In this sermon, the speaker discusses the training of missionaries in China and highlights five major subjects taught to them. The first subject focuses on how to witness and live for the Lord Jesus Christ, not only through lifestyle but also in every circumstance. The speaker shares a powerful testimony of a brother who witnessed the gospel even in the face of arrest and potential execution. Despite being beaten and injured, this brother's supernatural healing and testimony led 18 criminals to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The sermon emphasizes the greatness of God and challenges listeners to not limit Him based on their own understanding.

Let's pray for the Chinese Church before we continue, because it's just such a tremendous privilege to have any contact with the leaders of the Chinese Church. God has been doing such a tremendous thing, as Brother Taisto has been sharing, that 50 years ago a government came into that nation, the world's largest nation, and that government said there's no God, there's no Jesus. They smashed church buildings down, they put thousands of pastors in prison, and many of them died. And they tried everything they could to eliminate Christianity once and for all. Some American brothers went to visit the Chinese in 1972, I believe it was, and they talked to the wife of Mao Zedong, Chairman Mao, and they said, please tell us, are there any Christians left in your country anymore? Are there any Christians in China? The world, for more than 20 years, had been waiting for news about the church in China, and no news had come. Most missionaries thought that the church had been completely smashed and eliminated. And Mao's wife said to these American visitors, she said, Christianity has died in China. Christianity has been confined to a place in the museum of history. Praise the Lord, she was wrong. Amen. God is not bound by human governments. In fact, the scripture says in Isaiah that the government is upon his shoulders. Amen. So let's just thank God for a minute. Let's bow our heads and just thank the Lord for how great He is, that nobody can stop the advance of His kingdom. Heavenly Father, we praise You because Your greatness is unsearchable. Lord, that nobody can stop Your plan. You have all the power and all the authority, not only in heaven but also on this earth. And Lord, make this such a deep revelation in the hearts and the spirits and the minds of each one here, that You have all the power and all the authority in heaven and on earth, in Lancaster County, in our families, in our homes, in all of our lives. You have all the power and all the authority. So Lord, we just praise You and thank You that this revival in China has been a work of God, not of man. No people can claim credit for what has been going on. There's no bunch of leaders who can be identified as great men of God who have brought this about. This has been far beyond that. This is a work of You, a work of Your heart. And Lord, we just pray that You'll encourage and challenge Your people in the remaining time we have tonight. Speak to each one of us. Give us an ear to hear what the Spirit has to say. In Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. And if you have your Bibles, which I hope you do, please turn to Psalm 145. The 145th Psalm. I have to bring a greeting. I almost forgot. But it's actually almost 10 years since I had the opportunity to be in your midst when everyone was at the charity church before this particular congregation was formed. And I just have tremendous memories from that time, not the least of which is that when I spoke at charity in 1993, I was just a single man with no plans and no hope to get married. Yet within just a few months after I was there, praise the Lord, I was married to join my beautiful wife from Idaho. And so I remember I always put that time in such a wonderful moment in my life. And I always remember that church service. I was telling Mos earlier that I remember the prayer meeting before that particular service began. There was one brother praying so loudly that my ears were absolutely bursting. It was so fervent. And I said to the brother who was taking me around, I said, brother, I wish you would turn the microphone off. And then I looked out and I looked down at who was praying and I noticed he wasn't even using the microphone. Such was the fervency of the Lord in that man's life. So I thank God for the opportunity to be here again. Psalm 145, beginning in verse 3. Let's pay attention to these words. The Word of God says, Great is the Lord. Amen. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. His greatness is unsearchable. If somebody asks you, how great is God? Maybe this is the answer. His greatness is so great that it's unsearchable. He's not just great, but He's unsearchably great. He's not only mighty, but He's almighty. Amen. If you feel like it, you can be inspired. When we speak in China, there's a continual hallelujahs and amens. So don't feel afraid if you want to do that also tonight. But the Word of God says, His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Thy works to another and shall declare Thy mighty acts. I will speak of the glorious honor of Thy majesty and of Thy wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of Thy terrible acts and I will declare Thy greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Thy great goodness and shall sing of Thy righteousness. That's what Brother Tyso was doing earlier. Verse 8, The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all and His tender mercies are over all of His works. All Thy works shall praise Thee, O Lord, and Thy saints shall bless Thee. Amen. How great is God? His greatness is unsearchable. Today is Sunday as you know and all over the world, in most countries probably it's already Monday, but all over the world on this day believers meet together. And sometimes if we're not careful it's very easy just to forget our own surroundings and think that that's all of the world that there is. We need to understand that the body of Christ is meeting all over the world every Sunday. Not only here, but there's people in Africa, tall Zulu warriors who have come to Christ. There are tiny pygmies from the jungle in Central Africa of whom they've experienced a tremendous revival in the last 10 years and thousands of them have come to Christ. In China today believers met together in the woods because it's not safe to meet in a building. What they do is they find a place up a hill or up a mountain and they find a clearing and as many as can come, come together and meet there. And then they put brothers further down the hill in the trails that lead up and those brothers have their mobile phones and if they see any police or any sign of danger immediately they get on their mobile phones and call up to the meeting in the woods and within minutes everybody is dispersed in different directions. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ. This very day these things are happening. Believers are meeting in caves inside China. There are many cave churches. South America, Central America, even New Zealand where I'm from and of course all across America. There are believers who have been born again and washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen. That's something to rejoice about. God is moving. You know when we hear a lot of talk about the Chinese church I'd just like to share one or two personal experiences because there's many miracles. I mean, especially our brother here could probably stay for a week and talk day and night, non-stop, testimony after testimony that he personally has seen firsthand. And yet when people sometimes ask me when you're with those leaders, those top house church leaders of millions of Christians, what is the most important factor? What's the impression that you get left with the most? Is it the miracles? Is it the tremendous power? And I thought about that question when I'm asked and I thought back to some of those experiences and you know what? Without question, the overwhelming thing I remember whenever I'm with those brothers and sisters is love. No question. The love of God. These people love people. They love the believers and they love the unbelievers. They love them because they love God and God first loved them. But that's the overwhelming thing that I, the memory I have is that they love you. I remember being at one meeting in January 2000. There was a very small brother, about 30 years old and he was wearing a big thick ski jacket all the time even though it wasn't that cold. And he didn't say much. He was very quiet and very humble. And we met together for three or four days and had meals together, prayed together, had communion together. And this little brother seemed to attach himself to me for some reason. I didn't know why. But he would always make sure that I didn't have to do anything. It was embarrassing. When the food came he would grab it straight out of the pot and start serving it onto my plate. If I reached for some vegetables and tried to serve him he would always get in front of me and prevent it. It was like all he wanted to do was to serve me. I don't know why but it was just an overwhelming thing. Once I decided I was going to trick that brother. I thought I'm going to grab his cup which is empty and before he can stop me I'm going to quickly go over to the water fountain where they have big bottles of water and I'm going to get him some water and bring it back and bless him in Jesus name. So I waited for the perfect moment when his attention was diverted slightly and I quickly grabbed his cup and I raced across the floor and I'm probably two or three times bigger than him. And you know I thought I was going to win. I was only a few yards away from getting to that bottle of water. And then I felt a strange thing. I felt like I was skiing down a hill and I'd run into a truck because this brother had run after me and was grabbing my shirt as hard as he could and I was pulling him along across the floor. And he said, 不要不要 no no and he took the cup out of my hand and he blessed me and gave me the water. Anyway there was just it was tremendous to hear the testimonies from the leaders. They were actually the top leaders of about 60 million Christians in that particular meeting. And when you think about that you need to realize that these leaders are maybe not like some Christian leaders in this country and other countries. They are extremely poor. Some of those leaders of millions of Christians turned up to that meeting with all their possessions in a plastic shopping bag. They can't afford to have a suitcase. They just have a change of shirt maybe some socks they have their Bible maybe some shampoo and some toothpaste and it's all in that little plastic shopping bag. That's all they have. But the love of God. China is seeing that Jesus is alive I believe primarily because of the love of the brethren. As Jesus said the love. They never glorify or magnify the miracles. In fact it's quite difficult to get the testimonies of the miracles because often they're not willing to talk about how God has used them. Many times I've been interviewing some brothers and getting some stories and they're telling about some other brother somewhere else who God used and did a tremendous miracle through. And then after I've interviewed them I go to the next town and I find out that those stories were actually they were talking about themselves. But they were too humble to say that. So they told the stories of the third person like it was happening to somebody else. I'm not trying to glorify man because they also have their own problems. The church in China is not perfect and it won't be until the Lord Jesus comes back again. It's far from perfect. These are just people who have been touched by a mighty fire of God. Amen. And this is what we all need. Sometimes we can hear testimonies about something happening in China. But how does that relate to your life here? How does that relate to your daily life? Paying your bills, getting along, having a good family life. For the men, being the priest of your home. For the ladies, being the helpmate to your husband. For the single people, how is it at school? Bible school, whatever God has you at at the moment. But I want to tell you that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, the same today and the same forever. Amen. He's not confined to national boundaries. He's not strong in one part of the world and weak in another. That's nonsense. God's power and love is available for each of you just as much as it is for anyone anywhere else in the world. If you have unsaved relatives or friends that you've been praying for, don't give up on them. Because God hasn't given up on them. Do you believe that? How great is your God? How great? This great? His greatness is unsearchable. That's how great He is. Nobody can measure His greatness. Put your