Showdown

Well, this has been a long time in coming. It still isn't written to my satisfaction, but I decided that you all needed to hear "the rest of the story."
Please keep in mind that this all happened toward the end of last school year. I have many more stories to tell from this year. God is working in exciting ways! My prayer is that each of you let him work His ways in your hearts and lives every moment of every day. Jesus is coming soon! I know it, not merely because of the signs of the times, but because He himself said so (Revelation 22:20). And the Word of God has the inherent property of being self-fulfilling: it does what it says! When one comes to believe and experience that personally, life gets a lot more exciting!

Part IV: SHOWDOWN

“If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams…” Duet 13:1-3 (emphasis mine).

The next morning dawned overcast with colorless gray clouds blanketing the sky. When I arrived at the aula A, most of the faculty were already present and seated around the classroom tables, arranged in a large circle.
“Do you have the voice recorder?” someone asked me. We had agreed the night before that it would be a good idea to document the meeting, just in case we needed an accurate record later of exactly what was said. We had also asked the pastor to attend the meeting, as Saúl was a member of the church in Guayaramerin, and these were clearly issues that could affect his membership status. We also hoped to thus avoid any rumors that otherwise might arise in town should we need to ask Saúl to leave the school.
I returned to my room to fetch the Dictaphone along with several extra batteries. When I returned, we prayed and then reviewed our strategy. Keila gave each staff member a piece of paper with one of the questions that we had formulated the night before, and Salim then went to fetch Saúl.
Typically, if students get in serious trouble, they have to meet with the administrative council of four members and most students find that intimidating enough. I wondered what Saúl must be thinking as he entered to face the entire staff! After prayer, Salim began the meeting by telling Saúl how much we were worried about him and that we were meeting with him out of concern for his salvation as well as the influence he was having on other students. Next we began with the questions.
“So why did you decide to return to study here this year?” The story that Saúl proceeded to tell us was quite ordinary in content, if not in length, as he explained his reasons for coming here, beginning with his freshman year.
“But what brought you here this year? What is your purpose in this place?” Salim had to refocus him on the specific question. He got real quiet for a moment and then answered with one word:
“God.”
“You are sure that God wants you here?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Lately I’ve been studying about the Godhead, and I realized that I have to really know Him… yes, know Him… Even though many people are sure that He exists, that is not enough.”
In the context of the Juan Carlos letter about knowing “the unknown God,” I wasn’t sure how to take the otherwise innocent-enough comment.
At this point Salim got to the heart of the issue and asked Saúl outright if the reports were true that he had come back this year (2010) for a specific person and/or purpose apart from what he had mentioned so far.
“Yes.” He replied. “But that purpose is completed.”
“So you did have another purpose that brought you here apart from what you have told us up to now?”
“Yes. I’ll explain more clearly.” And again he launched into his reasons for coming to the school his freshman year, which he claimed were partly to get away from his mom who had always been controlling and overly protective. Yet he still seemed to be avoiding the question.
“So how did you know that you needed to come here for a specific person?” Salim prompted.
“Because of a dream” he said softly. I thought of some of the remarks that Yani and Juan Carlos had made regard their comings and goings from the Internado respectively.
“I was sure that the dream was from God,” Saúl continued. “Now I don’t know, because lately many have told me that I shouldn’t base my actions on dreams.[i] But at that time I prayed a lot and I took the dream as divine.”
“And what was it exactly that made you take the dream as divine? What were your reasons?” we asked.
In response, he proceeded to tell us the circumstances leading up to the dream. During the vacation of 2008, he was helping his mom move some belongings by boat from one town to another. During that time, he made a mistake (of which he didn’t give details for personal reasons). After his mistake, according to Saúl, he felt remorse and spent a long time in prayer, not only asking God to forgive him, but also praying for all the people who he knew. Afterward he fell asleep and dreamed about a stranger, a man in a white shirt and black tie explaining the Bible to Damaris. Afterward, the scene changed to something obscene, and he awoke. Disgusted with the final image of the dream, he prayed and told God he didn’t want those images in his head! When he fell asleep again, the same dream reoccurred, but without the bad ending. The dream was so vivid that when he awoke he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
About two months after the dream, Saúl returned to UETIRG for the 2009 school year. He still couldn’t forget about his dream, but it wasn’t until some time had gone by that he connected the new teacher Juan Carlos with the man he had seen explaining the Bible to Damaris in his dream. He claimed that this realization came to him during a deja vu moment in Yata one Sabbath afternoon when the actions and dress of Juan Carlos somehow reminded him of the man in his dream. Around that same time, he was able to begin bible studies with a lady who he had prayed for the night of his dream, and he saw that as an answer to his prayer and evidence that the dream that followed had been from God.
In response we shared verses like 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 and asked him how he could believe the dream was from God when part of it had been impure. He admitted that this was a problem, but was sure that his dream was related to things that happened later on. Besides, he had dreamed the same dream the second time without the obscene part, in apparent answer to his prayer.
“But don’t you think that if the dream were from God he would have gotten it right the first time?” He agreed that that made sense. We also asked Saúl if he had ever seen Juan Carlos talking with Damaris as he had seen in his dream, and he said that he hadn’t, yet he would not relinquish his claim that the dream had already been fulfilled. I wondered if perhaps he looked on himself as a symbolic fulfillment of his own dream since he had given Juan Carlos’ book to Damaris, but I never asked him to confirm this. In any case, it turned out that the dream about Damaris and Juan Carlos was not the one he had initially referenced as his reason for returning to UETIRG in the present school year of 2010.
