As a heavy rain descended one morning, the missionary team decided to follow the custom of the people and not leave for the meeting until the rain stopped. They were humbled when Alex, an Inapang man, appeared to tell them that everyone was waiting for them.
"This was not normal," the missionaries said. "God is at work."
The Spirit of God working in hearts was becoming more evident as the teaching progressed.
When Daniel taught about the children of Israel being slaves in Egypt he likened it to being trapped in prison. Later, one woman told Elisabeth, "I'm just sitting here thinking about what Daniel said about being in prison. It's like we are sitting inside a room with the door locked and no way to get out because the door has been locked from the outside. God's going to have to unlock the door from the outside or we'll just stay in there. That's what our sin is like."
Elizabeth responded, "Yeah, and God's Word is how He will do it."
But just how that would happen needed to be clarified.
"If we sit and listen to God's Talk," Antigas asked Bill, "will that take away our sin?"
"Antigas," Bill said, "the people of Noah's day heard God's Talk; they even saw Noah building the ark, but just hearing God's Talk did not help them. Just listening to God's Talk will not take away your sin. But if you don't listen to God's Word, you will die with your sin, and your soul will go to the place of fire forever."
Kelley wondered if Bill's words would crush Antigas. "He needs to be crushed and needs to see his need for a Savior," Bill responded.
Her husband's words were confirmed in her heart the next morning as she read from C. H. Spurgeon's book, The Soul Winner.
Spurgeon wrote, "In many ministries there is not enough of probing the heart and rousing the conscience by the revelation of man's alienation from God, and by the declaration of selfishness and wickedness of such a state. Men need to be told that, unless divine grace brings them out of the enmity with God, that they will eternally perish. The preacher's work is to throw the sinner down into utter helplessness, so that they may be compelled to look up to Him who alone can help them.
"To try to win a soul for God by keeping that soul in ignorance of any truth is contrary to the mind of the Spirit."
Kelley realized that the Inapangs could not "savor His personal saving grace until they had tasted the bitterness and futility of their individual and personal sin," as Spurgeon wrote.
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