Easter Sunday

I had to write this week's summary early lest I forget, because I dropped my
pen during the translation, so could not jot down notes... ha ha.

For Easter, I had expected Dr Stephen Tong to preach on a topic related to
Easter, and he did. He was late and came in close to 7.30 pm, and we could
hear his whistle from inside the room, which meant that he is back to his
old energetic self. Even his whistling is strange... he whistles through his
nose instead of puckering up like everyone else. He said he preached for too
long at the Indonesian church... that simply meant that he had like 10
minutes left for his dinner.

When he came on stage, Dr Tong gave a brief report on the Hong Kong Gospel
Rally. In three days, they cramped in 7 sessions, including a Children
Gospel Rally which saw an attendance of about 7,000 people; 4,000 of which
were children. During the altar call, about 2,000 children came forward. So
Dr Tong proclaimed that during the next Singapore Gospel Rally, we must
organise Children's Gospel Rally as well. On the last evening, Tong said
that he did an altar call and more than 1,200 responded to the call for
full-time ministry. He said that both the numbers were probably records for
Hong Kong. But looking at the young people who responded to the call for
full-time ministry, Dr Tong said that so long as a few humdred are faithful
to their call to the end, there would be great changes in the Asian church.

Dr Tong then moved into the Easter message by proclaiming that of all the
festivals the Christian should celebrate, Easter would be the main one. In
the early church within the first century, no one bothered with Christmas,
but Easter was celebrated greatly. Now it is the other way around. Christmas
is now celebrated lavishly, and unhappily, more sins are committed during
the Christmas season more than at any time of the year. More car accidents,
more decadence, more indulgences. To counter this, Tong said that he made a
decision when he went into full-time ministry at age 17, that for the rest
of his life, he will spend Christmas preaching an evangelistic message, and
he has done so for the last 45 years of his ministry.

He said that Easter and the resurrection is the one key event that is
pivotal for all Christians, but we don't seem to get this. The birth of
Christ was for his suffering. His suffering was in preparation for His
death. His death was the staging that was necessary for His resurrection.
And His resurrection formed the basis for His ascension in victory. The
resurrection was an event that transcended the powers of nature, economic
powers, religious authorities, injustices, financial structures, the legal
system. It was a demonstration of a triumph that swallowed up death.

Tong proclaimed that the concept of the resurrection is unique to
Christianity, and cannot be fathomed by the human mind. He said that all
faith attempts to look for answers about life, leading many to conclude that
all faith are the same. He flatly denied this and said that people who say
that are either ignorant, or refuse to see the truth. All faith may have
superficial similarity, like the concept of the temporal life, the sin of
man, the need for final justice, the life after death; but these are
products of human reasoning. For a human being to use his reason to fathom
about life, he is using a part of his being to attempt to understand the
whole of his being. No matter how many parts are added together, they cannot
possibly surpass the whole. As such, it would have been impossible for the
human mind to understand matters relating to the Creator, unless the Creator
reveals His wisdom to the creature. Therefore, all faith head towards a dead
alley, with no way out, because they have not received the revelation from
God. None could grasp the true significance of the resurrection, and so none
proposed it. In its place, the Buddhist has the concept of reincarnation,
while most others have the concept of ghosts and spirits.

God in His wisdom had chosen to progressively reveal His plan of salvation
to mankind, and we see this in the Bible, and the life of Jesus Christ.
Christ was the meeting point between the eternal and the temporal. He was
eternity visiting history. His birth, suffering, death in crucifixion,
resurrection and ascension were all historical facts; moments in our
time-space when the eternal touched the temporal, allowing us to see into
the grand plan of God. Tong said that as human beings living in temporal
time-space, we have great difficulties seeing that. He pointed out that in
ancient civilisation, the Egyptians actually had the closest understanding
of this, in that they lived their lives in a manner completely different
from most human civilisations. Their houses and palaces were small, but
their graves were huge; while most of us live in large houses but are buried
in a small plot of land. This was because the Egyptians understood that
there is an afterlife, and that the afterlife is a much longer existence, so
the present life is temporal, and it became more important to prepare one
for the eternal.

Tong then turned his attention to the Bible, and said that the Bible has
progressive revelation of the resurrection. In the Old Testament, Tong cited
the examples of Abraham and Job as two persons who were given a glimpse of
the wisdom of God, and understood the resurrection.

