Thai Political Crisis

The Thai political crisis continues to worsen as protesters try to bring things to a head in Bangkok, shutting down both the new Suwanaphum airport and the old Don Muang airport, effectively closing the country off to much of the world. The protesters demand the resignation of the government and the government says no, but refuses to do anything other than riot police containing the crowds. The news is constantly changing here so if you want latest, I would recommend looking at the website for the Bangkok Post (www.bangkokpost.com) or the International Herald Tribune (www.iht.com). The Bangkok Post will have more up to date information although the IHT will have a more readable summary of the events and the context of the current crisis.

Our family lives two hours north of Bangkok, and thus plenty far away from any of the disturbances. Everything seems to be confined to Bangkok right now. However, after I preach in Ayuthaya this Sunday, we'll head down to OMF's Mission Home in Bangkok, which is not far from the Don Muang airport, one of the sites of mass protests and some violence. We will drive in to the mission home the back way, using the outer ring road and Expressway from the north, so we won't have to drive past the airport. We wouldn't plan on going to Bangkok at this time except that our visas expire this coming week and need to be renewed before December 3rd. The immigration office, as far as I know, is not near any of the hot spots but we will be watching the news for any changes. Pray that we would get accurate updated info to avoid any trouble spots and wisdom to know whether to change any of our plans. Hopefully the tensions will decrease instead of increase although that seems somewhat unlikely right now.

I include below a news video of the Thai situation that I found on YouTube. Hopefully, you can view it more easily than I can, with our miserable excuse for a DSL connection (really, sometimes our DSL is no faster or more reliable than dial-up). If you search on YouTube or the news sites (Reuters, Associated Press, etc), you can probably find some more videos. As you watch the video, make note that the yellow shirts are the anti-government people and, although they don't show up in this particular video, the red shirts are the pro-government people.

Just now I got an SMS news flash from the Bangkok Post saying that the Prime Minister announced on TV that he is going to send in the police to take care of the protesters and has warned the mob to stop holding the country hostage. This will be very interesting to say the least and potentially violent. May God bring peace to the nation and turn the hearts of many to Him as Christ is the only one who can bring true peace and reconciliation between God and man, and between people. May the LORD tear down the dividing wall of hostility.

Valuing our Elderly

The following two stories from the lives of believers at the PhraBaht church (with whom we work) have reminded me of the special care that we need to take to value the elderly among us. “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. Honor widows who are truly widows.” 1 Timothy 5:1-3

Pim’s mother was discouraged. Weak and bedridden because of diabetes, she often had thoughts of death and recently she had been having dreams about her late older sister who was calling her to come join her. ‘What’s the point of living?’ she thought to herself. ‘It would be better if I were to die.’ She would often vent her frustrations to her daughter and teenage grandson. One Sunday morning before church her grandson got tired of listening to her complain. Rather coldly, he said to her ‘If you want to die, then die already’ Those words cut her deeply and she refused to be taken to church that day.

While Pim’s mother lay at home with thoughts of death and worthlessness, the believers at church had different thoughts. They missed her. After church, Sun and Muay visited her to talk, pray, and read the Bible. A few days later, Arui came to encourage her. By the time Sunday came around again, her spirits had perked up a bit and she was glad to see us when we came to pick her up and bring her to church. I don’t think that the preacher that day knew what had happened in the life of Pim’s mother during the past week. Tam, a young man doing student ministry, preached on suicide. Taking us to the Old Testament, he told us about the lives of Moses, Elijah, Job, and Jonah - men who entertained thoughts of death at one time but went on to be blessed by God and used by Him. As Pim’s mother lay on a cot near the front of the room, Tam emphatically urged the elderly to never think that they don’t have value or that God can’t use them. At the very least they can pray, and can teach their children and grandchildren from their long experience in life and with God. After the service was over, and everyone had finished lunch, I was called over to pick up Pim’s mother and bring her out to the car of another church member who was taking her home to rest. Other church members were practicing music for Christmas and later on several of us would head out to hand out tracts and do visitation. I sat down beside the cot and told Pim’s mother that I was glad that she could come today. Thinking of Tam’s sermon, I also reminded her that she was very valuable. With a big smile on her face, she sat up slightly and croaked out, “I want to go help hand out tracts today, but I can’t walk.” What a change from the previous week! Praise God for his work in the life of Pim’s mother, renewing her spirit through the love of the believers and the preaching of the Word.

