“We
each need to return to our own Galilee,” said the Leadership Mentor at Covenant
Evangelical Free Church (CEFC), who called on the tens of thousands of
Christians who had gathered at the Singapore Sports Hub to unite in
consecrating their hearts in repentance.
Why
Galilee? Rev Edmund recalled the words of Jesus to the two women who were
surprised to find an empty tomb. “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to
go to Galilee; there they will see me.” (Matthew 28:10)
“Lord,
we are coming back as a church to our first love, to start over again.”
Why
Galilee? Why not Jerusalem? Why make that 120km journey up to Galilee? Rev
Edmund said he believes it is because Jesus was telling them to return to the
place of their first love.
Galilee
was the place where the disciples – many of them fishermen – were first called.
Likewise, he said, for the Church in Singapore to be the Antioch of Asia, we
need to return to our first love, the place of our first calling.
“Each
of us has a spiritual moment when we heard the first call of God on our lives.
It is that moment that the presence of God became real for us,” he said.
“Starting
over. Breaking free. Looking up. Letting go. Moving on. That is the call of
Jesus.”
United
in repentance:
After
Jesus was crucified, the disciples were scattered, broken, their faith shaken.
All hope, it seemed, was lost. The spiritual moment when we first heard the
call of God is the moment the presence of God became real for us.
Until
the empty tomb, and the word from an angel which gave them the same
instructions as Jesus had given the women: Return to Galilee. (Matthew 28:7). “This
is what Biblical repentance is about: Returning to our spiritual Galilee, when
we first heard the call of the Kingdom and the mission of Jesus,” explained Rev
Edmund.
Key
to this is unity in prayer, because Galilee was also the place where the Great
Commission was issued to disciple the nations, he said. It was only after that
call was given that they were sent to Jerusalem. And so, upon their return to
Jerusalem, the centre of religious worship for Judaism, the disciples gathered
as one in prayer (Acts 1:12). When that happened, the Holy Spirit came upon
them (Acts 2:1-4).
Lessons
from Dunkirk
A
memorable call to united repentance also happened during World War II, shared
Rev Edmund, in an incident recently immortalised in film. Gather and repent
before God as one, then there will be a consecration of God’s people.
In
the Battle of Dunkirk, Winston Churchill – then the British Prime Minister –
was woken by a phone call from his French counterpart, saying that his country
had fallen to the Germans. With the fall of Belgium, the Netherlands and now
France, Germany had trapped some 330,000 Allied troops along the shores of
Dunkirk.
The
War Office reported that, realistically, only 20,000 to 30,000 – a mere 10% of
the troops – could be rescued. Churchill spoke to the reigning monarch, King
George VI, who then called for a National Day of Prayer on 26th May, 1940.
But,
instead of praying for deliverance of the troops or victory in the war, the
Church gathered and repented before God, Rev Edmund told attendees at
PraySingapore.
When
they prayed, three miracles happened:
- Hitler halted 1,800 tanks just 10 miles from Dunkirk for no apparent reason. If the tanks had pushed through, the victory would have belonged to Germany. Churchill speculated in his memoirs that Hitler ordered this as he wanted to depend on the country’s aerial superiority.
- But that backfired as bad weather in the Flanders kept the 300 German planes grounded.
- A rare and unprecedented calm in the English Channel facilitated the evacuation of British troops. Some 800 vessels, both big and small, took part in the greatest rescue operation of all time, as more than 300,000 were brought safely home.
When
His people repent, miracles happen, Rev Edmund said.
“Today
as we get back together, we want to return – to the place of calling and
consecration as a family,” he said as he called for attendees to pray.
“Today,
return to Galilee and say, ‘Lord, in repentance and united prayer, we, the
church of Jesus Christ, stand as one for the kingdom of Jesus."
(Written by Geraldine Tan, 8th October 2018)
Profile Information Source:
Geraldine
is a former news journalist, public relations practitioner and research editor
with a penchant for puns, punctuation and a positive attitude. She is always up
for the next new adventure and is on a quest to bake the perfect chocolate chip
cookie. Geraldine is now Assistant Editor at Salt & Light Devotional Text.
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