Truth Archive

This is the 90th year of my life, and I am very thankful still to have enough health to be busy with a companion in a field. Long ago in South Africa I met an uncle of the late Tommy Vincent (South African worker who passed on several years ago.)  If I remember correctly, Tommy’s uncle was 102 at that time. He never married. Upon asking him why he never married, he replied “Because, even though I often lost my heart, I never lost my head!”

I suppose we have all had thoughts at one time or another about whether life would have been easier or more pleasant if we lived in a different time span of the world’s history. In Ecc 7:10 we read “Say not thou, what is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.” I am fully convinced that God has carefully planned the time span of our lives.  These are the conditions and circumstances that He wants to use to work in my life. We know that God is very meticulous, and He leaves nothing to chance.

Since I last wrote a general letter we have had conventions, and I am now in the city of Taejeon with Sungdong Pahk. He was with me in 1992 in the city of Kwangju. We have both aged a bit since then! We are really enjoying being together again. Before starting in the work, Sungdong had been a gas specialist in the ship-building branch of the giant Hyundai company. After he professed, when his father found out that he was planning to leave to go into the work, his father told him “If that is your plan, then as you leave this house I will break your leg!”. He knew that his father could very well carry out his threat, and it would not be very practical to start in the work with a broken leg, so he stayed at home until he was able to calm his parents down. Later, when he did leave, he left his whole family in a pool of tears. It took several years, but later he had the joy of seeing both his parents profess, and they died in the truth. Some years after that one of his older brothers professed, and now another older brother is listening to the gospel right here in Taejeon, learning about the way of life from his youngest brother!

The first time I was in Taejeon was in 1969, with Kison Ko, who passed away many years ago already. Some of the friends who were here then have passed away, and some have moved elsewhere, but the others are still steady and a number have been added. We are glad to have a few good listeners in the gospel meetings, and we pray that they may have the same experience as those who accompanied the woman at the well when she told them about Jesus.  They said “Now we are not believing because of what you told us, but because we have heard Him for ourselves”.

I thought of the time that Jesus told of the two greatest commandments “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind and your soul”; and “Love your neighbour as yourself” ~  “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”. So now the question is, firstly, how can we get to love God more? Twice in 1 John 4 we are told “God is love”. Also in the Song of Solomon 5.16 we read (about our Lord Jesus) “He is altogether lovely”. We can safely say that it is impossible to know God and not love him. So it puts more meaning in what Jesus said in John 17.3 “This is eternal life that we know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Whom Thou hast sent”. The secret to getting to know God (and loving Him) better is simply by spending more time with Him in the secret place. And, of course, we also get to know God by experiences where we can clearly see His hand.

Now how do we get to love our neighbour? When I first came to Korea, arranged marriages were still very common. In some cases they did not even know each other before the wedding day. So there was no love or romance involved. However, they had a very novel way of getting the love started in the bride’s heart. Right after the wedding ceremony the young men from the village would take the new bridegroom and hang him from the rafters in the barn, and then start beating him. The new bride was brought in and had to watch her bridegroom being beaten. They were not pretending either, they really beat him as if he had committed some crime. This continued until the bride began to cry. The idea was that sympathy is the beginning of love. My companion and I were in a field up in the mountains in those early days, and a young lady and her parents and sister were attending our meetings. Then a marriage was arranged for the young lady. However, in this case,  she was highly amused when they started beating her bridegroom, and instead of crying she was laughing!  So the bridegroom had to be beaten more severely to arouse her sympathy. (The poor young man was still in pain the next morning!!)

I suppose we can learn to love others if we feel real sympathy for them.  Since we have the same human nature, we should be able to sympathize.

One thing that I have had to admit about myself is that my own weaknesses are the things that I am quickest to recognise when I see them in someone else. Many years ago Clarence Anderson came to Korea for a special meeting, and he told us “We see our brother through the magnifying glass of criticism, but when we look at him in the mirror of God’s righteousness, we are amazed to find that my brother is so much like me-self!” 

I remember hearing of one child in a family who had only a short while to live. The parents lavished everything on that child as much as they could.  But not one of the other children felt jealous. All they felt was intense sympathy. If we could see the end result of those who live only for themselves, we would probably feel very sympathetic towards them.  Long ago I remember one of our blind friends saying in his testimony, “Sympathy means your pain in my heart”.

I will close here now, with warm greetings and love in our Lord from your brother, 
Ernest