Henderson’s (long) Week 18 Update:
“Blow the trumpets… consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the people…” Joel 2:15,16a
July 1, 2011 All throughout Scripture, we see the use of trumpets. Trumpets were used to sound a battle cry or a retreat, to make an announcement, to rejoice, to notify the arrival of the Sabbath Day, etc. One major use is to call people to prayer. Today it is our turn to sound forth our trumpets, calling people to pray! Please pray for this final week of teaching! This is the culmination of all that we have been teaching for the past several months. Sound forth your own trumpets! Share this need with others! Fast if you feel led! Please pray that God’s Spirit will move in the hearts and lives of the Mwinika and that hearing will become believing! Prayer is the key! This Past Week: The teaching became more and more pointed and intense this week as God’s Word confronted head on many of the lies that the Mwinika people have believed for centuries. You could sense a growing bewilderment among the people listening. Monday they saw Christ as the door to the sheepfold, the protector of the sheep. Phil brought out that those who are under God’s protection need not fear because Jesus, the Good Shepherd, sits in the door. Tuesday, was the story of Lazarus rising from the dead. Through this they were able to see Christ’s power over death itself! Wednesday was about the rich young ruler coming to ask Jesus how he could be saved but trusting in His OWN righteousness. This was a good example for the people to hear that our righteousness and good works are unable pay the sin debt that we have! Only death can pay that debt! Another important lesson was the explanation that being rich is not the same as having God’s blessing. The people here strongly believe that we rich expatriates are all going to heaven because we are rich and that is a sign that God is blessing us and happy with us, so we don’t need to worry about getting into heaven. Through this lesson and the lesson on Thursday regarding the rich man and Lazarus, they were able to clearly see that riches have nothing to do with how God looks at us, in fact, riches often tend to distract people from the Lord! The lesson on Thursday was incredibly intense. People were shocked and sat with their heads in their hands when Phil taught about the cries of the rich man from hell to Lazarus and Abraham in heaven. We pointed out that if your dead relatives could call back to you who are living, they wouldn’t be asking you for insignificant things like sweeping their graves and giving them food, they would be calling out a desperate warning like this rich man saying, “Don’t end up here!! Please repent while there is time’.” We also demonstrated how it is that the angels know where to take a dead person’s spirit when he dies. In our illustration we held two books, one for hell and one for heaven. We explained that when we are born it is like our names are written in pencil in the book for hell, this happens because we are born in sin, but God the whole time waits expectantly with an eraser in hand, waiting for the time we will turn to Him and believe. It is His desire that we repent so that He can erase our name from the book of Hell and write it in permanent marker into His book of LIFE!! This can only happen when we are alive. After we die it is already too late! Upcoming Week: Here is a list of what we hope to teach through each day this week, so that you will have an idea of what to pray for each day: Monday – The healing of blind Bartimaeus, the Triumphal Entry, and the Last Supper Tuesday – The arrest and trial of Jesus Wednesday – The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (A LONG and intense lesson!) Thursday – The Ascension of Jesus Pray that the weather will stay clear and there won’t be any interference with the teaching. Pray for Phil and Francois who both started with bad colds the other day. Pray that they will quickly recover and be strong for the teaching next week. Pray also for them as they speak and teach, that God will help them to communicate His truth clearly! Pray for good attendance and that those who have been following on and off (with machines mostly) will take the time to come to the teaching and hear first-hand the culmination of the story. Pray mostly for the hearts of those who hear this life changing truth of what Christ has done for them. Pray that it will penetrate their hearts and free them from the bondage they have known for so long! What’s Next? Many of you might be wondering what we are planning to do next? Along with that, you might be thinking, “What about those who don’t believe but are still interested in hearing more of God’s Word?” We expect a lot of those listening will fall into this category. We hope to spend a week or so following up with those who have been coming to and listening to the teaching, to see if they have understood and put their faith in their Redeemer. After that we will need to make decisions about how to proceed, those that have NOT believed will need to be taught material that helps them understand and process the gospel message. Those that HAVE believed will need to be taught material that helps them grow in their new faith. There are a lot of challenges ahead of us and we appreciate your prayers. We will continue to frequently update you on what the Lord is doing in and among the Mwinika people.