Tag Archives: spiritual warfare

God’s Secret Weapon

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God’s Secret Weapon

The Problem
Each time Jo or I told a story to the Canela people about Jesus performing a miracle, they told us a story of the great exploit of some Canela culture hero from their legends and myths. We tried to tell them that the stories we told them were special, true, real, and unique. Our stories were about the Great Father’s Son. They didn’t understand the difference. We prayed that someday they would.

Then it got worse. The Brazilian government changed, and the new officials would not allow any missionaries to live and work among any indigenous peoples. We felt like we lived in exile away from our home and friends in the Canela village. We prayed that God would intervene.

 The Permit
We kept on working at the mission centre in the city, completing seven easy-reading booklets and the books of Luke, Acts, and 1&2 Thessalonians. When the newly printed books arrived, we made a formal request to the government to visit the Canela village to deliver these ten books.
We praised God when we received a notice that permission had been granted but with exceptions. I had to fly to Sao Luis to see the government official. He gave me the permit and asked me to read it, paying careful attention to the last sentence. “The books of sacred Scripture are not  included in this permit.”
“Sign this permit,” the official said, “to promise you will not leave the Scripture books in the village.” I shot up a prayer and signed the document. At the centre, we all prayed for God’s solution.

The Excitement
The next day, John, a fellow missionary, and I loaded a steel drum with seventy-five sets of books packed in plastic bags onto his pickup truck and left for the Canela. They received us with great joy and excitement especially when they saw the seventy-five parcels of ten books in their language. The chief and elders immediately ordered me to the central plaza to report.
I showed them each of the seven reading books. The elders were pleased to see several of their favourite legends in print. When I finished, the chief pointed to the three remaining books, the Scripture books. “What about those books?” he asked.
“Oh, those are different. I can’t leave them here, even though we made them for you to read.”
“Why not? What are they about?”
“One is about Jesus, the Son of the Great Father, when He lived on earth long ago. And the other is about what the followers of Jesus did, the thin one is the counsel of Paul, one of the elders of the Jesus group.”
“Well, you can at least tell us what is in those books,” the chief said.

The Explanation
So, for the next hour, I read excerpts from each of the Scripture books.
“We really want those books!” the chief exclaimed, “Why can’t you leave them?”
“I promised not to leave them. But I’ll leave them with my friend Sr. Duca in Barra town,” I said, “You can go there and pick them up and bring them in yourselves.”
The Canela elders complained, “It’s seventy kilometres to town. That’s four days of walking!”
“Do those government people have these stories in their language?” the chief asked.
“Yes, they have. All the stories about Jesus were translated into Portuguese long ago. Brazilians have been reading them for many generations.”
“Then, why can’t we read those books and choose whether we want them or not? They did!” the chief exclaimed.
“Just leave them here,” one of the elders advised, “We won’t tell anyone you did.”
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” I said, showing them my copy of the document, “I promised the government chief that I would not leave them in the village and signed this paper.”

The Chief’s Anger
Suddenly, the chief sprang up, pulling his machete from its sheath. He laid the sharp edge on his forearm, and, with his face inches from mine, shouted, “If I cut my arm what comes out? Blue stuff? No! Red blood. We Canelas are human beings just like those city people! Why do they treat us as if we aren’t people? Why can’t we have what they have had for a long time?”
I couldn’t answer, and we sat quietly for a while. Then the chief said, “The elders’ council will talk about this some more, and in the morning, we’ll tell you what we have decided.”

God’s Reveals His Weapon
At sunrise, the chief ordered, “Put all those books back into that steel drum on your truck. Then, drive back up the road through the gate where the Indian land ends. My son will follow you on the government tractor and will bring the drum back and distribute the books. You will have kept your promise, and we will have all the books.”

We heard later that the first books everyone wanted to read were, of course, the special books, the forbidden ones. It was a clear example of Psalm 76:10, “Human defiance only enhances your glory, for you use it as a weapon.” (NLT). God used the government’s angry prohibition to draw attention to the uniqueness of His Word. From then on, the Canelas considered the Bible stories as special, true, and unique.

When, over ten years later, the Scriptures were published the book was called, Pahpam Jarkwa Cupahti Jo Kahhoc. God’s Highly Respected Word.

(This is an excerpt from the memoir of the Canela Decades we are currently completing, From Adventure to Spiritual Battle.)

