November 22, 2004 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
In October I had an excellent preaching trip to Fiji and Australia. The trip was extremely busy. I didn’t have one day off for three weeks and preached 32 times in eight churches in five cities and two countries.

This was my first trip to Fiji, and it was a great blessing. My gracious and enthusiastic host was missionary Ryan Gray of Fairbanks, Alaska, who has been in Fiji for five years, and the Victory Baptist Church of Suva, which Brother Gray is currently pastoring.

Fiji is a chain of islands in the South Pacific a couple of hours flying time east of Australia. Fiji is 14 hours flying time from our missionary home in South Asia. I flew through Bangkok and Brisbane to get there. About 100 of the Fiji islands are inhabited, and I preached on the largest one, which is a little smaller than the main island of Hawaii.

The inhabitants of the islands were headhunters and cannibals until Methodist missionaries came in the 19th century. There have never been many Baptist churches and the oldest independent Baptist congregation is only 21 years old. This is the International Baptist Church, and the pastor, Samuel Berwick, is 84 years old. He and his wife attended most of the services.

The meetings ran from Wednesday through Sunday and were well attended. I could preach in English without an interpreter because English is one of the three major languages on the islands, the other two being Fijian among the native population and Hindi among the Indians, who comprise about half the population. Other independent Baptist churches participated and helped fill up the building each service. Three adults came forward for salvation at the invitations, and many came to the altar each service for other reasons. I believe the Lord met with us in a special way. One young man told me that he broke up his rock and contemporary CDs. I enjoyed the fellowship with the six American missionaries who attended, and as far as I could tell, all were in agreement on such things as the Bible version issue and the danger and error of the contemporary path.

On Saturday we had meetings in the morning and afternoon, and in between we had a traditional Fiji lovo cookout. A lovo is an earth oven. Large holes were dug in the ground and rocks were heated up inside the holes until they were red hot. Meat and vegetables were then put into the holes and covered with palm leaves and such and left to slow cook. The dishes I sampled were delicious. On Friday we went ocean fishing on a small charter vessel and I caught about a 30-pound red snapper, which we contributed to the lovo. We hooked some really large fish, a couple of which probably were in the 70-pound range, but we couldn’t land them because the fishing line was frayed and kept breaking and the tackle was inadequate.

I had a close call while in Fiji. Ryan Gray picked me up at the airport in Nadi and drove me across the island to Suva, about a three-hour trip. As we were leaving Nadi on the two-lane road, driving on the left hand side in British fashion, a truck approached from the opposite direction in the other lane and when it was nearly abreast of us, a car attempting to pass pulled out from behind the truck directly into our lane. I do not know how we avoided a terrible head on crash, but I can only say it was a miracle. Brother Gray swerved hard to the left and ran off the road and the van swerved violently back and forth as he pulled back on the road. He did a terrific job of straightening back up and keeping the van from rolling, but it was most definitely the Lord who was in charge!

There is a great spiritual opportunity in Fiji. There are only a few Baptist churches on the 108 inhabited islands. The difficulty is breaking into the village system with its close-knit social life and the ancient practice of frowning upon any deviation from tradition. Most of the villages are nominally Methodist, stemming from the fact that it was Methodists who first preached the gospel on the islands. The predominant Christianity has become syncretized with pagan tribal customs and has deteriorated into a dead religion rather than a living faith. I was informed that the average villager is a Christian because of his infant baptism and church membership rather than because of regeneration through personal faith in Christ.

After the meetings were concluded in Fiji I flew to Australia. This was my third trip to this fascinating but spiritually cold country. The first time was in 1971 when I was stationed in the military in Vietnam. I went on a one-week R&R to Sydney. That was during my “bad old days,” because I wasn’t yet converted to the Lord. The second trip was in about 1986 and was to Western Australia on a preaching tour.

The first meeting in Australia was with Pastor Buddy Smith and the Grace Baptist Church in Malanda, about an hour from Cairns in the “tablelands” in the northeastern part of the country. It is a beautiful area, mountainous and forested. Brother Smith is an American who has worked in Australia for 32 years. All of his children are married and settled in the country and most of his 15 grandchildren live nearby and attend his church. The Lord blessed the meetings richly. I believe one young man received Christ. The church members were faithful to each service, and we had some visitors. In his recent prayer letter, Brother Smith said: “Bro. Cloud’s diligence in research, his fearlessness, and his boldness in preaching the Word were a real blessing to our people. In fact, without pressure from me or Bro. Cloud, every member of our church was there for every meeting (with the exception of one of our men who had to miss one service!) This is something I have never seen in 40 years of ministry. I told Bro. Cloud I was going to preach the next Sunday morning on ‘Living with Elijah’. And I did. (Ahab and Jezebel hated him, Obadiah didn’t understand him, the widow woman and her son were blest by him, and Elisha learned from him, served him, and succeeded him. So what is our response to the Elijahs God brings into our lives?)” Hughie Seaborne and his wife drove up from Cairns and stayed over for the meetings, and it was a blessing to meet this brother who is zealous for the truth. Hughie came out of the charismatic movement some years ago. I preached on “New Evangelicalism: A Great Danger to the Churches,” “Rome the Great Harlot,” “Victory in the Midst of End Time Apostasy,” and “Dangers of Contemporary Praise Music.” The church is currently meeting at a high school but they are making good progress on their new building. You couldn’t ask for more gracious hospitality than that which was shown to me by the Smiths. It was a real encouragement. Bro. Smith drove me around the area some and showed me towns that have no Bible-believing churches.