Later that afternoon, I took a carload of Phra Baht church people out to Nong Doan for prayer, evangelism training, to hand out tracts, and to do visitation. On our way back home to Phra Baht that evening, I dropped off at his home an elderly man who had been a believer for about twenty years. He couldn’t get around too well because of a bone fracture in his leg that never healed properly but he still had a lot of life left in him. As we turned out of his long dirt driveway onto the main road, a voice piped up from the back of the car. ‘My Dad was really glad to come today’, his adult daughter informed me. ‘He likes doing this kind of thing.’ ‘I am glad to hear that,’ I replied, ‘it was good to have him along. I think it was really beneficial.’ In Nong Doan, we had split up into two groups to hand out tracts and visit people. I had been in a group of four together with this older gentleman and his daughter. Although he was usually very quiet at church, I was pleasantly surprised when he offered some valuable insights and contributions as we talked about the Gospel with some folks who were probably my parents age if not older. Although God can uses the most unlikely of persons to share the Gospel, humanly speaking it carries much more weight for Thai villagers to hear the Gospel from the mouth of an aged Thai believer than from this young white foreigner. This was my mindset, at least.

On the car ride home, his daughter went on to tell me, ‘The last missionary who was here (several years previous) didn’t want to take the old people out to do evangelism and my Dad was disappointed and discouraged by that. He (the missionary) thought that they were a burden.’ What a shame that some of the believers with the most experience in life, and with God, were left behind by a short-sighted missionary who didn’t want to be slowed down. Talking about the importance of every person in the body of Christ (i.e. the church), the apostle Paul said, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow greater honor.” 1 Corinthians 12:21-23. Certainly, it will take more time and energy to care for, and to bring along, our elderly saints but when we do, won’t that be a wonderful picture of the love and care that the body of Christ has for one another? (1 Corinth 12:25) Won’t that be an important part of the witness for Christ that we can offer to an unbelieving world where selfishness reigns and families are tearing apart at the seams? What do Christians communicate about God when small children and the elderly are looked at as a burden instead of a blessing? Is our value tied up in what we can do and accomplish, and how fast we can move? Or rather, is our value derived from the One who made us and the proof of the truth of our message displayed in how we love one another?

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” John 17:20-23

False Assurance

There is a Thai Christian with whom I've done evangelism and visitation several times and the way that he shares the Gospel worries me. His Gospel presentation is quite brief, consisting of only a few points, namely - 1) There is a God 2) You're a sinner and God sends sinners to hell 3) You want to go to heaven and not hell, right? 3) So, if you want to go to heaven, believe in Jesus because he died for your sins so you don't have to go to hell 4) God healed my ankle and he can help you too if you pray to him. This is the gist of his Gospel presentation and it is my friend's belief that as long as someone consents to say "the prayer of faith" (or "the sinner's prayer"), then that person is good to go, as it were. He would love for that person to come to church and grow in their new faith but even if that doesn't happen, at least he is saved from hell.

While my friend's desire for people to be saved from hell is a commendable one, I am concerned that his evangelistic method leaves out some important elements of the Biblical evangelism (helping people see the severity of their sin in light of God's wrath, the necessity of repentance, the Lordship of Christ, and cost of discipleship). The preaching of this kind of truncated Gospel is not a phenomenon unique to Thailand, but is quite common in evangelicalism in America (and in much of the world, I imagine). This morning as I was reading about John the Baptist in Luke 3, I was struck by how radically different John's evangelism was from my friend's all-too-common modern way of evangelism. In Luke 3:7, we see crowds of Jews coming out to John to be baptized. In modern parlance, we might call them "seekers" (I actually have a problem with the term "seekers" but that discussion can be left for another time). These are Jews who would seem to have a spiritual interest in the preaching of John the Baptist but instead of welcoming them with open arms and encouraging them to believe his message, read their Bibles, go to synagogue, and to rely on faith and not feelings, this is what John says to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the roots of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (Luke 3:7-9). Wow! John really lays into them, doesn't he? No encouragement there! Only rebuke is to be had for those who claim to be believers but aren't bearing any evidence of being believers. John wants to shake them out of their reliance on external factors (lineage, being religious, etc) and get them to see that true faith and true heart change always results in a changed life. If someone doesn't have a changed life, then that person needs to be shaken out of their false assurance of salvation and helped to see that he is not really saved because he does not have a life that reflects true faith. This is the same point that James makes when he says, "So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 2:17)

To come back to my Thai friend who thinks that people who have prayed to receive Christ are "good to go" to heaven even if their lives don't change, I think that we need to take a page from the preaching of John the Baptist and risk making some people unhappy. Thai culture despises open confrontation and public conflict, and often times situations are left vague and unresolved because nobody wants to upset the superficial surface harmony that exists in uneasy and unreconciled relationships between people. This is especially true if people who have issues with each other have to see each other regularly, either at home, at work, at school, at the temple, or at church. However, John the Baptist thought it was worth upsetting the boat if he could help people with a false assurance of faith to see the true state of their souls and their lives. Obedience to Christ is not an optional extra in the Christian life but rather, it is part and parcel of true saving faith. And no one should ever rely on a particular prayer said at a particular time to give them an assurance that they are right before God. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone, not by any external action - even the prayer of faith. All prayers and external religious actions can be easily done for the wrong reasons and with the wrong motivations.

