Matthew Stuckey here from Verity Baptist Church Philippines and today is the day of celebration.
Today is the 500 year anniversary of Ferdinand Magellan landing here in the Philippines.
March 16th, 1521 is when he first landed and of course, you know, he was killed at the Battle of Mactan at the end of April, April 27th, 1521.
And so it's 500 years since Christianity first came to the Philippines and of course before that there was not a single person who was saved.
Nobody had ever heard the name of Jesus Christ and this is what the Catholic Church obviously tells you and actually this is just not true.
It's just actually a lie.
And so it is the 500 year anniversary of Ferdinand Magellan landing here in the Philippines.
But to say that this was the first Christian or the first time, you know, Christ was even mentioned, that's actually not true.
And so this is what the Catholic Church would have you to believe.
But even if you were to go to just Wikipedia itself, it talks about how Arab settlers and Arab traders had actually brought Christianity here just in the early first couple centuries, you know, after the time of Jesus Christ.
And so I want you to realize that if we go all the way back to the Old Testament, you see examples like Rahab the harlot, who she was already saved and she had obviously already heard the gospel and heard about who the true God was before they'd even come there.
And you say, well, how is that even possible?
Well, because the belief in the true God has spread throughout the entire world.
People have heard about that.
And in today's world, we believe in the same true God that they did in the Old Testament.
It's the same God, right?
And so I want you to realize that, you know, Rahab the harlot had already heard the message of salvation.
And if you look in Jonah chapter one, when they're all drawing lots, you know, for their God and everything, and Jonah draws a lot and it falls upon him, when he tells them about the Hebrew God, they are afraid because they had heard of the Hebrew God.
People had known the stories of the Red Sea and everything like that.
And so the message of the true God had gotten out throughout the entire world.
OK, now I want you to realize that when I say that there was, you know, Christians and everybody knew who Jesus was before Magellan, that was absolutely true.
Everybody had heard of Jesus Christ and there was definitely saved people that already lived in the Philippines.
I'm not claiming that it was a primarily Christian country, though.
Obviously, before that, you know, people were worshipping the sun and the moon and the earth.
And Batala was the name of the primary supreme God that they believed in.
But they believe in very pagan beliefs, just like, you know, the natives in the US or pretty much anywhere would believe something very similar.
And Christianity, though, it came here in the form of Ferdinand Magellan.
Now, of course, Ferdinand Magellan was a Catholic.
And so bringing Catholicism here into the Philippines, well, that's not salvation.
It's not the same message of salvation that the Catholic Church has, but it does have structures like the Trinity and things such as that.
So I do believe that it was a good thing that Ferdinand Magellan came here, because if you look at the countries in Asia, there's no question that the Philippines is the most receptive country in all of Asia to the gospel.
It's a great place to get people saved.
People are very receptive and open.
And I would much rather try to preach the gospel to a Catholic than someone who was a Buddhist or had a very different idea, an Eastern sort of philosophical idea of who God is and religion and spirits and things such as that.
So I do believe it was a good thing.
But I want you to realize there was already saved people that were here before.
And obviously, Ferdinand Magellan and his men couldn't bring the true salvation if they were all Catholics.
Now, of course, we don't know if every single one of them was Catholics.
But I would definitely say the majority of them probably were.
But I want you to realize saved people were already here.
So that's kind of a myth to say that there was no saved people before this event.
Now, a couple of other myths I wanted to mention as we're talking about Christianity in the Philippines is one of the big myths is that the Philippines is a very, very conservative country.
Now, in some ways, this is true.
But honestly, in a lot of ways, the Philippines is not really conservative at all.
Now, it's conservative in the fact this is the only country in the world along with Vatican City, which is not really a country.
It's the only country in the world here in the Philippines where divorce is illegal.
So that's a very conservative idea, very old fashioned idea.
But, you know, this country is filled with just people that are open homosexuals.
And it is very common to see men dressed as women everywhere you go.
Now, I've been to San Francisco a few times in my life.
And quite honestly, you know, coming from West Virginia, where, you know, growing up, I never saw any homos.
You know, it's sort of shocking when you go to San Francisco when you see guys holding hands and things such as that.
