Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Matthew Gamble
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR000053B
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00:13 Welcome back!
00:14 I got to say that one of my favorite chapters, 00:18 in the Bible is Psalm 51. 00:20 Psalms 51 goes into the reality of who we are. 00:23 Man I'm a mess, and I just can't believe 00:26 You can wash me clean. 00:28 You can take all this stuff and change me. 00:30 The first time I read it I just wept. 00:33 Everybody, you know I try to act like a grown up 00:35 when I read the Bible, but some parts of this, 00:38 some of the promises that God is telling us, 00:41 it absolutely will cause you to weep. 00:43 And the one part of Psalms 51 talks about, I have been 00:47 guilty since the womb. 00:50 I've been guilty my whole life, my parents were 00:52 born and sin and guilt and addiction. 00:54 I'm telling you, I don't know if anybody has this 00:57 experience but, for 3 or 4 generations my family have 01:01 been out to lunch and doing all this stuff. 01:02 And so it says, whatever you decide about Me is fair. 01:06 I'm like, oh man! 01:07 And I had to know in my heart, 01:09 and that's absolutely the truth. 01:10 God said, I decide that I want you in recovery. 01:14 I decide that I want you to have a life. 01:16 He goes on to Psalms 51 and it says, create in me a 01:20 clean heart, renew a right spirit in me. 01:24 God says I'll do that, all you have to do is stay in 01:27 communication with Me. 01:28 We are talking about prayer and you can label it 01:30 whatever you want, we have labeled the prayer. 01:32 It's communication with God, create in me a new heart, 01:35 don't take what I am learning away from me and help me 01:39 to walk out of all this junk. 01:40 A one introduce you to a friend of mine Matthew Gamble. 01:44 I just love you, I have loved you since the first time 01:47 I found you on the web. 01:48 I was like, this is the real deal. 01:50 This is a guy that I could actually go up to and just 01:54 say this is what I'm dealing with, can you help me? 01:56 I want you to tell us who you are and why would an 02:00 addict feel that way about you? 02:01 That I'm real - yes! 02:03 Well that is a great question. 02:06 I just think that I have been around the block 02:13 a little bit with, if you want to call it, 02:16 being out in the world. 02:17 Now being a follower of Jesus Christ. 02:20 I've been in the church - you could tell us that you 02:23 wouldn't have said it that way. 02:24 Well I just saying that, even being in the church 02:28 when I first came into a relationship with Jesus 02:31 it seem like I was hit over the head with 02:34 a bunch of rules or regulations. 02:35 So I tried to live that life and just trying to live, 02:39 in essence, a perfect life. 02:42 It is almost like I replaced my bad behavior with 02:45 good behavior, but I was still leaving God out of 02:49 the picture, if that makes sense. 02:50 God just kept working on my heart and revealing 02:54 to me Matthew you don't have it all together 02:57 like you may think you do. 02:59 I think that is why people find me to be real is 03:03 that I tried to be as authentic as I can before God, 03:09 first and foremost, and with other people that 03:11 I come in contact with. 03:13 God just brought me to that place where I recognize, 03:16 look I'm no better than anybody else. 03:18 So when you say that is like the story I talked 03:22 about with the addict, and all the sudden the addict 03:24 comes from all this stuff and gets on his knees 03:26 and says, bestow on me. 03:28 Right! Yeah you come and start doing things, 03:31 and I feel like it is really an important thing for 03:34 people to hear, that God doesn't want us just to replace 03:38 our bad behaviors with now what bunch of good behaviors, 03:42 and that's our ticket for salvation. 03:45 It's much more, it's having a relationship with Jesus 03:48 Christ, that's the first and foremost. 03:51 That's the untwisting kind, coming out of 03:52 all that junk, so you are new. 03:54 Right! That you are actually walking as an 03:57 authentic person before God. 03:59 So where did you come from? 04:00 I was born outside of Boston Massachusetts 04:05 to 2 parents, Bill and Susan Gamble. 04:09 It was kind of a home that was loosely Catholic. 04:14 I say loosely because we went to church on Easter 04:18 and Christmas every year, and that was about it. 04:21 We would always be the last ones to church, 04:23 and the first ones to leave. 04:26 Church was not a big part of our lives. 04:30 We never prayed together at home. 04:32 We never read the Bible at home. 04:33 I remember at one point seeing a Good News Bible 04:36 up on the shelf, but church and God just was 04:40 never really part of our lives. 