Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
OK, so a couple of remarks before I go into my testimony. And the reason why I want to do that is, you know, as Brother Keith and Brother Mike and I talked about having this, we wanted to make sure that we wanted to try to send out in a certain way.
So that's why I was asked to go first. I wanted to say a couple things about the testimonies in general, and then I'll go into my testimony in some detail. So the first thing I want to say is, if you ever have an opportunity to give your testimony, share your testimony, whatever way you want to word it, and it's in a setting like this, then I would suggest that you keep notes.
And just make notes to yourself. The reason why I say that is, especially when it comes to testimonies, I think it's easy for us to get kind of lost in the flow of our lives. And I think notes will help us, because there's something that I wanted to ask us to think about as we do this GoFo, whether we do it bi-monthly or whatever we do, it's this.
Testimonies, many times, are the ways in which people say how they got saved. And I'm not saying that's wrong. But what I'm asking us to think about as we would to give our testimony, it doesn't end. Our testimony shouldn't end with, I got saved.
Our testimony really is, or really should be, how God took us from not knowing Him to knowing Him, and what we know about Him at the present time. In other words, many people will give a testimony and say, I did this, or I did that, or I did this, or I did that, and God saved me, and that's my testimony.
And certainly, there's a lot of work in talking about how we came to Christ. But I do think it's important and essential for us, not only to give a testimony of how we came to be saved, but what was the process that God used, not only in our lives, but in our minds, to bring us to the truth.
So that's really why I wanted to go first in that sense. And don't misunderstand me, brothers and sisters. If we really understand truth, we've all been saved from sin. Agree? Agree? If any of us know Christ, we've been saved from deadness of sin.
And so with that in mind, I think it's important for us not to only highlight that aspect of what we were, whether you want to say I was a drunk, or a drug addict, or this, or that, or I was given to this thing, which really should be how God has taken us from not knowing Him to knowing Him, and what that process was.
I think that's, in a sense, sometimes missing testimonies of how we come to know truth. And so with that in mind, I would like for us to think about that as we go forward. If you are going to give your testimony, just keep those things in mind.
Maybe just keep some notes on what you want to say in that thought of how God began to move in your heart and your soul to bring you out of darkness and into the marvelous light of the gospel of Christ.
So with those thoughts, this is the background, I'll give you my testimony to some extent. Because I think there's aspects of our testimony that we couldn't possibly explain, and I think we all will note their witness that God, in many ways, His thoughts are so far above ours, and His ways are so far above ours, and that no two of us come into the light of Christ in the same way.
So I think that's something to think about. So my testimony will start with this way. It really is my earliest thoughts. And I thought about this, and I said, well, if I'm gonna give a testimony, it's not just the things that immediately took place before I became a Christian, but rather I thought of how from the very beginning, as far back as I can go in my mind, what had taken place in my mind, in my life, in my heart, to bring me to the place where I am today.
So I thought, really under the thought of early thoughts, as many of you know, I was brought up in an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx, and it was thoroughly and almost completely Roman castles. And so as I remember, as far back as I could, I went to the days when I was forced, and I'll use that word forced, to go to a Roman Catholic church.
Just to date it to some aspect, if you remember many, many decades ago, the Catholic church was doing the mass in Latin, and I was an altar boy, not by choice, but basically because everybody else in my family wanted me to be an altar boy.
And so I participated in that. And so my earliest thoughts go back to that, of Roman Catholicism, and I will say this about that, as I think about what took place then. It really was more of what I needed to do than what I believed.
In other words, what I'm saying is, even in my youngest thoughts of concerning God and things above, those thoughts really never entered my mind, but it happened to be forced to do. Do this, don't do that.
If you grew up in a Roman Catholic environment, you know, you didn't eat fish on a Friday. There was many things you weren't allowed to do, and you had to do certain things on other days, and I never really understood that.
I felt like it was more of a punishment than a blessing, and it really was something that I was forced to do, and it didn't come from my heart to believe. Not that I don't like fish, but I almost resented the fact that I had to follow someone else's rules on certain days and certain times and things like that.
So I guess that would be my earliest thoughts concerning it. And again, I'm saying to you, at that time, my thoughts about God were minimal. It was more of my fear. By the way, I was Catholic Church, I mean Catholic school, and my thoughts about God were more that the nuns didn't pick me up than the thoughts of God.
