THE ZAMBIA 2012 REFORMED CONFERENCE- A RECAP

By Kennedy O Owiti¹

I had the privilege of attending this year’s Reformed Conference in Zambia’s beautiful capital, Lusaka. The theme of the conference this time was “Missions- Not Beyond Our Reach”

In this series, I intend to recap, as simply as I can, some of the lessons God was pleased to help me learn. Obviously, it is hard to put it down word for word, yet I trust that with the enabling of the spirit of God, those who read these summaries will be able to learn something of value for their own walk with God as believers in Christ.

Inculcating mission mindedness in the family- By Pastor Voddie Baucham

Introduction

It must be agreed that all christians have a part to play in the mission work of the church. This is obviously for the reason that all of the saved are priests with Christ, he being the chief high priest. Many christians are obviously aware of the great commission that Christ directed his followers to in Mathew 28:16-20 and so many christians think that the work of missions is only a New Testament phenomenon. We rarely notice missions in the Old Testament often because of:-

·         fixation on the great commission of Christ,

·         a general lack of familiarity with the Old Testament;

Pastor Baucham argued that the Dominion Mandate in Genesis 1:28 itself amounted to a mission to man to rule and subdue the world in specific manner, to multiply and generally enhance life, for God’s glory.  Later as Moses is sent to take out the Israelites out of Egypt, God uses the plagues in the battle against Pharaoh  so that men may know that there is none like God in all the earth [Exodus 9:14-16]. Indeed God’s intention is then that His name may be proclaimed in all the earth. Do you not see mission in that? All the major and minor prophets in various sections of the Old Testament also indicate that the missions of God to man were variously given with the ultimate aim of the name of God being known and therefore being glorified in all the earth.

The New Testament is replete with missions given to men to declare the glory of the Lord God. In Mathew 6:9-13; the Lord Jesus Christ teaches his disciples how to pray in what is famously referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer” and there at verse 10 he says;

“your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

The foregoing means, in part, that the rulership of God, his fame and glory in heaven, where he is obeyed fully and most perfectly as the holy, majestic and most glorified God should be replicated in all the earth. Now that can only happen if God is known in all the earth! It goes without saying then that we have there, an implied mission to make God known in all the earth.

Later in Mathew 10:18, Christ tells the disciples that on his account, they “will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the gentiles”- a clear indication that Christ’s followers are expect to be in mission work by virtue of the fact of their being such followers!

A reading through various passages in the other Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline literature as well as Revelation, shows that God directs us to mission work. This is the only way that the great multitude revealed to John in Revelation 7:9 gets to be realized. There the word of God says;

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb”

Conclusion

We can say the following confidently;

·         God has always been on “mission”

·         God has always called/taught/expected his people to be on mission

·         The whole of biblical revelation is mission oriented in nature and scope

Must one have faith to be healed? - The place of Miracles Today                                by  Kennedy Owiti

Today there are many churches that preach the existence of instant healing and other miraculous signs and wonders. There are billboards that announce, every so often that a healing crusade will be held in this or that place. People are invited to bring their sick that these may be prayed for and healed. Indeed even the sick themselves are asked to attend that they may be prayed for to receive such healing.  The question one asks then is, do these healings really take place? Do miracles proclaimed in the name of Jesus still happen? And if they don’t, is it because the people being prayed for, the sick and crippled, do not have sufficient faith or at all, that they then cannot get the healing they desire?

The word of God is replete with instances of great miraculous signs and wonders right from the times of the Old Testament. In the book of Exodus, the great miraculous signs and wonders that preceded the exodus are told. The burning bush (Exodus 3) and the plagues that hit Egypt (Exodus 8-10) have never been repeated elsewhere! These were miracles performed by the Almighty God Himself! The Bible records various other miracles that He did. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ also performed many miracles, signs and wonders. He healed the sick of various categories: getting the lame and crippled to walk (Luke 5:17-26), the blind to have sight (John 9:1-12), the deaf to have the ability to hear, the mute to speak, (Mark 7:31-37) the demon possessed to be free of demons (Luke 4:31-36). He walked on water (Mark 6:45-52), He fed five thousand people from just five loaves of bread and two fishes. (Mark 6:30-44) and caused the dead to rise only from their death beds? (Luke 7:11-17) Nay, from their graves too! Lazarus was a rotting corpse when the savior called him back to life (John 11:38-44).  These are just a few of the ones He did and the Bible records many more.

