KwaZulu Mission

November 4, 2011

Msindisi Newsletter #86

SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY

NUMBER: 86 Nov 2011

PO BOX 1481
VRYHEID 3100
KWAZULU NATAL
SOUTH AFRICA

+27 (0) 728311008

Email: msindisi@gmail.com ,
salv.di@gmail.com

KwaZulu Mission Website: http://www.kwazulumission.com

Personal Website: http://msindisi.googlepages.com

Dear Friends and family,

The start of summer has bought the rains which we are very grateful for, our water tank is already 3/4 full. This year the grass fires were not so bad around us but many farmers were on a constant alert as the winds can spread it very rapidly.

This month we have witness the huge pressure that the community can place on people to conform to their belief of honouring the dead. Sadly with the death of Amos, Lindiwe his wife was swept away with the pressure from family and community to worship and sacrifice to her late husband. This overwhelming pressure can make it very difficult to stand. But stand we must as in this area actions speak louder than words.

Time and again you see the miracle of Gods hand and grace in Phumulanis life. As he holds the tension of helping but not participating with these community gatherings.
This month Gogo (Phumulanis mother) gave the go ahead to hold a Zionist all night meeting at the kraal, much to our disappointment. This meant a huge tent was put up, the meeting started at midnight and went through the night finishing up around 6 in the morning. There was singing, wailing, screaming and yelling with taxi loads of people coming from all over. As you can imagine not a lot of sleep was had that night. Ourselves, Phumlani and Thabi went away for a meal and teaching at Jonny and Kim that night returning around 11. When we approached home it was like a party taking place at midnight everyone entered the tent. We went straight to our huts on returning.

The next day we heard that a couple of chairs had been broken when some lady had been bitten by a man who claimed he was prophesying after the “Spirit” came upon him. Sadly they are all taken with this thinking it is God speaking to them. When you look the world over there are so many churches today that profess they have “the spirit” the latest anointing. Yet all the actions, teaching and order clearly contradict the word of God. Di asked Phumlani how did he experience these meetings before he was born again. He explained how then he thought it was just normal, he had grown up with. It was not until he read and started to follow scripture after being born again that it became clear to him.
People from the meeting returned to their every day life after the meeting, back to their ways. Thinking God had heard their prayers when in reality nothing had changed they were still separated far from God. Please continue to pray with us for Gogo, Sal is reading her the word, chapter by chapter starting in Luke.

We are currently in Stanger as Sal was asked to come for a weekend of teaching from Calvin. We have had 2 days with Mark and Marie anne which has been just lovely. It is always so good to spend time with them and their son Dean and his wife Taryn.
Sal was able to use the time to complete his assignments for his deuteronomy module.
He will be teaching 3 sessions while here and also going on the local settlements evangelising with Calvin.

Kids club, care bear, teaching Tholakele to read, bible study, discipling, preaching, clinic runs etc continue as usual. Please pray for her. She has had three children by her partner and they haven’t gotten married. He is concerned because her mother would be against it because culturally men must pay a bridal price before they may marry a girl. Upon being challenged by Tholakele who gave him an ultimatum he has agreed to do the right thing. Salvi took them to home affairs on Tuesday and they have arranged a date for next Friday. Please pray for his salvation as we believe he is near the kingdom. His name is Thokozani.

We have been very blessed with the help from Genrod this month. Our truck had a few problems but all is sorted thanks to this very generous christian business. Thank you guys.

In home cell we have been going through Jude in an interactive format. We are seeing the benefits in our fellowshipping as the Lord knits us together.

On the visa front, this month Di resubmitted her application for an extension on her visa.
Her last application was declined as not all the requirements were met. When she submitted it the first time she was told there was no fee required, however there is. This has been addressed along with police checks from South Africa and New Zealand. She can now stay legally in the country until head office either confirm or deny this application.

Sal is still waiting to hear from head office concerning his application for permanent residence. Home affairs has made contact a couple of times so we know it is in the process. We continue to commit this to the lord.

Whatever direction this takes we have a peace as we have entrusted our path to Him.
Sal visa that he has currently does not expire until march next year. If his permanent residence is denied then he also will reapply for an extension on his current visa like Di has.

We thank you all for your prays and support, may the lord richly bless you as we labour together in His work.
Shalom
Sal and Di

ELIJAH AND ELISHA
NABOTH’S VINEYARD
PART 7
1 Kings 21

Matthew 21: 19. Matthew 21: 33 – 43. Something that the scripture shows quite clearly is that God loves and wants fruit. God is a fruitful God and in our lives God requires that we produce fruit. First we have the parable of the fig tree which speaks of the cursing of the temple worship. There were works, there were leaves, there was provision for healing and glory, the temple was very glorious. However there was no spiritual fruit. The Jewish temple had gone from being a house of merchandise, which was bad enough, into being a den of thieves. According to Matthew 24: 32, the fig tree will put forth leaves again. There will be another temple, but note, it will still produce leaves but no fruit. That is because this will be set up under the covenant made with antichrist. Jesus said that we have to abide in Him to bear spiritual fruit. (John 15). So we have more works but no fruit. The Sadducees ruled by their own authority and kept their power through politics and pleasing Rome. So we have the parable of the vineyard and the growers. The vineyard was rented out to the vine growers. The owner of the vineyard wanted to receive the fruit of the vineyard but there was a problem.

The vine growers were not content to be stewards of it, rather they wanted to own it. They wanted to take possession of it and so when the master sends messengers, the vine growers kill and persecute them. But when the owner sends his son, they see him as the heir of the vineyard and thus they kill him in order to keep the vineyard for themselves. The Pharisees and the Sadducees knew that Jesus was the Messiah, they knew that Jesus claimed that he would rise from the dead. Even in this parable, they understood the meaning as we see in verse 45. The vineyard is representative of the Kingdom of God. The vine growers, however do not primarily speak of the ethnic nation of Israel. We know that until the last century believers were predominantly made up of Gentiles but we can see that Jesus was speaking against the chief priests and the Pharisees, as we see in verse 45 of Matthew 21. Thus Jesus was speaking about the rulers of Israel and not primarily the nation. Now we know that the kingdom has also been taken away from Israel as an ethnic nation for as the disciples also understood in Acts 1: 6 that one day the kingdom would be restored to Israel. But it can not be completely taken away from ethnic Jews for Romans 11: 5 says that God has chosen during this time, before the restoration of Israel, to keep a remnant of the nation of Israel for Himself. But the parable itself is not primarily concerning the kingdom being taken away from the nation of Israel but is speaking of the kingdom being taken away from the pharisees and chief priests and given to a nation producing the fruit of it. They were rulers but they were only stewards. Yet they wanted to be owners of the Kingdom so they tried to kill the Son of God to get it. They did not produce any fruit but they wanted to keep the vineyard non the less. Jesus said to His disciples that they would sit on 12 thrones judging the tribes of Israel. (Mt 19: 28). There would be a change of ruling parties in Israel. That is what Jesus was taking about. These rulers were just following the same example as people like Nebuchadnezzar. It is the same spirit as the spirit of Babylon which says ‘my kingdom shall not come to an end and I will not know the loss of children.’

Thus we get to 1 Kings 21 and we read about Ahab and Naboth. We have missed out chapter 20, where Ahab gets help from the Lord to defeat Ben Hadad of Syria. Instead of killing Ben Hadad, Ahab lets him go. God was very unhappy about that! We did not look at that chapter because there was nothing about Elijah or Elisha in it and that is what this series is about. The last time we saw Elijah and Elisha, Elijah had just put his mantle on Elisha and Elisha discerned the call of the Lord upon him. Thus Elisha said good bye to his family, made a sacrifice and burned his plough. The next time we will see Elisha is in 2 Kings chapter 2. For now there is no high profile ministry for Elisha, he is simply there to wait on Elijah.

Verses 1 – 4 Ahab’s failed attempt at getting the vineyard

Meanwhile King Ahab is in his palace and he spies out a vineyard which was beside the palace. And for some reason Ahab wants it. Now the vineyard was Naboth’s inheritance. If we turn to Lev 25: 23 we see that the land the Israelites inherited could not be sold permanently. It could be sold temporarily if a family was in dire straits but then it had to be redeemed. It did not belong to Ahab but Ahab wanted it. It was a vineyard but Ahab wanted to turn it into a green garden of vegetables or herbs. Ahab wanted to use it for a purpose it was otherwise intended to be used for. Ahab wanted to rule the vineyard but he would not produce the fruit of it. Whereas Naboth was different. Jesus said that we must abide in Him, (the heir of the Vineyard) and we will bear much fruit. Naboth as the owner of the vineyard produced fruit, he was fruitful. His name, Naboth, means fruits. Ahab was one of those rulers who wants to take charge of the kingdom but turn it into something it was never intended to be. The Roman Catholic Church did this. Through political power they declared themselves to be the one true church. They wanted to take control of the kingdom and they made the kingdom into something that it was never intended to be. It lacked the fruit so there were cycles of reformation which hit against the system but they never could reform the system. Ahab even promises Naboth a better vineyard in its place. Let us turn to Matthew 4: 8 – 9. Satan tempts Jesus and in effect he was doing the same thing that Ahab was doing to Naboth. ‘Hey Jesus, why wait and go through all that suffering to bring about the kingdom when you can have the kingdom now. I will give you a better one in its place.’ Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. ‘I will give you a better vineyard in its place, one without suffering, one without the cross, one that has so much glory’. This is seduction. Satan works as a seducer and a persecutor. We will read about persecution in the next section but Ahab was seducing Naboth to make the deal. So with our inheritance. Hebrews 12: 16 – 17. Esau saw the lentil stew as more important than his birthright. So all the temporal blessings in this life account to a bowl of stew in comparison to eternity. Paul accounted all his suffering as light affliction compared with the weight of glory that lay before him. So Ahab also offered money to buy out Naboth’s inheritance. Such is the parable of the sower where the thorns and thistles choke the word. The thorns represent the cares of this life, the deceitfulness of riches and desires for other things which choke the word. (Mt 13: 22) How many preachers have thrown away their inheritance for the love of money?

But not Naboth! He would not sell his inheritance for anything. He would not give Ahab the inheritance of his fathers. I think that the translation of the word Nathan as “give” in the NASB in verse 3 is very apt. Although Ahab would pay handsomely for the vineyard, what price can you put on it? What price can you put on the Kingdom of God? Jesus likened it to a pearl of great price, or to a treasure hidden in a field. There is no price you can put on the Kingdom. There is no price that you can put on salvation. If we would take any payment for our salvation, that is not really a selling out, it is giving it away. I liken it to having a multi million Rand home in Sandton, Johannesburg, and you seek to sell it to a person from a town ship like Soweto who only has 50 rand. You can brag that you made a sale and a cash transaction was made. But you virtually gave it away for nothing. So it is with salvation. You can not brag that you have made it big in life if you do so at the cost of your own soul. Your salvation is worth inestimably more than temporal success. You did not sell your salvation away, you gave it away. So it was with the temptation of Christ to worship Satan. He would not have got a good deal off Satan. He would have given the Kingdom away.

So Ahab’s response to this is that he went and sulked. He would not eat, he would not do anything but mope on his bed. How often we are like that and the reason is that our desires are inordinate. God has not permitted us to have what we want and so we mope. What a liberty there would be if we would just listen to the Lord and accept His limitations on our lives. If He shows us that He will not permit us to be in a certain situation or have a certain thing, it will do us the world of good if we bow the knee in humility and accept it. If we do not then we will only end up frustrated and vexed. As Psalm 46 says, ‘Be still, stop striving, and know that I am God.’

Verses 5 – 16 Jezebel’s elimination of Naboth

Satan works as a seducer but also as a persecutor. If he can not get to us as a seducer he will then try to persecute us and vice versa. Thus, though Ahab tried to seduce Naboth, Jezebel goes right ahead and has him killed. We can see that Ahab was not going to do what Jezebel did but from Naboth’s point of view it was all the same. Ahab and Jezebel were on the same side. Jezebel wants to know why Ahab is sulking and Ahab’s response is very interesting. Naboth said that he would not give Ahab the inheritance of his fathers. That is in accord with the command of the Lord. Naboth was simply being obedient. However, when Ahab explains what happened to Jezebel in verse 6 he does not say that but rather he tells her that Naboth simply said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard’. When it comes to Ahab’s own words he quotes his own words very well but not Naboth’s words. To paraphrase what Ahab was saying let us put it like this, ‘I was so reasonable and generous to Naboth. I not only offered to pay for it but if he would rather I would give him another vineyard instead but that Naboth, he just was stubborn and said no.’ Ahab misrepresented Naboth’s character. Naboth was obedient to God but Ahab made it look like he was simply being stubborn.

Jezebel is furious about this and reprimands Ahab by saying ‘Do you now reign over Israel?’ What is she saying? She was basically saying, ‘who is in charge, you or Naboth?’ Heavy shepherding. They would set aside the commandments of God by asserting that Ahab is in charge and therefore Naboth must go with whatever the leader would say. False shepherds always put loyalty to them before loyalty to the Lord. They can stand and even delight when you point the finger outside the camp but as soon as you point the finger at them they freak out. Some pastors will show a calm face in public but in their houses, they sulk, they rave and rant and they find a way to silence the voices of the dissidents. They turn to politicking and spin, influencing the senior pastors or oversight to ignore the concerns and complaints of dissidents to maintain position, popularity and the financial giving of their congregations. Some pastors rail publicly against the dissidents and openly try to discredit them in front of the whole congregation. They will publicly berate those that resist the church’s programmes or even justly criticise the work, and they will try to turn everyone against them. But Ahab goes further than that. What persecution Naboth went through simply because he would not follow the leader’s vision of a gardening project! Jezebel’s reasoning was that Ahab was the leader and therefore what ever he wants he gets and whatever he says goes. How very different to Peter’s description of a leader in 1 Peter 5: 1 – 4, where he says that elders are not to lord it over those allotted to their charge. Instead of lording it, an elder must rather be an example and lead by example and not for sordid gain. But Ahab was only thinking about his own desires and feelings. So how does Jezebel dispose of Naboth, the fruitful one? She sets him up in a court of law, has him charged with blasphemy and treason and sentenced to death. Turn back to Mt 21: 38. This is a picture of Christ’s trial before the Sanhedrin. They illegally convicted an innocent man to death. It was a set up. Why would the Sanhedrin do this? Because, just as Jesus said, they wanted His vineyard. They did not care that He was God’s servant, a prophet, the messiah, they wanted the vineyard. Jezebel did not care that Naboth was the owner, nor that he was fruitful. She did not care that he was righteous. Under the veil of religious hypocrisy she had an innocent man put to death under trumped up charges. She had 2 worthless men, sons of Belial literally speaking, two sons of the Devil, testify that Naboth had cursed God and the king. It all seemed religiously correct but it was a farce. It seemed biblical but it was contrived. It was religious deception used to condemn the righteous. And so because Christians do not go with the fads of the modern charismatic circles we see charges laid against them that they are blaspheming the Holy Spirit or they are touching God’s anointed and such people are given ultimatums to conform to the program or to get out. It would be bad if these people had committed immorality or spoken heresy but these people are simply being obedient to the Lord.