04:42 At the age of 5, this is the first time I ever remember 04:46 sinning, which was a big deal for a 5-year-old. 04:49 But I am 5 years old and I'm at the grocery store 04:53 with my mom and we are in the checkout line. 04:56 She is putting the groceries up on little belt, 04:59 to bring the groceries to check out, and I see 05:04 the Tic Tacs on the candy row. 05:07 - And they put it right kids eye level. 05:09 Exactly, and so I am sitting there looking at, 05:11 staring at these candies, and I want the candies. 05:15 If the craziest thing because in my journey as a 05:21 follower of Christ, a look back on this point. 05:24 It was a pivotal point my life as a sinner, 05:28 as an addict, as a rebellious person because the 05:32 very same emotion, feelings, everything that was 05:35 going in my 5-year-old brain then, still happens 05:39 when I'm tempted to this day. 05:40 - That's interesting - it really is! 05:42 So I'm looking at these candies, 05:44 and I'm mommy I want the candy. 05:47 She said, no you can't have the candy you'll have 05:49 too much sugar, you don't eat the candy. 05:51 So she is checking out, or whatever the groceries down 05:57 the conveyor belt, and all of a sudden my heart rate 06:00 started going up and I started looking around... 06:03 - your casing out the place. 06:06 I want to have that candy. 06:08 So a long story short, I grabbed the Tic Tacs and 06:11 threw them in my pocket, and I had a sense 06:13 right there, a kind of rush, man I got the candy. 06:18 I'm victorious, I won and I've got the candy. 06:21 I'm going to have it. 06:22 We are walking out of the store and my mom, if you are 06:26 ever, if you are ever going to steal as a kid, don't 06:30 steal Tic Tacs, because they make noise when you walk. 06:35 So she's like Matthew, what are you doing? 06:38 What's in your pocket, and guess what my response was? 06:42 Nothing in my pocket mama. 06:44 So now I've not only stolen these Tic Tac's, 06:47 but now my mom, I'm lying straight to her face 06:51 trying to cover my tracks. 06:53 But I was caught because she heard them. 06:55 There it began, my journey into just rebellion. 07:01 If there are rules around or regulations around, 07:03 I was at times, quick to break them. 07:08 If I was told I couldn't have something, 07:10 it almost made me or enticed me that much more. 07:14 - how am I going to get this? 07:15 So some years past and we moved down to Atlanta 07:20 and I was rolling around one day on my BMX with my 07:23 buddies and we stumbled onto a construction site. 07:28 We were just playing on the cranes, it was a Sunday 07:31 afternoon, playing on the heavy equipment and I 07:35 stumble onto this stash of pornography. 07:38 There's just magazines in the cab of this big 07:42 Caterpillar truck and even right then. 07:46 Same thing heart rate goes up, nobody ever told me 07:49 what pornography was, I had never seen it before. 07:53 But it really triggered something in me... 07:56 - and you were how old again? 07:57 I'm guessing, I've gone through a lot of counseling, 08:00 we are tracing it back to about 7 or 8 years old. 08:04 Statistics are saying now that with the Internet, 08:07 that kids are seeing, boys are seeing pornography, 08:10 on an average, at the age of 5. 08:13 So for people that are hearing this, I just highly 08:18 encourage you to have blockers on your Internet. 08:21 It is just a terrible thing to be played with. 08:23 - because once you're heart is stolen, you will figure 08:26 out a way to get at that need, get those Tic Tacs. 08:31 Right, exactly! 08:32 Whatever it is in your life, so just seeing that 08:36 pornography, it's like coming to find out later as 08:40 I was studying about it, that serotonin release, even in my 08:42 7 or 8-year-old brain, it triggered something. 08:45 That heart rate goes up. 08:46 The excitement goes up, but I knew inherently in me that 08:51 this stuff was wrong because me and my buddies we put 08:54 it into a Hefty trash bag and threw it out the woods. 08:58 Why would you take something, if something is good you 09:03 are not going to put it in the trash bag and go hide it. 09:05 So here we are hiding this stuff, so pornography enters 09:11 in my life at a pretty young age. 09:14 Sometime goes on, I'm cheating through school 09:17 and et cetera. 09:18 By the time I'm 13, we've moved back up to 09:22 Massachusetts and now onto St. Louis, which is actually 09:26 not too far from here, and my parents for the first 09:31 time they said, listen you need to get your life together. 09:34 We are sending you to a Catholic private school just 09:37 outside of downtown St. Louis. 09:39 - I could see a 13, you need to get your life together. 09:43 - You've got issues. 09:44 - and you know when somebody is locked into that stuff 09:49 you can see really early on and say if we could jump in 09:52 right now we can stop a lot of pain for you. 09:54 Right, exactly! 