[Portugal] [We Are]…of them that believe to the saving of the soul

From the 29th to the 31st of January in the capital of Portugal, Lisbon, a bible conference was held in a local church.

Many general church leaders across the world were connected to the Good News Mission and heard the gospel through the Christmas Cantata and Christian Leader’s Meeting held last year. Many Christian leaders were surprised at the gospel they heard from us and they were willing to work with us. The heart of God willing for the general church leaders and their congregation to listen to the gospel in this last era was manifested in Portugal as well.

The first general church bible conference began last October at a local church in downtown Lisbon with Missionary Woong-gi Min from Good News Mission Netherland Church as guest speaker. Afterwards, Good News Mission Lisbon Church Missionary, Gi-hyun Bae preached the Words at Casa de Leão(House of Lion)Church. It was the first time to lead a bible conference in Portuguese so he prepared the sermon with a nervous and grace-seeking heart. There were many thankful moments while preparing for the bible conference but the most thankful one was the promise we had with the church and the fact that we are inside God.

A day before the beginning the of the bible conference, a short time was allotted to us to introduce our church. It happened to be that the scriptures in Psalms 2:8 were written in big letters on a wall beside the church podium. Missionary Gi-hyun Bae explained that the Good News Mission was founded on these scriptures and this promise was the reason he was here.

On the first evening, we gave an example of hairworms that enter the body of the insect and control its brain to jump into water and compared it to the existence of a standard of good and evil inside humans that is different from that of God caused by eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. As the work of Rebecca made Jacob whole, he was able to boldly say he was Esau. People generally knew Jacob as a liar who tricked his father, Isaac but they were surprised to hear that in fact, he is the form of a person with faith. When we explained the clear difference between the sin that we think of and the sin that God speaks of, the congregation was able to discover that their standard of good and evil was wrong.

On the second evening, the Words about the difference in righteousness of humans and God was delivered through the story of the baker and butler. We explained that because the righteousness of humans broke down and became tarnished, we need to discard all forms of righteousness of humans and only rely on the righteousness of God.

On the last evening, the quintessence of gospel of laying hands was preached. The people of Israel worked hard to wash away their sins at the sanctuary that existed on this earth but atonement for sin in a temporal world could not completely redeem the sins of humans. For that reason, Jesus Christ redeemed our sins forever with the blood he shed on the cross at the sanctuary in the eternal world of heaven. Thus, we have become eternally righteous.

Through the Words preached over 3 days, the church pastors and the congregation opened their hearts and accepted the gospel. Their hearts that were long trapped in the thought that they were always sinners moved to a position of a righteous. Moreover, as we saw them gladly say that they were righteous, we realized once again how precious and wonderful this gospel is.

“The message of the bible conference was so amazing. It was the blessing of God that I was able to clearly hear about God’s grace of eternal redemption. I would like to continue working together for such bible conferences in the future.” – Pastor Rafael of Casa de Leão Church –

“It was so thankful that the congregation had heard this true gospel for the first time. I was able to realize how powerful and precious these Words in our church is.” – Good News Mission Lisbon Church Brother Joao Paulo –

The year 2016 has begun. We look forward to how God will open the way for the gospel in this land of Portugal this year.