The all-day Gospel Meeting at the building of the Metro Tuguegarao congregation began at 9am. I had been told to expect a large crowd, but I was totally unprepared for the number present. We had 361 registered adults and over 60 children present. The building was packed with every inch of space taken by as many as could compress into the building. The rest of the crowd sat on the concrete area outside of the building and watched on a big screen television set up allow all to see and hear the lesson presented. It was also broadcast on Facebook live, so many joined that way as well.
Willey Otey Pastor and I shared the preaching responsibilities for the morning session. It was great to see Willey and Kathy again and I was very impressed with his excellent lesson on “Satan Attends Every Service.” It was both thoroughly scriptural and very thought provoking. Willey is an excellent preacher and the crowd was very attentive throughout. I followed with a lesson on “Breaking the Hold of Temptation” from James 1:12-18. That was followed by a relatively short Question/Answer period before the lunch break.
The afternoon session began with a lesson presented by Lance Coloma from the EDSA-Pasay congregation in the metro Manila area. I missed that sermon because I needed to lay down and rest for a while because the heat and lack of sleep caught up to me and I became very weak after lunch. I was able to get back to the meeting very near the end of Lance’s lesson and then it was my turn to preach again. For the afternoon lesson, I preached of “The Faith That Overcomes Despair and Fear.” Almost all of those attending the meeting were members of the Lord’s body, but Rody extended an invitation after a summary in the dialect of my lesson. One young man responded to be baptized into Christ.
