SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY
NUMBER: 91 Mar 2012
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 Lord is so good and faithful and we have good news concerning Feb. This month we started teaching the kids at the Care Bear pre-school in Vryheid. Di did a teaching about the narrow path and the wide path. Something that we didn’t share in the last newsletter was that a local farmer has stated that she wanted to help a lady in the community, called Florence, who is looking after her grandchildren with no help from the mother who has disappeared off the scene. Florence’s house is starting to fall apart and she cannot grow anything because cows keep coming in and eating her vegetables. So we got Jabulani and a friend to build her a fenced off garden. We are also looking at helping her with the repair of her mud house but we must do it slowly, slowly. In the community, if people think someone is coming into money others may get jealous and can cause trouble.
This month we also started a new children’s club. We had noticed that we were losing some of the older children who were not engaging with the bible teaching on Sundays. We figured that they were not getting much out of the current kids club as they are learning together with very young children. After consulting with Celani and the older kids we found that starting an older children’s club was what was wanted. So we have called it Abantu Abash Club which is a word play. It can mean young people’s club or it can mean new people’s club as in the Zulu term for Born again. Salvi is slowly teaching through the New Tribes Mission, ‘Creation to Christ’ material that Clive and Donna Leembruggen from Australia gave in 2004. The kids have done it before but it is wonderful to really go through it in depth and to make it as interactive as possible. Salvi tries to get the students to share what they think and what they know and if necessary to discuss the material. There are also some new students who have never done the material before. At the moment we have 8 young people studying through the material and it is lovely to see them engaged in what they are learning.
On the 7th of this month Jabulani’s sister, Khethiwe, turned up to the discipleship in Alpha. We have started looking at the covenants of God with Israel and the relationship between Israel and the Church. But that day we didn’t look at any of that for Khethiwe shared that she wanted to give her life to the Lord. She had heard the Gospel before but this time she shared that she was convicted at a funeral that she was living on borrowed time and wanted to be right with the Lord. Mr Khumalo shared how he was being tested by the family of a boy who died on his property. The family have approached him to ask permission to do a ritual that supposedly will collect the spirit of the dead boy in order to bring him back to the family home. Mr Khumalo said that he doesn’t agree with those rituals anymore and refused. The family protested by saying that Mr Khumalo was going to lose the spirit of the dead. He has stood his ground so Khethiwe could see what it means to follow the Lord. Khethiwe said she still wanted to have a new life in Christ and understood that Jesus took her place on the cross. She was baptised on the same day. As we took her to be baptised we pulled into our home and she started witnessing to Gogo. We praise the Lord.
On the following Saturday we had our friends Craig and Magda come to visit but while they were visiting our neighbour’s daughter who was pregnant sent someone over to say that she needed to go to hospital as she was having the baby. Di drove her to Vryheid to the hospital and we were pleased to find out that she had a baby boy. However when Di got home the truck died and we had to push start the car. Our friends in town had that problem sorted out but the Truck still broke down. The problem was that we needed a new Alternator and Genrod wondered where they would get one as their electro mechanic had looked all over the workshop for one the day before and couldn’t find one. When they looked on the morning after our alternator packed up they found a brand new one that had been hidden away for four years, as if the Lord had just kept it there for that day. We praise Him for His provision.
Towards the end of the month we headed to Gauteng. We stayed one night in Secunda to visit a dear couple called Jozua and Veronica. They have supported us from the time that we worked with Moriel in Endicott, Gauteng. They pray for us every single day. So we were really blessed to share fellowship with them. We spent a couple of nights in Krugersdorp as Salvi had a meeting with some brethren concerning a ministry they were starting to encourage South African believers. More on that over the next few months. For the rest of the week we stayed with Allen and Sue Wells and all their kids. It was a great time of sharing, fellowship and catching up with some other old friends from Boksburg.
We got back this Tuesday and Salvi was back into ministering straight away he had the bible study group in Alpha. A young man called Lancelot turned up. We have gotten to know him on and off since 2009. His English is excellent and he has had much experience in the police and as a body guard. He shared that he has been in confusion over the bible and ancestral things. He wants to study with us and get some answers. He said that he had done a correspondence bible course and gotten a certificate and he wants to gain more knowledge. Salvi told him that the course we do is that we get the knowledge from the bible, but the examinations will come in the tests of life. He must respond to the Word of God in his life. When he does so, God will put the certificate in his heart so that people will see that he belongs to the Lord. Of course Salvi is hinting at the need for him to repent and know that Jesus took His punishment on the cross and the need to trust in Christ alone. Please pray for Lancelot.
The Louwsburg Bible Fellowship met in the evening and we are progressing on with Romans studying it intellectually so we understand Paul’s theology but also seeking to see how that applies to our lives as believers. We thank the Lord for this group.
Salvi has completed preaching the Gospel throughout the area of Kwandlandla, a sub area of KwaNgenitsheni and next week hopes to push onto the next subarea. Once that area has been completed there will only be the areas of Khambi and Cibilili and Salvi will have completed that which he purposes to do when we moved here which is to saturate every residential area between Alpha and Esihlengeni with the gospel and out of those who respond to disciple them. Praise the Lord we have seen fruit we we are grateful that we have gotten to see that first hand. We trust the Lord will send other workers into his vineyard to reap that which we have sown in these other areas. Please pray for this.
Well we are pleased to inform you that God willing in May, Phumlani and Jonny from our cell group should be visiting Zimbabwe to see a cell based church system in action. This was the same church that Salvi visited when he was there and we trust that it will be a blessing for them both but especially for Phumlani whom we trust will be inspired concerning the running of our own church in KwaZulu Natal. As Phumlani’s holidays are precious and he has never been on a plane we are hoping to fly him there if he can get the time off.
Thank you for your prayers and support.
Finally we still have received no further news about visas. Di’s visa application is still in process. They still say that they are fast tracking it. Her last visa ran out in Feb 2011. In our last conversation with Home Affairs they were asking us to fax through all copies of Di’s documents that she already submitted to them and which they confirmed that they received!!!
As for Salvi’s application for special consideration for permanent residence… For those of you who don’t know, Salvi although being in the country on and off for 10 years, has only continuously been in the country for 6 years this April. He was in the UK working between Dec 2004 and April 2006. Normally a person can apply for permanent residence if they have been in the country for 5 years on a work permit. However Salvi have been here on a visitor’s permit. Salvi does not qualify under any category to apply for permanent residence. However through the advice of a believer who works for home affairs Salvi has put together a port folio, application form and testimonies of 20 something ministers, company directors and even the local chief and a petition of over 150 local signatures with the request that a special exception be made for Salvi to get permanent residence. Last month we got news that the particular office of Home Affairs which are handling the case in Pretoria, are making application in Salvi’s place that Salvi be granted Deviation. Deviation means that Salvi be granted permission to apply outside of the regular process. As Home Affairs are doing this it means that they believe that Salvi has a case and if Salvi is granted permanent residence it will not matter if Di gets her visa granted or not as she will be able to apply for permanent residence also. So we will keep you updated in our newsletters as and when news comes in.
We thank you all for your prays and support, may the lord richly bless you as we labour together in His work.
Shalom
Salvi and Di
ELIJAH AND ELISHA
PROVISION FOR A WIDOW, SON FOR A GREAT LADY
PART 12
2 Kings 4
In 2 Kings 3, Elisha prophesied victory to the Good king Jehoshaphat, the bad king Jehoram and the foreign king of Edom. Whereas historians only record the main movers and shakers and people of societal influence, the scripture records people of every day note who had needs. God chose to include accounts of people from every section of society because through His dealings with them we can learn something about Himself and about ourselves. In chapter 4 we read about three instances where Elisha is involved miraculously in the giving of life or preservation of life to three different types of people. Firstly we come across a widow who never was involved directly with Elisha but whose late husband was a servant and a co-worker with Elisha. Secondly we see a great lady who shows hospitality to Elisha and supports him and lastly we read about the sons of the prophets who would have been co-workers with Elisha. In all three cases Elisha is there with some form of life giving or life preservation. For the sake of time we will only look at the two women.
Verses 1 – 7. PROVISION FOR THE WIDOW
A certain woman of the wives of the prophets came to Elisha. She needed help. She is in debt and cannot meet her payments. Now in 1 Timothy 5: 3 – 10 we read about Paul’s criteria for helping widows and this included the woman being the wife of one man, over 60, reputation for good works, hospitality, who washed the saints feet and assisted those in distress. Now we know that this widow was the wife of one man because the scripture refers to her still as a wife of one of the sons of the prophet. And she refers to her husband as a servant of Elisha. But the basis of asking for Elisha’s help is not her own works of piety. In fact there is nothing at all about this woman that is used to motivate Elisha to help except for one thing. She was married to the prophet. She begs Elisha on the basis of how her husband feared God and was Elisha’s servant. She benefits from her husbands piety. Now scripture gives us examples that if someone wanted to show kindness to someone, or fulfill a promise to someone who was dead they would turn to the nearest relative of the deceased and bestow it on them especially when it came to keeping a covenant. We see this exhibited by David in 2 Samuel 9: 1 – 13 in wanting to show kindness to someone in Saul’s household for Jonathan’s sake. We see God’s giving of the blessing to Isaac in Gen 26: 24 was done for Abraham’s sake. Let us read Numbers 5: 5 – 8. We see in the case of those who have committed wrong and have wronged someone, the cost to that person wronged must be restored. Restitution must be made but also not just restitution. Also 20% must be added to the value. Now what if that person is not alive anymore, it must go to one of the relatives. But if there is no relative, then what must be done? Does the payment get canceled? No, it then goes to the priest. This must tell us something about God’s attitude to what we owe people who don’t want the payment back, before God we still owe that debt and we should still pay it back even if it is to someone else.
