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I went to visit benji along with David Ong during after our trip to the Wilds which I kept quiet for quite a few reasons that I see as not important anymore. I think I should at least get it out here so people who will read it can read it and I can share some of the blessings I obtained there. Its long, culminating in a lengthy sermon I wrote in the plane on the way back, essentially compressing the conference they had there into one one sermon. Take time to digest, flip though the bible yourself to see if I have made statements which are amiss and feel free to clarify. I’ll update again with photos. but first, Click on”read more” to.. uh.. read more

 

Down from the Mountain

Its great to be here with benji in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We decided to visit him when we returned from the wilds, seeing that New York wasn’t the place we wanted to spend the rest of our time in. Traveling to Boston or Washington did not seem appealing and we felt quite strongly we should visit Benji and bring a first hand testimony of his college back to my home church in Singapore.

The Tickets

Booking the flight was slightly tough. We walked into the counter at the airport (thursday, when we landed) and asked for a flight on Sunday. We were quoted 600USD a person! So unwilling to spend that amount, the man told us to go online to look for flights because they may turn out to be cheaper and so I did. After paying 10USD for an internet connection in our room (we were pretty numb to the USD already) I managed to find out that flights on Saturday were very much cheaper, 214USD for one person. Expensive? No.. considering we were paying about 130 for a night at the hotel. It would have cost more to stay in New York and be less enjoyable. I punched in all the required information and was at the confirmation page when they said they could not issue an E-Ticket. An E-Ticket is electronic and requires an address or phone number in the US so they had to issue a paper ticket which was impossible to deliver the next day. At this point David told his brother-in-law we were not coming and went to sleep. I looked up other sites and found a similar site. Repeating the process, I finally managed to get a flight. Praise God for that!

Phone Calls

I made a couple of phone calls that night and in the end had to call ben to try and find out what he would be doing and where. I found out through that call he already knew we were coming. A guy at the wilds was from a family he and Jason Miller (more later) had to bunk together with for a night while driving up from the Miller’s home. He told his mom and his mom blabbed it out to ben so it was kind of a non-surprise already.

The Flying Chinks

When David woke, I told him we had a flight and so we left to carry on with our day. We checked in very early to prevent any hiccups and made it in early. When we got on the airline, we saw these beautiful wide leather seats. At first my eyes lit up, but then I realized they were for the business and first class. However, I was quite wrong and it turned out the whole plane had the same kind of seating all the way to the back! It was a very comfortable flight with great attendants with 2 chocolate chip cookies (warm, nice and baked on board!), drinks and very comfortable seats. This became part of my holiday because it was just so enjoyable. Anyway, in 2 hours we were in Michell Airport, Wisconsin. Ben was there with Jason Miller (More later I promise) and they picked us up, telling us we had $25 a night accommodation at the dorms including food. Fantastic!

From the Fridge to the Freezer

The dorms are really houses/apartments with a family staying on top and the guys stay in a basement like place. All of stayed separately, me with 3 guys at one place and David at another. It was slightly cold the first night, I woke up feeling like the second night without a heater at the Wilds but the guys just said it was pretty warm for January. (Right now its snowing outside actually, so beautiful!)

School Bus

I was up at 7 to follow this guy who was in the bus ministry to get to the church at 745, a short walk through some trees. It was so quiet in the morning. Everyone was either praying, reading, or just getting washed up. And church was at 915!! The latest they are allowed to get up is 730. The population in Milwaukee is predominantly black and they are similar to the malays in our culture. The bus is rented and would go around picking up kids from everywhere. 3 people are on the bus. A guy, a gal and a bus captain who has a list of all those requiring pickups. They would go from street to street and almost half would not really show up. The rest were late and on my trip, only one guy was on time and came out to the bus instead of us going to it.

Sunday Best

The church has a congregation of about 800. On Sundays they have full orchestra, a choir, some people taking turns to do sign language for the deaf congregation, some Mongolians and some who had special needs. The service goes on as usual and they have a monthly theme. January was the month of stewardship so the pastor speaks a message about it. The offering plates (yes, its like dish) are passed around and the offertory is usually played by a group of strings or something like that. What was interesting in this church is that the kids were all dresses up better than the weddings back home. This is not for rich people, almost everyone dressed their kids up. They stayed in service the entire way and never made a sound (I did see one dad drag a red-eyed tearing boy out though). After that they switch over and have Sunday school pretty much like ours.

