My friend,
Another term is over. I just gave the last of the semester finals. Now I can think about a new issue that we have encountered.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have had some interesting experiences and contacts. A new church has been built very close to ours and a new mosque is under construction. I have been learning more about each.
The first group is called the New Apostolic Church. Apparently, they are building churches all over the country. Their normal pattern is to start a small group with a disgruntled church member. They meet in their home for a few months and if the group grows, they offer to build a church for them.
This is where it gets interesting. They usually try to find a property as close as possible to an existing church. It has become clear they are not interested in doing any real evangelism. Instead, they work at disrupting a local church and stealing sheep. It is frustrating because there are many areas in Sierra Leone without the gospel where they could work.
That was my thinking until I began to learn more about the group and then realized they were not a Christian group but a cult. They have some strange ideas and theology. One of which is that a person cannot be truly saved unless they are sealed by an Apostle (an approved leader of the church). There are very few of these and so they have a powerful influence in the church. They are also expected to give significantly to the church, which would explain their ability to build so quickly.
The difficult aspect of this is that from the outside they look and sound like any other church. They sing the same songs, they memorize scriptures from the same Bible, and so on. It is not until you really look at them that you will realize the false teaching they are giving the people.
They attract people with offers of clothing and food and a promise of building them a church when there are enough people. They quickly attract those who are Christians in name only, or who are unhappy with the church for any number of reasons.
The second group is a Muslim group that is building a new mosque in our town. They are called the Amadiyans and they are very evangelistic. They are working hard to attract Muslims from the other mosque (like the New Apostolic Church), attract people to their mosque (non-believers), and challenge the truth of the church to draw people from the church to Islam.
A couple of weeks ago the imam from the new mosque and a few of his members came by the house. They wanted to ask me a question about a specific text in the Bible. I decided that this would be a good opportunity to learn more about the group and so I agreed. Soon we had a small crowd of people listening as they asked questions and I answered them.
If I answered one they just moved on to another. I think they were hoping to find some point of weakness or error they could use to promote their truth. Finally, I said it was my turn to ask a question. After all their questions, I realized there was a key issue at stake and that was the resurrection of Jesus. They agreed. I think with the hope that maybe they would be able to twist it to their purposes.
I started by asking them a few questions to set the stage for my question. These were based on something I had learned about their beliefs. They believed that Jesus did not die on the cross but escaped to someplace in Pakistan where he died as an old man.
So I asked first if they believed the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees were powerful men? They agreed that they were. Then I asked if they believed they had access to resources and finances to do what they wanted to do? Again, they agreed that this group had the resources to carry out their plans. Finally, I asked that if indeed they were powerful men, that they controlled their world, and had all the resources they needed to carry out their plans, then why didn’t they find the body of Jesus, alive or dead?
They had everything to gain by producing the body. Everything would have returned to normal and they would have brought an end to the belief of those who believed that Jesus had died and been resurrected. If he was dead, then they had the resources to find and present the body to confirm his death. If he was still alive, then they would produce the person and reveal the lie.
So why didn’t they do this? They had everything to gain and nothing to lose. But they didn’t, why?
As soon as I finished asking my question, they looked at each other and then said it was late and they needed to leave. They chose not to answer the question. They were expecting to be able to present their arguments and none of those arguments could answer that question.
The answer was clear to the others listening. They didn’t produce the body because they couldn’t. Jesus was indeed resurrected.
These two groups made me quite concerned about how they could influence and mislead the people of our region. As I thought about it and considered the problem, I began to realize that we needed to respond and teach clearly about who Jesus is and what God has done for us. As I thought more about this, I talked with the DS and we identified ten small churches and communities that had been visited by these two groups and realized we needed to visit them also.
We came up with a plan and called on Rev A to see if he would help. The plan was simple, I would teach a Sunday school class on who Jesus is and Rev A would then preach about the need for confessing one’s sin and committing their life to follow the true messiah. Rev A had been a successful pastor and had converted from Islam, so he understood very clearly the issues.
We have now visited a couple of those churches and our program of visiting is going well. Last week at Manyeh, ten people accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. The DS has also been teaching in a few of the key churches and it is beginning to affect the growth of the New Apostolic Church. They are losing strength. We have also received some encouragement from an unexpected quarter. The main leaders of the original mosque are glad we are opposing the new Moslem group. and this is opening new doors to share with them the truth about Jesus, who they consider to be merely a great prophet.
God is working and we are working hard to equip His church with the truth so they can defend themselves against the attacks of the enemy. Thank you for your prayers.
Perry J
What would you do if you had to defend your faith to those who followed another religion? Which is more important to study what they believe and reveal their errors or know what you believe so you can answer their questions?