Personal stories from Ian’s life that are included in Gems and available to read and search as stand-alone stories here.
God Often Showed Us the Same Things but in Different Ways
While at Bible College I had a study room next door to my friend John Mason. I was blown away when many times John would knock on the door and interrupt my Greek study to share what he had got “from the Holy Spirit”. Or ask me what I was getting from my study of the Greek text only to then tell me, “yes the Holy Spirit gave me that too . . . in a word picture”. He would tell me about it and indeed he had gained similar input but in a very different way. In a totally unstructured and spontaneous way, whereas working on the left-brain side is very time oriented and time consuming. I was envious but I could see it was valid. Paul was clearly open to the Holy Spirit’s input to him and willing to receive and accept it was from God.
900 Men and their Families Saved After All Had the Same Dream in the Night
A group of people connected with reaching M people with the Gospel in the Middle East prayed something very significant. They asked God to give many M people the same dream on the same night, including M leaders so that a larger group of people would be open and grow together and support one another. Often working with M people it is a case of winning one by one against the tide. A large number of people worldwide began praying for a breakthrough in the M world as a result of God speaking to scores of M men through the same dream on the same night. The story of what happened is what I received on the sound byte recording of a woman telling the result of concerted prayer.
A pastor was spoken to by God to go to a particular M people group and live among them to share Christ with them. He went because the Lord told him to go with his family and live in a particular town. He went and a few days after he arrived someone rang his bell on the gate before his front door. He went to the gate and found three masked men who put a gun to his head and shot him dead. Not long after that God spoke to another pastor and told him to take his family and go to the same town to work with these people and take the other man’s place. He moved into the same flat the first pastor had lived in.
Not long after he arrived with his family to live in that town, the gate bell rang again and when he went to answer it, the same three masked men were standing there. They put a mask or a hood over his head and then took him and threw him into the boot (trunk) of a car. He rode in the boot for a long time until finally the car stopped and they dragged him out of the boot, and marched him into a building still masked. They finally took the mask off and the pastor found himself in a giant room filled with 900 M men. When he saw all those men gathered the pastor figured they were planning a public execution for him to be videoed and put on the internet.
At that point one of the masked men said, "Sir we don't mean to frighten you. Do you remember that man who lived in that flat before you lived there?" The pastor said, "Yes I do." The man said "Well I am the one who pulled the trigger. The three of us are the ones who killed that first pastor. The night that we killed him, every single one of us in this room had the same dream. We dreamt that the blood of that pastor was on our hands. But that God in his mercy would send someone in his place to tell us how to get the blood off our hands. Are you that man?" That night that pastor had the amazing opportunity to share the Gospel with 900 M men and lead them to become Christ –followers. All 900 of those men came to know Christ as a result of having the same dream. And later all of the families of those 900 men also came to know Christ and follow Him.
That is a verifiable true story of how God spoke to many people by the same dream on the same night in answer to prayer and then led hundreds, more likely thousands to follow Him.
What Do You Do For a Living Ian?
Nothing in my experience points to this as graphically as two encounters I had on planes. Both encounters started the same way with a plain ordinary introduction.
“Hello my name is Ian.”
“Hi Ian, my name is ______. Ian what do you do for a living?”
“I work with Wycliffe Bible Translators.”
From that point on, either the doors are open wide or slammed shut. There seems no middle ground. Just that one innocent statement of what I do evokes interesting reactions. The first experience happened on a flight from Brisbane to Auckland. This was the one and only time I had been upgraded from Economy to First Class. I was soon joined by my travelling companion and we introduced ourselves as above. When I told him what I did he remarked, "Well that is fascinating. Tell me about it." That started a three and half hour conversation about spiritual things and resulted in the person coming back to God after spending years away from Him. My companion asked all sorts of questions, genuinely wanting to know. He asked how I was funded to do what I did. I told him. Then he said, "Ian, may I ask you a personal question?" I said, "Yes, you can ask me anything." "How is it that you are seated in First Class if you gain your money from the gifts that ordinary people give to you?" I smiled and said, "That's a very astute question. Actually this is the one and only time I have been bumped up to 1st Class. I believe I have been put here for you." He said, "I think you are right!" and we proceeded to talk non-stop until the flight attendant told us that we would be landing soon which surprised us both. She said, "Gentlemen you have been talking non-stop from the time you boarded. We are beginning our descent to Auckland now."