In Acts of the Apostles, the twelve were filled with the Holy Spirit and they themselves performed great miracles, signs and wonders (Acts 2:43) in the name of our Savior as the Spirit of God enabled them including healing the crippled beggar (Acts 3:1-10). The statement in Acts 5:12-16 clearly has the implication that the miracles, signs and wonders were performed as a means of getting the people to believe, more so as the Church of Christ was just being born. These were a people who were hearing of the gospel of grace for the first time. They were learning for the  very first time about the possibility of being right with God on account of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as opposed to being cleansed of sin on account of the offerings made by the high priests as was the custom and as had been the practice since Moses. But again the miracles were not just confined to healing the sick! The miraculous escape of Peter recorded in Acts 12 and even the earlier one recorded in Acts 5:17-26 also happened! There were recorded witnesses to these things. The people healed were often well known to the people in their various towns and villages.

Later,  we read (Hebrews 1:1-2) that the time for these miracles, visions, signs and wonders had ended and that now God only speaks to men through the Son who John explains is the very statement of the will of God (John 1:1-5), the Word of God Himself, which word has been written down to and for us in the name of a Bible. Salvation itself, which the Word of God equates with the raising of a dead person or soul back to life, is a miracle that continues to occur to this very day but all the other miracles signs and wonders no longer happen. We all live in this world; we know our neighbors and the people who live in and around our towns. Among these people are the sick, the blind the crippled, the deaf and mute, those with mental problems who for all intents and purposes are demon possessed. These people have variously been taken to the crusades where the so called faith healers have promised miraculous healings but these never come to pass. Indeed these purported miracle workers are devoid claims of any other signs and wonders except to allege the power to heal those who are sick! Why, for example, has none walked on water? Why has none walked into a morgue and in the name of the risen Christ, raised the dead back to life? How is it that we cannot find one ordinary man who from birth was blind but can now see? The healing which our Christ performed at the pool called Bethesda is remarkable. The modern equivalent to that pool is a medical ward in a modern 21st century hospital! This was a place where the sick congregated in their numbers that they may get healing. Christ went to that hospital and thereat healed a man well known to his neighbors! How come we have not had any of the so called miracle workers walk into any hospital and heal those that are sick there? Why have they not walked, driven, or flown to the northern parts of Kenya during those moments of biting famine and there preach the word of God and then miraculously feed the hundreds there with a few loaves of bread and fishes?

It is precisely because the time for miracles, signs and wonders is no more! We have the Word! We have the Son. We must believe only the Son that we may be saved.  We must not allow ourselves to be cheated that any other miracles other that the great miracle of a God willing to and indeed dying for us, will ever happen. What other miracle do we need? Surely none! For even the angles of God are baffled at this miraculous and wonderful plan of God,  where the person who has been wronged is the one who gives up himself as an atonement for the sins of the wrong doer!

No! The time for miracle, signs and wonders is over. And let no one say to you, after a failed attempt at healing you miraculously, that it is because you have little or no faith and so you have not received your miracle! For this is often the fallback reason after failure! Why, when Jesus fed the five thousand He did not first require that they exhibit any specific amount of faith! When he turned water into wine he did not ask the host to have any specific type of faith. It is His mother who told the people there to do as they were told but have we not also been told, by the scripture, the Word of God, the Son, what to do? Yes, we have been advised to have faith and to pray.  We have been told to call our pastors and elders to pray for and with us when we are sick (James 5:13-16) and that such prayers, if offered in faith, will make the sick person well.

Brethren let us all then have faith in the Word, the Son, and our Christ through whom our God now speaks to us. Let us heed his voice and be obedient to Him. In this I do not limit the power of God to do anything, even miraculous, in our midst. Yet we must, as people get wiser through the reading of God’s word and the clear preaching thereof not be led astray or be discouraged that we are not of sufficient faith as no miracles are happening among us.

Kennedy Owiti fellowships at Grace Baptist Church-Kisumu

(GBC.

I Bow To The Autority of Bible Alone and not Evolution Theory.

I bow to the authority of Scriptures alone  that Adam and Eve were actual Historical Person created by God :
Paul the apostle takes Adam as actual historical person [ Rom 5: 12-21, 1 Cor 15: 20-23].
 Paul is drawing a parallel between the one man Adam and the one man Jesus Christ. Also Christ is refereed to as last Adam [ 1 Cor 15: 45].
Therefore I am not ready to listen to other voices. Man is a creature of God and accountable to Him.