09:56 It was an interesting transition I have to say 09:59 because now I'm going from playing out in the woods 10:03 in Massachusetts with all these apple orchards and stuff 10:06 to now we are living right downtown in the city. 10:09 A woman was shot and killed 2 blocks from my house 10:13 within a couple weeks from living there. 10:16 It was just a major transition. 10:18 Now I'm at the school and kind of going through the 10:23 motions, but it just wasn't, I couldn't feel anything. 10:27 It looked like it was make believe, this whole God thing. 10:31 Having left my friends, I fell into a deep 10:36 depression again, not again but just having 10:39 moved so many times in my life. 10:41 - you could really feel that physically. 10:43 Yeah it's just terrible, sometimes I would bounce back 10:47 and not have a problem, but when you have good close 10:51 social net of friends and you are a teenager, 10:52 when you move it can be pretty dramatic and traumatic. 10:57 So I was in this funky state of mind where 11:01 I just didn't want to live. 11:03 I would actually pray to God, God if you hear me, 11:07 if you can hear me right now let somebody else live. 11:13 Let this woman who just got shot, let somebody like 11:16 that live because I don't want to live. 11:19 So I didn't know really what depression was all about, 11:23 but I was certainly depressed and was suicidal. 11:26 Then just how Satan tends to work, about a year 11:31 into living there a buddy of mine is taking me 11:35 under his wing. 11:36 He was a little bit older and introduced me to alcohol. 11:40 - oh man, I'm like stop don't do that. 11:43 Well if you're depressed - exactly 11:46 - taking a depressant doesn't help you much 11:48 - but at first you think it helps. 11:51 Yeah, exactly, there is that again, that rebellious side. 11:56 The excitement of sin. 11:57 A lot of Christians, they don't want to talk about the 12:01 fact that there's actually some joy involved, or happiness, 12:05 or excitement when it comes to sin. 12:09 I mean that's what entices us - for a little while 12:10 - for a little but it is diminishing. 12:12 But anyway I'm kind of going off the deep end with 12:16 drinking on the weekends, start smoking. 12:18 - weed or cigarettes? 12:21 Not weed yet, you're jumping the gun on me. 12:24 - you know anytime somebody smokes, I'm thinking why 12:26 bother with cigarettes, are you smoking weed yet? 12:28 - Exactly! But anyway at this point, it's an important 12:35 point in my life because I really pushed God out. 12:38 I just said look I'm tired of the fa÷ade, 12:41 I'm tired of going through the motions, 12:43 none of this stuff makes sense. 12:45 I can't imagine there's a God out there that actually 12:47 loves me or loves this world when He permits so much 12:51 pain and suffering to go on. 12:53 So I just completely denied the existence of God. 12:58 At 16 my parents came to me and say, listen, this time 13:04 they thought they would ask, but they said look 13:07 we are wanting to move to Florida. 13:09 I was excited because we had a bunch of family there, 13:12 so we moved down to St. Augustine Florida. 13:15 Within a week of living here, this is where the weed 13:19 comes in, my cousin and his best friend were driving 13:25 around in the car and they tell me to 13:28 pull down this back alley. 13:30 I'm like this is kind of awkward, we are on the beach, 13:32 close to the beach in St. Augustine Florida. 13:34 And they tell me to pull down this dirt road 13:37 where no one else is at. 13:39 I'm thinking this is weird. 13:40 They pull out this can and go through these things 13:42 and they load this can up with this green substance, 13:47 which at that time I really, I know I was 16, but I 13:49 really had no clue what in the world they were doing. 13:52 Then they started smoking this stuff out of the can and 13:55 handed it to me and I laugh. 13:58 I start laughing because it looks silly to me. 14:00 I'm holding this canned to my face with a lighter 14:03 in my hand, and I blow this green leafy substance, 14:08 now it's stuck to the ceiling of the car, and it's all 14:11 over the floor and they are punching me. 14:12 I'm truly oblivious, but when I smoked this stuff, 14:16 and again take it or leave it, I can't tell you anything 14:21 but the truth and the truth of the matter is that when 14:24 I got high it relieved this burden of depression. 14:30 I hate to say it because... 14:33 - well because of the chemistry, the neurochemistry 14:35 that happens, dopamine get set up, serotonin get set 14:38 up and all that kind of stuff. 14:40 Then somebody says it doesn't work, for a lot of us 14:43 that have depressions and have junk, it's so works. 14:47 Unfortunately nobody taught us about jogging or 14:51 windsurfing and doing things they can do the same 14:54 thing but in a healthier way. - Exactly! 14:56 But to say it doesn't work, we lie to folks. 