This lady pleads her case on the basis of her husband’s piety and Elisha gives heed to her cry. But get this. Elisha does not get the debt cleared. Elisha does not produce the money or persuade the guy to call the debt off, unlike Paul tried to do with Philemon. What Elisha does is provide the widow with a way to earn that money so that she can pay it off through her own industry. It was a miraculous provision but the lady had to sell it her self. But the first question that Elisha asks is in verse 2. ‘What shall I to do for you? What do you have in the house?’ God works with what we have, not what we do not have. Until we learn to employ whatever scant means we possess we should not expect God to do anything for us. When it came to the feeding of the five thousand, though a miracle provision the first question Jesus asked them in Mark 6: 38 was ‘How many loaves do you have?’ God never despises a small gift given in poverty. Instead He blesses it and uses it and can multiply it. A huge mistake in missions we make is that we go to the rurals, provide everything in terms of building and structure, despise what little they can offer and make them rely on Western funding. Instead we should teach them that God loves the little they can offer and can use it for his glory. This means more to the Lord than western churches giving our of their abundance spare change that because of the exchange rate can go far in their context. ‘What do you have?’ That is the first question. The lady has one pot of oil.
Next Elisha instructs her to borrow vessels from her neighbours so she can fill them with oil and set aside what is full. Before Elisha tells her what she can do with the oil, he expects her obedience. All she has to do is to fill up the jars with oil. But notice that the oil stops when there is no other vessel to fill. How much can God give us? Let me ask another question. Oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit who anoints. How much of the Spirit can God give to us? The Holy Spirit is infinite. He cannot be contained. The Lord gives us according to our capacity. In Matthew 25: 14 – 15 we see that the master gives his possessions to his servants according to their ability. One is given 10 talents, one is given 5 and the other is given one. God gives us according to our capacity. And lastly Elisha tells her that she should sell the oil. She must work with the Blessing that God has given. No loafing around. Even when provision was given for the poor in Israel the poor had to go and collect the grain themselves. They had to gather what they could. It was not simply a hand out. The first port of call after this was to pay off the debt and then secondly she could live off the rest. Her sons were this lady’s support and sustenance. If they were taken away then she had nothing to fall back on. God had commanded that Israel never treated their own country men as slaves. If they had to enslave they had to treat them like hired servants in the house. And if a Hebrew buys a Hebrew slave he had to release him after 6 years. (Lev 25: 39 – 42 & Deut 15: 12) But there was no guarantee as much as we know that this creditor would have been obedient to the Law of Moses, especially as the northern kingdom had forsaken God’s Law. Through Elisha God had made provision that this widow would have her sons in order to sustain her life in her older years.
Verses 8 – 37. THE GREAT LADY AND THE PROVISION OF A SON
The second lady we read about is from a wealthy and prosperous background. It is good and there is benefit in being a dependant of one who supports or is a co worker of God’s servants but it is even more noble to be a supporter of God’s servants. This lady was one who practiced hospitality. Hebrews 13: 2 encourages us to practice hospitality. The word hospitality in Greek is ‘philoxenia’ and this literally to love foreigners or strangers. People who do not belong to our community or our country, etc. The word Xenos in Greek means a stranger or something strange. This is where the word xenophobia, meaning racist, comes from. It literally means to be afraid or to intensely dislike foreigners or strangers. The word commands us to show hospitality to those who are not from our nation, people group, or home town. And in so doing, we never know, we might be entertaining Angels. This happened to Abraham where three visitors came to his area and he fed them. They turned out to be angels. But though, I am sure, Hebrews is referring to angelic beings, we should not forget that the word, ‘anggellos’ means messenger and that is what Elisha was. As a prophet he was a messenger sent from God to His people. The woman, either through spiritual intuition or by evidence of Elisha’s activity perceives that he is a Holy man of God and persuades her husband to have a room built for Elisha where he can retire.
Notice what the room contains. Verses 9 – 10. The room simply contains a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp. Interestingly enough, in the UK, student residences are supposed to contain a bed, a desk, a chair and a wardrobe. It was a place where Elisha could sleep, could eat, pray and study. Showing hospitality does not mean tickling our visitor’s fancy or letting them take advantage of us. When a servant of God is presented with a gift, he is not to turn his nose up at it even if it is basic. When a preacher talks about blessing the man of God and giving to his ministry, that preacher better be prepared to eat bread and water if that is the blessing he is given. Liberty on the side of the giver, contentment on the side of the recipient. Without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater. (Heb 7: 7) Thus it is apparent that Elisha was a good example of someone who received a blessing. He took whatever was offered him without complaint. Paul himself knew how to abound and also how to lack. In every circumstance he had learned to be content with whatever he had. How are we in that area? Do we gripe and moan about what we do not have? Or are we thankful that God has given us above our need of food and clothing?
Notice also the attitude with which the woman gave. When Elisha asked her what she would like in return for the care she gave, if she would like special mention made to Royalty (and let us face it, could Jehoram or Jehoshaphat decline Elisha after the grace showed to them in the last chapter?) how does she reply? She does not want it. She is perfectly content with what she had. She did not give with a motive of getting more from God. She gave with a good heart. She was not expecting anything in return. As we know, the teaching of sowing a faith seed plays to people’s covetousness. This woman was not like that. But whoever gives to the prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. Though she asks or expects no reward, God gives her one anyway and her reward is this, that she will have a son. Now this is not a recipe for having children if you are barren. Notice the woman did not ask for this. This was down to Elisha’s will and more profoundly the Lord’s will through Elisha. The woman tells Elisha, ‘Do not lie to your maidservant’. What she is saying is please do not make sport of me. Do not give me false hopes. There is a fear that her expectations will be raised in order to be dashed. It is much easier not to desire in the first place, than to desire and to lose it. When God gives us a desire and then prevents that desire from being fulfilled we may start thinking that God is playing with our emotions. God may seek us to die to our hearts’ desires but he never makes sport out of our vulnerabilities if we are submitted to Him. Now as with anything the Lord gives us, there will be a time where we must face the thought of losing that which God has given. God may take it away permanently or temporarily and it leads us to realise that we cannot control everything or keep it by our power. The best thing to do is to take it to the Lord. In verses 18 – 24 we read of how her son falls ill in the field, how he is taken to the mother and how he dies. What control the mother shows in her dealing with the death! She does not tell her husband. Now this is not insubordination on the wife’s part but she knew that man could do nothing for her son. God is the one whom she should turn to. The boy was given by the word of Elisha and to Elisha she goes.
Could it be that this woman is one of the women that Hebrews 11: 35 testifies to when it says that by faith, women received their dead by resurrection? I really believe that is the case. She presents no one her case except the prophet. Not even Gehazi is told. And when she arrives in verse 27 she falls down. Gehazi is quick to move her away. It is not proper for a woman to hold a guy like that. Gehazi is concerned with how it looks. And in some ways Gehazi was right. There is a way to treat people and to approach people that is proper but Elisha is not concerned about appearances, he sees the heart. The lady is in deep distress. He does not deride her for her uncontrolled display of emotion. He understands that she is troubled. How similar to our Lord who knows how to sympathise with our weaknesses. He felt what we feel. He was tempted yet without sin. He knows our frailties and he knows how powerful our emotions can grip us. No Elisha did not berate the woman for handling him as she did, he could see that it was not rebellion but a brokenness of heart. Nor did Elisha jump to conclusions. He did not have a thought and take it as God’s word for the lady. God does not always reveal things to His servants. His servants do not need to know all the answers. It was enough that Elisha could learn it from the woman herself. And I believe the reason for this was that a woman in this situation needs to be listened to and understood. She needed to tell Elisha and express how she was feeling. Is this not the kind of behaviour that God commands of husbands in 1 Peter 3: 7? What if there were more men like Elisha in the church who would allow women to express their emotions without deriding them for what we might call unbalanced and hormonal? What if, Instead of criticising weakness, they showed more understanding and then went to the Lord with their wives? What a high calling we husbands have.
Elisha sends Gehazi with the staff and tells him to lay the staff on the lad but it has no effect. Elisha was not going to go there. So why did nothing happen with the staff. When we compare this woman with the centurion we see two different levels of faith. The Centurion, in Matthew 8: 8 said “I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed”. How different to this lady in verse 30. She says I will not leave you. She would not accept that Elisha could send the staff and heal the son, she looked to Elisha. It is after she says this that he gets up and follows her. Thus when they arrive the staff has not accomplished anything. But instead we have a greater illustration of Christ with what Elisha does next. Just like Elijah did, he stretches himself out on the lad. His eyes to the boy’s dead eyes, his mouth to the dead mouth, his hands on the dead hands and warmth comes to the body. Here is the messianic significance. What would happen if you touched a dead body? Lev 21: 1. You get defiled. Elisha got defiled in order that that boy might have life. And what was it that signalled his being brought back to life? He sneezed seven times and then he opened his eyes. When God made Adam where did he breathe the breath of life in order that Adam would become a living being? It was in his nostrils. Thus Elisha is defiled that the boy might live, he came alive and was then able to see. As it is with us, Jesus became sin that we might live, we are spiritually born again and are thus able to see.
What we see in both accounts is God’s blessing to two different people. One needed oil and the other needed a resurrection. One was related to someone who served alongside a co-worker of Elisha. Another supported Elisha. The last group worked alongside Elijah. It is good to be a dependent of one who supports or works with God’s servants. It is better to be a supporter of God’s servants but it is even better to be a fellow worker. All of them have a share in the ministry. All of them are blessed. The first is shown mercy and grace, the second is rewarded and the last group will be rescued, despite the inclusion of unclean food. But God’s blessing does not promote laziness. It promotes industry and good stewardship. God’s reward is for those who act without seeking the reward and God’s salvation is preserved despite the inclusion of that which is from a foreign vine. God makes what was unclean, clean by the addition of the grain. Just like Elisha, Yeshua saves us from the bondage of slavery and brings us to new life. He will sanctify us, Gentiles from a foreign vine, by putting in the grain into our lives. He will make food abound where there is a famine of the word. His name means salvation; He not only saves us initially but continues to save us and will complete our salvation when He comes again.
SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY
NUMBER: 88 Jan 2012
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,
Greetings in the most wonderful name of Jesus. We hope you are all well. Well after we returned home from house sitting on the 2nd of Jan Di had clothes to sort through graciously given by some people in Vryheid with some old books. Di gave out the clothes and had a clinic run to do the following day. Salvi continued discipling with the guys from Alpha. There is definite signs of growth though sometimes they have problems in coming to the Sunday meetings. However they rarely miss the discipleship classes where we have been spending much time on the basic doctrines of the faith. It has been interactive with many questions posed to them. Salvi has just finished a lesson with them In our first cell group of the year Phumlani taught us concerning Christ being the rock on which the church is built and how we are to stick together as blocks cemented together. He said that he was inspired for the message while building his extra room for his hut. He has almost finished and his hut is now a home with three rooms. Phumlani is such a hard worker. At the cell, Phumlani’s sister, Celani, and his niece Khethiwe also attended. On the Sunday afternoon we went to visit Salvi’s friend, Tony who was visiting from New Zealand. His sister lives in Vryheid and runs a guest house. In fact Tony and his sister, among other people, were instrumental in the directing of Salvi and his friends, Caleb and Sophie to this area in starting the KwaZulu Mission 10 years ago.
The next wednesday after Cell we went down to the brethren in Stanger to Calvin Josiah, Mark Van Niekerk and the church there for 5 days. We planned it so that it would not interfere with home cell and discipleship. We also planned it around the time that Khethiwe needed to go back to Durban south in order to do her second year of studies in Business management. This saved her catching taxis. But upon reaching the area of umhlanga our bakkie/ute/truck overheated due to a leaking water pipe. Fortunately no damage was done to the engine but it was hard for the garage to fix it as the whole pipe was corroded and so it did not respond well to welding. They patched up the hole with epoxy eventually but this gave us some time to visit umhlanga which happened to be right on the sea. We were able to take Khethiwe paddling in the sea. Khethiwe had never been to the sea before and she waded in to her knees and was truly excited by the experience. She said that the sea reminded her of how big God is. When the bakkie was fixed we rushed Khethiwe to the place where she is living in the south of Durban and got to Mark and Marie Anne’s place in Stanger who received us with a warm welcome, lovely food and a kind reception from Dean and Taryn also, who are their son and daughter in law. During our time staying with them we got the opportunity to witness to a really nice guy called Dave who is searching for truth and had many thoughts that he is thinking through. It was a pleasure talking to him and he and Mark may be visiting us in Northern Natal in the future. Salvi taught three sessions over the weekend and did a questions and answers session also. The first teaching was on Friday evening concerning John 1 and the new creation. And the two sessions on Sunday were about the miracles of Jesus in John being signs pointing to Jesus and revealing His glory. On Monday morning we shared a breakfast with Calvin, the pastor there and his wife Jean before heading back. While in Stanger Di made contact with a group called Natural Balance to buy 10 wonder bags. The wonder bags are heat retention cookers which cook food that has been heated for 5-15 minutes on a stove element. The food is then placed in the bags which retains the heat , not letting it escape, this allows the food to cook through slowly for about hour. As you can tell from the title the company believes in the myth that people are causing climate change. However the bags are brilliant for the people in the local community for it will help them save on their gas, thus saving them money by making their gas last longer. Di had come across them when friends called Debbie and Riaan gave her one. Di was so impressed she thought it would be fantastic for the women of our community. This month she has sold all ten to local women, giving them demonstrations concerning how they work. The response was so good that in the future we will purchase more and have various women in the local areas responsible for collecting data and monies so that they can receive a small income from the sales.
This month the older gentleman who Di had rushed to hospital because the ambulance did not arrive, sadly died from a stoke, also the man she often takes to clinic was hospitalise in Mountain View hospital with TB.
Sal has spoken to this man several times about the gospel but he is convinced he is right with God and God is fine with him honouring and sacrificing to his dead ancestors. Tradition and culture cannot replace the truth of the scriptures.
Di started her reading lessons with Tholakele again for the year and she is is making progress slowly. Her desire is to read the bible for herself.
Finally we have received no further news about visas. Di’s visa application is still in process. We have received news that they will now fast track it, that was in Dec last year. Her last visa ran out in Feb 2011.
As for Salvi’s application for special consideration for permanent residence… For those of you who don’t know, Salvi although being in the country on and off for 10 years, has only continuously been in the country for 6 years this April. He was in the UK working between Dec 2004 and April 2006. Normally a person can apply for permanent residence if they have been in the country for 5 years on a work permit. However Salvi have been here on a visitor’s permit. Salvi does not qualify under any category to apply for permanent residence. However through the advice of a believer who works for home affairs Salvi has put together a port folio, application form and testimonies of 20 something ministers, company directors and even the local chief and a petition of over 150 local signatures with the request that a special exception be made for Salvi to get permanent residence. Last month we got news that the particular office of Home Affairs which are handling the case in Pretoria, are making application in Salvi’s place that Salvi be granted Deviation. Deviation means that Salvi be granted permission to apply outside of the regular process. As Home Affairs are doing this it means that they believe that Salvi has a case and if Salvi is granted permanent residence it will not matter if Di gets her visa granted or not as she will be able to apply for permanent residence also. So we will keep you updated in our newsletters as and when news comes in.
We thank you all for your prays and support, may the lord richly bless you as we labour together in His work.
Shalom
Salvi and Di
ELIJAH AND ELISHA
GOD’S GRACE TO JEHORAM ON ACCOUNT OF JEHOSHAPHAT
PART 11
2 Kings 3
In the last session we looked at the start of Elisha’s ministry and how he is a picture of the Messiah. To those who accepted Him, He became the source of blessing, salvation and purification. But to those who rejected him he became a source of cursing. Elisha cleansed the contaminated water through salt. And so it is with Jesus. Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth and he says that to us who follow Jesus’ teaching. It is not profession of Christ that makes us the salt of the earth but the obedience to Christ that does so. Also to be salt means that we lay on the altar anything that might be a stumbling block for us in our faith or for other people’s faith. The sacrifice of these things for the LORD is given to the High Priest and the family of the High Priest. In this we are salt. And so we experience a freshness and newness of life, a cleansing and salvation. Salt acts as a preservative. We are in the world but we are not of it. So we will see that the presence of the good king Jehoshaphat in this passage brings deliverance to Israel in this battle.
What we read of in this passage is the participation of the good King Jehoshaphat with the evil King Jehoram in battle. There is deliverance for Jehoram through the participation of Jehoshaphat but even so, does that make it right? Should we participate with evil pastors? In the Old Testament, God called the kings of different people shepherds. Both a shepherd and a king are rulers. Pastoral ministry includes the activity of ruling. Not as Gentile rulers which lord it over the people but as servant leaders. As Jesus said, the greatest among you must be servant of all. These questions we will deal with but let us read the passage bit by bit.
1 – 12 JEHOSHAPHAT’S PARTICIPATION WITH JEHORAM.
If you remember back to chapter one you may remember that Ahab’s son Ahaziah, an evil king that was just like his parents, died. Ahaziah had no son and thus the regency passed onto his brother, Jehoram. Ahaziah became king in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat’s reign and he reigned for 2 years. But Jeroboam became king in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat’s reign. Now the reason that these numbers do not seem to add up is because of the way the Jews counted a year of someone’s reign. If you became president of a company in March 2007 and your presidency was to terminate in the May of 2008 you would say that that person was president for one year and 2 months. But as Alfred Edersheim explains in his Bible History Old Testament, the Jews of the day would count the New Year from the month of Nissan (the month of Passover) and a king’s reign that extended beyond that, no matter how briefly the reign after that month would be counted as a second year of reign. Thus we would count 2007 as one year of rule and count 2008 as another year of rule. Thus you would have been president for 2 years. So we see that in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat’s reign Ahaziah became king and he reigned during the 17th year and the 18th year which would make a total of 2 years. And thus we see that Jehoram became king in the 18th year. The other discrepancy that people may point out is that in chapter 1: 17 Jehoram became king in the 2nd year of the reign of Jehoshaphat’s son, who also was called Jehoram, but in chapter 3: 1 we read that he became king in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat’s reign. So which king was on the throne? There is a plausible explanation that Wesley gave. The same time that Ahaziah became king was the same time that Ahab had been killed in a battle that he fought with Jehoshaphat where they were warned by the Prophet Micaiah that Ahab would not return safely. (1 Kings 22: 27 – 28) Jehoshaphat was a king that feared God and always asked to hear from a prophet of God. Thus it is highly likely that he would have instated his son as a Viceroy in his place in case he did not make it alive out of the battle. Thus during the 2nd year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat (being Viceroy), Jehoram the son of Ahab becomes king of Israel.
Now Jehoram was an evil king. He was not as bad as his parents. He did away with the Ba’al worship, at least officially he took a stance. But he still went in the same way as Jeroboam. In 1 Kings 12: 28 – 32 Jeroboam set up 2 calves, one in Bethel and one in Dan. This was to stop the people going to Jerusalem in order to worship the Lord. He changed the pattern that God had shown Moses with the tabernacle and that God had shown David concerning the temple. (1 Chr 28: 19) Jeroboam eliminated all of this and, just like the Israelites claimed that Aaron’s calf was the god who brought them out of Egypt so also, Jeroboam claimed that these calves were the gods that brought them out of Egypt. Jehoram was worshipping the calves. But the calves were not as bad as Ba’al worship. Even if we repent from gross sin. Maybe we have repented from Buddhism or Islam. If we join the Roman Catholic Church and partake in the Mass or use the rosary we are still not right before God. We are still partaking in idolatry. Even with Jehoram’s repentance God still calls him evil. We do not know why Jehoram did this? We can see from this passage that Jehoram wanted to regain the kingdom. When Ahab died the king of Moab rebelled. And he probably gained courage from the victory that the king of Aram gained over Ahab. Jehoram would have known that Elijah had prophesied against Ahab’s house because of Ba’al worship. So if we put 2 and 2 together we see it is likely that he got rid of Ba’al worship so that he could regain the kingdom. If this is true it was not a real repentance but a political move in order to regain power over the Moabites.
