Into a Mountain Himself Alone

I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known. It stirs my heart to read in the Gospels of Jesus of Nazareth, going off apart from the disciples and from everyone, to be alone with God the Father, often into a mountain, sometimes praying all night.

Thus I title this sermon, Into a Mountain Himself Alone, that being a portion of scripture speaking of Jesus. I am so richly blessed when I do likewise go into a mountain alone to pray. I am missionary Richard Yerbe, and there are mountains all around me here in rugged central Japan, where I preach the saving gospel of Jesus Christ to the Buddhist and Shinto Japanese around me.

I invite you to read my autobiography on my website. That URL is christisall.us. Separate those three words with two dashes, christisall.us. On assessing my website, then open the books link, and my autobiography is the book titled, We Are Journeying. I now continue with my theme of Job's proclamation of neither was I quiet, recorded in Job chapter 1 verse 26.

As I said in a previous sermon, I started my street preaching in the Matsuda town area in April 1979, and though I also held services weekly in my house, few people came to them. Therefore, long hours of preaching on the streets was my main ministry, and such a blessed ministry it was. Main minister until September 1980.

Then I started renting small community halls and holding services in them, mainly aimed at children, as they were about the only ones who would attend. I would observe, reserve a community hall for late afternoon on a weekday. On that morning, I would go to the elementary school nearest that community hall and pass out invitations to the children as they came walking to school.

God bless with good attendance at those services, and I kept spreading out and holding services in more and more communities. I completely wore out that used bicycle someone had given to me, so I bought a new 27-inch, 18-speed roadster bicycle that would really move along. I spread out until I was going to about 40 communities on that bicycle to hold services.

The furthest being about six, possibly seven miles away, I held as many as eight services a week, averaging four or five a week, I guess, each in a different location with different souls attending. The most services I held in one day were five services on a Sunday, two in the morning, two in the afternoon, and one at night. Neither was I quiet, glory to God.

Previously, I related how that there were plenty of negative reactions to my street preaching, even from junior high school students, teenagers four, 14, or 15 years old, but children were always a great blessing. Wherever I went street preaching, there were always some children who shunned me. A few were afraid of the loud foreigner, but often a good number of them locked out to me when they heard me preaching, sometimes following me around their neighborhood in Pied Piper fashion as I preached.

I would give those children Christian literature. At times, I would take a break from preaching to play with them a while. Children often brought bright sunshine into my long hours of street preaching.

What a boost that was to me and how I thank God for them. So, when I started services in their community hall and gave the children an invitation as they walked into school that morning, many children came to my Sunday schools. Record attendance was just over 100 children in a small hall.

It was crowded. Oh, what a blessing those services were. Sometimes, I would preach to the children as I passed out the invitations in the mornings, and sometimes, I would go back to that school gate about 2 p.m. and stand there preaching to them as they left school, me preaching until about 4 p.m., and then I would pedal that bicycle to the community hall nearby and rejoice to see several of the kids waiting outside.

I would open up the hall with the key I had just picked up at the community leader's house, have the service, play with the children a while inside after it, close up the hall, return the key, pay the fee for using the hall, and then walk through part of their neighborhood an hour or more about suppertime preaching. Sometimes, children who had been at my service an hour before would now come to the window of their house or come to me outside when they heard me preaching near their house. Then I would pedal home late to have about a supper, my heart so full of joy over having broadcast so many gospel seed that day.

Oh, how blessed it was. Neither was I quiet. He speaks, and the sound of his voice is so sweet.

The birds hush, they're singing, and the melody that he gave to me within my heart is ringing. And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own, and the joy we share as we tarry there none other has ever known. One afternoon when I had no meeting scheduled, I walked down to the grammar school nearest my house and started preaching as the children started walking out of the school to go home.

In Japanese, I had written Christ is all, kiristo ga subete desu, on a sheet of paper, and I'd take that sheet of paper onto my back, and then I faced away from the school to preach. So, as the children came out of the school in small groups, usually one or two of them would look at that sign and read aloud, Christ is all, upon seeing that sign on my back. Whereupon I would pull out some used postage stamps from the U.S., give one stamp to each child who said that aloud, and tell them that is what they got for saying that.

Whereupon the rest of the kids present would shout out Christ is all, because they also wanted a foreign stamp. Then I would give one stamp to each of the rest of them who had just chimed in. Then I would tell them that they could have another stamp each if they would say Christ is all twice.

They all immediately screamed it out twice. I would give each child another stamp, and offer the next stamp for them to say it three times. They did, of course.