Sunday School

This was interesting because they started off Sunday school with a few rounds of baulderdash, a board game. After that was a lesson on the holy spirit and also, the reading of a sermon from a brother in jail. His life had been changed by the entire turn of events and it was a sort but pointed exhortation which incidentally tied in with what pastor vangeldren preached just a few hours before about stewardship. After this, we continued to go for a class on Sunday, it was the netcasters program. Through that class I got to learn some pretty important truths about evangelism and about service. Also, it was the first time I met Pastor Gilmore. After he was done with the class, I remember thinking and feeling so scared because I knew I was going to be a changed person if I stayed there any longer and I didn’t know what would lie in store for me if I did embrace that change.

Spiritual Renewal

On Sunday evening they were kicking off their spiritual renewal conference and Pastor Redick preached a sermon that moved my heart greatly. He posed a question: Is the old old story, old to us? Pointing out how we should be hot and passionate for Christ as the bible had said in revelations. A Christian who is no longer stirred, no longer moved by the story of Jesus Christ has let his heart grow cold and “has left his first love” which is our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a dangerous place to be as Christ has commanded us to love him with “all our heart, all our mind and all our strength” and if we are not, we will be like the lukewarm church in laodecia whom God said he would spew, or vomit, out of his mouth. At this time, my heart was stone cold and I asked God to stir up my passion for him again and to not let my spiritual lukewarm-ness get in the way of his work in my life anymore.

The next step after our passion is stirred is being broken. Being broken means giving up your rights, your pride and your own plan for yourself, acknowledging that any flesh, good or bad, is still flesh and not spirit led. You may be walking in the flesh if often you find yourself in the following conditions.

• You feel your rights have been violated, or maybe
• you are irritated at someone for any reason, maybe
• you are not evangelizing as you should!

Jesus did not exert his rights at the cross – why should you? Maybe you need to confess to a brother who has sinned against you the greater sin of resentment – Jesus didn’t resent anyone, why should we? In fact, he was pleading for their souls as they nailed him to the cross. Do you need to get to a point of brokenness and to recognize that you are the sinner, that you nailed Jesus to the cross, that we ought to have no will of ourselves but that which God has spoken to us? Are you walking by faith and not by sight? Are you giving your lives as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable? Do we even know what holiness is?

As we live in a society that mocks God and makes light of his name are we offended? Is it enough to take offense? This is for the people in school and the army especially. Should we go up to people and say “no no, don’t say that, it’s taking God’s name in vain?” As the preacher put it – We should reflect the holiness of God so brilliantly, that it makes these very acts impossible in your presence. Is it our own holiness that they should see? God forbid! They should be looking at you the way the Israelites were looking at Moses, a reflection of God’s glory when he came down from the mount. His face shone so much with the glory of God that he had to wear a veil. Holiness is an absolute requirement for service and when we recognize the holiness of God we will fall on the ground in sadness and weeping over our sin. In Isaiah 6 the prophet saw how unclean he was and fell on his face. He says “woe is me, for I am undone”. The word undone means destroyed, totally decimated. It refers to irreversible destruction and final judgement, like the finality of a death penalty without petition or condemnation to hell. That was what he was talking about. So, what did the angel do? The angel took a burning coal from off the alter and placed it on his mouth. Can you imagine how painful that must have been? When I was in JC, I remembered rushing out of the house with my family and I wanted to get a drink. So I went into the kitchen and without using a cup, I poured the water from the jug into my mouth because I had a pretty good aim. Little did I know the maid had just seconds before, filled that jug with water from out of the kettle; the water was so hot it took the skin off the inside of my mouth for the next 2 days. For the next 2 weeks it was constantly in pain and prickly and for 4 weeks after that there was no pain but I couldn’t taste anything. Thank God it healed very well and today, I can enjoy eating as well as I did before that incident. Anyway, back to Isaiah, cleansing was a painful process for him and still is for us, it could mean pain and that was something he had to go through to be broken, to be useful for God. After that comes the best part. God asked a beautiful question. Who will go out for me? Who will go forth and speak my word? And then what did Isaiah say? It is immortalised in the song which goes, here am I Lord, send me. Do you see the progression of things? First he saw the holiness of God, then he saw his own destruction, then he allowed the angel to cleanse him though painful it was, and then he responded to God’s call to speak his word. This order of things cannot be subverted; it cannot be put in any other order.