Now Jehoshaphat was different. He was a good king and revered God to a great extent except for one area. He was weak in the area of alliances. He kept allying himself with the wicked kings of Israel. In verse 7 we see that King Jehoram wanted to use Jehoshaphat’s help. Jehoshaphat was strong and rich and thus he was a pretty good ally to have. Though Ahab’s household had lost the servitude of the Moabites, Jehoshaphat had Edom in subjection. Where did the problem spring from? Why was Jehoshaphat a sucker for this kind of participation? 2 Chr 18: 1. There is much wisdom in the biblical precept ‘do not be unequally yoked’, and ‘bad company corrupts good morals’. He married into Ahab’s family. He not only married into them but he allied himself with Ahab through marriage. Now was this such a bad thing? Many people marry unbelievers and ally themselves with unbelievers. It is not necessarily wrong to do the same is it? Look also at Jehoshaphat’s character. In verse 11 he asks if there is a prophet of the Lord. He is seeking the Lord in his actions. Surely Jehoshaphat should help Jehoram out because by doing this he might be able to reach Jehoram. How could he be a good witness to these evil kings if he did not help Ahab, Ahaziah or Jehoram out? 1 Chr 19: 2. There is a difference between reproving someone or sharing the truth with them and participating in their enterprises. The King was leading the people astray and thus God was heavy on Jehoshaphat for helping him out. By loving those who hated the Lord, Jehoshaphat was bringing wrath on himself. He rode in Ahab’s chariot and got confused for being Ahab. Those who remain in Babylon will suffer the judgment of Babylon. Rev 18: 4. It is important that we do not use this verse to be introspective and cut ourselves off from people, but when it comes to helping ungodly groups, organizations, and multifaith initiatives we dare not ride with them in their endeavors. Jehoshaphat not only got reprimanded for his cooperation with Ahab, but he got reprimanded for his cooperation with Ahab’s son Ahaziah. 1 Chr 20: 35 – 37. And now we see he is doing exactly the same with Jehoram. Just because Jehoshaphat did this does not make him an evil king. We see in verses 11 – 12 that Jehoshaphat was one who sought God. He always asked if there was a prophet of Jehovah.
Verses 13 – 27 ELISHA’S PARTICIPATION AND THE VICTORY
Elisha’s attitude to Jehoram is very different from Jehoshaphat’s. Jehoshaphat seemed only too pleased to offer his resources to help Jehoram in the battle. Elisha, however, wants nothing to do with Jehoram. This is not Elisha’s attitude to all of the Israelites but only towards the King who is the cause of the nation’s downfall. This is why I believe that our attitude to those who are in Church leadership or who lead others astray must be different to those who are being led astray. All will suffer judgment but God’s criticism is harsher with the shepherds than it is with the flock. 2 Tim 2: 24 – 26. We are to correct those who err with a spirit of gentleness and yet Paul tells Timothy also to rebuke with great patience and instruction. Also Paul tells Titus that concerning those of the circumcision who are rebellious, empty talkers and deceivers that they must be silenced and severely reproved for they are upsetting whole families. They were teaching what they ought not to teach for sordid gain. (Tit 1: 10 – 14) So too, Elisha, upon meeting Jehoram, who was exacerbating the judgment against Israel, reproved him harshly. Elisha says, ‘What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and of your mother.’ One of these prophets we read about in 1 Kings 22: 11 and he was called Zedekiah. He prophesied in the name of Jehovah, in the name of YAHWEH. In verse 12 all the prophets were prophesying in the name of YAHWEH. In verse 6 they prophesied not that YAHWEH would deliver the king but that Adonai would. A Lord. Not the LORD. But when Jehoshaphat asks for a prophet of YAHWEH they start using the name of YAHWEH. They are just like members of South African parliament who change parties but keep their seats. Go to the prophets of your parents who will be anything you want them to be, who will say anything you want them to say. Go to them. Elisha is not telling him to repent but handing him over to sin.
Jehoram contests that he cannot go to them because he believes that the LORD has called them to be defeated by Moab. His evidence was the lack of water and the futility of their journey thus far. No one told Jehoram that this was the LORD’s hand against him but something in him thought this was God’s dealing. So how does Elisha respond? He says that if it were not for Jehoshaphat’s presence Elisha would not look at him or see him. Just the presence of the godly King brings grace into the whole situation and Jehoram benefits from it. The country is filled with water. (v 20) And the Moabites are defeated. (v 21 – 27) God promised to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if there were 10 righteous people in the place. In Rev 12: 14 we see that Satan tries to destroy Israel and they are protected for a time, times and half a time. For three and a half years in the tribulation Satan tries to destroy Israel but cannot so he therefore turns against the rest of her children who hold to the testimony of Jesus. There is a great persecution. Zechariah 12: 9 tells us that many nations will come against Jerusalem and when there is no one to help, and then God Himself will intervene and destroy those nations. When they try to obliterate God’s people, God obliterates them. And we have already read in Rev 18: 4 that God tells His people to come out of Babylon so they don’t partake in her sins and share of her plagues.
God criticised Jehoshaphat for his ungodly alliance with Ahab. He was criticised for his alliance with Ahaziah. But now he was with Jehoram and God by all accounts should allow both him and Jehoram to have it. If you help the wicked and love those that hate the Lord you bring wrath on yourself from the LORD. Jehoshaphat has been warned. Those who participate in Babylon will share in its plagues. If you fight with the enemy you will die with the enemy. But that does not happen this time. In fact it does not happen at all. Jehoshaphat’s presence brings victory not only to Jehoshaphat but also to Jehoram. How do we explain this? God warns of judgment but instead we see victory. Does this one act negate all the warnings that God has given us? No but the answer is as simple as this. God was gracious at this time. How many times should we have born the consequences of our compromise or sins and we have been let off the hook? Too many to tell. We do not deserve it and God does not have to do it… but He did. He did not have to spare Jehoshaphat but He did. And in our desire to protect against people abusing the grace of God we emphasise that God will forgive but we still have to pay the consequences of our sins and in many cases we do have to bear them. But that does not mean that God will never take away the consequences. God’s grace may actually act to store up wrath against us and it will if it is abused; but nevertheless his grace is still there. Sometimes people get away with so much that it adds to the deception that says that God does not see. But His grace is still there. (Romans 2: 3 – 4)
What about you and me? God’s acts of grace will never negate His judgment. He is serious when he warns us that if we participate we will share in the judgments. God’s grace to us demands a response of repentance and a pleading for forgiveness. As someone once said, ‘I believe that God is a God of second, third, fourth chances and any number of chance but be careful because you never know when your last chance has come.’ With greater grace comes greater responsibility to respond.
SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY
NUMBER: 88 Jan 2012
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 trust you all have a good holiday and that this new year will be memorable and blessed in the Lord. As we see the potential wars going to happen between Israel and Iran with her allies, possibly escalating into the third world war and on another front between China and the US, we are to make sure that we are right with the Lord and that we are looking to Jesus’ return. Scripture has told us what will happen and these things are possibly the mechanisms through which we will see the emergence of the Antichrist, a power struggle between the Antichrist and ‘the king of the south’, a treaty made between Antichrist and Israel only to be broken half way through the agreement. We will see ever increasing anti-Israel sentiment among the nations, the rise of a one world religious body and possibly see the emergence of a great revived Roman empire which will see the integration or marrying of countries of the middle east and the European west. The scripture tells us something of what will happen but it does not tell us how. This is why we keep our eyes open to the developments in the world surrounding Israel, global religion and global economy. But to do this we cannot allow ourselves to be consumed by temporal pleasures that we only keep the bare minimum of oil of spiritual illumination of the Holy Spirit. Yet while trading in spiritual oil we are to be made more profoundly aware of the lateness of the hour, and the small opportunity we have to be busy about the father’s business. We need to take opportunity to preach, to fellowship and to expose sin and error with a view of sharing the answer in Christ while laws permit us to do so. Inaction is ministerial suicide. However may our action not be motivated by what we perceive as the need but may it be according to God’s word and by the leading of the Spirit.
This week for Salvi is very special for it was this week 10 years ago that Salvi first came to South Africa to study with Dave Royle in a church in Springs for a year. Salvi had a suspicion that he would be working in South Africa for longer but didn’t know how. Within one month of being in South Africa we had left that church and Dave started a missions work. Salvi transferred his studies. That year Salvi joined Caleb and Sophie Massey as and supported them as they started the mission work and ran the Mission station in KwaZulu Natal for the next two years. Little did we all know all that would transpire over these 10 years. But we know that the Lord has been faithful to us, has kept us and made us stronger in Him. So this year in August will mark the 10th anniversary of the Kwazulu Mission and it is such a privilege for us to be here and a small part of it.
We have just gotten back after two weeks of house sitting in Vryheid. Salvi kept coming into the area twice a week for church and bible teaching. Jabulani is now back home after a period of hard grafting labour. He has gotten a little weaker after foresting work which has taken a lot out of him. But he is still doing well and we are encouraging him and the mother of his son to do what is right before the Lord in terms of a marriage. She was not saved. However she has been very open to the gospel and Jabulani on Sunday said that he believes that she will commit her life to the Lord. Well, today at the bible study they shared that she wanted to commit her life to the Lord and that she wanted to wait till Msindisi, that is Salvi, arrived to pray and ask the Lord to come into her life. Salvi went though the Gospel one more time so that we could make sure she understood and she prayed for Salvation confessing her sin. She also got baptised today also in wanting to obey the Lord. We are taking her home tomorrow morning so that she will be separated until they get married.
The two weeks of home sitting have been a gift from the Lord. Di has been taking advantage of the electricity supply and water from a tap. The family have a pool so that was a blessing on those days which exceeded 33 degrees Celsius even going as high as 36. Salvi has been taking some time to start his assignment, record a couple of songs with various instrumentation, one of which will be performed at a wedding in April and we could also do some administration and accounts for our umbrella, Road to Recovery.