“The Devil was a Murderer from the Beginning.” John 8:44

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“The Devil was a Murderer from the Beginning.” John 8:44

From Prohibition to Permission
The government-led opposition to our translating the Scriptures into the Canela language was so intense, Jo and I had spent years in virtual “exile,” not being allowed to live and work in the village. Finally, government policies changed, and we were able to return to work with the people we loved and who had longed for us to be back with them.

The month of school vacation we had just spent in the village was extra special since it was the first time since our exile, that our three daughters were with us. We praised God for the opportunity to show love to the Canelas as we interacted with them and translated more of God’s Word into their language.

On our Way Back Home

Same truck, same daughters, different load, different trip

Now, we were driving back to the mission centre in Belem in our little quarter-ton pickup truck. Jo and I were looking forward to getting home by late afternoon. Our three daughters and two of their friends were riding on the baggage in the back of the truck while Jo and I rode in the cab. I was driving as fast as the little four-cylinder engine would let us and slowly caught up to a large gravel truck ahead of us. I pulled over and started to pass the truck at a walking pace. There had been no oncoming traffic for quite a while, and I saw nothing up ahead.

When our cab got even with the truck cab, the driver looked down, saw Jo, smiled, and waved. She waved back, then, as we pulled ahead a little more, he saw our girls and their friends in the back. He apparently wanted to have some fun to break the boredom of a long, boring drive, so, he accelerated to keep up with us and waved at the girls. Since we were now going up a long slope, I couldn’t possibly go any faster, so we drove side by side. I motioned at him to let me pass, but he just grinned and kept even with us.

Oncoming Disaster and Death
Then, up ahead, a large truck appeared over the top of the slight hill we were climbing. I waved at the driver next to us to let us pass, but he kept grinning at our girls and maintained his speed.

As the oncoming truck barreled towards us, I slammed on the brakes to get behind the truck we had been trying to pass. To my horror, he too, seeing the disaster about to happen, slammed on his brakes, and so we stayed side by side.

I immediately swerved to the left side of the road and steered towards the bush-filled ditch. We were still scraping along the bush and saplings as the oncoming five-ton truck, heavily loaded with machinery, roared between us and the gravel truck with mere inches to spare. Our adrenaline level, already high, spurted over the top as the driver blared his airhorn, venting his fear and anger at us.

I backed out of the ditch and started passing the still-stopped gravel truck when the driver opened his door and looked at us. I gave him the universal ‘What were you trying to do?’ hand signal, both hands open and shaking my head.

God Preserves His Servants
Jo and I thanked God for preserving us through this harrowing near disaster. Obviously, some spiritual entity had evil intentions, wanting to kill us. But Someone Else wanted us alive, to continue to serve Him as translators of His Word for the Canela people.

(This is a page from chapter 16 of our forthcoming memoir)

The Christmas of the Spiritual Battle

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The In-Village Work Completed At Last
I felt so happy and excited it seemed as if Christmas had begun on Thursday, September 28th, 1989. I looked up from the page of Canela translation and said to Jaco, our best translation helper, “Yeah, we’re done! This is the last page. You and I have worked and learned together since you were a teenager, and now you are a married man with a family and responsibilities. Thank you, Jaco, for being so faithful. You kept taking time to work with me to translate God’s Word into your language.” Jaco grinned broadly, sharing my delight at completing a massive project–translate, check, improve, and approve every one of 370,000 words in the Canela partial Bible. We kept grinning at each other as we celebrated with coffee and Jo’s cookies.

“I will be processing all our work on computers,” I explained. “It will take many months, first in Belem, and then in Brasilia, but by early next August, when no one is working in their fields, Jo and I’ll be back in the village with boxes full of printed Bibles; everyone will see your work, and you will finally hold the Book of God in your hands.”

Satan’s Fury and Revenge
That was the plan, but I had failed to remember that we had an Evil Enemy. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood . . . but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12.) Satan is a poor loser. After having imprisoned countless generations of Canelas, he knew that with the arrival of God’s Word, the recent trickle of escapees would turn into a complete jailbreak. He was furious and wanted revenge. God was still ultimately in control, but, as in the case of Job, he allowed Satan to inflict some injury.

Two months later, the day Jo and I finished dealing with the new material, we got word that Jaco was very sick, and his family was bringing him to Belem for us to care for him.

Jaco looked fragile when he and his family arrived. He was mentally confused and could not walk unaided. I immediately took him to our doctor, gave him medicines, and took him for a dozen tests, but he got worse instead of better.