The second encounter occurred on a flight from L.A to Auckland. The introduction was exactly the same as the conversation above. That is, we introduced ourselves and she asked what I did [for a living]. I told her I worked for Wycliffe Bible Translators. Instantly her reaction was to pointedly turn her back to me and face the window for the next 40 minutes. When dinner came and she turned back toward the front of the plane her table and lowered her table. I innocently dared to speak to her again and asked, “Did you choose the beef or the chicken?” I assure you dear reader, my question contained no hidden meanings in the words “beef” or “chicken”. It was just a simple question. No sooner had I asked it but the woman turned back toward her favourite window, ate her meal at a strange angle shutting me out, and after the meal sat with her body angled to the window for the duration of the flight. It made my heart go out to her in sympathy but I knew I wasn't the one to help her. I had become unwittingly part of her problem. I felt sorry for her. Clearly she had been deeply hurt by religion or religious people. I longed to be able to talk to her and help her but she didn't give me chance and I knew not to try to talk to her anymore. But it did talk to the LORD on her behalf.
As Paul wrote centuries ago, to some we are the fragrance of life while to others we are the stench of death, through nothing we have done or said.
Stop Ian! It has to Go from Your Head to Your Heart
The significance of these passage to me is huge. Acts 17:11 has been a passage which has stood out to me for years. It has been the basis of the approach that I have taken to the Word of God for years. When I was first became a Christian I was discipled initially by Reg Ackland who took me through the Navigator Discipleship series “New Life In Christ”. I had a thirst and deep desire to learn about the Bible that I had found out about for the first time at 23 years of age. So Reg gave me the first book and told me to take it home and work my way through the book: read the questions, look up the Bible passages and consider my answers. I finished the first book that first night and gave him my answers the next day. I stayed up until 2.00 am finishing it, such was my desire to learn. He reluctantly gave me the second book which I finished the next night and returned to him the next day while asking for the third book. He gave me the third book but even more reluctantly. When I took the third book to him finished on the fourth day he told me,
“Stop Ian. You are only gaining head knowledge. It must go drop down 18 inches from your head to your heart. That takes time. I am not giving you any more books until I see that process happening."
Wise input.
Ian, What ARE you doing?
That verse impacted me and I sat there in my study thinking about it. I had been going through my daily routine outlined above and then taking my prayer list and praying through the people on it. I had it laid out on graph paper with the days of the weeks along the top and the names of the people for whom I was praying down the side. I would tick the box when I had prayed for them. There were too many to fit into a morning and so I would work through them in the week to make sure they were all prayed for. In the midst of all that I heard an audible voice say “Ian, what are you doing?” I turned around to see who was in the room. No one was there! I settled back into my routine again, and once again I heard the voice say the same words but with different intonation – “Ian, what ARE you doing?” I then realized the enormity of the significance of John 5:39 to me personally and how I had let this time with God become a rote process with His Holy Spirit sidelined in the process. That changed my life. After learning Hebrew and Greek and joining Wycliffe Bible Translators my ability to examine the Scriptures expanded significantly.
Demons fear the name of Jesus
Now to return to the story of dealing with the woman who had been exorcized the night before but was still troubled by evil spirits the next day despite having the demons all name themselves. When I walked into the house she started speaking in an unnatural voice not her own, “You stay away from me you man of God. You stay away from me.” Then she ran and hid under the breakfast bar in the dining room. I took my Bible and starting reading the verses in Colossians chapter one starting from verse 15 concerning the Pre-eminence of Christ. I literally saw the demons trembling as I read from the Word of God. Suddenly the woman started shouting out in a shrill voice crying, “No, not the sword! No, not the sword!” and leapt up out of the corner from under the bench and rose into the air spiralling as she went and landed in the middle of the kitchen floor and crumpled in a heap but still shouting “No, not the sword.” If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would never have believed it was possible. I kept reading the Colossians passage and saw the demon spirits shrink down to nothing. God’s Word has power. The demons are afraid of it. I have seen it time and again. They fear the Word of God.
Demons have even tried to snatch the Bible out of my hands as I have read the Colossians passage. They fear it.
When the Unstoppable Force meets the Invisible Immovable Object
Apparently it happened in Matamata long ago according to the story told. A large drugged, possessed man is said to have broken free from a bunch of people holding him and lunged at David Metcalfe, when he was the pastor of Matamata Baptist. Everybody present expected something bad to happen to the pastor but rather it happened to the man attacking him. The pastor put up hand and said, “In Jesus name I command you to stop!” The people who told me the story said it was the like the guy had hit a dome of protection or a force field and was slammed to the ground without the pastor physically laying a hand on him.
Equilibrium was Restored in the End
I remember a time in Sulawesi when during the Gulf War, an Australian was punched in the face by an Indonesian through the open window of a public vehicle while the perpetrator shouted, “Bloody American!” Then during uprisings in Dili when the Indonesian flag was burnt by Australian students, an American was punched, again in the face, by an Indonesian who shouted, “Bloody Australian!” Well at least we can say equilibrium was restored – kind of.