Sometimes I kept on until they said it five times at once. Other children were coming out of the school, and they would run up to us, asking the ones already there what was going on. And upon being told about the stamps, they immediately too started chanting Christ is all, and holding out their hands for stamps.

For close to an hour, shouts of Christ is all, reverberated regularly throughout the air for all the people and demons around there to hear. Oh, how that thrilled my soul. There is a Buddhist temple close in front of that school, another Buddhist temple on the east side of the school, and a Shinto shrine adjacent on the west side of the school.

All three of these demons' nests are right adjacent to the school, so there were plenty of demons present. I delighted to know how they detested hearing those many shouts of Christ is all. I set a limit on the number of stamps I would give each child, five stamps, and upon receiving their limit, that cluster of kids soon headed on home.

So toward the end of my time spent there, I was preaching with no one around, when five or six, sixth grade girls came out of the gate to go home. And when they saw me, they called out my name and hurried up close to me, almost in tears, appearing to be most frightened. They were 11 or 12 years old, not small children.

So I asked them what was wrong, and they related a horror story that their male school teacher had just told them. Stayed on a stormy night, alone in an isolated large old house, a woman was brutally murdered. The teacher told his class that fiction story with plenty of gory details, and then concluded with this fiction also.

This could more or less be a lie. The teacher said, now it is said that if any of you dream about this story, then you too will meet the same fate as that murdered lady. My friend listening to me, now ain't that a high quality education? Here in Japan, teaching about the true God, the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ, is strictly forbidden in the public schools.

But apparently there are no rules at all against telling those 11 to 12 year old girls this devilish false story, designed to literally scare them to death. Their terrified state gave surrounding spirits of fear, the ability to put more fear upon them. For God had not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

2nd Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 tells us. They were in a panic, almost in tears, moaning to me that there was no sure way to prevent having such a dream. What can we do, they asked me in desperation.

The only proper response was to tell them of the Lord Jesus Christ's protection to whosoever would seek it, which I immediately started doing. They had heard plenty of my preaching over the past year or two, and had gotten plenty fed up with it as they matured, and even in the terrified state now weren't very inclined to listen to it and didn't want to hear it. So I had said only a few words when one of them interrupted me to shut me up.

What are you doing out here now, she asked. So I twisted around to show them the sign on my back and said, if you say that, you get one American stamp. They had no use for Christ, but they like to collect foreign postage stamps.

Christ is all, they all immediately piped up. As I handed out a stamp to each of them, I said, if you will say it twice, you can have another stamp. Christ is all.

If you will say it three times, you can have another stamp. So, rang out three times. And with each round of their shouting that out, they got more excited and louder.

And I watched their faces. I watched their fear and panic turn into smiles and joy. Soon, one of the girls joyfully blurted out with a beaming face, I've forgotten that, referring to the death threat that her nice school teacher had put her under.

And with happy faces, the other girls confirmed the same thing, that they had also had gotten over it. So I told them that if that old tale or anything similar to it happens to come into their minds again, to just start proclaiming out loud, Christ is all, Christ is all. They took note of that and went on their way much happier than when they had left that scary classroom.

You see, in addition to the natural fear brought on by that wicked story told by that wicked teacher, demons of fear had latched on to those girls. And in cahoots with that demon loving school teacher, those demons of fear were now trying to scare those girls to death. When those girls started repeatedly shouting, Christ is all, those demons just couldn't stand to hang around to hear it.

They had to get away from that sound. So they fled, releasing those girls from their fear. Oh, what victory in Christ.

Oh, what power in the spoken word. Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us not be quiet. Shouted from the mountaintops, neither was I quite.

Christ is all, amen. You might say, now, brother Richard, you just have too active an imagination. Those girls just got happy and exciting over getting those stamps and therefore simply forgot what the teacher had said and cheered up.

The stamps likely had a large part in cheering them up, but I believe that most of their cheer came from just exactly what I just described above. You can give the glory to those stamps if you want to, but I'll give the glory to almighty God who sets captives free. And to the great power in those spoken words, Christ is all, amen and amen.

I continued this type of evangelistic work until December 1984, when I went on furlough in the U.S. During that time, I held services in 42 separate rural communities, a service most every day of the week, each in a different community, taking a few weeks to complete that circuit. And I preached on the streets most every day. I used most all of my time doing that, peddling that bicycle several hundred miles during those few months.

It was the most joyous period of time I have known in Japan. Neither was I quiet. It was the best of times.

It was the worst of time. It was the most severe poverty that I have known as an adult, rivaled only by the poverty of my college days. But it was a most rich time spiritually.

