(Return To Me) Program 23
Turning From Idols To The True, Living God
What happens when a person literally turns from idols to worship the true and living God? Is there a fear that maybe the idols might come and get her? That maybe the gods might be mad at her and angry at her? Today, we’re going to talk to a woman Nita Tin who came out of idolatry, and came to know the one and true living God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth.
Kay: Because “Precepts For Life” is a teaching through the Bible, book-by-book, chapter-by-chapter, verse-by-verse, very seldom do I ever have a guest on the program. And yet, because we are studying Jeremiah 10, 11 and 12, and I have a dear friend that has literally come out of idolatry and has been in our Precept studies since the 1970’s, I could not resist just stopping and sharing the story of this wonderful, precious, precious friend with you. I want you to meet Nita Tin. And Nita you’ve been at Precepts since what?
Nita: 1974, and it was just right after I was saved. And I came to love the way I studied the Bible through Precept. And that’s the only way I know. And you’ve been my teacher since then.
Kay: And it’s such a privilege. And then she has become the teacher of others.
Nita, I want you to tell us your story because you weren’t born in the United States. You were born in Burma. Where is Burma?
Nita: Burma is to the east of India and south of China. It’s very close to Vietnam, Laos, and we’re right there. Just, if you look at the map, and you see the little triangle of India, there’s a little kite-like um…
Kay: Tail.
Nita: Tail. And a little top to that, and it’s about the size of Texas.
Kay: Now, what were you doing in Burma? What was your life like in Burma?
Nita: Well, I was born in a very affluent family, very, very strict Buddhist. And we grew up speaking, you know, we were bilingual growing up. We had been under the British, and we got ah independence in 1948. So we were taught Burmese and English at the same time. But my daddy was a Buddhist, and so were all my maternal grandparents, everybody, cousins, you know, uncles, everybody. They were Buddhist, but my mom was the only Christian. And you know, she married into a very rich family. And she was just, just a schoolteacher and a Christian.
Kay: Was it a planned marriage?
Nita: No, it wasn’t a planned marriage. But most of, you know, at that time there were planned marriages, but Mommy was outcast because she wasn’t, you know, just like us.
Kay: And so, but your father fell in love with her apparently.
Nita: Yes, he did.
Kay: He was attracted to her.
Nita: Yes, he was.
Kay: Now, tell me what Buddhism is like.
Nita: Well, in a sense, if you look at the way I was brought up, if you looked at the, what you might say is the pure Buddhism, that is what my maternal grandmother believed in. And as a young child, I longed to know God. And I wanted to know Him so much that I did everything that a little Buddhist girl would know how. I must have been three or four years old, but I would tag along with my maternal grandmother. And when she went to the monks, you know, into the Buddhist places, in the monasteries, I would go along with her. What she did would be meditate, you know. She would say her prayers, and her beads, and she would say, “Nita walk, you know, breathe, and just think about nothing.” And so, you know, this is what I did. But my paternal grandmother was different, she had embraced not only Buddhism, but because we are so close to India, Hinduism and parts of all of this. And at our house we always had a statue. Every Buddhist home has a statue in the front of the house.
Kay: Is the statue a statue of Buddha?
Nita: A statue itself of Buddha. Now, this is not the laughing Buddha that you’d see.
Kay: Not the cute little—
Nita: Yes, but it’s Buddha. And he would sit there and you know, we would worship there, and I would be the one to go and get the offerings to the idol. Every, every morning before we ate some, we had to offer to the idol, every evening and ah—
Kay: Did you offer food?
Nita: Food. Food, flowers, you know, just ah, just ah something to drink. And that’s what I used to do.
Kay: And then what did you do? Pour out what he didn’t drink?
Nita: Oh, well, we were children, and we ate up the little, the little things that were on there.
Kay: ’Cause you offered it to him, and he had a mouth, but he couldn’t eat, right?
Nita: Couldn’t eat. That’s right. Yeah, and so my paternal grandmother, I remember, it was so, and that’s, you know, what I want to write in my book, but it was so weird. I’d go into this dark temple and there would be this god with like six or seven hands. And I would go in there and there would be, it would be dark and there would be smoke. And as a child, you know, you look at that and you, you were scared because it was just so dark. And when I think of it now, I think it was evil. And um, you know, it’s always was in my mind when I think of that, but not now. But anyway, my grandmother also we probably didn’t have an idol and everything, but at the foot of the steps, at every tree. And that’s why when you look at all of the Old Testament “under every tree” and all of that, there was a candle there and it was like there were spirits everywhere, there were idols everywhere. And it was such a frightening experience because you didn’t want to, you know, do anything that would upset the gods. And that’s how I was brought up.