Apparently in July of 2009, about a month after Juan Carlos had left campus, Saúl had another dream in which he had seen Keila. (While he did not elaborate on the details of what he saw in the dream, he made it clear that it was because of this dream that he had returned for another school year.) He said he remembered talking to Keila afterward and wanting to tell her about his dream. Instead, he asked her opinion on Juan Carlos and his teachings. Somewhere in Keila’s response, she mentioned that she was “still a babe in the gospel,” and that phrase was apparently sufficient to warrant Saúl's return. The implication was that his purpose in returning in 2010 had to do with Keila. In a way this made sense, as she was the director of religious activities that year, and influencing her would be a way to affect the whole school. Keila, however, is not so easily influenced as he may have imagined. We asked Saúl if his second dream had also been fulfilled, and he said it had, and then revised his statement to say that it was being fulfilled right now in this meeting! That seemed like a spur of the moment interpretive decision on his part and we drilled him with some more questions on how he could know this. He couldn’t explain to us his reasons, but he did not recant his conclusion.
So now was the time to draw him out on what he really believed. We continued the meeting with the questions we had planned. I asked Saúl to look up 2 Timothy 3:13-17. We read it together, and then I asked:
“Do you believe that ALL of scripture is inspired by God and that it helpful for all of the reasons that the text mentions?”
“Yes.” That was encouraging. If that were true, at least we would still be able to reason with him from the scriptures. The next few questions passed in the same way, with Saúl agreeing with the biblical position. When we got to the question about the Sabbath, however, the differences began to arise. He claimed that the Sabbath has been fulfilled, or that it has another fulfillment, and tried to use Hebrews chapter three to support his theory. We pointed out the inconsistencies of his argument using the same chapter, and brought in some additional texts and arguments to supplement, all with little apparent impact. At one point in the conversation, Saúl even suggested that God’s main purpose in creating our world was to show the plan of redemption to the angels. This seemed to corroborate, or at least favor Juan Carlos’ assertion in the letter that God had predetermined the fall and that it was part of His original design for us. (Essentially saying that God made the mess we’re in.)
We continued to reason with Saúl from the scriptures, but as I saw him there, his arms crossed and his face dark and hard as flint, I must confess that I had little hope for a breakthrough. Yet, the more he tried to explain himself, the more mixed-up and uncertain he seemed to be, and finally, it seemed, he began to realize it.
“What is your understanding of faith?”
“That’s something I still don’t really understand. Can we skip to the next question?”
At this point we were about an hour and a half into the interview and we came to the question on tithe.
“Do you believe in tithe? We know that tithe is first mentioned in Genesis 14:20. Do you believe that tithing is a commandment from God that still applies to us today?”
(Long pause). “Yes.”
“Why? Why do you believe it? There are some people who say it was just for the Jews.” (Another long pause).
“Well, the truth is that I’ve tithed as a tradition. I haven’t studied the topic. Juan Carlos said no, tithe doesn’t apply now, and he had his explanation. I’m still uncertain about this topic too. I want to ask all of you, and teacher Ruan… I want to hear all the topics, and I want you to show me from the Bible, and disprove all the bases that he put.”
“That’s the reason we’re here” Ruan said.
Finally, a little softening! Keep working Holy Spirit!
By the time we adjourned the meeting over an hour and a half later, things were looking more promising, but there was still a lot that needed to happen. Since Saúl had voiced his doubts to many of the other students and had even shared some of Juan Carlos’ material, we needed to give a detailed presentation biblically exposing the errors and dangers of his teachings. Since the last letter he had sent was so blatantly contrary to everything the Bible teaches about the nature of God, the fall, sin, and redemption, we decided to make that the focus. Once we showed Juan Carlos’ final product, there would be no need to wade through his previous, more convoluted teachings. The fruit would identify the root.
We scheduled the meeting for first thing after breakfast the next day. Since most of the new students knew very little of the history, we shared just enough so they could understand the situation before getting into the doctrinal aspects. The meeting went very well, and we could sense the Spirit of God with us. My favorite part came after we had rebutted the letter point by point. One staff member spontaneously began to read a scripture passage warning of rampant last-day deceptions similar to what we had just experienced. When he finished, another teacher across the room arose and read a relevant biblical passage. When he finished, another followed with another text, and so it continued for about 15 to 20 minutes with the majority of the staff participating, reading straight scripture. All of it tied together beautifully.[ii] The students were visible affected. It was incredible! God’s word is so eloquent and powerful and so apropos!
In worship that evening we made the call for complete consecration to God and invited all students and staff to get rid of anything in their lives that could be separating them from Him. We made a bonfire outside in the middle of campus, and the students and staff went to their rooms to collect anything that they might want to burn. All of us were waiting to see what Saúl would do. Would he take advantage of this opportunity? What was my surprise when Saúl was the first student to arrive at the fire and cast in all of his books and other materials from Juan Carlos. Other students also burned materials from Juan Carlos, and others took the opportunity to burn other books and materials that they knew were not pleasing to God. It all added up to quite a little pile! When everyone was gathered, Saúl stood up and made a public confession and apology for his subtle undermining and rebellion and for confusing the minds of many of his classmates. Afterward we all joined in singing hymns of praise and consecration. Oh, where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and there is victory! We were singing the last song when I felt someone grab my shoulder.
It was Saúl. He apologized to me personally[iii] and we hugged. There were tears in his eyes as he told me:
“Teacher, thanks for not giving up on me. I could have lost my salvation!”[iv]
So will we all if we are not grounded and settled in the truth as it is in Jesus.[v]


