I know this is getting ridiculously long, but this is the best part if you read this far. The Lord used Cumbey's book to knock me over the head. The next thing was checking out the book's references which included Marilyn Ferguson's book The Aquarian Conspiracy. Cumbey's book also included many biblical refernces to the New World Order(NWO) and the end times scenario. But there was this constant urge for me to read the bible. I started by obtaining a copy of Gordon Fee's How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth. The book suggested I read the bible in a way that I would be reading the Old Testament and the New Testament at the same time. In other words, read a section of Genesis and Matthew in one reading. I cannot stress enough how powerful this urge was to start to read the bible. I found an easy to read version called The Living Bible and went to work highlighting verses that I started to see in the OT and NT. I discovered many verses quoted by Jesus in the NT from the OT. I also noted that the prophets were foretelling the same things even though they wrote at different times. In April 1985 I had read through the Gospels and was reading the book of Isaiah. I was at chapter 53 in particular. Isaiah is describing "a man of sorrows" that suffers horribly so that man can be redeemed, This man shed His blood and suffered the worst beatings and disfigurement because of His unconditional love for the lost. Suddenly, as if blinders were lifted off my eyes, I understood that this prophet Isaiah was describing a person that would suffer and die for His people more than 500 years in the future! It all suddenly made sense to me. That the Gospel, the Good News of what Jesus did was for ME. All the prophecies written about Jesus and His first coming back 2000 years ago had ALL been predicted and had all come to pass! Where He was to be born, where He was to live, how he was to be betrayed, how He was to die and even how he was to be buried. When this TRUTH finally was made clear to me, I had many emotions come over me. I wept because I had missed this TRUTH for 30 years of my life. I knew that Jesus had saved me at that moment that He revealed Himself to me through reading the Word of God. I then also knew that God's Word is absolutely TRUE in every sense. I was amazed that I had missed the most important thing in this world for anyone to accept: that Jesus died not only for the sins of the world but for MY sins. The absolutely Holy, sinless God Himself came into this world as a MAN and provided the ONLY WAY OUT of darkness and death. I was amazed that all I did was finally understand this wonderful thing that God had done for ME. I was so grateful that this saving grace was
was absolutely a free gift. I could not earn it or work for it or ever be good enough to deserve it. In conclusion, I realized that I had been born again. A new creature had been created. (to be continued...)
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
About (part 4)
After graduating college in 1980 and starting my career as a pharmacist, things were good. We bought a new car, went on a cruise and bought a house. In 1981 our daughter was born. Our son was born in 1983. By 1985 we were living in a nice house across from a park. We had two children and a dog. Life was good.......and yet... There was something I felt was missing. I had the feeling that there was still something more in life that I yearned for but I did not know what it was. Even though I had no complaints on the surface, there was a hole in my soul that I could not define. I wonder how many people out there go through this feeling of "something lacking". Many people are drawn close to God in times of personal hardship, turmoil, crisis and sickness. I was drawn to the Lord in a time of "peace and prosperity" relatively speaking. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.
One night at work the assistant manager came back to my area and asked me why I was listening to that awful rock music. Well that was just regular listening pleasure to me at the time. I knew she was a born again Christian and she thought rock music was satanic. I really do not recall why I stopped listening to the music channel after that but I did. I started listening to "Talk Radio" which was very popular at the time. One evening they had on as a guest Constance Cumbey, a Detroit lawyer and recent author of a book called:
http://archive.org/details/HiddenDangersOfTheRainbow. You could say that the Lord started changing my life after listening to the author then in reading her book. I had always been interested in Bible prophecy and I had read The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey back in high school and knew that the rebirth of Israel and the wars they had fought in the last several decades had prophetic meaning, but this book made me really want to read the bible all the way through. Her book was about the New Age movement, which would culminate in a New World Order and the reign of the Antichrist. This book really opened up my eyes as to how this new age network worked. She backed everything up with scripture. I got a hold of a very simple to read paraphrase of the bible and began to highlight all the verses that she used in her book. I read her book through at least three times and I began to see evidence of this "New Age" everywhere I looked. I'm afraid I was like the Mel Gibson character in "Conspiracy Theory"(the movie) at this point. (To be continued...)
