“A great revelation”

"And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.

And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment” (1 John 3:22-23).

The Name of Jesus has been revealed to us. “I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me; and they have kept Thy word” (John 17:6). One of the great achievements of Jesus was manifesting the name of God.

“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The Name of Jesus has been revealed to us and manifested to us. Everyone who believes in Jesus has power over sickness, the evil of this world, and his own sinful nature. The Name of Jesus becomes mightier and mightier and begins to take control over everything. The disciples were those who understood that Name and so shared His power. His Name is Holy forever. Those who believe in Jesus can never justify the evil in their own nature. St. Paul came to a place where he could not trust in himself at all but only on the Name of Jesus. Many of us have not come to that place. Some are mental Christians.

“Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you” (John 16:13-14). Glory does not belong to us. All victories that we have had are due to Him who has won that power for us. The grace of God lifts those that acknowledge their sin and humble themselves. They will take hold of His commandments and promises. Those who realize “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” can understand that Name. That Name brings so many associations with it of what it has done for us—where it has taken us from and what it has brought us into. Such Christians will go on rejoicing, giving all glory to Him.

Those who know from where they were taken will love His commandments and those commandments will become their life. The commandments are great revelations. Are you studying the Word? If you by neglecting the study of God’s Word keep yourself in ignorance, you can’t keep the commandments and thus cannot abide in Him. Those who carefully study the Word are entering into a partnership with the Almighty of the throne. The sooner you know the commandments and accustom yourself to obeying them, the sooner you will come into oneness with the mind of God and whatsoever you ask, you will receive.

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7). What a place we have got! What a Name has been revealed to you! We can possess His divine nature! If only I have the nature of Jesus, I would want nothing more in this world. If my children have the nature of Jesus, I would have no need to worry about them. I will be prepared to leave this world rejoicing, even today. Study the Word; possess Him now. The sooner you get His nature, the better for you. Go all the way with Him. Remember, many are called but few are chosen.

—N. Daniel

“Walking with Jesus”

Matthew 6:5: “When thou prayest … be not like hypocrites.”

Even if I should be in urgent need of an interview with the Governor, I wouldn’t be allowed to walk into his room. If I want badly to bring my petition before the Prime Minister, I will have to go a great distance, perhaps travelling many hours, and wait patiently in line until he passes by fleetingly for a moment.

Of course I would not be recognized, known, welcomed, or loved. It is one of the daily chores of some Presidents, to walk into the garden and speak a few puerilities and exchange a few greetings with the people who cluster around them. If to meet these dignitaries who just transitorily occupy high office, we count it a great privilege, how great must our wonder be, that God invites us into His presence and offers to listen to us. What a thrill we should feel that we can go and place our complaints before the Highest of all, the Saviour of sinners.

In the sixth chapter of Matthew, the Lord Jesus gives specific instruction on what prayer must be and what prayer should not be. There are many people who pray out of religious sentiment, habit, or childhood upbringing. Now, foolishly enough, these parrot-like prayer-warblers never even stop to ask themselves, “Am I fulfilling the conditions for effective praying?” Now here are the conditions we must fulfil to pray effectively.

The Lord Jesus said, “When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. … But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

Here the Lord Jesus specifically debunks and denounces a sort of religious demonstration of devotion which is essentially external and purely for public display. Prayer is essentially a deep, sacred, private intercourse with God. It is more than a selfish petition: it is a communion with God.

During the religious festivals in the East, men get intoxicated with native brews of all sorts and leap and gyrate in the main streets, to the din of furiously beaten drums, until the small hours of the morning. It simply defies rational thinking how uncouth postures and night-long dances can bring a soul any nearer God.

These religious seasons bring forth even the house-bound women into the streets at midnight, dressed in their very best, to get lost in the milling throngs, to aimlessly clog the highways. What spirituality, holiness, or godliness does such a spectacle inspire? Whether it is the rush for a Christmas dance, in the sober atmosphere of a sophisticated community, or the craze to mingle with a crowd, bent on carnal sights and sounds, it has absolutely no spiritual value in it.