[i] I remember Saúl telling me about some dreams that he had during the 2009 school year, and proposing that they contained some kind of significance or perhaps divine guidance. He didn’t tell me any details about the content of the dreams, but I remember cautioning him not to become fascinated with the novel and sensational, nor base his beliefs and decisions in emotions and manifestations. “Guard your thoughts and your imaginations. Test everything by the Word of God,” I told him. “That is our only safe standard.”

[ii] Some of the passages read included Col 2:2-10, 2 Thess 2:1-4, Acts 20:28-30, 1 Cor 3: 10-13, 1 John 2:18-22, and 2 Pet 2.

[iii] When he apologized to me, Saúl took the opportunity to remind me of a document that he had showed me in 2009. “I’m pretty sure that visualization was the technique Juan Carlos was using with that story I shared with you last year,” he told me. (Visualization is one of the spiritual exercises used in spiritual formation, a process touted by many of today’s mainstream churches as a new way to bring life and power into your spiritual experience. In this exercise, first practiced and taught by Jesuit founder Ignatius Loyola, the object is to meditate upon a story from the Bible, imagining the sights, sounds, smells and other sensory details until it seems that you have entered into the scene and are able to converse with the characters of the story. It is basically a self-induced hypnotic trance.)
During the 2009 school year Saúl had asked my opinion on a document that I later came to realize was a letter from Juan Carlos, commentating on the story in John 8, of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. At the time he shared with me, I knew next to nothing about Juan Carlos or what had happened previously, but I remember telling Saúl that it seemed to me that the article was missing the point of the story, and that we have to be careful not to get caught up in speculation about extraneous details that are not given in the scripture. In fact, we are told that “it is a masterpiece of Satan’s deceptions to keep the minds of men searching and conjecturing in regard to that which God has not made known, and which He does not intend that we shall understand.” (The Great Controversy 523) Saúl was fascinated at the time, however, and kept coming back around to the same questions. We were getting nowhere, and he finally dropped the subject.

[iv] Please continue to pray for Saúl. He is volunteering with us at the school this year and seems to be doing well, yet one does not easily leave behind all the effects of such deception.

[v] Ellen White makes the following statement in Early Writings: “I saw that we are no more secure from false teachers now than they were in the apostles' days; and, if we do no more, we should take as special measures as they did to secure the peace, harmony, and union of the flock. We have their example, and should follow it. Brethren of experience and of sound minds should assemble, and following the Word of God and the sanction of the Holy Spirit, should, with fervent prayer, lay hands upon those who have given full proof that they have received their commission of God, and set them apart to devote themselves entirely to His work. This act would show the sanction of the church to their going forth as messengers to carry the most solemn message ever given to men.
God will not entrust the care of His precious flock to men whose mind and judgment have been weakened by former errors that they have cherished, such as so-called perfectionism [SEE APPENDIX.] and Spiritualism, and who, by their course while in these errors, have disgraced themselves and brought reproach upon the cause of truth. Although they may now feel free from error and competent to go forth and to teach this last message, God will not accept them. He will not entrust precious souls to their care; for their judgment was perverted while in error, and is now weakened. The great and holy One is a jealous God, and He will have holy men to carry His truth. The holy law spoken by God from Sinai is a part of Himself, and holy men who are its strict observers will alone honor Him by teaching it to others" (101.2).