One night at work the assistant manager came back to my area and asked me why I was listening to that awful rock music. Well that was just regular listening pleasure to me at the time. I knew she was a born again Christian and she thought rock music was satanic. I really do not recall why I stopped listening to the music channel after that but I did. I started listening to "Talk Radio" which was very popular at the time. One evening they had on as a guest Constance Cumbey, a Detroit lawyer and recent author of a book called:
http://archive.org/details/HiddenDangersOfTheRainbow. You could say that the Lord started changing my life after listening to the author then in reading her book. I had always been interested in Bible prophecy and I had read The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey back in high school and knew that the rebirth of Israel and the wars they had fought in the last several decades had prophetic meaning, but this book made me really want to read the bible all the way through. Her book was about the New Age movement, which would culminate in a New World Order and the reign of the Antichrist. This book really opened up my eyes as to how this new age network worked. She backed everything up with scripture. I got a hold of a very simple to read paraphrase of the bible and began to highlight all the verses that she used in her book. I read her book through at least three times and I began to see evidence of this "New Age" everywhere I looked. I'm afraid I was like the Mel Gibson character in "Conspiracy Theory"(the movie) at this point. (To be continued...)
Friday, January 11, 2013
About (part 3)
In high school I got caught up in the Erich von Danikan books like Chariots of the Gods?. I would read every UFO book I could get my hands on. Trying to explain ancient artifacts, megalithic structures and making it all compatible with the Bible and UFO sightings took up a lot of my reading time. Without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I can see where people will get carried away with these ideas. I believe that UFOs and aliens will play a part in the deception that is coming upon the world. Lying signs and wonders. More about all this is later blogs.
One summer I was invited to work on my cousin's farm in Wisconsin. I was 17. Communion Sunday came around and I was going to church with my cousins. The Lutheran church we attended was called WELS which stands for Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. This Synod is also considered more conservative than other Lutheran churches like LCMS. Just before the service started I was politely informed by one of my relatives that I could not partake in The Communion portion of the service because I was of a different Lutheran Synod. Well frankly, that bothered me. Where were theses Synod people? I wanted to protest this. I now believe God used that experience to get me thinking.
Sitting on the steps of the auditorium at my high school one day at lunch period a girl I never met sat down next to me. She asked me if I was saved. I said I was a Christian and went to a Lutheran church. She asked if I was born again. I must have just looked at her with a perturbed look. She asked me if I died today if I knew without a shadow of a doubt if I'd go to heaven. I said I would hope so because I believed in God and the bible and that Jesus was the Savior of the world and because I was a Lutheran. She quoted the place in the bible right before the famous John 3:16 where Jesus tells Nicodemus that in order to be saved and go to heaven one had to be born again. Boy was this girl irritating. She was way overboard in her religious attitude. She ended the conversation by saying that I could be absolutely SURE of my going to heaven when I died. I thought in my mind that she was very conceited in her thinking. I mean, how could you KNOW. You try to be good. You go to church on most Sundays. You take Holy Communion. You belong to the Lutheran church. You were baptized as a baby. It is believed that this infant baptism requires God to impart the little guy with His Spirit which starts going to work in his little life right away. You no longer are a heathen baby. You are no longer on the road to hell. When you are confirmed at puberty this kind of "seals the deal" and means that the baptism "stuck" because you have memorized the Apostle's Creed and the teachings of the Lutheran Church and you are rewarded by being able to partake in Holy Communion with the grownups. It does not matter that the baby is unaware of what is going on. God is pouring out His grace in the Sacrament of baptism according to the infant baptism teachings.
