I loved the happenings of EDSA People Power Revolution. Worldwide publications reported how the Filipino people ousted a powerful dictator peacefully. And while we heard of the reports of the event in the eyes of the media, I would like to share to you today something that happened behind the scenes. A story that God saw because He started it. It mattered. It mattered to this country. It mattered to our people. It mattered for eternity.
The story I am to share is the story of how God spoke to some of the main characters of the People Power Revolution through a foreign missionary who had stayed in the country during his time of continuing to bless our people with the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ.
Here's an account of his story as published in his book Following Jesus*:
First message:
The year was 1982. God told Ross Tooley to contact the leader of the Catholic charismatic group at the Malacañang presidential palace and told him to present his team and their mime presentation called Tribute in the meeting that was to happen the next day.
"Contact the group at the president's palace!" God said.
"Go down to the palace...and proclaim this message there..." (Jer 22:1)
Ross called the palace of the president of the Philippines at nine o'clock in the morning. The meeting was at noon!
The Catholic leader graciously agreed to accommodate the group.
During the presentation, Ross explained how the nation of Judah was similar to the Philippines as depicted in Jeremiah. "I described the moral conditions of Jeremiah's day and the warning the prophet gave to the nation of Judah. Then I zeroed in on the present." (Ross Tooley)
"God still judges nations by how they respond morally to His code," he warned. He told the people "Without righteousness, there will not be a peaceful transition to a new administration in this country (a promise that happened in EDSA four years later!)." Jeremiah 22:5 "But if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord...this palace will become a ruin."
Second message:
The year was 1986 and Ross Tooley was with his family in Kona, Hawaii. The situation then was the real happenings of EDSA already. Many people flocked to EDSA in peaceful protest. He and his team were praying fervently for the nation of the Philippines.
When he saw the live tanks being brought out, he remembered the verse he quoted years before about the palace being ruined possibly. "I reached for my Bible and quickly found Jeremiah 22, the passage God used to confirm that I should take to the palace. It was all coming back to me. I recalled the events of the day four years earlier and my warning that a peaceful transition of power would happen only if the Philippine government avoided evil."
That day, God spoke a new revelation in the same chapter. He was trying to tell Ross something of what will happen to President Marcos. "I will hurl you...into another country...you will never come back to the land you long to return to." (Jeremiah 22:26-27)
Miraculously the tank commanders disobeyed which prevented much slaughter and loss of life. The next morning, Ross read in the headlines that Marcos had fled from the Philippines and was on his way to Hawaii!
The first part of the second message had come to pass. Marcos had fled to Hawaii and now widowed Corazon Aquino was sworn in as the first lady president of the Republic of the Philippines.
The second part of the message still was yet to come true. "you will never come back to the land you long to return to."
The year was now 1987. Ross and his family were back in the Philippines. The president Corazon Aquino was hounded by coup attempts against her administration. Marcos' supporters were calling on the president to let Marcos return to his home country to die. "I felt God lead me to write to President Aquino and cited the Scriptures through which God had spoken to me about Marcos. I don't know whether my letter ever reached her desk. But Mrs. Aquino finally settled on the conviction, shared by the U.S. State Department, that Marcos should not return. Perhaps it was the bloody coup attempt against her government that took 800 lives while we were in the Philippines that year that helped change her mind."
Third message:
1988. Ross was flying back to the U.S. on a Philippine airliner and sat next to a Filipino lawyer. The lawyer was on his way to Los Angeles to work on Marcos' legal return to the Philippines! "Concluding that God had arranged this 'coincidence,' I turned to my seatmate and said, 'You must not work on this case.'"
"I told him what God had revealed to me concerning Marcos' future. I stated without hesitation, 'He won't see his homeland again.'"
In 1989, Marcos suddenly became ill and died in Hawaii at the age of seventy-two.
He never saw the Philippines after going into exile.
****
I recount this story and I can't help but be thankful to missionaries - whether American or not - who considered us important enough to go to our nation and really go to people. They have sowed time, efforts, prayers and finances into our country and amazingly, the very nation they sowed to is now also a missionary sending nation. Today, our Filipino missionaries are around the globe doing the same thing that these foreign people did.
Stories like these may be untold but GOD sees every sacrifice we have made for the sake of people and for the sake of His Name.
To God they are memoirs, a pleasing aroma to Him, similar to the sacrifice Abel made that pleased God so much.
My second impartation is of us as a nation to continue into the path of righteousness. We need to press on. We remember the righteousness of people in the past. I pray there will still be righteousness in the present and in the future.
Let's keep sowing righteousness in our land.
My recent word from the Lord that I'm claiming for the nation of the Philippines is:
"Then will all your people be righteous and they will possess the land forever...They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands, for the display of my splendor.
The least of you will become a thousand, the smallest a mighty nation..."
We can all work together to sow back God's righteousness into our nation. In the Lord's bigger perspective, we will not only sow righteousness in this land but also in other nations. That's how big God's plan for the Philippines is! That's his heart for us. But we have to do what we can at this time to bring God's promise of righteousness to pass. This is a year of miracles everybody. With man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible! (Matthew 19:26)
Do you believe that GOD can do this for our nation?
He already has, let's keep pressing forward!
