Category: My Faith Journey

When I was first called into ministry,  I was led by the Spirit of God to minister to one keen pre-believer living in the most radical place in that particular country which is hostile to our faith.  One afternoon, together with my mission partners, a local missionary who acted as my translator and this other brother who invited us,  I explained the Scripture to him and his family.   Later he believed in Christ our Lord.

Subsequent trips to this place allowed me to share the gospel to another cleric of this other faith who is a friend of these two brothers.   He shared that I was not welcome as I was like one stirring up muddy waters.  The translator did not translate to me as he was worried I would not be comfortable in sharing further.  By the grace of God,  this cleric eventually believed and he turned out to be very enthusiastic in sharing the gospel himself.  In one further trip,  he could come up with a gospel tract explaining why our Lord is the only way for salvation.  We were pleasantly pleased.

Before long, there was already a big group who believed and were baptized.  We decided to go once every 2 months to ground them in the Word of God.  We also supported their desire to meet regularly by providing the snacks and coffee and travel allowance.

I usually prepared my teaching way in advance.  But in this last trip, somehow I did not have a topic or anything to share right up to the day I was in the plane traveling there again for a 3 day conference with the leaders of this 105 member fellowship group.   Usually they would travel to the nearest city near their villages.   This time, I had a prompting from the Spirit of our Lord that I should stay in the capital and encouraged all to travel by train.   It was quite a hassle to get all ten of them to travel to meet us instead of having just 2 of us to meet them as usual in the nearest city and also to get last minute hotel accommodation.

As I started the first day of the conference in the hotel, the Lord impressed upon me to share about persecution.   I chose Luke 21 and Matt 24 to 25 as the text.  In the afternoon, we had the workshop to discuss on how to prepare ourselves to meet persecution.  I could not give any meaningful answer as I live in a country that is among the safest and allow religious freedom.

The conference was cut short as in the late afternoon, the translator received word that his brother had died in an accident and we could not continue any meaningful discussion or teaching without him.

We received word 2 days later that all of them were persecuted by a mob of a few hundred who razed their homes.

We could not contact anyone since, except the translator who had escaped to his extended family’s home in another city overseas.

I did not have any inkling of what was about to happen then but I obeyed the prompting of the Spirit of God despite the logistical hassle.   I did so not because of fear, but because I believe in the guidance of the Holy Spirit as St Paul was often guided in such instances mentioned in the Book of Acts.

We thanked God for the warning.  Firstly,  we were protected from possible harm so that the conference could continue.  It was so necessary as we discussed on persecution for the very first time.  Secondly, the brothers got to learn that they should not be surprised to encounter persecution and that enhanced their faith to face it.

Once I had a dream….

My Lord Jesus said to me,”Do you love Me ?”

Phil 4:6

 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

We will encounter trials and tests of our faith in our life journey.   Do we bring our anxieties to God in the first instance and ask for deliverance ?

At times, God delivered us.  And at other times, God granted us peace to deal with the situation.

My 2 younger children aged 14 and 13 were supposed to join a church delegation on an overseas mission. They were already issued boarding passes and had boarded the plane but were later offloaded from the plane because they would need a waiver of exclusion ground to travel unaccompanied by a parent to the Philippines.

We told them not to be disappointed but to bring everything to God in prayer first.

We had 3 hurdles to clear altogether :

1. We hoped the airline would not void their air tickets and  treat as no-show for the promotional tickets they had purchased. That was unlikely because the terms and condition specified on such promotional tickets put the onus on us to check and comply.
2. We had to expedite the application for this waiver at the Philippines embassy which normally required at least 3 days in advance for such application according to their website.  To compound our anxiety, that very day was a holiday for the Philippines embassy staff, so we had to wait till the next day to apply for the waiver.
3. Even if we clear the first 2 hurdles, would there be available seats the next day since we were informed few seats were available ?

We prayed knowing that if God so willed, He could still grant our prayer request to overcome these hurdles despite the really slim odds. It was a great lesson for my children to learn to trust God in every situation.

Because the airline had issued the boarding passes and my children had boarded the plane,  the airline was also apologetic for the mistake which should not happen in the first place.  Otherwise my children would be denied entry into Philippines at the Philippines airport which would be more problematic.  So the airline was willing to allow my children to re-book on later flights.  We had cleared the first hurdle.  When we showed up the next day at the Philippines embassy,  we learned they could expedite our waiver application and issued in 2 hours.  Hallelujah !  Another hurdle cleared.  And we could also get seats on the flight the following day and we cleared all hurdles.