It's disturbing. It's disgusting.
It's definitely not what I'm used to.
But then you come to the Philippines.
And for people that were here for prior missions trips and everything, they're just like, whoa, what in the world?
Because there's so many guys that are just openly dressed as women.
You know, Vice Ganda, who I affectionately like to call Vice Pangit, is, you know, just a famous comedian.
And he's always, you know, dressed like a woman.
And everyone thinks he's funny.
There's a lot of other celebrities that are men that are dressed as women and are cross dressers and everything like that.
And so in some ways, the Philippines is a conservative country, but it's also one of the most pro LGBT countries in the world.
And that surprises people, given the fact it's the only primarily Christian country in all of Asia.
And yet they're, you know, one of the top couple and arguably the most most pro LGBT, probably right along with Thailand, of any country in all of Asia.
So the idea that the Philippines is a very conservative country is sort of true, sort of not.
In some ways they are, in a lot of ways they aren't.
Another myth is this, that when it comes to Catholicism here in the Philippines, you might think of it just as the same as Catholicism in other countries.
And quite honestly, you know, it's very much different here than it is in the United States and Europe and in other locations.
They take Catholicism very seriously here.
You know, my wife is from the province of Pampanga and they have the Magda Ramay celebration where people beat themselves and then people crucify themselves.
And I remember when I first saw this on video years ago, you know, I thought it was a very uncommon thing in the Philippines.
I didn't think many people practice this, but actually visiting Easter for Pampanga before, I was like, oh, wow, it's actually a very common tradition.
And I thought, as probably most Westerners do, that when they're hitting themselves with ropes, that it's actually just red paint.
I didn't think they were actually bleeding.
And because I thought, you know, how could a rope make somebody bleed?
And then you actually see that they actually slice open their back with this little thing.
And they cut themselves ahead of time.
So basically what happens is people get drunk ahead of time.
So they're able to take the pain and then they start the blood.
And then as they're hitting themselves, the blood just keeps flowing.
And it is extremely common in Pampanga and other parts of the Philippines as well of people beating themselves and people crucifying themselves.
And so, look, this is much different than the Catholicism of the US or in Europe or in some other location where they don't really take it all that seriously.
We also have the Feast of the Black Nazarene where the streets are just crowded around Quiapo with people that are worshipping this morbid black sort of idol of Jesus Christ.
And they believe if they can just, you know, touch that idol, then they can just magically be healed.
Many of them actually believe that.
And it's a big event and people take it very seriously and everything like that.
And so, you know, basically this huge celebration just around idolatry.
Now, this is not the only country in the world that has things such as this.
For example, in India with Catholics, they do crucify themselves just like they do here.
So they have a lot of similar traditions.
But obviously India is a very idolatrous country and they're obviously very zealous with religion, much like the Philippines is.
And so the Catholics here in the Philippines, they take things very, very seriously.
So just a couple of things to remind you or to remember about as we're at the 500 year anniversary of Magellan coming here.
Don't let anybody tell you that these were the first Christians that came.
For one, they're not coming bringing the true gospel as it is anyway.
And there was already saved people here in the Philippines.
So this definitely is what, you know, caused this to be a primarily Christian or Catholic country.
But there were saved people that existed before this.
And also realize that, you know, the Philippines in some ways it's a very conservative country.
In a lot of ways it's really not.
And, you know, when it comes to the type of Catholicism here in the Philippines, it's a lot more zealous than it is in other parts of the world.
Now I personally on this 500 year anniversary, it's a big time to kind of remember because this was a big event in the history of the Philippines.
And as I mentioned, I'm personally glad that Ferdinand Magellan came here to the Philippines.
I don't believe what he did was right coming here and just forcing people to convert.
And obviously he got killed by Lapu-Lapu.
But, you know, it was a good thing because the Philippines is honestly the most receptive country in all of Asia to the gospel.
And as someone who's a Bible believing Christian, it's great because, you know, honestly the Philippines is just a very receptive country.
And people that have a Catholic background are a lot easier to get saved than people from a lot of other Asian countries.
Anyways, thank you and God bless.