Sound an Alarm

Sound the battle cry, see the foe is nigh, Raise your banner high for the Lord. Shield and banner bright, gleaming in the light, Battling for the right we ne'er can fail. Rouse then soldiers, rally round the banner, Ready, steady, pass the word along.

Onward, forward, shout aloud hosanna, Christ is captain of the mighty throne. I'm missionary Richard Yerby in spiritually dark mountainous central Japan, and I continue with my sermons on the theme of Job's challenging declaration recorded in verse 26 of chapter 3 of the book of Job, Neither was I quiet. This sermon is titled Sound and Alarm.

My previous sermon ended as I was telling of specific reactions by local Japanese people here in my hometown of Matsuida as I preach on streets throughout town. Around 1980, soon after I started street preaching here, once a young man and woman came to my house to inquire of me. They were in their early 20s engaged to be married.

The woman asked me if her grandfather was a Christian. She said that he had recently died and the family had given him a Buddhist funeral. She said that if he were a Christian, they were wrong to give him a Buddhist funeral.

I expressed sympathy at his death and told her that I didn't know her grandfather. She would explain so little to me, so I had to keep prying her with questions to find out why she thought I would know if her grandfather had been a Christian. She finally told me it was because he had remarked to the family that he enjoyed my street preaching.

He lived with her family three generations in that house. I got the lady to tell me exactly where she lived, and I could not recall ever seeing her grandfather as I preached in that area. But that old man sat or lay in their house approaching death and enjoying my preaching each time I brought church there.

He never talked to me, and I don't know that I ever saw his face. Still, I preached to him in person with no microphone, megaphone or such. Oh, my fellow preacher, if they won't come to church, then you go to them where they are.

Go quickly and tell the angel of the Lord commanded Mary Magdalene and the other Mary in Matthew 28 verse 7 at the tomb on that great resurrection day. Simple as that. Can you not hear your Lord's voice right now telling you to go quickly and tell? There is an urgency.

The end of harvest time is drawing nigh. Night is coming when no man can work. Neither was I quiet.

I found a local Japanese Christian man who had known that deceased grandfather. And this Christian man told me that the elderly man had attended church some in the past. So I hope he had gotten saved during that lifetime and that I will see him in heaven.

Thus far, I've told some of the several positive reactions to my street preaching. Mainly, people just ignore me. As for some of the negative reactions now, one time a lady opened her door and said her baby was sleeping.

So I immediately shut up and went on as that was a valid complaint. On a different day in a different locale, I walked into a small lot with a few tiny cheap matchbox-sized rental houses in a semi-circle around the very small open area where I stood. I felt uncomfortable squeezed in so close to them.

Still, I hauled off preaching. Soon, a window flew open and an angry man in pajamas growled, you're noisy. It was about 4 p.m., so people weren't normally sleeping.

Then he added, I'm in bed sick with a cold. So I apologized and crept away as silently as possible. He also had a valid complaint.

So I immediately shut up, as was my custom to do in such cases, not only to be an undue bother to anyone as I plead with them to receive God's salvation from eternal hell fire. If and when that man sick with a cold plunges into hell, you'll wish he had listened to my preaching while sick with a cold. If that lady with her sleeping baby, which is now in its forties in this year 2025, if they go to hell, she'll wish she had woken up the baby and brought it out to me for both of them to listen to my preaching.

When death comes, people's priorities drastically change. Oh, that lost and saved souls alike would all get their priorities in order now, me first of all. Now, two negative reactions that were not valid.

Once a man came out of his house mad and complaining to me that I was loud and noisy. It was about 2 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. He didn't mention that anyone in his house was sick or sleeping.

And it was out in a rural area where his house was not close to the road where I stood preaching. I was preaching a decent distance from his house while standing on the edge of a public road where noisy trucks and such roar past. So he had no valid complaint against me, but he was full of the devil and mad at hearing.

Thus saith the Lord God. He accused me of being loud and noisy. So I kindly asked him, is the baked sweet potato truck loud and noisy? No, it isn't, he replied angrily.

Is the recycled paper truck loud and noisy? No, he said irritated. At that time around 1980, two common sights on the streets and roadways here were a small truck selling freshly baked hot sweet potatoes in the winter and a larger truck collecting newspapers, magazines and such paper to be recycled. Both of those trucks had loudspeakers on them broadcasting as they slowly rolled along.

Of course, they were a lot louder than my unamplified voice, but he didn't mind them simply because they were not broadcasting. Thus saith the Lord God. And he was so full of the devil that he readily lied saying they were not loud, but that I was.