It's just not just the way it was, and I can go into more detail about that when I want. And I would say those were my earliest thoughts, and that took place probably until I was about, best I can remember, I was about 13.
And at 13 or so, somewhere in there, I remember saying to my parents, who at that time were just nominal Roman Catholics, I said to them that I felt like I was old enough that I didn't have to do this Roman Catholic thing.
I didn't have to go to church on a Sunday, and I didn't have to go to a congestion, and that's another bizarre thing, my friends. If you've never done that, when the parent opens up, you gotta do the Roman.
It's rather spooky, anyway. That's just my, that was my impression. But as I got to that age around 13 or 14, I remember saying to my parents, I'm just gonna stay home, and my parents went along with that.
So that would be my earliest thoughts. And again, it really wasn't about God. It was more about religion and religious activities and things like that. Then I would say that after that, probably for the next decade, from maybe age 13 on through, and I know it would have been until I was 23, I guess there was a decade in which having turned away from Roman Catholicism because I felt there was nothing real to it, it was just outward forms, that for that period of time, I created my own God.
He wasn't the God of Roman Catholicism. Matter of fact, I'm not sure, it was really the God of, I'll say that, because I had this thought, well, God understands me, and I understand him, and no one else has this agreement.
He allowed me to do certain things that I wanted to do. He didn't forbid me from doing it if he did. So there was no sense of guilt about doing wrong things. There was no sense of sorrow, sitting against him.
It basically was, I'm gonna live my life the way I wanna live it, and God is okay with it because ultimately he knows me like no one else knows me, and it's okay. Everything is good. And that went on for, like I said, a quite a bit of time, a solid 10 years, and at that time, in between that time, me and Candy got married.
As many of you know, we had kids in multitudes in very short periods of time. Candy was pregnant for the first three years of our marriage, and then I'll go into it a little bit later, but that pretty much would take me from my teen years to at that point where, you know, early 20s, out working in the world, providing for a family, and again, no real thoughts about that, and any thoughts that I had, they were mine and no one could take them from me, and that's something that I think many people would have to say if they're being honest, that their own thoughts and their own experience, to them, is all that's necessary, and so I certainly cliniced that program.
I'm not gonna go into the details of what I did, of the way in which I lived my life, other than to say I lived it on, basically, I did whatever I wanted, and went through whatever I wanted, so there was no restraint, other than restraints of I didn't have the money to do it, or this side or the other, so that takes me now to my first real contact, and when I say my first real contact, having been brought up in a Roman Catholic family, they were Bible students, all over the house, they'd never opened, and certainly in those years, so when I come to the first real, I was in New York, it was a longshoreman, drivers, warehouse workers, it was a, it was the soprano, kind of, supersedes union that you see on TV, and it really was an ungodly environment, big time, there were all kinds of activities that went on, and in that environment, I made friends with a couple of guys, and they were pretty much just like me, they partied, did what they wanted to do, took care of their families, went to work every day, but they were just like me, and we got along real well, and in fact we started a car ride together, just to save on gas, and well, one of them was exposed to the gospel, and his heart was lit up, and he began to talk to me, and the other friend that I had was, well he talked for a while to the other, came to Christ, and so now I had both of them coming at me with the gospel, and I would say that we went from friends to foes, because my argument with them was, don't come at me with this stuff, I know who you are, I've been with you, I've done the things that you did, doesn't fit into mine, they don't stop me, and they kept coming at me with the gospel, and ultimately I stopped talking to them, I stopped having interactions between families, because they had kids, we had young kids, and we broke up all fellowships, all friendships, and I would say about a year passed, and they were really good about giving me space, but at the same time, every time they had a chance, they talked to me about God, they talked to me about the Bible, they talked to me, well that went on for about a year, after about a year, as far as that goes, but I will say that something very tragic happened, and I was guilty of sin my whole life, and even at that event of, well I will tell you, and I will just mention it, we lost, at that point, I wasn't guilty of anything, and I knew I was, I was totally and absolutely, and I remember, I picked up a Bible, which I had never picked up honestly, and when I picked up, and I started to read, it wasn't even a matter of, my first interaction with the scriptures, was candid, because many of the things that I was taught, as a young boy, in Catholicism, was, as I read the Bible, so I became angry, that someone had lied to me all along, but what really was troubling