Now, more than 40 years later, in the year 2025, I look back on it with such fond memories, April 1979 to November 1984, a few years, the richest and most blessed time I have known in Japan. Now, I praise God for it. I was young, full of life, vim, vigor, vitality, and full of fight for our Lord Jesus Christ.

During that time, often there were nights I would come home after 9 p.m. from street preaching, eat a little, pray, then rest a while, then about 1 a.m., when the town had become as dead as could be, I would head out again on that bicycle with my little flashlight and a wire clothes hanger that I had straightened out, leaving the hook on the end of it. I would pedal through some of the business areas of Matsuda and Annaka, looking for coins under the many vending machines on the sidewalks. And when I found a coin, which wasn't all that rare a finding, I would fish it out from under the vending machine with that wire hook, working at that for an hour or two to collect one or two dollars worth of yen for buying a little food for the next day.

I did that in the dead of the night so people would not see me doing it. I was so skinny, but God flooded my skin and bones with great joy. It was the best of times.

It was the worst of times. And how I thank God for those times. You might think you would be that happy if only you weren't terribly overweight.

If so, then consider this diet plan. Spend all of your time holding forth the words of life to everyone around you. Then see how many Christians will support you for doing that, which most Christians consider a total waste of anyone's time.

And see if lack of money to buy taters will not slam you down. I'd stay in the garden with him, though the night around me be falling. But he bids me go through the voice of woe.

His voice to me is calling. And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.

In December 1984, I went from Japan to mainland USA for my first furlough since first arriving in Japan 11 years previously on the 3rd of December 1973. And that ended a most glorious era of my earthly journey. Likely I will never again have that exact kind of evangelistic outreach.

What a blessing it was. How rich are the memories of it? Neither was our quiet was a dominant part of it. Physical poverty was another main part of it.

I plead with you to now seriously consider these fallen words of wisdom from my uncouth mouth. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are not of God. And they pass away forever.

Read of that in 1st John chapter 2 verses 15 through 17. Next, consider this glorious scripture in Proverbs 4.18. But the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. My friend, listen to me now.

I have been young and now I am old, having been born in 1946. Thus I have seen life on earth. I have keenly watched life on earth while diligently taking spiritual notes of that which leads to early death and that which leads to blessed long life.

While I was a high school student in the small school of Lamar County High School in Vernon, Alabama, two sinful high school students were killed in car wrecks. Three more most sinful students who were around me when I was in school were killed in car wrecks soon after I graduated. Two girls and three boys among those numbers of a total of five.

And as the years passed on until now in the year 2025, boys and girls within a few years of my age with whom I went to school have died in their 40s, 50s, 60s and early 70s. Most of them used vices that destroyed their precious God-given health, tobacco, strong drink and drugs. Some of them went past 500 pounds in body weight and much of their gluttonous eating was health-destroying junk food.

And most of these endured much physical pain and suffering during the final decade or more of their shortened life. In that end, for a decade or more, their main entertainment became doctors, clinics, hospitals and drug stores. I am most blessed to have been reared in a poverty-stricken farmhouse where there was no money to buy carbonated drinks that leach out our body's calcium, leaving it weaker.

And other health-destroying junk foods, we didn't have them around. Upon leaving my boyhood home, God guarded me against the habit-forming vices and led me to eat and drink that which is most healthy. Soon after I passed 79 years of age recently, I took a physical exam at a hospital.

And during it, a nurse commanded me, take as deep a breath as you possibly can, then blow into this tube to the fullest extent of your ability to expel all that air. After I finished doing that, she looked at the numbers on that machine she was monitoring on that instrument and told me, she said, you have the lungs of a teenager. I said, thank you, ma'am.

And I said to my Lord in heaven, thank the Lord for guiding me to live properly. You who listen to my sermons know my lung power. I just pray that there is spiritual merit in my lung power that you're hearing.

At four score years of age now, I am seldom around any person my age or older who kicks as high as I do or has a brighter smile on their face than I do. Truly, my Lord has been my shield and my exceeding great reward, like the Lord declared to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15, verse one. You Christian adults listening to me now, please glean wisdom from my long life experience that I relate here.

And as God leads you, apply that wisdom to your life and teach it to young ones around you as opportunity affords. Great dividends come in old age from living clean and healthy as possible. God created us a body, soul, and spirit.

We are keepers of this physical body of ours. And he warns us in the New Testament that he will destroy the person who destroys his or her body. And just as I observed, you also have observed sinful people around you and people who abuse their physical health around you die far short of four score years of age.

We need to wake up to that which tends to lie. We need to pursue that which tends to lie. God bless you as you do so.