Earlier in the month Di helped with the Kids club. Celani threw a Christmas party as a local farmer called Evelin had given some money for party food. The children of Pilgrim’s fellowship in Australia had put together a few presents for the children and so those were given out. Di did her last clinic run of the year and teaching of literacy for Tholakele. Tholakele is doing very well and we trust she will be reading at the end of this year. At the end of November Phumlani lead his elderly uncle to the Lord and has been visiting him. We think he will be near to passing away for he is very frail.
While house sitting we held a one off bible study for some friends where Salvi taught on Psalm 1 and the necessity of getting into the word and the word getting into us. Three friends attended and said that they were much blessed by it. In the second week of house sitting a couple of friends called Sean and Catherine visited us for 3 days. Sean had visited us twice before with our friend Tony. We took them to visit Mr Khumalo and Jabulani. Last time Sean had seen them both they had not yet given their lives to the Lord. Khumalo asked Salvi to share something from the bible so Salvi put Sean on the spot and Khumalo’s wife came in to hear the message which is an absolute miracle as whenever we usually have a bible study she stays well away. Sean and Kathryn also came with us to the home to visit Phumlani and Thabi.
This month we also saw the visit of our friends from Piet Retief, Olaf and Charnel Hinze with their baby Nathan at Jonny and Kim’s place where we had a braai and a bible study. As for Louwsburg Bible Fellowship, we had our last meeting for the year on the 13th Dec and we start again this week with Phumlani giving us a teaching. Salvi has been teaching at church continuing with Deuteronomy although on Christmas day, because there were visitors at church Salvi gave a gospel message concerning why Jesus was born and came to the earth. Unbeknownst to us Celani had prepared a huge spread and had cooked for everyone. Salvi has finished evangelising the area of KwaBokkie and so started to evangelize Ngenitsheni twice a week. This will be picked up again this week.
On Saturday we will be visiting one of Salvi’s friends called Tony Spandow. Tony was one of the people that Salvi first met when he came into South Africa ten years ago. Tony used to be a minister with WEC and is now living in New Zealand. Tony gave Salvi a few points for mission. The first was that we need to know that God can. Secondly he shared that we need to get under people’s whatever in reaching them. Thirdly he shared that God can use Zulus to reach Zulus. Tony will be visiting his sister in Vryheid this weekend which is where we will meet him.
So what can we expect this year. Next week we will be taking Khethiwe to college in Durban and using that as an opportunity to visit and minister to Calvin Josiah, Mark Van Niekerk and the church in Stanger. They brethren there have asked that we come quarterly and we are working these trips so that they don’t interfere with home cell on tuesdays. It does mean that we are not there for church on that coming Sunday. We also have been asked by Chris De Wet to visit them in Bloemfontein and to share. We first met Chris face to face in Stanger when we shared a house in Ballito to attend a Bible conference. So we just need to arrange an appropriate time that won’t interfere too much with the ministry this side. In March or April we should be visiting Alan Mackenzie and the church in Port Elizabeth as we did last year. As the Lord wills we trust also that we will have the opportunity, later in the year as visa stuff and permanent residence stuff is sorted out to visit friends and family in New Zealand and maybe also in Australia. But at the moment we are just holding that lightly. Our friend Mujuru has asked us to visit Zimbabwe with him for evangelism but we have asked if Phumlani and Thabi want to go. As we are traveling much anyway we feel that we need to share some responsibility with Phumlani and as Phumlani’s heart is more in his evangelism than bible teaching it seems that it would be perfect for him to get involved in this. There is also the added benefit that Phumlani will see how the church there practices their cell based discipleship and evangelism and this may give Phumlani a new perspective and lease of life for the church here in Eastmine. Phumlani has a passport and has two weeks that he is allowed to take off work so please pray that everything can be coordinated and arranged to make this possible. It will be Phumlani’s first time he will have ever gone outside of South African borders.
Finally we have received some recent news about visa issues this last month. Di’s visa application is still in process. We have received news that they will now fast track it, which is nice as her visa ran out in Feb 2011. So hopefully she will get her renewal before Feb 2012. As for Salvi’s application for special consideration for permanent residence… For those of you who don’t know, Salvi although being in the country on and off for 10 years, has only continuously been in the country for 6 years this April. He was in the UK working between Dec 2004 and April 2006. Normally a person can apply for permanent residence if they have been in the country for 5 years on a work permit. However Salvi have been here on a visitor’s permit. Salvi does not qualify under any category to apply for permanent residence. However through the advice of a believer who works for home affairs Salvi has put together a port folio, application form and testimonies of 20 something ministers, company directors and even the local chief and a petition of over 150 local signatures with the request that a special exception be made for Salvi to get permanent residence. Last month we got news that the particular office of Home Affairs which are handling the case in Pretoria, are making application in Salvi’s place that Salvi be granted Deviation. Deviation means that Salvi be granted permission to apply outside of the regular process. As Home Affairs are doing this it means that they believe that Salvi has a case and if Salvi is granted permanent residence it will not matter if Di gets her visa granted or not as she will be able to apply for permanent residence also. So we will keep you updated in our newsletters as and when news comes in.
We thank you all for your prays and support, may the lord richly bless you as we labour together in His work.
Shalom
Salvi and Di
ELIJAH AND ELISHA
SEPARATION, ENTERING THE PROMISE AND A NEW START
PART 9
2 Kings 2: 1 – 14
Ahab has long ago fallen and thus the request that Elijah made where he prayed that God would take his life would now be answered in a way more glorious than Elijah could ever have imagined. Elijah was one of the greatest men that the bible ever mentions. No wonder that Jesus said of John the Baptist that there was none born of women greater than John, as John came in the Spirit of Elijah. I once knew a guy called Peter Africa and he once said that success without a successor is a failure. Thus before God would take Elijah out of the picture He commanded Elisha be anointed as prophet in his place and thus Elisha became a disciple of Elijah just like Joshua did of Moses but Jesus never did of John because Jesus was greater than John. But we must remember that being someone’s disciple does not mean that we will necessarily be that person’s replacement. Jesus had 120 disciples but only 12 of them were appointed apostles. However God had specifically pointed Elisha out as the one who would take up the mantle. Elisha was to take on an amazing ministry but up till now we have not seen him do anything. He has only been spending time with Elijah and serving him. There was nothing extraordinary in Elisha that we have seen recorded. And now we read in the first verse that the time has come for God to take Elijah away. I want us to try to imagine what it must have been like for Elisha to have this knowledge. Can we imagine the multiplicity of emotions going through Elisha’s heart, the thoughts racing through his head? “How will I conduct the ministry? Will I be expected to do the same things as my teacher?” How he would miss his teacher! And to top it all off there is the life changing experience of entering into a completely different role; from servant to being the prophet of God and Elisha being apprehensive of this must have thought, ‘boy do I need the Grace and the power of Almighty God to do this!’
All the prophets knew it was God’s time for Elijah to go. Many men of God have known the hour of their departure. Elijah knew, Simeon in the temple knew, Jesus knew, Paul knew, Peter knew. And here it was not just Elijah that knew this, it was all the prophets. In verse 3 and verse 5 the prophets, literally the sons of the prophets ask Elisha, ‘Do you know that the Lord will take away your lord from over your head today?’ Elijah was Elisha’s covering and Elisha knows this and replies, I know please be still. Elisha is going to be without the one who taught him and the one to whom he could turn for advice and here these people keep bringing it up and there is no way for Elisha to get away from the fact. Talk about rubbing salt into a sore wound. What is Elijah doing here? Why does Elisha have to face all these people? God is sending Elijah to all the places where there are schools of Prophets for the last time. And Elijah continually gives Elisha the option of staying behind. ‘Elisha, you do not need to come you know. You do not have to keep being reminded of the fact that I am going, stay behind please and save yourself some pain.’ And Elisha’s determination to do the right thing comes to the fore, ‘I will not leave you’. What is our attitude to Jesus? If we follow Jesus He will lead us through times of hardship, suffering, tears, persecution and pain and He asks us, are you going to stay behind? Are we going to follow or are we going to stay behind. What direction was Elijah heading in? He was going to heaven.
In verse 1 we read that Elijah is going to be taken in a whirlwind. That is putting it mildly. The name Gilgal means round, or a wheel, and comes from the word galgal, which can mean whirlwind because it moves round and round. But this is a much stronger word. The word for whirlwind here is Sa’ar and it means a tempest, a storm, a hurricane. Elijah was going to be taken up to heaven in a storm, in the midst of something tempestuous. But there are a couple of places that Elijah must visit first. These are Bethel and Jericho before he may reach Jordan. The reason Elijah goes to these places, besides the instruction given by God, is because there were schools of prophets in Bethel and Jericho and Jordan was the place where Elijah would be taken up. However there is a spiritual significance to all of these places. The significance lies in the words, entrance, separation and a new start. Bethel, Jericho and Jordan have a connection to some kind of separation, entrance and a new start.
Bethel is first mentioned in Genesis 12: 8 when Abraham had entered the Promised Land. In Genesis 12 we see that Abraham was called in Haran to leave his country, his father’s house hold and his relatives and to go to the land God had promised him. But in Acts 7 we see that Abraham was called before he lived in Haran, all the way back in Ur. Abraham did leave his country but he did not leave his father’s household for his family decided to take him to Haran with his wife. They went out together but God said that Abraham was to leave his father’s household. After Abraham’s father dies, then the call of God comes to Abraham again and this time he obeys more but not completely for although he left his country and his father’s house, he still takes along his nephew lot. The first place that Abraham arrives in is called Shechem and Abraham builds an altar. The second place is called Bethel, house of God. However after this Abraham goes down to Egypt and when he leaves Egypt he comes back to Bethel. Abraham messed up in Egypt. He told a half truth that Sarah was his sister and Pharaoh took Sarah as his wife. Abraham messed up but we read in Gen 12: 8 and Gen 13: 4, both times at this place, at Bethel, that Abraham called on the name of the Lord. It was in one sense a type of salvation because whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. He not only called on the name of the Lord before Egypt, before he stuffed up but even afterwards he could come back to that starting point. As verse 4 of Gen 13 says, Bethel was the place where Abraham had been at the beginning. He messed up but God gave him a new start. To be saved we need to turn our back on where we came from, to count the past as a heap of ruins and to come out of Egypt, to come out of the world. After the second calling on the Lord Abraham experiences a strife between his men and Lot’s men and there comes a separation between them. The separation was necessary because it was the fulfilling of the call that God had given him and thus God brings new revelation. God ties the promise of the land to the land itself and tells Abraham to walk the length and breadth of the land. In a sense this is an entrance into the promise. For the calling that Abraham received before, made the giving of the promise dependant on Abraham’s obedience to God’s request. It is only the second time at Bethel that Abraham’s obedience is completed, thus only then has he made that entrance into the promise. Abraham has yet to enter the covenant but in chapter 13: 14 – 17 it is no longer ‘do this and I will give,’ but now it is ‘I will give’. There is an entrance, a separation and a new start.