me, was that I was, for the first time in my life, I was lost, and I knew that I needed, and I'll say this, but I knew I needed someone else, and so as I started to read, the scriptures used to say, and I'm sure that many of you, would be able to say the same thing, but as I read that Bible, the words jumped off 1978, and I can't remember the exact date, in 1978, or the exact time, but I know where I was, and I know it in my heart, it's clear today, as I did in 1978, and I will say to you, this is my testimony, that I heard a voice, a voice I had never heard before, and that voice spoke two words, and those two words were, those two words, were to me, like a poop that went on, all of a sudden, seemed to start to slide backwards, and those two words, following me, became, if you will, the answers of life, now I'm not saying everyone has to hear a voice, but I will tell you this, I did not necessarily hear a song from heaven, but as clear as anyone could speak, those were the two words, when I started to read, and when I started to look at the scriptures, as I said, that was overwhelming, and so my first church experience, now this was in a, still being in New York, was in a Southern Baptist church, you can't have one in New York, by the way, but it was a Southern Baptist church, and it was a, it was the first experience I ever had in the church, other than Roman Catholicism, and I will say to you, the first day I walked into that church, people were so friendly, I took my wallet from my back pocket, and I put it in my front pocket, because I had never really been in a setting, in that sense, where people seemed so friendly, and so desirous to help, I really thought they were going to try to rob me, that's my experience, but anyway, it was a Southern Baptist church, it was dispensational, it was Arminian, it was a very good, smart, educated, well-spoken man, and my first experience was a dispensational, Arminian church, that had a Schofield Bible, and I took that Schofield Bible, if you have anything to do with the Schofield Bible, you know the notes that are in there, that teach dispensationalism, and premillennialism, and the rapture, and all that, and boy, I don't know all that stuff, but I went out, and I fought a great fight on earth, and I was good to go, I did everything but buy a t-shirt, that said the rapture is here, and the shirt will be empty, I'll be honest, and here's the thing, and again, my testimony, I don't want it just to be about my wife, that whole thing, with the Russians, and the Chinese coming over the mountains, and the armies, and all that stuff, it seemed like sci-fi stuff, it really did, but it was so appealing, because it seemed to have some touch to it, it seemed to have some, I could relate to it, let me put it that way, and so that really was my first experience, and like I said, I started getting tapes from Dallas Seminary, I started to, like I said, buy dispensational books, I bought White Pentecostal, and Walgood, and all the dispensational books, and all the Arminians, and I was good to go, but quite a little, and it's clear, I guess, in our testimonies, friends, we need to include the providence of God, and how it works, that I came into contact, almost by chance, if there ever was such a thing as chance, I came into contact with a pastor in California, whose name was William Downey, William Downey was a Calvinist, William Downey was a prolific preacher, and I had contacted him through one of my friends, and he began to send us material about the sovereignty of God, and when he started to send out material to me, about the sovereignty of God, it was like the lights went on, I would say to this, and I would say this even to my wife, and she would agree, when me and Candy came to be confronted, with the doctrines of grace, of God's sovereignty, it seemed absolutely, there was no hesitation on our part, again, before that, I just didn't have any understanding of it, so Pastor Downey sent me some of his material, some books, but he sent me some messages from an older man, whose name I'm not sure anybody would even know, by the name of Ralph Barnard, Ralph Barnard was, he was firing himself from beginning to end, and as I listened to him, I couldn't stop, and as I read the scriptures, and it was as if the word of God was on fire, and it took me out of the, the late great planet earth kind of mind frame, and I became more and more interested in the doctrines of grace, so I will speak it up here, I became more and more interested in the doctrines of grace, and so what I did was, I brought Matthew to Henry Conrad, amen, I brought the big six volume Matthew to Henry Conrad, and I ate that thing up, I couldn't put it down, I read it through, over and over, then I started to buy some books, I started to buy books by Arthur Pinck, I started to buy books by Martin L. Jones, and now I am, I'm on the phone with theologians, at least that's what I thought in my mind, that would be my first church experience, and how I came to Christ, through my first experience with a local church, then I moved in 1982 to a church that was Memphis of the Sovereign Grace Baptist Association, an association of Baptist churches in the north, that were reformed, if any of you have any familiarity, it had a lot to do with our marketing community, and that as well as Colorado Church in Pennsylvania, they were reformed, and at that time that association was called the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, but I moved to a church, we moved from one part of Long Island to another part of