Ten days later, he had gall bladder surgery, during which time he had a cerebrovascular accident and went into a coma. When I explained to Kajari, Jaco’s wife, why he was in a coma, she said,

“After you left the village, he was repairing our house, and a heavy beam fell on his head. We thought he was dead, but he got up again. He’s been sick and confused ever since.” The doctor said that head trauma probably caused the brain bleed. I took Kajari to see him in the ICU twice a day, and we prayed over him constantly for weeks, but there was no improvement.

“Satan is sure a poor loser,” I said to Jo. “He is mad at losing his hold on the Canelas. And it seems God is letting Satan take his anger out on Jaco and his family.”

Yet Another Attack
But Satan was not done yet. On Christmas Eve, we got a phone call from Cheryl in Canada, “Mommy, Grandpa in Oliver just died, and Grandma is also very sick. Please come home right away.”

I can remember nothing about Christmas, except Jo packing to leave for Canada the day after Boxing day. It was a huge hassle to get a ticket at such short notice, board a flight to the US, and then to Canada. She arrived, in Oliver, utterly exhausted, the day before the funeral. Jo, our three daughters and Jo’s Mom comforted and supported each other during the funeral and the days following. Since Cheryl was slated for gall bladder surgery a week or so later, Jo stayed to be with her.

Kajari’s Sacrifice
Meanwhile, I received word from the director of publications, “If the first two weeks in August is the best time to have a Bible dedication celebration among the Canela, you need to start work here on January 1st.

“Kajari,” I said when we were on our way to visit Jaco, “I need to go to Brasilia to work for four months to make the Bible ready for the printer to make books. So, I need to leave very soon.”

“But how will I see my husband?” she interrupted, crying, “Don’t leave me!”

“I have already asked four of our friends to take you to see Jaco as often as you want every day.”

Through tears, she said, “My husband has sacrificed to help you make God’s Book in our language, but I have never done anything to help. So, this time, I will sacrifice. You can go. I will depend on your friends to take me to see my husband.”

I left for Brasilia, and two days after I arrived, Jaco died. The Wycliffe plane took Jaco’s coffin, Kajari, and her baby directly to the village. Jaco’s friends and the rest of his family had already left for home on the bus.

Celebrating the Victory
God then intervened, and Satan’s attacks ceased. Jo joined me in Brasilia, and on May 9th, we celebrated with praise to God and turned the 750 camera-ready pages over to the printer.

On Friday, August 10th, Jo and I were in the village with boxes full of Canela Bibles, excited and eager to celebrate the victory. Joining us in our delight were my Dad and Mom, Jo’s Mom, my brother Henry, and his wife, as well as our three daughters, one with her husband, the other two with their boyfriends, and of course many Wycliffe colleagues.

Kajari was, of course, the first person to receive a Bible, “This is your husband’s work.” After that, I called each person who had earned a Bible by memorizing an unbelievable number of Bible verses. On receiving their Bible, each one opened it, started reading, sat down with the others, and kept on reading. I nearly cried when I saw they kept reading even though several village leaders and I made speeches. Yes! Oh yes!

A few hours later, Jo and I stood off to one side and watched the celebration. “I felt like it was Christmas eleven months ago,” I said to Jo, “but I was wrong. Today is the true Christmas for the Canela people. God’s Written Word has come to them in their village, to reveal Jesus, the Living Word who came to Bethlehem that first Christmas.”

The Student Who Taught the Teacher

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What the Teacher Taught
When Jaco, our best translation helper, told me he had turned himself to God to follow Him, I started to cry. For thirteen years, Jo and I had worked, prayed, and waited for that moment. During the weeks following this magnificent event, I had been teaching my new younger brother in Jesus how to apply the Scriptures to himself.

For this devotional exercise, one morning, we read the first chapter of 1st Thessalonians. The night before, I had found and prepared some “prime the pump” verses that I could suggest just in case he couldn’t think of anything special.

I asked Jaco to read the chapter out loud. He did, and I asked, “What is God saying to you in this chapter?”

He replied, “Oh, the idea in verse nine, of course! That’s the best verse in the whole chapter!”

Huh, what? Verse nine? That wasn’t on my “prime the pump” list of ideas!

Then he read it and explained, “Look, Paul is happy with those Jesus followers in Thessalonica because they turned away from the fake dead gods to serve Our Living Father in the Sky!”