Think about Jacob at Bethel. Gen 28: 10 – 20. Jacob had grown up in the home of believers in God. His father, Isaac, in Genesis 26: 24 – 25 had experienced the Lord appear to him and had called upon God’s name. But for 40 years Jacob had referred to God as the God of his father. God seemed distant. Jacob separates from his family and it is at Bethel that Jacob receives the same promise as his father. God does not condition the receiving of the promise on anything but he gives it to Jacob. I don’t believe this is salvation. I see Jacob’s salvation coming at a later date when he wrestles with the angel but never the less he enters into the promise. This marks a new start for Jacob. Before God seemed distant but now he realises that God is with him. The same happened with me. I grew up in a Christian home and made an initial decision for Christ when I was 7. When I was 19 I was doing a degree and sort of living a double life. It was not until I moved out of my parents that I heard the voice of God clearly convicting me. Jacob’s life would never be the same again. He knew the reality of God in his life and he made a vow that if God was faithful and kept him on his journey and brought him back safely then God would be his God. But Jacob could not go back now. This was a pivotal point in his life and it was the start of a whole new journey of finding the Lord for himself as his own God. So Jacob had to be separated from his family to be alone with the Lord, just like Abraham. He had to enter into God’s promise and experience a fresh start in his life. Elijah firstly takes Elisha to Bethel, a place of separation, a new start and an entrance in the promise of God.
The next place that Elijah must go to is Jericho. Jericho is of course the name of the place that Joshua and Israel firstly invaded. It marked the entrance into the Promised Land. But before the Israelites could enter into the promised land there had to be a dying off of all the unbelieving Israelites and a separation from Moses. Not just being separated from the old crowd but also a separation from the one who represented righteousness under the Law. There has to be a separation from old affinities, our old ideas of self righteousness in order to enter the promise. The one is based on the righteousness of man, the other is based on the promise of God. We stand before God naked and alone. We are not strong enough or fit enough to inherit the promise, just as Israel were not strong enough to inherit the land. The difference is when God is on your side. How can God be on our side? How can God be on the side of sinners? Because Jesus took our punishment and satisfied God’s holy anger against our sin. That is how God can be on our side. And after they obeyed the Lord and blew their trumpets the walls came down. What were the trumpets about? Therebis a parallel between Jericho and the trumpet judgments in Revelation. And what is said when the last trumpet is sounded? Rev 11: 15. In other words they are saying to antichrist, ‘Your kingdom is at an end, Christ is instituting a new one.’ The kingdoms of Canaan were at an end, Israel would now be established, a new kingdom and a new start. There was separation from the one who represented a righteousness of the Law, an entrance into the promise and lastly a new start in the life of not only the nation of Israel but also of the land of Canaan. Elijah secondly takes Elisha to Jericho. A place of separation, entrance into God’s promise and a place of a new start.
But lastly and much closer to home Elijah finally takes Elisha to the Jordan. Jordan means descent and it is at this place that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus and the anointing descended on Elisha as we will read. Elisha’s mentor figure is being taken away. He is being reminded of it constantly. What will Elisha do when Elijah is taken away? Verse 9 & 10. He needs God’s anointing and equipping. Now a double portion does not necessarily mean that Elisha wanted twice what Elijah had but refers to Deut 21: 17. In other words Elisha saw himself as Elijah’s firstborn and he wanted to inherit the spirit of Elijah in order to do God’s will. But Elijah does not promise anything to him except that if Elisha saw the sign it would be given. It was not down to Elijah if Elisha could get the anointing. The graces of God are distributed as He wills. Yes the Apostles imparted the Holy Spirit with the laying on of hands but they did that to all the believers. When it came to choosing an apostle to replace Judas, they could not simply decide who they wanted to take his place but they prayed and drew lots. There is no such thing as passing down a ministry from father to son but the Lord determines who will take that place and the anointing must come from Him. Abraham had to be separated from unsaved family. Jacob had to be separated from both ungodly and godly family members. Israel had to be separated from Moses and the older unbelieving generation. But here Elisha has to face being separated from his spiritual father. Discipleship in the bible is not program based but is relationship based. A teacher gathers to himself disciples who hear his teaching and watch his example and then they try to emulate their teacher until they become like their teacher. Just as a son grows up to be like his father. Not that we start going round calling certain people father, like the Roman Catholics do. Jesus said to call no man your father. However, in the bible we see a discipleship relationship where people like Paul would try to be a spiritual father to believers, one that said, ‘Follow me as I follow Christ.’
And we can hear the heart break of Elisha as Elijah is taken up in the Chariot and through what he says in verse 12. What Elisha is saying is that Elijah is Israel’s defence. Through Elijah’s ministry and his prayers he did more to protect Israel than Chariots and horses. But what was going to happen now? Israel’s defence has been taken away. Elisha is no great prophet, he was just serving Elijah and he rips his clothes in two, so great is his grief. As Matthew Henry stated; ‘He (God) takes away superiors from our head, inferiors from our feet, equals from our arms; let us therefore carefully do the duty of every relation, that we may reflect upon it with comfort when it comes to be dissolved.’ It is hard enough when God separates us from unsaved family but when God strips away people from us, people who have helped us so much in our spiritual walk in some ways it is even harder. Our earthly relationships are only temporal. Now why does God do that? Because while Elijah is still around, Elisha will never fulfil the ministry that God has for him to do. As long as Elijah is around Elisha will look to Elijah instead of looking to the Lord. And as Elijah goes up in this tempest, in this storm with the winds of sorrow, grief and loss are prevailing over Elisha’s heart and all seems lost, then Elijah’s mantle falls down. It is in the midst of the storm that Elisha is to rise up to the ministry that he was called but before he does he must learn one important lesson. The anointing and the calling does not get transferred through a person such as Elijah but it comes from the Lord. Elisha picks up Elijah’s mantle and strikes the water in verse 14 and nothing happens. The power was not in Elijah or Elijah’s mantle but it must be found in the Lord. He does not ask ‘Where is Elijah?’ He asks ‘Where is the God of Elijah?’ He entered into the promise that God gave Elijah, that Elisha would take his place in 1 Kings 19: 16 and thus a new ministry was started.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 27 trips to carry that many people.
SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY
NUMBER: 87 Dec 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,
Here we are at the end of the year and how this year has flown by. It is only when we look back that we see how much has happened. Really, we can only sum it up in one word… Grace, that is God’s grace to us who are undeserving.
For this newsletter we thought we would summarise the past year and see what may be in store for next year. Next August will mark the tenth anniversary of the mission since it started with Caleb and Sophie Massey in 2002. The church that Caleb and Salvi started continues faithfully.
It has been a year of some fruit. God has been good with bringing Tholakele to salvation and seeing her baptised. The church has acquired many visitors from young children who Salvi picks up every week from one of the local communities for church. Phumlani’s wife Thabi also got baptised in obedience to the word this year. Phumlani and Salvi share the teaching. Phumlani has become a very able expositor of the word and is faithful and yet it is easy to see that he has a heart for preaching the gospel. It is like Phumlani takes on a vitality with evangelistic preaching. Last month Phumlani lead his elderly and frail uncle in a prayer for salvation after witnessing to him in a state of mental instability and sleepless nights. After his uncle has stabilised he is still confessing Jesus as his Lord and Saviour and a rejection of traditional Zulu medicine. Phumlani’s uncle is very ill. Please pray that the Lord will keep him faithful to his profession until he goes home. Di has thoroughly enjoyed helping out with the kid’s club throughout the year. The older kids are now interpreting for Di when she is teaching it. Younger children are starting to come up and start the lessons. The age group starts from 3 till 16. Celani has really appreciated the help as she always faithfully runs the club.
It has been a year of visitors. Over the first nine months of the year we have regularly had people visiting from South Africa and abroad. In Feb we had some visitors from African Independent Insurance who brought food stuffs to give to the poor, instruments for the kid’s club, New Testaments to give out and personal gifts to us too. It was a wonderful experience for them to visit Zulu kraals and see people in the contexts of their own homes. Jacob Meads stayed with us for 3 months and left a huge impression with everybody that got to know him. Our friends Clayton and Jessie came to visit from the UK. Clayton has moved to the UK and this year got married to Jessie there. But Clayton is from South Africa and his parents are our very good friends Allen and Sue Wells who run Bezaleel in fostering and adopting 11 children. A young girl Bianca stayed with us for 3 weeks and she was followed by Salvi’s really good friend from the UK called Joe Rumley with his father in law, Rob, who is a pastor in Gauteng.
It has been a year if new friends and partnerships. We thank the Lord so much for Alan Mackenzie and the brethren that meet us in Port Elizabeth. Their Road to Recovery Christian Fellowship took us under their wing this year giving us a legal affiliation in order to stay in South Africa and apply for extension of temporary visitors permit. Alan and Salvi are in continual communication and Alan has been a great source of encouragement. Another source of encouragement has been meeting Mark and Marie Anne Van Niekerk from Stanger and through them meeting Pastor Calvin and the brethren there.