Hello everyone! As usual, all my prepared updates are late… You would think that they are arriving by ship, not email! So here are a few current hot items of interest before the warmed-overs. :)
This Sabbath we will be attending a district wide camp meeting. Ten of our students will make a public declaration to commit their lives completely to the Lord in baptism! The next day we leave for a month-long mission trip into the interior to conduct medical clinics and evangelism. I also just found out today that JAC, the Bolivian version of GYC was founded this month and will hold their first conference next year in Santa Cruz! That is a direct answer to prayer! Since I attended GYC in Baltimore last January I have been praying for just such a development here in Bolivia! (There is more to this story too!) We also have a couple of incredible opportunities for further expanding the work here in Bolivia, including a large parcel of donated land for another school like the one here. More details will follow… but probably not until I get back from the jungle in August. Thanks for all your prayers and support. May God bless you all and keep working us over…and over: until we shine like the stars, and mirror his image like polished pictures of silver.

Jordan. June 1, 2011
“…and [if] in the land of peace, [wherein] thou trustedst, [they wearied thee], then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?” Jeremiah 12:5 b.

I find myself dismayed today at the passing of yet another month! Oh how I long for the day when I will no more be confined by time and can bask in the eternal! Yet the constraints of time frame even that wish, and my hope is still in a day.
We’re already hip deep into the year, and with each day that flows or surges by I feel that the river-bottom underfoot falls farther away. What faith will it take to slog through these days? Will we wet ourselves to the chest, or must we hold our breath until death takes it? How many more steps? Or dare we hope that the river will part before our steady tread (quadrupled soon with hands) and drop us to dry land? I cannot know what will happen to me in this great slosh: the Jordan is beginning to swell. But I know what land lies beyond the river, and the King who reigns there, and so whatever the cost of the crossing, it will be cheap enough!
Yet I am too quickly frustrated by mere ripples, too quickly wearied by the silt, or worried about the depth or width of the river. I feel so unprepared for what lies ahead.
We must be buried with our Lord in Jordan. For some of us, it may take seven burials like it did for the haughty Naaman. And yet I think he had more faith than many of us. God requires a complete death to self, to the world.
This morning as I read from Early Writings the message is so clear, and so apt: “Time is almost finished. Do you reflect the lovely image of Jesus as you should? Then I was pointed to the earth and saw that there would have to be a getting ready among those who have of late embraced the third angel's message. [Yet how many of us even know and understand what the message of the third angel is? I know I have a lot more to learn!] Said the angel, ‘Get ready, get ready, get ready. Ye will have to die a greater death to the world than ye have ever yet died.’ I saw that there was a great work to do for them and but little time in which to do it.” {EW 64.1}
Those same words are repeated a few pages later: “Get ready, get ready, get ready. Ye must have a greater preparation than ye now have, for the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. Sacrifice all to God. Lay all upon His altar—self, property, and all, a living sacrifice. It will take all to enter glory” (66.2, emphasis mine). Wow. What does that really mean? I feel I know so little of giving, of real self-sacrifice and unselfish service. And yet, “those who reject the privilege of fellowship with Christ in service, reject the only training that imparts a fitness for participation with Him in His glory. They reject the training that in this life gives strength and nobility of character” (Education, 264.3). Lord, give me a heart to serve!

Some like it blunt. Feb 27, 2011.

This last Sunday we were working to clear the church building site in Yata when a man walked over from across the street to see what we were doing. He told us he was from Guayaramerin and had stopped by to visit family. (“My sister is the fat lady who lives across the road” was the way he put it). Such candidness is typical with many Bolivians, and they seem to appreciate it when you respond in kind.
“Are you building a house?” he asked
“No, we’re building a church,” Ruan replied.
“What kind of church?”
“An Adventist church.”
“Oh, today is like your Monday isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“And Saturday for you is like Sunday.”
“That’s right”
“Why do you keep Saturday instead of Sunday?”
“Because the Bible says that Saturday is God’s Sabbath day.”
“It does doesn’t it”
“Yep. And it doesn’t say anything about Sunday.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t. Why then do all churches keep Sunday?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yep.”
“Because the emperor Constantine proclaimed himself a Christian and made a decree to venerate the pagan holiday of Sunday, claiming it was to honor Christ’s resurrection. And most all of the churches have obeyed him to this day. So you have to decide, do you want to obey God, or Constantine!”
“You’re right!” he said. They chatted a bit more and he left, and we haven’t seen him since. We’re really looking forward to the day when the church will be finished and more people will stop by and ask about the truth!