From July 11-25 my daughter Kathryn and I were in  Zambia to teach the doctrine of Salvation and the book of Romans to two classes at a Bible college. We had a total of 45 students  in the two classes.

At the same time, at the school medical clinic, two visiting doctors from the US were performing cataract surgery on people from the local population. They did 61 surgeries. Some of the people were completely blind. With a relatively simple surgery people who had been blind for years regained their sight.

Since these people could not afford the surgery on their own, these doctors were responsible for making the blind to see. It was incredible to see such things and the joy on the faces of these individuals.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that what those doctors were doing is a great illustration of what we in the Free Grace movement do. We are in the business of removing spiritual cataracts. The students that Kathryn and I taught had never been exposed to Free Grace theology. Probably every one of them had the idea that works were involved in gaining eternal life. I am not sure how they would have worded it. Some, no doubt, would have said a Christian can lose salvation if they don’t do good works. Others would have said if you don’t have good works you were not saved in the first place. But the idea that one receives eternal life as a free gift that cannot be lost by God’s grace through faith was something they had never “seen” before. They were blind to the realities of God’s grace.

Many reading  this blog can relate to these realities.

Each class consisted of around 40 hours of instruction time. We were able to engage in lively discussions about what the NT teaches about eternal life. Both classes started with this topic, with us spending a great deal of time in the Gospel of John.

Thanks to donations, each student received books from GES. All the students were able to speak English and understood it very well.  They were also introduced to the GES website and the abundance of material available on it. As a result, at the end of the class 44 of the 45 students said that they knew that by faith in Christ’s promise of eternal life they knew they had eternal life and that they could never lose it. Some came to that realization, no doubt, from our discussions on John or other discussions in class, some from the books, and some from the website.

The Holy Spirit used these things to remove their blindness to the grace of God.

There were a lot of cataracts removed in Zambia from Jul 11-25. On one end of the school, physical cataracts were removed. On the other, spiritual surgery was performed.

How exciting to know that when we as Free Grace people clearly tell others about the free offer of eternal life that can never be lost through faith in Christ, that the Holy Spirit is using us to give sight to the blind!