So Naboth is stoned to death, and the execution took place outside the city, just like Jesus was executed outside the city, and also we are told to take on that reproach, outside the city. We will never be able to be part of the crowd. We will always be outsiders. Ahab is told to take possession of the vineyard. How does he do this? He wants to make a vegetable garden, so obviously the first thing he would start to do is to destroy the vineyard and uproot it. What happened after Jesus was crucified, resurrected and ascended? They turned on the followers, they turned on the vineyard. It started with Stephen and then the apostles and the persecution grew. They Sanhedrin tried to destroy the vineyard so they could build their own kingdom. No fruit. The Sanhedrin were not the only ones trying to destroy the vineyard. There were also false teachers, especially from a background of Gnosticism, who tried to take over with a different teaching, one that contradicted the plain meaning of scripture.

Verses 17 – 29 Elijah’s commission

We see that Ahab was not only taking possession of the vineyard but he was in the vineyard itself while doing it. (v 18). Now notice when Jesus, for He is the word of God, tells Elijah where Ahab is, he does not call the vineyard, Ahab’s vineyard, it was still Naboth’s. Just like Israel and the land. Just because Israel were not in the land as a sovereign nation for 1800 years does not mean that it does not belong to them. It is their promised possession. So Jesus prophesies judgment over Ahab, that in the same place that Naboth’s blood was licked up by dogs, so too, Ahab’s blood would be licked up by dogs. So Elijah faces Ahab and how was he greeted? Verse 20, ‘Have you found me, O my enemy?’ How very strange! The last time they met he addressed Elijah as the troubler of Israel and finished his meeting acknowledging the sovereignty of the God of Israel but now he has back slid. Before he accused Elijah of being the cause of the national crisis but now he gets personal. He believes that Elijah has a personal vendetta against him. Elijah’s answer is very instructive because he says that indeed he has found Ahab, but the reason he has found him is because of the evil that Ahab has done. In other words, if Ahab had not done this thing or sanctioned it Elijah would have been very happy to have stayed away from him. It was a biblical issue but Ahab had turned it into a personal issue. We do have to be careful that when we take a stand on the word, it is on a biblical issue and that we have no personal issue with the person involved. However, even though it may be a biblical issue it will not stop the other person making it a personal issue. I do not think that Elijah would have been bothered if he never had to meet Ahab again. Ahab thought too much of himself. We see that the prophesy Jesus gave concerning Ahab’s blood being licked up by dogs is interpreted by Elijah. In verse 21 – 24 we see that the blood that God was speaking of, not only referred to Ahab’s own although it did, but that it also extended to his offspring. Why? Because sin is like leaven and if left to fester leavens the whole lump of dough. This was a situation past the ability to amputate a limb. The gangrene had spread to the heart and thus it was too late. Judgment was pending.

Verse 25 said that there was no one like Ahab who sold themselves to do evil. He was incited by his wife but he was to blame. God destroyed Amorites for what they had done. Would God turn a blind eye simply because Ahab was Jewish? No way. So what was Ahab’s response? He repented. He went about despondently. He was heart sore about all this. This would not take away the judgment, it was too late for that. Jezebel would be thrown down. The siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 had to happen and the judgment on Babylon the great of the future has to happen. So the judgment on Ahab’s house had to happen also. But because Ahab humbled himself, because he was penitent God showed him grace. He would still be judged but the judgment would be delayed. He would not see it in his life time. God is not like the parent who makes idle threats and then backs down when the kid quietens down at the right time. If God says something will happen, it will happen but even in the midst of His judgment, for those who are willing to humble themselves, get off the throne of their lives and accept His rule over His vineyard there is grace.

October 3, 2011

Msindisi Newsletter #85

SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY

NUMBER: 85 Oct 2011

PO BOX 1481
VRYHEID 3100
KWAZULU NATAL
SOUTH AFRICA

+27 (0) 728311008

Email: msindisi@gmail.com ,
salv.di@gmail.com

KwaZulu Mission Website: http://www.kwazulumission.com

Personal Website: http://msindisi.googlepages.com

Dear Friends and family,

This month saw some necessary time taken out of our routine to sort out home affairs stuff for Di’s Visa extension and Salvi’s permanent residence. We started the month with Bianca Roux staying with us. She was a great help to Di and Di really loved having another girl around the place. We always seem to have guy visitors and hardly ever any ladies so it was great to have her to pitch in with Di’s routine. At kids club Bianca shared her testimony which Thabi, Phumlani’s wife, translated into Zulu and Di taught on Joshua and the battle of Jericho. That evening we were coming round the word together. Generally when we are at home Phumlani and Thabi will come round in the evening and we will sing a few choruses and read scripture together. One of the many blessings of not having a TV is that you have time to have group devotions. We had been going through Job together, a couple of chapters a night with Phumlani, Salvi, Di, Thabi and Bianca but while we were singing Salvi felt the Lord tell him that he had to speak to Thabi about her baptism. So after we sang Salvi pointed at Thabi and said “I need to speak with you about your baptism” and then Bianca spoke up and said that she and Thabi had just been speaking about that very same thing that day. This lead us into a whole study on baptism and the understanding that it is co-burial with Christ. We die to the old life and so we need to be buried in baptism. For Zulus the event of Burial is very real, very important and very graphic. A funeral is one of the most important events. When Thabi was asked whether we leave a dead body 5 months before we bury it she exclaimed that we can’t because it will rot and the body will smell. As Thabi had given her life to the Lord at the end of last year she had the graphic idea that she needed to bury the corpse and stop stinking the place. So the next day she obeyed the command of Christ and got baptised in the local river by Phumlani and Salvi. Di prayed a special prayer for her and there was rejoicing all round. What was also nice was that Kim Mentz from our Louwsburg Bible Fellowship brought some Zulu ladies from Louwsburg to visit the church. What a testimony for them!

Bianca attended the Care Bear creche with us at the beginning of the month. Di taught the kids and it is always so lovely to see the kids. Di also taught these kids about Joshua and Jericho. We had to visit home affairs in Newcastle (in KwaZulu Natal, SA not in the north of England) as there has been a mistake with Di’s visa application which she had to rectify. When we arrived we found that there was no electricity in the whole building so they could not help us. So we spent the morning in Newcastle before heading back. When they eventually saw us we found out that Di’s application had been declined because not all paper work was submitted and neither had the fee been paid. It was disheartening because the lady in Vryheid told us that we didn’t have to pay the whole fee and that our documentation was complete. We were shown a slip of paper that Di had to sign but fortunately she didn’t sign it because that form would have given us ten days to get all the paper work together to resubmit the application. So we started the process of getting police certification and this meant we had to take a trip up to Pretoria to get it ordered and paid. Sadly it meant that Bianca’s trip had to be cut short which she was really sad about as we couldn’t do a return trip to Gauteng the week after. We did not spend long enough in Gauteng to visit people but it was good that we went for when Salvi applied for his police clearance certificate and paid with a postal order we found out in Pretoria that they don’t take postal orders and so Salvi was able to pay over the counter and pick his up there and then.

Salvi has found that every avenue to apply for permanent residence through conventional means is closed to him but there was one small way that may possibly work. Salvi has put together an application with evidence of his unusual situation and with letters of recommendation from people of various ministries and walks of life, including the Chief of the whole area where we live, about 26 letters in all plus a petition with 156 names and has submitted it to the highest office of home affairs. One of the ladies who signed the petition remembered Salvi, she was one of the first people he had witnessed to in that area. She exclaimed that she was still in the Zionist church as her husband is Zionist but she wanted nothing more to do with ancestral spirits. The following week Salvi got her a Zulu bible as he asked her if she had one which she answered that she hadn’t. He is seeking the minister to make an exceptional case of him. If nothing else it will be such a testimony of the Lord for her to see and reminds us of Jesus’ words where we will stand before kings and princes to bear testimony to them. But we are praying for a miracle in this regard and we will see what the Lord does. A few obstacles have kept cropping up and it is as if all the doors close and then the Lord opens a tiny door to walk through. Salvi took two weeks of ministry time and study time out to work on getting all documentation together, only to lose everything, but fortunately to have gotten certified copies of everything needed and then to find all the originals 2 days after the certified copies and application were posted for submission. So now Salvi’s application is in the hands of home affairs. Please also pray for Di’s documents all to come in so we can resubmit her application.

Sadly this month an old friend of the area, Amos passed away. Salvi felt very sad because he had desired to represent the gospel to Amos yet another time (he has already had the gospel explained to him) and did not get the opportunity to do so. Amos had been a friend of Salvi’s since Dec 2002 since Salvi came with Caleb and Sophie Massey, supporting them as they started the KwaZulu Mission. Amos was a source of great help, selfless service and he kept an eye on us. It is so sad that he died without us knowing if he, last minute, gave his life to Christ.

This month we visited our friends Olaf and Charnel while they were in Vryheid. They have had a big baby boy called Nathan and Nathan is such a mini version of Olaf. We thank the Lord for their continued faithfulness to him. They will be getting Nathan dedicated at Elijah Ministries. They feel sad that they are so far away from us as they miss the Louwsburg Fellowship meetings that we have. Also that day on the supermarket we were stopped by a Zulu guy called Muzi who wanted to talk to us. We found out that Salvi and Phumlani had visited him one Sunday a year back and witnessed to him. At the time we saw that the Lord had was calling Muzi. Muzi had exclaimed that he had been a Zionist from his mother’s womb so he couldn’t change. Salvi exclaimed that it was true, he had been born a Zionist and that is why he needs to be born again. Muzi in the supermarket wanted to know what was going on in the world from a biblical viewpoint. He was concerned that the world is in a state of flux. Salvi gave him a short answer and tried to arrange to visit Muzi but he said he had moved to Boksburg. Salvi got him the number of Dave Newman who lives in Benoni for Muzi to call and get more questions answered. We have been praying for Muzi since. That day we also went to a thanksgiving service at Louwsburg for a family that wanted to thank the Lord for keeping them there for a year. They were originally from Durban and their Durban pastor came up. We had to leave at the end anyway but we left 2 minutes before we had to because the pastor started preaching the word of faith heresy saying that faith is to speak positively and that you mustn’t say I am ill. You must not say I am poor or struggling but you must say, I am rich. What false faith! I wonder if we could claim that Paul was without faith when he confessed realistically the negative aspects of his service to the Lord in 1 Cor 4: 6 – 13 or in 2 Cor 12: 7 – 10 where Paul is content with and boasts about his weaknesses! How could Paul do so? Did he not realize that faith is to minimize weakness and rebuke ones own weakness and to glory in that we are only strong? But Paul’s faith was not vain fantasy but was borne out in the rigors of unhumanly controlled reality seeing God’s power at work according to His will and not according to our fancy. We had to leave earlier so that we did not partake of such heresy as there was no opportunity to be a voice and the Lord was not impressing it upon our hearts to stay. We did visit the family but they sadly have had this false teaching entrenched in them for a long time.

In the evening we visited a family whose daughter was celebrating her 21st birthday with family friends. Salvi was encouraging a young man who had committed his life properly a year ago and trying to unlearn false teaching he had held to. Salvi gave him some websites of bible teachers including www.moriel.org, www.ariel.org, www.understandingthetimes.org, and a couple of others. Salvi also challenged an elder of the local Assemblies of God about the unbiblical nature of the contemporary ‘slain in the Spirit’ manifestations this elder was defending.

Di has been teaching Tholakele from church how to read in Zulu. Tholakele is illiterate but with a great desire to learn to read so she can read the bible. It is a wonderful gift that Di is giving to her and a gift that will bear eternal fruit.

Di also has discovered that she has cardiomegaly with suggestion of left ventricular hypertrophy, which in lay man’s terms means that the left chamber of the heart that pumps blood round the body has been enlarged. Di has slightly high cholesterol and has high blood pressure which has probably been the cause. Di is now on a course of meds to lower her blood pressure. Please pray for her.

Last Wednesday we did another session at Care Bear pre-school and Salvi taught on how not every ‘Christian’ or ‘pastor’ will go to heaven. Salvi put on his acting skills and played the part of the pastor, Pastor Sellby, Sellby Date. (because he is not so fresh). The pastor’s view of the gospel was that God is promising that if we become a christian God will give everything that we want and that God is there for our needs and to please us, isn’t He? One kid called Luthando said, no! Salvi asked him why and Luthando answered “Because He is the King!” Salvi then said that therefore God is not there to do want we want but we are to do what, and Luthando interjected, “Jesus want”. What an amazing kid. This 6 year old showed more understanding than 90% of TBN preachers combined!

On Fridays we have started doing a bible study with the Zulu ladies who visit our church once a month from Louwsburg. We were rained off this last Friday but the week before we had 11 ladies who thoroughly enjoyed the study. Salvi spoke on the story of how Jacob became Israel as a picture and type of the born again experience. We look forward to what the Lord may do as we continue meeting them.

At Church Salvi is teaching through Deuteronomy again and at the Bible Study we have started studying Jude interactively with Salvi facilitating. Salvi will tell us all to study a couple of verses at home during the week and we discuss it in the meeting.

Our friend Mark Van Niekerk is going to Israel on Monday morning for a 3 week mission trip. To learn more about the work please visit the website www.hazorim.org .

Thank you for your prayers, friendship, support and encouragement. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Shalom aleichem baShem Yeshua, Salvi and Di

ELIJAH AND ELISHA
THE APPOINTING OF ELISHA
PART 6
1 Kings 18: 15 – 19: 21

Elijah desired a revival. He took on the 450 prophets of Ba’al. We saw that on Mount Carmel fire came down from heaven and burned up the offering. Every body chanted “the LORD is God”. Elijah slew the false prophets and Ahab obeyed and celebrated. Elijah had prayed that God would turn back the hearts of the people back to Him. Everything seemed to be in place for revival and then, instead of revival there comes death threats and Elijah wants to give up. God had to show him that the revival would not come through the wind, the earthquake and the fire but through the still small voice of Holy Spirit conviction. Thus what Elijah did and accomplished was only a foreshadowing of what was to come. God would grant Elijah his request of taking his life but in a much grander and wonderful way then Elijah could ever wish for. Elijah felt like a failure and that it was impossible for him to fulfill God’s purposes to bring Israel back. He had been very zealous for the Lord but his zeal accomplished nothing. That might be true but God will always bring to pass what He has promised. It does not matter what ever is thrown in God’s way, God has already accounted for it.

