of the last ones to die. So when I came, he said, oh man, how can he? Then when he heard that I was building this house in Amoy where I left my wife at Jafo and came halfway to where he lived and he heard, ah, he's come closer by. [00:39:21] They're enemies, but not that bad. I can send spies out there to see what he's doing. And when they heard that I was building a house there, he sent guys out to check what time in the morning I'd start before the cowboy people were really awake or before maybe just a few workers, before the guys, the fighting men would come. And so he kidnapped me to find out. Now, I told you a story of how I sat across the fire and I couldn't talk to him. [00:39:51] What a disappointment to me, to him. Here was the white spirit that was going to tell him how to die right, how to get to the right side of the river, and he has never, and he can't talk. And he's getting older, and he thought he was going to die. He said, Tuan, I waited and waited until you got smart. You're so dumb. You can't talk. And I said, I'm trying, you know, so later on when I went there, I said, yeah, it took me a long time. He says, Tuan, I thought I was going to die before you're going to get smart and talk. [00:40:25] And so, I said, he says, you know, I almost died. I got the fevers and I started drinking water. And he says, you know what, Tuan, you're drinking up water, you sometimes can lick the fevers. So maybe he had more truth than, I guess we should drink clean water. Anyway, he said, and I went back to see you and you were still hiding from me. And then I got sick again. This time everybody says, not only are you going to die, you might as well quit drinking water, you might as well quit eating and die. And I said, no I will not. The white devil has come and he's going to tell us how to die right and I'm going to live. And because he had hope, he stayed alive and time went again. So later when I met him, he was weak, he was old, but he was still alive and I was able to lead him to Christ. [00:41:15] Man, he'd waited a long time for me. And then he says, now I want you to come to my village. I want all the rest of them to believe in Jesus too. And that's exactly what happened. He said, my sons are going to believe in Jesus and you are, you're going to tell them. And we're building a church already, a building where we gather together. And one given Sunday, he had come early in the morning with some men. and they brought me there to preach to them. [00:41:47] Language was a little bit different, different dialect over there. But they understood and people started to be born again in that place. Waited a long time. And what is this story about? It's a redemptive analogy. You know what redemption means, you know what an analogy is. And it's a way that God, that the story God put in their hearts and in their minds The ones that they understood that somebody's coming, that there's hope, and the ones that really searched for it, believed it. [00:42:18] And Naderay was one of the few that believed it, and he told all his people, and they became our church later on. Redemptive analogies. It's a thing that God builds into people so that they can believe. Ah, there's many good redemptive analogies. There was a man in Thailand who, there was a couple of missionaries there, they'd learned the language of these people there in Thailand, and they couldn't get anywhere and nobody believed them and they didn't understand what he had to say. [00:42:52] There was one man in another area of that tribe, same language, who had great success. Many were turning to Christ in that place. And finally these missionaries, so frustrated, called them and said, Why don't you come to our people? They receive your message. Why don't you come? And maybe you can reach them for Christ. And this guy came in and his custom was, he never carried a briefcase. He used to carry his Bible under his arm like this. And when they saw him walk in with a book under his arm, or with this object under his arm, [00:43:28] They all got so excited. They started shouting and the shout was so loud. Other people heard it and they came and they said, He has come. He has come. The one that's going to tell us truth has come. They were as excited as we would be if Jesus came back today. He has come. and so and they said to him this what is this thing under his arm under your arm and he said it's the book of God it tells us how to go to heaven it tells us to avoid hell and they said and they said just a minute just a minute and they called the chiefs and all the rest of them they had a huge crowd to listen to him tell the gospel because he knew their language and he says in other words this book under his arm [00:44:14] that God had put in their minds. Somebody's going to come and bring the truth and it was him that brought the truth because that was his habit. God just had him always carry his book in his arm wherever he went. And so the people received the gospel. It was a redemptive analogy. Who had given the people that knowledge that someone could come with an object under his arm? That was God. That was his way to reach those people. Ah, just recently we heard of a missionary lady in the islands of the Pacific, east of New Guinea where we were, on one of those islands. [00:45:00] And she tried everything and she learned the language well and she couldn't reach her people and she was wondering what to do. And one day she got to the story of Jesus healing the blind man. Remember how it said that Jesus spat on the ground and made a spittle with the clay and took the clay and anointed his eyes? I mean, what a kind of crude way of healing a