Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.
Early in the morning our song shall rise
to Thee.
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty.
God in three persons, blessed Trinity.
I am missionary Richard Yerby in Japan, coming
to you to preach everlasting truth to you.
Lord, may the Lord help us to hear
and obey as for all eternity.
The title of this sermon is Almighty Safety,
continuing in my series of sermons titled Safety,
Rest, and Quiet.
As I preach about the perfect and upright
man named Job, what an example, what a
believer to follow up on and aspire after.
In the early 1980s, a Christian friend of
mine in North Carolina, a young wife and
mother of small children was killed in an
automobile accident.
Such a tragedy is difficult on family members,
of course, bringing sorrow.
But at that time, her Christian mother said
of God, he had done all things well,
as we find recorded in Mark chapter 7,
verse 37.
What great glory God received from that testimony
of hers.
May God help all of us believers to
have such a testimony.
Listen to Job's victorious declaration in Job chapter
19, verses 25 and 26.
For I know that my Redeemer liveth and
that he shall stand at the latter day
upon the earth.
And though after my skin worms destroy this
body, yet in my flesh shall I see
God.
Old Testament Saint Job believed in a bodily
resurrection.
I also believe in that.
We too should also live in that afterlife
as much as we live in this present
life, or possibly even more so, knowing that
at any second we could be transferred in
our flesh into the very presence of God
when Christ raptures his body of believers out
of this troubled world.
Yes, there is going to be a bodily
resurrection.
And this earthly corrupted being of ours is
going to be transformed into a heavenly incorruptible
perfected being to dwell with God forever in
his holy heaven.
That is where our affection should be.
This morning, I awoke to my brother calling
me on the phone from the States and
telling me that our elder sister had just
passed away a few hours before.
She was getting close to her 86th birthday.
She had been fighting illnesses and pain for
months.
She was a Christian believer.
Now she never again suffers any more pain.
Perfected forever.
And soon I'm going to see her and
many others there.
And most of all, my Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, set your affection on things above,
not on things on the earth.
Colossians 3, 2.
That is a command from God, not a
suggestion.
Therefore, it would behoove all of us to
obey it.
Let's pray.
Lord God, help me to obey this command
and to set my affection on thee and
on thy glorious eternal heaven, which awaits those
who believe on Christ in this life.
Please give me a new vision of thy
great glory and give me a greater love
for thee.
I want thee to be first in my
life and in my affections.
I want to love thee with all my
heart.
So please help me to do this and
help Brother Richard and all other Christians to
do this also.
Amen.
As long as we are living in the
will of God, just where, why and how
God chooses to cause us to depart this
life shouldn't be any cause of worry for
us.
If you desire to be most profitable to
God, then you must take on Job's attitude,
Though he slay me, yet will I trust
in him.
And do not forget just whom it was
that started the battle that got Job into
all that trouble.
We are prone to think that the devil
started it because of his hatred for that
perfect and upright believer.
But that is not the case.
God started that battle by taking the devil
and saying, Has thou considered my servant Job?
God said to the devil that, and that
was the very start of Job's great trouble.
The devil didn't like to think about Job,
no doubt.
Job's holy, righteous life is such a thorn
in Satan's flesh that he doesn't want to
consider it at all.
He despises to even think about Job as
he goes walking to and fro into earth.
The devil always shies away from Job because
he even cringes just to see that giant
of a saint.
And on this day, when he comes to
present himself before the Lord, he certainly isn't
going to say anything about Job.
Likely he wants to completely forget Job, and
he so hopes that God will not bring
up the subject of that perfect man.
Of course, God knows what misery Job's obedient
existence brings to the devil.
And since the devil would never bring up
the subject, God just delights to rattle his
chain and say, Has thou considered my servant
Job?
Then Satan retorts with, Doth Job fear God
for naught?
Put forth thine hand now, and touch all
that he hath, and he will curse thee
to thy face.
That's in Job 1.9 and also Job
1.11. And the battle is on with
perfect and upright Job being the pawn that
gets used and abused.
But it didn't start with the devil.
It started with God, almighty God, being a
man of war.
Delighted to get that battle going.
