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After that, the blessing is asked and the people are asked to gather again at 9 o’clock in the evening for the night vigil. The night watch originated from the superstition that the deceased is accompanied by prayers, sermons and singing all night to the afterlife. That whole night they will sing, preach and pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The proceedings only started after\n9 and they requested me to do the opening message. The person who opens paves\nthe way in which all the preachers should follow him. They use his theme and\nemphasize what he said. The advantage of funerals is that you have the\nopportunity to minister to people the Gospel that you would not otherwise have\nfound in a church – people over a very wide area who come for the funeral. It\nis absolutely a mission and evangelism opportunity where the Lord Himself is\nthe convener through the death of a loved one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The text I dealt with them was\nJohn 14 and Acts 4. In John 14: 6 the\nLord Jesus answered Thomas: \u201cI am the way, the truth, and the life: no man\ncometh unto the Father, but by me.\u201d In Acts 4:12, the words of Peter: “Neither\nis there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven\ngiven among men, whereby we must be saved.” <\/strong>Christ is the only way to\nthe Father. As expected not all mourners liked the theme of the sermon – people\nwho preach different ways to eternal life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My question to them was, “If\nthere were other ways, why would the Father have burdened his beloved Son with\nsuch a horrible death?” Then why not use the other ways instead. There are\npeople who believe that your church membership can contribute to your\nsalvation. There is even a song that they sing from time to time where they are\nasked not to forget the membership certificate. Please bury me with it, says\nthe song. Then there are people who believe that the bishop is some\nintermediary between the now and the hereafter. From time to time he gives them\nvinegar water as a means to heal them mentally and physically. Then strings are bound around the waist and joints\nby which they guarantee your health, but if you take that string off,\nmisfortunes and diseases will strike you. If you dare to take off the strings,\nthe disease from which you were supposedly cured will return to you. So these\npeople live in fear, too scared to take off the strings that the bishop has\nbound around them. These so-called churches with their bishops are waging a\nreign of terror among their members. They have an incredible hold on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the sermon in which I\nemphasized Christ as the only way to the Father, it was as if there was\ndiscomfort among some, who still believe that if you do this or that you can be\nsaved. Then the other “barutis” or preachers spoke. Some of them were\nvery grateful for the message, but one was clearly not happy. He stood up and\nhinted that we should still be tolerant of other views. Not everyone has the\nsame view. Not all churches believe the same. Among other things, he tried to justify\ntheir strings that were tied around the people’s hips and joints with Jeremiah\n13, but if you read that passage, the linen girdle that was tied around the\nhips of Jeremiah becomes a sign of the Lord’s punishment and not healing.\nJeremiah, at the command of the Lord, had to hide the linen girdle he had tied\naround his hips at the Euphrates River in a hole in the rocks. And it came to\npass after many days, that he went and fetched the linen girdle, according to\nthe commandment of the Lord. When he got there the linen girdle was spoiled and\nworthless. It was then that the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah and said: \u201c9<\/sup>This is how I will destroy the\npride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10<\/sup>These evil people\nhave refused to obey me. They have been as stubborn and wicked as ever, and\nhave worshiped and served other gods. So then, they will become like these\nshorts that are no longer any good.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, the preacher did\nnot attend the funeral the next morning and I could not talk to him afterwards.\nI know who he is and am waiting for the right opportunity to talk to him. At\nsome point we will meet again at a funeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n \n \nAfter 11pm we had to adjourn according to Covid-19 protocol.\nThe next morning we started again at half past five. Of all the preachers the\nprevious evening there was no one to be seen, and consequently I conducted all\nthe proceedings up to the grave. It again gave me the opportunity to proclaim\nChrist as the only way to eternal life. After the funeral we socialized with\nthe funeral attendees. This is how you get to know people and they have the\ncourage to ask you many questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The old woman we buried was one of\nthe few people who still knew Bushmen who had not yet come into contact with Europeans.\nShe was literally part of the old order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the very Tchabo where we were,\na woman from the bushes arrived in 2017 who still had no contact with civilization.\nWhen they questioned her, she answered: \u201cI grew up in the bush and lived there until\nall my family members perished. I’m the only one left. I was forced to come to\nyou here.\u201d No one suspected that there were still Bushmen living primitively in\nthe bush until she arrived. It could be that there are other Bushman families\nin the bush that we do not know about, because the Kalahari is vast and wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To conclude, we ask for your support and\nintercession, that the Lord will send us to so many people who have not yet met\nthe Lord Jesus in their lives. Also to many who have heard of the Lord Jesus but\nhave a distorted view of the Gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your brother in Christ,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hendrik du Plessis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rev Hendrik du Plessis. Elder Aron Johanes came to see me earlier this week about the funeral of a deceased family member. She was born in 1920 and was 101<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834\/revisions\/837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/botswanasending.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/begrafnis-2-1.jpg\")