Hallelujah ! All thanks and praise to God our Father and Jesus our Lord for granting our prayer !  My children were able to join the mission after all.

I believed God had delivered me yet again from danger in this particular incident.  I could not remember this incident readily because it was a sad time in which many died tragically.

Sometime in early 2003, I had bacterial infection of the respiratory system.  I had to take a long 10 day antibiotics course.   On the 9^th day, I traveled to Hong Kong to establish a branch office of my company.  I checked into a hotel in Kowloon at about 5 to 6 pm.   Feeling hungry,  I went for my dinner in a local restaurant.  As I was walking to the restaurant,  I began to feel unwell.   I felt feverish and I started seeing rashes developing on my hands.  I had flu symptoms as well.  As I was taking the antibiotics course up to the 9th day, I reasoned it could not be allergy.  I went back quickly to the hotel after a quick dinner and called my wife.   I told my wife to try to contact the specialist doctor in Singapore General Hospital who treated me.  She called back to say that the hospital had strict instruction not to allow such calls.   I told her to explain to the hotline operator that I somehow felt I needed some urgent medical advice.   My wife managed to get the hand phone number of the doctor for me.  Getting hold of the doctor on the line, he advised me to go immediately to the nearest hospital after I described to him about my symptoms of fever and rashes.  The urgency in the doctor’s voice somehow justified my concern.

The day before, I already read in the news that one entire Chinese family succumbed to an atypical pneumonia illness living in a hotel very nearby mine and doctors were baffled.   That explained my anxiety to reach the doctor for advice.

I decided to leave the next morning for Singapore instead.   When SARS broke out in Singapore,  only then did I know that the main carrier and super spreader,  a 22 year old lady, came back to Singapore one or two hours in an earlier flight than mine.  I could not remember now whether I stayed in the same Metropole hotel as hers but should be very nearby at least to be alarmed.

I did not have coughing symptom.   Some weeks later,  Dr Alex Zhao,  the heroic doctor who oversaw the treatment of the SARS patients,  also succumbed to SARS having only the symptom of rashes and fever.

I believed all healing is divine healing as God is sovereign and I believed God had given me the 10 day long antibiotics course in time to prevent the serious infection of SARS and I recovered quickly.   I read in the news that the 2 girlfriends of the super spreader who traveled with her on holiday in Hong Kong were also infected but they recovered very quickly within 2 to 3 days.  So I could have recovered very quickly as not to infect my family by the grace of God.

For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.  I believe God has always delivered me for His purpose so far till the fullness of time.   I give thanks in all circumstances.   All thanks and glory to His Name !

After God gave me such a earth-shattering vision in Sep 2001, I knew He was giving me a message.   And in hindsight now,  I could understand the purpose of the message for it paved the way for the mission God would give me.   I was called to galvanize churches to prepare for the end times and also to encourage doubling effort to share the gospel both in word and in deeds.

But since I have not enrolled for theological studies in any local seminary, I have no alumni network to call on to embark on this God-given mission.  I did not serve in any office or ministry in any denominational church for which the church could send me out.  I did not join any para-church organization as well.   Unless God opens the door for me, it is apparent that I cannot get off the ground at all.

What a journey of faith in seeing how God opened doors for me miraculously!   Not one, not two but three in a relatively short period of time.   Against all these odds, doors were opened for me in China, Indonesia and Philippines.

“…God led me to know two senior pastors from Guangzhou and Shenyang through a brother who was serving as a missionary in Hong Kong and Shenzhen.  They were overseeing a few dozen home churches with some few thousand members in these cities and were part of an alliance of thousands of churches across China with a Baptist background.  They invited me to come and share in their churches in China.  In late 2007 I made it to share in a pastoral conference in a village in a small town situated one hundred and fifty kilometers from Shenyang.  That was to be my first missionary trip.  About a hundred and fifty pastors and ministry workers attended.  As the churches were unregistered, that conference was considered to be illegal.  In the last evening of the conference, I shared the prophetic word that the financial crisis would happen just after the China Olympics in September 2008…The fulfillment of this prophetic word cemented our bonding and led to further mission collaboration in the future.

In 2011, God opened doors for me in a big way to share in the regional mission movements in Indonesia and Philippines also.  It was nothing short of the miraculous.