And if while you are following close to
God, monumental disaster comes your way, it just
may be not because the devil was chasing
hard after you.
He may have been running away from you
as hard as he could.
And the Lord stopped him with, Has thou
considered my servant Robert?
Has thou considered my servant Alice?
Then the fight is on.
And from there on, the story of your
life may read like the book of Job.
What about it?
Are you willing to let God allow you
to be treated like that in return for
you being the best servant he has?
If you would gladly submit yourself to receive
even that kind of treatment, and if God
wills it, what great delight and glory you
will bring to God and what sorrow, defeat,
and frustration you will bring to God's enemy,
the devil.
Will you settle it in your heart right
now that you will be like Job and
be willing to let God bring any disaster
upon you that will glorify him.
I was not in safety.
Oh Lord, do help us all to be
like Job.
Let's pray it.
Almighty God, by thy infinite power, please help
me not to draw back from being willing
to allow thee to do anything to me
and to my family that thou desires to
do.
Give me godly courage.
Make me as bold as a lion like
Job.
Help me to glorify thee as Job did.
Help me to fear thee and serve thee
for not.
If my life wholly dedicated to thee brings
me only disaster and adversity, please help me
to endure it as a good soldier for
thy great namesake.
I pray this for brother Richard and for
all other Christians also.
Amen.
I want to read 1 Corinthians 4, verse
2.
Moreover, it is required in stewards that a
man be found faithful.
How is it that a pastor can continue
to keep his pulpit afire, plainly naming and
denouncing the sins prevailing around him while the
devil's gang is cursing him, slashing his cars,
tires, and those of the church buses, setting
his house and the church house on fire,
threatening his life and his family on the
phone several times a week, arresting him and
throwing him into jail and such?
And on top of all that, his pastor
friends come to him saying, Take it easy.
Black off, son.
You're going to get hurt if you keep
on like this.
And they make themselves into miserable comforters, just
as Job's friends did.
Why are certain preachers so bold?
Because they are like Job.
They are not considering their own safety.
How can missionaries take the gospel to cannibals
and kill them and eat them in return
for their love?
How can they allow their wives and children
to be so grossly mistreated and suffer so
severely in the heathen land?
It's because they are more concerned about the
eternal safety of those pagan souls than they
are concerned about their own earthly physical safety.
In 1975, I sat in the church in
Japan listening to a giant man of God
tell his missionary experiences in India in the
1950s and 1960s.
One day he went into a customs office
there in a town in India with a
slip of paper in his hand to pick
up a package of his that had been
sent to him from the States, medicine that
he desperately asked to be sent to him,
medicine that he hoped and prayed would keep
his precious little daughter from dying.
Presently, she was gravely ill.
When he presented the slip of paper to
the customs official to pick up his own
possession, that man of India looked at the
slip of paper, then looked at Brother Jim
and said, I'm not going to let you
have it.
Now, if Brother Jim had chosen to stay
in the States, it is most likely that
his daughter would have never contracted that disease
that was killing her.
She was dying because her father was in
India, giving the lives of his family for
the salvation of that custom official and other
Indian souls.
So he told the man, my little girl
is deathly sick, and it looks like she
may not make it if we don't get
that medicine to her.
He thought that would touch the man's heart
if he had any heart at all and
make the man give him the medicine, which
rightly belonged to Jim anyway.
But upon hearing that, the customs official turned
and spat out his betel nut juice, and
with that red juice dripping down his chin
and the inside of his mouth, bright red
from chewing that betel nut, with a scornful
smile of delight, he turned to that missionary
and sneered, this world would be a better
place to live if another white person were
never born into it.
And that customs official illegally refused to give
that missionary his package of medicine.
That man of God left that customs shack
without his medicine, went back to the hospital
and into the room where his girl lay.
When his wife saw him, she knew instantly
that he was refused their medicine.
So he and his wife stood there helplessly
by the bed, watching that precious little girl
die, the fruit of their own bodies, slowly
die.
Soon after, Jim took some wooden boards and
nailed them together, making her a small coffin
by himself.
He went out and dug her grave all
along.
He and his wife washed and dressed the
precious little body.
Then at the funeral, he bore that little
coffin out in his own arms, large muscle
man that he was.