14:59 Right! That is very true. 15:00 I think it does do a crime from the church end of things 15:05 to tell people this stuff is ridiculous, which I do 15:09 believe it is ridiculous but there is a component of 15:12 it that obviously - there's a biochemical change 15:15 - exactly! 15:16 So I started smoking weed and I felt, just like with the 15:19 alcohol, I didn't just drink a little I drank more than 15:22 everybody else. 15:24 With the weed thing, it was not just on the weekends, 15:27 it was morning noon and night. 15:28 With marijuana often comes a musician by the name of 15:33 Bob Marley, a Reggae artists from Jamaica. 15:37 Listening to Bob Marley all the time, smoking... 15:42 - everyone knew that he smoked weed all time and that 15:45 was his whole lifestyle. 15:46 - Yeah it's part of their religion, Rastafarian religion. 15:49 So would you know though that even in a lot of his lyrics. 15:53 I'm not trying to encourage you to go out and listen 15:56 to it, but in a lot of his lyrics he references 16:00 Scripture throughout. 16:02 So here I am listening to this stuff, 16:04 I'm an atheist, not believing in God. 16:08 Smoking weed every day, cheating through school, 16:10 skipping school and then I finally graduate. 16:16 Which was a miracle in and of itself. 16:17 I really didn't deserve the diploma, quite frankly. 16:20 So I am 18 years old and leave to Orlando to go 16:23 to Community College. 16:25 I work full time for a year while going to 16:27 community college full-time, while smoking weed 16:30 and partying full-time. 16:32 So I am 18, 19 and the summer hits. 16:35 I quit my job and am out of school for the summer. 16:38 I do not know what came over me, but I said, 16:43 look tomorrow I'm going to Jamaica. 16:46 - you kidding me? 16:47 No, I'm sitting in my apartment and remember the day 16:50 vividly, I'm sitting on my couch in my apartment in 16:54 Orlando and I'm going to Jamaica. 16:57 Because I want to understand, I really love marijuana 17:01 so much that if these Rastafarians smoke it as 17:04 part of their religion, - I want that religion. 17:06 I want that religion, hook me up. 17:08 I wanted to understand what it was about marijuana, 17:12 because, I did have this sense that there was 17:15 something spiritual, just a spiritual realm that I 17:19 wasn't connecting into and I wanted to be a part of it. 17:21 So I called my dad and said, dad I need my tent, 17:25 sleeping bag and backpacks. 17:28 I drove home to St. Augustine, I booked the flight, 17:31 drove home to St. Augustine, loaded up my tent, 17:34 sleeping bag, backpack and drove down to Miami, 17:37 got in the plane, flew to Jamaica, get out of the 17:41 plane, standing now in customs... 17:43 - do you know anybody in Jamaica? 17:44 No, I had actually been there for a few hours on a 17:48 cruise when that was like 7 or something. 17:50 - that's what I love about druggies, they don't even 17:52 think of that, that's beside the point, I'm going. 17:54 So now I'm there and literally in customs and the lady 17:58 is saying to me, before we let you into the country, 18:01 where are you going? You know where are you staying? 18:05 - I'm going to find some weed. 18:06 but I'm like I remember looking down because 18:10 you could see out, the airport is fairly small. 18:12 I said I probably try to get up 18:14 to that mountain tonight. 18:16 You know that's were I'm going to stay, 18:18 and she's like look you got to get a reservation 18:20 and we have to know where you're at, so I made a 18:23 reservation on the courtesy phone, 18:26 that I never went to. 18:28 But that night I got into a taxi, that night I pitched 18:32 my tent on the beach in the Grill, which is a 18:35 touristy area of Jamaica. 18:37 I'm on the beach and I met some local guys and 18:40 they were Rastafarians. 18:43 You can see them a lot, it's in style to dread your hair 18:46 I would do it if I had it, but I don't. 18:48 but a lot of these people have dreads, well that is a part of 18:52 their religion is to not cut their hair. 18:54 So it naturally forms these dreadlocks. 18:58 So I'm talking to the Rastafarians, had a good time 19:03 that night and the next day and walking down the 19:05 street and a car pulls up. 19:06 God as my witness, this car pulls up with a dread 19:10 or Rasta in the driver's seat, which is on the right hand side. 19:14 He says, listen get in the car. 19:16 So like any smart, white, 19-year-old American, 19:21 I climbed in the back of the car. 19:23 This guy immediately starts telling me, 19:26 listen I can get you, they call marijuana, ganja, 19:29 but I can get you as much ganja as you can get rid of. 19:34 I said, well as much ganja as you can get me I can get 19:39 rid of, so we had a business relationship. 19:42 We went back to my tent and wrapped it up and drove 19:45 out to the countryside where he lived 19:46 with his wife and daughter. 19:47 There I stayed for 2 weeks. 