Kay: Oh my goodness. I want to take us, for just a minute, to 1 Corinthians. And in 1 Corinthians, He’s talking about idols. He starts in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, 9 and 10 all have to do with the subject of idolatry, with the subject of idols versus God. He talks about when you worship these idols they’re not a person. They’re just something that you have made with their hands even as we saw in Jeremiah. But then he says this in chapter 10 verse 19, “What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to be [a] sharer in demons.” (1 Corinthians 10:19-20) So what he’s showing us is the evil that you felt is it’s a kingdom of darkness. And the prince of this world is the prince of darkness, and his kingdom is darkness. And this is why, in a sense, there is the terror, in a sense, there is the feeling of evil, right?
Nita: Yes, it was because my grandmother would suddenly speak in a man’s voice. And then there was an aunt who was supposed to be like with the spirits, she was wedded to the spirits. And so they would just take some strong drink and they would dance around and be just, I mean, the voices were so weird. This was something that I remembered. But Kay, when you talked about, you know, what God can do through all of that, it was because I longed to know Him. I think of that verse, and Kay, you’ve told me that, you know, “Everything that you say, it doesn’t count when you don’t lace it to Scripture.” And I know enough of that, but it’s like God, you know, when you look at Jeremiah and he says, “„…I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness [have I] drawn you..” (Jeremiah 31:3, NKJV) And when I look at my life and I see, you know, “I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He [lifted me] up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet…on a rock, and established my goings. … He [has] put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto…God: many [will hear] it, and fear, and…trust in the LORD.” (Psalm 40:1-3, KJV) And that was, how He drew me away from this idol worship life.
Kay: Tell me how.
Nita: Yes, a friend of mine, she was a little Catholic girl. And I loved her so much.
Kay: In Burma?
Nita: In Burma. And she said, “Nita,” she’s always talking to me about death. And, of course, you know, I mean, what’s death? But she said, “One day your idol that you’re worshiping, he’s going to be smiling at you.” So I knew that was silly, because I knew it was an idol. And somehow I guess I worshiped something behind that idol because I was praying and asking for things, and asking for protection, and asking for lots of things. So I knew that that couldn’t be. But that’s what God used, the foolish things of the world. So I went to, in the twilight, to that prayer room to where the idol was, and I looked up at the idol and what she said, God brought what she said to my mind. And I just flew out of that room and I never returned. I was so afraid, but because then I did not have anything. I had no foundation. I had no god now to pray. I had all these spirits that told us we couldn’t keep our hair down, we couldn’t drive around if, if we, if you had nine people you had to put a rock in there. But that’s what God did to draw me away to, from, from the idols. And God brought this wonderful man who loved God, who lived for God, who I think has all the fruit of the spirit—
Kay: Oh, he does.
Nita: That I wanted what he wanted. And that’s how God drew me to Himself.
Kay: And I want to know how you met him. How did you meet him?
Nita: Well, I was one of four girls, and my daddy was very strict so we weren’t allowed out. But he was a little older than me, three and a half years older. So one of the friends had, kind of, liked my sister, and they wanted to come out to a party. Well, when Daddy would let us go to a party it would be like we’d go at four, and he’d come and pick us up at seven. If we didn’t come out, the chauffer would honk the horn. But anyway, so that was during a water festival. Now this also is religious, they throw water on the gods, and on everybody. It’s a time of cleansing. And that’s in April. And then we made it, you know, we were in college. And what we did was the guys would take the opportunity to put their arms around the girls and protect from these water hoses and things.
Kay: Oh, oh, what a good excuse. Now, we’re going to hear more about that in just a minute, okay?
Nita: Okay. Kay: Don’t miss this important announcement.
Kay: Come sit with us and listen to how her husband Pe Than got his arm around her to protect her.
Nita: Well, that wasn’t exactly so, because another little girl was liking him, and she kept sitting next to him. He is a very shy person, and so he was scooting away from her. And somehow he ended up sitting next to me, and that was all that was needed. God just drew us together. I was only 16 and ah—
Kay: He was 19?
Nita: Yes, and we just fell in love. And we dated for seven years because he was in medical school. But it was then we got married, and God drew me away from the things that I knew; from the maids, and the chauffeurs, and all of this life that I had, to the jungle where when I think of the cisterns, the waters—
Kay: The broken cisterns.
Nita: Broken cisterns. And I thought, you know, over there, there was no running water. There were wells, but they would run dry in August. I knew about getting up at 3 o’clock in the morning. Having not done a single piece of work in my life, I had to draw water from the well. I had to wash clothes at the side of it. But I think God was taking away little by little, He was taking away the things that I held onto.
Kay: What were you doing in the jungle?
Nita: The government had taken over, and now they sent him over there. And he was—
Kay: He was a doctor.
Nita: Yes.
Kay: And they sent him into the jungle, and this was the government. The British?
Nita: No, not the British government. We were already—
Kay: The British were gone now—
Nita: Yes, yes.
Kay: And you had your own government.