He was the only pallbearer.
He and his wife alone sang the songs
for the funeral.
He preached the funeral message for his little
daughter.
He prayed the prayers that were prayed for
the funeral.
And when it was all over, he himself
lowered that little coffin down into the grave.
He had dug there in India to receive
it.
Then he took the shovel and put every
clod of dirt on the grave that was
placed on it.
And he and his wife walked away from
that fresh grave, leaving their little daughter as
a Christian martyr under the soil there in
India.
That little missionary girl was planted there in
India as a seed, which bore plenty of
spiritual fruit.
The local Hindu people stood at a distance,
keenly observing.
Some among them who had thus far shunned
and opposed Jim's missionary family, later one by
one came around commenting on how greatly impressed
they were with the fortitude of Jim and
his wife.
Likely no weeping or scant, well-controlled tears,
whereas Hindus howled to the moon at their
Hindu services.
Her parents' reaction to her death opened hearts
to Bible teaching.
How could that missionary and his wife do
that?
One simple reason, they were like Job.
When God told them to go preach the
gospel in India, they didn't consider their own
safety or the safety of their family.
They obeyed God by going where he commanded
them to go.
They glorified and pleased God, and by doing
so, they received more eternal treasure than you
can fathom.
Let's pray, Heavenly Father.
I pray for myself and for all Christians.
Help us all to be just as willing
as this missionary couple to make such a
sacrifice for thee.
So few of us believers have such love
for thee in our hearts, so please help
us to love thee more than we love
our own lives.
I pray for my Christian brothers and sisters
throughout the world who are serving thee in
places where their lives are in danger.
Please be near and dear to them, and
give them all the divine love, help, and
courage that they need.
Lord, I also pray for all the children
of the devil throughout the world who are
like that customs official in that they hate
thee enough to desire the death of and
delight in the death of thy messengers and
their families.
Please have mercy on their wicked, sinful, murderous
souls.
Wake them up as to what awful eternal
fate awaits them because of their terrible, sinful
rebellion against thee.
Please grant them a heart of repentance and
cause them to forsake their awful sins and
receive Christ.
Grant this, dear Lord, I only pray.
Amen.
Sowers of gospel seed who go to frozen,
barren regions in search of lost souls suffer
frostbite from the cold and malnutrition from lack
of fresh foods.
Others in many poor nations lack proper food
and nutrition for their families, yet they gladly
endure such for their master and his cause.
Why is it?
Because they are being like Job and not
being in safety.
In 1975, fellowshipping with newly met missionaries here
in Japan, I noticed that one of the
men wore thick lens eyeglasses, and from his
actions I could tell that he had very
poor eyesight.
The next day, another missionary and I, walking
together, met him on the sidewalk in town
as he walked by us as if he
didn't even see us.
This man with me said to me, that's
Joe so-and-so.
He's an MK missionary kid.
His father was a missionary years ago in
Korea, and the souls there were in sure
poverty.
So Joe grew up in Korea where good
food was a scarce commodity.
Not getting proper nourishment as a child resulted
in his eyesight deteriorating badly.
He didn't even recognize us as he walked
by us.
Why did Joe suffer from such poor physical
vision?
Because his daddy was like Job.
His daddy had a clear spiritual vision of
souls in Korea perishing without the saving gospel
message.
If family's health has to suffer badly to
see Korean people rescued from hell fire, then
that would just have to be.
And the missionary man to Korea, his son
Joe, is also like Job.
When Joe would be in the States taking
it easier because of his handicapped vision, here
he is in Japan going all out to
win pagan Japanese people to Christ.
He may not have very clear physical eyesight,
but he sure does have clear spiritual vision.
I was not in safety.
And what joy unspeakable it will be to
Joe when the trumpet sounds and he instantly
receives perfect eyesight.
Oh, hallelujah.
And the first sight he will behold with
that perfect vision will be his savior smiling
face saying, well done and commending him for
suffering so even as a child for the
cause of Christ.
And I suppose the next sight those perfected
eyes will behold will be the many souls
his father's family and then his own family
led to Christ in the lifetime.
What a wonderful sight that will be to
faithful Joe.
