Jesus Never Fails - Original

The Bible teaches that some of life's richest lessons are learned only in the valley of tears. The Psalmist declared: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes." (Psalm 119:71). Difficult times should be the steppingstones in our spiritual growth and usefulness. This was the case with the author and composer of "Jesus Never Fails." Arthur Luther, pastor and musician, relates the following story regarding the writing of his hymn:





As a school boy Christian, I had a burning desire to be a foreign missionary. That was not to be. Later I had an urgent desire to write a song that everyone would sing. I tried a popular song, but it was a dismal failure; yet God, in His own time and way, granted my wish. "Jesus Never Fails" has reached to the uttermost of mission fields, and the multitudes have sung it!

The song was written at Somerset, Kentucky, while I was there with the Dr. O.E. Williams Evangelistic Party. I received some very disturbing news from my family some 600 miles away. Worried and homesick, I sat down at the old square piano in the "Old Kentucky Home" where we were staying, and my fingers wandered idly, a simple melody developed beneath them which seemed to sing "Jesus never fails." Then and there the words and music of the chorus were born.

When I finished, a peace had settled over my anxious heart. I knew the God who never fails would find the answer and He did, for just then there was a knock at the door and someone came with the news—word had just been received over the telegraph wire that my son had passed the crisis and all was well!

Scores of testimonies have simce come from missionaries, evangelists, and others of the blessing that this simple three-word message has been to them. It has been translated into ten European languages and into Chinese.

"Jesus Never Fails" has become a sort of musical slogan of Bible-believing Christians everywhere. Men sang it at the battlefront as they girded themselves for the fray. On the homefront, saints sing it as they do battle with the forces of sin, in true confidence that the Captain of their salvation fails not. I surely have every reason to praise God for this song that He gave me in the hour of my need and which has gone on to bless the entire world with its message of divine triumph.

The Lord has allowed this song to be used in concentration camps in Germany and by missionaries, evangelistic, etc.; to be translated into other languages, to be sung by missionaries in danger on the torpedoed Zam-Zam, and to save a man on the way to drown himself.

During World War II, a church in England had this slogan printed on top of one wall. This church escaped destruction by bombs until the very end, and even then that wall remained till after the war was over.

Earthly friends may prove untrue,
Doubts and fears assail;
One still loves and cares for you,
One Who will not fail.

Though the sky be dark and drear,
Fierce and strong the gale,
Just remember, He is near
And He will not fail.

In life's dark and bitter hour
Love will still prevail;
Trust His everlasting pow'r
Jesus will not fail.

CHORUS:
Jesus never fails,
Jesus never fails.
Heav'n and earth may pass away,
But Jesus never fails.

Sources: Amazing Grace - 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions © Copyright 1990 by Kenneth W. Osbeck. Lyrics © 1927 Singspiration Music. All rights reserved. Posted here for eductional and edification purposes only.

Bats In The Belfry

We will travel to the west coast of Ecuador, along the great Guayas river. It is here where the large banana farms are located. It is warm and wet. There are small towns scattered along the river. We will take a small boat crowded with people, freight and animals.

Our destination is a small village where, we will accompany Abe Dyck in an evangelistic week of meetings. The church there was a small church with very uncomfortable benches. They had one small light bulb that hung over the pulpit. That was the only one in the place. The electric company charged not by the amount of electricity used, but by the bulb. Electric meters were hard to come by.

This was a small and poor village where there were a good number of believers. Gladis and I would supply the music and Abe would do the preaching.

Seven o'clock came and there was a good crowd that night. The Lord had blessed the meetings. Abe was in the middle of his message and preaching with all his might. Then, the devil, afraid to lose a few souls came in. He came in AS A BAT!

This bat came in to the light to try to get the bugs and flies that were around the bulb. He came diving in right at Abe, and Abe would duck. It was really something. Everyone was watching Abe and the bat, and Abe was having difficulty trying to keep on the subject. I was praying that the bat would leave, but it kept on diving at the light.

We had to close the meeting for the night.

Sometimes when you most desire to talk to someone about the Lord something comes up to hinder. The devil has his bats. But God is able to work in spite of the hindrances. When this happens, praise God and keep on going.