19:50 What I found what the Rastafarian religion, 19:54 as with almost any religion, there's people on 19:58 all sides of the spectrum with what they believe, 20:02 and how they practice. 20:04 But with the Rastafarian religion, it's so ambiguous, 20:08 there is really not a strict teaching, 20:11 there's no real documentation of what to believe or why. 20:14 They accept the Old Testament, but not the New 20:17 Testament, because they believe that the Old Testament 20:20 predicts this Messiah, which we as followers of 20:23 Christ believe that Jesus is the fulfillment 20:26 of those prophecies. 20:27 Which is evident time and time again. 20:29 But they point to this gentleman named, Haile Selassie, 20:33 and Ethiopian emperor, and this is important because 20:37 2 weeks later I fly back to Miami with 2 wooden statues 20:42 - full pot? - full of weed. 20:44 I hadn't seen it, but they told me it was in there 20:48 coming in the Islands, you will see a lot of wooden 20:50 carvings and a detailed birds and whatnot. 20:53 Sure enough that's what I had was about a 2 and 1/2 foot 20:57 tall, 2 of them wooden birds that he told me on the 21:01 inside was marijuana. 21:03 I knocked all over it and looked at it, like its stained 21:07 and it's detailed, - I can't tell, -and if I get caught I'll 21:13 just say I didn't know it was in there and risk, 21:16 it because at that point in my life, 19 I just couldn't 21:18 care less about life. 21:20 I mean, really if I lived great, if I died great. 21:24 If I was in jail, so be it, I just was at that point 21:28 where was at the end of my rope. 21:29 So I fly into Miami and have a drug dog on me, 21:33 I go through customs and the next thing I know 21:36 I'm walking through, the dog didn't smell it. 21:39 No nothing and so now here's my turning point, 21:44 I call it my triple a method and you will see 21:46 why in a minute. 21:47 But I go from atheist or agnostic almost right 21:50 as I'm walking through customs in Miami International, 21:53 because now I believe that there is this higher power 21:57 watching out for my... 21:59 - I don't know what it is yet, but somehow I got 22:01 through customs, so there's got to be something. 22:04 Right, now I started immediately giving glory to Jaria 22:07 Justafaria, which the Rastafarians worshiped as God 22:11 and Hallie Selassia, where ever you are look me up man. 22:16 Thank you so much for saving me and protected me. 22:19 You are the best, I got in my car and I was just 22:21 praising whoever it was that just protected me. 22:25 - like Yahoo, I can see it now. 22:31 Yeah but I get back to Orlando and word just spread, 22:35 our network, the people I was doing a little dealing 22:38 then as well, so it just spread like wildflower 22:42 and I got nervous. 22:43 I went back home to St. Augustine and word spread 22:46 around there, I actually ended up with 3 pounds of 22:52 marijuana that summer. 22:53 It went down twice and came back, which I don't 22:57 know if that means anything to anybody, 22:58 but that is a significant amount, 23:00 you can go to prison for a long time. 23:02 I would never be leaving the country again for certain. 23:04 I mean this would've been a major crime. 23:08 So I buried this stuff in the beach, but during this time 23:14 I started really in my agnostic state, 23:18 I really started searching. 23:20 So I would be out on the beach and yeah, 23:22 I was smoking weed, but while I was out in nature, 23:26 God starts revealing Himself more and more to me. 23:30 - How incredible is that! 23:32 My favorite authors of all time, and keep in mind I 23:35 didn't read at all before I became a follower of Christ, 23:38 but now I love reading. 23:40 One of my favorite authors of all time, Ellen White. 23:44 She says in this book, Steps to Christ, and if you 23:46 want a copy of the book please find a way to contact me, 23:50 or Cheri and we will get it. 23:52 - we did a whole season on Steps to Christ - oh you did! 23:54 My first season and sent out hundreds and hundreds 23:57 of Steps to Christ because I had the same reaction 23:59 and it's incredible. 24:00 - It's a great book, so I read the first line in that book 24:03 and it says, nature and Revelation alike testify of 24:07 God's love and sure enough at that time I didn't know. 24:10 but God was using the things of nature, even the book of 24:13 Romans refers to this. 24:14 A person doesn't have an excuse not to believe 24:17 in God, because God's invisible attributes are clearly 24:20 seen through the things that are made. 24:23 So even though we are on a fallen planet, 24:25 still you can see God's beauty and His Majesty 24:29 through the things of creation. 24:31 So I'm looking at the beach and thinking about the 24:34 tide that rolls in. 24:36 It's on this 6 hour cycle, 70% of the water, 24:40 our world is underwater. 