I Was The Odd Man Out
There was a time back at the beginning of my "walk with Him" when as Christian teachers we were seeking God for His will for what to do for the school context for the Lord in the weeks ahead. I won't go into great detail, the specifics are not important. We fasted and prayed for a fortnight and then met together to see what God had told us all. I was excited about it because I just knew that God was going to do something amazing. I had the sense that when we all came together all of our senses / contributions would make up a united whole and we would have the sense that God had put this all together.
During the fortnight it was like God was showing me things in His Word. Giving me verses that linked up. Speaking to me in other ways through things that came "across my path". It was all coming together nicely I thought. I couldn't wait till we all got together on the appointed day to see how it all flowed and how each had a part of the puzzle. I was sure that God was leading me and so He must be leading the others too. I couldn't wait for the unveiling of His plan. This was all so exciting.
On the day, we all met in the school library to lay out what God had said. I was so excited I told them what I "had been given" first. Then we moved on to each person in turn. It soon became clear that in what all the others shared there was unity but my input was at a tangent to the others. I was devastated. I wondered how I could have missed it by so much. Not one thing (nothing) of what I had was common or in sync with what they all had. I was the odd man out. How could that be? God had showed me things. God had brought the thoughts to me, at least I had thought so. It had all happened so amazing well. But I was oh so wrong it seems. Could it be that they were all wrong and I was right? No, in my mind I knew that God would work in unity, in unified thought. I was the one who was out of sync, not them. I dragged myself home with my tail between my legs. That night as I took the Bible (my first huge NASB version) and dared to read it again, God used some verses from Deuteronomy 8, the passage where I was reading in my systematic reading of the Bible for the year, to speak to my heart. It staggered me.
Pastor: I Don't Know Where My Church Is
I have a friend in NZ who is a pastor and when asked by anyone, especially those not in the Church, where his church is, he answers, "I don't know." What sort of a pastor doesn't know where his church is? How can that be? Is he able to find his office? Does he get to the church on time to be able to preach or does he have trouble finding it? No, his point is that if you ask him at any one time in the day where the church is, it's hard to answer. The saints are scattered. Some are in school, some are at various offices all over the city, some are on the road moving from place to place.
We Your Church Enforce Your Victory In The World
I had the most amazing experience on one occasion a long time ago in New Zealand. I had been called to a house by a woman who was being troubled by demons spirits. Amazingly as I approached the house the front door was open and I could see the woman standing in the lounge inside looking furtively outside as me coming to the front door. I called her name and poke my head in the door. She ran to the far end of the lounge and called in a strange voice not her own "You stay away from me you man of God. Stay away from me." Then she ran to the kitchen. As I had been called to helped I decided to enter the house and follow her. I found her in the kitchen cowering under the breakfast bar and screaming out the same words as before. I took my Bible and started to read Colossians 1 which tells exactly who Jesus is and what he has done and how everything is under Him. She started whimpering in the unnatural voice "No, not the sword, no, not the sword." The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. Believe it, it is true. We need to be reminded of it just as the demonic world need to be reminded of it. "we, Your church enforce that victory in the world".
When My Thoughts Went Off On a Dirt Track
We had a very interesting experience in one of the villages we lived in for a while working on a translation project. We encountered darkness of a sexual nature when the people of the village were trying to encourage me to leave them with a memento of our visit by leaving them with a child conceived with one of their women. (That's the nicest way I can put it.) I made some very strong statements about morality and told them I was committed to one woman; that there was no way I would do what they were suggesting. Tania perceptively made a comment later when we were alone that she thought I had made such a strong moral statement that we needed to cover ourselves in prayer against any spiritual attack that may come. Which we duly did. Later when we were back in the city again we both had a period of a week or so struggling with our thought life: constant tempting thoughts. I kept trying to deal with it myself. Praying, quoting Scripture like: How can a young man keep his way pure; by guarding it according to thy Word. Thy Word have I hid in my heart t! hat I might not sin against thee. (Psalm 119:9)
But still the thoughts came. Then one day Tania said to me "There's something I need to tell you." She shared that she was struggling with her thoughts, assailed by attacks from the enemy of our souls. I was ashamed that it had taken confession on the part of my wife to draw it out of me. I then told her how I was finding the same thing but had been trying to deal with it myself. Not wanting to share it with her because somehow the mere act of thinking the thoughts seemed wrong. But it had been a battle to stop thinking them. The moment we had talked about it and shared the struggle, the battle in our thoughts stopped for both of us.
Dear Reader, there are some deep lessons from that experience to help you too!