Feast in Front of Foes (Part 2)

I wrote this article here in San Carlos City, Pangasinan during the ministry week of the International Graduate School of Leadership which started last Thursday, September 10. (Deacon Manuel Go, Jr. is with the Baguio team.) As soon as we arrived in Pangasinan, we hit the ground running by doing classroom evangelism in Dagupan National High Scholl. I almost lost my voice speaking before students in hot and humid classrooms. The next day our team evangelized the students of Turac National High School (Believe it or not, this public school of around 600 students has a Wi-Fi hotspot!) We are also training pastors and church workers in facilitating small groups, youth ministry, church leadership and preaching seminars. This Sunday (September I3), I will be preaching in the worship service of San Carlos City Baptist Church.

Other than what I went through personally in the past weeks, I saw that the enemy busied himself attacking. Last week, Pastor Cesar Magalong, the pastor of our host church, including his immediate family, key leaders and workers of their church suffered food poisoning. Most of them were hospitalized and they just got out on the day we arrived. Though still pale and weak, the pastor accompanied us and graciously hosted us. While we were evangelizing the students, someone mischievously scratched my car. And, as we were training pastors and church workers how to use the “Four Spiritual Laws” booklet for evangelism, our team leader in the San Aguilar, Pangasinan team sent me an urgent text message. Somehow, his files in the USB thumb drive were erased. He needed his PowerPoint presentation in the training that they are conducting there. Since I have a backup copy, I had to rush to an Internet café to e-mail it to him. Now, I just got word that thieves broke into the house where the Laguna team is staying. They carted off a laptop (that sounds very familiar!), cell phones and other stuff. Good thing that the team was sleeping when it happened. They weren’t hurt.

Yes, the enemy tried to hinder God’s work. These desperate attempts show that we are where God wants us to be. 1 Corinthians 16:8-9 tell us, “But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.” (NIV) Opposition to the work is a sure sign that God has opened a wide-open door for effectual ministry. He will always prevail!

Brethren, please wage warfare with us in prayer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“Ubus-ubos Biyaya, Bukas Nakatunganga”

Image
That’s what my mother always told us when we were still kids. (Translation: “You spend everything today, you will have nothing tomorrow.” ) Image source: So, What's New ? Dionie did just that. Last April 2008, he won PHP14,125,032 in the Lotto 6/42 draw. Excitedly, he “lived the life of a millionaire, something he had been longing to experience. He lived in a P4-million house in a posh subdivision, drove around in a sports utility vehicle [which he bought the very same day he claimed his prize] , and gave goodwill money, ranging P1,000 to P 850,000, to relatives and friends. He also gambled daily, womanized, and went on regular drinking sprees.” (Source: Manila Bulletin ) He estimated that he squandered a minimum of P100,000 almost every day. He also lent money even to people he did not really know. “I just gave them and told them not to pay me back.” (Ibid) His bank had to issue him a special card so he can withdraw huge amounts of money quickly from the automated teller m
Read more

God Knows Judas Not Pay

In the National Geographic Magazine (May 2006 issue), in its cover story, The Judas Gospel , Professor Eliane Pagels of Princeton University claimed that the so-called gospel of Judas “ changes the history of early Christianity. ” Even UP Professor Randy David took notice of the Judas Gospel: “Strictly from a sociological standpoint, I think the discovery of the Gospel of Judas makes Christianity a far more interesting religion than what centuries of metaphysical theology has made of it.” (A Gospel for the Postmodern, Phil. Daily Inquirer, April 16, 2006) That’s why I spoke in our Young Pro Fellowship a few days ago on God Knows Judas Not Pay (A Biblical Response on the Judas Gospel). I believe opportunities like this hype on the Judas Gospel or the Da Vinci Code opens a door for us to share the true Gospel. For those who did not attend last Thursday, let me share briefly why we reject the Judas gospel. I came up with the acronym J-U-D-A-S. J udas was portrayed as a traitor in the Bibl
Read more

“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid!”

Image
Forty years ago, this expression became known as a description of blind obedience.   Source: Los Angeles Times On November 18, 1978, members of Peoples Temple, a cult group in Guyana, drank Kool-Aid drink laced with cyanide to commit a mass suicide “at the behest of their charismatic but paranoid leader, Jim Jones”. [1] According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica , “The death toll exceeded 900, including some 300 age 17 and under, making the incident one of the largest mass deaths in American history. ”  [2]  What made those people submit to such atrocity? According to Stella Morabito, a senior contributor to The Federalist online magazine, Peoples Temple is “Exhibit A… [of]  the dangers of the cult mindset or how vulnerable all people are to cult tactics.”  [3] She pointed out that, Coercive persuasion has immense power to shape and twist the human mind.  …[Jones’] utopian preaching of a humane world in which all lived happily in harmony resonated with the
Read more