Bill Gibson
Children's Minute
Nov 26, 2000

The Evangelical Rat

We don't seem to see rats much any more. Have you seen a big ugly rat lately? Rats are ugly, dirty, and do a lot of damage. They love to browse around in the kitchen.

We had one in the small kitchen in the house in Riobamba. Gladis and I and Dottie Brown were in the kitchen. We closed the door, and we each got a broomstick and went after that rat. I got it cornered and poked my stick at him and he came right up the stick at me. I dropped the stick and the rat ran over Gladis' foot and she screamed and after a while I got a good swing and hit it and we killed it.

The story I have for this morning is about a rat in the church. Ray Zuercher and I went to a small country village for a service. One of the nationals was to do the speaking. The room was a nice large room. They didn't have nice pews, but benches with no backs. Along the wall there were benches and one could have the wall as a back. The walls were board on the outside and the framing was on the inside. The boards of the walls were vertical and there was a two-by-four across the middle. This was just right to lean against if you were on a bench along the wall.

The preacher was long winded. He went on and on. All the children were fast asleep on the floor, and most of us grownups were almost asleep or wishing that we were. He had been preaching about an hour when I saw a movement on the other side of the room.

It was a rat and it was walking along on the two-by-four between the backs of the people and the wall. He came around and nobody even payed any attention to it. It came creeping between the wall and the backs of those people and they didn't even seem to notice it. Around it came, then started on the wall I where I was sitting. When it got to me, I jumped up and let it pass. Everyone woke up and laughed. The preacher finished his teaching and we all went home.

I was amazed that no one ever thought to get that rat. They were so used to them that they didn't pay any attention to them.

Lesson...

You know what boys and girls? We live in a very dirty world. The people use dirty words, dirty stories, and filthy vile language is everywhere. We have gotten so used to it that it doesn't seem to move us, we don't even react. But dirty words, filthy habits, will have a very bad effect on us. We need to react to these and stay away from those who use those dirty words.

It is so common that we live with the rats and are contaminated by their filth and this is not pleasing to the Lord. Beloved keep your mouths clean and your hearts pure before the Lord your God. Close your ears to the swearing and cursing of your friends. Ask the Lord to help you every day to keep your words clean and your heart pure.

~Bill Gibson
The Children's Minute
El Paso Texas

8/27/00

A Missionary Story

The story I have this morning takes place in the high sierra. Riobamba a city of some 33 thousand people at that time. It is located in the heart of the Quichua Indian population.

The Quichua were descendants of the Aztecs and had been defeated by the Spaniards. They were down trodden people who dressed in dark collars, and had to ride the train on top of the cards. They had to sit in the back seat of the buses or on top of the load.

In the early 1900's a lady missionary went to Riobamba and settled in an Indian community called Caliata, some 25 miles away. She traveled by mule and came in to Riobamba for supplies about every two weeks. When we arrived and we were stationed in this, Ecuador's, most fanatical Roman Catholic city, the work in Caliata had been going on for 35 or more years. And in all that time, there were no more than perhaps 4 or 5 believers.

That first missionary lady who settled in Caliata was a single woman. she learned the language and ministered faithfully. She prayed that the Lord would send her a helper and He did. Another young lady came to work with her. She was so happy to have a companion.

Then the Pioneer missionary lady got typhoid fever and died.

The new, younger, missionary took her body early in the morning to Riobamba to bury her there. By the time she arrived, it was late morning, and the Roman Catholic Church forbade anyone to help her. She wandered all around that city all the rest of the day and NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO HELP HER. After dark, a store keeper took pity on her, and got a shovel, and they secretly went out on the back side of the mountain and there they buried her.

The young missionary went back to Calita alone.

About the same time that we arrived, the Lord also sent other missionaries. I was the only man in that whole area for quite a while before other couples came to carry on the ministry.

I often wondered, we have had missionaries serving here for 40 years, and nothing. Why not give up? I'm glad the mission didn't listen to me.

During my time there, within a period of a few years, God began to work. Thousands came to know the Lord. They received Christ in groups and added to the church was hundreds, and later thousands of brand new believers. They were filled with the joy of the Lord. They became leaders, teachers, etc. It was one of the greatest revivals the evangelical world has seen.

