Last Saturday, August 5, 2023, we had our annual north Alabama Hispanic lectureships. Several Hispanic congregations came from the State of Alabama and other states. Those who attended were from: Colombia, México, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Honduras, Haití, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and the United States. There were about twenty nations from Latin America singing praises to God and learning together the word of God. All these people who now live in the United States and have been converted are ambassadors to their own countries now. These people are trying to convert their relatives where they came from. Every opportunity they have, they speak about the gospel to those they know in their native lands.
What happened last Saturday reminded me of what happened in the day of Pentecost about two thousand years ago in the book of Acts. The Bible tells us the following: “Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,[b] Phrygia and Pamphyia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rose (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” (Acts 2:5-12).
In the same way that God opened a door two thousand years ago, so the gospel could be preached to those people who were in Jerusalem; something like that is happening in the present day. Two thousand years ago, people heard the gospel in their own language and about 3,000 people were baptized when the gospel were preached to them. All those people who attended our lectureships have heard the gospel in their own language and have been baptized in the State of Alabama and the surrounding states. Each person who has been converted represent a missionary to their own country.
What a way to evangelize the nations in Latin America! God is using their own people so those people who live abroad will learn about the gospel. This reminds me of what the book of Acts tells us in Acts 8:4 “Those who had been scattered preached the Word wherever they went.”
To God be the glory for His infinite gospel!
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