A Blessed Wednesday everybody! :-)
Reference:
*Tooley, Ross, Following Jesus: Attaining the High Purposes of Discipleship, (Mandaluyong City, OMF Literature, reprinted 2007), 156-162
The story I am to share is the story of how God spoke to some of the main characters of the People Power Revolution through a foreign missionary who had stayed in the country during his time of continuing to bless our people with the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ.
Here's an account of his story as published in his book Following Jesus*:
First message:
The year was 1982. God told Ross Tooley to contact the leader of the Catholic charismatic group at the Malacañang presidential palace and told him to present his team and their mime presentation called Tribute in the meeting that was to happen the next day.
"Contact the group at the president's palace!" God said.
"Go down to the palace...and proclaim this message there..." (Jer 22:1)
Ross called the palace of the president of the Philippines at nine o'clock in the morning. The meeting was at noon!
The Catholic leader graciously agreed to accommodate the group.
During the presentation, Ross explained how the nation of Judah was similar to the Philippines as depicted in Jeremiah. "I described the moral conditions of Jeremiah's day and the warning the prophet gave to the nation of Judah. Then I zeroed in on the present." (Ross Tooley)
"God still judges nations by how they respond morally to His code," he warned. He told the people "Without righteousness, there will not be a peaceful transition to a new administration in this country (a promise that happened in EDSA four years later!)." Jeremiah 22:5 "But if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord...this palace will become a ruin."
Second message:
The year was 1986 and Ross Tooley was with his family in Kona, Hawaii. The situation then was the real happenings of EDSA already. Many people flocked to EDSA in peaceful protest. He and his team were praying fervently for the nation of the Philippines.
When he saw the live tanks being brought out, he remembered the verse he quoted years before about the palace being ruined possibly. "I reached for my Bible and quickly found Jeremiah 22, the passage God used to confirm that I should take to the palace. It was all coming back to me. I recalled the events of the day four years earlier and my warning that a peaceful transition of power would happen only if the Philippine government avoided evil."
That day, God spoke a new revelation in the same chapter. He was trying to tell Ross something of what will happen to President Marcos. "I will hurl you...into another country...you will never come back to the land you long to return to." (Jeremiah 22:26-27)
Miraculously the tank commanders disobeyed which prevented much slaughter and loss of life. The next morning, Ross read in the headlines that Marcos had fled from the Philippines and was on his way to Hawaii!
The first part of the second message had come to pass. Marcos had fled to Hawaii and now widowed Corazon Aquino was sworn in as the first lady president of the Republic of the Philippines.
The second part of the message still was yet to come true. "you will never come back to the land you long to return to."
The year was now 1987. Ross and his family were back in the Philippines. The president Corazon Aquino was hounded by coup attempts against her administration. Marcos' supporters were calling on the president to let Marcos return to his home country to die. "I felt God lead me to write to President Aquino and cited the Scriptures through which God had spoken to me about Marcos. I don't know whether my letter ever reached her desk. But Mrs. Aquino finally settled on the conviction, shared by the U.S. State Department, that Marcos should not return. Perhaps it was the bloody coup attempt against her government that took 800 lives while we were in the Philippines that year that helped change her mind."
Third message:
1988. Ross was flying back to the U.S. on a Philippine airliner and sat next to a Filipino lawyer. The lawyer was on his way to Los Angeles to work on Marcos' legal return to the Philippines! "Concluding that God had arranged this 'coincidence,' I turned to my seatmate and said, 'You must not work on this case.'"
"I told him what God had revealed to me concerning Marcos' future. I stated without hesitation, 'He won't see his homeland again.'"
In 1989, Marcos suddenly became ill and died in Hawaii at the age of seventy-two.
He never saw the Philippines after going into exile.
****
I recount this story and I can't help but be thankful to missionaries - whether American or not - who considered us important enough to go to our nation and really go to people. They have sowed time, efforts, prayers and finances into our country and amazingly, the very nation they sowed to is now also a missionary sending nation. Today, our Filipino missionaries are around the globe doing the same thing that these foreign people did.
Stories like these may be untold but GOD sees every sacrifice we have made for the sake of people and for the sake of His Name.
To God they are memoirs, a pleasing aroma to Him, similar to the sacrifice Abel made that pleased God so much.
My second impartation is of us as a nation to continue into the path of righteousness. We need to press on. We remember the righteousness of people in the past. I pray there will still be righteousness in the present and in the future.
Let's keep sowing righteousness in our land.
My recent word from the Lord that I'm claiming for the nation of the Philippines is:
"Then will all your people be righteous and they will possess the land forever...They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands, for the display of my splendor.
- Isaiah 60:21-22
We can all work together to sow back God's righteousness into our nation. In the Lord's bigger perspective, we will not only sow righteousness in this land but also in other nations. That's how big God's plan for the Philippines is! That's his heart for us. But we have to do what we can at this time to bring God's promise of righteousness to pass. This is a year of miracles everybody. With man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible! (Matthew 19:26)
Do you believe that GOD can do this for our nation?
He already has, let's keep pressing forward!
A Blessed Wednesday everybody! :-)
Reference:
*Tooley, Ross, Following Jesus: Attaining the High Purposes of Discipleship, (Mandaluyong City, OMF Literature, reprinted 2007), 156-162
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