hand up if you're one of these Bible school students who have come. Wow. They're all down the front too, or most of them. That's fantastic. That's a lot of people from a lot of different places around North America. And I'm glad to welcome you. And I'm glad that you're here and God brought you here safely. You know, you're going to be learning many things in the coming, how long is it, a week? And I just want to share one extra thing about what Christo shared about the training for these missionaries who are going outside of China. They don't have theological degrees, which is a good thing. They don't have cemeteries, I mean seminaries. Training is very, very simple in China. Usually the courses consist of only 5 subjects. And you know why they chose 5 subjects? Because David only used 5 small stones when he slayed Goliath. They figured they don't need 29 steps. If it only took 5 smooth stones, actually it only took 1 to slay the giant, then that's all they need. And so in this training to send these 100,000 missionaries outside China, there are 5 major subjects and I want to share a few of them with you right now. Just maybe I'll share 3. It's probably a little bit different to most of the Bible schools in the West. The first subject that is taught is how to witness and how to live for the Lord Jesus Christ. We all need that. Amen. We all struggle in many different areas. Now by how to witness for Jesus, they're not only talking about their lifestyle witness, but how to witness under every circumstance. How to witness the gospel when the police in Saudi Arabia have arrested them and are taking them to the execution ground to end their life. How to witness to the police in the back of the police van that they might also believe and go to heaven. It's pretty radical. This is radical Christianity that they lead. Another subject they have is how to die for Christ. And again, it's not only how to die daily, but they mean how to physically die for the Lord Jesus Christ. Brother Yuan, of course, is one of the teachers of that particular subject. They're using scriptures like Psalm 116 and verse 15. Precious in the sight of the Lord are the death of his saints. Amen. So they're trying to give an understanding that death is not failure. Death is victory. This body is just a tent. Our life is just a vapor. You all know what vapors are living here, especially in winter time. If you breathe on a cold morning, there's a vapor. And then suddenly it's gone. That's what the scripture says our life is like. It's just a vapor. It's here one minute and it's gone the next. But do we live like that? It's so easy to think that we're going to be around forever. That we put things off for the Lord until the future. When we have more money or things are better or the children have grown up and left home, we always have an excuse. But the Lord says our life is like a vapor. We have to take full advantage of every day that he has made. Amen. The final subject I want to share about the Chinese house church training is the most interesting for me. And that is they teach believers how to escape. That's one of the five subjects. How to escape. They believe on one hand that sometimes God sends them to the prison as believers so they can have a prison ministry. But they believe at other times that the devil tries to get them arrested to stop the ministry. And so they have to be able to discern what's going on here very quickly. Is this God's will for me to go to the prison or is this opposition from the enemy? And many times they believe it's opposition from the enemy and they try to escape. Not by force of course. But if they happen to be there when they're being fingerprinted in the police station and they see an open window, many times they run for it and jump out. And run off down the road to continue their ministry. And so they teach people how to escape. Some of the practical parts of that Bible school is they have former policemen from China come and teach people how to pick their way out of handcuffs in 30 seconds. You don't pass this Bible school. You don't graduate unless you can do that. You have 30 seconds to use a piece of wire and learn how to get out of handcuffs. Another thing they were teaching is how to jump out of second story windows and not break your legs. Or even third story in some occasions. They teach you that when you jump out you need to land with your legs together and roll over like a parachute jump. Don't land with your legs apart, you'll break your legs. So it's very different if you turned up to one of those Bible schools you might see people with their hands handcuffed behind their back jumping out the window. But these are radical believers. They're going on one-way tickets. They're not expecting to return to China. They're not stupid. They know when they go to Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan and countries like that that they're not going to be welcome. They're going to spill their blood in the nations of the world. Ah, too many testimonies. Maybe I'll try and lighten it a little bit and tell you one or two funny testimonies about how God has been helping the spread of the gospel in China. In 1994 in Henan province where the revival in China is the greatest in a county called Xinyi County the house church evangelists were preaching outside on the street. No building could contain the crowd of onlookers. And so soon 10 to 15,000 people had gathered around these evangelists who were standing up on boxes and proclaiming the gospel. People's hearts were hungry. They were excited to hear the message. Within about 30 minutes the police came with their sirens on to see what was happening. There was all this huge crowd spilling all over the street. One officer got out of his car and the first thing he did was he blew a whistle and he stretched out his hand and he shouted, Stop! You're under arrest. And the minute he stretched out his hand he found that it was frozen. A little bit similar to Taisho's testimony. This policeman couldn't pull his arm back in. It was stuck. He was really embarrassed. Everyone started laughing at him. They said, What's wrong with you? And they were trying to pull his arm in but it was stuck. It was completely frozen. In the end he was so embarrassed that they tried to put him back in the police car but he couldn't fit in the door because his arm was sticking out. And his face was so red. And finally they managed to get him away and take him away and the