24:41 I am just baffled, and maybe only a weed-head would 24:46 be thinking this way, but I'm looking at this stuff and 24:48 am like, how is it that the water stops right here? 24:51 I mean my house, we were living right 24:53 on the ocean at that time. 24:55 I was renting a room on third Street in St. Augustine 24:58 and how is it that the water stops right here and 25:01 doesn't wipe us out? 25:03 Then the moon would come up at night, the full moon. 25:05 I love looking at the full moon. 25:08 I would just stand there in awe looking at this thing 25:11 and I would wake up in the mornings, sometimes early, 25:14 and go see the sunrise. 25:16 I'm like, this is unbelievable and so now I started 25:20 getting angry at God because I'm like God you are full on, 25:25 like for real, how did I miss this, this whole time? 25:29 - and you know I just like to say for anybody watching, 25:32 or anybody at the Café is the first time I realized, 25:34 looking in the Bible there is a place I think in 25:37 Psalms where it says, I've put those in space, all that 25:40 was so that you would remember that I am God. 25:43 I thought you put that for me so every time I see the 25:46 moon or the sun traveling across the sky, God said 25:48 I put that for you. 25:49 - Yeah, and we get so busy in our lives, we get 25:52 on the TV or computer or video games or what ever 25:55 in our life, work, we get so distracted that we 25:59 often don't just stop. 26:01 - Exactly so you are sitting there on the beach 26:03 - I'm sitting there begging God and I literally prayed 26:06 for a boulder, because maybe I watch too many cartoons, 26:10 but I'm like God, if You are there, whoever you are, 26:14 wherever you are, at this point. 26:16 I've extended my prayer, communication and my 26:20 sending out to God, Jesus, Jaa, Halie Selassie, 26:27 Buddha, to pan Sam, Martians. 26:29 Wherever you are, whoever you are will you please drop a 26:33 boulder in front of my face? 26:35 Hook me up, and I literally sat there expecting a 26:38 boulder to come out of the sky and land in front of 26:41 my face on the beach, but it never came. 26:43 Then I would go back to my room and I am a little bit 26:46 sad, I would stand there in front of the mirror and 26:49 even just looking, I know it's uncomfortable at lease 26:53 for me to look at myself in the mirror. 26:54 I would stand there and look at my face and just think 26:57 of my nose, or think of my ears, or think of my eyes 27:02 and if you really stop and think and look at your 27:05 eye, it is just an incredible mechanism. 27:09 - and potheads could do that for long time, 27:11 - exactly! - look at this thing. 27:13 So I just, my faith in God and this Creator was just 27:19 falling through the roof. 27:20 I didn't know where to turn, so I went to the library. 27:22 I'm researching Halie Selassie in the Encyclopedia 27:26 and he's got a little paragraph. 27:29 So I keep looking and thinking well what about Jesus? 27:33 Maybe I'll read about Jesus, and I'm reading about 27:35 Jesus, in the Encyclopedia, in the library and 27:40 its just page after page after page that 27:42 I'm reading about this guy. 27:43 I'm saying to myself, well these people are worshiping 27:47 a guy that according to his life there is really nothing 27:50 here that would testify to me that this is God. 27:53 Halie Selassie is God. 27:55 Conversely when I read about Jesus, I'm like this 27:58 guy looks like He might have something to offer. 28:01 His transformed the world. 28:03 I end up going to Maryland, because my brother had 28:07 met a girl, and they were engaged, and they got married in 28:10 this church, keep in mind I had never gone to church. 28:14 I don't know the first thing about the Bible. 28:17 But I'm on a quest, and I met the Pastor of that church, 28:22 his name is Rob Vanderman. 28:23 This happened to be the Spencerville Seventh-day 28:26 Adventist church, a huge church in Maryland, 28:29 outside of Silver Springs Maryland in Spencerville. 28:32 I met this guy and I said look I'm on a quest, 28:38 I am just looking for truth, can we meet? 28:40 So we met and I'm sitting in his office, 28:43 I tell him my life story, and he's a little bit like 28:46 what's going on here? 28:48 I'm telling him everything I've told you, he just turns and says 28:54 Matthew I just want to give you a book. 28:56 I said come on man, let's dialogue! 29:00 He said I want to give you a book and hands me 29:03 Gene Peterson's paraphrase of the Bible called, 29:07 The Message. - incredible! 29:08 At that time, this would've been 94, 95, this 29:13 would've actually been 95, it was only the New 29:17 Testament with Psalms and Proverbs. 29:18 My name Matthew in the first book in the New Testament 29:22 was Matthew so I get home and start reading Matthew. 29:26 I caution you if you've never read the Bible before, 29:29 if you start in Matthew it's a little bit scary because 29:33 you are reading about people, just babies, 29:35 like people having babies. 