A Powerful Testimony
He was going from rooftop to rooftop, screaming his story to everyone. Many people were saved in village yards and under trees. This was the local jihadist everyone from the extremist mosque knew, feared and respected. Now he was preaching the gospel from roof to roof!
Only nine hours after we landed from over 24 hours of flying, I spoke seven times on Sunday throughout Jakarta, Indonesia. It was more exhausting than anything I have ever experienced. Monday was scheduled to be a day of rest, until our dear Indonesian friends, Daniel and Yvonne, called our room at 4:30 that morning. They asked if we would travel six hours with them to one of the most remotely located churches in West Java to preach. The wooden church structure is the only building still standing in the area after years of terrorism. “Yes” is always the answer!
That same Monday night we arrived at the extraordinary and powerful gathering of people in the packed church building that could only seat 200. The power of God was in and around that building property as a visible, though transparent-like mist. A number of people were saved that night. After the service, we drove back to Jakarta to catch a plane to Surabaya. Upon our arrival at the airport, our translator’s cell phone rang. The pastor calling her desperately pleaded to speak with me.
He shared that just after sunrise on the morning following our service, a flatbed truck backed into their church’s tiny front lawn area. Because the pastor and his family live in three rooms connected to the church, they woke up to the sound of terrorists dragging 55-gallon barrels of fuel into the sanctuary and dumping them. The pastor’s wife ran out, screaming and begging them not to burn down the church. She was weeping and telling them that her children were inside the adjacent rooms.
Without hesitating one bit, the man at the spout of the fuel barrel slammed the now, nearly-empty drum over the top of the stairs and into the building. The pastor’s wife then fell on her knees in the quickly gathering mud of fuel and cried out to the Lord like never before.
The man pulled out a box of matches and scraped the first match across the box. But it didn’t light! He fumbled the box open and pulled another out to strike it. It barely made a sound and didn’t light either. Hundreds of people quickly gathered to see the commotion. The man continued to try to frantically light one match after another. After several failed attempts, he screamed in terror and ran.
Some people tackled him, trying to save him from injuring himself. He was throwing people off of him like a wild animal while they tried to hold him still on the ground. His eyes were wide open and full of fear, as if he were being dragged into flames.
After much consoling, the terrorist who came to burn God’s sanctuary spoke about what had just happened to him—lips and body quivering. He said that as he tried and failed to light the final match, he saw an angel of the Lord standing in front of his face. He heard the angel loudly say, “I am a messenger of the Most High God sent to warn you so you will warn all others that this is God’s holy ground. You will die if you do not flee.”
As the pastor told me all of this over the phone at the airport, I was blown away, crying and trying to listen. He then screamed, “Brother, can you hear something? Do you hear some man yelling behind me now while we are talking?” As I listened carefully, I could hear somebody yelling in their language.
The pastor then explained that we were hearing the actual man who saw the angel and had been miraculously saved. He was going from rooftop to rooftop, screaming his story to everyone. Many people were saved in village yards and under trees. This was the local jihadist everyone from the extremist mosque knew, feared and respected. Now he was preaching the gospel from roof to roof!
Kelvin and Anita McDaniel, Missionaries at Large, Project Number 0650079
(Source: Church of God World Missions)
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