evangelist continued preaching the gospel. I don't have the exact details on this particular testimony but this was witnessed by hundreds of people. Thousands of people actually. But I do know that after a number of days his arm was still sticking out. And finally he humbled himself and realized that this was the wrath of God. And he called for some believers to come and pray for him. And in China the believers usually will not pray for someone unless first they're willing to accept the Lord. Because they know that people's hearts are so rotten that if they just pray for their healing then they'll turn around and keep persecuting them. And so first when these believers were called to pray they said, First you get on your knees with your arm sticking out and you repent of your sins and you decide to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. And he did and then the Lord brought his arm back in normally. Another testimony from the 1970s also in Henan province. There was one particular policeman who was renowned for being a terrible blasphemer and a persecutor of the church. I mean absolutely terrible. His mouth was filthy. He said the most vile things. One day he went to break up a meeting and he had his team of soldiers who rushed into a meeting place to arrest the believers. And as soon as he stuck his tongue out to say something his tongue got stuck outside of his mouth. Very similar to the previous testimony. He couldn't talk properly. I don't know what God did. Maybe God made his tongue five times bigger than usual or made his mouth smaller or something. But he could not pull his tongue back into his mouth. For days and days nobody could help him. He couldn't eat or drink of course. Things were getting desperate. But his heart was still proud and he wouldn't receive the Lord. He wouldn't humble himself. Finally he was so desperate he wrote a letter to the Christians. And he said please come and pray that your God will heal me. And again they refused. They said we won't pray for you unless you agree to believe in the Lord and stop persecuting His church. That particular policeman became a born again believer in Jesus and he is still a Christian to this day. To this very day. The Lord is moving in a mighty way. There's always two different things when I think about the churches in China. There's always two different topics or two different words that come to mind. One is fire and the other is blood. There's tremendous fire of God. Not only in miracles and things but inside of them. The tremendous fire of God in their bones. They cannot shut up. It's impossible. Like the prophet Jeremiah. He said it's shut up in my bones. It cannot remain quiet. But the other thing about the church in China is blood. First and foremost of course the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. They've been washed and cleansed. And yet also it talks of their own blood as they follow the Lord in the road of suffering. Many have spilled their blood. Right now this very day as we sit here this very day there are at least 4,000 house church leaders in China in prison for the gospel. They go through brutal treatment. Absolutely brutal. By the way maybe if you can remember what I was saying about 20 minutes ago let me back up to the story of that small brother who held on to my shirt in that house church meeting because his testimony fits in right now. That particular brother hadn't said anything in the meeting until the last day. I didn't know who he was. I was new at meeting these leaders. And so I thought who is this brother? Did he carry their bags for them or something? I didn't understand. He was just so quiet and different and just kept to himself and didn't have much to say. But on the last afternoon of that particular meeting before people dispersed he stood up and shared his testimony. He's quite a young man. He said that in 1993 the police finally caught up with him. And they'd been searching for him for years. They'd been on the run. Many times he would be asleep in a certain farmhouse in a certain village where they were having meetings. And at 3 o'clock in the morning the Holy Spirit would wake him up and say get out of here quickly. And he would quickly get his bag together and leave. And 5 or 10 minutes later the police would turn up that he was already gone. Many believers are living like that. Minute to minute not only day to day. And so for years and years they'd been searching for this brother and not been able to catch up with him. But finally they did in 1993. They welcomed him to prison with absolutely severe beatings. Almost beat him to death. They smashed his collarbone. They smashed his legs and they knocked him unconscious. His head was covered in blood and there were large pieces of his hair torn out in the beatings. They always do this when Christian pastors first arrive in the prison. I think Taiso explained that earlier. His condition was so bad that the police picked him up took him back to the prison cell where there were 18 other prisoners other men and they just threw his unconscious body in on the floor and left him there. The 18 other prisoners were some of the roughest men you can imagine. Rapists bank robbers murderers and yet in that particular cell there was already some kind of a mafia system in operation. The leader of the cell already controlled the other 17 men. There was only one bed and one toilet in that cell. Only one. The rest of the people had to sleep on the floor. So that particular cell leader threatened that if any of the other men ever even sit on his bed he will kill them. They were terrified of him. And yet even this hardened criminal when they saw this brother called Timothy when they saw brother Timothy his body just thrown in and all of his hair out and his body smashed his bones smashed even this hardened criminal had compassion on him and he picked him up and laid him on his own bed that night. Now what I'm about to tell you brother Timothy never saw. He didn't see any of this at all. He was unconscious. But during that very same night starting in the middle of the night maybe 2 o'clock in the morning all these other prisoners started to see something happen in that brother's body. They saw some strange kind of a glow around his body or a light but it wasn't a natural light. It wasn't the moonlight or electric light. It was some kind of supernatural glow. And what that did is give a terrible fear of God tremendous fear of God to these