My short now forgotten reply was likely, well, I'm not as loud as them. Then I went right back to preaching, ignoring him because he was being most unreasonable with his sinful line. When he saw that I chose to ignore him, he headed back toward his house, but an amusing event hindered him temporarily.

His very young puppy followed him out there and played around his feet till about the time I started back preaching. Then it became apparent that that old God haters pup was the most spiritual little doggie because it liked my preaching. That little pup left his master's feet, bounded joyfully over to me and started playing all over my feet.

You picture that pup two to three months old, just a cute little ball of fur. Apparently he had never yet been kicked or harmed by man or beast. So not yet knowing to fear anything, he was most friendly to all, especially the preachers.

The man was so repulsed by my preaching that he loathed getting near me, I perceive, as he tried to call his pup back to him from a few feet away. But that spiritual pup was enjoying being in church so much that he just completely ignored his master and continued playing all over my long feet, just as happy as he could be. My first thought was to do the man a favor by reaching down to scoop up his pup and take it to him.

But the Lord led me to just keep on preaching. So that miserable Christ hater had to walk up to me and bend down low before me to pick up his spiritual puppy off my feet to take it home. I felt good about God recompensing both him and me like that.

On a different Sunday afternoon in a different town, I was preaching on a narrow back street with houses lining it, seldom seeing anyone, but knowing someone was inside most houses. Whether inside or outside their houses, most people try to hide from me. And because they can hear me preaching half a block away, often they get the windows, curtains, and doors all closed and themselves well hidden before I reach their house.

Anyway, I was preaching away with none of my congregation in sight when a window came flying open on the side of the house nearest me. Then a boy about 15 years old stuck his head out and madly shouted, you're noisy. How pleasing to me to learn that I was loud enough for him to hear me well.

And also to learn that my sermon had penetrated all the way to his rebellious heart, evidenced by his anger. So with joy over his report on the effectiveness of my preaching, I switched my sermon topic to that of hell. With that, he got hotter and madder, pounding on the outside wall of his house, metal siding it was, pounding on that with his hand, demanding that I shut up.

But I didn't. But he soon did, shutting the window and disappearing from my sight, but still not escaping my voice. I get more excited about preaching when I see my congregation get excited about hearing it.

In 1981, when brother Jim Norton asked me to come preach a three-day weekend revival service at the church he pastors near Tokyo, he printed up 50,000 invitations for that weekend revival. For about a month before the scheduled revival, he and his church members passed out those notices, but no one who received one of those many invitations came to those revival services. His faithful church members attended, but no one who received those invitations did.

I traveled to his place from my house about two days before the revival started and helped them pass out the last of those invitations. One morning, about five of us went to a large high school to pass out the invitations to hundreds of students as they walked through the school gate for 40 minutes or so. Over half of that time, there was a constant parade of two to three students abreast arriving there, walking.

And we could view that column of souls a long ways down the sidewalk as they approached the school gate where we were. A light rain was falling, so most of them were under their umbrellas. Looking down that line, the students furthest away from us carried their umbrellas canted slightly backwards over their heads.

But coming closer to us, the angle of the umbrellas changed to upright, then to directly in front of the faces and abdomens of the students to whom we were trying to hand an invitation. As for some of them, we could not see faces or hands, just black umbrellas from about waist up, held there like a shield against us. Many of them did not take an invitation.

Most who did took it under protest. After they all arrived at school and we were ready to leave, we could see some of our invitations thrown down on the school ground, getting soaked by the rain and knew that many more of them were already in trash cans inside the building. And none of those kids came to church to hear me preach.

That was disappointing. It was a good thing for us to pass out those invitations. They had some scriptures written on them.

And as each of those souls turned before their creator in judgment, that judge just might hand their rain soaked invitations back to them for them to review as he passes judgment upon them. At the start of my missionary work, I passed out Christian literature in front of all the schools here in Matsuda. School kids walk to school here.

But I soon ceased doing that at the junior high and senior high schools as so few of those students would take the literature. Standing outside those gates, it was quite entertaining to watch some of the boys go over the fence or through a thick hedge prior to the school gate to avoid the school gate where I stood. At that age, they feel so great and tough and are so rebellious against God.

Therefore, I waste little time trying to put the printing gospel into their hands when they battle so hard against taking it. Instead, I just love to stand on the street 10 feet or so away from them inside their own houses and declare unto them, thus saith the Lord God, it is impossible for them to refuse to hear it like they refuse to take the printed literature. That raven mad 15 year old boy shouting and pounding on the side of his house just could not keep the message out of his ears and heart.

Neither could that angry man with a spiritual puppy shut out my preaching. Any of them can easily silence me by coming out with a kitchen knife and cutting out my tongue, or that boy could come out with his baseball bat and batter my brains out to silence me. Such will likely happen someday, but till it does, may God help me to be perfect and upright, like perfect and upright Job.