Nita: Very bad government. It was a political government. We went through floods, we went through poverty, there was no refrigeration, no ice, no electricity, no water. My son had, I mean, they were about to die, all of these things happened. But God just took us slowly from, away from this and this military government. When I was in the university, I saw them shoot down
all the students with machine guns. I witnessed all of this. And yet, God in His lovingkindness, He was drawing me away from all of this. And so we put in our papers to come here. And we had to wait two years ’cause they didn’t want professionals to leave. And when we actually left, they allowed us to take $20 of our money out. No jewelry, I got that jewelry later on, but no jewelry, no photographs, all of our money. We had to pay $10,000 to the government each because we were professionals. And then we had to pay five years income tax in advance. So we came out with our two little children, a year and a half and four years old. And we came out here to the United States of America just with $20.
Kay: And I know that’s been a struggle, but I know that He has blessed. And I know that you have been generous in supporting this ministry. And God has used you so much as a couple to help this ministry. And I thank you. When did you come to know the Lord?
Nita: Well, I thought I knew the Lord when I was in the jungle. And then we moved on to another little place, and I was actually baptized in a lake. And I thought, “Now I’m a Christian.” I wanted to be more like my husband. And what he did was pray for me, prayed for me through all this time. And then I thought I was saved, but then when we got to the United States and we had no car. We ate out of boxes. Ah we slept on the floor. We had three blankets among the four of us. And we ran a little, where in Burma we had windows and everything, and we were in a basement apartment. And we saw only feet go by. But God was so great and so good. And this little Melissa, she took us to her church. And it was in the second service, and the pastor talked about us going back to Egypt in our hearts. And I thought, “I feel like that, I feel like I’m going, you know, to Egypt.” Little knowing, that I had not left Egypt.
Kay: Uh-huh.
Nita: And so when, when a invitation time came I asked him. He said, “If you want to know Jesus come up and see me.” And I said, “I do.” And he put me on a discipleship program. And she was the girl who taught me. Because she was working two jobs to be able to go to Tennessee Temple, she taught me late at night at 11 o’clock after the children were in bed. And it was in the second lesson, and it says, “And this is the record, that God [has] given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life…he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that…[you] may know that [you] have eternal life, and that [you] may believe [in] the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:11-13, KJV) And it was then I realized. Because I had been frightened coming over from Burma, and being left at home alone with the children because my husband was a resident, and he was away all the time—
Kay: Because he had to go back to medical school.
Nita: Right. And so he would say, “I’ve asked Jesus to stay with you.” And of course, it didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t know Jesus, and it was then that I thought, “I don’t know Jesus. And I want You, Jesus. I want You. I want to know You.” And it was then, right, and I was waiting for her to leave, I got down there on my knees. And with my physical birthday that day, it was 12 o’clock, I was born 30 years later in the Lord. And I sat there, and I asked the Lord to save me, and He gave me a peace. When you say, [A peace that passes all understanding, I know about that because it was a peace that took away that fear.] (PARAPHRASE, Philippians 4:7) Perfect fear, “…Perfect love casts out fear…. [for] fear [has] torment….” (1 John 4:18, KJV) From that day forward not one idol, not one spirit, not sun, no sun, no moon, no stars, no anything has any power over me, because I am now seated in the heavens with Christ.
Kay: Amen.
Nita: Amen!
Kay: Seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Nita: In Christ Jesus.
Kay: And He said, “…„I will never leave you or…forsake you..” (Hebrews 13:5, NKJV)
Nita: Nor forsake you.
Kay: I just think about Isaiah, you know how much we’ve studied together. “[And] unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government [of our lives will] be upon his shoulder: and [He] shall be called Wonderful, Counselor…mighty God…
Nita: …Everlasting Father, Prince…
Kay: …Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6, KJV) And you had that peace. I want to just read 1 Thessalonians because as you’re saying that, you know, I’m thinking, “Oh, you are just like this.” “For they themselves….” 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, and it’s verse 9, “…[For they themselves] report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10) He took you out of darkness and, of the darkness of idolatry. And when you go to these nail salons and you see all these little idols. They’re bringing them to the United States of America. And what would you tell someone? Say they were doing your nails, and they had their idols in the store, what would you say to them?
Nita: Well, being a Buddhist before, and for them being Buddhist, it’s part and parcel of their culture. And it’s very hard to take them away from what they believe, but the only way that you can do that is share your testimony. Share what God has done for you, and the difference in our, not religion, but our relationship. Is, it is a relationship and not a religion. It is not works; it is faith. And that’s, you know, that’s the only way that they will be drawn; by seeing what God has done for you.
Kay: I love talking to you. Precious One, have you turned from idols to worship, and to serve the one living and true God? If not, God has you listening because He wants you to believe in Him that He might give you eternal life.
Psalm 107:8 Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
Thanksgiving to the LORD for His Great Works of Deliverance
Ladies' Quarterly Prayer