Likely he will next see a gigantic mansion
with his name engraved in gold and studded
diamonds over the door.
And that huge mansion filled with eternal treasures
that his sufferings earned him is to enjoy
forever and ever.
Oh, hallelujah.
How blessed and rich heaven is going to
be for you if you are like Joe.
Oh, to be like Joe.
Some missionaries take the good news to the
steaming tropics and track in a fungus growth
on their skin for which doctors know not
any cure.
And they have to endure the itching, irritation
and unsightliness of it for the rest of
their lives.
From the dirty food and water some of
them get amoeba and bacteria in their stomach
and intestines that cannot be gotten out or
killed completely.
And it makes them weaker for the rest
of their lives occasioned by stomach cramps, pains,
diarrhea, et cetera.
Why is it?
For one simple reason, they were not in
safety.
And God has it on their record that
they are like Joe.
And God will certainly reward them in proportion
of being like him.
He'll also reward you in like manner if
you will be like Joe.
For many years, I had rich fellowship with
Brother Ray another former Marine.
We fellowshiped on Guam.
He am pastoring a church there as a
missionary.
In 1984, he, his wife and daughter went
from Guam to the island of Truk, T
-R-U-K to do missionary work there.
Soon after going to that primitive island he
became deathly sick.
Later in December, 1984, his wife sent me
a letter that said in part, Ray did
have food poisoning.
He also has either cholera or amemic dysentery.
He almost died November 24th.
He had diarrhea and vomiting for 23 days,
lost over 20 pounds the first 11 days.
He's still not well.
The doctors won't let me bring him to
the hospital because if he has cholera, they
don't want it to be spread around.
Brother Dennis had cholera and amoeba medicine.
He got in the Marshall Islands.
I believe that's what saved Ray's life.
Plus a lot of prayer.
The hospital won't even let me bring in
a stool specimen to be analyzed because it
may be cholera.
No wonder so many died here and are
still dying from cholera.
Picture Brother Ray lying in that most simple
shelter of a house in the jungle, wasting
away and near death, refused any and all
help by the hospital because he may have
a highly contagious disease.
Brother Ray is from Kansas.
In many ways, his family is like your
family or any of your neighbors.
Had he stayed home in Kansas, it is
unthinkable that he would have ever suffered any
of those sicknesses described above.
Also, while on truck, his wife was once
terribly abused by local lewd men when Brother
Ray was not around.
Why did such suffering come their way?
The answer is simple.
They were like Job.
They were not in safety.
Therefore, they reached souls for Christ that would
probably have perished had this family considered their
own safety and therefore stayed home in Kansas.
Oh, to be like these giants of the
faith.
Now it sets me on fire to read
Richard Wurmbrand's book titled Tortured for Christ.
Let me read from chapter one of that
book.
The communists convened a congress of all Christian
bodies in our parliament building.
There were 4,000 priests, pastors, and ministers
of all denominations.
Those 4,000 priests and pastors chose Joseph
Stalin as honorary president of this congress.
At the same time, he was president of
the World Movement of the Godless and a
mass murderer of Christians.
One after another, bishop and pastors arose in
our parliament building and declared that communism and
Christianity are fundamentally the same and could co
-exist.
One minister after another said words of praise
toward communism and assured the new government of
the loyalty of the church.
My wife and I were present at this
congress.
My wife sat near me and told me,
Richard, stand up and wash this shame.
Wash away this shame from the face of
Christ.
They are spitting in his face.
I said to my wife, if I do
so, you lose your husband.
She said, I don't wish to have a
coward as a husband.
Then I arose and spoke to this congress,
praising not the murderers of Christians, but Christ
and God, and said that our loyalty is
due first to Him.
The speeches at this congress were broadcast in
the whole country, but here proclaimed from the
rostrum of the communist parliament, the message of
Christ.
Afterward, I had to pay for this, but
it had been worthwhile.
Glory for Richard Wurmbrand's testimony.
And I'm out of time, and I have
to close.
And I want to continue right here the
next time with more of what was said
between Richard Wurmbrand and his wife.
God bless you richly and do you ever
so much good.
I earnestly pray for you.