I am convinced that getting to say “the prayer of faith” as a way of helping them to become Christians is actually counter-productive, and often times produces a false assurance of faith. I would rather invite the person to church, offer to study Scripture with them, and try to ask good questions to help them see the their sin in light of God’s wrath, and point them to the cross of Christ. There must be an urgency in telling people to repent and believe but also a reliance upon God’s working in people’s hearts. If God’s has truly called them for salvation, then in His good time, He will work salvation in their hearts and their lives will show it. The book of 1 John was written to help believers have assurance of faith (1 John 5:13) and the bulk of the book consists of telling believers what changes to look for in their lives and their hearts so that they can see for themselves how God is working in their lives. Assurance of salvation should always come from God, not man. The human role in helping new believers receive assurance of faith is to point them to the Scriptures and to counsel them to be really honest about the true state of their hearts before God. God himself will assure believers of their salvation: “And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” (1 John 3:24).

Discipleship is often a long process and I try to discuss with my Thai friend some of my concerns about his evangelism, and to point him back to the Scriptures but we still have a way to go. Please pray for him and for our conversations together. A wrong understanding of conversion has consequences not only for how we share the Gospel with others but for our own lives as well. This is not about preferences in evangelistic method but about the heart of the Gospel and what real life Christian living should look like. I am concerned that his view that obedience to Christ is of secondary importance to "getting saved" is having a negative impact upon the importance which he puts upon obedience and heart change in his own life. Please pray that a right understanding of the Gospel and evangelism, and right living that honors God would be a living and present reality in the lives of Thai Christians.

The Holy Spirit's Role in Evangelism

The is a lot of talk in modern evangelical churches about the Holy Spirit and not all of it is helpful. It is not uncommon for people to talk or sing things like, "Let the fire of Holy Spirit fall on us" or "Come Holy Spirit, revive us again" or other similar things. I was in a church meeting the other day, and the pastor had written (in Thai) on a handout, "This is the age of the Holy Spirit. We all are living in this age. The Spirit is ready to move in the lives of Christians if only we give the Spirit the opportunity to work in our lives."

I want to ask, what exactly does it mean for the Holy Spirit to move in people's lives? What does it look like to have the fire of the Holy Spirit fall on someone? And isn't it our Sovereign God who takes the initiative in our sanctification, changing our hearts to respond and be transformed? Is the Holy Spirit really sitting around, wringing his hands, waiting for us to ask Him to fall on us? I am hard pressed to find any Biblical reference to needing to call the Holy Spirit to fall on us again and again or to light us (or the land) on fire, as it were. Sure, it happened at Pentecost but that was a rather unique event that was initiated by God, not the apostles. From that point in history, believers are henceforth indwelt with the Holy Spirit from conversion onwards (Eph. 1:13-14).

As I began to prepare a Bible study on Ephesians 6:10-24 this afternoon, I was struck by the Apostle Paul's understanding (and indeed, God's understanding) of the role of the Holy Spirit in evangelism and spiritual transformation. In Eph 6:17, Paul says that the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. How is it that the Holy Spirit is going to move powerfully through the land to convict and convert sinners, and purify his people? Is it through miraculous manifestations? through miracles and healings? through dreams and visions? Paul doesn't mention any of those. It is the Word of God! The idea of praying that God will use dreams and visions to bring people to Christ is somewhat trendy these days, particularly among missionaries. But the Apostle Paul says that the Bible is the Holy Spirit's chosen tool to bring people to Himself, and to bring revival and reformation. In Eph 6:18, Paul goes on further to urge the Ephesian Christians to pray in the Spirit at all times all prayer and supplication. To some modern believers, the idea of praying in the Spirit may conjure up images of eyes closed, hands uplifted with an eager expectation of a touch from the Spirit of God. However, Paul tells believers to stay alert and to persevere, indicating that praying in the Spirit is a difficult and arduorous task that requires our full attention. Paul doesn't give a list of the types of things we are to ask for when we pray in the Spirit but only mentions one thing. This one thing must have been uppermost on Paul's mind. He asks them to pray that "words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the Gospel." (Eph 6:19).

How does the Spirit move in evangelism and revival? In Ephesians 6, Paul clearly indicates that the Holy Spirit uses the Bible to make the Gospel known, and the Holy Spirit works through the words of the Bible when it is boldy proclaimed as it ought to be (Eph 6:20). The Holy Spirit blows where he will, changing people's hearts to recieve the Gospel (John 3:8) in preparation for the Word of God that comes to them in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ boldly proclaimed. "Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." (Rom. 10:17)

Let us not waste our time in singing vague lyrics like "let the fire fall", "let the river flow" and so forth, but rather pray for the bold proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and get on with opening our mouths and telling people the Gospel.