Why?

Because there were Godly women who were willing to leave all, and go bring the Gospel to these people, and they were willing to pay the price. Sometimes men aren't so willing.

God uses the one who is willing to go and pay the price, whether it be man or woman. It could even be you.

You will never do anything for God that will cost you nothing. You might not ever see the results, but you will receive HIS WELL DONE.

~Missionary Minute by Bill Gibson
El Paso Texas 11/18/01

Riding the bus to Quito from Shellmera

It was raining again. We piled all ten bags onto the church steps and waited for the Quito bus to come by. For two hours we waited in drizzly Shellmera, a small town on the outskirts of the Ecuadorian jungles. Late buses and rain are a daily occurrence.

Finally, we saw the bus. It was jam packed, careening down the gravel road. The driver took one look at all our bags and almost passed us by. But when we yelled that we were going all the way to Quito, he stopped and let us on.

We squeezed aboard. People were already standing in the aisles. One man gave up his seat when he found out that we were going to the end of the line. The rest of us stood where we could.

After we got underway again, things settled down a bit. Two Quichua Indians were sleeping in one seat. They kept falling on top of each other. They were so comical that the whole bus full of people would roar with laughter as they flopped around. Riding in a bus for hours and hours makes the people inside become comradely and friendly with each other, especially Ecuadorians. They joked and laughed at each other all the time.

My mother began talking with a fellow passenger and he told us why the bus was late. The original driver had been caught driving without a license. The passengers had spent most of their time trying to get him out of jail, and finding another driver.

The roads are very narrow, and at times when you meet another vehicle, you had to back up until a wide enough section of road could be found to pass in. Once when passing another bus, our bus was on the outside edge. I was sitting by the window, and when I looked out, I realized that the outside tires of the double wheel were actually hanging off the edge of the cliff.

Another time, when the rains had washed out a section of the road, we had to drive over what looked like a little river full of large round boulders. We got to just about the middle when the bus started to float. We almost got washed right off the cliff edge, but managed to get to the other side. After that, I always got OFF the bus and crossed the washout by walking through them. I also got off when buses were passing on narrow sections of road.

I almost got sick from the swaying bus and smell of the people, so I went up front behind the driver. It was too hard to stand, so I crouched in the aisle.

The conductor, seeing my uncomfortable position, offered his seat. It wasn't much better. The seat faced the driver who kept leering at me. The scenery was beautiful, but I was too uncomfortable to pay much attention. The driver had a peculiar way of smiling at me, shifting gears, beeping the horn, and making a 90* turn, all at the same time. It was during one of these feats that we met a jeep head on. It hadn't responded to the customary 'beep beep" that announced our approach. Fortunately, the road was wide enough at this point, and we swooped by.

The custom of honking a warning as you approach a curve is an important feature of safe driving on those roads. I road a bus once where the horn had conked out, and believe me, it was scary! We had to inch around corners, and everyone made as much noise as possible.

Every once in a while, the conductor who was up on top with the baggage, would bang on the bus roof as a sign to let someone off. We would screech to a halt, then leave them in the dust, seemingly in the middle of no where.

A couple of bouncing, dusty hours later, we came to a relatively big town. My mother had secured a seat by a window, so I went back and sat by her.

While sitting there, we began talking to a Peace Corp volunteer. He was on his way to a remote mountain village. We shared our banana bread with him. It was the first American food he had eaten for months. He got off at Ambato with twelve hours of bus travel ahead.

In Ambato, we had a half hour rest stop and we changed drivers. Although it was dirty, and smelly, the town of Ambato did have a really unique feature. Public bathrooms. I might mention, that this is the only town where there were bathrooms that we could use. During that long ride, if you had to go and you were a man, it was no problem. Many of the native women would just get off the bus and go behind a bush some where. But I learned heroic bladder control!

The public toilets in Ambato often saved my life, but the were filthy! There were no doors on the facilities anywhere, not even on the stalls. The floors, walls, and seats were always covered with grime. The windows were not screened, glassed in, or anything, and people could (and did) look in at you whenever they wanted. A man sat in front and sold grungy toilet paper by the square.