Verses 15 – 17 God’s appointing

Just because Israel had not turned back their heart back to the Lord properly does not mean that the ordeal and testing at Carmel was of no effect. We sometimes wonder about the sovereignty of God and think that if we can resist his purposes in our lives that He is a failure and His efforts were all in vain. Some people think God failed in Eden when He did not want Adam to take of the fruit but was powerless to stop Adam from taking it. Firstly we forget that in God’s eternal nature He has declared the end from the beginning and has accounted for it all. But secondly and more profoundly to the text, when ever God does something like He did at Carmel and God’s hand of invitation to repent has been spat at and rejected, that heaps a greater judgment on those who resist.

God has done one of the greatest miracles and signs since the time of Moses and it is discarded by the leaders. Their punishment would be great. And there are three vessels of judgment that God tells Elijah to appoint. They are Hazael, Jehu and Elisha. Some people show concern that God told Elijah to appoint Hazael before he asked him to appoint Jehu and he asked Elijah to appoint Jehu before He appointed Elisha. Also we see that Elijah is commanded to go to Damascus and on his arrival to anoint Hazael. But Elijah is never recorded in scripture to have anointed Hazael or Jehu though Elijah was the one told to do it. This means one of two things. It either means that Elijah did as we would think he did and anointed Hazael and Jehu years before they got their second anointing by Elisha. This may well have happened as we remember David was anointed twice to be king over Israel, firstly by Samuel and secondly by the men of Judah. (1 Samuel 16: 13, 2 Samuel 2: 4). But secondly it is a question of authority. When a messenger is delivers a message, it is not the messenger who is speaking but the one who sent him. Thus in John 4: 1 it says that Jesus was baptising more disciples than John but then it qualifies it by saying that physically the baptising was done by the hands of the apostles. In Matthew 8: 5 we see Centurion approaching Jesus to heal his servant, but then in Luke 7: 3 we see that actually the Centurion sent some Jewish leaders to ask Jesus to heal his servant. Which gospel account is right? They are both right because Matthew works from the view point that even though the Centurion did not physically approach Jesus, it was still him approaching Jesus because the messengers are under his authority. Thus even though Elijah may not have physically anointed Hazael and Jehu, he would have still have been considered as doing it yet through the hands of Elisha. Elisha would have done it under the instruction of Elijah.

Hazael, Jehu and Elisha are the vessels of judgment but just because they are spoken of in this order does not necessarily mean that this is the order they were to be anointed in. This order has in it a level of severity and of submission to the Lord. In other words, firstly judgment would come through the hands of Hazael, and then Jehu would cover those people that Hazael would miss and finally Elisha would cover people that Jehu would miss. We will look at Elisha in the following studies. We see judgment with Elisha, not in widespread fashion but in individual situations. Hazael would be harsh and brutal, setting strongholds on fire, killing young men with the sword and cutting open pregnant women and smashing babies to pieces. (2 Kings 8: 12) Hazael would take away portions of the land of Israel after defeating them. (2 Kings 10: 32) He would thresh the lands of Israel. He would be a wind. (Amos 1: 3 – 5) Jehu would trick the worshippers of Ba’al to revealing themselves and then slaughter them all. (2 Kings 10: 15 – 25). We also see that Jehu destroyed the house of Ahab and brought judgment on them. (2 Kings 9: 1 – 37) He would be the earthquake that would shake the foundations of the house of Ahab, causing it to crumble. (2 Kings 9: 6 – 10) But also look at the succession of people. Hazael is spoken of first by the Lord but he was a heathen, gentile king who cared nothing about the Lord. He was a vessel of judgment who would go further than was needed in the judgment of God’s people. (Zechariah 1: 15). But Hazael did not care to worship the Lord or to get rid of any of the false gods. Then there was Jehu who was zealous for the Lord. He got rid of Ba’al worship. He cleansed the land of Ba’al worship but then he still allowed the golden calves to remain at Bethel and Dan; that Jeroboam had originally set up. (2 Kings 10: 29). But then finally there was Elisha who followed the Lord whole heartedly. Hazael was for threshing, Jehu was for shaking but Elisha was for consuming. Elisha would bring Judgment even to the inhabitants of idolatrous Bethel.

Verse 18 God’s remnant

However, though God’s judgment loomed over Israel, God would remember the covenant that He made with Abraham in Genesis chapters 12, 15 and 17. He would not completely dispense with the Nation of Israel even though most of the nation had been unfaithful but He promises to leave Himself a remnant. Note a few things about this issue of the remnant. Firstly, God is faithful to the promises He has made and because of His faithfulness to unfaithful Israel we can be assured of His faithfulness towards us. Secondly, this remnant was not at the expense of His holiness. This remnant was not a mixed multitude or some people arbitrarily chosen to be preserved but it was made up of those who did not worship Ba’al. Apparently bowing the knee was an action denoting worship or reverence according to Matthew Poole and it is likely that people would kiss the statues as has happened in greek worship, where a statue of Hercules was considerably worn by the kissing of his worshippers and as happens today with the veneration of Marion shrines or the worshipping of Hindu idols. These people were going to be preserved because they did not bow the knee or kiss the statues. Thirdly, God’s choice of them was not arbitrary in choosing only 7,000 of them based on only wanting 7, 000 people but the text says that He would preserve all who had not gone after the worship of Ba’al. The remnant of 7,000 was made up of all who had not bowed their knee to Ba’al. There was much benefit in personally going against the flow of the whole society. Think of Lot. God would take drastic measures to preserve 4 people such as by sending angels and blinding many of its citizens in order to spare them from the coming judgment. Even though one of them looked back God still preserved 3 of them. Even if there was only one who was faithful to the Lord, I still believe that God would have went to those lengths for just one.

Verses 19 – 21 God’s call

The next thing we read about in this account is the calling of Elisha. Elisha is not praying, or fasting or studying but he is working. The calling of Elisha matches the calling of Jesus’ disciples, especially of Peter, Andrew, James and John. They were fishing when Jesus called them but Jesus said follow me. Remember in the first session we saw the similarity that Elijah and Elisha had with Moses and Joshua and with John the Baptist and Jesus. Like Moses and John, Elijah came out of some form of obscurity to lead up to the ministry of someone else. And like the name Joshua, meaning YHWH is salvation, Elisha means God is salvation and Jesus means YHWH is salvation. There is a similarity between all three. Joshua spied out the land, Elisha ploughed the land and Jesus would sow the seed of the word in the land. Elisha was ploughing with twelve pairs of oxen and according to John Gill; Abel Meholah was a ground that was very hard, clayey and stiff. The hard ground needed breaking up for the seed to penetrate. We will see that with Elisha there was more grace, people were helped and there was healing but the judgment was heavier also. During Elisha’s ministry there would be Hazael and Jehu bringing hard judgment. This would be in anticipation of the greater judgments of Assyria and then Babylon bringing about the dispersion. The dispersion would bring Israel back to the Observance of the Law. Elisha’s ministry would see the start a process of breaking up the fallow ground in Israel’s heart. Just as Jesus’ message was not heeded and after 70 AD Jerusalem was besieged within 37 years of His death, so about 73 years after Elisha’s death, the Assyrians came against the northern Kingdom of Israel.

The other significance of Elisha having 12 pairs of oxen is much more practical. It showed he was a man of wealth. They had servants and the oxen must have belonged to him because he burns them. He had a lot to give up joining the ministry. Elijah had nothing to offer, he had slept by a brook, eaten food brought by ravens. No home, no stability and definitely no luxuries. Elijah’s mantle is thrown onto Elisha. This is what Elijah has to offer Elisha. Now Elijah does not say anything to Elisha by way of interpreting this act. Instead it would seem that Elijah walks on. Elisha has to run after Elijah. Elisha perceives what this means and runs after him. It was simply a matter of obedience. There are certain people that God has borne with in scripture, such as Moses and Gideon. He has understood their weaknesses and still held out his hand of invitation. With Elisha it was a matter to be decided on the spot. Elijah was not waiting, he was walking on. Just like Jesus, walking on the water, seemed to be going on. God chooses us and he uses us but we are not the centre of the whole plan. He can replace a Judas with a Matthias. Just as much as God can raise up He can also abase. This is not to say that God was going to abase Elisha. Elisha was going to be God’s instrument, but it is to say that Elisha was not the most important aspect of God’s plan. Elijah was not waiting for Elisha but Elisha had to chase after Elijah. When God’s call comes your way, you must respond in some way and not expect that God is going to chase you all the time.

However, Elisha has one request. To say goodbye to his father and mother. Now, notice that he does not demand to say goodbye, he says, ‘please let me’. This is not the situation of the man who asked Jesus if he could first bury his father, so that he could gain an inheritance. This was counting the cost and forsaking all. Elijah tells him ‘Go back again, for what have I done to you?’ All Elijah did was to throw his mantle on Elisha but he did not command him to do anything. The calling had not come from Elijah but it had come from the Lord. No person can truly ordain anyone. It is the Lord who ordains. All leaders and churches can do is to recognise the Lord’s calling on another person. It happened with Joshua (Num 27: 18ff). The same happened with Saul, the same happened with David and the same happened with Barnabas and Saul in Acts 13: 2. It was not down to Elijah whether Elisha could perform this last act, the call had come from the Lord. And the Lord would give leave for Elisha to say goodbye to his parents. Elisha was not shirking the call or looking for a way to by pass the necessity for forsaking all and as such God showed him grace and understanding.

Elisha sacrifices the pair of oxen (presumably the pair that he had driven) and their implements and boiled the flesh of the oxen and the people ate of it. His sacrifice was willing and with joy. He was taking away any opportunity that he had to return his hand to the plough. Once his hand left the plough it would leave for life. There is no going back with the Lord. Any one that puts his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the kingdom. The problem with Israel is they looked back to Egypt and hungered for it. Lots wife looked back. We are to look forward to where God is leading us. There was no way that Elisha could go back. But he did it with a joyful disposition, with a glad heart. 1 Peter 5: 1 – 4. 2 Cor 9: 7. So whether we give, or whether we serve we are to do it willingly and cheerfully. We are to count the cost but as Peter says, if elders do so in a right manner, they will receive an unfading crown of glory. And for all of us, if we do what God has set us to do with a right mind and we do it biblically, then we will see our work withstand the trials that come our way and we will all get a reward. A reward that lasts forever.

NUMBER: 85 Oct 2011

PO BOX 1481
VRYHEID 3100
KWAZULU NATAL
SOUTH AFRICA

+27 (0) 728311008

Email: msindisi@gmail.com ,
salv.di@gmail.com

KwaZulu Mission Website: http://www.kwazulumission.com

Personal Website: http://msindisi.googlepages.com

Dear Friends and family,

Our friend Mark Van Niekerk is going to Israel on Monday morning for a 3 week mission trip. To learn more about the work please visit the website www.hazorim.org .

Thank you for your prayers, friendship, support and encouragement. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Shalom aleichem baShem Yeshua, Salvi and Di

ELIJAH AND ELISHA
THE APPOINTING OF ELISHA
PART 6
1 Kings 18: 15 – 19: 21

Verses 15 – 17 God’s appointing

Verse 18 God’s remnant

Verses 19 – 21 God’s call

Elisha’s life would never be the same again. He would forever be a prophet but not yet a prophet. Elijah did not leave his home and family behind with the mindset that great things lay ahead for him but he went with the knowledge that he was to be a servant. What does the end of verse 21 say? He followed Elijah and ministered to him. His role to start with was to wait upon Elijah. No great ministry to start off with. Just humble service. This speaks a lot for our mindset and attitude. Jeremiah 45: 5. We must have a mindset of obedience, regardless of what God would have us do or lead us through. We are servants whether we are recognised by man or not. We are servants in the mundane as well as in the spectacular. Servants that are usable to the Lord. As someone once said, ‘we often pray ‘Lord use me’, but rather we should be asking ‘Lord, make me usable.’ May we too be like Elisha.

attitude. Jeremiah 45: 5. We must have a mindset of obedience, regardless of what God would have us do or lead us through. We are servants whether we are recognised by man or not. We are servants in the mundane as well as in the spectacular. Servants that are usable to the Lord. As someone once said, ‘we often pray ‘Lord use me’, but rather we should be asking ‘Lord, make me usable.’ May we too be like Elisha.

September 3, 2011

Msindisi newsletter # 84

SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY

NUMBER: 84 Sep 2011

PO BOX 1481
VRYHEID 3100
KWAZULU NATAL
SOUTH AFRICA
+27 (0) 728311008
Email: msindisi@gmail.com ,
salv.di@gmail.com

KwaZulu Mission Website: http://www.kwazulumission.com

Personal Website: http://msindisi.googlepages.com

Dear Friends and family,

We started the month of August in Stanger when we went with a small group of Vryheid and Louwsburg believers to hear Jacob Prasch. The day before we got to meet Chris De Wet and his wife from Moriel Bloemfontein who stayed with us at the house we were staying at. It was wonderful to get to know them a little and hear their testimony of salvation. Also, the same night, Jonny, Phumlani, Thabi and Girly from the Bible fellowship arrived to stay overnight and hear Jacob the next day. It was a lovely time of fellowship that was had by all as the next day some of our friends from Vryheid were able to come through for a braai we had at midday. That morning Phumlani and Thabi were able to go to the sea which was an awesome experience as they had never before been to the sea or the beach. At Church at Sunday Phumlani thanked the Lord for giving such an opportunity. But at Stanger on Saturday Jacob preached two good messages, one on Rahab and the scarlet cord and the other on the rash vow of Jephthah which resulted in offering up his daughter as a sacrifice. The message spoke to us personally, encouraging us and challenging us, especially in the words ‘how dare we remind the Lord of someone’s repentant sins that He has chosen to forget’! We were so grateful to the Lord that he led us down for these meetings. Girly also appreciated Jacob’s warnings concerning Rick Warren which consolidated things that she had been told by others but she said that Jacob put it in a way that she understood.

