A Thought-Provoking Testimony

Another example of God’s providence (which shows God’s personal involvement in human
lives): I don’t like missing church, but I had to today in order to be at home when my wife
arrived from the kur. She was supposed to return the Monday before, but one of the doctors
ordered 5 more days there for her to get more therapy for learning to walk better with the new
left hip. During my breakfast this morning, I heard the testimonies of two SDA missionaries
(one who I had met in the United States) who had encouraged many baptisms in their first two
evangelistic experiences in two countries where most of the natives were believers of animism.
Animism is “any of various primitive beliefs whereby natural phenomena and things (animate
and inanimate) are held to possess an innate soul or spirit. The word “innate” means
“possessed”. The first man in the program first started SDA ministry in New York City and then
was told to go to a frontier mission in which he and his family would have to learn a new
language. They did and were able to encourage many baptisms. Then they went back to the
USA for their furlough. When that ended and they returned to the mission, they were shocked to
find that most members of the church had returned to animism “solutions” for health and other
challenges instead of what they had been taught. Then he asked the host of the program to let the
other guest tell his testimony.

Back in Albuquerque, I remember Dale Goodson saying that soon after they had arrived in New
Guinea the first time, a witchdoctor had come from a nearby village to see if they could help his
infected foot. He was so impressed by the compassion of Dale’s teenage son that he invited the
Goodson family to come live in his village even though 9 other evangelists had failed. Several
even took sexually advantage of some of the women. He showed us slides of the primitive living
conditions they had to adapt to. They learned the language and encouraged many baptisms. On
the TV program that I saw today, Mr. Goodson had an even more interesting report. After they
returned from a 4-month furlough, they found the houses and the church had been uncared for
and had weeds all around them. The church members all hid when they first saw the Goodson
family. So Dale felt like he had been a failure. He and his wife prayed and the result was that
they had a Cultural Conference in order to learn why the people had rejected what they had been
taught. One example was that they had taught them that if they kept smoking they would get
cancer and die. But some of them thought they would test God by doing such to see if God had
the power to give them cancer. So they smoked for weeks and none of them got sick, so they
concluded that what they were taught was just about a spirit of the USA, not there. Remember
they had converted from a religion in which the had been taught there were spirits in animate and
inanimate things. The Cultural Conference included many meetings. The first ones were about
Animism. Dale wanted to learn what they really believed and then to determine how he might
have taught them wrong about Christianity. After he heard enough, he tried to teach more about
the Bible, the world-view, the Animism cultural view, and the Christian way of looking at
happenings. A man from several villages away who always had an answer for any of Dale’s
questions finally came to visit his home after several meetings about the just mentioned. Dale
had noticed that he was upset about some of the things being shared. The man told Dale that he
was a former Seventh Day Adventist who had become a powerful witchdoctor. He had
experienced supernatural things like even disappearing and reappearing. Many were afraid of
him. He said that he had changed mainly because the Christianity he was taught was just for him
to preach once a week while the animism is relating to the spirits every day almost all of the
time. This made Dale realize he had taught wrong when he was there before and what he was
trying to do in the recent meetings: theology instead of about relationship with Jesus Christ and
the Scripture and proper reasoning a about determining beliefs and convictions. Now he and the

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other man are trainers for the Adventist Frontier Missions ministry in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
Then I went to the website of the just mentioned and sent a request to Dale for more information
about what he learned because it might even be beneficial in relating and teaching people better
in the USA and European Seventh Day Adventist churches. For the past twelve months I have
been daily sharing the following Bible references and exhortations about what they indicate:
Philippians 2:1-5, Ephesians 4:11-16, Titus 2, Philippians 4:4-8, Jude 20-23, and Proverbs 3:5-6.
What I saw on that program today confirmed why that kind of Internet sharing has been
important for me to do. Most of my communicating in my ministry has been to encourage other
Christians to relate with Jesus Christ and the Scripture personally and for sharing with others,
and to do proper reasoning a about current events and in determining beliefs and convictions.
And that man that challenged Dale stopped being a witchdoctor and is again a Seventh Day
Adventist doing what he can as I have just indicated.

Post Script: When I turned on the TV again, I saw the ending of a sermon about the importance
of indwelling in Jesus Christ. The preacher ended with 1 John 2:28—“And now, little children,
abide in Him; that, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before
Him at His coming.”