In the case of Abraham, God told him two things that seemed contradictory.
Firstly, God promised him an only son Isaac, through whom his descendants
will arrive. Then God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, a
command that would seem to contradict the first promise. Tong did a
diversion and spoke about how the commentary to the Koran indicated that the
Christian Bible is wrong to say that Isaac was the only son of Abraham,
because Abraham had Ishmael 14 years before Isaac. But the answer was simply
that Ishmael was not considered the true descendant of Abraham, because only
the child of Sarah was to be counted; so the Bible is correct. Tong said
that Abraham was the father of faith not because he had blind faith, but
because he thought through the issues and believed that God could do no
wrong. His answer was simply that since God cannot make a mistake in
promising him that his descendants will be through Isaac, and that there
would be numerous, the only way out would be for God to resurrect Isaac
after he had sacrifice him, since God is a God that can create out of
nothing. This was what the author of Hebrews said in Hebrews 11: 17-19: "By
faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had
received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even
though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be
reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively
speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death." This was the first
indication of someone in the Bible understanding the concept of the
resurrection, although he understood it in his reason. This is why Abraham
is an example of faith for us all.

Tong then cited Job, who wrote about the resurrection in Job 19:25,26,27 - I
know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the
earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another. How my heart
yearns within me! Here, Job actually understood firstly that his God is an
eternal God who will come and save him in the end, and judge the whole
world, standing upon the earth at the end of days. He prohesized that he
will see God in his flesh, with his own eyes, although he also said that his
skin would have been destroyed first. This means clearly that he would see
God in a resurrected, new body. This, said Tong, was the first recorded
understanding of the resurrection in the Bible.

Tong said that God's revelation sometimes come only after a long span of
time, and this is in accordance to His perfect timing. In the actual
practice of the resurrection, 2 other persons in the Old Testament were able
to resurrect others through God's power. The first was Elijah who
resurrected a young boy, and the second was his disciple Elisha, who asked
for double portion of Elijah's spirit, and hence resurrected 2 persons (and
also performed 14 miracles to Elijah's 7 miracles).

Now we come to the New Testament, with 3 resurrections done by Jesus Christ
(and many more during his crucifixion), 1 by Paul, 1 by Peter. Tong focused
on the resurrections performed by Christ. The first was the daughter of
Jairus. The second was the son of the widow, and the third was Lazarus. The
first just died when she was resurrected, the second was during a funeral
procession, and the third was after 4 days of death. So the demonstration of
God's power was beyond doubt in the last case.

Then came an interesting segment of exposition on Martha, Mary and Lazarus.
Tong said that these brother and sisters are what many Christians are like
today. There are many Christians who are like Martha, busy doing all sorts
of activities for the sake of the activities, neglecting the truth of God.
They kept saying that they know this and that, the way Martha answered
Christ about how everyone will be resurrected at the last day. In reality,
they know nothing about the truth. Tong said that many Pastors, Elders and
Deacons are exactly like that, never wanting to learn from the Word, but
always wanting to do lots of things for the sake of doing them. Tong said
that many churches are like that too. After a long session of worship and
praise, they are too tired for the sermon, which is made very short anyway.
He then related an incident when he was invited to preach to a friend's
father while he was preaching somewhere in Indonesia. In the midst of a busy
schedule, he went to see the old man, who rejected him by saying that he
knows everything there is to know about Jesus Christ. Tong said that he was
very disappointed, because the old man knew, but yet do not really know;
just like Martha.

The Reformed faith however wants to produce people like Mary, who was
attentive to every sentence of Jesus Christ. We want to listen to God and be
obedient, not have God listen to us and our desires.

And then there are Christians who are like Lazarus. They lived a quiet life,
and then died. Tong said that Christ asked that the stone blocking the grave
be rolled away, upon which strong stench emerged. Tong said that this is the
case for many people's spirituality, which is so dead that it smells bad,
but a stone is covering it up, so no one notices. I thought this was a great
illustration.

The status of Jesus Christ as the LORD of life was obvious, because He
called for Lazarus to come out, not by the name of God, but by a simple
direct command given to Lazarus (and the others). This is in stark contrast
with Elijah, Elisha, Paul and Peter, who all had to call upon the name of
God. This was obviously because Christ is God, the resurrection and the
life. Tong said that what Jesus Christ did cannot be done by man. We cannot
resurrect the dead ourselves, physically or spiritually. All we can do is to
remove the stone, by removing obstacles for unbelievers in order that they
can come to the LORD; And remove the bondages after the resurrection, by
helping them spiritually (he said many Christians are bound up like Lazarus,
not able to move into greater spiritual freedom). The resurrection in itself
is the work of God. Tong proclaimed that the power of the resurrection is
still in the church today whenever we bring someone to Christ, resurrecting
his dead spirituality.

Tong ended the session by quoting Daniel 12, which again predicted that
Daniel will rise with the rest from the dust. Many will be resurrected to
Glory, and the others to judgement. Although Daniel did not understand all
these mysteries, he faithfully recorded the Word of God.

END

Disclaimer: This summary does NOT represent the official position of STEMI (Stephen Tong Evangelistic Ministry International), and is the personal opinion of the author, expressed without prejudice. Expressed opinions are meant for academic discussions only.