November 15, 2020

My Testimony

Written by:
Rev (Dr) Prabhudas Koshy

Written by Dorcas Koshy

On 1st of August 2020, I joined GBWL to serve in the area of music and multimedia. This would not have happened, had not the Lord broken me down greatly and moulded me through the past 2 trying year.

Though I have been earnestly praying over many years that I may know whether God would call me to serve Him fulltime, God has not confirmed that in my heart. Be that as it may, I would like to share my testimony prayerfully and with much gratitude, concerning how the Lord led me to offer my time and effort to the Lord’s work through GBWL. I hereby give
testimony not as one who is called into full-time ministry of the church, but as one who is constrained to glorify the Lord for bestowing on me so great a salvation (Heb 2:3), together with its accompanying spiritual blessings and benefits, that I can’t do otherwise but to serve Him.

His Gracious Sanctification of My Life

The Lord has been working in my life gently and yet firmly to bring me into subjection, that I may live humbly towards Him. He mercifully continues to show me the dangers of a lurking spirit of haughtiness and of esteeming oneself better than others. Through His Word and His providential working in my mind and life, the Lord has been instructing me on the value of submission to Him and towards those whom God has placed above me. Recent sermons by Pastor on the life of Moses, which I hear twice as I prepare them for weekly broadcast on the web radio, have been God’s gracious means of further sanctification and nurturing of my life.

I am acutely aware that the habit of rash speech must be tamed – for “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell” (James 3:6). Thus, the counsel of Ecclesiastes 5:2-3 must be taken hold of by my heart – “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool’s voice is known by multitude of words.” Through daily repentance, prayer, consecration and communion with the Lord, I pray that my thoughts, words and responses will be fully tamed and used by the Lord. “Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed” (Psalm 25:3).

His Gracious Equipping of My Life

I rejoice to recall the truth of Ephesians 4:8, that when our Lord “ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.” I thank my Lord for granting me certain abilities and talents which I can trade for Him in GBWL. Many a time, I felt the talent(s) placed into my hand were too big and heavy, ‘not-my-thing’ for me to trade. But as Matthew 25:15 reminds us that the Lord gives “to every man according to his several ability”, none of His gifts must be pushed away. Rather, I received them with trembling hands, joyfully “trading” in His service with ardent prayers at the throne of grace. For God has commanded – not “whatsoever your heart pleaseth to do”, nor “only whatsoever you are familiar or secularly trained to do easily”, but rather – “whatsoever thy hand findeth to do”. Indeed, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). He will not deliver unto me His “goods” for me to trade for Him (cf. Matthew 25:14) if He has not the necessary graces at hand to be dispensed to me according to the prayer of faith. Praise Him for the exceeding great and precious promises given to me according to His divine power to do His will (2 Pet 1:3-4). In chronological order over the past 5 months, these are some “goods” delivered unto me, and areas of labour provided by Him:

Firstly, the necessitated broadcasts from home during the Circuit-Breaker (CB) compelled me to observe my brother using Vmix (a video streaming software), and preparing the necessary related physical set-up. Unknown to me, the Lord equipped me through that opportunity to assist now in the weekly set-up for Pastor’s GBI lessons at GMC, as well as the streaming of GYF and (soon to be resumed) GLF physical fellowship meetings from Level 2’s seminar room. This is just the beginning; there’s more to learn and to regularly upgrade – I just have to keep “trading”.

Secondly, I thank God for His enabling grace in the maintenance of social media platforms for TGCM till early October 2020. Allow me to recount particularly how the online Shopee shop was initiated in May. Hearing of our brethren’s lack of income during the CB and the possible closure of removal services, I asked Pastor and Uncle John Peh for permission to initiate a Shopee shop for TGCM (though that was during a busy time for me as I was still working on my graduating submission). As Shopee was revising several policies, it became harder and took more time than I thought, since online guides were immediately outdated and unhelpful. Frankly, I did wonder if this labour of love to “supply the want of saints” was worth it, as I also was concurrently struggling to complete my assignments. But 1 Jn 3:16-18 admonishes me: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”