The same night we drove back to make it for the meeting on Sunday. At Church Kim, from the Bible fellowship, brought some ladies from Louwsburg who spoke Zulu to the Sunday morning meeting. These ladies want to come to church once a month so we have been praying and will speak to them tomorrow about doing a weekly bible study in Louwsburg. On the following Tuesday we had our cell meeting at Girly’s place and did our final session on Revelation. The next day we both went to Gauteng, Springs, as Salvi was due to visit Zimbabwe on thursday for a week while Di would stay with Sue Wells as Allen was going to the UK for the wedding of their son, Clayton to Jessie Schilling. On the way though to Springs we stopped by our good friend Veronica Bekker who with her husband has been a great source of encouragement and support over the last few years. It was great to hear testimonies of fellowship found among biblically based brethren in Secunda. We trust they will continue faithfully the Lord. Our good friend, Mujuru had recommended the trip for Salvi to see the church work of his friend Noah Mataruse. Noah pastors a network of cell groups which meet together for the Sunday service. However the focus is not on the Sunday meetings but on the cell gatherings. Here is the report of Salvi’s trip to Harare.

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I left Springs on Thursday the 11th of August to get to Zimbabwe. Was supposed to arrive in Harare at 12:30 the next day but with the border post delay and several police stops on the way through arrived more like 3:00 pm. What I found surprising was that the police, knowing that the bus was running late gave the driver of the bus a fine for being late, which I learned from the guy sitting next to me was according to the Law in Zimbabwe. I was settled in a nice house off the building of another church that is under the same umbrella as Noah’s church.

One thing that I noticed was the posters advertising the catch the fire conference with these strange new prophets and apostles, such as ‘Prophet Makandiwa’, who get rich off the desperation and the hopes of the people to whom they say God will make you rich and bless you if you give to our ministry. It upset me to see such deception and exploitation that I would rather them tell people the truth about them selves by renaming the conference to the more accurate designation of ‘Catch the strange fire’ such is what they are offering people. Upon hearing the stories of utter hardships everybody experienced just a few years back when the Zimbabwean dollar was being used and the reserve bank was causing hyperinflation by printing more money due to corruption within the reserve bank I grew even more distasteful towards these megachurches in Harare. Also I have a dislike for the fact that American speakers will facilitate their popularity by accepting invitations to speak at their events or congregations such as Joyce Meyer, who is a false teacher of the prosperity gospel kind – though much subtler than someone like John Avanzini and there were posters for John Maxwell who was speaking at another of these mega churches. Just a few years ago my friends were saying that the inflation doubled and trebled within a day. A person would go to work simply to hold his post until things got better. Someone one day would earn maybe 20 trillion Zim dollars, it would cost him 20 trillion dollars to get a taxi to town. When work finished that day they would get to the taxi rank only to find out that the taxi fare had gone up to 40 trillion dollars. Within one day the money that you had in the morning would become worthless by evening so people would leave trillions of dollars to be blown by the wind. Because of the uncertainty of how much value their money would retain people abandoned an ethic of saving and turned to a mindset of spending. People did not let money sit in their hands for too long, as soon as you got money you spent it. Some companies really helped their employees by obtaining food and paying their staff in money and in food, with food being of more worth than the salary. Stories were told to me of how the supermarkets were flooded with people cueing up to purchase the one item of food that decorated an isle of otherwise empty shelves. No wonder people flock to these false teachers offering them a false and unbiblical hope. My friends there call these guys the new charismatics who are in league and networked with many of these mega churches. For so many dollars a person can buy a handkerchief that can be used to claim anything that the buyer wants. If you buy one of these unholy handkerchiefs and see a car you want then just wipe that car with the handkerchief and God will give you that car. Because not enough handkerchiefs are produced to meet demand the price of them can be increased so as to make more money out of people. There is another prophet there who apparently sells airtime which only allows the person to phone the prophet when he needs some time to speak with the prophet. Such were some of the stories I heard. I also gained opportunity to witness to some members from the End Time Church, a mega church that follow the teachings and ministry of deceased William Branham. They attempted to witness to me about him and asked if I thought if William Branham was a prophet. I replied by saying that I thought that he was a prophet of Satan. Then I explained why, because William taught that God said those who believe that God is one God in three persons are of the Devil, that women are lower than dogs, that the pyramids and the horoscope are equal to the bible and that the spoken word is more important than the written Word of God. They pointed to the signs and miracles that William Branham did and though I showed them that the miracles that the false prophet will do will be even greater so miracles do not prove anything two of the guys were not swayed. However one guy was a little shaken and I managed to get someone to give him Noah’s phone number if he wanted to talk more about this.

But visiting the various cell groups was a pleasure and though I felt some in depth bible teaching ministry was lacking from the cell situation I was sincerely challenged by the practicality of their discipleship within the cell situation. They want to know where and how their fellow cell members will apply the message they heard on Sunday. It is a very interactive situation where the cell leader will talk for 30% of the time and the cell members should talk for 70% of the time as the members summarize the message concerning what they learned, share their understanding of the key biblical texts and ask how they each can apply it personally. Such a simple format but very practical and effective. I have started to implement that in discipleship with Jabulani, Mkhulu and Tholakele and seen some positive results already with them starting to meet with each other every day to pray for 15 minutes or so. But this was basically my trip to Zimbabwe. I see how people are doing a little better since they started using the American dollar and the South African rand for their currency. However Zimbabwe consumes more food than it can produce to meet the need so the supermarkets import their stock from South Africa which doubles the prices that would be charged for the food in South Africa. 1 litre of Yoghurt for instance in South Africa can cost between R14-R20 depending on where you buy. In Zim I worked out that the yoghurt in one supermarket was being sold for R30-R40. But I thank God for the people I met there and trust the Lord will grant Phumlani a chance to visit them in the future.

_________

When Salvi got back we managed to visit a friend of his from Facebook called Gavin and it was lovely to experience the mutual encouragement in the Lord. Then we went to visit a couple called Rob and Rosa in Bedfordview. Their son in law, Joe Rumley, has been a very good friend of Salvi’s for several years so it was great to catch up with him and his wife. On the Monday Allen Wells had already hooked up a skype connection between Sue’s computer and a laptop in the UK so we could all view the wedding and reception of Clayton and Jessie Wells with the wedding conducted by Clayton’s pastor, Tony Pearce. Clayton is a godly young man who has really grown since becoming a member of the bridge lane fellowship. He is now a youth pastor there in the church. With us were also mutual family friends Riaan, Debbie and kids all squashed together in Allen and Sue’s home along with Sue’s good friend Lillian and the wife of the best man who went to the UK for the wedding.

We came back to Kwazulu Natal the next morning with Riaan and Debbie’s daughter who will be staying with us till late September. She has really fitted in well at the Kraal and gets on well with Phumlani and Thabi. We hope that she will write a report of her stay here to put on the website. While we were in Gauteng we started with immobilizer trouble in the bakkie (small truck that we own) and when we got back we found we couldn’t get to Home cell that evening for the engine wouldn’t start. We thank the Lord that our friends at The baptist church were so gracious to help us out again and now the bakkie is working like a dream again. On the Friday our friend Joe Rumley came out to visit us with his father in law, Rob and we had a great time of fellowship at Jonny and Kim’s with a study on attacks from the enemy and how biblically we are to deal with them. Everybody shared and contributed to the discussion which kept things vibrant and multifaceted. In fact this Tuesday night we started a study on Jude and managed to cover the first two verses as Salvi facilitated the discussion with lots of questions and filled in gaps by other scripture references of meanings of words in Greek and in Hebrew. We had a wonderful study and Girly especially enjoyed it. We managed to catch up with another person from the study on monday who is going through some struggles in her walk but we pray for her and are so glad she has shown determination to keep on with the Lord. We visited another friend also who is in difficult times.

This month we are faced with having to visit home affairs in Newcastle (in KwaZulu Natal, SA not in the north of England) as there has been a mistake with Di’s visa application made which she must rectify. She is teaching the kids club this weekend with our visiting friend, Bianca and next week they teach the kids at Care Bear preschool. We have been taking our friend to the hospital a couple of times this week to visit her husband who has been readmitted after not faring too well with the amputation of his second leg. We are hoping this will give opportunity to witness to him. Di has also been straight back into clinic runs and expects to do a few more especially as Phumlani’s sister in law is very I’ll at the moment and is taking ARV medication. It is a sad reality in the areas around where we live but sadder that AIDS is so close to home as far as Phumlani’s family goes.

Our friend Mark Van Niekerk is going to Israel in Oct this year for a short term mission trip. To learn more about the work please visit the website www.hazorim.org .

Thank you for your prayers, friendship, support and encouragement. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Shalom aleichem baShem Yeshua, Salvi and Di

ELIJAH AND ELISHA
THE REVIVAL THAT FAILED TO HAPPEN
PART 5
1 Kings 18: 40 – 19: 18

Elijah desired a revival. If you remember from the last session Elijah had a show down with 450 prophets of Ba’al and was bringing Israel to a day of decision. They had been without rain for 3 and a half years. The rain was a symbol that God was withholding His Spirit and His word. Thus when Elijah took on the prophets of Ba’al he must have been expecting a revival. If God had withheld the rains because of the nation’s apostasy, then with the rains coming back it must have meant that the nation would repent. Even Elijah’s prayer in 18: 37 expresses Elijah’s expectation of revival and when the fire fell all the people acknowledged the supremacy of the God of Israel. The people declare the majesty of the LORD. So what happens after Israel start to praise the LORD alone? Elijah deals with three parties. The first party Elijah faces is the prophets of Ba’al. The second party that Elijah deals with is King Ahab and the third is the LORD Himself.

ELIJAH AND THE PROPHETS OF BA’AL (18: 40)

The first thing that Elijah does is slay the prophets of Ba’al. In the Law, in Deuteronomy 13: 5 we read that false prophets were to be put to death. It was to purge the evil from among them. Again we read the same in Deuteronomy 18: 20 false prophets were to be put to death. As long as those prophets are allowed to continue they will continue to spread their heresy and blasphemy among God’s people. This was not a result of revival, that Elijah did this, but it was in anticipation of revival. These things must be put aside for any real and meaningful fellowship to take place. Think of the communion service. Though we are all many, we are one body because we all partake of one bread. 1 Corinthians 5: 6 – 13. There was a person who had his father’s wife. Not meaning his natural mother but most probably a step mother. He had uncovered his own fathers nakedness but this was not the biggest problem. The biggest problem was that it was not being dealt with. Paul steps in and makes a decision for them, that that person must be handed over to Satan. Why? Because that sin does not only affect that person but it will spread through out the whole people of God with whom such a person meets. It is one thing to struggle with a sin and everyone knows it to be wrong but extend grace and prayerful and practical support. It is quite another to live in it with everyone else tolerating it. That is so whether it be immorality, covetousness, drunkardness, swindling, false teaching, malice etc. A little leaven leavens the whole dough. This teaching finds its root in the Passover seder where at the beginning of the meal they would get rid of the leaven. Elijah was doing the same thing, he was getting rid of the leaven in accordance with the Mosaic Law. Notice the same order of service with Elijah and Israel in this situation as the Passover and communion. Firstly there is a purging of the leaven and only after that is there eating and drinking, as in verse 41. Before the rains come there has to be a purging of the leaven. As Jacob Prasch says in his message on Biblical revival you have to tear down before you can build up. It would have been pointless to build up on a foundation that was rotten to the core anyway. In Jeremiah 1: 10 Jeremiah is told that in his ministry he was appointed over nations, to pluck up and break down, to destroy and to overthrow and to build and to plant. Notice the destroying work precedes the building work. If the foundation isn’t sure, the building will not stand.

ELIJAH AND AHAB 18: 41 – 46

So we have seen how Elijah dealt with the prophets of Ba’al. He purged the land of the false prophets. However his treatment of Ahab is somewhat different. He firstly tells Ahab to go up, eat and drink. Ahab was to celebrate in anticipation of the rain that is to come. Ahab was a king that was worse than all the rest. He well exceeded the boundaries that other kings before him had crossed. And now Elijah shows him grace. It is Ahab who opened the door way and was responsible for the prevalence of Ba’al worship in the northern kingdom. He was responsible for the current apostasy. But Elijah shows him grace. This is no doubt a foretaste of the grace that God would show to Ahab in 21: 29. Think of this in terms of friends and family who once identified themselves with God’s people. God is still willing to show his grace to a penitent backslider. If God could do that with Ahab, he can do it with you and me. This proclamation must have been made as a fulfilment of the word Elijah gave Ahab in 17: 1 where he said that there would be neither dew nor rain except by Elijah’s word. Here we see that Elijah states that there is the sound of the roar of a heavy shower and yet in the physical realm what do we find? Nothing. There is not even a cloud in the sky. The rains would not come except by Elijah’s word but when Elijah uttered the word, nothing happened. Was Elijah wrong to boast that the rains would come by his word? No. What we have is a picture of faith. Elijah spoke the word by faith. He hung on to the promise of God’s Word despite outward appearances and trusted the Lord. You see Elijah knew that these things happened because God moved His hand. It was not a matter that Elijah’s words had some kind of innate power but that God was the one who had to move His hand. So what does Elijah do next? Does he start to pray harder or to use some kind of method or ritual to cause it to happen? Not in the slightest. Rather, Elijah does absolutely nothing. He sits down and puts his head between his knees. He does not pay a tithe or try to positively confess it harder. He simply waits. And he waits for a few reasons. Firstly we see that Ahab is partying, by command of Elijah but Elijah does not. In this we see a picture of Biblical faith. Faith speaks of something future and regards it as something present. We are saved by faith. By faith we experience salvation in the present that will only be completed in the future. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Thus whatever is of faith has to be realised. In other words, Elijah was not on some head trip thinking that there was rain when there was not any. Elijah knew the rain was a given. He heard the sound of it with spiritual ears but because he could hear it he waited until he saw the completion of the promise. We are saved by faith. Salvation is a given, we perceive it with spiritual ears as the Spirit of adoption within us cries out, ‘Abba Father’ but we must be attentive and be living in the hope of its completion or realisation. Secondly Elijah is living out the godly principle of waiting on the Lord in silence. Psalm 62: 1 & 5. God is separate from us and thus it is His hands who does all these things. If God just worked at our beck and call then we would start to think it is us. By God’s delay He is keeping us dependant upon Him.

