T n L u k e 18:1 we read the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, “Men ought always to pray and not to faint.” Jesus also stated as recorded in Matthew 5:23, “There fore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remem- berest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” I remember one time when we went to a certain Dyak longhouse, the man said, “Mister, I am glad that you have come, because I have a problem.” He continued, “ Every night just before I go to sleep, I pray, and almost every time I pray, there comes before me a certain thing I did some months ago before I was a Christian. It’s a plant that I planted in the jungles in honor of one of the evil spirits, and though I have been a Christian many months now, every time that I pray that plant comes up before me. I want to go and pull it up, but I haven’t the courage to do it by myself. I am wondering if you would go along with me.” The next morning, he and I had an appointment at 9 o’clock. He strapped his long knife around his waist. We walked down the long corri dor of the longhouse, down the notched log ladder, out into the jungles, across a river, through a swamp, and over a bluff. We walked and walked. Finally, we came to a place where the jungles were so dense we couldn’t get through. So he took out his knife and chopped a way through. After an hour and one half, we came to a certain spot in the jungles. There he pointed to a particu lar plant beside a certain tree, and he said, “Yumjah itu, (there it is).” That was a particular plant, and this man had planted it to appease one of the evil spirits. Then, he turned to me as if to say, “ Tuan, tell me what to do,” although he already knew what to do. As he stared at the plant, he pleaded, “ Tuan, pray.” I told the Lord why we were there, and asked Him to help the Dyak to do what he felt he should do. My prayer was short. Finally, I said to him, “You pray,” so he bowed his head, folded his hands, closed his eyes and prayed; not a short prayer, but a long one. He related to the Lord the story of that plant, why he planted it, when he planted it, and how for a long time, he felt he ought to pull it up. Then he continued, “But Tuhan (God), I haven’t the courage to do it by myself, Tuan is here and he will help me to do it.” We opened our eyes, and he walked over to the plant and pulled it up and shook off the dirt. Then he found a place where the sun was beating down on the jungle floor and laid this plant out in the sun, so that it would wither and die. We started back to his longhouse, and, as he walked down the trail, I looked at his bronze body as it glistened in the sunlight when the sun broke through the jungle trees. I knew he was just a young convert in the Lord, but my heart rejoiced because I knew that he was living up to the light that was shed across his pathway and was growing in grace. “ But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:8). And, “ If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6: 23). Christians in many places are wanting to know the will of God on a certain matter. Let us call it proposition D. But they haven’t followed the Lord on proposition A, B or C, so the will of the Lord isn’t revealed to them on proposition D. If we desire to know the will of God, we must walk in the light as soon as it comes across our pathway. As the Dyak went down the trail, through the jungles, I thought, “How like so many Christians!” A ll things being equal, there are few Christians who do not have TH E KING'S BUSINESS
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