29:37 And they are names you do not understand, like you 29:40 would never curse your own child with that name. 29:43 But you're just reading this list, but then I 29:46 started reading and it gets to Jesus. 29:49 There was Jesus, so I start reading about this guy, 29:52 Jesus, out of the gospel according to Matthew. 29:55 Long story short the light comes on. 29:58 I traveled back home to Florida and my dad picked 30:02 me up from the airport in Jacksonville and we are 30:07 driving home and he said, how was your trip? 30:09 So now at this point I am 20 years old, I've gone down 30:13 to Jamaica twice and my parents knew the whole thing. 30:15 My family knew and all my friends knew that whole thing. 30:17 I had thought I'd found the key to life. 30:20 I thought I was could retire rich at 19 and live 30:24 down in Jamaica, but God had other plans. 30:27 So my dad says, how was your trip? 30:29 I remember just saying, look I don't know everything about 30:34 this Jesus guy, but what I do know I want to know more. 30:39 I just want to know more. 30:41 For better or for worse, I just couldn't hang out 30:46 with the same crew. 30:48 I love them dearly, and wouldn't you know, now years later, 30:52 about 12 years later I am still really good friends, 30:55 better friends, I did a baby dedication for one of 31:00 my close friends, and I did his wedding a year ago, 31:03 and then the baby dedication. 31:04 - cause you now are Pastor? 31:06 Yeah, but let me go back because I just wanted to get 31:11 to know Jesus, but I did have to cut off. 31:14 I pretty much isolated myself in my room, I would go 31:19 out and eat, this that and the other, but I was 31:22 just devouring the word of God. 31:23 I was devouring it in the Bible says... 31:26 - I just want to say to people that are watching, 31:28 because that's the biggest thing for a lot of us 31:30 coming from one lifestyle to the next is to 31:33 get into the word of God. 31:35 And I don't care what preconception you have of the 31:37 Bible or Christianity, but it is the living Word 31:39 of God and God will speak to you through this word. 31:42 Sometimes people will say, the Bible and I don't know 31:46 how to do that, get a translation that makes sense, 31:49 the message is amazing, I've got the New Living, 31:51 there's King James, New King James. 31:53 I mean you can get all different kinds of translations 31:55 and if you can't understand it ask God through prayer. 31:59 We have been talking about prayer. 32:01 God help me to understand what this says. 32:02 Then just start and its amazing, it's life transforming. 32:06 - The Bible says that spiritual things are spiritually 32:09 understood, right so you will find when you pick up 32:14 the Bible and start reading it. 32:16 You're reading it and it can be overwhelming at times. 32:20 You can read stuff, even to this day... 32:22 - had to stop smoking pot at that time - yeah! 32:24 That was part of my whole isolation thing. 32:26 God really, I hate to say sometimes the temptation 32:32 still comes back, but God really 32:34 removed the temptation from me. 32:37 He removed the profanity, I was cussing like a sailor. 32:40 He removed the profanity out of my mouth. 32:43 - forgive us if you are a sailor, we always say that 32:47 and the sailors like, I never cussed at all. 32:49 I have good friends in the Navy. 32:51 But that was a Sunday I came back. 32:56 On Monday I picked up the phone and now all I knew 32:59 was a Seventh-day Adventist church which I had 33:01 never heard of in my life. 33:03 So I go to the phone book and look up the closest 33:06 Seventh-day Adventist church to my house. 33:08 It happen to be in the hood where I used to hang out. 33:11 I used to, there were 4 of us that really spent a lot 33:15 of time together and 2 of our crew were from the 33:19 projects in St. Augustine. 33:20 There was a corner store where we would go by our 33:23 malt liquor every weekend. 33:25 So I knew the street well. 33:27 It's LM King Boulevard and there is this church 33:31 down there, Seventh-day Adventist. 33:32 So I called it up on Monday and 33:34 a lady answers the phone. 33:35 Praise the Lord, I said okay, she said, 33:39 how can I help you? 33:40 I said my name is Matthew and I live in St. Augustine 33:44 and I would like to come, all that's wonderful we 33:46 will be here Saturday, come out I believe 33:49 it was eleven o'clock. 33:50 So I said fine. 33:51 I show up on this road, I knew the road, 33:54 but I couldn't find the place. 33:56 Is this small little white building and I just 33:58 couldn't, there are big churches, small little building. 34:02 Finally I find it, I come in and I'm late and the 34:05 Pastors up at the pulpit, he grabs the side of the pulpit. 34:09 I come through these, almost bar doors that swing in and 34:12 out, that's the back of this church. 