I remember staring at him in the casket and wondering; "Where did yoiu go?"My brothers were ticked that I wasn't bawling my eyes out ... they didn't know the cerebral excersize I was having
A few months later, because I had started a friendship with "Jude", a cool catholic priest at a "Newman Center" in a college town ... I was in conversation with him and the opening for me to ask "Where is my Dad" came up and he replied ... "I don't know, and no one CAN know, 'cause no one's cvome back from the dead to tell us"
Which I bought because ... he was a priest and I had been reared to be Catholic and etc., etc.
A few MORE months later, I was at a party ... and havinhg not met a girl to sleep with, and being righteously stoned ... I was fading into dreamland when it hit me (I know NOW the words to say, but back then ... it hit me .. )
I flashed to that converrsation with Jude and realized ...
I don't know where my father is ...
YOU don't know where my father is ...
You're no closer to God than I am ...
A few MORE months later and I was facing a couple of felonies and I went on the run
I went to a guy I knew to ask for his help getting out of the state and .... he was a Messianic Jew, and led me to the Lord
The key element in my receiving Jesus was the bac and forth;
You DO know you've screwed up, knarf"
Yeah
"Did you ever stop to think Jesus died that you would not be such a screw up?"
Naaahhhh
"Have you ever asked Jesus to come into your life and make you into a new and better man?"
no
"Why not?
Why not indeed .... so I did
so at about 7:45 on August 18, 1981, I recieved Jesus as my saviour up _____________ Rd, in __________, WV, at ______________'s kitchen table
I stayed the night, awoke refreshed ... and had this insane desire to turn myself in
Which I did
I spent two months in pre-trial, the Holy Spirit worked in the hearts of my accusers (I WAS guilty) and my felony was dropped to a misdemeanor ... which I pled to, and walked.
While in jail, I read the bible for the first time in my life and was so ANGRY that no one had EVER suggested I actually READ THE BIBLE !!
I had a great desire to be baptised which is very, VERY weird for a Catholic (I still did not comprehend His salvation) ... but, anyway ... I looked in the phone book for a Baptist church .... sounded like the right thing to do at the time
The preacher on the otherr end had a bapticostal fit when I so innocently told and explained myself ... I was picked up the next Sunday, and for the first time in my life I heard a man speak the most profound words of wisdom I had EVER heard and I HAD to come back next week ...
That was 34 years ago .... still in an independent, fundamental Baptist congregation.
Thanks be to God, knarf IS born again! (I know you said it was 34 years ago, but with God all time is now)
Each salvation experience is the same. The circumstances of yours and mine were different, but the ultimate end, is the same. I was in Germany during your experience. I had gotten saved in 1970, and got baptized by in the swimming pool at Bien Hoa Air Base, Republic of Vietnam. I had to come all the way back from Germany in 1983, for my dad. It took me 36 hours to get home. My dad died one hour after I got home. I had little or no confidence that he was where he really wanted to be. My parents almost had a semi funeral for me after I got saved by faith (oops, there’s that word again) so you can see where I did not have much confidence. I hope I am wrong, but like you, I cried too, not just because my dad died, but because I did not know if I would ever see him again. Later bro.
Glory to God who works such conversions. An effect which has a cause, which cannot be reasonably attributed to merely naturalistic causes, esp. when such have been replicated time and time again.
I have challenged atheists to go to a strong evangelical church and ask for some solid Christians to interview, Find out what their lives were before and after conversion, and how it corresponded to what they believed. Changes in heart and life which correspond to claims of Christ and are contingent upon faith in them, and blessing obtained by obedience to Him.
Not all are that Years ago a couple “soul winners” in the Baptist church i was part of about 20 miles north of here were going house to house and witnessed to man, Kirt, who was quite open to talking about the Bible and Christ, unlike most in this RC area. But then again, he was from the Caribbean.
His GF did not want them around however, and so the left him with a gospel tract. And prayed for him. Well, two things happened to awake him to his need for Christ: His GF left him and his father died, and he was quite depressed and suicidal.
Before before he did something terminal, in his desperation Kirt walked to the Catholic church close by to see the priest. However, they were playing Bingo in the church and the words of Christ about turning His house into a place of commerce came to his mind, as in his country they read the Bible in public schools.
Then he thought, “Maybe there is an address on the paper the two guys who talked to me about my soul left with me.” And sure enough there was, and so he walked the two miles to the church, which was open, and knocked on an office door where a man was sitting. Asleep.
It was the assistant pastor, who had converted to Christ, coming from an Episcopal church. He was searching for Christ as a Episcopalian found the Bible preaching in a Baptist church alive and became born again. Then he sensed God’s call to the ministry, and asked the Lord that God if it really was from Him that someone would offer to buy his house even if he did not advertize it was for sale. And indeed a man showed up at his door one day and said he wanted to buy his house and he went into ministry in his 50’s, and was mostly paid from voluntary donations.
The pastor had to be at the church very early due to the Christian school there, so we can sympathize with him napping a bit at his age, only to be awakened by Kirt knocking on the door.
He opened it up and asked if he could help him and Kiry says “Yes, i need to be saved.” Well, do you know that you are a sinner?” Yes, I know that I am a sinner and I need to be saved!” So (i am smiling) while we were out going house to house and facing closed doors and hearts, this napping pastor has a man waking him desperately wanting to be saved!
And as “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit,” (Psalms 34:18) it was not hard for this man to find Christ and be born again. And as this was a real conversion and this was a Wednesday, that night Kirt came wanting to be baptized, and was, and took the Lord’s supper.
And as he confessed he was hear illegally, we worked to get him back to his Island, while in the interim we worked at the church as a real help to the ministry.
Such a conversion could have occurred at many other evangelical churches, and it is due to such regeneration with its profound changes in heart and life that such converts share a essential unity of the Spirit which transcends their tribal identifications, as they all were saved by the same Christ, and it is their shared relationship with Him that is central.
This is often realized even spontaneously in meeting other believers, but is not realized with mere religionists. I used to often meet disciples of a Church of Christ cult, very zealous, but it was their church one must be in, and likewise that is the security and gospel which most Caths preach out of the abundance of their hearts.
However, the evangelical fellowship in Christ, which actually pertains to a relative remnant, does not minimize the importance of related doctrines, and contentions due to love for the Truth, but if it driven for love for the Truth and the Christ of the Truth, then they share a unique and critical unity that is greater than their differences.
Spurgeon: Although upon doctrines of grace our views differ from those avowed by Arminian Methodists, we have usually found that on the great evangelical truths we are in full agreement, and we have been comforted by the belief that Wesleyans were solid upon the central doctrines. (Sword and the Trowel, May, 1891)
Most atrocious things have been spoken about the character and spiritual condition of John Wesley, the modern prince of Arminians. I can only say concerning him that, while I detest many of the doctrines which he preached, yet for the man himself I have a reverence second to no Wesleyan; and if there were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than George Whitfield and John Wesley. (C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Vol. 1, p. 173, in “A Defence Of Calvinism,” The Banner Of Truth Trust edition)
Now I hate High Churchism as my soul hates Satan; but I love George Herbert, although George Herbert is a desperately High Churchman. I hate his high Churchism, but I love George Herbert from my very soul, and I have a warm corner in my heart for every man who is like him. Let me find a man who loves my Lord Jesus Christ as George Herbert did, and I do not ask myself whether I shall love him or not; there is no room for question, for I cannot help myself; unless I can leave off loving Jesus Christ, I cannot cease loving those who love him. (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 12, p. 6; http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols10-12/chs668.pdf)
Benjamin Franklin: And the Divine Being seems to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness by which the different sects treat each other, and by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been please to favor the whole country. (Benjamin Franklin, “Information to those who would Remove to America,” John Gould Curtis, American history told by contemporaries .... Volume 3, p. 26; http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/quotes_compare.html)
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859. French political thinker and historian; best known for his two volume, “Democracy in America”) — The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God...Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same...
In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth... (Democracy in America, Volume I Chapter XVII, 1835; http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)