Those of you who are like me and enjoy football are going to enjoy watching the Superbowl this Sunday. So to put things in those terms we taught 5 times this week and so far the score is God – 5 and Satan – 0!
We are in awe of what God is doing. And so that you too can rejoice here are some of the things he did this last week:
Faced with God’s awesome character they are seeing their inconsistent beliefs. After teaching them that God created all the angels one man said to me, “My head was shaking thinking about God being greater than everything. I used to think that he had a great enemy that has the same strength as he does, but now I see that he is alone. There is nothing like Him.”
On Wednesday word came that a boy in a neighboring village died. Normally this would mean that they would all go and spend a few days over there mourning the loss with the family. This is a huge part of their culture. However, on their own they decided not to go because they don’t want to miss any days of God’s word being taught to them! I think they’d let us teach Saturday and Sunday if we wanted to do that. They are listening to the tapes 3 and 4 times. It’s incredible how hungry they are. May they be filled!
One man said, “We’ve heard some of God’s talk in other languages, but now that we are hearing it in our own language we are able to understand the depth of His talk.” The ladies too are hearing the same things. They are hearing how excited everyone is about the teaching. And how much everyone is loving hearing God’s word read in their language.
One day we taught on the first three days of creation and what we can learn about God through His creative acts. The people used to think that God needed food so he created it like we would plant a garden. But now they see that God is independent of everyone and everything. He doesn’t need anything! We explained that he created to demonstrate that He is good, kind, and almighty. They shook their heads and were amazed that he made all these things for mankind. He didn’t need anything, but mankind does. And God thought of that so he created what man needed. To learn that God is loving and kind like that after learning that He is almighty and omnipresent was thrilling for them. One man said to me, “I’m not even working these days. I just sitting and thinking about all this. We’ve separated out our food so it can last many days so I don’t have to go to the garden. I can just sit and think about all this big talk.” Praise God.
Today was another great day. Everyone showed up again. Today we taught on days 4-6 of creation (but not the creation of man yet) and the people were confronted with a big one today. One of the stories of origin is that there is a large white snake in the jungle that is the mother of all the tree kangaroos. So we taught them that God created all the various kinds of animals. So then we asked them if their belief of the white snake is consistent with the word of God. They all answered resoundingly, “NO!” One of the community leader men said, “We believed that because we didn’t know better, but now we hear God’s word and see that what we believed in the past is wrong. What God says is true.” It was awesome. You could see God changing their thinking. And the best news about it is they are responding! They are not rejecting what God has said. They are fully embracing it, listening to the lessons over and over again. Soaking in every truth God gives them. It’s exhilarated!
This is our super-bowl! God is stomping his opponent! And even though we don’t have TiVo we know who is going to win!
Your coworkers in Dinangat, Gary and Esther Smith
Next week’s teaching for your prayers:
Monday: God created Adam. Tuesday: God placed Adam in Eden. Wednesday: God told Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Thursday: God created a wife for Adam. Friday: Lucifer rebelled against God
PS I’ve received lots of requests concerning our updates. Many of you have expressed interest in receiving daily updates. I’m happy to do this. I just don’t want to become bothersome to any of you. So if you want to receive daily updates then please send me an email letting me know. I’ll make a separate list and send out daily updates. However at the end of each week you will receive a summary of the week. Much like this email that you will not have to read as it will be a bit repetitive.
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