This is the text of the remarks from the Rt. Rev. Dr. David Githii, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) to the 27th General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, June 20-23, 2007.

I bring to you greeting and best wishes from your brothers and sisters of the Fraternity of the Presbyterian church of East Africa. (P.C.E.A.). Your General Assembly meeting held in Denver, reminds me of the first ever held general assembly (Jerusalem council) in AD 49, that had assembled to deal with a question, are we to accept them? whereby the Bible puts it “The apostles and elders met to consider this question.” This was after Paul had made converts among the Gentiles, people who had come to know the Truth, people who wanted to live in the totality of the scriptures and now they wanted to join the New Testament church, the church of the Apostles. “So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question” (Acts 15:2). Of course you know the rest of the story but the good news is that, the New Testament Church did accept and welcomed the new brothers and sisters.

It is unfortunate that, in this early church, though they had at first embraced the totality of the Gospel and had lived in that mind set for quite sometime, later they deviated from the truth Gospel and went over board to embrace other things of the world. It is in this understanding that Paul angrily questions the Galatians. “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.” (Galatians 3:1).

The bone of contentions between Paul and Galatians was their rebelliousness to the True Gospel, the true teaching of Christ. To Paul, this rebelliousness was equal to witchcraft. This is why he pondered the question, who bewitched you? The truth of the matter is that, any people who drift from the true teaching of the scriptures and so become rebellious, they are practicing witchcraft. Hear what Samuel tells Saul after he rebelled from God.” For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king” (1 Samuel 15:23). Further, Samuel informs Saul that the Lord doesn’t “delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD.” Moreover, as Samuel puts it, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

It is unfortunate to note that even in today’s church and more so in the Western World, the ones who first heard the Gospel and believed in it and lived in that Faith for many years and who even evangelized the rest of the world have seemly became bewitched and like Galatians, Paul would ponder the same question, “Who bewitched you?” It is even ironical to note that the formerly unbelieving world and who got the Light from the western people seems to have grown deeper in Faith than the ones who evangelized them. Hence, the change of pendrum or the change of position.

All this is happening because of Devil’s manipulation by making the believers to drift from the focus of the Cross. There are three reasons for the devil’s fierce efforts to obscure the power of the cross
1. It is the only basis of all God’s provision for His redeemed people.
2. The enemy wants to obscure the power of the cross is that it was the means of Satan’s total defeat.
3. Satan obscures the power of the cross is that it is the only source of power for real Christian living.

The good news for you and me is that, on the cross Jesus administered to Satan a total, eternal, irrevocable defeat. Nothing can ever change that. Satan can never recover from that defeat, but Jesus has left it to the church to administer his victory. So Satan’s tactic is to keep the church from advancing by obscuring what happened on the Cross.

By loosing the focus of the Cross, these people have become the enemies of the Cross and they have missed heeding Paul’s advice. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2) They love pleasing the world and to live in a comfortable zone where they don’t feel the burden of the Gospel, they don’t want to sacrifice for the Gospel. It is in this connection Paul cautions the believers “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you” (John 15:19)

For those of us who totally feel called and to surrender our lives and move out of the comfortable zone, then we have to remember what Jesus told his disciples that, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62). Again, this is not the time for us to give an excuse of being given more time to go and burry our Fathers as someone excused himself so as not to be involved in the rigorous ministry of Jesus and so he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father” (Matthew 8:21). Let the dead in the dying church burry their own dead but for us, forward ever, backwards never. Let us not look back like Lot’s wife who the Bible says, “But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”( Genesis 19:26). We are under a Command to escape from Sodom, the city of destruction. Like Lot, let us hear the voice of the Lord saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”(Genesis 19:15). We have no alternative but to escape because all said and done, we are not the Citizens of this World.

We all know that, if you have a citizenship in any nation, you’re entitled to the passport of that nation. When you come to the nation where you’re a citizen, you are admitted on very different terms than people who don’t have that passport of that country. When I get to the port of entry in the U.S.A, I join the line marked non-citizen but when I land in Kenya, I join the queue marked Kenyan citizens. The difference is that, my citizenship in not in the U.S.A, my citizen is in Kenya. We sing, “This world is not my home, I’m just passing through.” Meaning that our Citizenship is not in this world. Therefore, while we are here, we are queuing on a non-citizen line but at the same time laboring for our heavenly citizenship and of which we have to acquire it’s passport. The only way to acquire this passport is to live within the biblical principles and in obedience to the Word of God, upholding the WORD as it is in the Bible and rejecting what the Bible doesn’t uphold.

This calls for a continued renewal of our mind through the Word of God. When our mind is renewed, we will discover the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Many Christians don’t find the will of God because they are never renewed in their minds. The unrenewed mind cannot discover the will of God. The carnal mind is enmity against God. God doesn’t reveal His secrets to His enemies. But if our minds are changed, then God will begin to show us His secrets, including his plans for our lives. The root problem for the Galatians was that the reality of Jesus crucified had been obscured by an evil Satanic power that had moved in. The two problems that resulted were carnality and legalism. They had gone back to the flesh in their pretence that they were serving God and they never had their mind renewed with the word, instead they resisted it and topped it with Human Wisdom and unbiblical doctrines, placing such in their “Book of Order.”

I like what David J. Schwartz says in his book, THE MAGIC OF THINKING BIG, that, “When you believe something is impossible, your mind goes to work for you to prove why. But, when you believe, really believe, something can be done, your mind goes to work for you and helps you to find the ways to do it… Belief releases creative powers. Disbelief puts the brakes on.” Let us therefore, belief in him who called us, him who choose us, ordained us to go and bear fruits, fruits that will last.

Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, and live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you (2 Corinthians 13:11).

Rt. Rev. Dr. David M. Githii
Moderator of General Assembly
Presbeterian Church of East Africa (P.C.E.A.)

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