When we start with service instead of brokenness and cleansing, God is displeased and it is a grievous sin. Lets turn to Acts chapter 5 if you will. Here we see the familiar story of Ananias and Sapphira, struck dead because they lied to the Holy Spirit and said they gave their all. Isn’t that the same as us? You know, serving proclaims that you have already given your life, your all and are broken for Christ. If you haven’t, God’s not interested in your service, he’s interested in you! “For without faith it is impossible to please him” While we serve and still keep back a part of our life, be it music, bad language or maybe secret sins like grudges, hate, pornography, gossip. We are just like Ananias and Sapphira who said they gave all but in actual fact kept back some for themselves. Lets not place the carriage before the horse and press behaviours and practical applications on people before they have even seen the holiness of God. Because if they have not seen, if they have not allowed themselves to be broken and they have not given their lives to God that will all mean nothing but legalism! I’m not saying we do not point out sin to our brothers because that is commanded in the bible to admonish one another in love. What I am saying is that if the spirit chooses us to be that instrument of revelation to our brother, we must pray and continue to let the spirit work through us and let the spirit convict him instead of trying to do so in the flesh. Only the spirit convicts, not us.

Brokenness is not the final point in our walk, it is the spirit filled life. That life which makes us not even want to sin! Many times people will say “its okay to feel angry inside, just don’t do anything bad outside” I think that is a flawed logic because God said that if you hate your brother inside it is equal to murder, and a lustful thought or glance is equal to adultery. The spirit filled life is possible and it is for now. The perfect life is for our time here on earth. God has sent the spirit and at the point of conversion he dwells in us, enabling us to walk in him. We do not go through a progression of being filled with the spirit, we got as much of him as we’re ever going to get at the point of our salvation and it is all we’ll ever need. Finally, what do we do with the spirit filled life? We practice matthew 28:19-20 and go forth to preach his word. It says GO, not wait for people to ask, and I recently had the chance to put that into practice. On the way back from new york, I was struggling to obey the spirit and talk to the men I sat with. The first was an Israeli man who lived in new York for 40 years, the second a man who was doing international community service with a famous investor philanthropist. I resisted and watched a movie. By the end of that movie I was feeling very convicted because I could have possibly traded a man’s soul for 2 hours of entertainment. Of course, I did talk to that man and I never regretted it. Incidentally, he works regularly in Cambodia, the country that pastor Gilmore’s son, Stephen (5 years old), wants to be a missionary to.

Something else I must share about this little boy is that during the first sermon, I was occupied, trying to call my sister in the computer lab when the singspiration had already started. Just as my laptop ran out of juice, pastor Gilmore was knocking at the door and gesturing to me because the door is locked from the inside. I opened it and he told me that his son wanted to sit beside me. So I just had to go. Little did I know that this little boy’s request had brought me into a sermon I so desperately needed to hear. The 3^rd day, when the end of the sermon was approaching, I just had to respond. And I hate to respond to invitations. Pastor can probably tell you that I’ve never raised my hand for the past 2 or 3 years. I always thought - I really do want this already and have already raised my hand so many times, prayed so many times, what’s the point? But this invitation was different, I was just waiting to jump out of my chair. I daresay it has been the indifference and apathy of my heart that caused me not to respond outwardly in previous times. That’s just for me, but I now firmly believe in being open and sharing as I see how God works in people’s lives I’m so encouraged.

Anyhow, I was invited to pastor Gilmore’s office that day I was leaving and he passed me a photo of his family which you see here. This is not coerced, this is not suggested by their father but the children themselves have all come up with a country they want to serve in. Too young? Maybe. Too naïve? Maybe, but what about this – They are so in tuned with God and walking in the spirit that they hear the specific call of God in their lives. Pastor Gilmore shared with me that his son, in seeing me respond to the call of the holy spirit had also made some decisions in his life. It’s a “praise God” moment you know? How much more often that phrase should leave our lips and we thank the holy spirit for doing his work. I wrote a note and promised to visit him in his mission field, wherever it may be. I’m looking forward to the day, probably 20 years from now when I see the reaping of what God has sown in his heart that day.

God has convictions for all of us. He has called us to priesthood and to his service. Wherever that may be - a lawyer, student, doctor, housewife, missionary, pastor. It really doesn’t matter. The only thing is that you are able to hear him and are willing to be broken and respond. To go and to tell others about Christ.

That kinda concludes my sharing. Hope it wasn’t too long. I hope it has blessed your heart as much as it has blessed mine in being there. They have a holiness conference coming up and if any of you have any spare cash, I would really really recommend you to go and see what God is doing there.

Tags: 2007, Benji, Bible, holiday, Sermon

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 at 2:42 am and is filed under Thoughts and Discussions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.