First Day in Cebu City

This was an easier day than I have had since I started my work here last week. Each day before has required departure at an early time, thus an even earlier wake-up time, after a night of sleep that started very late. Last night, I went to sleep early and did not awake until 7:20 -- and it felt great! Instead of a three hour drive to the venue, it took us less than 15 minutes to get to the building of the congregation here in metro Cebu.

The church here in Cebu City provided their building for a gospel meeting of a day and a half. I have been with this congregation many time going back over more than 10 years. Jonathan Carino and his family work with the congregation here and they assemble on the third floor of a building in the midst of the city’s center. The first lesson of today was an extended study (almost 2 hours) of faith that I call, “Lord I Believe, Help My Unbelief” from Mark 9:17-24. We then had some singing followed by the lunch break.

After lunch, I gave the lesson requested on the inspiration of the Scripture, “God’s Use of the Prophets,” detailing the Bible’s claim to be the product of verbal inspiration wherein God controlled the exact message He wanted to give by controlling the word that expressed that message. Jack Jaco then gave a sermon in the dialect on “The New Testament Church.” We then studied a lesson on “Repentance & Its Works” in an effort to show what true repentance is and what changes it brings to the life of the sinner.  Roy Matta then gave a lesson on “Faith & Works.”

We then offered a brief question/answer session. A visiting Baptist preacher asked me to explain Romans 4:4-5. I pointed out the context dealing with the fact that Paul is showing how Abraham was not saved by circumcision or works of the old law, as the Jews prided themselves as being God’s chosen ones through these things. Instead, he was justified by faith before the law ever came and before he was circumcised. We then noted that Abraham was also not saved at the point of initial faith as that took place all the way back in Genesis 12, whereas him being pronounced justified by faith happened in Genesis 15:6. Instead, Abraham was saved by a dependence on God (faith) which involved his continued obedience to God (leaving Ur to sojourn in Canaan, worshipping God, building altars and sacrificing to God and in other ways of doing as God commanded). We noted that this is in keeping with Paul’s introduction and conclusion to the book, presenting the gospel as unto “obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5 cf. 16:26). It was obvious that the man was struck by the point of the passage as he saw it in its context, rather than pulled out of the context as done in his Baptist training.

This ended my time for today’s study, but Jonathan continued preaching in the dialect until 6pm while I returned to the hotel. The Lord willing, we will have another half day of teaching tomorrow before I must fly out to Angeles City.