Observations Chiang Mai, Thailand Land of Smiles
After spending roughly one week in Chiang Mai, Thailand I would like to share some ministry events with you along with some real challenges. First of all Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand is one of the kindest places that I have ever ministered in. You see I am more accostomed to rough conditions, paramilitary police and gangs as are prevelant in Central America. When one ventures to Central America there is a certain amount of caution and precaution that is packed in the trip. You have your guard up and your eyes open most of the time for either criminal elements or potentially dangerous driving conditions. It is said that in Honduras they might as well remove the brakes from the vehicles and replace them with extra horns because in the big cities like Tegucigalpa the rule of thumb is don't stop or slow down, use your horn all the time and talk to the other drivers through your windshield anytime it might be warranted. It is nothing personal when they blow the horn and shake the fist and yell it is just cultural. Most shake it off quickly and drive on in the rat race of life.
Chiang Mai has proven to be a different kind of place where you are immediately disarmed by the kindness and smile of most everyone. The cursory greeting is very humble and very soothing. A cursory bow, greeting and a smile for everyone. While this is true in the physical sense a different reality has emerged in the spiritual sense. People find no hope as they enter the temple of Buddha to prostrate before the Buddha. When they remember the Buddha it is said that they remember the man who taught Buddhism and that they don't worship the idols but bow in reverance to the great teachings of the Buddha who is said to have found the middle way for mankind. Do you know truth and mixed truth when you see it?
With Buddhism being the dominant force on the society an observer notes that most observants honestly practice kindness in preferring others before themself. While the overall feel of Buddhism appears to be a pacifing and sincere seeking of good things it lacks sincere honest truth that only comes from God. I don't think that I need to specifically draw conclusions for you regarding the distinct differences between the truth revealed by the Way, the Truth and the Light vs. "truth" developed by the mind of men.
Just yesterday on Twitter I gained a new follower called Buddha Rocks and I suppose with all of the mention of Buddhism that I have made in recent weeks the attention has spawned people of various thoughts and beliefs who are interested. This is good because Jesus and the disciples welcomed people who are "religious" in nature to come and learn "His" simple eternal truths from God.
What I have most noticed in the process of sharing the Gospel message here is that people smile big , their jaws drop, their eyes fly wide open and they believe what they read, read more than you even request and then mostly they confess that they believe it all. Just when you want to celebrate with them a little bird seems to come along and pluck the seed from the soil. If you venture to question if deep enough you will find that the local Buddhism is a mixture of many religious beliefs. Almost by osmosis the Buddhist religion takes on the beliefs of other major world religions and blends them into Buddhism on varying levels. So it goes like this: "Yes I believe it all, all I have read I have understood, I believe in God and his Holy Word, I believe in Jesus" and just as you press more the ugly bird reveals his head and says...We believe in all who speak good words and good things. We believe Muhammod, we believe Buddha, we believe Christians, we believe all things that are good. It is then that you mentally make a note of truth that there is not absolute truth for these people who have not fully turned heart, mind and soul over to their maker. Truth is tarnished best when it is deluted with the lie.
How can all messengers be good and all messages be good if the messengers each speak a message of his own that do not agree with each other? How can untruth be blended and recieved as truth? How can the message of Buddha or Muhammad overrule the message of Christ the Messiah?
I asked a friendly lady about the perception of Buddhist regarding the sex trade and Americans and Europeans who come here to engage in the sex trade. I told her that in my heart I felt bad about my own nationality coming here for this kind of thing and that not all of us engage in this kind of conduct. She explained to me that the common thought here regarding sex trade workers is that they are not bad and do not do wrong but that their way of life is a lesser way of doing good. The thought as she related it is that one man for one women is best way to live but that the ladies need to make money and this way is acceptable although of lesser quality.
