Gary and Esther Smith

tribal church planting

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Week 7 Chron Teaching Update

Posted by on Mar 15th, 2008 in Uncategorized | Discuss This Post Share

It's been a roller coaster week for the people here. They still<br /> all come every day and are soaking in every word!” width=”300″ /></a><!--EndImportPhoto--> <p>Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods! Romans 11:33 (NLT)</p> </p> <p>Dear Supporting Friends and Family,</p> </p> <p>The verse above typifies this previous week for us and the people here in Dinangat. Another incredibly awesome week. It was a roller coaster for all of us. They went from God saving the Israelites in a powerful and miraculous way and sensing that maybe God will deliver them in the same way all the way to feeling the heavy weight and burden of their sin as we started teaching the 10 commandments. Here’s what a mean.</p> </p> <p>Another village in this language group is starting to spread rumors that the people in our village are believing in a new god. One man from the other village came to check things out and began to challenge one of the men here. And what the man from our village, Asa did was awesome. He said, “Well let me ask you something, did your god create the sun?” And the guy sheepishly said, “No.” And then Asa nailed him with a barrage of questions, “Did your God create all these mountains? Did you God make the moon and the stars? Did your God give life to everything and create humanity? Is you God the foundation of everything? Is your God supreme over everything?” To all of which the guy said either, “No,” or “I don’t know.” And then Asa said, “Well THAT is the true God and that is the God of the Bible that these missionaries are telling us about. Before we didn’t know anything. We followed all kinds of false things, but now we are hearing the truth!” I felt like it was a little scene much like Elijah challenging the prophets of Baal. I kept waiting for fire to come shooting down from heaven. But instead God spoke through Asa and silenced the enemy.</p> </p> <p>And then the people heard of God providing food and water in the dessert in the midst of grumbling and complaining and from that Epox said, “We should stop praising what we do.” Then Basa got up and said, “What we’ve heard today is big talk and we need to measure it. But one thing I want to add is that God gives us what we need every day. Just like he did for the Israelites . We don’t lack for anything, but we are never thankful. We too complain all the time. Instead we need to be thankful to God who is the provider of all we need!”</p> </p> <p>Later in the week the people heard of the covenant God made with the Israelites as he said, “If you obey me I will bless you, but if you disobey I will punish you.” To which the Israelites proudly proclaimed, “All that the Lord asks of us we will do!” And ironically enough the people here did the same thing! One of the literacy teachers went to both of the literacy classes and told them that we too are going to obey all that God says. Perfectly setting them up for the next two days. The Law. Now comes the downside of the roller coaster.</p> </p> <p>On Friday, We started off with again explaining the purpose of the Law and even used an illustration to describe it. I smeared some soot on my face and I acted as if I hadn’t done anything. And the people just looked at me with furrowed brows trying to figure out what in the world was going on. And then Ralf from within the crowd said, “Gary, your face is dirty.” And I challenged him telling him that he was lying. I felt fine. And so Jeremiah walked up to me and handed me a mirror. On the back of the mirror we had written God’s commandments. And so I looked at my face and realized that indeed it was dirty and I tried to use the mirror to wash off my face but obviously failed. It was then that the people understood – OH! The Law shows us that we are sinners!</p> </p> <p>And then as we went through each of the laws we challenged them to really think about it and see if they have always kept that law. Because if they have always kept the law then God will accept them. So they were excited because they thought, finally we have a way out of this mess! But as we taught each law they admitted that they haven’t kept them. And after they admitted that they haven’t kept them I put a medium sized stone in a carrying bag. On Monday after that bag is filled with 10 heavy stones our plan is to take that bag and try to walk around with it during the teaching demonstrating that this is the burden that each one of us carry. (Obviously after the gospel is presented we will have Jesus come and take that burden off our shoulders and throw it over the side of the mountain! I can’t wait until that day!)</p> </p> <p>Anyway, as I dropped each stone in the bag it you could feel the people wince. They understood what was going on even though the bag is just hanging there right now. After the lesson there was literally a flurry of activity. People all over were saying that they now see clearly that they have broken God’s laws and therefore stand condemned before God. And that they are all afraid wondering what they are going to do. Even the leader men who we wondered if they would admit their sin we saying they were afraid. Felix, Ralf’s translation helper, stood up and went to the front and confessed that he has broken these laws. He said that he thought he was a good man but now sees that he has broken God’s law. He said that he felt pressure in his heart (conviction maybe?) and so he had to get up and say this. It was amazing. He even reiterated that if we’ve broken one law we’ve broken them all.</p> </p> <p>Jinongke said to me, “I’m just afraid. I wonder what’s going to happen to us?” Yupete, one of the ladies said, “I can’t sleep and I can’t work because I’m always thinking about God’s talk.” And Mesari said “I’m not feeling well because I always wonder what will happen with us. What is the promised deliverer going to do?”</p> </p> <p>Next Week:</p> <p>Monday – God gave the Ten Commandments (Part 2)</p> <p>Tuesday – God told the Israelites to build the Tabernacle (Part 1)</p> <p>Wednesday – God told the Israelites to build the Tabernacle (Part 2)</p> <p>Thursday – The Israelites worship a golden calf</p> <p>Friday – The Israelites did not believe that God would give them the land He promised to give them.</p> <div class=Print Friendly

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