criminals. They were so scared they backed up against the steel bars in that cell and shouted out to the guards they were so terrified at what they were seeing. They said, let us out, let us out. The guards came and saw it too but they wouldn't let them out. They were also absolutely terrified at what they were seeing. They didn't understand. And so you had this one young brother beaten almost to death in some kind of a supernatural glow on his body and all these big hard criminals backed up against the far side of the cell. This continued for several hours that light and in the morning time brother Timothy was healed and conscious. He was still sore. He wasn't 100% right. He still couldn't walk right and he felt some pains but somehow God had knitted his bones back together that had been crushed. And even though he was groggy he was still able to walk around. And so you can imagine the first question these 18 men asked Who are you? And he said, it doesn't matter who I am. It's who Jesus is. They said, who is Jesus? And he explained the gospel to them and each of those 18 criminals rapists, murderers and robbers they all got on their knees with tears flowing down their eyes and they received the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet their brother never saw this light himself. It's only what those men told him. How great is our God. How great. Why do we put him in little boxes in our understanding? And I'm just saying we're all the same. We confine the Lord into what we feel comfortable to give him. He can do these things but he's not allowed to touch these areas of our life. That's what I'm like. We all need to get past that. Amen. I remember when I first became a missionary even though I'm from New Zealand as John said, I became a Christian in Australia. And in 1988, God called me to go to China for the first time. And I was a much younger man then. And the Lord really clearly called me but the church wasn't so enthusiastic about it. In those days, I didn't understand that when you got the call from the big brother that you didn't need to get permission from the small brother. I only learnt that later. And so I just wanted to go. I knew that God had called me to go to China. And finally the church decided to send me out and they laid hands on me and commissioned me and prayed for me one Sunday morning service. And there was an old man who was crippled in our church. He's now passed away, gone to heaven. An old man named Bruce. And Bruce had to have a walking stick. And he was always one of those elderly men because of hearing problems. He would always talk out loud while the pastor was preaching. Because he didn't understand. So, you know, in the middle of a sensitive time in the sermon he'd always turn to the person next to him and say, what did he say? You know, he was one of those guys. But he loved the Lord. And that man, after the church prayed for me, that man came up and sat down next to me and he only said one sentence. I didn't know him very well. But I never forgot that sentence. And this is a challenge to everyone in this room. Old Bruce, he said, young man the greatest ability you'll ever have is your availability. Isn't that a good quote? The greatest ability you'll ever have for Jesus is not some theological degree or some human thing, even though God can use that, of course, if it's submitted to him. But the greatest ability you'll ever have is your availability to Jesus. Don't get unavailable. Don't get so up here with mortgages and daily routines and problems that you're unable to go and serve God. Be free. Be available. Offer your heart. Offer the parts of your body as living sacrifices. Romans chapter 12. And that's what the church in China is. I mean, it's such a massive thing, nobody can possibly explain any of it. It's just a tiny glimpse. But to me, the church in China is tremendous love. Tremendous love. That same meeting I told you about with that brother who was pulling on my shirt. I left that meeting and got on an airplane and flew back to Thailand where my family is. My wife came and picked me up at the airport and I just cried all the way home. And I don't cry very much. I should. I'm disgraced to say that I think probably the previous time I cried before that was when I heard Mark McGuire hit home run number 62. And yet, I was so touched, not in my emotions, but deep in my spirit. So touched by being in that fellowship with those brothers and those sisters for those three or four days that I just wept like a baby for a whole day actually. My wife didn't know what was going on and I couldn't even explain it. And I realized later I was weeping because of the tremendous love of God. I'll just finish with one brief testimony. It was very dangerous when the brothers said we'll wait for the Holy Spirit to say when to end the meeting because we're coming from China. And in the house churches of China the trainings always begin early in the morning. Usually 5.30 all the Chinese get up for prayer. And that goes to 6 to 6.30. Then they have breakfast, wash their faces, have a little wash in the basin. And then usually the teaching begins at 7 o'clock in the morning and goes to 5, 6, 7 or midnight at night. With a few breaks of course, a break for lunch and a break every now and then. But you have to teach non-stop for 10 or 12 hours often. And then of course that's only day one. Then you get a few hours sleep and you come back and do it again. Day two, day three. So if we get into tomorrow morning and some of you have to go to work, you can feel free to leave. No, I'm only joking. I want to share a testimony after all of this China talk. I want to share a final testimony from Vietnam. The church in many ways in Vietnam is very similar to China. The government is very similar. It's a communist government and they oppose Christianity every possibility they can. And yet again, God doesn't care. It doesn't worry him at all. He is growing his church inside and numerically in Vietnam. Several years ago I met an old lady, an old sister by the name of Sister May in Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City which used to be called Saigon in the South. She was a house church believer. She was an old lady a little bit bent over and she had big frizzy hair. She was 72 years old at the time. And I didn't know anything about her but she started to share her testimony in the presence of many other house church leaders and they all confirmed every word she said. They