Federal Headship by John Calvin Romans 5:12-19.

This is also called representative headship.
[a] Just as Christ is the representative of all believers, Adam is representative of all humanity.

[b] As our representative Adam can sign  agreements on  on behalf of all humanity and the agreements will be binding just as an MP, President or King who sign any agreement on the behalf of the people.

[c] Similarly when Adam broke God's covenant we all broke it hence we are all sinners.

ojeepaguiluri: Information.

ojeepaguiluri: Information.: Dear Brothers and Sister in Christ and all those who read this blog, I want to inform you that Bethesda Baptist Church Tassia now has a we...

Information.

Dear Brothers and Sister  in Christ and all those who read this blog,
I want to inform you that Bethesda Baptist Church Tassia now has a website. www.bethesdabaptistnairobi.org. We are still working on it.

We also want to inform you that our Church plant work is going on well and we have seen increase in Church attendance. Thanks for your prayers, encouragements and support.

May the God of all grace and mercy bless you all.


His by Grace.

Michael.

Are you a trusted friend?

Are you a trusted friend?

Here is one who can be classified as a trusted friend:

“The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; but when he arrived in Rome he sought me out very zealously and found me (2 Tim. 1:16-17).

Some observations

When Onesiphorus  zealously sought Paul and found him.  Paul was almost alone. “This you know that all those in Asia have turned  away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes (2 Tim. 1:15).  Things were not easy this time around even one of his trusted friends abandoned him.  “For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and has gone to Thessalonica; (2 Tim. 4:10).

He expected Christians to stand with him but that was not the case.  “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook  me.  May it not be charged against them.” (2 Tim. 4:16).

Another thing which comes out clearly is that Paul was experiencing poor living conditions. He was in prison.  It was dangerous to associate with him.  This is seen by the fact that Onesiphorus “sought him out very zealously (2 Tim. 1:17). “For which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not chained. (2 Tim. 2:9). “Do your utmost to come before winter (2 Tim. 4:21). 

The last thing I want  us to observe is that when Onesiphorus sought for Paul zealously until he found him Paul was anticipating death.  This time death was inevitable. “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Tim. 4:6).

Here see that Onesiphorus was Paul's trusted friend, in other words, a friend indeed.  He stood with Paul when he was almost alone, when Paul was in prison and anticipating death

Today many people are willing to be your friend so long as things are good and they can benefit from you.  My friend let me ask you:  Do you have a friend like Onesiphorus?  Or are you  capable of being a friend like Onesiphorus?

Let us know turn to the main points which shows that he was a trusted friend. 

(1)  He often refreshed Paul (2Tim. 1:16).

Paul must have been encouraged by seeing Onesiphorus at  this difficult time.  Onesiphorus refreshed the apostle Paul by his kindness, words of encouragement, brotherly fellowship and praying with him.  He encouraged him when he was low.

He paid special attention to him when others were running away.  Maybe he gave his substance as the women did to our beloved Saviour (Lk 8:3).  Paul needed refreshment knowing that he was in a poor living conditions and anticipating death.  Do you remember how Latimen refreshed Ridley as they were in stake during the reign of bloody Mary.  “ Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out:.  We are encouraged to minister to the saints and this what we are seeing Onesiphorus doing. “For God is not unjust to forget your work and labour of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister (Heb 6:10).  This is not the first time Onesphorus is extending a helpful hand to Paul but he also helped him at Ephesus (2 Tim. 1:18).

(2)  He was not ashamed of Paul's Chain (2 Tim. 1:16).

Paul here uses the negative “not ashamed” which shows that he is emphasizing or stressing the fact that Onesiphorus was proud of him.  He rejoiced in the apostle even though he was in chains.  The literal meaning of chain must be included here because Paul was in prison (2 Tim 2:9).  Note how Paul stressed the word "not ashamed" in this chapter. Timothy is exhorted not to be ashamed (2 Tim. 1:8), Paul is not ashed (1:12) and here Onesiphorus was not ashamed (1:16). 

Willing to suffer, if need be for the sake of Christ, and His people is one of the mark of a true Christian.  Hear what the Bible says: “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (2 Tim 3:12), “ These things  I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace.  In the  world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33) and “If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified with Him (Rom 8:17).

