What's Happening - Bethesda Baptist Church, Nairobi

What's Happening - Bethesda Baptist Church, Nairobi

Must one have faith to be healed? - The place of Miracles Today -By Kennedy Owiti.

Today there are many churches that preach the existence of instant healing and other miraculous signs and wonders. There are billboards that announce, every so often that a healing crusade will be held in this or that place. People are invited to bring their sick that these may be prayed for and healed. Indeed even the sick themselves are asked to attend that they may be prayed for to receive such healing.  The question one asks then is, do these healings really take place? Do miracles proclaimed in the name of Jesus still happen? And if they don’t, is it because the people being prayed for, the sick and crippled, do not have sufficient faith or at all, that they then cannot get the healing they desire?

The word of God is replete with instances of great miraculous signs and wonders right from the times of the Old Testament. In the book of Exodus, the great miraculous signs and wonders that preceded the exodus are told. The burning bush (Exodus 3) and the plagues that hit Egypt (Exodus 8-10) have never been repeated elsewhere! These were miracles performed by the Almighty God Himself! The Bible records various other miracles that He did. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ also performed many miracles, signs and wonders. He healed the sick of various categories: getting the lame and crippled to walk (Luke 5:17-26), the blind to have sight (John 9:1-12), the deaf to have the ability to hear, the mute to speak, (Mark 7:31-37) the demon possessed to be free of demons (Luke 4:31-36). He walked on water (Mark 6:45-52), He fed five thousand people from just five loaves of bread and two fishes. (Mark 6:30-44) and caused the dead to rise only from their death beds? (Luke 7:11-17) Nay, from their graves too! Lazarus was a rotting corpse when the savior called him back to life (John 11:38-44).  These are just a few of the ones He did and the Bible records many more.

In Acts of the Apostles, the twelve were filled with the Holy Spirit and they themselves performed great miracles, signs and wonders (Acts 2:43) in the name of our Savior as the Spirit of God enabled them including healing the crippled beggar (Acts 3:1-10). The statement in Acts 5:12-16 clearly has the implication that the miracles, signs and wonders were performed as a means of getting the people to believe, more so as the Church of Christ was just being born. These were a people who were hearing of the gospel of grace for the first time. They were learning for the  very first time about the possibility of being right with God on account of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as opposed to being cleansed of sin on account of the offerings made by the high priests as was the custom and as had been the practice since Moses. But again the miracles were not just confined to healing the sick! The miraculous escape of Peter recorded in Acts 12 and even the earlier one recorded in Acts 5:17-26 also happened! There were recorded witnesses to these things. The people healed were often well known to the people in their various towns and villages.

Later,  we read (Hebrews 1:1-2) that the time for these miracles, visions, signs and wonders had ended and that now God only speaks to men through the Son who John explains is the very statement of the will of God (John 1:1-5), the Word of God Himself, which word has been written down to and for us in the name of a Bible. Salvation itself, which the Word of God equates with the raising of a dead person or soul back to life, is a miracle that continues to occur to this very day but all the other miracles signs and wonders no longer happen. We all live in this world; we know our neighbors and the people who live in and around our towns. Among these people are the sick, the blind the crippled, the deaf and mute, those with mental problems who for all intents and purposes are demon possessed. These people have variously been taken to the crusades where the so called faith healers have promised miraculous healings but these never come to pass. Indeed these purported miracle workers are devoid claims of any other signs and wonders except to allege the power to heal those who are sick! Why, for example, has none walked on water? Why has none walked into a morgue and in the name of the risen Christ, raised the dead back to life? How is it that we cannot find one ordinary man who from birth was blind but can now see? The healing which our Christ performed at the pool called Bethesda is remarkable. The modern equivalent to that pool is a medical ward in a modern 21st century hospital! This was a place where the sick congregated in their numbers that they may get healing. Christ went to that hospital and thereat healed a man well known to his neighbors! How come we have not had any of the so called miracle workers walk into any hospital and heal those that are sick there? Why have they not walked, driven, or flown to the northern parts of Kenya during those moments of biting famine and there preach the word of God and then miraculously feed the hundreds there with a few loaves of bread and fishes?

It is precisely because the time for miracles, signs and wonders is no more! We have the Word! We have the Son. We must believe only the Son that we may be saved.  We must not allow ourselves to be cheated that any other miracles other that the great miracle of a God willing to and indeed dying for us, will ever happen. What other miracle do we need? Surely none! For even the angles of God are baffled at this miraculous and wonderful plan of God,  where the person who has been wronged is the one who gives up himself as an atonement for the sins of the wrong doer!