Your religious season has brought you forth into the jostling, carnally cuddling and clasping crowd. But the Lord Jesus says, “Go alone into the closet.”

I remember a young doctor who prayed all night, alone one night confessing his sins to God. This young man hailed from a background steeped in ritual and set prayers, which are normally warbled at top speed. His father was annoyed that his son should pray thus and seek God. So he told his son, “If you want to pray, go to the church and pray.” Yes, indeed, his father thought that all praying should be confined to the church. The poor man evidently did not know what Jesus taught. “When thou prayest, go into thy closet.” So the Lord Jesus taught us secret praying in our rooms.

Notice the Lord Jesus said, “Shut the door and pray to your Father which is in secret.” These times of prayer are more sacred than bath time, meal times, study time and play-time. A man who keeps his prayer times sacred will be a giant among men, a man who will accomplish much good and lasting good. But a man or woman who prays perfunctorily without heart, more like a parrot than like a man who understands his deep need, his life will be filled with confusion, chaos, and tears.

Jesus’ Name opens Heaven’s gates. Jesus’ Name gives the sinner access even to God’s ear and heart. We must bring our sins to God and ask Him to forgive us for the sake of Jesus His Son, who died for us.

Notice, dear reader, what the Apostle Peter said to the religious leaders of Jerusalem, who asked him by what Name or power he had healed the lame man at the gate of the temple. “There is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Yes, there is no other Name by which you should pray; there is no other Name that can save you from your sins. Now the devil just does not want such praying. Such praying destroys his designs and his kingdom. Satan does not mind formal prayers. So he keeps you from getting alone with God every day or he tries to crowd such prayer into a tight corner.

But you must remember, dear reader, that for prayer to become real and meaningful, you must have a clean conscience. When you have bitterness, resentment, a hurt feeling, or ill-will in your heart, you simply cannot pray.

Now, stir your soul up, dear listener. You have an appointment to keep with God, morning and evening. Ask God for a new heart and a right relationship with Him; then you can really walk and talk with Jesus.

—Joshua Daniel

“Reality Check”

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2).

“Evidence not seen”

During the bloody days of World War Two, the Japanese successfully occupied the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), leading to the internment of many prisoners of war and brutal suffering. Among these prisoners was C. Russell Deibler, a pioneer Christian missionary to the Kapauku tribe, and his young wife, Darlene. Russell would die in 1944, but Darlene survived to tell her story in Evidence not seen—the story of miraculous faith in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.

Shortly after Darlene’s arrival at the camp in Kampili (1943)—where she became leader of barracks no. 8, a calm centre in the midst of suffering and sorrow—a senior missionary was deported to another camp. He leaned toward Darlene and said, “Lassie, whatever you do, be a good soldier for Jesus Christ.” Those words sustained her in the dark days ahead—days bearing laborious exertion, physical suffering, and assault on prisoners by the camp commander Yamaji.

God spoke to Darlene in the midst of trouble. When a priest arrived from her husband’s camp and she would move towards him, eager for news, the Lord always checked her: “Not now, you can trust Me,” He would say. On the first night when the air-raid alarm sounded and the women had to evacuate to the trenches, bombs exploding, Darlene could frequently hear: “It shall not come nigh thee.” It was from Psalm 91: “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee” (verse 7). It was a precious promise to carry in her heart during the many long, terrifying nights to be spent in the open slit-trench.

One day in late 1943, Darlene learned that her husband had died in his camp some three months before. In her anguish of soul, she looked up. Her Lord was there, and she cried out, “But God … !” Immediately God answered: “My child, did I not say that when thou passest through the waters I would be with thee, and through the floods, they would not overflow thee?”

The news soon reached into every corner of the camp. The priest from her husband’s camp came to explain that the Japanese had bound him to secrecy about the death. Darlene now knew why the Lord had stopped her each time she had planned to talk to the priest; she would have made it very difficult for him.

Late that afternoon, the camp commander called Darlene to his office. He reminded her that this was war. “You have been a great help to the other women in the camp. I ask of you, don’t lose your smile.”

“Mr. Yamaji, may I have permission to talk to you?” He nodded.