The next meeting was at Fellowship Baptist Church in Brisbane, pastored by Peter Marsman. The conference ran from Saturday to Tuesday. We had several visitors from other churches. I preached on “Dangers of Contemporary Praise Music,” “Knowing God’s Will,” “The Heart of New Evangelicalism,” and also delivered a three-part message “Why We Hold to the King James Bible: Divine Preservation, The Heresy of Modern Textual Criticism, and the Doctrinal Superiority of the KJV.” Brother Marsman is a kind man and a thinker and it was challenging to fellowship with him.

The next stop was Sydney for three days, and I preached in three different churches. The meetings were a great blessing and we had a good number of visitors. I preached at the Metropolitan Baptist Church, Victory Baptist Church, and Faith Baptist Church Arabic. One young man introduced himself as my “spiritual son,” because he said he was powerfully influenced by the material at the Way of Life web site to get right with the Lord and get into a good church. Another couple drove down from Canberra and told me how that they came out of the Charismatic movement because of the information at our web site and today they are in a good fundamental Baptist church. What a blessing! It was also a great blessing to meet Pastor Don Stewart, who drove down from Canberra for a couple of the services.

During the three mornings I taught for two hours at the Sydney Bible College on New Evangelicalism, the Dangers of Contemporary Worship Music, and the Calvinism Debate. The final meeting at Faith Baptist Church Arabic was packed out and they had to put chairs in the aisles to accommodate the good and enthusiastic crowd. I preached on the “Dangers of Contemporary Praise Music,” and the response was a blessing. Many young people told me that they were touched and helped. One woman told me, “You changed my life tonight.” Pastor Bill Nabeel Zaydan, who is originally from Lebanon and is a native Arabic speaker, is doing a great job and it was a blessing to spend part of an afternoon with him. My main host for the three days was Pastor Mario Schiavone of Metropolitan Baptist Church, and it was such a joy to spend time with this gracious brother. He was such a wonderful host.

The last meeting was at Calvary Baptist Church in Melbourne. This was my first trip to Melbourne. Pastor Em Veszely and his wife, Liz, were hippy dropouts before they were saved, so we have a lot in common and we had a good time of fellowship. We stayed up late and laughed ourselves silly a couple of nights! The meetings were well attended and the response was encouraging. I preached on “Knowing God’s Will,” “False Views of Sanctification Refuted,” “Victory in the Midst of End Times Apostasy,” “Rome and the Ecumenical Movement,” and “Dangers of Contemporary Praise Music.” The church has an interesting evangelistic ministry called “Special Needs Youth Group” which meets on Friday evenings. It is geared to children and young people with special needs, whether physical or mental. Parents who would not otherwise attend a Baptist church are motivated to bring their children to this special youth group because it is so rare that they can find anyone who understands and cares for their Special Needs children. The outreach was the burden of a mother in the church who has a Downs Syndrome child.

The six churches in Australia treated me royally and I look forward to another visit to this needy land and to Fiji in 2006 if the Lord wills. I plan to focus at that time on the Bible Version issue.

One afternoon I visited Hills Christian Life Centre in Sydney, where Darlene Zschech (pronounced “check”) is the worship leader. This is the home of Hillsong Music, one of the influential names in contemporary worship. A husband and wife are the senior pastors. With some 12,000 members, this is the largest church in Australia. It is charismatic in doctrine and practice and radically ecumenical. In a 2004 interview with Christianity Today, Darlene Zschech expressed her radical ecumenical philosophy: “I’ve been in the Catholic Church, in the United Church, the Anglican Church, and in many other churches, and when worship is offered in truth, this sound emerges--regardless of the style. It’s the sound of the human heart connecting with its Maker” (quoted by Michael Herman, “Zschech, Please,” christianitytoday.com, June 4, 2004). She doesn’t explain how worship can be in truth in the context of denominations that teach grievous doctrinal error.

It is not amazing to see this type of thing within the charismatic movement. What is amazing is that this same brand of contemporary music and positive-emphasis philosophy is sweeping into fundamentalist churches.

Among independent Baptists the lines are being drawn between those who want to go in the contemporary direction and those who want to remain in the old paths of strict but compassionate separation. I am encouraged by the many brethren who have cast their lot with the old paths, and the chief purpose of my travels these days is to challenge and encourage such churches in this direction.