Truly, He is a faithful God who does not fail us even in the least. The difficulties were from Him to once again prove the abundance of His power and goodness unto them who earnestly seek to be fruitful stewards of His provisions (cf. 2 Cor 8:14). Not only did He grant me grace to complete my academic work requirements and graduate (to my surprise) as best graduate, the Shopee shop was also successfully set up, which continues to be useful today. Incidentally, it was through Carousell that the order of 900 mask-cases from Bearyfun Gym came, and through Shopee that a rush-order of 300 mask-cases from a Citibank department came, alongside other smaller-quantity orders. Needless to say, while we work faithfully at whatsoever our hand findeth to do in “talenttrading”, God does the manifold multiplying!

Thirdly, I thank God also for grace to learn and build a simple CRM system for TGCM, with Bro Jordan’s recommendation of certain tools to systematise and increase the efficiency of TGCM Print’s order-collation and fulfilment workflow. My prayer is that the Lord be pleased to keep TGCM’s Gospel door open, for the bondage and destruction of vices will only get severer and darker. Thus, our light must shine brighter in this island, as the days become increasingly evil before our Saviour returns.

Fourthly, although Pro Tools is the digital audioworkstation software used here in Bible Witness, I was unsuccessful (providentially) in multiple attempts to set Pro Tools up from home during the CB. This compelled me to explore the next readily available option, Adobe Audition. Again unknown to me, it has proven needful and useful with a few crucial audio analysis and cleaning tools (that were lacking in Pro Tools), which have helped to better clean stray noises in many of the remotely recorded hymns. A key provision is also its usefulness in the recent prolonged ‘diagnosis’ of the highpitched frequencies experienced throughout our studios’ audio system, caused by electromagnetic interference from our GMC lift. With our own simple in-house recording and use of Audition, we could determine the frequency, loudness, etc. independently. (May the Lord continually grant His wisdom and grace to Dn Lok and team as they continuously troubleshoot this issue.)

Indeed, “Is there anything too hard for me?” saith the Omnipotent. By His enabling grace, today I also use Adobe Premiere Pro (a software I had not used prior to serving here), and am exploring the potential of Youtube tools (CC, autotranslation, etc.) for a more effective spread of the Word.

Thank God for the following biblical principles imbibed through these areas of service: cost-effectiveness over against extravagance; prudence over against parsimony; stewardship coupled with efficiency; patience / perseverance in tandem with compassion / courtesy. May I never misallocate / waste time and strength digging in the earth to hide my good Lord’s money (cf. Matthew 25:18); instead, may I rise early to trade daily. Ours is a high calling to service, to labour, to duty, to industry – such are opportunities not to be spurned foolishly. I pray that with clean hands and pure hearts, daily repentance and consecration, I may press on, be sanctified daily in the Spirit, and be “faithful in that which is least” (Luke 16:10). I pray that through this testimony, more hands (and hearts included, of course!) will be encouraged to labour diligently to fulfil the Great Commission, whatever the talent(s) He delivers unto us personally – as exhorted by the hymnwiter:

“Give of your sons to bear the message glorious;
give of your wealth to speed them on their way;
pour out your soul for them in pray’r victorious;
and all thou spendest, Jesus will repay.”
(from the hymn, O Zion, Haste!)

On a side but crucial note, I praise God for lovingly granting me much relief of pain in recent months. Though the usual aggravating factor of my pains - sedentariness - reached its peak during the pandemic-imposed CB, the Great Physician has been upholding me, that I may daily consecrate this frail body as a holy temple for spiritual sacrifices, in my seeking first God’s kingdom and His righteousness (Matt 6:33). “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Heb 12:28).

Gethsemane Bible-Presbyterian Church adheres to the system of faith commonly known as the “Reformed Faith” as expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith together with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.
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SingPost Centre
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(next to Paya Lebar MRT station)
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33 Ubi Crescent
Singapore 408584
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