Halbrook Philippine Report February 14-19, 2016
Dear family, brethren, and friends,
I have not been able to see the moon but only “the twinkle, twinkle little stars,” but I send my greetings and love to all anyway. The past week has been a whirlwind of work with no time to send reports, but it was a fruitful week.
On Sunday, February 14, Samuel Paet drove me to the Sampaloc church of Christ in Manila where the deaf mute saints have worshiped for many years. Tonyboy Hornedo has preached for them through the years using sign language because he also is a deaf mute. It is always an humbling and uplifting experience to worship with these poor saints. They are very attentive, signing to indicate they understand or do not understand point by point. They sign to each other, seeking or giving clarifications as the teaching moves along.
This church meets in a room with no windows below street level where it can be so steamy hot you could cut the humidity with a knife, but it is more bearable at this time of year. They are happy and thankful to have a place to worship and 43 souls filled the room with standing room only.
I taught three times. I preached on Christ as “The Bread of Life” in John 6, followed by two lessons entitled “Let the Church Be the Church,” discussing the spiritual nature and mission of the church in contrast to the social gospel concept. During the open forum, there were many comments indicating that the brethren understood and agree with the lessons, and only a few questions involving clarifications.
During the service when we extended the Lord’s invitation, two precious souls came forward to confess their faith in Christ and to submit to him in water baptism for the remission of their sins.
After the service we distributed Bibles, study materials, clothes, and food which had been shipped earlier by Forex Cargo. The brethren were like kids in a candy shop during the distribution of the Bibles and study materials!
This was indeed a wonderful Lord’s day!
Monday our week long study began on the book of Revelation using Dan King’s excellent workbook and on Then Comes the End by Mike Willis at the Edsa-Pasay church here in the Manila area. In December 2013 Rody Gumpad started this new congregation in a central location which offers easy access for many Christians who come from the provinces to find jobs in the Metro area. This congregation is thriving. They rent a large room on the fourth floor of a building which is mostly abandoned. Other than forcing everyone to climb four flights of stairs (there are no elevators), it is a good location because it puts distance between us and the noisy street outside in a busy business district.
On the first day the workbooks were distributed to 60 men and I immediately began by presenting three introductory lessons plus covering Revelation 1-3. Lordy Salunga from Angeles City helped with teaching and he began his part with Revelation 4-7. Everyone arrived before starting time, so we started early, almost unheard of in a land known for “Filipino time” (nothing starts on time, largely because most people depend on public transportation and do not own vehicles). As we went through the book of Revelation, I had the men take turns standing to read the verses we covered section by section.
Some participants traveled a great distance to attend. They slept on mats on the floor. Tessie Gumpad and several other ladies worked together to provide meals for these men during the week of study.
Tuesday the classes continued in good fashion as Lordy and I proceeded to cover Revelation 8-20. The students were very engaged with open Bibles, workbooks, and notepads. One eleven year old and two fourteen year olds were present and soaked up everything, which made me wish I could have been in such a class at such a young age. God blessed me with strength to teach for five hours with a couple of breaks. The pace is always challenging for both teachers and students, but we had to maximize the time we had for these five days.
After Lordy finished the last two chapters of Revelation on Wednesday, we immediately began our study of the material in Then Comes the End. I began with lessons on death, the immortality of the soul, hades, and reincarnation at the morning session, and in the afternoon the resurrection and the destruction of the universe at the end of time. Many of the men gathered came out of denominations to be baptized into Christ in recent years, but they still carry baggage from the past and several of them said this series helped them to escape the errors of the past.
Knowing these studies generate questions, I finished 15 minutes early this afternoon to conduct an open forum. It continued forty minutes into the supper hour. This reminded me of Acts 20:7 where Paul preached for a long time, apparently because the people’s hunger provoked feedback and questions (our word “dialogue” comes from the Greek word for “preach” in this passage). I know everyone was hungry for physical food at the end of our long day of study, but their spiritual hunger was greater. Though exhausted when I finished, I am thankful for the opportunity to study God’s Word with saints who have such an intense desire to learn. There were questions about soul and spirit, hades, and the resurrection.
Lordy started Thursday by teaching about the final Judgment Day and hell, followed by my presentations on heaven, the A.D. 70 doctrine, the rapture, and Armageddon. This week is the first time some of the men have heard any detailed discussion of the book of Revelation and the first time to hear a detailed refutation of the errors commonly associated with premillennialism. Once, again, we had an open forum which continued for an hour in spite of the fact that supper was waiting. We revisited death, hades, and several points about the resurrection.
One brother had been taught in his former denomination that the fearful 666 in Revelation 13:18 referred to a supposed change of worship from the Sabbath day to Sunday, a common claim of 7th Day Adventists. He knew that was not true, but this was the first time it became clear to him that 666 referred to Roman emperors demanding to be worshiped as gods.
We have had some brief brown outs (loss of electricity) for the past couple of days, but Friday we were plagued with this problem. We had been using PowerPoint charts most of the time during the week. Today Lordy and I did much of our teaching in the semi-darkness of a hot humid room on the fourth floor of a building in the business district with the windows open and the sounds of a busy street providing background noise. No one complained and we pressed forward as Lordy taught a final summary of errors in the doctrine of the 1,000 year earthly reign of Christ.
Then I taught for two hours on “Premillennialism Undermines the One Hope,” showing how this false theology turns the focus away from the simple hope of being raised to eternal life in heaven. Great anticipation and excitement is stirred about such false themes as supposed signs of “the end time,” the rapture, two or three resurrections, the 7 years tribulation age, the so-called Anti-Christ, a literal Battle of Armageddon, the rule of Christ on the literal throne of David for 1,000 years in an earthly kingdom, and many other false hopes.
After a final open forum, we ate lunch, then gathered to sing and to offer prayers of thanksgiving for the blessings of this week. Brethren asked me to express their gratitude to everyone who has prayed for our efforts and donated funds for the literature and costs associated with this week of Bible study. In typical Filipino fashion, we gave the men who completed the week a certificate of completion followed by plenty of picture taking. It is hard to say, “Good bye,” after spending a week together feasting on the Word of God!
We owe a special debt of gratitude to Rody and Tessie Gumpad and the men and ladies who joined them behind the scenes to prepare meals and to attend to countless details with 50-60 people staying together for five days. May God reward the service rendered by each one.
I miss everyone back home and remember you in my prayers. I am now counting down the days until I will see Donna and so many of you we love.
In Christian love,
Ron Halbrook
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