New friendships have lead to ministry and visiting opportunities during the year making it a year of visiting. Early in the year we travelled to Port Elizabeth to visit Alan and the brethren. Several times this year we have visited Calvin and Mark. Last month Salvi did a teaching weekend of three sessions on the building of the Church. The first message was a typological study on Haggai 1, second was a look at the baptism of the Spirit and speaking in tongues, the third session was on the purpose and end of the building of the body. The sessions were received very well and people were blessed, some even received peace for they had been subject to false teaching on the baptism of the Spirit and speaking in tongues. Salvi also visited Zimbabwe this year for a week. It was the first time Salvi and Di had been apart for so long in their whole marriage. But the door is always open to do visit again and to possibly to do some ministry there. We would love Phumlani to visit the brethren there and are sure he would be encouraged in his own ministry through it.
It has been a year of weddings. This year a former member of our cell group got married to one of Salvi’s friends, Phumlani and Thabi got married in May. Clayton and Jessie Wells got married in August in the UK which we saw through Skype and Allen and Sue’s place. Allen went overseas for the wedding but as they have 11 children Sue couldn’t go. So it was wonderful to be able to share the experience with them. Technology is just wonderful. Last month also Tholakele and the father of her children had a civil ceremony
As she wants to follow the Lord she gave her husband an ultimatum that he either does the right thing or leaves. That was a brave thing to do and not accepted in the culture but he is working and providing for the family and has been very open to the gospel. Please pray for him, his name is Thokozani.
It has been a year of social help. Di has continually taken people to the clinic. Through the help of African Independent and the church in Stanger, as well as our very good friends in Australia through Moriel, we have been able to give food, clothes and knitted jumpers to some of the most needy in the community. Di teaches Tholakele to read on a weekly basis so that one day she will be able to read the bible. Such thought puts a smile on Tholakele’s face. We have done several trips to the hospital this year and Salvi helped as undertaker when Tholakele’s brother died. It was through helping out in this way, and an opportunity to witness that she became interested in the gospel and Jabulani led her to accept the Lord. Di also acts as first aid nurse when people have pains or accidents. She doesn’t have much training but keeps simple things at hand and a good book called where there is no doctor. People will come to her for help, especially Phumlani’s family. With Di’s garden and her growing her own veg – Salvi rarely steps into the garden except to pick an onion or spinach if he cooks something- we have been able to give out veggies to some people in the community, especially some of the folks from church.
It has been a year of evangelism. Monthly we have reached out at the Care bear creche. Di usually gives the lesson for the children but last week Salvi preached to the parents at their children’s graduation a hard hitting gospel message and broke his record for the shortest preaching he has ever done, just 15 minutes! The ladies bible study that started in Louwsburg has unfortunately fizzled out as only one woman was interested in continuing. However, Salvi made sure he preached them and explained the gospel. Salvi has also completed the areas of Alpha and KwaBokkie this year which leaves Ngenitsheni to complete for next year. This Salvi has now started to do twice a week. But it was through Salvi’s preaching in KwaBokkie that the children started to attend the church meetings as Salvi picks them up every week and takes them back after the service. Ngenitsheni is a huge area with many homes and subareas. Salvi is about half way through the whole area after which will only leave the areas of Khambi and Cibilili to fill with the preaching of the Gospel. Esihlengeni, Steiland, Eastmine, KwaBokkie and AlphaVillage all having received gospel witness. Hopefully by the end of next year, God willing, we will have finished Ngenitsheni and be well on the way to the completion of all the areas. Tracts go out week after week, always weather permitting which stays with people. Individual witnessing also has taken place. Last week Salvi witnessed to a guy with Diabetes called Bongiseni and his partner about the importance of being born again. They brought up the issue of ancestral traditions which Salvi answered using scripture.
It has been a year of testing. Di’s last visa expired in February and she has reapplied twice now for an extension of her permit. We are awaiting the results as we write. We don’t believe it will be decided till next year as we are bearing Christmas now, but it is nearly a year that Di has been in the country without a permit. Please pray for a favorable result. Di is entitled to stay in the country until a decision is made. Please pray that her application will be approved. Salvi is applying for permanent residence but asking for an exception to be made in his case as someone in his position is not normally allowed to apply for permanent residence. His case is being reviewed as we write but it is taking time. If Salvi gets permanent residence it will not matter if Di’s application is approved or not, she would be able to apply for permanent residence under Salvi. Living here in the rurals in a Zulu place without electricity or water plumbed in is always a challenge. Living in one room with Salvi studying while other jobs need to be completed by Di is also a challenge. Alan Mackenzie visited this year also for a few hours on his way to Durban with his wife Brenda and their daughter Tayla and he commented that a person could get cabin fever living in this house. Together with that there is the eternal battle with constant flies, mud, – Di is constantly aware of snakes in the vicinity, especially after her experience with the Mozambiquean Spitting Cobra a while ago – and cows and chickens nibbling on Di’s flowers. We are constantly reminded to rely on God’s grace and aware that numerous people are holding us up in prayer. People in the area have grown up with all this but as foreigners to this lifestyle it can get to you a little bit and that is when you know you are here because you have been called to, for whatever period of time it is, not because you want to be here.
But there is much to be thankful for. Our truck, an Isuzu Bakkie 2.5 diesel given to us by Allen Wells has regularly been serviced and fixed more than once by Hendrik Els and Craig Boardman from Bethany Baptist Church in Vryheid. They have been a huge help and life saver and really keep the ministry going here as we cover a lot of kms in the week. Our home cell meets from house to house within a 40km radius. So sometimes we use 80 kms just for a home cell. They are really part of the ministry in ways that they don’t realise. We want to thank the Lord for our home cell and the several miracles that we have seen. The Lord has kept us together and knitted us. The home cell is coming up to its third year of running. We have seen much growth in the members and we are now studying Romans. We thank the Lord for His rich provision this year and His grace in keeping us.
So what does the following year hold for us? Many things are in the Lord’s hands but a few things may be in the pipeline. Pastor Calvin and Mark Van Niekerk in Stanger have asked us to come on a quarterly basis for Salvi to do more teaching and also to do some evangelism amongst the Zulu there. We are hoping to go down either every third or quarter of the year but will work it so that it doesn’t disturb our discipling too much. Chris De Wet from Bloemfontein has also asked us to visit them there and to share the word so that is another possibility. Plus our friend Mujuru from Pretoria, through whom Salvi went to Zimbabwe, is thinking of running short term mission trips to the rural areas of Zimbabwe and is interested in us getting involved in some way. Apart from that Salvi is seeking to finish the area of Ngenitsheni at least and Di has some ideas for helping school children if the Lord grants us the ability to remain here longer and enables her to do so. We really hope that our newsletters and teachings have been a source of encouragement and blessing to you and causes praises to be given to the Lord. If that has been your experience then our newsletters will have fulfilled the purpose for which they were written.
We thank you all for your prays and support, may the lord richly bless you as we labour together in His work.
Shalom
Salvi and Di
ELIJAH AND ELISHA
THE REPROACH OF GOING TO A FALSE GOD
PART 8
2 Kings 1
We are now in 2 Kings and Ahab has died. The lesson with Ahab serves to illustrate a very important point. Even though God may be gracious to us and even though we may humble ourselves before the LORD and accept His Word to us, this is not my security in salvation. We saw that Ahab was, at least outwardly, contrite but this was not long lived, though God delayed the judgment till after his death. But in 1 Kings 22 we see that Ahab was once again hardened against God’s messenger. We cannot rely on the fact that we were born again on such and such a date. The question that befalls us is; are we following the Lord today? That is something that sometimes confuses us. We think that because we were born again five years ago we feel secure concerning our relationship with the LORD. But Romans 1: 17 says that the righteous man shall live by faith. God sends a deceiving spirit to speak through all the false prophets to Ahab and Ahab goes into battle to his own destruction for he is killed. However, since our study is on the consecutive ministries of Elijah and Elisha, we are not going to deal with 1 Kings 22 because neither Elijah nor Elisha appear in it but we are going to fast forward to the short lived reign of Ahab’s son, Ahaziah. We will deal with these 18 verses in three sections. Firstly from verses 1 – 8 we will see Ahaziah’s attempt to consult Baal-zebub, then from verses 9 – 15 we will look at Ahaziah’s attempt to apprehend Elijah and then lastly, from verses 16 – 18 we will see Ahaziah’s end.
1 – 8 AHAZIAH’S ATTEMPT TO CONSULT BAAL-ZEBUB
Ahab was hardened to the LORD’s words but he had knowledge of God and outwardly acknowledged Him. In the end we see that although Ahab’s prophets were false prophets, they were prophets who came in the name of the God of Israel as we see from Zedekiah in 1 Kings 22: 24. The name Ahaziah means Jehovah has seized or Jehovah possesses. Ahab named his son concerning an attribute of the true God. I do not say this to vindicate Ahab in any way or to take away from the detestability of false prophets. The reason I point these things out is because Ahab reigned for 22 years but his son only reigned for 2. Ahab’s judgment was postponed whereas Ahaziah’s judgment was fairly swift. Sometimes it is impossible to determine why God is more patient with some than with others. But I do not think that the reason behind the judgment here is something unknowable. There are some reasons why God acted this way in this situation.
Firstly, God had prophesied it when Ahab humbled himself. Ahab severely sinned and resisted God continually. It came to such a point that God could not just let it go. Judgment had to be given but because Ahab humbled himself God gave grace and held it back for a season. We read in 1 Kings 21: 29 that God would rather bring the evil on Ahab’s house during his son’s reign.
But secondly, and in some ways profoundly, the judgment on Ahaziah was not as swift as we would think from first glance. We see that Ahaziah ruled for 2 years and then God brought judgment. Maybe we would like to see God showing Ahaziah more patience and grace so that he also reigned for 22 years. However, God’s grace to Ahaziah was longer than 2 years. We forget the fact that Ahaziah, being Ahab’s son, would have lived in the royal residences. He was named after an attribute of God. He had no doubt seen the withholding of the rain under Elijah and heard about the ordeal at Mount Carmel where God sent fire down. He had seen all the evidence of God’s existence and His interest in the nation’s affairs but he still rejected the God of his people. When the nation got to this position, judgment was inevitable. The taste of this judgment, aside from the symbolic withholding of the rain that we already looked at during Ahab’s reign, is specified in verse 1. After Ahab died, Moab rebelled. David was Israel’s greatest king and Ahab was Israel’s worst. It is interesting therefore that the victory that King David won in subjugating the Moabites in 2 Samuel 8: 2 was undone in the judgment against Ahab’s house.
