Doroteo Jose

Santa Cruz, Manila is known to be a very busy place. Given that Divisoria, the city's main center for everything cheap and readily available, is right next to it. There is probably close to a few hundred thousand people that ply the route daily. That being said, Doroteo Jose Light Rail Transit station doubles as the pick up and drop off point of provincial buses that dump tens of thousands of commuters daily.

If you find yourself here between 6 P.M. to 10 P.M. you will have to fall into a very long line of people waiting for buses trapped in Metro Manila traffic to arrive. Sometimes it will take you up to five buses before you can finally get a ride.

This night was particularly heavily congested: there were no buses and it was raining. I estimate the people waiting in line under the rain inside the muddy terminal to be over a thousand. I did not want to go home without accomplishing anything for the Lord, and the opportunity for all these people to hear the Gospel grabbed me instantly. I went over to the nearest precinct to ask permission from the officer at the desk, then walked over to the Marilao terminal and approached the guard on duty, who more than showed appreciation that I saw it respectful to ask his permission. I then crossed over to the island to pray.

I prayed that the Lord would grant me the privilege to lift the Lord Jesus' name up once again. I asked for the hearts of his people in the midst of the crowd to be able to hear and receive the seed of the good news, and then I asked for the rain to stop. I waited till I received permission from the Lord to go, stand and speak, and when I finally stepped into the open air in the midst of the people, there was only a cool breeze. The rain had stopped.

After half an hour of preaching on law, judgement, hell and of death, I spent the small remaining time telling about the graces of God and His Christ. Why would I do such a thing you might ask? The answer is this: There is nothing in the Gospel of grace that will convict a man of his sin. The man must FIRST be brought under the conviction of the Law, for it is the school master that would bring a soul to Christ. Grace is the answer to the sinner's need, but it is the Law that rips the mask right off of the man and exposes him for who he really is: a vile rebel, a miserable traitor, and a self-idolater. It is a grievous thing to present grace to a man who has no knowledge of his offense against a Holy God; Christ is degraded in the life of a man who thinks himself right before God and has no need of such a Savior. It is the Law that convicts a man that he is worthy of death, and so this then drives him into the arms of the loving Savior who freely offers grace and salvation.

Our very offense against God in this Laodicean age is that we have deliberately taken out the preaching of the Law, to the end that it would be less offensive and easier to swallow, and by doing so we have effectively taken away the only weapon with which the Holy Spirit has ever armed himself to convict the man of sin and prepare him for grace.

That is why we see a lot of professing "Christians" and so-called "churches" that walk around looking, smelling, and talking just like the devilish world they live in. They consciously make an effort to fit right in the world despite knowing that any friendship with it is enmity with God. Hence, there is very little preaching of the truth because there is a drought in discernment and anointing, thus our judgement comes in the form of a proliferation of too many despicable and shallow pulpits, and as a result, so many damned sinners who think themselves to be Christians. The thought of modern so-called 'Christianity' throwing out Christ's pearls to swine who have no regard for such precious and glorious things sicken me to the very core.

May the Lord send us prophets. Terrible men, who cry aloud and spare not, who sprinkle nations with forceful woes - men too hot to hold, to hard to be heard, to merciless to spare. 

~ Leonard Ravenhill