I married in 1975. My wife was a RCC(Roman Catholic). In fact she had gone to a Catholic school until high school. I didn't think much on our different religions because my grandfather was Catholic while my grandmother was Lutheran. We married in my Lutheran church. We would go to the RCC church for "Midnight Mass" as Christmas and a few other times as a kind of compromise. After college when we had children we needed to discuss things in a little more depth. We agreed that the mother should raise the children in the faith of the mother. When I was little, I thought catholics were going to hell because they believed in purgatory and they were so mean to Martin Luther and his friends. In my college years I looked at the Catholic church as having more rituals, more candles, more stained glass, more robes and drapes and using more languages(Latin) in their services(masses), than.the Lutherans. I really knew very little about the Catholic church at this point. My wife had us go to a Catholic church while I attended college and get married a second time just to make our marriage more "official" in her mind. I went along with it reluctantly. I understood. When our children came into the picture I found out that we more or less signed them over to the Catholic faith when they were baptized Promising to have them grow up in the Catholic faith. I see now that this was God using circumstances in our lives to make us think. I remember in college we lived in married housing which was an efficiency apartment down the road from the campus. Right next door to us were a couple of those pesky born-again Christians. Always inviting us to picnics and bible studies and such while everyone else we knew were going to parties and getting high. But anyway after college and having kids and having gone through the official channels we felt we needed to do concerning the Catholic child raising thing we compromised again. We agreed to go mostly to my Lutheran church except for Midnight Mass and special occasions. (to be continued)...
One summer I was invited to work on my cousin's farm in Wisconsin. I was 17. Communion Sunday came around and I was going to church with my cousins. The Lutheran church we attended was called WELS which stands for Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. This Synod is also considered more conservative than other Lutheran churches like LCMS. Just before the service started I was politely informed by one of my relatives that I could not partake in The Communion portion of the service because I was of a different Lutheran Synod. Well frankly, that bothered me. Where were theses Synod people? I wanted to protest this. I now believe God used that experience to get me thinking.
Sitting on the steps of the auditorium at my high school one day at lunch period a girl I never met sat down next to me. She asked me if I was saved. I said I was a Christian and went to a Lutheran church. She asked if I was born again. I must have just looked at her with a perturbed look. She asked me if I died today if I knew without a shadow of a doubt if I'd go to heaven. I said I would hope so because I believed in God and the bible and that Jesus was the Savior of the world and because I was a Lutheran. She quoted the place in the bible right before the famous John 3:16 where Jesus tells Nicodemus that in order to be saved and go to heaven one had to be born again. Boy was this girl irritating. She was way overboard in her religious attitude. She ended the conversation by saying that I could be absolutely SURE of my going to heaven when I died. I thought in my mind that she was very conceited in her thinking. I mean, how could you KNOW. You try to be good. You go to church on most Sundays. You take Holy Communion. You belong to the Lutheran church. You were baptized as a baby. It is believed that this infant baptism requires God to impart the little guy with His Spirit which starts going to work in his little life right away. You no longer are a heathen baby. You are no longer on the road to hell. When you are confirmed at puberty this kind of "seals the deal" and means that the baptism "stuck" because you have memorized the Apostle's Creed and the teachings of the Lutheran Church and you are rewarded by being able to partake in Holy Communion with the grownups. It does not matter that the baby is unaware of what is going on. God is pouring out His grace in the Sacrament of baptism according to the infant baptism teachings.
