Mike Duffy – April Update

April 2019

Easter

Our Easter service on April 21^stwent really well. We did not have a lot of visitors but we did have six unbelievers come. The visitors were family members, which is always nice. We want to reach families for Christ.

One lady (Siefra) the sister of Shula, married to Sherwin, came with her boyfriend. She used to come frequently four years ago, so it was nice to see her again. Sherwin preached the message and did a great job speaking about the fuller context to Christ’s death and resurrection, His identity in the Old Testament and New Testaments. Sherwin is an accom­plished public speaker and always does a great job preach­ing both in content and delivery.

We always have plenty of food and people seemed to get enough to eat and stayed for quite some time afterwards. Our kids sang a song for the congregation. They always do a great job. All in all, it was a great opportunity to think about the death and resurrection of Christ.

His bodily resurrection is the evidence that He had the power to die for our sins. Anyone can say they have died for our sins. But Jesus proved He could and did do that by rising up bodily out of the dead. It is impossible to prove that most miracles happened, but the most important miracle (Jesus rising from the dead) has very strong evidence. Paul said if Christ did not raise from the dead “then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty…” and “Your faith is fu­tile; you are still in your sins!” (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17). The truth of Christianity rests on whether Christ arose from the dead or not. Praise God that we have such strong historical evidence that He did in fact rise from the dead.

Tyndale Course

The course I am teaching is al­most over, I have only five classes left. I am teaching Buddhism now. I have made some really in­teresting discoveries while pre­paring for this course. I think we have all heard the old adage: “You have to get someone lost be­fore you can get them saved.” Karma in Hinduism and Bud­dhism has essentially three parts. The present suffering in one’s life now is karma that has come to fruition in one’s life. There is a pool of accumulated karma that has not come into fruition but will later in future lives. The last part is karma that one makes each day that will later be added to the pool of accumulated karma. This is interesting be­cause one cannot change their situation in this life. The karma being meted out in this life must run its course. The pool of accu­mulated karma is waiting for later and each person creates new karma each day that will be added later to the pool.

If we think about this, it is staggering. How is it possible to work off this karma? Hindus and Bud­dhists believe it will take millions of lives. The prob­lem is that since even they admit that they add new karma each day that goes into the accumulated pool of karma, it seems more likely that the karma will grow after each reincarnation. Many Hindus and Buddhists believe they will be able to work off all their karma, but if we think about this situation it seems impossi­ble and far more likely that it will only greatly in­crease after millions of reincarnations.

Some Hindus and Buddhists have realized this, so they have made it easier. Some Hindus say that if one obeys the commands of his guru (one who has real­ized he is god), then the new karma made in this life will not stick to the soul. In this way one can eventu­ally burn through the accumulated karma that does not get larger since new karma is not accumulating. But of course, if in the next life his/her future reincar­nation does not do this, their karma will start accumu­lating again. Some Buddhists believe that certain Bud­dhists who have reached enlightenment can share their excess merit of good karma with those who are devoted to them. In this way they can reach enlighten­ment easier.

The positive here is that they see the impossibility of burning off their karma on their own. They need help. We would agree man needs help but, of course, we would say God has to do it for us. We cannot even work off some of our sin. One form of Bud­dhism has come to this conclusion as well. They believe that by invoking the name of Amida, that Amida will give them his merit and they will go to the pure land. In this case these Bud­dhists have come to the conclusion that someone must do it for them. The only problem is that there is no evi­dence that Amida ever existed.

But Jesus definitely existed. Not only is Jesus a real person from his­tory, but He arose from the dead demonstrating that He has the power to die for our sins. I was really excited about these discoveries and I am looking forward to using them in sharing Christ in the future.

In Christ,
Mike Duffy