Long Island, I went to that church, became a member there in 1982, in 1986 they asked me for my certificate, I was thrilled to do that, and then in 1990 I was ordained as an elder, with another elder for two, maybe two, between two and three years, during this time now I'm buying books, and my world was just great, well in 1993 I lost my dog to tinseness, and we had to make a decision, and the decision was to leave the dog, and to come down to Florida with my parents at that time, my family, we had two cats, two dogs, and 400 dogs, and we moved from New York to Florida, and I came to Florida in 1993, and here's the next area, when I came to Florida I was surprised, that all I had known, at least at that time, was Southern Baptist Churches, I found that Roman Catholicism was the prevailing church in the North, and I came to Florida, but that's all there is at Southern Baptist, and so I would say to this person, I want to say this to you, because I think, I hope you'll be able to relate, when I came to Florida from 1993 to about 2003, another decade, I never went through a dry spell concerning my relationship to the North, I went through a dry spell because I was depressed, I was, I felt like I was never going to be able to, find a place where I could contribute to, until for 10 years, from 1993 to 2003, I bounced from many churches, and as I bounced the church, I had the opportunity to preach and teach, and all those things, but my soul was really dry, and I can't explain it, really can't, can't explain how I went from, being lit up, couldn't get enough, to coming down here, and having to start all over again, and support my grandparents, and I had to support them, and we had to support the kids, and all those things, anyway, I would say for 10 years, that was the ordaining process, they died out of his way, and in 2003, as I come to, towards the end of 2003, an interesting experience, my son was getting married, to his now wife, going to a church in Middleburg, O 'Grove Baptist Church, and I've always had affiliations with Baptist churches, up until recently, 2003, I started to, I went there because when someone's getting married, I wanted to visit, I wanted to see what the church was like, so I went there, and I ended up staying there for a little while, and one day, the pastor of that church, stood up in the middle of his message, and he said I'm leaving, and then he went right back to his message, literally, he said it's fine, I'm not leaving, well people knew I was a minister, and my son, and other things, anyway, in 2003, they asked me to fill in as a pastor to Lake of Time, and I did fill in, in 2016, so I filled in for 12, 13 years, and here's the thing, and I want, again, I'm trying to help us understand my, where my life has taken me, because your life is totally different, but our testimonies should line up a little bit along the same line, it was a Southern Baptist church, it was Arminian, it was dispensational, and here I am, a Calvinist, an Armillangelist, and totally against dispensationalism, and they asked me to fill in, and you can imagine the rocks that the boat hit going through that, and there were about 250 people there when I first got there, first year I was there, we lost probably 50 to 75, almost every message I preached, had another family say, I don't believe that, and I understood that, because that wasn't where they came from, anyway, little by little, we began to see that as people left because of the preaching, some people came because of the preaching, and I found, I found that there were Calvinists in the woods, who knew there were Calvinists in Middleburg, and in Orange Park, but there were, and so they started to come, and so God started to add it anyway, that church is still a Ritual Church, they are affiliated with the founders, I left in 2016, because of the situation with my parents, who were still alive at that time, and some circumstances that I had to take care of for my family, so that went into 2016, and I would say during that period, from 2004, I think I became the elder pastor there, because I bought books, I now have probably a thousand books, and I'm looking to expand on my house, just to buy one more bookshelf, just to buy more books, anyway, that brings me to finish my testimony, in that I came here in 2016, and I'm not sure how, in a sense, I got here, and I'm not leaving, but by the way, you're going to have to throw me out of your building, so you know that, but I wanted to say that to you, because I wanted you to think about your testimony, not just the certain circumstances, that brought you to Christ, took you from in the life, and was it a, was it a light fall, did you, were you knocked down, and then got up, and then all of a sudden it was there, was it like Lydia, who the Bible says, she heard the gospel of the Lord, but did you come through the mud, did God have to, in that sense, I think that's an important question, and your understanding, did you come to Christ with clear understanding, shadowy understanding, was there guilt, was there loss, what was it, and then to see where you progress, because again, I say our testimony is not just, I might say, our testimony is, this is what I was, this is what I believe, and this is how God began to break down the walls, and I'll tell you this, and someone said this to me, he said, before you bring a man to the true God, you got to kill his God, and that's exactly what happened to me, my God, who I make up, slowly began to die, and the true God, praise his name, gained more and more men from me,.