This phrase, “he was not ashamed of my chain" shows that Onesiphorus was a man of noble character.  Chains normally reduce the number of friends.  For example if you are poor many will stay aloof.  The poor man is hated even by his own neighbour but the rich has many friends” (Proverbs 14:20).  The fact that Onesiphorus was not ashamed of Paul's chains filled him with thankfulness and joy.

May the Lord grant us His mercy so that our feet may be swift to help those who are persecuted for the sake of the gospel.

(3)  He sought for Paul Zealously (2 Tim. 1:17).

We have already seen how Onesiphorus refreshed Paul and that he was not ashamed of his chains.  Now we are seeing that he sought for him zealously until he found him.  There were three possibilities  for Onesiphorus when he arrived in Rome.

One he could have avoided getting in touch with any Christian in Rome and lived a quite life.

Two he could have met with Christians secretly.  Without seeking for Paul because it was dangerous to associate with Paul and even Christians knew this.

Three to boldly identify himself with Paul by visiting him in prison and searching for him diligently.  This would put him in direct confrontation with the Roman authorities.  To God be the glory because this what Onesiphorus chose. “He sought Paul out zealously and found him”.

Being Paul's friend was not particularly a good thing to undertake at this time.  If Onesiphorus was not devoted and loyal to his persecuted brother.  Yes Onesiphorus took extra trouble to find Paul.  Maybe he didn't know Rome, or because Paul was treated like a criminal it was not easy to find where the Roman authorities were detaining him.  Onesiphorus was not scared of dungeon, he sought Paul out diligently and succeeded in his mission.  We can see this in verse 17 “and he found me."

Onesiphorus is an example of a true, sincere, devoted and a genuine friend that is why he sought out Paul zealously and found him. 

Some lessons we can draw from this passage.

(1)  Christian should seek ways of refreshing one another.  If the great apostle needed refreshment how much more do we need it.  God Himself is a great refresher and encourager. Hear what the Bible says: “Blessed be the God and Father of Mercies and the God of all comfort, who comfort us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4).  Dear friends the entire Gospel is the message of refreshment and we need to refresh  one another.

There are many people who suffer discouragement and they don't know how to handle it and we need to go to them and refresh them.  All God's people need refreshment or encouragement and therefore there is a need for us to seek those who are need and encouraged them.  “Do good unto all men, especially unto them who are o the household of faith (Gal 6:10; Mt. 10:40-43).

We can refresh others just by seeing them the way Onesiphorus did.  Some of you have been sick and you know very well how visitation by a brother or a sister can be refreshing.  My beloved one we can refresh others by having a spiritual conversation or discussion with them.  We can refresh others by encouraging them (Rom 12:8) and bearing their burden (Gal 6:2).

We need to be consistent in refreshing one another not only once or occasionally “he often refresh me” (2 Tim. 1:16).  May the Lord help us not to be tired of doing good”.  You know very well how many ways he ministered to me at Ephesus (1:18).

Beloved, we need to refresh the saints. We can give them hope and put courage in them.  I remember in early 1990s there was advertisement saying that with AIDS there is no hope and we went around encouraging our members and friends who were H.I.V. Positive that even with AIDS there is hope because Christ in you the  hope of glory and even if you die you shall live again because you are in Christ.

How we need to refresh those having terminal illness, our persecuted brothers and sisters, those who are reaching the unreached people and living in hardship areas for the sake of the gospel.  My dear brothers and sisters are we refreshing the saints?  Can any person say of you or me that he has often refreshed me.

(2)  We must not be ashamed of Christians who are persecuted, ridiculed, mocked and despised because of their firm faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Sin brought shame into this world and it is now possible for a person to be ashamed of those suffering for good cause and we need to be alert or on the look out (Heb 12:2).

(3)  We need to be those who are looking for those in need.  Onesiphorus took the initiative to look for Paul in order to refresh him and we must not wait for others to come out asking for our help but we need to go out look for who need refreshment.  For example in a congregation you may have a sister or a brother who have only one pair of cloth and every Sunday he or she comes wearing  the same dress, we need to help  them without them begging  for help.

Beloved we cannot do these things through our own efforts but the God of all grace and mercy alone can enable and strengthen us to do all these things for the praise of His glory.