The Parable of the Ten Rooms

This is how my parable begins. Let me call him John. John had a double story house, five plus five rooms. One day there was a gentle knock on the front door. When John opened it was the Lord Jesus. “Please come in”, John pleaded, “I will give you the best room in my house – it is upstairs. Well, Jesus is a gentleman and said “thank you”. 

The next morning someone hammered against the front door. When John opened it who was there? The devil. “No” shouted John, “I don’t want you here” But the devil said “I’m already in” – and a big fight started. Satan poured filthy temptation on him, it was horrible. By the evening John somehow got the victory and threw the devil out. Then he said “wait a minute”. I gave Jesus the best room in the house, why didn’t he come to my rescue?” 

Jesus said to John “Look, you gave me one of the ten rooms…” John was on his knees and said “I can see my mistake. Sorry, Lord. Let’s make 50/50.” Jesus is a gentleman and accepted. 

The next day was a repeat of the day before. Somehow the devil got in and out and John was totally exhausted. “Why didn’t Jesus come to my rescue today? I need to go and ask.” 

The Lord said “My son, why don’t you give me all 10 rooms and then, instead of me staying with you, you stay with me?” 

John broke down. He pulled the key of the front-door from his pocket and handed it to Jesus. Now, he had given it all. 

The next morning, it was still dark, when someone was knocking at the front door so hard that the whole building shook. John jumped frightened and shaken out of bed crying “O, it’s the devil again”, when suddenly he heard footsteps – but this time inside the house. 

Jesus was marching in majesty and power towards the front door. He had the key. It now was His duty to answer the door. John was wondering what would happen and stood right behind Jesus when the Lord opened the door wide. 

Who was it? The devil of course. But when the devil saw Jesus standing in the door he bowed low, very low indeed, and said “Sorry Sir, I knocked on the wrong door!”

Some have given 9 rooms to Jesus and on the door of room number 10 they have written “Strictly Private”. It is there where they have their secret sins and live their double life. But Jesus cannot be cheated. 

C’mon. Let’s sing it together from the bottom of our hearts “Unto Jesus I surrender, unto Him I freely give….I surrender ALL, unto thee my God and Savior, I surrender all.” This is my foolproof recipe for victory! God bless you. 

REINHARD BONNKE.

The Fourth Man On The Life Raft

TBD-1 Devastator of Torpedo Squadron (VT) 6

On 16 January 1942, a TBD-1 Devastator of Torpedo Squadron (VT) 6 off the carrier Enterprise (CV 6) ran out of fuel while on a scouting mission over the Pacific. Operating under strict radio silence, the crew could not send a distress signal, and was forced to ditch their plane in the open ocean, which marked the beginning of an amazing ordeal.

Tony Pastula, Gene Aldrich, & Harold Dixon after their 34 days at sea

With their plane sinking quickly beneath them, the aircraft's crew of Harold F. Dixon, Tony Pastula, and Gene Aldrich scrambled into a 8 ft x 4 ft life raft. With only the limited tools on board the raft, the clothes on their backs, and what they carried in their pockets, the men began a 34 day odyssey adrift at sea, during which they survived on rain water, two birds that they were able to catch, and fish that they speared with a pocket knife one of them had. 

The emaciated airmen at the time of their rescue.

When they washed up in the Danger Islands on 19 February 1942, it was estimated that the trio had traveled a distance of about 1,200 miles.

Harold Dixon, one of the three men on a raft, speaking of the prayer meetings which they held every night: “There was a comfort in passing our burden to someone bigger than we in this empty vastness.  Further, the common devotion drew us together, since it seemed we no longer depended entirely upon each other, but could appeal simultaneously to a Fourth that we three held equally in reverence.”

That reference to a “Fourth” with them in that raft makes one think of those three Hebrew lads in the fiery furnace who prayed to God and put their trust in God, and how, when Nebuchadnezzar come to look into the fiery furnace to see what had happened to them, he saw that they were unharmed by the flames, and lo, in the midst of them, he saw the form of a Fourth, like unto the Son of Man!

That is one of the great blessings of prayer. It puts you into fellowship with the form of a Fourth – with God, with Jesus Christ, the Savior of men.

For many years this raft that the three sailors who lived on for 34 days, was displayed at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland.