Updated : 21/08/2001

Out Of The Jaws Of Death
By Dr Moses Lee

At 0200 hours in the morning one day in mid-1985, my wife and I were rudely awakened from deep slumber and knives at our throats. Four intruders had broken into our home, ransacked it and left within the hour. Unharmed but in deep aftershock, I looked hard at the idol on the altar in my house and wondered how the 'divine protector' of my home could allow such an awful intrusion! There was no answer - dead stony silence was the only response! In complete disgust, I questioned my sanity in that I could have trusted our lives to an idol to give us divine protection!

This traumatic experience caused me to seek the one true God and it is this that has changed my life. The Bible says in Acts 17:24, "God who made the world and everything in it since he is the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands." In seeking the true God, I now understand that we worship God not in houses made of wood and stone but we worship him in Spirit and in Truth!

Being a Straits-born, English-educated Chinese who grew up in Malacca during the British Colonial days, I had inherited the practice of idol and ancestral worship from our forefathers who had migrated from China. To experience this change in my life, it meant breaking away from the customs, traditions and superstitions that bound my life to these old beliefs! I thank God that in accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, I was liberated from these bondages!

When I met my young wife about 40 years ago, my greatest desire was to make her the happiest woman in the world! We did indeed have a blissful year or two of marriage. Then, after my daughter was born, I became unfaithful to my wife and caused her much suffering. For the next thirty years, contrary to my original desire and promise, I made my wife the most unhappy woman in the world! I enjoyed life to the fullest and took advantage of what the world had to offer. The nature of my work required me to travel frequently and this gave me every opportunity to enjoy life in wanton pursuit of the passions of the flesh! It was my belief that this was the only way to enjoy life to the fullest during this life-time on earth. I also boasted that I preferred hell because heaven would be a very quiet and dull place without my vices and my erstwhile friends!

In time, I began to realise that my wife and I had grown so far apart that we had only a semblance of a marriage. The oath "to love and cherish my spouse till death do us part no longer bore any meaning. We had really come to the end of a relationship of more than thirty years. But I tried to reassure myself by reasoning some people stayed married for even less time! Besides, our daughter and son were grown up and they should be able to look after themselves!

At this point of time, inspite of my arrogance and indifference, God in his mercy intervened. Our niece, a newly born-again Christian, came to us to witness the gospel and the love of Christ. We were encouraged by her sincere and heartfelt sharing and went to a church in Singapore where we both encountered life-changing experiences!

The morning of November 27, 1985 saw us in church. People sang and clapped their hands and greeted each other warmly. They appeared to be happy and embraced each other. I felt strange and somewhat foolish and I did not know what to do. The pastor preached but it seemed like Someone else was speaking to me at the same time. Suddenly I felt a strong and intense conviction of my sins and I began to cry like a baby in public. This was followed by an equal if not stronger desire to repent of my sins. With hindsight I now understand that this was the prompting if the Holy Spirit! It was altogether a strange feeling but nevertheless I went forward to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. As I prayed the sinner's prayer, I could sense a powerful change coming over my life.

Immediately I felt clean - it was as if all my sins were being washed away! The Bible says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Yes - this was the moment of truth that transformed and delivered me from my wicked, wayward ways!

Today, knowing the truth of who God is has set me free from the influence of the devil and provided me hope for the future. Up to this point, I had always thought of Christianity as lust another religion, but now the truth has caused me to discover Christianity as a personal relationship with God.

Not long after that, we were both baptised in the Holy Spirit and we experienced miracles of healing as we ministered. The initial miracle we experienced was the amazing healing in our own hearts. With Jesus abiding in us, we were able to forgive and forget our past bad experiences - Jesus healed our relationship! We found that we could truly begin to love and respect one another again. We thank God for this inner healing.

Praise God for His mercies!

Life is certainly unpredictable! We were excitedly preparing to go to Pulau Langkawi for the 1985 Chinese New Year holidays when the unexpected happened. I have always enjoyed good health, but on the very eve of the Chinese New Year, I was suddenly struck with a severe case of urinary tract infection – with bleeding as well. Being a physician, I treated myself and when the condition began to improve I was confident that I could go on to Pulau Langkawi after all. But this was not to be. Upon awaking the next day, I had a bad premonition and felt uneasy about going to Pulau Langkawi. There was a great inner struggle to go (and to please the family) or not to go (and obey the warning).

I thank God that I made the right choice. Needless to say my family was very disappointed. Later in the afternoon, my condition appeared stable and I felt better – or so I thought! At about 4pm, I suddenly began to develop chills and rigors – chills to me bones. I was shivering very violently in bed. After a while I realized I had developed septicemia – a very dangerous condition in which overwhelming infection over-power the body’s defence and begins releasing toxins into the blood stream. This leads to a state of circulatory shock and even death, if help does not come soon. Medical statistics show that forty to eighty per cent of septicemia patients don’t make it. At that time, I knew that unless help came quickly I would also become a ‘statistic’. Realising the seriousness of my situation, I quietly cried to the Lord. “Lord, have mercy on me and preserve me.” By this time, my wife had called for help – including calling for an ambulance. By then I had become delirious and quickly lapsed into unconsciousness. Some doctor friends who responded to my wife’s calls came and quickly bundled me off in their car. Later my wife confirmed that had I been attended to half an hour later, I would never have made it!

On arrival at the hospital I was admitted to the intensive care ward without going through red tape. The crisis was not over. My blood pressure was still quite low and I had not passed any urine for eight long hours. With a low blood pressure and no urinary output it could only mean one thing – that I was going into a renal shutdown and shock! At about midnight, my wife upon realizing the critical condition that I was in, called home and told the children to pray. She feared that I would not make it through the night. She also called up a close doctor friend of ours to inform him of my condition. He spoke personally to the physician-in-charge about my condition. I was then given more aggressive treatment to save me Twice I was nearly gone. And yet through it all I felt no fear. In fact, during the crisis, I was sleeping very peacefully without awareness of the danger I was in – that I was hovering close to death!

The next morning, there was slight improvement in my condition – bit I was still not out of the woods yet. In the meantime, church leaders, pastors, friends and leaders of FGBMF came to my bedside and interceded with prayers and anointed me with oil. After about forty-eight hours of hovering on the brink of death, I suddenly made a remarkable change for the better. I was now quickly on the road to recovery.

On reflection, I thank God for preserving me and having been with me throughout the crisis. Was it not the Lord who gave the warning not to go to Pulau Langkawi? Did the Lord not enable my doctor friends to respond so quickly and rush me to the hospital in the nick of time? Thank God too for the faithful vigil of my dear wife, who had the foresight to call for help not once, but twice.

Indeed, life is unpredictable. I was hale and hearty one moment, and the next moment I was nearly gone. God chose to save me by plucking me out of the jaws of death. 

Thanks be to God our Lord Jesus Christ!