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  Common Sense Not Needed  

(Continued)

PROPHETS AND PRIESTS

Some subnormals can understand at times more than one would expect. For the sake of experiment, I taught them the star constellations. After some practice, they were able to lay white beans on the table to represent Orion and the Big Dipper. Later, I took them for a walk in the evening and showed them the real Orion. In excitement, they shouted, "Look, it is just like our white beans."

I found that they had not understood at all what I had meant by the white beans.

To teach them spiritual truths was far more successful, for here we experienced the Holy Spirit working with their spirits. Common sense was not needed.

I had told them about the difference between priests and prophets. I asked Marie if she had understood it.

"Oh yes; that is very easy. Both are messengers between God and men. A priest stands with his face to God. A prophet has his back to God and his face toward men."

It was a rather good answer, but I was not sure that she had really understood, so I asked:

"What was I today when I gave you the Bible lesson?"

"A prophet," she replied, "for you brought God's message to us. But you were also a priest when you prayed together with us and asked the Lord to make our hearts ready for His love."

PRAYER

What is prayer? Normal people understand and know, but how may we make the feeble-minded understand?

A class of children was sitting before me. Their ages ranged from sixteen to forty-seven. Children? Yes: the woman in the first seat had the mentality of an eight-year-old, although she was born in 1906.

That evening when I stopped explaining, I knew that I had failed. Nobody understood what praying meant. The next week the girls came to the class, quite excited. They had heard over the radio how our little Princess was baptized. They had a lot of questions to ask.

"Why did the Princess cry?" "Does baptizing hurt?"

Some described the Princess lying on a beautiful pillow which the Queen had embroidered, for the feeble-minded have great imaginations.

I tried always to combine my lessons with the subject that occupied them, so I let them tell all they knew and then I asked:

"What do you think about Prince Bernhard? When the little Princess learns to talk and tries to tell her papa about her experiences as a little child, will the Prince take time to listen?"

"Yes, of course," they answered.

"Surely not. Would such a great Prince listen to a conversation about broken dolls and gathering flowers?"

"Oh yes, he will," they shouted.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because he loves his baby-Princess!"

"Yes, I believe that too," I said. "And you know, that is why Jesus will listen when people tell Him everything. It is because He loves you and me."

"Me too?" asked a poor woman, with a new light in her eyes.

"He loves you too! And what if the little Princess would never talk to her father? The Prince would be very unhappy. The same way Jesus is unhappy when you do not talk to Him. He is happy when you tell Him about your needs, your joy, your hunger, your pain, your fears. He will listen, just as the Prince will listen to Princess Beatrix when she wants to tell about a new pair of shoes, a sore little finger, a piece of chocolate, or being scared of a big dog. Telling Jesus everything, that's prayer."

CHURCH DISCIPLINE

Before a dignified assembly of theologians and other important people, I told about bringing the Gospel to subnormal people and the possibility of giving them the blessing of the Sacraments.

"But what about church discipline?" they asked.

We had the Lord's Supper in the magnificent cathedral of Haarlem. About a hundred normal Christians joined us in order to let our people know that there was a congregation accepting them. When communicants went to the Table, Jantje left the pew and wanted to join them. I stopped him and said, "No, Jantje, you are not permitted to go; you know that." Then Jantje took his hat and left the church. His eyes were dark with anger.

Next week I asked: "Jantje, do you know why Willem was allowed to go to the Lord's Supper? He had told me that he loved Jesus! Do you love Jesus too, Jantje?"

"No, I don't." was his answer.

"Do you know," I asked, "why Annie was allowed to partake? She prays every day and tells Jesus all she needs and all she enjoys. Do you pray, Jantje?"

"No, I never do."

"You see, Jantje, that is why you were not allowed to go to the Lord's Supper. But from now on you too must pray and love Jesus, then the next time you may join us. Won't you ask Jesus to come into your heart?"

Jantje did. And from that moment he began to pray, and when we talked about Jesus' love, his eyes sparkled with joy.

Yes, we had church discipline, but of a special order.

ANOTHER WORLD WAR?

Although their minds have not developed, often physically the feeble-minded can be just as strong as normal people.

Jan and Henk were fighting before the church service. It took rather a strong effort to separate the wrestling men. I got Jan outside the building. Henk was allowed to join the church service. But I was not surprised when after church I found Jan outside the door, and he told me that he had made up his mind to break a chair on the guilty head of Henk.

I prayed for wisdom and the Lord gave it.

"Listen, boys," I said; "do you know that this is the way the war started? Two men quarreled, and some took the side of one and some the side of the other. This grew and grew till two countries were fighting a war. Then other countries joined in, and now we have a World War."

Jan and Henk looked very worried. They knew perfectly well what a World War meant. We were in the very midst of one. The faces of all the feeble-minded people around looked anxious. What were they to do? One World War was bad enough, and now Jan and Henk had perhaps started another.

"I wish I knew someone who could help us," I said with a deep sigh.

Henk suddenly got an idea.

"I know someone," he shouted. "The Lord Jesus."

"Sure He can help us. Let us ask Him!"

We closed our eyes, and I asked the Lord Jesus to forgive Henk and Jan and to give them love instead of hatred in their hearts. All went home satisfied.

That same evening, while I was pulling the curtains to prepare for the blackout, I saw Henk and Jan walking before the house arm-in-arm. Both smiled at me and seemed to say, "All is well now. There won't be another World War!"

PUSHING AWAY

I had spoken to our boys about prayer. Jake, the tramp, accompanied me home. (My friends often said, "Such dignified friends you walk around with!") First he had told me how he had set up in business. He had taken the door off his room and chopped it up into small pieces to make firewood. He had sold the wood, going from door to door. This was good business in Holland during the war. Cost: not one cent. Profit: enough money for many weeks. It was not easy to persuade Jake that what he did meant stealing.

