By KENNETH L. PIKE Wydiffe Bible Translators, and University of Michigan
they turned not when they went . . . and their rings were full of eyes round about them.” (Ezekiel 1:17, 18). On earth each individual is different from each other individual in accordance with the struggles and victories that he has gone through here. Redeemed men are the specimens that show God’s power, and His grace (Eph. 2:7). God wants a complete collection, for man becomes a spectacle which the angels love to watch (I Cor. 4:9 and I Pet. 1:12). Why should the angels be curious? Because there is something of the grace of God that they can’t see any other way! Where in heaven can they see the mercy of God applied to a sinner? Where in heaven can they see the grace of God take a vessel of clay and fill it with power like God does with us? It can’t be seen in heaven because there is no sin there. What does an angel know experimentally about enduring persecution from fellow sinners? Nothing. What does an angel learn as he watches those of our Christian brethren who are enduring persecution? A great deal. We then are players on a stage by which the angels can leam about the love of God — things which otherwise they would never know for a million years. No wonder there is joy in heaven over a sinner that repents. It gives the angels opportunity to see God’s grace in action. The angels don’t have to leam from us what it’s like to be righteous. They already know that. But they don’t know how it feels to be lost and have God say, “Your sins are forgiven.” But when they see one of us sinners repent, they indirectly sense the thrill of it. You say, “ But that happens so often!” Yes, but it is never the same twice. God’s method with me wasn’t the one He used with you at all. If the angels see God work ing in me to build certain character traits, and they see Him working in you, they see different problems. They see a variety of aspects of the character of God manifested in deaMng with these: problems. Now in some respects tribes are like people. Each has its own personality, its own struggles, its own trials. Each has its own difficulties. Therefore in the lives of Chris tians in different cultures there are different character istics of God showing through. We might say that it is the same light going: through a different facet of the same diamond. It sparkles differently. This means then that every culture has a • contribution to make. Even a small culture can contribute a new thing to the observers in heaven. If you had five thousand orchids, all one kind, they would make a beautiful display. But after a visitor had looked at them, you would take him to see just one, set apart, and say “This is my rarest orchid. There is only one of these. I had to travel far to get it. It cost me a lot of money and time.” So also there is a museum strategy in heaven. There is more joy in heaven over one sinner than repents than over many others (Luke 15:7). Why? Because a convert from a small tribe w ith 1a strange
Mixteco Women's group study group, Oaxaca, Mexico
culture may be like a rare orchid. He is an exhibit of the mercy of God poured forth in a way that has never been seen before. Can’t you imagine God, in whose image we are created, taking Gabriel on a guided tour? Perhaps He says, “ Gabriel, look at this one! The workers who got this one lived in the jungle for twenty years, and they thought they hadn’t succeeded in doing anything, but they got this individual. He’s different. I have only one of these.” Phil and Mary Baer and their children have now been living among and witnessing to that Lacandon tribe of one hundred and fifty people for some years. They have been in the jungle where chewing-gum trees grow and mahogany can be "used as firewood. They have been raising their children apart from schools, away from home, restricted to that small jungle clearing. The cost has been great. But it seems worth it to them, and it seems worth it to God. They are still sticking it out waiting to get their first orchid for Him. When thev do, it will mean something in heaven be cause for a billion years God is going to have a showcase. For a billion years redemption’s song is going to be sung. For a billion years He’s going to use the church to show His power, His magnificence, and His glory. For a billion years it will be told not onlv to martt but to the angels, to the Seraphim, to the cherubim, to all the strange look ing creatures, to those funny things which have wheels with eyes within and without. And it Will be to the glory o f God, showing that He is not just holy, but that He is love. He is teaching it in heaven bv means of redeemed sinners. And if we fail in our missionary effort, it seems to me that some facet of God’s grace will not be seen.
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SEPTEM3ER> 1959
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