When the Ground Shakes … After These Things

A massive earthquake in Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East caused waves of concern that put 40 countries on alert as a tsunami threatened many islands and coastal areas as far south as us here in PNG.

We prayed and there was nothing but a peaceful evening here in Madang when a tsunami was supposed to hit.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I woke up looking at each other wondering why the other had rocked the bed so much in the middle of the night. We realised it must have been an earthquake, which was confirmed the next morning when our Brazilian colleague, two doors down, reported waking and seeing the top of his building swaying.

Then again, last week, in the middle of the day we had another very brief encounter with shaking ground.

When you look back over history it can be noted how much the enemy of our souls has violently resisted the translation of God’s Word into the everyday language of men. Many lost their lives, were burned at the stake and others severely persecuted just for translating the Bible.

We are in the country that has the most Bible-less languages of any nation in the world … by far. And Madang province, where we have been working since mid-May, is the province in this country where the majority of those mother tongues without Scripture are located.

As we come up on two spearhead events to bring sixteen languages the Gospel of Luke, before year’s end, we know the enemy is trying to shake the ground underneath us and is trying to resist the LORD’s moving to bring His Word to thousands upon thousands who have yet to hear Him speak their language.

But perhaps this ground shaking is illustrative of the power of God being unleashed as His Word becomes known in more places where it has not been heard in the language of the heart.

Our mighty God is on the move in PNG and the ground shakes at His presence. We are sober about the enemy’s wiles, but we tremble not for him, because we know the end of the Story: “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” ~ Revelation vii 9-10