"Jake, do you know what prayer is?" I asked.

At first he was silent.

"Do you mean like this?" Jake asked hesitatingly. "Often I feel something I can't push away."

"That's it, Jake! Praying is asking Jesus to push away what you cannot push yourself. Jesus can do everything, and He loves you so much that He wants to push away the bad things in your life."

Next day _I_ had something _I_ could not "push away". I was downhearted and the spirit of worry was in my heart. Then I remembered the conversation with Jake and I asked, "Lord Jesus, will You push away the worry?"

And He did.

BEHOLD THOU ART THERE

Apart from running a church for the feeble-minded, I had clubs and classes for them. One of the most faithful members was a man named Roel.

Roel had a strong inferiority complex and tried to compensate for it by boasting of all his abilities. He was a broad-shouldered man of twenty-eight years.

"My, the police were happy that I was so active," he told me. "A very bad man went into a bush with a little girl. I told a policeman, 'Go into that bush; there is a job for you to do.' Later he said, 'Thank you, Roel, for having warned me just in time.'"

I knew Roel long enough to understand what that story meant. Roel himself had committed the crime and was found by the police. The feeble-minded often told of a sin that burdened their heart but attributed it to someone else. They were always the imaginary hero who had discovered the crime!

"Roel," I said, "don't you know that God is angry when you do such things?"

I spoke about God's judgment of sins that evening. When next I had a talk with Roel, a minister who visited the class was present. I could see that Roel was afraid.

"Is God here?" he asked.

"Sure He is."

"Then I will go home as quickly as I can."

"But He is everywhere. At your home too."

The minister tried to explain God's omnipresence.

"Roel," he said, "the sun shines here, the sun shines at home too. It is the same sun. There is air here and air at home. It is the same air. God is everywhere at the same time!"

Roel had always shown little respect for logical talking, a safe attitude to cover his absolute lack of common sense. He smiled and said, "The sun is not God. The air is not God. I am going home, for God is here."

"Roel, listen," I said, "Whether you like it or not, God IS in your home and He sees everything, even what you did in the bushes. Roel, God is angry with you, and there is no escape. The only thing is to tell Him that you are sorry and ask His forgiveness in Jesus' name. And then ask Jesus to come into your heart again. He will make you strong and good."

And Roel did.

MONGOLOIDS

I like Mongoloids. Often they are such lovable people. Why does God allow them to be born to quite healthy parents, who neither drank nor committed those sins which so often cause the birth of subnormal children? I don't know. Mongoloids are sometimes as sweet as very little children. Their IQ is exceedingly low.

Anton was a Mongoloid. He could neither speak nor walk along. He was for a very short time in my class. He listened to my Bible stories, but when I spoke too long to suit him, he yawned like a monkey. I did not know how much Anton understood really.

Once I took his hand and touched his five fingers one after another and said, "Jesus loves Anton so much." The next week, immediately Anton saw me, he took my hand and with his fingers outspread he just looked at me with a face full of longing. "Jesus loves Anton so much," I repeated, touching a finger at every word. Then I taught him to do it himself. After that, every week, Anton showed me with his fingers how much Jesus loved him. The last time I saw him, I told him while he touched his left fingers with his right hand, "Jesus loves Anton so much. How thankful I am for that! You too, Anton?"

"Yes," said Anton, as his face lit up.

It was the only word I ever heard from Anton. It is the most worthwhile word that any normal or subnormal person can speak to the Lord Jesus.

THE OCEAN OF LOVE

I shall never forget what a minister told me about a feeble-minded boy, Toontje by name, who attended his church services regularly and was always seated in the first pew.

"I wonder if Toontje understands one word of what I say," he sometimes said to his wife.

Once he preached about the abundant love of God that passes all understanding. Suddenly he saw a look of great joy upon Toontje's face. The minister almost forgot the rest of the congregation, and spoke as if to the poor boy alone about the ocean of God's love in Jesus Christ.

Next morning he said to his wife, "I cannot forget Toontje's happy face; I am sure that he has grasped something of the joy of God's love. I am going to visit him this morning."

When he arrived at the home, the door was opened by Toontje's mother. "This morning," she told him, "we found that Toontje had died in his sleep."

The minister saw on the face of the dead boy a look of heavenly joy as he grasped so much of the love of God.

Do we not all need the Holy Spirit to enlarge our hearts to contain only a little more of the joy unspeakable and full of glory, God's abundant love in us, otherwise our hearts would burst with happiness?

JOY IN HEAVEN

Bringing the Gospel to subnormal people is not popular work in the eyes of the world. To convert a "big shot" is more important than to change a subnormal person who cannot organize a mission, cannot start a drive to collect money, cannot write books, and cannot do what splendid, gifted Christians can.

Does heaven have the same standards as on earth? I do not think so.

I know that the last words of Jesus, before going to heaven, were, "Go ye--and preach the Gospel to EVERY creature." And I think that the subnormal have received a special grace to enable them to understand the Gospel.

I believe that the joy before the angels of God when a subnormal person is converted is as great as when a "big shot" gives his heart and life to Jesus. It is possible that the joy is greater; heaven is different from earth. One can never tell.

"FINALLY, BRETHREN----!"

My experiences in four years' work in Haarlem brought me into contact with only a handful of the many subnormal people of the world. I reached only a few of the feeble-minded in one town in one small country. Besides this, there are all the psychopaths, the shell-shocked and the insane. What difficult problems are these that I have not touched upon!

The woman with the seven demons was a difficult problem? And did not Jesus succeed?

Bringing the Gospel is not OUR work. It is God's work. He will use us who are ready to obey.

God's kingdom will come. It is great to fight in a war knowing beforehand that your King is the Victor.