person. [00:45:30] He could have just mentioned it, couldn't he? And he could have, he did that another time. But he anointed his eyes, go wash in a pool of Siloam. Can you imagine this guy with this mud on his eyes? He's going to wash in a pool of Siloam. And when he came back, he could see. And it was a miracle. Another time, Jesus spat on a man's tongue. He was deaf and dumb. And a crude way of healing people. Now don't you guys go around spitting on other people's tongue or anything. [00:46:03] Jesus did, and the man could start to talk, and started to, he could talk, and he, hey, there was three incidents, I searched this out, there's three incidents where Jesus used spittle, and he went and spat in a guy's eyes, can you imagine that, what a crude way to do it, and the man got seeing, and this lady missionary started talking these stories, And they started dancing up and down. They were so excited. [00:46:38] You know what was about that tribe? That tribe believed that if you had powerful spit, you could get to be chief. They had spitting contests. They would blow a mouthful of spit and see who could spit the best and furthest and so on. And when Jesus could spit on a man, in a man's eyes, and he could see again, That was the most powerful spit they'd ever encountered. And so he said, wow, Jesus is the chief, Jesus is the chief. [00:47:10] Because he wins the contest. Never saw that powerful spit. And so they started to believe in him and she told them more about this Jesus, how he healed people. And they asked Jesus to do it and this kind of thing happens and they're healed. And they started worshiping the Lord. Jesus is the chief. Isn't he? He is the most powerful one. And so these are divine appointments, these are divine analogies. Now, when you and I read this book of John, and we see these stories about Jesus making mud off the spittle and so on, and spitting, [00:47:51] have you ever wondered about that? What is this all about? What a crude way of healing when he had the power to just say the word and a man would be whole. But you know, Jesus had those people with that strange custom in mind when he wrote that story in the Bible. So that they could, I believe everything written that Jesus said, every miracle and the way he did things, All had some people in mind so that they could understand from that and be saved. [00:48:26] That's why I read you the first, oh the depth of the wisdom and power of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways by finding out. How amazing he is that he had those people in mind and he had us in mind and had us understand the gospel. When so many others don't understand and don't want the gospel, and you and I were here tonight believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I mean, what an amazing thing that God allowed this for us to happen to us. [00:48:59] Ah, there was a guy, a missionary among the Eskimos up in Alaska, up in northern Canada, up in that area. And he had been there a long time and knew the language, tried every which way to show them how to believe. and they still wouldn't, nothing registered and he tried whatever way and he finally, you've heard of Bill Bright who had these four spiritual laws. [00:49:32] He had this little booklet with four spiritual laws and one day a group had gathered and he held up four fingers and he says, There are four spiritual laws. We believe these laws, we'll get to heaven, we'll understand Jesus. And they all shouted at him, do you know what the laws are? Do you know what the laws are? And he says, yes. And he has a little book there. And he says, wait a minute, and they gathered everybody. He found, he knows what the laws are. [00:50:02] They'd been searching for the laws that would show them how to have life eternal, everlasting life. They'd waited for some... They were like Einstein looking for the law of physics that would solve the whole problem. But they were searching for them. And he said, there are no laws. And then he just went one, two, three, four about salvation, about repentance, and about accepting Christ, and so on. And they said, wow, that's how we're going to get to heaven. [00:50:33] Now, who put that in their mind, folks? Who put that in their generations before that they were looking for? And then Bill Bright wrote that book and his missionary brother and led them all to Christ. The whole Indian Eskimo tribe, the whole area came to know the Lord because of that little booklet, The Sport of Spiritual Life. And so these are redemptive analogies. And Don Richardson, the writer of Peace Child, he found them all over the place. He went to tribes and studied what makes them tick. [00:51:09] In other words, we don't have to go and try for years and years and just preach. No, we've got to ask God, what is it that you've built into these people so that they can believe and so that they could understand the gospel and be saved. And I pity those missionaries that went to some of those countries and for years and years and years labored there trying to preach the gospel and still didn't get through them. And they never thought to ask God, what is it that you build into these people so that they can be saved? [00:51:42] And that's the joy that we can use today. I was 17 and I was saved in Hamilton Youth for Christ up in Canada. And I went to the Welland Canal. There was a little church there in Thorold, Ontario. And I didn't know how to preach very well. And I just asked God to use me the first time I had a chance to speak. And I speak on Jonah, how Jonah ran away from God and how God caught up with him and so on. [00:52:12] That was the story. I don't preach that one anymore. But