One evening in early 2011, a brother brought an Indonesian businessman to my home.  I took the opportunity to share about my visions and the coming financial collapse.  He was so intrigued that he invited me to share in the church pastored by his younger brother in Indonesia…On March 10, 2011, I went to Batam to share in a prayer meeting.  Some one thousand people attended that evening.  And, to my surprise, a radio crew was present to record my message…I learned later that the senior pastor of the church is the chairman of the Body of Christ Fellowship, which is an alliance of some one thousand churches belonging to more than sixty denominations.  As I was sitting in a café lounge waiting for my ferry ride back home the next day on March 11, 2011, I saw the breaking news on TV of a tsunami that had just happened in Japan.  Over the next 7 days, with my sermon being played on air to an audience estimated to be a million listeners, the sermon – with the mention of signs such as exponential increase of earthquakes and calamities – captured the attention of the churches.  I was subsequently invited regularly to share in pastoral conferences across several cities in Indonesia.

Two weeks later, a Filipino pastor walked into our Sunday worship service.  We thought he walked into the wrong church, as there was another Filipino worship service in the same premises.  He told us that he felt led by God to attend our service.   I was preaching that day…He invited me to share with his church in the Philippines.  Two months later I travelled to the Baptist church.  I did not know it was actually a pastoral conference, or rather, a conference to commission chaplains.  As the leaders are mainly pastors of evangelical churches, they invited mostly pastors of evangelical churches to serve as chaplains in the Philippine government across over 80 provinces in the provincial, city and county level today… “

– extracted from my book, The Coming Economic Flood.

1 Cor 1:26-29

²⁶ For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; ²⁷ but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, ²⁸ and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no man may boast before God.

What a humbling experience to see how God opened the doors for a person like me with no network, church or resources to call on except just for the grace of God.   All thanks and glory to God in the highest !

Chaplain Commissioning Ceremony in Bangasinan.

Since my first vision of 9/11, I had been waiting upon the Lord in prayer and diligent study of the Scripture.  I believed all along that God would reveal to me the message, and with this second vision (in late 2004), I was certain that He had called me to share a message about the coming collapse of the global financial system.  As I did not graduate from any seminary, or have any leadership position in the local church,  there was hardly any network to call upon to share the message.  I believed God would then open the doors for me.

Before I could go on the road to share the message, I was struck with excruciating pain at the coccyx, commonly known as the tail-bone, in 2006.  I could not sit down at all.  If I just sat down for a moment, I would feel excruciating pain.  The whole year was spent seeking specialist treatment and therapy.  Yet the pain did not diminish, and I was literally standing all the time while being awake.  The specialists told me that the wear and tear of my tail-bone came much too early, and there was no surgery to rectify it at that time.  I have learned to pray for all circumstances, and prayer in this instance was not only my first option but also the only option.  I learned to bear with the pain as time went by.  I believed God would heal me, as I still had a message to share.  He answered my prayer one year later.  I was completely healed of the pain.  Hallelujah !  All thanks and praise to God and Christ my Lord.

• Extracted from my book, The Coming Economic Flood

I married at a young age, but my first son came seven years later in 1994.  I had two more children in 2003 and 2004 by the grace of God.  They are miraculous answers to our prayers.  My wife was suffering from endometriosis and was advised by her gynecologist to be pregnant again in order to be fully cured of that condition.  She had an earlier operation to remove the cyst (in 2002), but it grew back again.  She was already thirty-eight, and pregnancy risks were heightened.   However, the female gynecologist was both famous and a Christian and she encouraged us to try the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) program.

I reluctantly agreed to the IVF program, though I knew in my heart it would not work.  I told her that God would answer my prayer instead of going through that program, if God so willed.  (I was not disputing the fact that God could answer the prayer of childless couples through the IVF program, but I discerned it would not be the case for me.  We had this trust in God.)  We did the intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) procedure twice considering our near hopeless condition, but to no avail.

My eldest son and I prayed fervently for my wife’s healing and God did heal her when she was pregnant again – naturally !    Praise and thanks be to God  !

Though my wife’s medical condition and the arrival of two more children somehow consumed much of my attention, the blessings of God answering my prayer cemented my faith in God, and He was definitely getting my whole attention.

• Extracted from my book, The Coming Economic Flood.

What a blessed and meaningful finale of my pilgrimage to observe the Lord’s Supper at the Garden Tomb.

The tour guide shared convincing proof that the Garden Tomb was very likely the place where Jesus our Lord was buried.

Firstly,  our Lord was likely to be crucified in a high human traffic place that the Romans would like the inhabitants to see the fate of criminals just outside the city walls in a place called Golgotha which mean the place of the skull.   A picture of the place before last year showed a face of a skull before the nose bridge was destroyed by snow.