I married in 1975. My wife was a RCC(Roman Catholic). In fact she had gone to a Catholic school until high school. I didn't think much on our different religions because my grandfather was Catholic while my grandmother was Lutheran. We married in my Lutheran church. We would go to the RCC church for "Midnight Mass" as Christmas and a few other times as a kind of compromise. After college when we had children we needed to discuss things in a little more depth. We agreed that the mother should raise the children in the faith of the mother. When I was little, I thought catholics were going to hell because they believed in purgatory and they were so mean to Martin Luther and his friends. In my college years I looked at the Catholic church as having more rituals, more candles, more stained glass, more robes and drapes and using more languages(Latin) in their services(masses), than.the Lutherans. I really knew very little about the Catholic church at this point. My wife had us go to a Catholic church while I attended college and get married a second time just to make our marriage more "official" in her mind. I went along with it reluctantly. I understood. When our children came into the picture I found out that we more or less signed them over to the Catholic faith when they were baptized Promising to have them grow up in the Catholic faith. I see now that this was God using circumstances in our lives to make us think. I remember in college we lived in married housing which was an efficiency apartment down the road from the campus. Right next door to us were a couple of those pesky born-again Christians. Always inviting us to picnics and bible studies and such while everyone else we knew were going to parties and getting high. But anyway after college and having kids and having gone through the official channels we felt we needed to do concerning the Catholic child raising thing we compromised again. We agreed to go mostly to my Lutheran church except for Midnight Mass and special occasions. (to be continued)...
Thursday, January 10, 2013
About (Part 2)
Born to Lutheran parents in 1955. Baptized while an infant in Cincinnati Ohio. The method which the Lutherans use to baptize is called the "sprinkle" method. Our family were members of the LCMS which stands for Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. A Synod is a group of Lutherans that hold differing views on a few things about the Lutheran denomination. To their credit, the LCMS has always been very steadfast in the belief of the inerrant nature of the Bible. The founder of the denomination, Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic monk and never intended to start a "new Protestant faith". Martin Luther even as he was nailing his 99 theses to the catholic Wittenburg church, had intended to reform the church from within. Before the Reformation, people of faith has to trust the RCC(Roman Catholic Church) or their priest to interpret or understand the scriptures. The Vulgate edition of the Bible which was a Latin rendition was all that the masses had. Many RCC masses even today are spoken in Latin. It mattered what the RCC said or the priest or the pope, not what people could read and understand of the Bible itself. The age before the Reformation was rightly called the Dark Ages. My intent is not to go into a detailed discussion of church history, but just to let you know that I really believe God used Luther and other men before him and after him to bring the Bible back to the hands of people that wanted to read it.
I went to a Lutheran private school in Cincinnati Ohio from Kindergarten to 4th grade. Praying the Lord's Prayer, attending church services and much scripture memorization was included among the standard school lessons in my school. I can remember when I read my first real book in first or second grade (Not including Dr Seuss): Damn Yankees. I can remember reading the Bible as well. It seemed like such a huge book in the hands of a 7 year old, but I remember wanting to know how it ended. The Book of Revelation. Reading that last book through. It was fantastic, horrible, beautiful and mysterious, all at the same time. What a read! Angels and Demons and Monsters and Wars and Mayhem. Today, I truly believe that what the 3rd verse of this book says happened to me: I was blessed by reading Revelation, ("Blessed [is] he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time [is] at hand" ~Rev 1:3).
We moved out further in the suburbs when I was 9 and so I started to attend public schools at this time. I remember around this time a schoolmate named Roger that invited me to his church. Roger was a Baptist. I do not even think that it was a Sunday morning service which was strange. What I will never forget about that day was this: There was an altar call near the end. While all of our heads were bowed, we were asked to raise our hands if we wanted Jesus in our hearts. What? Why? What was this pull I felt to raise my hand? Why was I so compelled? I did not raise my hand and I did not leave my seat although I felt this "pull" to do so. I tell you this because it stands out as a memory. I now know looking back that this was the Holy Spirit convicting me to come to the Lord. At this time, however, all I could think of to get out of it was that I was a Lutheran. I am a member of a Lutheran church and in a couple of years I will be "Confirmed". Confirmation in the Lutheran church means that at about the age of 13 after having studied the Lutheran Catechism which are the teachings that a member of a Lutheran denomination must "confirm" to the church in order to participate in Holy Communion. So that is what glued me to my seat that day in spite of the"pull" I felt. I was a baptized Lutheran, soon to be a full fledged Communion taking Lutheran. I had a name. (to be continued...)