knew her. I am completely confident the testimony I'm about to tell you is accurate. Sometimes, especially in the West, people get very suspicious when they hear testimonies about miracles because there's so many ridiculous so-called believers who make things up. It's what's called evangelistic stories sometimes. Things get stretched. And so I don't know what to say except the Lord is a judge. That these testimonies we have shared with you and even the testimonies in Brother Yoon's book have been always verified by at least two or three witnesses. Many times by hundreds of witnesses. Many of these. And so with this testimony I'm about to tell you. When Sister May was 70 years old, she had never heard the gospel. She had been raised a little bit Catholic. There's a lot of Catholics in southern Vietnam. But she really had no idea of the gospel whatsoever. At that time, she started to develop a terrible cancer in her face. I mean it was just horrible to look at. When she walked down the road, people coming the other way would just stare in absolute disbelief because it looked like somebody had two heads. Such was a huge bulge of cancer sticking out the side of her face. Looked like she had two different heads. She said that she would walk down the road and people would just have to turn away. It was so ugly they couldn't even bear to look at her. They would have to look the other way. Of course the doctors said, we can't help you. Get ready. Get your health in order. You're going to die. She was already a widow. Her husband already died. She was just absolutely heartbroken. She didn't know what to do. And then one day, she heard a man standing on the street saying something in Saigon. So she went over and tried to push through the crowd and she heard that some man was talking about Jesus. Something happened inside of her heart. She thought, I don't know what, but there's some kind of truth. There's some kind of thing happening here. And she stayed as close as she could to that young brother and tried to find out what the secret was. What the difference was in him. He talked to her and also was just really amazed at her face. And found it very difficult to look at her even though he's a believer. But he said, Mother, he said, why don't you come to this address tonight? I believe that God wants to touch you and heal you and save you. And he wrote an address of a house church meeting on a piece of paper and gave it to her. She turned up at 7 o'clock in the evening and went in and found the believers were already gathered in a circle and were praying for her. She had notified them who was coming. And they were crying out to God. I tell you, when they pray it's fervent. It's powerful. There's often puddles of tears on the cement floor. I've been in meetings in China, as Taisto has, where by the end of a prayer meeting often you can slide from one side of the room to the other. It's so moist. She came in and they welcomed her, gave her a cup of water and asked her to sit down. And they shared the gospel with her. And she gave her life to the Lord Jesus very quickly. She suddenly changed. She said she felt a great burden lifted off her back. People in Asia generally are hungry for the gospel. Especially in those countries where they've not been allowed to hear it. Where the governments have banned them from listening. The church gathered around her and laid hands on her and began praying in the name of Jesus that God would heal her. This was an all-night prayer meeting by the way. After one hour of fervent prayer, nothing. Then they started praying about other things in the church and then after a while they would come back, lay hands on her again and pray. After two hours nothing. Three hours nothing. Midnight came. The second head was still sticking out of her face. Finally, at something like two o'clock in the morning, after about seven hours of prayer, this is the testimony of people I've interviewed separately and they've given the same testimony. Again, they laid hands on her. It wasn't anything special. In fact, they were feeling very tired at that time. They didn't feel any great boost of faith at that particular time. But this time when they prayed, suddenly they heard some kind of a pop, a popping noise and then they started to hear a hissing noise like air slowly coming out of a tire. Now that's medically a cancer is not air. I understand that, but this is their testimony. They heard a slow leak and as they looked at her over the next ten or twenty minutes, they noticed that her second head was shrinking down slowly but surely. God was healing her and restoring her. It was a tremendous miracle and yet she wasn't completely normal at all. There was still so much dead skin and stretched skin that actually for months her face was still different, but God had completely healed her. She went back to the people's hospital, the public hospital, to the same doctor and said, can you please look to see if I have cancer in my face anymore? The doctor said, you're not the same woman. This is a trick. She had to produce her ID card. He said, I still don't believe it. You must be her twin sister or something. And finally he did believe it and all he said was, all I can say is that this is a miracle. And he actually signed a statement on a doctor's certificate to back up that this woman was about to die of cancer and now she was 100% free. She went and as you can imagine, she couldn't contain herself. She went out on the street and would preach the gospel to everyone that came past, whether they wanted to hear it or not. She would actually hold up her doctor's certificate and say, God is alive. Jesus Christ is the living son of God. He is alive and he saved my soul. And he also healed me of cancer. Look, here's my doctor's certificate. It was a very powerful testimony. But in a country like that, when you're doing things in public, you usually will not last long before the authorities came. And so they did. But because she was such an old lady, the authorities didn't want to throw her in the prison. They wanted to go easy on her. And so they said, look, old mother, we know that you're old and your husband is dead and you've suffered much. So please just go home and shut up and we won't do anything to you. But she couldn't. And right on the spot, she started evangelizing those policemen who brought the message. After a few more weeks, the police decided they had to do something. They arrested her and they took