We traveled about an hour this morning to Del
Carmen and the meeting place of the congregation started by Greg Jumao-as several years ago. Greg had heard us
preach in Bogo on the north end of Cebu Island. His brother-in-law, Rupert, had
already obeyed the gospel there, but Greg was solidly entrenched in Baptist
doctrine. He took a leading part in opposing our teaching, at one point
responding to me that the teaching “is just your opinion.” However, the more he
studied and argued to prove us wrong, the more he learned the truth and
ultimately obeyed the gospel. Greg has three sons who also obeyed the gospel
along with the rest of the family. One of the sons lost his wife when he obeyed
the gospel and she wanted to stay in the Baptist Church where they had
financial security. Greg also had taken Richard under his wing and Richard has
grown very quickly in the truth. Greg has suffered a stroke and is now unable
to preach or do much is spreading the gospel, but his sons and Richard are
continuing to spread the gospel throughout the area.
Our first lesson this
morning was on the causes and cures of “Spiritual Weakness.” As I preached the
lesson, it became very apparent to me that very few understood the lesson as I
was presenting it in English. I told Jonathan immediately after the lesson that
I did not believe more than two or three it the audience followed the lesson.
So, I asked him to preach a very thorough lesson he has on “The Church in God’s
Eternal Purpose.” That lesson took us all the way to the lunch break.
We then discussed what to
do next and Jonathan wanted me to preach a lesson dealing with instrumental
music in worship since it seems some of those coming out of the Baptist Church
might not be fully convinced that it is unauthorized by the gospel. Given the
background described, I decided to preach a lesson on “The Will of God &
the Words of God.” It begins with 1 Corinthians 2:1-13 and shows that God’s
word does not come from man’s thoughts, but God’s thoughts. When God chose to
reveal His thoughts to man, He sent the Holy Spirit to verbally inspire the
words to perfectly reveal His thoughts. I then noted that man gets into trouble
when he starts to have desires and practices for which God has revealed no
words to authorize such. We then looked at applications with the claim that one
church is just as good as another (or “denominationalism”), “salvation by faith
only” and “instrumental music in worship under the gospel of Christ.” Jonathan
then took well over an hour in restating the lesson in the dialect. The
reaction to Jonathan’s teaching was very good and the audience seemed to
understand the point. A few follow-up questions were asked, but it seemed that
all had the matter clarified in their minds and were satisfied with the
teaching.
Given the fact that almost
all of the audience did not comprehend the lessons in English, Jonathan went
back to my lesson on “Spiritual Weakness” and summarized it in the dialect as
well. I think all of the audience, except for the small children, had already
obeyed the gospel, so they did not extend an invitation. It was a profitable
day!