No thought of it being sinful or being an activity condemned by God simply as lesser way to live. Truth compromised in the name of peace and tolerance. There is a story of a monk who took a vow not to touch a woman and one day as he walked along the road a woman was ran over by a car and was laying critically injured in the road. What a great dilema ensued. Does the monk keep his vow not to touch a woman by helping this injured lady or does he risk bad karma by reaching out to help her by carrying her to help? Wow it is truely a dilema because who wants bad "karma" right? In the end the monk did the "right" thing and risked "bad karma" to help the lady but he regretted it for a time as he thinks he will pay a price in the next life for breaking his vow. It is very complicated when men invent the rules. God makes truth simple and understandable. For sure there are hard matters that we don't fully understand on this side of heaven but the truths as the are pronounced by God in his Holy Word are hidden from the wise and revealed to the humble.
Just yesterday I told a Buddhist obeservant that he was making things way to complicated. He nearly lost his top when I suggested that a man cannot be both a Buddhist and a Christian at the same time. In his mind and his buddhist context there was no issue as Jesus was just another good messenger. Jesus is exclusively God and demand exclusive adoration and committment. God does not share his glory with objects made by the hands of men. The same wood used to make the statue or idol is burned for warmth as the OT tells.
One of the most effective passages of scripture thus far has been the following passage in Acts 17. If I were to pick a passage to desribe this part of Chiang Mai, Thailand my observation would be Acts 17 explains what we see here in the Land of Smiles.
Acts 17
In Athens
16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
29"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. 30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
32When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." 33At that, Paul left the Council. 34A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others
Here in Chiang Mai I have been teaching about The Unknown God and people have responded very well although I can securely say that at the precise moment when decisions are close at hand the dragon rears his head and breaths out untruth which is mostly perceived as another "form" of truth and people try to blend the truth with the "form of truth" that they already know. This is the delusion and the deception.
Back in the U.S. when my kids are tired of the same old fountain drinks they take a risk called "Suicide". This is when all of the flavors are mixed together in varying, non predetermined amounts to created a blended drink called a "Suicidal Mix". This is exactly what happens here in Chiang Mai as my observation. People commit suicide when they mix and blend every flavor of deception and untruth in to a "Suicidal Religious Mix".
When the monk is asked, "Is Buddha dead or alive?" He acurately states that Buddha is dead. When asked if when they prostrate before the statue of Buddha or the idols if they are worshipping the statue or idol, they say that they are not worshipping the idol but the spirit of Buddha behind the idol. When you go farther and ask about the spirit of Buddha and the nature of it they say that the spirit of Buddha is nothing. So the honest truth is that Buddha is dead, the idol is dead material and whatever spirit is eluded to behind the statue is nothing. Death and nothing reign. To the monk and the observant they are supposedly to aspire to become as nothing. The more nothing that you can become the more something that you will become in your next life. See the mind of man has darkened understanding that is far from Truth.
The truth is that man has one life that is estimated to be about 3 score and 10 years or 70 years average if all goes well. This life is like a vapor passing very quickly and in this way man is appointed to live one life and then proceed to judgement ending in either eternal life or eternal death. Anything apart from Jehovah, God almighty is death.
Here is the Gospel of Buddha in case you have not seen it. Remember truth mixed and blended with untruth is not TRUTH. Just as a cocacola mixed with coffee, tea and lemonaid is not a Cocacola any longer but as my children would call it "A Suicide". By the way if you are a Buddhist this message is not meant to defame, debunk or put down Buddhism but rather to shine the light of Truth into untruth so that men can see the error of their ways when they leave the one True and living God to follow after idols made by human hands and to follow precepts made by suicidal human minds. The heart of man as declared by scripture is exceedingly deceptive and not to be trusted. Only God and his Truth can be trusted. Jesus, the son of God, is the Way, the Truth and the Light that came unto men and men recognized him not but rather built for themselves statues and idols for worship. Don't commit the suicidal tendancy to mix truth and untruth as only truth is pure and from the Creator of all things including you.
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