Secondly,  the tomb was in a rich man’s garden as a wine press was discovered.

Thirdly,  the tomb was constructed in such a way with people entering the tomb could see the body to the right with light coming in from a small window to the right of the tomb entrance.

All the evidence in the Garden Tomb fitted the description given in the Bible.

I was given the honor to serve the Lord’s Supper there.  I administered in Chinese as the tour group is mostly from mainland China.

I shared that the best way to remember our Lord’s death till He comes again is to honor and love Him by obeying His commandment to love one another and to make disciples and teach them to do the same.

I have always believed in the unity of the Body of Christ.  I have no reservation to serve with any brother or sister regardless whether he or she is an evangelical or charismatic; or of any denomination, race or language.   I prayed for unity in this respect.   As the Day is drawing near,  I prayed for vigilance in staying watchful in the coming treacherous times.

In a moment of silence examining ourselves,  I prayed quietly by myself that I will be bold to share the gospel to the majority of the unsaved Chinese population, the largest ethnic group,  in my country by sharing and giving out the gospel tract that I have written for this purpose.  And that God will send laborers from all local churches to join me.  All glory and honor  to Jesus our Lord !

As I looked at Mount Moriah from the Mount of Olives,  I pondered over this question.

What is so special about Jerusalem ?

In the movie “Kingdom of Heaven”,  after Balian surrendered Jerusalem to Saladin, he asked him, “What is Jerusalem worth ?”  Saladin replied, “Nothing.”  And he started to walk back to his armies.  In a short moment later, he turned around and said to Balian, “Everything.”

It was at Mount Moriah that Abraham was about to sacrifice his son.  A lamb was later sacrificed instead.  The temple built by King Solomon stood at the same place.  Years later, the Lamb of God was to be the Perfect Sacrifice in this same city. (John 1:29).

Abraham was not only the bastion of Faith which was counted unto him as righteousness, but also he was the classic example of a true disciple of Christ.

By his faith-works (not law-works), James 2:21-23,  he expressed his total allegiance to God over his family (Luke 14:26),  himself (Luke 14:27) and his possessions (Luke 14:33).

He was willing to sacrifice his son.  He was willing to leave the luxurious city of Ur for Canaan.  And he was unattached to possessions by allowing Lot to choose the choicest part of the land.

Knowing the arduous road of sanctification is fraught with challenges,  I stood and prayed that the Spirit of God inside of me, the Helper and the Counselor promised by my Lord,  will be training and sanctifying me to surrender every area of my life eventually and preparing me to be fit to be His disciple.  All glory and honor to Jesus my Lord.

James 5:13.
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.

Phil 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Suffering and pain are part and parcel of life. Yet each time we face severe trials, we are lost for words as to what to pray for deliverance. We thank God that His Spirit does help us in our weakness when we do not really know what to pray, He intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.  Rom 8:26-27.

A few years ago, my family and I went for a winter holiday overseas. My eldest son suffers from severe eczema since birth. Arriving at the destination in freezing temperature, his skin started cracking and he was in severe pain. When I was applying the moisturizing cream on his whole body, I saw the extent of his suffering – almost 90% of his body skin was terribly inflamed. I cried and I pleaded with God to heal him.

I have received miraculous healing from God before, praise the Lord,  for an excruciating pain beyond medical help, but seeing the severe pain of my son was more than any pain I could bear.  The groaning in my heart was so loud and I thanked the Lord’s Spirit for pleading on my behalf.

All praise and thanks to God who answered my prayer in one of my weakest moments in life !

My son’s skin condition improved so dramatically the next day that he could enjoy the whole holiday without any pain.

Over the next 6 months, 80% of skin on his whole body healed. Ever since, his skin condition is in check.

Last year, I saw a sister in her forties with similar eczema condition. I asked if she would like me to pray for her. I asked her if God would heal her for even one day, would she accept ? She related that she suffered this condition only 13 years ago. She never had a day going without itch and inflammation on her whole body. Her hands were really bad.

All praise and thanks to God again for hearing my prayer. Her skin condition improved dramatically over the next 2 weeks. Her face was clear of inflammation and her hands improved so much.

But recently, I saw her again and her severe condition returned. I prayed for her again. (At the point of writing this testimony, I do not know of her present condition.)

Anyone who suffers severe eczema will understand that even regular vigorous treatment can only stabilize the condition but improvement is never so quick and drastic.   We can be sure of the miraculous healing hand of God in these two instances.

All honor and glory to God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.