The cobblestone road is better from Ambato on, and fewer people were in the bus. The man sitting in front of us had a chicken under his seat. It laid an egg on the way, and the egg rolled down the aisle. My father picked it up to return it to the owner, but his thumb went right through it, and the owner told him to throw it out the window.

The people on the bus laughed about the chicken laying the egg for hours. Each time we stopped, they hollered out the window, telling everyone in sight about the chicken, and holding it up so everyone could see her for themselves.

There was a family of Quichua Indians crammed into the back, one long bench with about four too many people on it. They were coming home from a wedding, and they were drunk, and happy, and they laughed til they cried, almost rolling on the floor laughing about the chicken and the egg. Pretty soon we were laughing at them too.

Some hours later at Latacunga, the paved section of the Pan American Highway began. Without bumps and hairpin curves the trip became extremely monotonous and most everyone went to sleep. While it was often boring, I spent many hours in pleasant day dreaming on that section of road. This was the part of the highway that went high into the mountains, and over the passes. The hairpin curves and the cliff edges were gone, but the scenery was awesome. It was a tundra like area, too high up for trees, so it was all grasslands, cool, and often either misting, or foggy and eerie.

No one lived up there except for a very few, very poor Indians who lived in sod and grass huts. Many times the fog we passed through was actually a cloud resting on the top of the mountain. Snow capped mountains ringed the area. And if you weren't acclimated to the altitude, you could certainly feel the effects of it here.

Finally, after eight hours of travel, we came down out of the mountain passes, and rolled into the Ecuadorian capital. The quaintly picturesque city of springtime, Quito, where on a clear day you can see eight snow capped mountains.

~remembrances of Shirley Gibson
from an essay written in 1968

Missionary Story - On the way home

It had been a long trip. John Stuck, myself, and three of our shuar friends from Sucua had spent several days at Wari Entza (fast river) a place where missionaries had never been. It was high in the mountains and virgin jungle of southern Ecuador.

The chief there had asked us to come. He wanted a school for the children, medicine, and a place where an airstrip could be made so that the missionaries could come.

Now this was rugged mountain country, jungle covered, and John and I, along with the chief had looked around until we could find a place level enough to be cleared and an airstrip built. Our visit had ended, and it was time to return. We were a long way from home. It had been a grueling three day walk up the mountains, through the dense virgin rain forest, and now we had to make that three day walk back to the place where the missionary plane could come and pick us up.




We were so glad that the trip had been such a blessing, but we were tired too. The first day, on the way back, about 4 in the afternoon, we came to a house right in the middle of the trail. There were no doors on the house, and the trail went right up to the one door, and out the other door. This made for an excellent place to spend the night. There were palm trees, bananas, and plantain, and our shuar friends made themselves at home.

Now, I knew that someone must have built this place for themselves. We were really in somebody's house. What if they came back and found us all here eating their food and burning their firewood? It worried me a little bit.

But the natives with us were not bothered by such things. They just took over. Peasa, the one who had invited us to Wari Entza went hunting and killed a monkey so we could have some meat.

It was as if the Lord wanted us to have a good place to sleep that night. Peasa roasted the monkey over the fire all night. It was a night to remember. We sang hymns, choruses like:

"It's true, it's true that Jesus died for me."
"Necas necas, jaruktram gamiaji"

Necas means "it's true". Jaruktram gamiaji means "he died for me". In the word jaruktram gamiaji - ja is the word for "death".

There is nothing like a song to restore our souls. The Lord not only prepares a table before us even in the presence of the enemy. But He restores us to joy and the peace of being His children. As we sang those chorus's together, John and I, and the shuar that were with us that night in that house that wasn't ours, eating food that wasn't ours, God restored our souls.

We forgot about the cold nights, and the long hard days on the trail. We forgot about the bugs, the snakes, the rain, and the mud. We remembered what Jesus had done for us, and who He was.

There were long and hard days ahead. The evil one was not pleased that the Lord had fed us and restored us.



In your lives, there will be long hard days too. But if you keep looking to Jesus, and thinking about Him, the hard days will soon be over, and God will lift you up in His arms and hug you, and love you. The whole world is a jungle, and there He will prepare for you food, and rest, and blessed restoration.

Thank you very much,
Bill Gibson, 11/03/02