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
A Little About Me (Part 1)
I feel the need to let my readers know about my past. Specifically I wanted to include my testimony in these blogs. A testimony to a Christian is an honest account of how the person came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. It is common practice to tell one's testimony before becoming a member of many non-denominational churches. The candidate will often meet with the elders and pastor of the church and discuss how they became a Christian and then on a Sunday morning or evening service repeat vocalizing their testimony in front of the church congregation. In some cases, the "testimony" will turn out to be a telling of one's "experience" they had before they really felt close to God. These experiences may include but not be limited to: waves of emotion, speaking in tongues, "holy laughter", crying, dancing, seizure like activity, intense feelings of joy or remorse. Now this is by no means a complete list. Others may include stories of how a certain pastor introduced someone to the health and wealth gospel and someone got healed or got rich by following certain protocol set by the pastor or the doctrines of the church. I will have more to say about these so called testimonies in later blogs.
Here is what a testimony has to include in order to be deemed true: The fact that once they were lost but now they are saved. Saved by nothing other than believing that Jesus died on the cross taking that person's sin upon Himself and that being done solely by the grace of God and not by anything that the person has done or accomplished. The gospel of grace also includes the realization that Jesus was raised from the dead and is now seated on the right hand of God the Father and has left the Holy Spirit as a seal on the hearts of all those that believe this incredible truth which is a free gift to all those that choose to accept it.
The new Christian will not have to be explained what being "saved" means, they just know they are. The new Christian will not have to be told their sins are forgiven, they just know they are. The new Christian will not have to be told that they are a new creation in Christ and all things are new to them, they just know that they are. How is this possible? How do they just know these things? How do they know now that the Bible is true and inerrant? How do they know when they are hearing false teachings from false teachers? The answer is in the above paragraph: The Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus had promised His followers before He went to His death. The Holy Spirit is given to every Christian the moment that they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how God's Spirit witnesses with the Christian's spirit concerning all the true things of God.
But are there not many truths? Are there not many ways to God? This is the message of the deceiver. It started in the Garden of Eden with the serpent tempting Eve. Did God really say? Did God really mean? So those that follow the Lie follow the religions of the world trying to find the truth. They follow gurus or religions or men with new ideas. They have to get experiences. They have to read up on secret knowledge. They have to perform certain rites. They have to make certain sacrifices or deny themselves of certain things to draw closer to their concept of truth or "God". A person may deny they are involved in a religion. Many of these people are into worshiping themselves. Look at commercials and ads on TV. "You deserve..." "Treat yourself...", "You earned it". It's all about ME. These people tend to trust that people, governments, new technology, a new world order, new discoveries, new toys, new what-evers....will somehow save man eventually. "Whoever dies with the most toys wins!". There is only one truth that is different than all of the other truths that are deceiving man: The Gospel of Jesus Christ. No other religion or "truth" claims what true Christianity claims. No other messiah anywhere was a sinless person as was Jesus that would qualify as an innocent Lamb to be the Perfect Sacrifice. Yes there are martyrs that claimed to be holy and gurus that want followings and false teachers that want honor and wealth- but only Christianity has the way to salvation by simply believing in a perfect act of God that opened up a way for anyone that believes to have eternal life. All these other ways require you to DO something. DO something more after you find the religion. DO something more after you find this teacher. DO something more to find out MORE. Find out MORE so you will eventually come to the "truth: DO this to reach Nirvana. DO this to get rid of sin. Read this so will realize you have no sin. All of these DOs are what is known as RELIGION. Some RELIGIONS teach that you are OK because of what was DONE at an early age. Rites of passage. Certain cuttings of the flesh. Certain ceremonies. Certain offerings given. Certain baptisms at an early age. All of these DOs are things that supposedly "Save" that person from destruction. Again: Only true Christianity offers a unique thing to a person looking for truth. The belief in what someone else has done for them already...no strings attached. Now the "saved" part is only the first step in the Christian's life. It is a necessary first step toward a rewarding life in Jesus Christ. Many stop there. Some go on and find all they can about their amazing God that is found in the Word of God. God wants us to take those next steps because this pleases Him. Getting to know our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the most rewarding thing a Christian can strive to do. Once we become a Christian, we are to grow in the power of the Holy Spirit so that we can teach others the truth and "make disciples of all nations".
This Part 1 turned out to much longer than I intended. Subsequent parts will start out with my personal testimony.
~Ron
Here is what a testimony has to include in order to be deemed true: The fact that once they were lost but now they are saved. Saved by nothing other than believing that Jesus died on the cross taking that person's sin upon Himself and that being done solely by the grace of God and not by anything that the person has done or accomplished. The gospel of grace also includes the realization that Jesus was raised from the dead and is now seated on the right hand of God the Father and has left the Holy Spirit as a seal on the hearts of all those that believe this incredible truth which is a free gift to all those that choose to accept it.
The new Christian will not have to be explained what being "saved" means, they just know they are. The new Christian will not have to be told their sins are forgiven, they just know they are. The new Christian will not have to be told that they are a new creation in Christ and all things are new to them, they just know that they are. How is this possible? How do they just know these things? How do they know now that the Bible is true and inerrant? How do they know when they are hearing false teachings from false teachers? The answer is in the above paragraph: The Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus had promised His followers before He went to His death. The Holy Spirit is given to every Christian the moment that they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how God's Spirit witnesses with the Christian's spirit concerning all the true things of God.
But are there not many truths? Are there not many ways to God? This is the message of the deceiver. It started in the Garden of Eden with the serpent tempting Eve. Did God really say? Did God really mean? So those that follow the Lie follow the religions of the world trying to find the truth. They follow gurus or religions or men with new ideas. They have to get experiences. They have to read up on secret knowledge. They have to perform certain rites. They have to make certain sacrifices or deny themselves of certain things to draw closer to their concept of truth or "God". A person may deny they are involved in a religion. Many of these people are into worshiping themselves. Look at commercials and ads on TV. "You deserve..." "Treat yourself...", "You earned it". It's all about ME. These people tend to trust that people, governments, new technology, a new world order, new discoveries, new toys, new what-evers....will somehow save man eventually. "Whoever dies with the most toys wins!". There is only one truth that is different than all of the other truths that are deceiving man: The Gospel of Jesus Christ. No other religion or "truth" claims what true Christianity claims. No other messiah anywhere was a sinless person as was Jesus that would qualify as an innocent Lamb to be the Perfect Sacrifice. Yes there are martyrs that claimed to be holy and gurus that want followings and false teachers that want honor and wealth- but only Christianity has the way to salvation by simply believing in a perfect act of God that opened up a way for anyone that believes to have eternal life. All these other ways require you to DO something. DO something more after you find the religion. DO something more after you find this teacher. DO something more to find out MORE. Find out MORE so you will eventually come to the "truth: DO this to reach Nirvana. DO this to get rid of sin. Read this so will realize you have no sin. All of these DOs are what is known as RELIGION. Some RELIGIONS teach that you are OK because of what was DONE at an early age. Rites of passage. Certain cuttings of the flesh. Certain ceremonies. Certain offerings given. Certain baptisms at an early age. All of these DOs are things that supposedly "Save" that person from destruction. Again: Only true Christianity offers a unique thing to a person looking for truth. The belief in what someone else has done for them already...no strings attached. Now the "saved" part is only the first step in the Christian's life. It is a necessary first step toward a rewarding life in Jesus Christ. Many stop there. Some go on and find all they can about their amazing God that is found in the Word of God. God wants us to take those next steps because this pleases Him. Getting to know our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the most rewarding thing a Christian can strive to do. Once we become a Christian, we are to grow in the power of the Holy Spirit so that we can teach others the truth and "make disciples of all nations".
This Part 1 turned out to much longer than I intended. Subsequent parts will start out with my personal testimony.
~Ron
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