Elijah sends out his servant 7 times before the servant sees anything. There are seven seals before seven trumpets in Revelation, there are seven trumpets before seven bowls and there are seven bowls before Jesus comes back. The Israelites marched round the walls of Jericho for 7 days and on the seventh day they marched round seven times and then they blew seven trumpets. And at the end the land was given to them. Seven is a number denoting completeness. And even at the end what is seen at first is only a small insignificant cloud. Just like the first Christians were a small insignificant number about 120 in all in the upper room in acts but on the day of Pentecost, the number just exploded. The nation of Israel will repent in one day and call on the Lord, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord’. This cloud, though small would suddenly grow into something huge. The world thinks the Lord is slow about His return because He has taken 2000 years but the events around Jesus’ return will happen very quickly, in the space of 7 years. When it happens it happens quickly and starts off slower but builds up apace; and so Elijah tells Ahab, you better run. You better get out of there quick because the rains are coming and the rains are coming hard. And Ahab complies obediently. Ahab celebrates with the people that the Lord is God and he is obedient. They have slain the false prophets and lastly the rains have come. Surely this is significant of revival. Surely it was guaranteed to happen. But one problem. Though the prophets had been slain, Jezebel was not. I guess it is a bit like trying to stop suicide bombers without sorting out the people sending them out. It is like trying to stop the bullets without trying to stop the people who are shooting them at you. You might stop the prophets but Jezebel is the one behind the prophets and as long as she is there she will fight back tooth and nail. She will send more.

ELIJAH AND THE LORD 19: 1 – 18

So the revival was guaranteed was it? And yet what became of it? Jezebel hits back harder. Many people look at Elijah and think that this is a funny thing that Elijah took on 450 prophets, slew them and took on Ahab but cowered at one threat of a woman. Although this may prove that his former courage was of the Lord and not from himself, it must be remembered that it was Ahab’s marriage to Jezebel that took Israel as far down the route as they did. It was no doubt Ahab’s fault because he had the responsibility but the false gods came from Jezebel’s country. Thus for Jezebel to hit harder meant that all the work at Carmel seemed to be undone. Elijah was expecting revival but instead he got death threats and this brings Elijah into deep depression. In the wilderness, Elijah requests for his own death. He was expecting victory and now he felt defeated. The reason that he asks to die is because he acknowledges that he is no better than his fathers. In other words Elijah is saying, ‘I have done everything that was needed, I gave Your word faithfully, I lived on bread and quail, I went to the Gentile widow and took her hospitality and then I challenged 450 false prophets, seeing fire fall down from heaven and slaying the prophets and still no revival. Lord kill me now for I am no better than Samuel, or David or Joel or Hosea. Kill me now, I am a failure.’ Surely with the spectacular feat accomplished at the hand of Elijah, where fire came down from heaven, with the rains coming, surely there would be revival and instead there was only death threats. What is the point? Why try anymore, it is hopeless?! You give and you do and you try but nothing happens! How does God reply to him? Does he just tell him to pull himself together? Sometimes that is needed with a person, but not in this case. Does God initially give any answer? No. Firstly Elijah is strengthened for a journey.

God does not always answer our questions quickly. Sometimes we have to go through something first. Psalm 25: 5, we see that even in God’s teaching of us, we still have to wait. When Job was in His dilemma God had to lead him through the valley of the shadow of death before He spoke to him. And it was through that journey/experience that Job learned the truth of resurrection (Job 14: 14). So there is a journey to undergo before things are revealed. God takes us from the place where we are. Also for some answers we must be willing to seek and to seek. This is it with the scripture also. Revelation is one such book. The Gospel is simple and able to be understood by all Christians but Revelation is a book that is based upon the rest of scripture and therefore it demands us to work hard at studying the other books of scripture. Proverbs 2: 1 – 5. Seek for wisdom as for silver and search for her as for hidden treasure and after that we will be able to discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Thus when James says to ask for wisdom without doubting, underpinning that asking is the seeking and waiting and the fear of the LORD. Elijah had to journey long and hard to get some answers as to the seeming failure of a revival. But the power and enabling to be able to walk the path came from the Lord. Twice an angel told him to get up and eat. The eating was followed by a fast for 40 days and 40 nights. A wilderness experience of trial and testing. How much did Elijah want God’s answer we do not know but we can see that even in his confusion and depression that Elijah was still obedient to the Lord. We cannot control our feelings. But we can control our actions. We might not be able to stop feeling depressed but we can choose to obey despite the way we feel.

So Elijah came across a cave and stayed there and we see that Jesus comes to meet him. How do we know it is Jesus? Because the Word of the Lord comes to Him and who is the Word? Jesus. Jesus asks him a question which is, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ You see Elijah saw only failure and defeat but God saw a work for Elijah to do. Elijah is disappointed but God is not in the least bit surprised. What are you doing here Elijah? All God wants from us is obedience and faithfulness. That is all. We sometimes have big and grandiose visions of how we perceive things will be. When they do not work out we get dejected. But God is not in the least bit surprise and His answer to us is, ‘I never asked you to do that and I never promised it to you in the first place, what are you doing here?’ You see, what Elijah did, did not see a complete fulfillment but it was a mere foretaste of the harvest to come. It was not the reality but a shadow of the reality. Elijah could not perceive it and in one sense, he did not have to. All God wanted was obedience. What are you doing here Elijah, away from the battlefield, did I command you to leave? Did I tell you that you were a failure? The people had seen God’s power manifest, they had seen the evidence. The rains had come back. There should have been a total revival. As Elijah said, and I paraphrase, “I have been zealous but my zeal is of no use because the people still do not turn back. I have given my all for their salvation but the only thanks I get is death threats. I am the only prophet left prophesying but they will not respond or turn. It is useless, I have had enough.”

You see Elijah had misunderstood something. He thought because of the fireworks that the restoration would then happen. There would be complete repentance and everything would be sorted. His hopes were high and so God has to teach him a very important lesson. What is it that brings people to repentance? You see, firstly God sends a great, mighty wind but God is not in the wind. That is the opposite mentality to the signs and wonders crowd. ‘Where the wind is strongest and where mighty things are happening, that is where God is at! That is the main ingredient for revival!’ But God isn’t in the wind. And then there was an earthquake. But God is not in the earth shattering either. More pertinent to Elijah is the fire. God sent the fire from heaven. The people should have returned because they had seen the fire but neither is God in the fire. Where do we find God? In the still, small voice. In other words, there must be the conviction of the Holy Spirit. People are not going to truly repent because they see massive signs and wonders. People will repent when they hear the still small voice of the conviction of the Holy Spirit. You see, what Elijah experienced was only a prophetic foreshadowing concerning the final salvation of Israel. What God was saying in this is that I am not going to turn their hearts through my works that correspond to the mosaic covenant but I will turn their hearts through the work of the New Covenant. The Spirit was yet to be given. All Elijah was getting was a foretaste.

Elijah still responds with the same statement of being the only prophet left, although I am sure that he did not say those words in the same way. God tells him to go. Elijah wants to hang up the towel but God will not allow him to do so yet. He must anoint three people. Firstly he is to anoint, Hazael as King over Aram, then Jehu as king over Israel and lastly he is to anoint Elisha as prophet in his place. God will answer Elijah’s prayers and relieve him of duty but first there must be someone to take on the ministry to be trained up first. You see, why does God not answer our prayers instantly sometimes, even oftentimes? Because God has got more on His agenda than you or I even realise. His purposes stretch far beyond the tiny prism of our moment by moment existence. But God never despises the prayers or heart desire of His people though He may seem to take His time about answering them. And lastly God comforts Elijah for the meantime in saying, ‘You are not the only one left! I will keep 7,000 in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Ba’al.’ Maybe you are the only one in your circle of friends or in you church or family who will not go ‘purpose driven’, ‘emergent’ or ecumenical. You will not side with the Roman Catholic Church and you are rejected for it. You are not the only one. God still keeps His people. We must have an eternal perspective and rely on the Holy Spirit to convict the hearts of the ones we love. Without Christ working in us, we can do nothing.

August 4, 2011

Msindisi Newsletter #83

SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY

NUMBER: 83. August 2011

PO BOX 1481
VRYHEID 3100
KWAZULU NATAL
SOUTH AFRICA
+27 (0) 728311008
Email: msindisi@gmail.com ,
salv.di@gmail.com

KwaZulu Mission Website: http://www.kwazulumission.com

Personal Website: http://msindisi.googlepages.com

Dear Friends and family,

This last month we said farewell to Jacob Meads from New Zealand. We had a few farewell gatherings to say goodbye before he went. Jacob left such an impression on the people with whom he came into contact with that there was much sadness at his departure. Gogo shed tears saying “Hambe kahle mfana wami” (Go well my boy), and Celani grieved to see him leave. Although Jacob is no longer with us his name is often mentioned with fond memories. Before Jacob left he was able to teach the word at church on the Sunday and also at the Tuesday night Louwsburg Bible Fellowship. He taught from Philemon and majored on the subject of forgiveness looking at Paul’s example. It went very well and people were encouraged. Jacob has definitely grown in his study and exposition of the word. His study had focus, was grounded in the historical situation Paul was writing into and Jacob, faithfully sticking to the scriptural text then sought to explicate the principles from God’s word with great conviction and the members of the study were challenged as that is where some of them were at. He put so much work into it. Keep it up Jacob. J The Bible study group also presented Jacob with a farewell gift and at church Celani put on an amazing farewell lunch for everybody. Jacob also shared the gospel for the craft ladies who meet in Louwsburg. We visit them every couple of months and always share the gospel with them. Jacob, you are in our prayers as the LORD directs your future path. We ask you (our friends and family) if you are prompted, to pray for Jacob’s direction also. A couple of the ladies are dying to visit our church and there are a couple of guys that we and Kim have been ministering to that seems so genuine to learn the word of God. So we will probably be starting a bible study on Fridays in Louwsburg for Zulu speaking people. Please pray that the Lord will lead us. We have been praying about this.

We brought Jacob down to Stanger, before taking him to the airport, to spend some time near the sea and to catch up with our friend Mark Van Niekerk. Mark, who wrote the preface to my manuscript about the rapture, is a dear brother involved in bi-annual mission trips to Israel. You can see his ministry website at www.hazorim.org . Mark is a wonderfully grounded believer in the truth who has an amazing passion for the salvation of Jews before the dreadful time of Jacob’s trouble. He and his wife are an encouragement to us. Mark co-pastors and undergirds Pastor Calvin in 2 churches composed of Indians. Pastor Calvin is burdened for the salvation and walk of his flock. Salvi was able to preach at the two churches on Sunday, with the morning looking at Jacob experiences in Genesis as a type of the born again experience, which was a confirmation of what was on Calvin’s heart and at the second meeting looking at Deut 5 and the difference between the Law of God in Moses and the Law of God in Christ, which fitted in with what Mark had been preaching the week before. After dropping Jacob at the airport on Monday Salvi also shared Psalm one at the prayer meeting of Calvin’s church. The messages were received really well and Salvi was encouraged to hear the testimony of what God was working in one of the congregant’s lives on the Monday night. He himself had been wrestling as Jacob wrestled with the Lord! Pastor Calvin has asked Salvi to come back one weekend and to do a series of teachings later on in the year. At the moment we are thinking it may take place in October but all these things remain in the Lord’s hands.

The Tuesday night we visited and stayed with the daughter of one of the ladies who is part of our Bible study. She is a member of a Baptist church in Westville, Durban. She asked us to come down and for Salvi to share at her Cell/Bible study group. Salvi did an introduction to Israel and the Church through summarizing the various covenants made by God with Israel. It went very well and we hope that they will seek to look at this subject in more depth. Meanwhile at home, Phumlani taught the bible study and it went really well. This gentle giant surprised Jonny and Kim with his bible knowledge and clarity of exposition. Phumlani’s English has been improving and so we have asked him now to teach at the home cell once a month if it is not too much pressure for him. Phumlani has agreed and so we are grateful to the Lord. The next day we also visited Alan MacKenzie’s daughter and her husband, Alec, who also live in Westville. We had a meal with them and Alec asked Salvi to share his testimony at their church meeting in the evening. A couple of young men shared from the word also.

At the Louwsburg Bible Fellowship Salvi has almost finished the book of revelation and it has been so wonderful to look at the blessings after God’s wrath will be poured out. Soon we will start the book of Jude but Salvi wants us to study it differently. Instead of him teaching on it, he will still do the same amount of preparation, but will ask us all to study it in our spare time and bring together our thoughts and discuss what it actually means. Salvi always questions the group when subjective interpretations are put forward that are not in line with the context of scripture so it should not become a melting pot of men’s fancies but hopefully through imposing principles of interpretation, and having the illumination of the Spirit we may all grow.

While Jacob was with us we had a working day at the Kraal. We were helping Phumlani start to build another room for his hut. Because of people’s wedding gifts to him we were able to help Phumlani buy blocks for his hut to replace the room he had to tear down due to structural damage. Some of our friends from the Baptist church with a few of their friends came down for the day to get their sleeves rolled up and get stuck in. We helped with Phumlani’s foundation, also erected and cemented 2 clothes line poles and assemble children’s diggers that our friend Tony had donated. Phumlani got a ¼ of his room started. It was a fun day with lots of laughs. Thank you guys for all your help. Now the hut is nearly completed and the roof is on. Only the floor needs to be leveled and laid. During that morning Di took Magda, one of the friends, to the kids club to do a teaching on repentance. They loved it. After Jacob left, the weather turned bitterly cold as a cold front came in. Deep snow had reached as far as 100kms on the other side of Vryheid. Though we did not suffer the snow we did suffer the drop in temperature and major rain fall which is unusual for the winter. Jabulani’s huts were majorly damaged by the rainfall and Tholakele’s a little bit. We thank the Lord for his provision to us that we can help by buying cement to plaster their mud huts to make them strong.

Those who remember the Caleb and Sophie days of the KwaZulu Mission may remember one of our neighbours of that time. A man called Amos. His wife Lindiwe is a believer. Amos has diabetes and this weekend we took her to visit him as we were told he was in hospital having his good leg amputated. Now both his legs are amputated. He was in pain and has been vomiting. Please pray for them as Amos’ life undergoes this drastic change and especially concerning the salvation of his soul.

Hopefully you will remember Di’s friend Lorraine, who used to work with Di on the settlement at KwaZenzele when we worked at Ebyown. Lorraine has not long been working at a crèche run by Bernard and Mabel Mathe who also lead a church that Lorraine’s grandmother is a member of. Sadly this last month her grandmother passed away (sad for Lorraine but not for Gogo for she was saved) but at the same time Lorraine’s youngest daughter has scalded herself with boiling water, burning 25 percent of her body. Our friend Sue Wells helped Lorraine with running her to the hospital regularly until Ntombi was released. Mabel has been a huge help also. Now, thank the Lord, Ntombi skin is healing nicely and she does not need to go back to hospital. Thank you to all who remember Lorraine in your prayers.

Di taught at the Care Bear preschool on Noah’s ark. The kids always love our visits and we love visiting them. They are so full of life and on Tuesday she did another clinic run.

