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In Revelation 5, a multitude worships from every race and people and nation. Somewhere in that massive crowd are redeemed ones from the island of Aniwa, in the South Pacific, singing "Worthy is the lamb who was slain." So just how did they get there?
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John Paton ministered tirelessly to the people of an island in the South Pacific during the middle of the 19th Century. They were cannibals, and followed ancient rituals, worshipping local deities and gods.
During a particularly severe water shortage, Paton decided to do the unthinkable, to dig a well - by hand!! The concept of water coming up from the ground was virtually unknown to the people of Aniwa, and they scoffed as he dug in the hot sun.
Paton enlisted their aid in the beginning, trading fish hooks for each bucket of dirt they brought up, and down the hole went. But after a cave in, he was pretty much on his own. Starting over, he contrived a way to avoid further such catastrophes, and eventually, he hit water - clear, pure, fresh water - enough to sustain the entire island!
That well achieved more than solving the island's water problem. Chief Namakei asked if he could "preach" the next Sabbath, and a great crowd gathered to hear him. He began by relating how this white missionary had told them many things they couldn't understand, but the strangest of all was the "sinking down through the earth to get rain!
"We said to each other, 'the man's head is turned! He's gone mad!' Was he mad? Has he not got the rain deep down in the earth? We mocked at him, but the water was there all the same. We have laughed at other things which the Missi told us, because we could not see them. But from this day I believe that all he tells us about his Jehovah God is true. Some day our eyes will see it. For today, we have seen rain from the earth."
John Paton tells how the chief now rose to a climax, "one foot and then the other making the broken coral on the floor fly behind like a war horse pawing the ground, he cried with great eloquence:
"My people, the people of Aniwa, the world is turned upside down since the word of Jehovah came to this land! Who ever expected to see rain coming up through the earth? It has always come up from the clouds! Wonderful is the work of this Jehovah God. No god of Aniwa ever answered prayers as the Missi's God has done.
Friends of Namakei, all the powers of the world couldn't have forced us to believe that rain could be given from the depths of the earth, if we had not seen it with our eyes, felt it and tasted it as we here do. Now, by the help of Jehovah God the Missi brought that invisible rain to view, which we never before heard of or saw, and (beating his hand on his breast, he exclaimed): -
"Something in my heart tells me that the Jehovah God does exist, the Invisible One, whom we never heard of nor saw till the Missi brought Him to our knowledge....From this day, my people, I must worship the God who has opened for us the well, and who fills us with rain from below. The gods of Aniwa cannot hear, cannot help us, like the God of Missi. Henceforth I am a follower of Jehovah God.
Let every man that now thinks with me go now and fetch the idols of Aniwa, the gods which our fathers feared, and cast them down at Missi's feet. Let us burn and bury and destroy these things of wood and stone, and let us be taught by the Missi how to serve God who can hear, the Jehovah who gave us the well, and who will give us every other blessing, for Hed sent His Son Jesus to die for us and bring us to Heaven....Namakei stands up for Jehovah!"
And Paton concludes: "This address, and the Sinking of the Well, broke the back of Heathenism on Aniwa. And that very afternoon, company after company came to the spot, loaded with their gods of wood and stone, and piled them up in heaps, amid the tears and sobs of some, and the shoutings of others, in which was heard the oft-repeated word, "Jehovah! Jehovah! What could be burned, we cast into the flames; others we buried in pits twelve of fifteen feet deep; and some few, more likely that the rest to feed or awaken superstition, we sank far out into the deep sea."
They (the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus) they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.
A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. Acts 19:17-20
During a particularly severe water shortage, Paton decided to do the unthinkable, to dig a well - by hand!! The concept of water coming up from the ground was virtually unknown to the people of Aniwa, and they scoffed as he dug in the hot sun.
Paton enlisted their aid in the beginning, trading fish hooks for each bucket of dirt they brought up, and down the hole went. But after a cave in, he was pretty much on his own. Starting over, he contrived a way to avoid further such catastrophes, and eventually, he hit water - clear, pure, fresh water - enough to sustain the entire island!
That well achieved more than solving the island's water problem. Chief Namakei asked if he could "preach" the next Sabbath, and a great crowd gathered to hear him. He began by relating how this white missionary had told them many things they couldn't understand, but the strangest of all was the "sinking down through the earth to get rain!
"We said to each other, 'the man's head is turned! He's gone mad!' Was he mad? Has he not got the rain deep down in the earth? We mocked at him, but the water was there all the same. We have laughed at other things which the Missi told us, because we could not see them. But from this day I believe that all he tells us about his Jehovah God is true. Some day our eyes will see it. For today, we have seen rain from the earth."
John Paton tells how the chief now rose to a climax, "one foot and then the other making the broken coral on the floor fly behind like a war horse pawing the ground, he cried with great eloquence:
"My people, the people of Aniwa, the world is turned upside down since the word of Jehovah came to this land! Who ever expected to see rain coming up through the earth? It has always come up from the clouds! Wonderful is the work of this Jehovah God. No god of Aniwa ever answered prayers as the Missi's God has done.
Friends of Namakei, all the powers of the world couldn't have forced us to believe that rain could be given from the depths of the earth, if we had not seen it with our eyes, felt it and tasted it as we here do. Now, by the help of Jehovah God the Missi brought that invisible rain to view, which we never before heard of or saw, and (beating his hand on his breast, he exclaimed): -
"Something in my heart tells me that the Jehovah God does exist, the Invisible One, whom we never heard of nor saw till the Missi brought Him to our knowledge....From this day, my people, I must worship the God who has opened for us the well, and who fills us with rain from below. The gods of Aniwa cannot hear, cannot help us, like the God of Missi. Henceforth I am a follower of Jehovah God.
Let every man that now thinks with me go now and fetch the idols of Aniwa, the gods which our fathers feared, and cast them down at Missi's feet. Let us burn and bury and destroy these things of wood and stone, and let us be taught by the Missi how to serve God who can hear, the Jehovah who gave us the well, and who will give us every other blessing, for Hed sent His Son Jesus to die for us and bring us to Heaven....Namakei stands up for Jehovah!"
And Paton concludes: "This address, and the Sinking of the Well, broke the back of Heathenism on Aniwa. And that very afternoon, company after company came to the spot, loaded with their gods of wood and stone, and piled them up in heaps, amid the tears and sobs of some, and the shoutings of others, in which was heard the oft-repeated word, "Jehovah! Jehovah! What could be burned, we cast into the flames; others we buried in pits twelve of fifteen feet deep; and some few, more likely that the rest to feed or awaken superstition, we sank far out into the deep sea."
They (the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus) they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.
A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. Acts 19:17-20