her and put her in the woman's prison. Saigon, major, number one woman's prison. Thousands of female prisoners in there. Again, many people on long life sentences for murder, robbery, all kinds of things. And of course, as you can imagine, that didn't stop her witnessing the gospel as well. Soon there was a church inside the prison and she was discipling new believers. She told everyone, God healed me. I used to have a second head, second face of cancer, but God has all the power and authority and he healed me. The prison authorities were so mad, they knew she used to have cancer and so they decided to shut her up and to mock God that they were going to put her in such terrible, filthy conditions that she would surely get the cancer back in her face. So they put her in solitary confinement and they put her in what was basically a coffin, a six feet long box, three feet high and three feet wide. And they put her in there and they padlocked it and they said, you're not going to come out until your cancer returns and we're going to mock you and we're going to mock your God. Those are the words they said. She was in there for 18 days straight, without even getting out one time. There was a small door that they would unlock and push some rice and some water into there every day. But she even had to do her human waste in that box and push it into a corner so it was filthy, absolutely filthy conditions. After a while, because her skin hadn't seen the sunlight, it started to turn like fish scales and started to fall off. It was white. Her back was just completely crippled because she'd been stuck in one position. Couldn't even sit up or stand up. She was always bent over in one position or another and she started to die. When the authorities realized that she was about to die, she was so weak, they let her out and they took her to the prison hospital and even though she was very sick, they found that the cancer had not returned. Amen. They put her on the drip and on the IV drip and slowly but surely, after a number of days, she started to recover and started to look better in the prison hospital and as soon as she could talk, she started witnessing to the doctors and nurses again. One day, the prison warden, the leader, called her into the office after she'd recovered and said, we're sick and tired of you. If you stay here, you're going to turn the whole prison upside down for your God and they gave her an early release. She got out. She was in for about six months, I believe, and she got out and went back and started witnessing on the street again. I tell you, this is a 70-year-old lady. 70. 7-0. And yet, she had the fire of God in her bones. God had saved her and I mean saved to the uttermost. Completely saved her. The second part of the story, and then I'm finished, is this. She went back to the house church and was crying out to God for God to give her a new ministry. Maybe 71 by this time, age 71. Crying out, saying, God, the rest of my life, please give me a new ministry. Let my life count for you. And the Lord spoke to her and said, I want you to take my gospel to the Jeru people. She didn't even know what that was. She'd never heard of it. She had to ask many people, what's this Jeru people? Have you ever heard of it? And somebody said that Jeru are a small tribe of people who live way back in the mountains in southern Vietnam on the border with Cambodia. Jeru is spelled C-H-U-R-U but it's pronounced with a J. Jeru. Only about 15,000 people in that particular tribe. She got a team of young people from the church and in obedience to the call of God, they started making their way towards the Jeru villages way back in the mountains. They caught a bus for one day and one night until the road came to an end. Then they got off the bus and they started to walk through the jungle for three days and three nights. That's how difficult it was to get to this tribe but the Lord knew about them. The Jeru had never heard the gospel. Completely un-evangelized. Their particular villages were completely, 100% controlled spiritually by the witch doctors. The people in the Jeru villages were so poor that most of them couldn't even afford clothes. Maybe a little bit around the private paths was all they could afford, a cloth. But most of the people were completely naked. They were too poor to buy a shirt. They're just living in the middle of the jungle. It's also very cold there at night time. It's very high up. A lot of the people have burn marks all over their backs because they try to keep warm by sleeping next to the fire. Sometimes a log will fall on them and they wake up after they feel the heat but their backs are all scarred and marked by the heat. And so they started walking through the jungle. This old 71 or 72 year old woman walking through the jungle. They had a machete and they had to cut their way in many places. Sometimes she said it was so rough that they would walk through a small stream and get to the other side and when they got to the other side their arms and legs would be covered with leeches. Do you know what leeches are? Terrible little things that start sucking your blood and you can't get them off. They would get to the other side and then they would have to try and get them off each other before their claws went into the skin. That's very difficult. They found that the only way to get them off is to light a cigarette and to burn the back of the leeches and when they feel that fire they let their claws go and they just fall off. So I always say that just remember that's the only mission trip you can go on. You can take cigarettes. Other times they went and they had to drink from the river and they found that if they got down and they started drinking like a dog that can be very dangerous. The locals warned them. They found that they had to go and look at what they were drinking before they put it in their mouth because of all the leeches swimming around in the water. Waterborne leeches. And so if you just put your mouth in they were told that sometimes these leeches will come along and shoot into your mouth or up your nostrils. They crawl back into your brain and they eat your brain and you die. So if you ever go there just remember that. Very important. Finally after three days and three nights their clothes were completely ripped from thorns. They were covered in mud and sweat but they arrived in the Dru village. The people had never seen outside this because it's so remote. There's not even