We have come down to Stanger again but this time for the benefit of friends in Louwsburg and Vryheid. Jacob Prasch will be speaking at Calvin and Mark’s church on Saturday and Jonny from the Bible Study group asked if we could all go down. So up to now there are around twenty of us, including Phumlani and Thabi coming to hear him. We have come down a couple of days early as Salvi needed to complete the first draft of his assignment and we wanted to have a little time alone. Sadly one couple that was going to come has had to decline as her mother, who they were going to bring was robbed on Tuesday night and attacked by a machete wielding thug in Eshowe where she lives. Our friends have picked her up and taken her back to Vryheid. Please pray for them.

This month, after we get back on Saturday night, Salvi will be finishing the first round of his teaching on Deut at church on Sunday morning and finishing Rev at the cell on Tuesday night. On Wednesday we go up to Gauteng and on Thursday Salvi will be visiting a home church in Harare, Zimbabwe for 6 days. Di is very disappointed she can’t come because her visa is not yet sorted out. The home church is lead by a friend of Mujuru, our friend from Elijah ministries. Mujuru is a wonderful godly man who has walked with us for a few years now. His wife has cancer and is undergoing treatment. Please pray for them also. He has asked us to visit this church, to see how they do things, to collect first impressions and to share the word of God there. Salvi will be taking food and clothes up with him to give to people. It is such a short time to learn anything but at least Salvi will get first impressions. When he comes back we will visit Mujuru’s cell group and Salvi will share with them. We will also be visiting our UK friend, Joe and his wife Gemma who are visiting South Africa at this time. Joe has visited South Africa before and the KwaZulu Mission during Caleb and Sophie’s time in South Africa. Hopefully they will be visiting us in KwaZulu at the end of the month. At the end of our time in Gauteng, Allen and Sue’s son Clayton is getting married to Jessie Schilling. We will be watching their wedding, God willing, through the internet link with another family who are mutual friends. When we come back on the 23^rd August to KZN we will bring our friends daughter Bianca who will stay with us for a month.

Thank you for your prayers, friendship, support and encouragement. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Shalom aleichem baShem Yeshua, Salvi and Di

ELIJAH AND ELISHA

THE SHOWDOWN

PART 4

1 Kings 18: 20 – 39

Elijah, probably the greatest prophet apart from Moses in the Old Testament was after a national revival. He was single minded and would endure any restriction on his personal liberty, loneliness and even poverty to see the hearts ofIsraelrestored back to God. This was the reward he was looking for. He was a man whose heart beat in time with God’s and as such he was perfectly obedient. He is probably the exception of Holy men in the bible. People like David, or Moses had their sins recorded for everybody to read about. The only reprimand on Elijah is a lapse of depression and faith that in comparison to us is something he handled so much better than we would if we were in his shoes. Last time we saw the two types of reception that a man like Elijah has. There is the reception of Obadiah, which is meek and obedient and then there is the reception of Ahab which shifts the blame from self to the man of God. Elijah challenges Ahab to bring 950 prophets to meet him atMount Carmelfor a show down. The rains were going to return and thus Elijah must have thought there would have been a revival. After all the rain came againstIsraelas a judgment against their apostasy. So if God would send the rains back, surely this was indicative that the people would repent.

V 20 – 24 ELIJAH’S ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE

Ahab agrees to the Elijah’s challenge. It does not matter what Ahab thought of Elijah, he was not going to harm Elijah because he really believed that Elijah’s words were powerful enough to bring back the rain. In other words, Elijah was needed to bring back the rain. Ahab was not as deceitful as Jezebel for you get this sense at the end of the chapter that Ahab accepts the victory over Ba’al and celebrates in the feast. It is his wife who tries to hit back harder at Elijah. The gods that Ahab had turned to were not of his own invention but belonged to the people and culture of Jezebel. However the scripture affords no sympathy to Ahab. It does not matter what temptation Jezebel used, it was Ahab who was the spiritual head in that relationship and the act of marrying Jezebel in the first place was a sin in itself as 1 Kings 16: 31 infers. It was Ahab who erected the altar for Baal and it was he who made the Asherah. The text does not say that Jezebel was responsible for this, though her wickedness is not excused either. Also the challenge that Elijah had given to Ahab entailed little threat from Elijah from a natural view point because even though 400 prophets would not show up. Elijah was only 1 man against 450 and therefore could be easily overwhelmed if he had to be. But the message was not only sent to the prophets but also to all the people too. Therefore we may imagine that the mountain must have been overflowing with Israelites abandoning the mundane routine of their lives to catch a glimpse of this infamous prophet and to see if he would restore the much needed rain. Why does Elijah concern himself with the people first and not the prophets? Because he is after restoring the hearts of the people back to their heavenly Father. The prophets were going to be slain but there was still hope for the people. Elijah was after a revival. The first thing that Elijah does is to question their syncretism. Syncretism is the act of taking things from two different sources and mixing them together. The African Zionist Churches do this when they mix biblical things with Occultic things like Amadlozi (Zulu for Ancestral Spirits), which the Bible clearly condemns in Deuteronomy 18: 9 – 14, and other such stuff. The Roman Catholic Church employed syncretism also with prayers to dead saints, the rosary and their Christian versions of Pagan festivals, such as Yule time and Easter. So Elijah challenges them in verse 21, ‘How long will you hesitate between two opinions?’ The word for hesitate in the Hebrew is the word Pasach, and it means ‘to pass over, to spring over, to limp or to skip’ and is the same word used to describe the ritual dance the prophets of Ba’al did when they called on Ba’al in verse 26.

So in one case Elijah is referring to them hesitating between two opinions in their mind but this was expressed in their worship of the false god alongside the True God hinting at the ritual dance the false prophets would do. What Elijah is doing is the same thing that Joshua did when he challenged the Israelites in Joshua 24: 15, when he said ‘Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve:’ He was bringing the people to a day of decision. And when we have gone off the rails or gone cold in our love for the Lord, when it seems disagreeable to become a Christian or it has become disagreeable to us to follow the Lord and we come close to wanting an easier life, we come to a day of decision where we decide with our will which God we will serve. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose. And the decision should be based on truth. When I read the biography of Keith Green, ‘No Compromise’ one of the main things that stood out was Keith’s searching for spiritual answers. He was seeking after truth. He was not searching for a miracle or something to make his life better but he was searching for Truth and when he found Jesus, it was all or nothing. If the LORD is God, then follow Him but if Ba’al, follow him. There is no discussion about God’s Law being a better moral path, or about the cultural identity of the Israelites being bound up in the Mosaic Law. Elijah did not argue that they were betraying their culture. It all came down to, ‘who is the true God?’ Notice that the people did not answer Elijah a word. It was no different for the Israelites then than it is for people today to accept the Lord. Often convicting challenges are met with silence. When there is that challenge for decision people clam up but when there is a show, people enthusiastically shout out amen.

The next thing that Elijah says is that he alone is left a prophet but Baal’s prophets were 450. Now this does not mean that he was the only prophet alive on the face of the earth because we know that Obadiah had hid 100 prophets and that later God would reveal that he has kept a remnant, but when Elijah looked about him where were the other prophets supporting him? Where were the people of God who were shouting ‘amen’? For all intents and purposes he was only the voice of one shouting in the wilderness. The number of the opposition was 450. Elijah exemplified the verse of that chorus that says, ‘Though non go with me, I still will follow.’ What Elijah proceeds to do is to present the people the order of play of a test to see which God is the true God. We can see various things about this test.

One thing we notice is the type of test. The object of the test is that the true God would be the One who brings down fire out of heaven. According to Alfred Edersheim, A W Pink, and a few other commentators, they teach that this Ba’al god was considered to be the god of fire. According to ‘Lockyer’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary’ Ba’al was believed to be able to shoot out lightening bolts from the sky. To all intents and purposes Ba’al, if he was true, should have had the upper hand, it was his domain. However it should be recognized that God did not specify this test to comply with Ba’al’s religion as if Ba’al worship was to be the standard of the test but rather we find that God specifies through Elijah an animal sacrifice and God would bring fire out of heaven as He had done with David at the threshing floor of Araunah. The Angel of the LORD appeared in a burning bush as well as in a pillar of fire, as well as appearing in fire and smoke on top of mount Sinai. God’s Spirit also appeared in tongues of fire at Pentecost. This was theologically in line with the way God reveals Himself in other places in the Scripture and not a case of God modeling himself on the nature of a false god. But why did Elijah pick the test of fire consuming a sacrifice when the thing the people wanted was water? Surely God bringing back the rain would have been enough proof. But this would not have sufficed.

Firstly imagine if the Prophets of Ba’al had spent the whole day praying for rain and none had come and then Elijah prayed and the rain came. It could have been argued that the rain was a product of the prophets who had laboured for hours and Elijah just enjoyed the benefits of their hard work. With fire we are dealing with something instantaneous and something that would hit only one of two sacrifices. It would be obvious to see which God was answering. Secondly because of the sin of the people, before God brought back the rain, He had to have a sacrifice in order to cover the sin of the people. Without blood there is no remission of sin. In bringing fire out of heaven, it shows God’s approval of the sacrifice. We could see this with David at the threshing floor (1 Chron21: 26) and in Lev9: 24God consumed the burnt offering with fire. In fact one could say that the tongues of fire of Shavuot (or Pentecost) was a symbol of God’s acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice and the temple of the church.

But another quality of the test is that it was fair. Elijah did not have a hidden agenda. He only wanted Israel to know the truth. The conditions that were set for Ba’al were the same conditions set for the LORD.

V 25 – 29 ELIJAH’S ADDRESS TO THE PROPHETS OF BA’AL

So Elijah gives the same instructions he laid out to the people. He never deviates from what God has commanded him to do. And the prophets spend the whole morning, from morning tonoonrepeating the same prayer, ‘O Ba’al answer us.’ This was nothing more than empty repetition. Why was it empty? Because Ba’al was empty. Jesus said that our heavenly Father knows what we need before we ask Him (Mat 6: 7 & 8) and John says that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (1 John 5: 14). These prophets had to repeat and repeat the same thing because the testimony of Psalm 115 is right which says that idols have eyes but they cannot see, and ears but they cannot hear. But we can rejoice with the writer of Psalm 116: 1 which says, ‘I love the LORD, because He hears my voice and my supplications.’ All the while Elijah does not interrupt once but lets them continue in their nonsense. He let them continue their dancing and limping for a god who could not even see it. Think if someone like Jacob Prasch or any one of us were there. Would we care to stay and watch such idiocy? We would probably mock them after half an hour or an hour. It must have driven Elijah insane to see this happen. But atnoonElijah starts to mock them. You see the priests are wrong, nothing is happening, but they will not let go. They will not give up.

So Elijah mocks them. However, they are concentrating so much on getting this god to answer them that they actually do what Elijah says as if they thought Elijah was giving them genuine advice. Their eyes were covered with a spiritual veil so that they could not perceive the truth or the error of their ways. Maybe their god was a little preoccupied with other things! How different to the God of Israel who delights in His people and always listens to the prayers of His righteous ones. Maybe their god was asleep. How different to the God of Israel who neither slumbers nor sleeps. So these stupid prophets did what Elijah said and went even further. They cut themselves with sharp cutting implements and pierced themselves with sharp pointy implements. They thought that Ba’al would delight in their blood. Now the word for the blood gushing out in Hebrew is the word, ‘shefack’ which means to spill out but figuratively it also means to expend, either ones life or money, or ones soul. How different is Ba’al to God? The life of a creature is in the blood. Thus Ba’al will rob you of your life. You are to be the sacrifice to please Ba’al but we have a substitute in our Messiah. The devil comes to murder, to steal and to destroy but Jesus came to give life and life in all its fullness. But after all this, nothing was working so what did they do? Instead of owning up and admitting the truth, they turned to prophecy? Who knows what they were saying but prophecy is an act done under the influence of a spirit. Thus it must have been supposedly Ba’al that was talking through them. Maybe excuses were formed, maybe not. But what were they doing? They were changing the rules. Ba’al was supposed to answer by fire but they had turned to prophecy. That is what false prophets do. When a prediction does not come to pass, rather than own up, they change it or the meaning of it. And these prophets did this for hours, until the evening sacrifice but as the Hebrew reads ‘V,ein Qol, v,ein aneh, v,ein qashev.’ And no sound, and no answer and no attention.

V 30 – 39 ELIJAH’S ADDRESS TO THE LORD.

Elijah calls the people over to him. Just like Paul says, ‘follow me as I follow Christ’. Elijah’s desire was not to lead the people to himself but as they came to him he would lead them to the Lord and bow his knee with them. But look at what Elijah does first. First he repairs the altar of the Lord. He is renewing the Covenant made through Moses which majors on the sacrificial system, hence the need for the Levitical priests. But not only this; these stones that made up the altar were stones for building and there were 12 in number speaking of the house ofIsrael. The word for repair in verse 30 is the word, ‘Rafah’ which in Hebrew also speaks of healing where we get the word for doctor, ‘Rofe’ or ‘Rofa’. In other words the broken altar of the Lord speaks of a nation in rebellion against their God. The house ofIsraelwas under judgment but Elijah had come to bring healing and restoration and God acknowledged this offering with fire, putting his seal of approval on it. Elijah must have been sure that there would have been a revival amongst the house ofIsrael. The sacrifice of the ox speaks of the sacrifice of Christ which would bring the ultimate restoration of Israel, when they look upon Him whom they have pierced. There are fours pitchers of water that are poured onto the sacrifice three times. What a similarity it bears to the Gospel. The word which sanctifies the church is equated to water. It is the Gospel which brings us into that eternal life. This Gospel has been recorded in scripture in four volumes and was shone out from the father, in the form of His Son and it is ministered unto us by the Spirit. As Paul calls the Gospel ‘the word of the cross’ which is foolishness to those who are perishing, so the sacrifice of the ox speaks of the ultimate sacrifice. It is all bound up together in Christ. It is a foreshadowing and not the reality in itself. Elijah, is speaking of the day when the fortunes of Israel really will be restored, when Elijah would return (either in spirit or physically) and turn the hearts of their children back to their fathers and the hearts of the fathers back to their children before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.

Now look at the prayer in verses 36 and 37. Compared to the hours of repetition we see that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. It did not take long! Secondly, Elijah prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and this refers to Israel’s origin and coupled with this is the idea of the promises. Elijah through praying is reminding God of the covenant He made with the patriarchs, so that despite the unfaithfulness of the people God would remain faithful. Thirdly Elijah prays for the glory of God’s name in that it would be God’s name which would be exalted in recognition that He is the true God. Fourthly Elijah confesses his complete obedience to God’s instructions. This whole event was not Elijah’s idea but had been God’s and therefore Elijah could take confidence that God would answer his prayer because he is not putting God to the test. And lastly he presents his petition so that God would hear and turn the people’s heart back to their heavenly Father.