“Mr. Yamaji, I don’t sorrow like people who have no hope.” She told him of Jesus, the Son of Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the plan of salvation. The Japanese camp commander began to cry. “He died for you, Mr. Yamaji, and He puts love in our hearts—even for those who are our enemies. That’s why I don’t hate you, Mr. Yamaji. Maybe God brought me to this place and this time to tell you He loves you.”

The commander, tears running down his cheeks, rose hastily and went into his bedroom, closing the door. Darlene sat quietly, praying for his salvation, that he might understand new life in Christ Jesus and someday go home to share God’s love with his wife and family—to be a light in some dark, perhaps remote, area of Japan. Darlene knew from that moment on that Mr. Yamaji trusted her and understood why she was in the Dutch East Indies.

That night, Darlene needed the comforting arm of her Shepherd. Who can break, then restore, that which is shattered to a thing of beauty?

Suddenly the Lord was there, standing in the cathedral of her heart, and from His Word written upon the scroll of her memory He began to read, “He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted … to comfort all that mourn … to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:1-3).

From habit, she “spread it out before the Lord.” She told the Lord all about the past, present, timing, her feeling or not feeling, how the future looked, and the oppressive feeling of aloneness. She waited to hear what her Lord would say and silence answered her—the silence of her friends who shared her grief.

Darlene prayed. Experientially she was learning to understand the comfort of the Holy Spirit. The sword of sorrow had pierced deep within, but He had bathed the sword in oil.

One day, the Kempeitai—the feared military police of the Japanese Army—came to collect Darlene from the camp and take her to a prison in Macassar. When the car pulled up, she spotted a missionary hanging on the bars, arms black and blue. The lady saw Darlene but only shook her head back and forth. “Lord, you took Russell,” Darlene’s heart cried out, “Must I now go through this?”

“Whom I love, my child, I discipline,” said the Lord.

Darlene had known the quality of His love, and so her heart bowed in submission. “All right, Lord,” she whispered, “all right—just don’t leave me.”

In the awful physical suffering and interrogation (related to alleged spying activities) that followed, God did not leave her but gave her strength to be a “good soldier” of Christ. He answered many of her prayers as she trusted in Him.

Late one afternoon, Darlene discovered a knife on a ledge in her cell. Where did it come from? Who put it there? When? Why? What should she do with it? Was it to encourage suicide, or to use as evidence against her? Darlene’s stomach churned within her. On her knees, with her face to the floor, she explained the whole situation to the Lord. Quietness invaded her spirit and she began to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Elijah and Daniel, the God of miracles. “Lord, if You could open the Red Sea to deliver Your people from Egyptian tyranny, and if You could send Your angel to shut the mouths of lions that they might not kill Daniel—then, Lord, it is nothing to You to remove that knife. Thank You, Father.”

For three days, Darlene did not leave her six-foot-square cell. Yet in the afternoon of the third day, she crawled up to find an empty ledge. The knife was gone! “—and Father, erase all memory of it from the mind of whoever put the knife there.” He did just that. With Him, all things were still possible.

He, the Great Physician, passed by too when Darlene was troubled by dysentery; by faith Darlene reached out to touch the hem of His garment, and he healed her of dysentery, beriberi, and malaria. She could witness to the guard who brought her medicines that God had healed her.

God provided for her too. Once as Darlene hung from the lintel bars above her door looking out, she saw a woman receiving bananas through the vine-covered fence of the camp. Dropping to the floor, exhausted, Darlene asked the Lord for one banana. Then she began to rationalize—how could God do it? She couldn’t see how God could get a banana to her through those prison walls, even after the knife episode and her healing. “There’s no way for You to do it,” she prayed.

On the following day, Darlene received an unexpected visit from Mr. Yamaji, the very cruel camp commander at Kampili to whom she had witnessed of Jesus and His love, and for whom she had prayed. After he finally left her cell, the guard returned, opened the door, walked in, and with a sweeping gesture laid at her feet—bananas! “They’re yours,” he said, “and they’re all from Mr. Yamaji.” Darlene sat down, stunned, and counted. There were ninety-two bananas!