The preacher also quoted a sentence from the following from the “Steps to Christ” booklet, pp.
44-45.

Do you ask, “How am I to abide in Christ?”-- In the same way as you received Him at first.
“As we have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” “The just shall live by
faith.”12 You gave yourself to God, to be His wholly, to serve and obey Him, and you took Christ
as your Saviour. You could not yourself atone for your sins or change your heart; but having
given yourself to God, you believed that He for Christ's sake did all this for you. By faith you
became Christ's, and by faith you are to grow up in Him-- by giving and taking. You are to give
all-- your heart, your will, your service -- give yourself to Him to obey all His requirements; and
you must take all-- Christ, the fullness of all blessing, to abide in your heart, to be your strength,
your righteousness, your everlasting helper-- to give you power to obey.
Consecrate yourself to God in the morning; make this your very first work. Let your prayer
be, “Take me, O Lord, as wholly Thine. I lay all my plans at Thy feet. Use me today in Thy
service. Abide with me, and let all my work be wrought in Thee.” This is a daily matter. Each
morning consecrate yourself to God for that day. Surrender all your plans to Him, to be carried
out or given up as His providence shall indicate. Thus day by day you may be giving your life
into the hands of God, and thus your life will be molded more and more after the life of Christ.
A life in Christ is a life of restfulness. There may be no ecstasy of feeling, but there should be
an abiding, peaceful trust. Your hope is not in yourself; it is in Christ. Your weakness is united to
His strength, your ignorance to His wisdom, your frailty to His enduring might. So you are not to
look to yourself, not to let the mind dwell upon self, but look to Christ. Let the mind dwell upon
His love, upon the beauty, the perfection, of His character. Christ in His self-denial, Christ in His
humiliation, Christ in His purity and holiness, Christ in His matchless love-- this is the subject
for the soul's contemplation. It is by loving Him, copying Him, depending wholly upon Him, that
you are to be transformed into His likeness.
Jesus says, “Abide in me.” These words convey the idea of rest, stability, confidence. Again
He invites, “Come unto me,.. . and I will give you rest.”13 The words of the psalmist express the
same thought: “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” And Isaiah gives the assurance, “In
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.”14 This rest is not found in inactivity; for in
the Saviour's invitation the promise of rest is united with the call to labor: “Take my yoke upon

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you,. . . and ye shall find rest.”15 The heart that rests most fully upon Christ will be most earnest
and active in labor for-Him.
When the mind dwells upon self, it is turned away from Christ, the Source of strength and
life. Hence it is Satan's constant effort to keep the attention diverted from the Saviour, and thus
prevent the union and communion of the soul with Christ. The pleasures of the world, life's cares
and perplexities and sorrows, the faults of others, or your own faults and imperfections-- to any
or all of these he will seek to divert the mind. Do not be misled by his devices. Many who are
really conscientious, and who desire to live for God, he too often leads to dwell upon their own
faults and weaknesses, and thus by separating them from Christ, he hopes to gain the victory. We
should not make self the center, and indulge anxiety and-- fear as to whether we shall be saved.
All this turns the soul away from the Source of our strength. Commit the keeping of your soul to
God, and trust in Him. Talk and think of Jesus. Let self be lost in Him. Put away all doubt;
dismiss your fears. Say with the apostle Paul, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the
life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
himself for me.” l6 Rest in God. He is able to keep that which you have committed to Him. If you
will leave yourself in His hands, He will bring you off more than conqueror through Him that has
loved you.
When Christ took human nature upon Him, He bound humanity to Himself by a tie of love
that can never be broken by any power save the choice of man himself. Satan will constantly
present allurements to induce us to break this tie-- to choose to separate ourselves from Christ.
Here is where we need to watch, to strive, to pray, that nothing may entice us to choose another
master; for we are always free to do this. But let us keep our eyes fixed upon Christ, and He will
preserve us. Looking unto Jesus, we are safe. Nothing can pluck us out of His hand. In constantly
beholding Him, we “are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit
of the Lord.”17
12
Colossians 2:6; Hebrews 10:38
13
Matthew 11:28-29
14
Psalm 37:7; Isaiah 30:15.
15
Matthew 11:29
16
Galatians 2:20
17
2 Corinthians 3:18