This is prayer that works. The fire would not have fallen except that Elijah prayed but Elijah prayed only according to what God had spoken to him. The fire fell and the people saw it evidently meant that Jehovah was the true God. Do we have Elijah’s sense of obedience or a consuming love for God’s people that would cause us to put our neck on the line? Do we love the truth or do we mix the things of God with whatever we desire? Elijah’s is the prayer that God will answer and if we have singularity of heart for the LORD, if we are obedient to His ways, if we only pray according to that which He has shown us, if we do not exceed the boundaries of His word, and if our motivation is for the LORD to be glorified then the LORD will answer our prayer too.

July 18, 2011

Jacob Meads’ short term mission report # 2.

Jacob Meads’ short term mission report # 2.

(*Jacob is leaving on the day of this posting and it has been an absolute pleasure to have him here. We pray that the Lord will show him the way he must go from here on in*)

Since the last time I wrote something for the website, we have been fairly busy. Salvador and I have been going out fairly regularly and witnessing/evangelizing. Sometimes the gospel message seems to be received (or at least thought about) and other times it is rejected. It can be difficult to know what other people think, when they hear that they can’t mix a bit of following Jesus with Shembe (who some folk believe was the black messiah) or with ancestral spirits. To some it seems to come as a surprise to hear that Jesus is the only way to receive eternal life and forgiveness.

There are many false doctrines and teachings that many folk are misled by because it can sound appealing to the nature of man but these doctrines do not follow the scripture!

Salvador has been instructing me in the basic structure of creating a sermon and the different ways of looking at a biblical passage. Salvador has an incredible knowledge of the bible and what it teaches. He is very diligent in searching the scriptures to make sure what he presents to various different groups is lined up with and following the word of God. He ministers to many folk, disciples, shares and translates messages into Zulu etc.

Over the period of time that I have been with Salvi and Di I have had an increasing respect for this couple, who are constantly endeavouring to follow the ways of God, and who are heavily involved in sharing the gospel, ministering to those in need, teaching and encouraging new Christians and also encouraging and discipling Christians, each in a different way in their various walks with Christ. Salvi and Di are diligent in doing in doing the work God has entrusted them with, even though often they may not see an immediate effect from their selfless work in the cause of the gospel. They keep on persevering even when the results of their work may not even be obvious to either of them at all. They have been a blessing and an encouragement to me, and also to the many, many Christians they are in contact with!

God is doing a work in this country and in the lives of the people in it and through the name of Christ and repentance working in hearts, and through the witness and testimony of Christians believers (including Zulu folk who have left traditional beliefs and turned to Christ) a little bit at a time, more people are realizing that they need the salvation and forgiveness that can only be through Jesus, and they are forsaking the ancestral worship or whatever they are following and coming to a knowledge of the Saviour. And not only believing in Christ, but also putting their trust in Him. Then God is using the lives of these new believers to start reach the lives of the many who are unbelieving!

Salvador has led me in preparing a couple of messages while I have been here. One on the words ‘fellow labourer’ and what it can mean to be a follower if Christ. And the second was on the book Philemon. I was able to present these to both the church and also the bible study group. One of these messages did not go so well, so was rewritten and the structure changed a bit. I praise the Lord that both messages either had a small impact on those hearing it or was very applicable to some things folk were going through at that time!

We had the privilege of sharing in a pre-school/crèche in town, in which we present a story from the bible or something that can be learned from a passage of scripture and sing with the children. Once I was able to lead it, and so I did an object lesson on how God sees our heart. Salvador and I also practiced a play that he had written with a gospel message in it which, with some help from Di, we acted that for the children. It was a good deal of fun, and they really enjoyed it, and afterward they had some quite good questions which they asked.

We have also been involved in a small way, with helping with Children’s club (which is run by Phumlani’s sister, and we take it on the odd occasion). They sing a lot of songs, learn memory verses and sometimes do an activity/project.

Not long ago, we had three young folk from the Baptist church in town staying with us for a couple of days. So we told the story of the Good Samaritan and acted it out for them. Hopefully the children will remember all or at least part of the lesson behind the story.

I have been privileged to meet and spend time with many different people, with a vast difference in upbringing and culture. Both Afrikaans folk and Zulu folk (and others) have always treated me with generous hospitality, and care for Salvador, Di and myself as if we were their own family. Many of them give resources to us to assist in many different ways. During life it is often easy to take many things for granted, but do we always thank God and those who live around us for the many different ways each of us are blessed in many ways? I wonder if we forget even to show gratitude at times. We should spare a thought for the many folk who really suffer. Sometimes those by the world’s standards with little, are more grateful for what they have than those who have in abundance! A little food for thought! J

I have been able to spend a few days in Johannesburg where I saw what a friend, Jessica, was doing and the organization she is involved in who take in babies who have been dumped or that their mothers are unable to provide for or care for them. These babies are cared for by paid and volunteer staff and are eventually adopted out. That was pleasant to catch up and see all the babies and how they are cared for.

While there I met a family, a bit larger than my own. They are friends of Salvi and Di called Allen and Sue Wells, and I had an enjoyable with them. And I caught up with a couple who I met at Phumlani’s wedding called Bernard and Mabel Mathe that have a ministry in an informal settlement called Kwazenzele. It is hard to comprehend how people live in these settlements in tin shacks almost right on top of each other!

Through the generosity of friends here. We have been treated to a trip to Shakaland (showing a bit of Shaka and his wars , traditional Zulu dances and how they lived etc) a game park (and a couple of quick visits to one in search of elephants) and in my last couple of days here we are in a beach house enjoying the sea and getting a bit of a pleasant break away! It all has been greatly appreciated. And so I’d like to say to those people, May God continue to bless you as you have so kindly blessed us in many ways! Thanks!

It seems that I have been here for many years, so quickly have I got to know people here and make many friends. Saying goodbye to everyone has been very hard, especially to Phumlani and all those at the kraal who almost seem like a part of my family. Other friends I have here also seem like family. I am going to miss each one of you. I keep you all in prayer as you continue to follow Christ. If it is the will of God I hope to one day return to this country and see you all again.

I have been very well looked after the whole time that I spent here by many people but especially by Salvador and Di. I am very blessed and thankful to have been involved for a time in their ministry and receiving training from Salvador. I also can’t help but feel very thankful to Di, who does so many things in caring for the needs of others! Di always seems to be doing things for others’ needs, often putting the things of her own on the back burners. She ministers in many ways doing plenty of washing (by hand!), cleaning, taking folk to the clinic, caring for people when sick, sewing ripped Jeans and shirts, and cooking such nice food, that it’s hard not to put on a few extra kilos! I can definitely say that I have not been starving, in fact far from it!

Thank you both very much for what you have done for me, how you have cared for me, and helped to make my stay here, both enjoyable and memorable. You both are a light to those you work with and you have a testimony of Christ in your lives that point to a Saviour and a loving heavenly Father!

May God pour His blessing on you and cause the work you are doing through and for Him to grow as you share with people why Jesus came, and as those who are saved are discipled into a deeper walk with their Saviour.

I look forward to seeing you both in the future! Many thanks,

From Jacob Meads.

July 6, 2011

Our weekend at Uncle Salvador and Aunty Di’s House

Our weekend at
Uncle Salvador and Aunty Di’s house

We had such a wonderful weekend. We learnt a lot about how
many people in South Africa
live and learnt to appreciate what we have. We were privileged to experience
day to day activities with uncle sal and Aunty Di like kids club and the church
service. We also enjoyed many games of Black Jack (not gambling) in which we
all ganged up on Salvador, even though he was losing. There was a rooster that
insisted on crowing non stop from 3am and it was very cold but we managed with
gas heaters and many many blankets. We got to help Phumulani with the
foundation to the extension of his home and we taught ‘teletubie’, a.k.a
Asimbonge, how to show us his teeth. He really does eat a lot. We had such a
wonderful weekend and it really was so much fun getting away from buildings and
cars and getting to experience the beauty of the Lords creations

Love Nicole

What a lovely weekend it was indeed!! After we had arrived, we
had coffee with one of aunty Di’s friends who told us many fascinating and
hilarious tales of his journeys throughout his life. We all had many laughs.
Then after coffee uncle Salvador, Jacob, Nicole,
Sandile and I went out to a settlement about twenty minutes away and Salvador preached to some
of the kids that live there. If we were successful I am not sure as I don’t
understand Zulu. Then after preaching to the kids we moved down to where the
rest of the community were settled and spread the Word there… in majorly
strong, cold winds. Then on our return journey back to our four star chalet at
The Hayworth; Jacob, Sandile and myself exchanged stories of no importance
whatsoever (we were talking nonsense). That night we all congregated in the
honeymoon suite, that aunty Di and uncle Salvador resided in, for a well needed
and greatly appreciated ( very, very delicious!!) meal that aunty Di had
prepared for us in our absence. After dinner Phumulani and Thabi, his newly
wedded wife, joined us in the honeymoon suite as Salvador shared a short message from the
Bible. After that we all indulged in an extremely scrumptious cup of hot
chocolate that was, once again, prepared by aunty Di. Also, after dinner
everybody joined in an intense tournament on “black-jack” that Salvador had taught us just before dinner.
The first stage of the tournament engaged that night… little did we know that
it was to continue and intensify every time it was played. At about ten that
night, Salvador eventually decided to kick us out of their humble abode and
send us back to our own chalet, of which I was grateful for as that place had caused me to get a
serious case of… dum dum duuum… THE GIGGLES!! At one stage that night I thought
I had developed the Toronto
blessing… along with everybody else. The first night at our place was very…
cold… restless… funny… cold… and annoying as one of the other residents at the
hotel we resided at had decided to bring along a chicken that had a disability
of telling the time. Normal chickens crow at sunrise which is at about 6:00 am.
No, not this one. It had been shipped in from some whack country that is two
hours behind South Africa,
meaning it crowed at 4:00 am!! Well, I had every intention of making dinner the
next night!! Anyway, on Saturday morning, Jacob had asked us to join him in the
kids club meeting and to do a re-enactment of “The Good Samaritan”, to which we
all agreed happily. The kids there were very welcoming and had a friendly and
kind expression about their faces. If you asked me, they enjoyed the play very
much, especially when I groaned (as I was the injured man). Then when we got
back from the kids club meeting I went on a long walk to observe the landscape
a little better. By the time I got back an hour had passed and everybody had
started getting ready for lunch which uncle Salvador would be preparing for us. Then we
all lazed around for the afternoon and I went and took a long awaited afternoon
nap… and again; when I returned about an hour had passed. Then I forgot what we
did after that because I only fully awoke another hour later, which might have been
when we had the second reading from the Bible. The same events and procedures
were to follow as the night before, except without the discovery of my sudden
and new found “condition”; aunty Di prepared an excellent cup of hot chocolate
for all of the people who temporarily hi-jacked her suite. Then the games
began… again!!! And Salvador
started getting annoyed because he never won as many games as the previous
evening sooo… he kicked us out… again. Then we got back to our chalet and got
right into bed for a peaceful sleep… or so we thought till the fake-imported-disabled
chicken started with its stories again!! I don’t know about the rest of my companions,
but I lay awake from 4:00 am till past when it should have crowed, to about
8:00 am when everybody else woke up. We all then gathered in the honeymoon
suite again and got ready for the church service which Salvador
had prepared the day before, and which Phumulani had translated from Salvador’s English to Zulu
for the rest of the congregation to understand. After the service, another
friend of the Hayworth’s joined us for lunch; I think her name was Joanne. Then
after lunch, which was again absolutely delightful, I honestly can’t remember
what we did… but then later that afternoon we played a few games of black-jack
and “chilled” till we had to leave for Vryheid again for the evening service at
Bethany Baptist Church
at which we watched a DVD called “The Daniel Project”. And that is more or less
what happened on our weekend away at the not-so-recognized Hayworth Inn. We
really enjoyed it and learned a lot. It was an unforgettable experience!!

Many thanks

Damian Els

July 6, 2011

msindisi newsletter #82

SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI
MONTHLY

NUMBER: 82. July 2011

PO BOX 1481

VRYHEID 3100

KWAZULU NATAL

SOUTH AFRICA

+27 (0) 728311008

Email: msindisi@gmail.com ,

salv.di@gmail.com

KwaZulu Mission Website: http://www.kwazulumission.com

Personal Website: http://msindisi.googlepages.com

Dear Friends and family,

The aloes are all in flower
now. June is behind us and we have headed into July. Looking over the month of
June we see that we have been blessed in so many ways.

The Louwsburg bible study has
been continually meeting. Every second Tuesday it is hosted in our house but
every other week we rotate from house to house among the members. We will
continue through Revelation soon but in the last two weeks Salvi has been
dealing with faith and rebutting the false Word of Faith, Prosperity and
positive confession teachings. Unfortunately there is so much junk on Christian
TV of this false word of faith teaching and it has been a blessing that some of
the bible study group have come out of this and rejected that teaching over the
space of 2 years of us meeting together. It really takes patience sometimes to
allow time for people to work through the issues and experience that
transformation of the mind that the Word of God accomplishes through that
person’s faith. One family that we met with in the first session are into the
word of faith teaching and so it was a huge challenge to them. We trust the
Lord will continue to minister to them and to challenge them not only in the
teaching but also concerning their heart’s treasure. Jacob Meads from New
Zealand gave a teaching on co-labouring in the gospel but titled the message “Where
is our treasure?” He also shared this at church and will be doing one more
teaching on Philemon for the church and the bible study before he leaves us in
a couple of weeks. Jacob has been a real blessing for us and we trust the Lord
has stretched him and blessed him in his visit here.

This month we have to say
farewell to Isabel who is leaving the area to work in Klerksdorp. We have some
friends into sound doctrine and we hope that Isabel will catch up with them and
start to meet with them to continue receiving sound doctrine.

Salvi and Jacob have continued
to evangelise and disciple. In Church Salvi has started to teach a series on
Deuteronomy which he has taught in English and Phumlani interpreted into Zulu.
Joanne from the bible study has brought some Zulu guys to visit the Church from
Louwsburg and may continue to do so on a regular occasion. This was a huge
blessing because 2 guys which Kim from the bible study and Salvi had both
witnessed too came with. In fact one of them remembers Salvi from 2004 sharing
the gospel with him when he was admitted to the Salvation Army TB hospital at
the time when Salvi used to visit and witness on a weekly basis. On the same
weekend we had the pleasure of 3 young people from Bethany Baptist Church stay
with us for a short term mission. Their report will be found on the ministry
website.