I'm telling you what happened. They received a message and they knelt at the front of the church and the altar and they repented and they were weeping and revival broke out in the little church and almost everyone was there because of that message. And I thought, wow, I'm a good preacher. My first time. You know what I mean? Well, God saw, understood my thoughts and that was all over. But I preached that sermon on Jonah [00:52:44] and I go to other places, preach that same message on Jonah and fell flat. And I thought, man, I thought I had the key. That I could, like the missionaries there, that I could reach these people for Christ. And sometimes now even I have a message and in one church it goes over and everybody starts believing and going home rejoicing in what they've heard. [00:53:15] And then I say, man, I've got the message now. I preach in the next place and nothing happens, just as dry as can be. Has that happened to you, preacher? You think you got the key, now you know how to do it. No, you never know how to do it, because God's got to do it. And God's got to let you know what it is. And that's why we, you know, so many missionaries we encountered there were so smart. I mean, they had all kinds of degrees, college degrees, you know, and linguistics and anthropology and translation and all this stuff. [00:53:56] and they were so smart and then there was Carol and me and we weren't anything at all. You know, we just barely got to the mission field, okay. And I said one time, man, if it takes all those degrees. I mean, one guy had so many degrees we called him Fahrenheit. And I thought, if it takes all that, man, what are we doing here? That's not the key, folks. It's not whether we're smart or not so smart or dumb. [00:54:29] It's do we know how to get on our knees and say, God, what is it? If you were here, what would you say? Ask Him. Because we don't know what we're doing. We don't know how to do it. And God could show you the way. and all of a sudden the people turn and they hear something. That happened to me after seven and a half years. That's when people started to turn to Christ. And I was so thrilled. [00:55:01] Anybody can get on their knees. Don't you believe that? You can all find a lonely spot and fall on your knees and say, God, what is it that I should say? Or what is it that I should preach? or what is it that these people should hear and let me do it. And you see God's blessing. This is the way to get God's work done. Not through studying and many classes. Ah, if you've got the brains to go to school and to learn all this Greek and Hebrew and Latin and whatever. [00:55:36] If you've got, alright, do what you, if God gave you the brains to do it, learn it. But don't be proud of that. Still get on your knees and say, God, what do I say here? All right? And then we can all be used of God. And the same it is with witnessing. I had some verses one time, and I met this guy, and I started talking to him. I had three or four verses. And the guy was saved. The guy believed. And I thought, wow, I got it now. I'm going to use those same four verses. [00:56:07] Man, the next guy I met used those verses, This is nothing. Just left. All right. It was good for one, but it wasn't good for the other. And every situation is different, and you must get God's mind on it. So, remember this message on redemptive analogies, that everything in the Bible is there for a reason. You get to get the right verse in the right place in the Bible for the next opportunity you have. And leave it up to God. and you've probably done it. [00:56:40] I talked to one guy and I didn't say anything that I'd ever said before. I talked to an illustration about my brother and I when we were kids. Apparently he had a brother too that did the same thing to him and this just clicked with him. He says, yeah. And I said, well that's how Jesus is with us. And he says, yeah. And so that story from my background clicked in that man's mind. [00:57:15] And it caused him to come to Christ. Now, all of us have experiences of the past. And God can help us to recall those things and bring those things to people so that they can identify with them. There is no given way. There is no certain way to do it, folks. It's got to be God through us to reach people. Whether it's on a mission field or here at home. Will you do that? Will you ask God, what is it I say? [00:57:50] And it may not be anything that you've ever said before. And it surprises you when it comes out of your mouth. And yet it clicks with the people that you're talking to. Isn't that good? Praise God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father we thank you for redemptive analogies, we thank you for what you do, we thank you for what you allow, the miracles you do and really salvation is a miracle and we know it. And for you to save anyone on a mission field or here at home, Father it is a miracle and we must give you the glory and it's got to be you saying this guy knows it and this is the way to do it and then we can see wonderful results. [00:58:34] We thank you. If we pray that you might help every one of us, that we might be good witnesses for you and take the opportunities we have. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now, folks, Jesus had an advantage, didn't he? He knew what they were thinking before he started. We don't. Right? And that's right. He just says something different to Nicodemus, something different to Mary Magdalene, something different to Zacchaeus. You look at all the way, everybody, He never did the same thing because he knew what was in man. [00:59:08] But he will share it with us if we seek his face. Thank you.