At this time, Ahaziah had an accident. Somehow he fell through the window or, lattice in his upper chamber and it must have been a serious injury that he sustained. My dad said that his grandfather had a bad fall in hospital and broke his hip. Having been gassed in WW2 by the Germans he got pneumonia after the accident and died. So it was similar with Ahaziah, he got sick after a severe fall and he was under the threat of dying. He knew the reality of God’s power which had been evidenced in his life time but did he turn to the Lord? Not at all but sent messengers to enquire of Baal-zebub. This was the god of a place called Ekron and the belief was that this god would have the power to ward off flies. In the New Testament we can see that Baal-zebub was regarded as the ruler of the demons. (Mt 12: 24). Thus in effect Ahaziah was turning to Satan for knowledge, the knowledge of whether he was going to die or not. 2 other people in the scriptures followed Satan’s counsel Satan for knowledge and they were Adam and Eve and they were punished and cursed for that. So too would Ahaziah be punished for turning to Satan for knowledge.
God would not allow a leader of Israel to go unchallenged or unpunished when God’s judgment was already looming over his house. The ‘Angel of the LORD’ tells Elijah to go to Ahaziah’s messengers in verse 3. There is no complaint as there was with Jonah. There was no hesitation of fear as in Gideon or excuse given as there was with Moses. There was just simple obedience. There is no explanation of what happened when Elijah met the messengers because we know that Elijah did just exactly what was asked of him. The scripture does not have to prove his obedience because we have already seen his example of obedience and therefore we doubt nothing. And what is the message from God. ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to the god of Ekron?’ Of course there was a God in Israel and He was real. The question is a little sarcastic. You never see the peoples of the world easily letting go of their false gods to serve the true one. I doubt greatly that Iraq and Iran are suddenly going to pronounce themselves as Christian countries and stop the building of Mosques. They serve their false god with devotion but here was a king ruling over the people that belonged to the true God and he turns to a false one. It makes absolutely no sense. But how often we are like Ahaziah. We would rather trust in something else apart from the Lord. As Matthew Henry stated, “A practical and constructive atheism is the cause and malignity of our departures from God. Surely we think there is no God in Israel when we live at large, make flesh our arm, and seek a portion in the things of this world.” In other words, our actions speak stronger than our words. We might have the name Christian, like Ahaziah had the name that he was Yahweh’s possession, but our actions can deny the very truth we claim we believe in.
So the messengers return prematurely to their king. They did not go all the way to Ekron because they had already got the answer from the Lord. These messengers had more integrity than some of us. God has revealed so much to us and how often do churches seek for more else where. The Bible is seen as a dusty old love letter that has lost its appeal and people are seeking other ways to hear from God. The prophet has spoken to them on their way to Ekron in the Holy Scriptures but they still go on to Ekron to seek a word or message through rituals, icons, statues, repeated mantras. The emergent movement is another form of Ekron. As one lady told me, ‘God does nothing without speaking through his servants the prophets.’ And so we accept the visions of so called prophets as authoritative and trustworthy as the Scripture itself. So I told her that she was right and that God has told us through the prophets, words written in Scripture itself. But these messengers had more integrity. When they heard the word of the Lord, they did not push onto Ekron but went back to Ahaziah. They did not need some extra biblical practice in order to know, they had the word of the Lord. This is not to deny the place of prophets in the Church as the scripture plainly says that God gives them to the Church. But that in no way is a replacement for scripture and when we ignore scripture for “a word”, then we are not going to the Lord but instead we are going to Ekron.
Ahaziah asked the messengers why they were back so soon and they told them about the man and the message from the LORD being that Ahaziah was going to die. For some reason the messengers did not know that the man was Elijah but Ahaziah knew and must have had a sneaking suspicion of who the mysterious prophet was. Something must have prompted him to ask about the man’s appearance and we are told that he was a hairy man with a leather girdle round his waist. Does that remind you of anyone similar? John the Baptist wore a hairy camel skin with a leather belt and John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah. But this was no mere identification with Elijah but marked John out. Elijah was marked out by the clothes he wore. The fact that Ahaziah knew who Elijah was just by what he wore shows us that not many people wore those kind of clothes. Concerning John’s clothing we can read Mt 11: 8. John’s hairy clothing was contrasted to the nice, soft clothing that kings wear. And so we see these prophets shunned the temporal pleasures of this life. God’s prophets did not go about in fancy cars and nice clothes. They were distinguishable from the rest of the world and thus Ahaziah could cry out “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”
9 – 15 AHAZIAH’S ATTEMPT TO APPREHEND ELIJAH
What is the king’s reaction to such a message from Elijah? Does he do as his father did when Elijah prophesied against him? Does he humble himself? No, but rather Ahaziah attempts to capture Elijah by force and he sends a captain with 50 men to apprehend him. His heart was harder than his father’s. He was more like the elders of Israel who rather than heed Stephen’s voice, tried to silence it. Or he was like Herod Antipas who imprisoned John the Baptist because he did not like John’s rebuke of his marriage to his sister in law, while her husband was alive. But where was Elijah? He was not hiding away in a cave or running for his life but he went to the top of a hill, which some people say was Mount Carmel but I would have no idea which hill he was on. Elijah had trust in the Lord that he would be kept and preserved in the midst of his enemies. As David knew when he wrote the 23rd psalm, a table is set in the midst of our enemies. We are given the words we need in the hour we need them. It was one Elijah against 51 soldiers but Elijah had the majority because he had God. These soldiers did not fetch Elijah down from the top of the hill, they told him to come down. No whether Elijah’s position was difficult to get to for the soldiers I do not know but what I do know befits the context well. The soldier of the wicked king, in the name of the wicked king, was ordering the man of God to come down. When I was a kid and I had done something really bad like go to hit my mother or something like that, my dad would spank me but he would not chase me in order to do it. My dad would stand straight and tell me to come to him and if he did have to get me then I would have been punished more. It is a matter of authority. We are not going to get you, you must come to us. The seriousness of this situation lies in the fact that they called him a man of God but ordered him in the name of the king. In other words they did not really believe that he was a man of God and they raised the will of the king above the will of God. Elijah’s question was being answered by the response of these soldiers. ‘Is there no God in Israel?’ ‘We don’t believe there is so quit your nonsense and come down!’ How often religious terms are used when people do not even believe in God. A friend of mine, who is a pastor in the UK, says when he hears the Lord’s name used in vain he asks the people if they are having a religious meeting. Other people will say God bless when they do not even believe in Him. The officer had used God’s name in scorn and jest. This is obvious from the way Elijah responds. He does not respond by calling down fire simply because he was rejected but he calls fire out of heaven because a mockery was being made of God. It was a proof that he was a man of God and thus the message of God had to be reverenced. Elijah proved God’s divinity with fire the first time and yet again he proved it with fire. The soldiers were consumed by fire. It will happen once again with the two witnesses as we read in Revelation 11: 5.
Ahaziah does not accept God’s judgment and so he sends another captain with another 50 but this time they apply more pressure to Elijah as they tell him not only to come down but to come quickly. But Elijah’s reply to them is the same as before and fire comes down to consume them. The third captain sent however is different. The third captain does not shout for Elijah to come down but he goes up to him and bows on his knees. He does not command him to come down in the name of the king but he pleads for his men’s lives. How similar this is to the 2 thieves on the cross. They both hurled insults at Jesus (Matthew 27: 44) but there came a moment when one of them realised that Jesus was suffering unjustly and must have felt convicted. At that time in Luke 23: 39 – 43. At one time they both said ‘He is the king, come down, come down from the cross!’ But another time where as the one said ‘If you are the son of God save yourself and us’ the other said ‘please remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. There is something about humility that touches the heart of God and thus God shows grace to this captain and the angel of the Lord tells Elijah to go with this person. Not until God showed him did Elijah go and when God says go, we need to go.
16 – 18 AHAZIAH’S END
For Elijah to go with someone God fearing may have made so much difference. For one, God was ensuring that Elijah was safe. Secondly, for Elijah to go with this man meant that this captain could discharge his duties to the wicked king and not have to face the king’s wrath. But most of all it meant that Elijah had the opportunity to walk up boldly and unhindered to Ahaziah and tell him God’s word to his face. The message is the same and it does not change. God prophecies get repeated time and again. Even if it is not repeated verbally it may be repeated experientially in the lives of those who follow the Lord and towards those who oppose Him. Ahaziah was cut off so young and the sad truth is that if he had done as his father before him did, or as the humble captain, God may have spared him and left the judgment till a later date. But God’s words will always come through. The illness would have prevailed, and Ahaziah would have died because God had said so but the truth is that it could have been delayed.
Ahaziah trusted in Baal-zebub, in witchcraft, in false religion but where does Elijah direct our eyes to? (Verse 16), to the word of God. When we want to inquire of the Lord we must make sure we are in His word, we must read and hear the word with an honest and open heart. If we come humbly and openly then God’s grace will be there for us too.
SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY
NUMBER: 86 Nov 2011
PO BOX 1481
VRYHEID 3100
KWAZULU NATAL
SOUTH AFRICA
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.
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 http://www.moriel.org, http://www.ariel.org, http://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 http://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.
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 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 http://www.moriel.org, http://www.ariel.org, http://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 http://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.
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.
SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY
NUMBER: 84 Sep 2011
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KWAZULU NATAL
SOUTH AFRICA
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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,
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 a Bible teacher. The day before we got to meet Chris De Wet and his wife from 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. 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.
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.
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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 http://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. 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.
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. 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. 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. Someone 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 23rd 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. 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.
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.
KwaZulu Mission 