34:14 I come in through these push doors and the first 34:18 thing I realized is that I am the only colored person 34:21 person in the building. 34:22 This is an all-black church, which I felt like I was at 34:25 home because I loved being in Jamaica and all that. 34:28 Then the Pastor stops from the pulpit and says, 34:32 we want praise the Lord for sending Matthew to us 34:35 today, and my jaw dropped. 34:38 Because I'm like how does this guy, 34:40 I never met this guy my life. 34:42 I made one call on Monday, how does this guy even 34:45 know my name, and apparently I sound white enough 34:49 that this lady said, look if a white dude comes 34:52 walking through the back door, you will probably 34:55 know that this is Matthew. 34:57 Then he said, let's get up and welcome one another 35:02 in the name of Jesus Christ. 35:04 I'm like alright because I'm still in the backdoor way. 35:08 I hadn't even walked in and now the whole Church is 35:11 standing up hugging on each other, and little kids 35:13 running towards me, and people running towards me 35:16 and started grabbing me. 35:18 I'm used to, I'm not trying to bash the Catholic Church, 35:23 my parents are devout Catholics, and I believe there is 35:27 Catholics that love Jesus with all their heart. 35:29 But in the Catholic tradition, when we did the greeting, 35:34 I just remember peace be with you. 35:36 Peace be with you and you do a 360 in the pew and sit 35:43 down and that was the end of the greeting. 35:46 Not in this church, these people were up, day were 35:50 grabbing me and I remember thinking to myself, because it 35:53 was kind of a tear out of one eye and laughing. 35:55 It was just kind of a dichotomy, my lips are twittering 36:00 and I'm like what is going on here. 36:04 I'm obviously not a relative that just came home 36:07 from the military or was lost and now was found. 36:10 What is happening? 36:13 That church loved me right in that day, after the sermon 36:21 that the preacher preached this message. 36:22 I thought he was preaching just to me. 36:24 But I came to find out that all these people need to 36:28 hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and the good news 36:31 that is found in Jesus. 36:32 All of us do, no matter how long you have been in the 36:36 church we need to hear that good news. 36:37 We go to this thing called potluck, I'm eating things. 36:40 Dumplings, I don't know if you've ever 36:43 had dumplings, but it's like they boil it down 36:46 and it is hard as a rock? 36:48 Anybody had dumplings? 36:49 You don't know a dumpling from the Caribbean, 36:52 the harder the better it is, I mean plastic forks just 36:57 ricocheting off this thing. 36:59 You go through about 5 plastic knives. 37:02 I have eaten this food I had never eaten before, 37:05 but these people are so filled with love and the 37:08 Pastor came to me and said, look I sense 37:11 you want to study the Bible? 37:12 I said, yeah, he said, I will make arrangements for this 37:14 week and you can meet and I said no, today's the day. 37:17 Hey I want to study - I don't want to be sent away 37:20 with the book right now. 37:21 I want to set down and dialogue. 37:22 - I want to get into it - talk to me. 37:24 I had been reading this thing and so we sat that day 37:28 from 2 o'clock until 7 in their little trailer school. 37:31 At these little desks, 5 hours straight, 37:35 studying the word of God. 37:36 Next week it was the same thing, I found out they 37:38 had a school and start volunteering at the school. 37:41 They had prayer meeting during the week. 37:43 I was just starving for this stuff. 37:45 This was October of 95. 37:46 So you know we are going to take a break and come 37:49 back but I want what you found, first that God 37:54 was real, that there is a God, that there is a 37:57 communication a current communication. 38:00 Not just a book to read but God will speak to you 38:03 through nature or whatever, and then there is 38:06 a body of Christ that you can hook up to. 38:08 For people that are doing recovery that is 38:10 going to be a big thing. 38:11 We are going to go ahead and take a break and come 38:13 back because I want to ask you some more questions 38:15 and then we will close the program. 38:17 But I want you to know that everyone has, 38:20 not a similar story, but a similar walk. 38:22 There is a point where we come to God with all our 38:25 stuff and say God who are you, do you know that I'm 38:29 here, how are we going to communicate to each other. 38:32 Because if I can't hear you and you can't communicate 38:34 with me, if I can't speak what is on my mind, 38:37 if you are not real enough to direct me I am lost here. 38:40 With depression and smoking pot and all that stuff. 38:43 And God says I am so real, I am so real. 38:47 And we will make it, we are going to walk through this. 38:49 So we'll be right back, stay with us! |
Revised 2014-12-17