“Yes, that’s nice,” I said, “but what about it?” I was thinking of fake gods as worshiping images of idols, something Canelas did not practice.

“Look, they are just like me!” Jaco exclaimed, “I turned away from fearing the ghosts of our dead ancestors, away from the spirits of dead beings, and turned toward Our Father who is alive. So I don’t need to concern myself with dead things anymore, but with a living Father in the Sky!”

What the Student Taught the Teacher
Of course! A Canadian would never think of that! Jaco’s focus on that verse reminded me of how Canelas live in fear of the ghosts of the dead and constantly seek to appease them by practicing traditional ceremonies and rituals.

What God Taught the Teacher
God, too, had a lesson for me. “Listen, Jack, my Holy Spirit is well able to teach young Canela believers directly from My Word. You just keep on translating My Word into their language so I can speak personally to them.”

With that strong encouragement, Jaco and I spent every moment we were together to work on the translation.

Some weeks later, I asked Jaco to write his story of how he turned to follow God. Here’s a translation of what he wrote:

Jaco and some of his family

Jaco’s Story
Yes, I’m going to tell you how I turned to follow Jesus’ path because doing this has made me very happy. And that is no little thing to me.

Yes, I lived reading our Father’s Word for a long time, but I did not live following it. I may as well not have been reading it; that is how badly I lived. I used to speak badly about my friends; I lived thoughtlessly. I lived to please myself. Jesus saw me and was ashamed of me. I, however, was not ashamed of myself. Now, however, I have purposed within myself to turn from all these things. No man forced me to do this.

One day I sat quietly reading our Father’s Word, and I said to myself, “I am surely reading our Father’s Book. Why don’t I turn towards Him?” And then I did.

Jaco’s Friends Are Afraid of Change
And I told my friends and counselled my family according to the words of our Father, saying, “We should all enter into Jesus’ group.” But they didn’t want to enter, and some tried to turn me aside from my purpose, saying, “Don’t do this. If you do, evil will befall all of us. Our gardens will fail. Our wives will miscarry. These, your thoughts, are not ours. These ideas are different and wrong. Bad things will happen.”

But I replied, “How can this be? Our Father loves all people. He loves and looks after those who follow Him whether they be Indians like us or black people or whites.”

And again, I urged them and asked, “Will our group someday resolve to become followers of our Father, turning themselves after Him?” But no one replied; they all sat quietly. So, I left them and just talked to our Father and said, “My Father, once I lived belonging to our Enemy, but now I am Yours. Now our Enemy is troubling me, so, therefore, make me strong and keep him far from me.”

Yes, this is what our Father will do for me and for anyone who turns himself to follow after Him. My story is done.

The Teacher Learns One More Lesson
The conclusion of Jaco’s testimony was another valuable lesson to me, especially since years of Satanic opposition lay ahead. Jaco reiterated the ending of the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from the Evil One.”

 

God-Stories–A Powerful Weapon Against Satan

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How About A New Story?

My teenage friends and I rolled our eyes as the elderly gentleman rose from his accustomed side front pew. As usual, he half turned to face the congregation, leaned his left hand on the back of the pew in front of him, as he always did, and began his testimony . . . again. We had all heard his conversion story from sixty years ago so many Sundays, we could have recited it for him.

I wanted to ask him, “Hasn’t God done anything for you recently?” but I had been a Christian only a few years, and now, I was learning how to be a well-behaved member of our small evangelical church.

True, some members of the congregation did stand and tell of recent answers to prayer, but for the most part, “giving your testimony” meant telling the story of how you came to repent of your sin and turn to God for forgiveness for the first time.

We do need to tell the story of our spiritual rebirth, but we need to realize that this birth starts a whole new life, filled with other God-stories—answers to prayers, amazing coincidences, needs He met, healings and special guidance. Our lives as believers should be overflowing with stories that bear witness to others of God’s work in and through us.

People Listen and so do Spirits
But not just to people. Spiritual beings are also listening. Angels give praise to God along with us as we tell our God-stories. The “other side” is listening too. Satan and his evil spirits hate hearing about God’s power in our lives. When we tell what God has done for us, Satan will do anything to shut us up. Why? Because our God-stories are weapons: powerful Satan defeating weapons.

