Biola Broadcaster - 1973-02

for a while the "revelation" of spe­ cific sins in individuals preoccupied them and created serious tensions. There is no need to overplay or underplay these things. They are there as a part of the record, and that should shake no one's faith. Honesty contributes to credibility. In the Biblical record, the Holy Spirit never glosses over the frail­ ties of even the holiest of saints. As one Indonesian missionary says: "We certainly don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water, but people should not be misled by unbalanced reporting." So in the interest of a balanced report, a few things are worth pointing out: (1) With a few exceptions, the spectacular things reported in the book are certainly not happening in Indonesia today. The miracles which did occur happened mostly on the island of Timor and princi­ pally in the period of 1965-66. From reading the book, people are apt to get the impression that mir­ acles are daily occurrences even now all over Indonesia. They are not. This does not mean, of course, that the revival is over. The work of regeneration and renewal goes on. If the "signs" are missing to­ day, it only means that God sov­ ereignly sent them for a particular purpose to a particular people at a particular time. Again, C. S. Lewis has a helpful word here: "God does not shake miracles into Nature at random as if from a pepper-caster. They come on great occasions: they are found at the great ganglions of history— not of political or social history, but of that spiritual history which cannot be fully known by men." The revival in Indonesia was

involved the persons having been "dead" only a few hours. One man who knows the situation well from years of residence on Timor made this trenchant comment: "The peo­ ple who comprised the witness teams around whose ministry the miracles occurred were wonderful people possessed, for the most part, with an innocent simplicity. If trained doctors are unable to agree on when a person is clinically dead, how should these people be expected to make that critical judgment?" This same man feels that a great deal of charity must be exercised in evaluating the reports of the witness teams. All of those on the teams were spiritual infants. Almost all were young people. None were trained. Most were illiterate. At one time more than 100 of these teams — numbering in personnel from five to 20 — were scattered throughout the island. That these teams were greatly used of God no one will deny. Thousands found Christ. Some signs accompanied their witness. Significantly, these usually occurred in connection with fetish-burning. Around these same fetishes in ear­ lier days the witch doctors had done their own miracles. How ap­ propriate that God would demon­ strate His power as the fetishes were being burned! But recognizing the faithful wit­ ness of these teams should not blind us to their human failures. There were excesses, including date-setting for the second coming of Christ. There were exaggera­ tions in the reports as successive teams tried to "keep up" with earlier ones. There was some im­ morality. There was irrationality as

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