Neither was I quiet. Amen and amen, Job, I'm with you. And they yet shall know that there had been a prophet among them.

That is exactly what I want them to know. I have learned from much experience that the devil has trained many of his children to be most skillful in avoiding Bible preaching and teaching that comes their way in most every form. But when a Christian opens up preaching verbally in a public place to them or singing hymns verbally in a public place, I have seen that they sure do have a difficult time avoiding that.

They do have the choice of leaving in some instances, but not when they're already inside their own houses and I'm close by, but out in public. What a privilege and joy to go without the camp, bearing our Lord's reproach and preach to people wherever they may be. Won't you do it also, my fellow Christian? Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, please instill such a burning desire in me, a burning unquenchable desire to tell everyone I can, thus said the Lord. Show me just exactly how Thou wouldst have me to declare Thy words to everyone around me and give me the courage to do so. I pray this for all other Christians too.

Amen. One other negative reaction by elderly women inside their own houses was also quite common. When they heard me preaching outside, they would go kneel in front of the Buddhist altar in their house and start chanting that they do when they worship before that pagan altar.

Many times when I heard it, I am quite sure they started it to counter my preaching. If I got louder, they would get louder. When I finished preaching, if I stood in front of their house listening briefly, usually they soon stopped their chanting.

So they sort of made that into a contest and come judgment day, we will see for sure just who won the contest. Neither was I quiet. I first came to this rural Japanese town of Matsuda in October 1977 and started looking for a house to live in but was not able to find a rental house till August 1978, at which time I moved into it.

During those 10 months that I looked for this house here, I stayed part-time in a Japanese inn in Matsuda and the rest of the time in my house about 17 miles away from here. And I would pass out tracks here in Matsuda, witness out in public, and I held some Sunday morning services in a community hall at the latter part of that time period. A highlight of those 10 months was going to a small park about one quarter of an acre in size and having children gather around me there.

I had a bag of children's song books and Sunday school materials and the children would sing with me and listen to my Bible stories. In that part, I saw the first Japanese person make a decision to receive Christ in response to my preaching. Emiko, Emi for short, an eight-year-old girl, came around often, enjoyed singing more than the others did and was more attentive to my preaching than the many others.

On the third day of this park evangelism, it started raining lightly when I was lightly when I was there with Emi and two other children. So we got under the roof of a small Shinto shrine there in the edge of that park and I continued talking about Christ under the roof right next to the idol inside that shrine. Emi listened ever so well to God's word and at this time with no urging from me, she spoke up, I want to believe on Christ.

So all four of us knelt there on the porch floor of that pagan shrine and the three children repeated aloud the prayer that I led. I know the many demons in that shrine detested to hear and see that. I believe that Emi prayed in sincerity.

The other two children likely just went along with Emi without putting their hearts into it. Emi's decision greatly blessed me at a most difficult time when I was butting my head against the barrier of this rural community treating me like the foreign invader that I was. That was in late October 1977 when Emi prayed with me there.

After that she kept coming to my open air services in the park, then later to Sunday services in my house when I moved into it in August of 1978. But as she got older she grew cold to the Bible and to me. Then she steadily evolved into being rude and nasty to me.

She completely quit coming to my house in 1979 or early 1980 and the last time I saw her out in public was three or four years after that. I do not know if she got saved when she prayed with me. You please pray for her that she will fully trust in Christ and live for him.

I sure do want to see dear precious Emi in heaven. She was born about 1970 so you can calculate her age now. Heavenly Father please keep dear Emi in thy loving protecting care.

If she is not yet a converted born again child of thine, I beg thee Lord Jesus to save her and not let her perish. Amen. We praise thee oh God for the son of thy love for Jesus who died and is now gone above.

Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah. Amen.

Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. We praise thee oh God for the spirit of light who has shown us our savior and scattered our night.

Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah. Amen.

Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. All glory and praise to the lamb that was slain who had borne all our sins and had cleansed every stain.

Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah. Amen.

Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. Revive us again.

Fill each heart with thy love. May so be rekindled with fire from above. Hallelujah, thine the glory.

Hallelujah. Amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory.

Revive us again. I'll write one more verse to that. Revive us again.

Set our hearts all on fire. Jumpstart us with compassion right here where we are. Hallelujah, thine the glory.

Hallelujah. Amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory.

Revive us again. Oh, the Japanese are such proud people. So difficult for them to humble themselves and ask Christ to have mercy on them a sinner.

They pride themselves on being the land of the rising sun like the sun rises and sets on them. Soon the sun is gonna set for its final time upon them. Mercy, Lord, I plead.