Di has done two clinic runs last
month, planted her garden and taught children’s club amongst her hospitality
and general running of our lives. It takes a lot of time with hand washing
clothes, cleaning and organizing our activities to make sure nothing gets
forgotten and for all of Salvi’s talents he can be quite forgetful when it
comes to the routine things! In the children’s club Di taught about man being
made in the image of God and also about us loving God because God first loved
us.

Salvi did some unusual
outreach this month. In the Louwsburg farming community he did a lecture for
the ladies arts and drama group on poetry recital as a form of theatre. He
performed a monologue and did a dramatic recital of Psalm 137 which enabled him
to share about the biblical background to the piece and then finished with
sharing his testimony. It was very well received and we hope that people were
challenged regarding their stand before the Lord. The following week Salvi and
Jacob performed a gospel play for the young children at care bear preschool in
Vryheid. The kids loved seeing Jacob being Abundant Grace and Salvi being Nasty
Boy who comes to repentance and becomes Forgiven. We hope the memories stay
with them so that one day they also may come to repentance.

A couple of Sundays back
Bethany Baptist Church showed the Daniel Project and though not many new
visitors attended it was well received by everybody. The church may be showing
the DVD again and hopefully attracting more viewers.

Phumlani has been given gifts
of blocks for building another room for his hut. He is humbled by these gifts
and thankful to the Lord. He has started building the foundation and the young people
will be returning on Saturday to help him complete the foundation.

We have had the blessings
given to us by people to take Jacob to Shakaland to learn about Zulu culture
and to Mkhuze nature reserve to see some animals. This week he is in Gauteng
visiting Allen and Sue Wells and a friend of his who works for a children’s
place of safety near Johannesburg.

Thank you for your faithfulness
in your prayers for us. We really do covet them. Indeed many thanks for all
your emails, prayers and involvement in our lives and ministry.

The Lord bless you and keep
you.

Shalom aleichem baShem
Yeshua, Salvi and Di

ELIJAH AND ELISHA

THE CHALLENGE

PART 3

1 Kings 18

Elijah was a man
of great faith, great courage and great obedience. We have seen his powerful
ministry but also his servant hearted nature. The only thing that Elijah
coveted was to see the people turn back their hearts to the Lord. No doubt he
lived in the hope, in the expectation that he would see revival. By the word of
Elijah drought came upon the land and Elijah had hidden himself from Israel,
trusting in God’s provision. This was the real judgment; that God had hidden
His words from the people. This went on for three and a half years where Elijah
saw the salvation of a gentile woman, a type of the church which has
predominantly been gentile since the 4^th century onwards. But now
the time has come for the Word to come back to the Jewish nation.

Verses 1 – 6 Elijah sent back and Obadiah is introduced.

So God has
promised the rain will return and that is why Elijah must go back. This is
symbolic of the fact that the word of the Lord would be spoken again in Israel. God was
going to send rain upon the earth; therefore Elijah must have anticipated a
revival. Elijah did everything possible to see a revival. He was obedient. He
presented God’s word faithfully. He had suffered rejection and persecution. He
was zealous and now God had given him a promise. The rain was coming back. Now
notice that Elijah did not decide to return to Israel on the basis of knowing
that the 3 ½ years of drought had to happen as a type and prophecy of the two
witnesses in the tribulation of Revelation. He did not return to Israel because
he had been clever enough to work out the time that the rain would come back.
He did not do that. The fact that he was out for that time was coincidental in
the mind of Elijah. Rather Elijah would not return until God told him to,
whether that be 3 years, 3 ½ years or 50 years. Elijah did not have to have it
all figured out but he had to be sensitive to God’s voice and to be obedient.

Now there is someone
new that we meet in this text and that person is Obadiah. What do we learn
about Obadiah from when we meet him? The first two things are as follows. He
was over the household of Ahab and yet he feared the Lord greatly. He was
subject to and close to the wicked King and yet God vindicates his honour and
integrity in the fact that God had it recorded in scripture that Obadiah did not
compromise his loyalty to the Lord. If you have read ‘Tortured for Christ’, you
will remember that there were people within the communist party, people who
were in the secret police that were believers. These people were rejected by
other believers because of their apparent betrayal of the church. But what
these believers did not know is that these officers were actually double agents
of a sort, providing information to the underground Church, in order to warn
true believers of where the secret police where going to hit next. These secret
believers also kept information from the secret police. Now there were a big
number of believers that became informers to inform on the believers so how
could you tell the difference between the two? You cannot on a superficial
level! So it was with Obadiah. By external appearances it seemed that Obadiah
was apostate, that Obadiah had joined forces with God’s enemies. Yet Obadiah
was one of the good guys.

But what about
the commandment to ‘come out of her my people’? Should not Obadiah have taken a
stand and left Ahab? God has always had his hand in situations like this and
planted his people in influential places. A look at Daniel proves this case in
point. Daniel did not want to be in that position but he had little choice and
yet even in that position God moved so that he became known as a prophet of
note and preserved a testimony for God’s name in the most unlikeliest
circumstances. This was not a position that Obadiah would have wanted to be in
because he was someone that feared the Lord greatly. He would not have wanted
to face the trial everyday of temptation to go with the flow. He would have
been the odd one out in the court. If he feared the Lord how could he have
joined in all the pagan rites? He could not so why was Obadiah in that
position? Because it was a matter of life and death. In verse 4 we see that
Obadiah was in that position to save God’s prophets from execution. He used his
influence to serve the Lord.

But in verse 5 we
read that Ahab and Obadiah were to go through the land to find water. They are
in a desperate situation. They needed water but Ahab would rather seek some
broken cisterns that cannot hold water than turn to God for living water.
Everything with Ahab was about maintaining his society. He only saw the
situation of drought and looked for a solution to curb it rather than seeing
the underlying cause of the drought being spiritual. He was a pragmatist. It is
just like our societies today. We have stopped up our ears and shouted to the
creator ‘we don’t need you, You don’t exist!’ and when God manifests His
displeasure we will ignore it and simply say, as Isaiah 9: 10 portrays, “The
bricks have fallen down, But we will rebuild with smooth stones; The sycamores
have been cut down, But we will replace them with cedars.” In other words God
has judged us but we will come back stronger. Ahab was not even at that stage;
he was merely trying to curb the damage. Ahab’s operation was a salvage
operation. The other thing we do is blame God for it and shake our fist. But
Ahab and Obadiah separate from each other to cover more ground and then Obadiah
meets Elijah. That is to say that even in Obadiah’s situation, to be separated
is still paramount. God is always separating. We see this in Genesis and we see
it in the New Testament. It is God’s apartheid. Then Obadiah could hear the
word of the Lord. ‘Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands
and a pure heart.’ God told Elijah that He will send rain on the earth. The
drought was caused by Israel’s
apostasy and so for the rains to come back there must be some kind of revival.
Surely God was going to turn the hearts of the children back to their heavenly
Father and Elijah was the instrument that God would use.

Verses 7 – 16 Elijah meets Obadiah

Obadiah is on his
way, not expecting to see Elijah and Elijah meets him. Now notice Obadiah’s
reaction to Elijah. He falls on his face and calls Elijah his master. Now
although Elijah knows that Ahab is detestable to God, he does not treat Ahab as
if he was a nothing. He recognizes that Ahab has been placed there by God and
as such he acknowledges that Ahab has authority. Thus he says to Obadiah to go
tell ‘his master’ that Elijah is here. Elijah called Ahab, Obadiah’s master.
Obadiah’s allegiance was with the Lord first and foremost, however he was still
under human authority placed there by the Lord, no matter how bad that human
authority was. Romans 13: 1 – 2. This is why the early Christians went
willingly to their deaths on account of Christ. They knew they had broken human
law by following Christ and they were willing to face the death penalty for it.
Why? Because they feared God more than man and yet they did not fight against
the system because they recognized that their rulers were given that authority,
which they used to kill these believers. They were given that authority by God
and as such these believers would not fight against God. As Peter and John said
in Acts 4: 19 – 20, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to
you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about
what we have seen and heard.” They did not resist authority and yet their
highest allegiance was with God. So too, Elijah acknowledged Ahab’s authority
over Obadiah and respected that. Obadiah is scared at the proposition that
Elijah has set. He has seen God’s hand on Elijah and God’s protection over
Elijah. Obadiah has stuck his neck out on the line for God’s people, one time
by hiding 100 prophets away from Ahab. Ahab and Jezebel wanted to kill Elijah
too, he was a wanted man. Therefore if he told Ahab that Elijah was ready to
meet him and Elijah was whisked away by the Spirit of God, then would Ahab not
have executed Obadiah for letting him escape instead of capturing him? I do not
think we understand the gravity of the situation. Elijah was an enemy of the
state. Elijah was a wanted man, an outlaw who was seen to be terrorizing the
country. It will be the same with the 2 witnesses in Revelation 11: 10. These
men will not be hated because they are religious. They will be equated to
suicide bombers and perpetrators of terror. The offense will not be their
religion. Society is becoming more and more pluralistic. Their offense will be
their fanaticism. They do not fit the system. They can believe whatever they
want but they must not impose their views on others. And who knows, maybe they
will be perceived as worse than suicide bombers, because at least suicide
bombers die when they cause terror. When the two witnesses die at the hand of
the antichrist and his empire the world will act as if it is Christmas. So was
the attitude towards Elijah. Can we see why Obadiah was scared? But Elijah
gives Obadiah his word and that is enough for Obadiah. How trusting he is in
the Word of God and how lacking I often am! With one phrase all fear is stilled
just like Jesus calmed the sea with three words. The sea obeys the Lord much
more than I do. Obadiah goes to Ahab and tells him that Elijah wants to meet
him.

Verses 17 – 19 Elijah meets Ahab

Now look at
Ahab’s response in contrast to Obadiah’s. Obadiah was respectful, God fearing
and trusting. Ahab was neither. The first words out of Ahab’s mouth are “Is
this you, you troubler of Israel?”
What is Ahab doing here? He is fixing the blame on Elijah. It does not matter
what God has done with Ahab and that he has proved that He is there and He is
angry. It does not matter that God has sent prophets to Israel and given Israel
His law. Ahab still cannot see that his sin caused all this. In his mind the
power lay not with God but with the prophet. It was not that God had commanded
the prophet to speak in this situation but it was that the prophet had spoken.
He was like the deists of the last century who believed that though God may
have made everything, He had made the world to operate in a cause and effect
way, in a closed system, which God could not interfere with. Just as psalm 14:
1 says, “The fool in his heart says there is no God.” But secondly look at how
deceived Ahab is concerning his own sin. He does not see it as sinful and this
speaks as a microcosm of our human, fallen, sinful state. The reason that
mankind shakes his fist at God and hates God when bad things happen is because
mankind believes that it does not deserve this treatment. Just like the two
thieves on the cross. One turns round and says “Are you not the Christ? Save
yourself and us!” The other criminal had a different attitude. He rebuked his
fellow criminal for not fearing God. What was the difference between the two? The
difference between the two was that the second thief admitted that he was
suffering justly. So Ahab cannot see that because he will not acknowledge his
own sinfulness.

This is why in
our evangelism, and the testing of ourselves, we must use the Law to bring
people to the cross and to continually return to the cross. This is exactly
what Elijah does. He replies by convicting Ahab of his own sin and stating that
his own apostasy is the cause for the drought. If God warns us about certain
things that He actually despises, if God warns us by sending prophets and bible
teachings to tell us that these things totally displease God; and if we just
shrug it off or try to silence the messengers, can we therefore blame God for
manifesting that displeasure? And so using the Law is a way of showing people
their offense before a holy God, that they may become aware of the displeasure
of God. When a person acknowledges that they have a problem, they may then seek
a solution. That is Elijah’s tact in this situation and with the declaration of
Ahab’s guilt he also offers a challenge that the 450 prophets of Baal and the
400 prophets of Asherah come and meet Carmel with all Israel
observing. 1 Prophet of the Lord against 950 prophets of false gods. We will
see in the next session that the prophets of Asherah did not show up so he
would only face 450 of them. But here we see that Elijah was pitting himself
against 950 false prophets. Who had the majority? Who was most likely to win?
Who was out numbered? Elijah had the majority. Why? Because Elijah had the
infinite creator God on his side. There are a few things that I would like to
add before I conclude.

Firstly, God is
the one who was leading Elijah to do this. There is no way that Elijah would
stick his neck out on the line if it was not God leading him. This was not
about Elijah challenging the Baals and the Asherah but it was about obeying the
One who Elijah stood before.

Secondly, these
prophets were worshipping false gods. These were dumb idols and such religions
that worship dumb idols feed off superstition. God finds idolatry a joke
because all this power is attributed to a thing that has lips but cannot speak,
hands that cannot do, feet that cannot walk and if it falls it needs a human being
to prop it back up again. This is the ‘powerful’ god that these prophets were
worshipping.

But thirdly, as
one Christian once asked. “How many whole Christians do a thousand half
Christians make? A thousand half Christians do not even amount to a single
whole Christian!” There was only one real prophet that would make it to Mount Carmel and that was only Elijah. All the pillow
prophets were phonies.

Elijah was
looking for revival and would do anything God required to see it happening.
With an ‘Elijah’ people will have two reactions. Either they will be like
Obadiah, who was reverent, God fearing and trusting, or they will be like Ahab
who hated the prophet. Ahab blamed Elijah for the drought. What attitude do we
have to the word of God in our daily lives? Are we reverent or do we think of
it all as a joke? Also, when unbelievers look at us, they will not understand
us. Our lives testify to the miracle of God’s intervention in our lives. But
they will rationalize that out of the equation and reckon it to be some innate
power within ourselves. Elijah had to tell the kings sin to his face. He
convicted the king about his idolatry and challenged him. He was willing to
face 950 prophets to testify to the Power of the one true, living God. He
completely trusted in the Lord to come through.

Do we desire some
kind of revival in our lives and the lives of those we touch? Are we obedient?
Will we face false shepherds if God leads us that way? Will we endure reproach
for the sake of Christ? Will our fear of God lead to positive action? Are we like Elijah and Obadiah or are we like
Ahab?

KwaZulu Mission

Msindisi Newsletter #86

Msindisi Newsletter #85

Msindisi newsletter # 84

Msindisi Newsletter #83

Jacob Meads’ short term mission report # 2.

Our weekend at Uncle Salvador and Aunty Di’s House

msindisi newsletter #82

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