A message from the Creator

One thing that we quickly realized with the Moi people is that though they may be animists, worshipping evil spirits and trying to manipulate their world through sorcery, they were not without a religion. They are very religious. They could write their own “bible” complete with a creation story, to the struggle of good verses evil … all the way to death and what happens in the afterlife.

When we told them that we were living among them and learning their language and culture because we had a message from the Creator that we wanted to share with them, some of them were quite convinced that we must be talking about the creator that they knew from their culture, the one with wives and siblings and good and bad behavior.

Others were skeptical. One even said to us, “Where is this Creator?  If he comes and stands on your front porch and starts talking, only then will I come and listen to His Talk.” 

Another Moi man told us right out that he was not coming to the teaching. “My garden is big!  The Creator’s Talk is small!”

The problem was not convincing them that there was a Creator, but correcting a gross misunderstanding of who God is. This is why we started right in the beginning, before the creation story, describing what the Creator God was like. Slowly we began to build, moving into the creation account and using it to cement in their minds just how awesome our God really is. By the time we taught on the fall of man and the resulting alienation of mankind from a holy God, the Mois were starting to get the picture that they were in serious trouble. They began to hang all of their hope on the promise of Genesis 3:15 that God would send a Deliverer. God’s Word was powerful enough to create the universe so in their minds, it was notif but rather when the Deliverer will be sent.

During the story of Noah one of them spoke out during the lesson and said, “You are just like Noah and we are just like the people outside of the ark. You are calling out to us to get on board before it is too late and we all go to the lake of fire!”

People must feel that hopeless desperation before they will reach out  to accept the Savior. It was neat to see this mindset slowly take over their hearts as we continued teaching our way through the Old Testament.

I remember the day that we taught about Moses going to Pharaoh and saying, “Jehovah says, ‘Let my people go.’”  Pharaoh responded just the way some of the Mois had responded when they heard there was a message from the Creator. “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord nor will I let Israel go.” 

The Mois were beginning to understand God’s greatness and couldn’t believe Pharaoh’s arrogance. Their incredulity continued to grow as time and time again God revealed Himself to Pharaoh. And time and time again Pharaoh refused to give in. The Mois thought he was absolutely crazy. “When will he acknowledge that he can’t win?”

Then the day came for the story of the Israelites standing before the Red Sea. The Egyptians were approaching and the Israelites were scared out of their wits. We tried to get the Mois nervous about what was going to happen to the Israelites but they would have none of it. They just laughed and said, “It will be alright. The Creator God can do anything. He promised to send a Deliverer through the Israelites so there is no way that the Egyptians could wipe them out.” 

What a blessing to see the Mois learning to “stand back and see the salvation of the Lord,” right along with the Israelites.

We continued to teach chronologically through stories of God’s provision for the Israelites with manna, quail and water from the rock. Their view of God continued to grow as they saw God being faithful to an unfaithful people. I remember the day we told the story about the Israelites worshipping the golden calf while Moses was up on Mt. Sinai with God. One man blurted out, “God is watching them!”

What a blessing to hear him say that!  You see, the plan was that if their view of their sin and God’s holiness was incomplete then we would not go on and tell the rest of the story. Only after they entered into a state of desperate hopelessness concerning their sin would we move on to the birth of the Deliverer. That day after the teaching about the golden calf, the same man came up to me and said, “Wow, this is a big talk!”  More than one of the teenage boys was having a hard time sleeping at night as their minds raced with the dilemma that they were in personally, as sinners before a holy God.

We taught through the prophecies concerning the Messiah and on to the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ. What an amazing experience to look into their eyes. It was like watching a dead person come to life. I’ll never forget it. And hearing the testimonies afterwards, articulating their understanding of the Good News in their own unique way, was amazing.

Poeiye said, “When the Moi people give birth to their children, how many times do they cut the cord?  Do they do it that first day and then again today?  No!  If you truly believe in Jesus then the cord of a new heart has been cut for you. … Thank you Jesus!  For this new heart now will live where the Creator is. It will live in Heaven.”

It takes a lot of time to teach chronologically, but it is well worth it. They become so grounded in the Word that their faith becomes unshakable. There is no turning back. This is just the start of the whole process of teaching through Scripture, building “precept upon precept.”

I remember when we began to teach Romans, almost dreading it because of how complicated its doctrine is. It was amazing for me to see the Mois never batting an eye – for them it all made sense and was just the next step in their understanding of how great and awesome the Creator God is.

A good example of this was when I read from Romans 1:18: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” I then asked the new Moi believers what they thought about this. Could they think of any instance where God had revealed his wrath against sin? 

Finally one girl about 15 years old spoke up and somberly said, “I know when God revealed his wrath against sin. It was when Jesus was hanging on the cross and God took the sins of the world and placed them on Jesus. Then he poured out his wrath on Jesus and shed Jesus’ blood for our sin. That was when God revealed his wrath against sin.”

I could hardly speak. Here were these young believers, cut off from the rest of the world, and yet exhibiting a deeper understanding and greater appreciation than many Western believers who have been reading the Bible for years. Honestly, she put me to shame. Again and again as we moved through Romans they continued to exhibit this profound understanding of scripture.

For this reason, I am convinced of the importance of teaching chronologically.