Preaching God's Word

I will put my main ministry as preaching God's Word and after that teaching. I am a preacher first and teacher second. I preached at College yesterday almost a month after I preached for a special service when a church came visiting pastored by a former student who served me meals for almost 2 years. It was a kind of repaying her kind deed with the ministry of God's Word. But yesterday I preached again and I know there won't be many opportunities before I call time at College.  I shared with my College community the gist of two messages I heard in KK one from a Korean Professor at the Mission church seminar and the other from a Penang pastor who spoke at our Youth Conference last week. I exhorted my College community to look beyond the four walls of the church and serve the Nation at large with the manifold ministries and talents God had given to each one of us.
It was ironic that the Penang pastor took as his main text Peter's escape from prison (Acts 12) when God sent an angel to rescue Peter and took him out of prison and led him to the end of the road. The preacher emphasised that God would lead us not just out of prison but will see us through our lives' difficulties until the end. The preacher kept repeating the word, "suddenly" (tiba-tiba) and that we should expect God's blessings and deliverance suddenly and immediately. It was a powerful message and hence my repeating that to my students and colleagues alike.

Then I spoke briefly about the theme of the month "A church of many nations" where a church consists of peoples from various races and God is no respecter of persons or does not show favouritism. It happened that the reading of the day was taken from Deuteronomy 10 where it is said God loves the aliens and foreigners. I also touched upon the NT text for the day from Ephesians 3 where Paul wrote that every thing in heaven and on earth received its name from God who dwells in heaven.  I told them about our status as God's children and how special we are in God's sight and that God is our Father and He will bless us and deal well with us.  I spoke about how I always say no to young men and women wanting me to be their spiritual father (bapa rohani) because I am not worthy and being a father even in the spiritual sense bears too much responsibility. Only God is our Father and He is all powerful to help us. I testified as to how God blessed me this year and suddenly I received manifold blessings. When men deal with you unjustly but God is just and if God is on our side who can be against us? At the end of my 50 min sermon I have much to go on but I stopped and made an altar call - to pray for those who thought their situation is impossible for man to help but to God nothing is impossible. Nine students and some of their wives came forward to be prayed for. There was much weeping and tears flowed freely and joy restored to many who believed God's Word.