mountain trails. You have to make your own. Occasionally the Vietnamese government would send people there in a helicopter like once every few years just to check on them and then fly off again. That's the only visitors they had. But they never saw anyone walk into their village before. And here was this old lady in her seventies coming through half her clothes torn off. And straight away they saw that almost everybody was naked. No clothes. They had to have two different translators to get the message to the people. But they stood back against a tree in the corner of the village. Sister May would preach the gospel in Vietnamese. One of the brothers who had come with her would translate it to Cambodian and then because that group's language is closer to Cambodian somebody would then translate it from Cambodian into Geru. Three different translators. And Sister May had the fire of God in her. She started saying, listen we've come here to tell you about the love of God. God loves you and He hasn't forgotten you. He told me to go and tell the Geru people I'd never heard of you. But here we are. Said God loves you. Jesus Christ came and died on the cross for you. And she could see that their eyes were getting big. They were getting excited. They'd never heard such a message before. They didn't know what to think. It was so amazing. And then right at that particular time she saw in the other corner of the village there was one house much bigger and much richer than all the other houses. And the door of that house opened while she was preaching and the witch doctor came down the stairs wearing these beautiful silk robes. Somehow, who knows how he'd managed to get silk robes to wear when everybody else was naked. He had managed to control the people with fear and bondage that everyone was absolutely petrified and terrified by him. He came down, had an angry look on his face and he said I command you to shut up. We don't need your God. We are happy. The Jeru people are happy how we are. Sister May is not one to back down as you know already. And she said don't listen to this man. He doesn't know God. He worships the devil. You don't need to live in fear and bondage to them anymore. Turn away from that man. He's only a man. Love the Lord Jesus Christ. Then that witch doctor's sons came out and they had machetes and knives. And the witch doctor started to threaten Sister May and the other team, the rest of the team. And they said if you won't shut up, we're going to kill you on the spot right now. Sister May said don't worry. We're not afraid. God will protect us. Our God is alive. His God is the devil. Don't listen to him. You can be free. And so you can see a big power encounter was about to take place between darkness and light. Sister May also referred to that witch doctor as like a prophet of Baal and started to read the Old Testament account of Elijah and the prophets of Baal. And that made him really mad. He said don't listen. My God is alive even though we are outnumbered. God will help us. Even if he has to bring fire from heaven, God will show you that Jesus Christ is alive and he is the God of all gods. And so people are very interested. What's going to happen? This team of people with blood all over and their clothes cut to pieces? Or this witch doctor dressed in silk, who's going to win? When the witch doctor heard what she said about Elijah, he laughed out loud. And then he started to undo his shirt on his robe, the top of his robe. And he pulled off from around his neck a necklace and on the chain was a big wild pig's tooth. Really big, like several inches long. And he said, listen to me. This is the symbol of my spiritual authority here. And it was. All the people knew it. That tooth was handed down from father to son, generation to generation. If you didn't have the tooth, you couldn't be the witch doctor. That was the sign that you were the witch doctor. If you had it, you were. If you didn't, you weren't. And so he took that off from around his neck and he hung it on one of the branches on the tree where the evangelists were preaching. And in front of what was now three to four hundred people, onlookers, he said, if your God is real, then you pray to him and make this tooth catch on fire. If it doesn't catch on fire, we're going to kill you right now. And they would have. They can murder people there and nobody ever knows. There's no police. Well, by the way, this by now is about 1996, around August 1996, this testimony took place. The believers were quite scared, to be honest, as we would, I'm sure. They knew that if God didn't come through, something was going to happen. And let me tell you the testimony I heard from four different people who were there and saw this. And I interviewed them separately at different times to make sure their stories were the same. And they were. They said they were so scared, they went over in a corner, maybe ten feet away from under the tree. And they just turned their backs and they closed in, into a circle. And they started to pray the following words. They said, Lord, we need your help. And they were just beginning to start their prayer. But when they said, Lord, we need your help, suddenly behind them they heard this tremendous roar. The three or four hundred witnesses of the Dru people were going nuts, if you know what that means. They were going crazy. They were jumping up and down. They were flicking dirt in the air. They were pulling on their hair like this. They were just screaming and hollering and making all kinds of noise. They didn't even understand why until they turned around and looked at the tree and they saw that this tooth in front of three or four hundred people with nobody touching it by itself had just burst into flames. Amen. How great is our God. Now there's a church of seven hundred Dru people just in that area and they're training the Dru to become evangelists to other tribes even further back in the jungle. The church in Saigon got their strongest young men and took up offerings of used clothes and they took up huge sacks of clothes and so now the people have clothes to wear as well. God is great. The book of Revelation chapter five verse seven says that around the throne of God on that day in heaven, there are going to be people worshipping the Lamb of God from every tribe including the Dru people. Every language, every people group, every nation. Hallelujah. The Lord is good. How great is our God? His greatness is unsearchable.