How They Overcame Satan
Check out the scene in Revelation 12:11 which describes a large number of Jesus-followers who overcame Satan. How did they do this? By telling everyone about what God had done for them, through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. They were powerful witnesses against Satan and for God. They made God look so good, and Satan look so bad that he killed them. Yes, they were martyrs. That is why the word “martyr” comes from the Greek word that means “witness.”

Our testimonies, our God-stories of God’s actions in our lives are powerful Satan conquering weapons. What a pity that we don’t hear them regularly in church! No, not the same old story every Sunday, but new God-honouring, Satan crushing stories.

We who are followers of Jesus need to tell our God-stories to each other for encouragement, and to those who are not yet believers to let them know God can and does act in people’s lives.

A Fifteen-Year-Old Photo

Six of our Grandkds Telling Stories Over a Cup of Tea

Six of our Grandkids Telling Stories Over Cups of Tea

Fifteen years ago they were little kids telling stories. Now they are telling even more stories. Our youngest grandson is now seventeen; the five granddaughters range in age from nineteen to twenty-two years old. Each of them can tell a dozen stories of what they experienced while overseas on mission service trips. They have all been to Mexico and Brazil. Some have been to Guatemala, some to Pakistan, Thailand, and Zimbabwe. Some have lived for months in Australia. One worked on a Mercy ship for three months serving countries on Africa’s east coast—God-stories galore. And they have many more stories of God’s dealings in their everyday lives

Whenever I speak in public, I tell plenty of personal God-stories—what God has done for me, through me, or sometimes in spite of me. As I greet people at the door afterward, they often say, “Thank you for telling those stories. Isn’t God wonderful?” I smile and imagine Satan’s groan of pain.

What has God done in your life this past week? Have you told anyone yet? The angels are waiting to compose a song of praise about it. Satan hopes you’ll just keep quiet.

The Powerful Weapon the Church Is Neglecting

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My friends and I rolled our eyes as the elderly elder stood up from his accustomed side front pew. As usual, he half turned to face the congregation, leaned his left hand on the pew, as he always did, and began his testimony . . . again. It was the well-rehearsed story of his conversion from sixty years ago. We had all heard it so many Sundays during “testimony time” most of us teens could have recited it for him.

I wanted to interrupt him to ask, “Hasn’t God done anything for you recently?” but I had been a Christian only a few years and now, during my late teens, I was learning how to be a well-behaved member of our small evangelical church.

True, some members of the congregation did stand and tell of recent answers to prayer, but for the most part, “giving your testimony” meant telling the story of how you came to repent of your sin and turn to God for forgiveness.

Now there is nothing wrong with telling the story of how God rescued us from our former lifestyle and set us on the path of right living. What we need to realize, however, is that our conversion is only the beginning of a whole life filled with actions of God—answers to prayers, amazing co-incidences, healings and special guidance. Our post-conversion lives should be overflowing with stories that bear witness to God’s work in and through us. When we tell those personal experiences—those God-stories— we are witnessing to the world even to the whole universe that God is alive and powerful and that He is in control.

Satan hates hearing about God’s power in our lives. When, like a witness in court, we tell what God has done for us personally, Satan will do anything to shut us up. Why? Because our God-stories are weapons: powerful Satan defeating weapons.

Check out the scene in Revelation 12:11. Here are a huge number of Jesus-followers who overcame Satan by telling everyone about what God had done for them personally, through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. They were powerful witnesses against Satan and for God they made God look so good and Satan look so bad that multitudes of other people abandoned Satan and turned to God. They just wouldn’t shut up, so Satan had to kill them. Yes, they were martyrs. In fact, the word martyr comes from the Greek word that means witness.

Our testimonies, our God-stories of God’s actions in our lives are powerful Satan conquering weapons. What a pity that we don’t hear them regularly in church! No, not the same old story over and over again every Sunday, but new God-honouring, Satan crushing stories.

Sharing Our Stories Over a Cup of Tea

Sharing Our Stories Over a Cup of Tea
(Courtesy of our youngest grandkids 11 years ago)

We who are followers of Jesus need to tell our stories every time we have the opportunity, to each other for encouragement, and to those who are not yet believers to let them know God can and does act in people’s lives.

Whenever I speak in public I tell plenty of personal God-stories—what God has done for me, through me, or sometimes in spite of me. As I greet people at the door afterwards, they often say, “Thank you for telling those stories. Isn’t God wonderful?” I can just hear Satan’s groan of pain.

What has God done in your life this past week? Have you told anyone yet?