Darlene had never known such shame before her Lord. She pushed the bananas into a corner and wept before Him. “Lord, forgive me; I’m so ashamed. I couldn’t trust You enough to get even one banana for me. Just look at them—there are almost a hundred.”

In the quiet, He answered back within her heart: “That’s what I delight to do, the exceeding abundant above anything you ask or think.” Darlene knew in those moments that nothing was impossible with God.

On another occasion, in a moment of terrible aloneness and sorrow for a world of people so devastated by war, she heard someone singing in Indonesian: “Precious is Your name, a shelter that is secure!” Darlene’s heart burst with bright hope. The name of Jesus was her strong tower of defence against the enemy of despair; she cried for the Lord to forgive her, having fallen into the despairing game of “suppose”—suppose she did not make it home?

However, after God had delivered her from potential malevolence on the part of others, there came a point when she felt enveloped in a spiritual vacuum. She knew of no unconfessed sin. “Lord, I believe all that the Bible says,” she prayed. “I do walk by faith and not by sight. I do not need to feel You near, because Your Word says You will never leave me nor forsake me. Lord, I confirm my faith; I believe.” The words of Hebrews 11:1 welled up within, to fill her mind: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Evidence not seen—that was what she put her trust in—not in feelings or moments of ecstasy, but in the unchanging Person of Jesus Christ. She could put her trust in her glorious Lord.

The Lord began to speak to Darlene’s heart from 2 Corinthians 1:10: “Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust He will yet deliver us.”

Yes, she had been freed from the law of sin and death, she was alive in Christ, she believed. Yet the words re-echoed: “Who delivered … and doth deliver … He will yet deliver.” Finally she asked: “Lord, how could You get me out of here?” Perhaps the Lord was trying to make her understand that he was yet to deliver her from the Kampeitai prison. Later that very day, the day she peeled her last, now black, shrivelled banana with thanksgiving and faced the prospect of death, Darlene was returned to Kampili.

In July 1945, the camp was hit by Allied bombs. Darlene jumped into a slit-trench but then the Lord reminded her that she had borrowed another lady’s Bible. “You’re right, Lord,” Darlene prayed, “I have no right to let her Bible be burned.” Darlene jumped out of the ditch, ran into the burning barracks, grabbed the Bible, and ran outside.

Later when Darlene returned to the barracks, she stopped in front of where her bed would have been when it dropped to the ground burning. On the top of the ash heap lay her Bride’s Book. By the Father’s ordaining, the fingers of the flame had peeled away the mat and flicked through the pages to the centrefold, where her marriage certificate was written in gold ink. It was so beautiful, gold, purified by fire, glittering in the sun rays. Yet when she touched the book, it disintegrated. In anguish, Darlene cried: “Lord, that was the only thing I had left! Couldn’t I have had that? Just that one thing?” She covered her mouth to keep from screaming. “Father! O Father!”

The Lord’s answer came gently: “My child, that’s what I want to do with you—make you like pure gold—even if I have to take you through the fire seven times.”

Darlene was shaken to the depths of her being. “O Father, seven times? I don’t have anything left to give You … but myself.” She felt His arms of love lifting her.

A little later, Darlene saw a woman sobbing. “My mattress burned,” she sobbed.

“Oh, yes, everything has burned,” said Darlene, “but we’re still alive. We have much to thank God for!”

“But I didn’t leave it in the barracks. I threw it in the ditch where you always lie.”

In the ditch, where Darlene had been crouching, was the casing of the bomb and the ashes of her mattress! Darlene was overcome with awe. “Lord, it wasn’t Mrs. Lie’s Bible You were concerned about, was it? You knew that was a way to get me out of the ditch … to save my life! Father, whatever is left of life to me, it’s Yours. It all belongs to You!”

After Darlene’s liberation later in 1945, she was able to return to America. With her second husband Jerry Rose, she would return to New Guinea and continue telling others of the love of Christ. Mr. Yamaji, the camp commander to whom Darlene had witnessed, underwent a change of heart. Yet in those dark days, Darlene had come to experience faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1), her trust in the unchanging Person of Jesus Christ.

—Darlene Deibler Rose, Evidence Not Seen


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