No! The time for miracle, signs and wonders is over. And let no one say to you, after a failed attempt at healing you miraculously, that it is because you have little or no faith and so you have not received your miracle! For this is often the fallback reason after failure! Why, when Jesus fed the five thousand He did not first require that they exhibit any specific amount of faith! When he turned water into wine he did not ask the host to have any specific type of faith. It is His mother who told the people there to do as they were told but have we not also been told, by the scripture, the Word of God, the Son, what to do? Yes, we have been advised to have faith and to pray.  We have been told to call our pastors and elders to pray for and with us when we are sick (James 5:13-16) and that such prayers, if offered in faith, will make the sick person well.

Brethren let us all then have faith in the Word, the Son, and our Christ through whom our God now speaks to us. Let us heed his voice and be obedient to Him. In this I do not limit the power of God to do anything, even miraculous, in our midst. Yet we must, as people get wiser through the reading of God’s word and the clear preaching thereof not be led astray or be discouraged that we are not of sufficient faith as no miracles are happening among us.

Kennedy Owiti fellowships at Grace Baptist Church-Kisumu

(GBC.

The God who Opens Doors

Over and over of again the Bible talks of the God who opens the door and you can read it in the following passages :

Revelation 3:8  See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.
Acts 14:27 On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

1Corinthians 16:9 because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.

2 Corinthians 2:12 Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me,

 Colossians 4:3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.

Passages like this make us to trust in God and depend on the Holy spirit as we proclaim the gospel even in the midst of crisis and oppositions.

The above verses are true of us. W we have seen Him opening doors for us in Nairobi. I remember some time back a pastor told me in his office that you are only fit to work in rural areas but not in towns. My answer to him was yes, and for many reasons. For one I was born and raised in a rural area. I went to high school in a place refereed to then as the hardship area North Eastern Province. For many years I preached in rural areas not knowing how we would survive day to day. We certainly did not have enough funds to start Church.

This statement reminded me of what Paul said that who is sufficient for these things, and the words of Peter, that God is no respecter of persons. One of my teacher’s, the late Musila told us, “Don't wait for people to promise you that they’ll back and then you go in to the ministry, but just go, and the Lord will bring people your way as you continue serving Him.

When we went to Tassia we did not know any person there, but the Lord opened the door for us through Brother Nixon and his wife Modester. They allowed us to meet in their small school at no cost.  We met for three weeks without any person from outside, it was only my household. Thanks be to God who has opened a door for us! We now have over 15 people attending each Sunday to hear the Gospel preached to them. Even now we have a mid-week meeting.

The door is open here for evangelism. We have been doing door to door, distributing gospel tracts. God willing, next year we want to start open air preaching. If George Whitefield preached in an open air, then I don’t see reason why we cannot do it. This is an area where many gospel centered Churches in Kenya are weak. Yet the door is open, for there is freedom to worship in our beloved country. Please pray for us that we may use all means the Lord has provided to preach Christ and Him crucified. 

We are grateful to God for opening to us the door of ministry among children and high schools in Nairobi. At one girl's high school I preach the gospel once a month. Recently the Lord opened to us a boy's high school. Here I have the opportunity to preach twice each week. When I first preached at the school, I preached on why Jesus Christ died (I Peter 3:8). The deputy principal told me this is the kind of preaching we need; not telling stories.

By the grace of God, the Lord has brought to us a young man from one of our Church in Kisumu, and he is gifted in preaching. He has the right understanding of the gospel and he is a great help to our Church plant efforts here in the Nairobi Tassia area.

The Lord also opened for us a door to distribute Third Millennium Ministries  resources to many of the pastors in Kayole. Some pastors who visit with me to watch training videos at my house. God willing, we may be taking these resources to Eastern and Western Kenya, where some church leaders have developed interest in them. Personally I am studying Biblical Theology. I the past I have only had the opportunity to read about Biblical Theology, but now I am able to study it as a subject.

Dear brethren, pray for us. There is a need for more Gospel Centered Churches here in Nairobi. The people are many and gospel centered Churches are few. There are more “man centered churches” all over. The massage of God's free offer of salvation needs to be preached in every corner of our city until this hymn is fulfilled in our midst, "We have heard the joyful sound Jesus save, Jesus saves.”  We lack many resources, but as William Carey said, “Attempt great things for God and expect great things from God.”  

We too may tempt great things for the gospel of our blessed Savoir the Lord Jesus. Pray that we may stand and say like Peter and John at the temple gate, “silver and gold have we none but what we give unto you in the name of Jesus Christ rise up and work.”

Even among other Bethesda Baptist Churches the Lord is working greatly and we thank Him for the opportunities He is opening for us.

Those of you brothers and sisters who are supporting us in one way or another, may the God of all grace and mercy richly bless you. Thank you for your prayers, encouragement and standing with us for Christ sake.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Michael Otieno