Participants: Jeff Reich
Series Code: LM
Program Code: LM000064
|
00:01 I remember the first time
00:02 I visited a Seventh-day Adventist Church 00:04 I didn't come to listen to the preacher 00:05 or listen to an evangelist. 00:07 To tell you the truth, I came to create such a ruckus 00:10 that the police would have to come 00:11 and remove my girlfriend and a friend of mine 00:13 and I figured that way they would never ask me 00:15 to come to that church again. 00:16 Stay tuned, I'll tell you a little bit more about it. 00:42 You know, God speaks to us in three different ways. 00:45 You may be you have heard about this before 00:46 but He speaks to us through His written word the Bible. 00:50 And another way God speaks to us is through the things of nature. 00:54 And then the third way God speaks to us 00:57 is through the book of life experiences. 00:59 In fact, I like to think about the Book of Acts 01:01 is still being written today. 01:03 I've heard people say well, you know, back in Bible times, 01:05 well, brothers and sisters, we still live in Bible times 01:08 and the Book of Acts is being written today. 01:10 And as we talk about the book of life experiences, 01:13 I'm sure all of us can look back 01:15 and we can see how God has worked in our lives. 01:17 In fact, I'd like to think that God is working 01:19 in the lives of every single individual. 01:22 Often times as we look back 01:23 we can see like the mile post markers along the way 01:26 where God is actually led us 01:28 and we can see how He worked in different circumstances. 01:32 A Bible verse for today kind of goes along with that 01:34 because I'm gonna be sharing with you a little bit 01:35 about how God has led in my life 01:37 and often times I wonder, 01:39 you know, why should I share anything 01:40 about how God's led in my life, I'm nobody special. 01:44 The same time as I've shared with different people about 01:46 what God has done in my life they said, 01:49 you know, I really appreciate this. 01:51 This really helps me a lot and so I thought 01:53 I would take the time to share with you 01:56 in this presentation a little bit about 01:58 how God has led in the past and got us to the point 02:00 where we are today in the ministry 02:02 and in my life in particular. 02:04 Like I say I'm nobody special. 02:06 I ask myself what in the world am I even doing here? 02:09 But here I am and here I am to share with you 02:11 what God has done. 02:13 You look in the scriptures in Romans 7:22-24 02:18 is a verse that I have read over and over again 02:21 through my experiences in becoming a Christian 02:23 and I couldn't help it to relate with this. 02:25 It says, "For I delight in the law of God 02:28 after the inward man, 02:30 but I see another law in my members 02:33 warring against the law of my mind, 02:35 bringing me into captivity to the law of sin 02:38 which is in my members. 02:39 O wretched man that I am! 02:41 Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" 02:44 I'm sure a lot of you can relate to that. 02:46 In one hand you know what's right 02:48 and on the other hand you have this tug going on in your life. 02:51 It's pulling you in a different direction 02:52 and you cry out to God, O wretched man, 02:55 who will save me from this body of death? 02:57 You know, really a lot of people 02:59 are looking for spiritual realities, 03:01 deep down inside, 03:02 yeah, even kids are looking for spiritual realities. 03:05 I know when I was a kid I was believing in God and-- 03:10 well, I'm talking about being a kid, 03:11 I'm talking about being four, five, six years old 03:13 I believed in God. 03:14 In fact I remember many times laying down in my bed 03:17 and praying that kind of prayer that when, 03:19 now I lay me down the sleep, 03:21 I pray that Lord, my soul to keep, 03:23 you know how that prayer goes. 03:25 But as I got older 03:26 some significant things started to happen. 03:30 I remember when I was about six years old 03:32 I stood outside in my parents house 03:34 and I looked up to the sky and I said, 03:36 I don't believe You exist 03:38 and I did believe that with all my heart. 03:40 It's kind of an unusual thing maybe for a kid six-years-old 03:42 to say that they don't believe in God. 03:44 But I gotten to the point, 03:45 I'd seen so much by the time I was six, seven years old 03:48 that I was completely turned off. 03:49 I turned my back on God and I basically said to myself 03:52 I don't believe in God and I'm just gonna go out 03:54 and have a good time. 03:56 But what was it that turned me off? 03:58 You know, I'll tell you what it was. 04:01 It was the hypocrisy 04:03 that I often saw in many different Christians. 04:05 I remember in one of my dad's best friends, 04:08 his name was Bean. 04:09 There was a Bean family and they went to this one church 04:14 and they had a revival take place 04:15 and they invited our family to go 04:17 and I'd never gone to church much 04:18 when I was a kid and I went there 04:20 and the revivalist was speaking 04:22 and there was all this excitement going on 04:23 but the sad thing was is that 04:25 at the end of the revival meeting 04:27 when the revivalist left, 04:29 he left with my dad's best friends mother. 04:33 He abandoned two boys and a father. 04:36 And I just looked at that and I thought, 04:38 it's wrong, it's hypocrisy, 04:40 I can't believe this man was preaching in a church 04:41 and then he took off with this man's wife. 04:45 And then our next door neighbors, 04:46 the exact same thing happened 04:48 and this lady ran off with a pastor. 04:51 And as a little kid just looking at this, 04:53 I was thinking to myself, 04:54 you know, this is just a bunch of hypocrisy 04:56 and then to top it off 04:57 I remember turning on the TV on Sunday morning 05:00 and there was these television evangelists. 05:02 Of course I need to be a little bit careful 05:04 as I talk about this because I'm on television 05:06 but I'm just trying to be real with you. 05:09 I turned the television and looked at the TV evangelists 05:12 and I would think, you know, 05:13 these guys are bunch of hypocrites. 05:14 You know, and I was just young boy watching this 05:16 and I honestly can say 05:17 that I don't really necessarily believe that completely now 05:20 because I looked at these people, 05:21 I thought to myself, 05:22 a lot of these people are just out after money 05:24 and they are simply out after trying to control 05:26 and manipulate people. 05:28 And so I basically wrote God off 05:30 and I said I don't want to have anything 05:31 to do with Christianity. 05:32 I don't want to have anything to do with religion at all. 05:37 I remember riding my bike as a young boy. 05:40 And you know, as you're going through life 05:41 you can see all these different things happen 05:43 and you start putting these pieces together 05:44 and those pieces can be for good or for bad 05:46 but I remember riding my bike and I had this favorite place, 05:49 there was all these sidewalks around, 05:51 all these really cool looking buildings 05:52 and there was these statues and turns out 05:54 that this was a big catholic church complex 05:57 and they had a big statue of the Virgin Mary there 05:59 and some rectory and a school and a big huge church. 06:04 And the interesting thing was is that, 06:07 one day when I was riding my bike 06:08 and I was flying around on these different trails 06:10 I stopped and I noticed 06:13 that there was a whole line of big black cars parked. 06:15 And I was thinking to myself, 06:17 oh, these look like mafia cars or something, you know. 06:20 And then I rode my bike a little further 06:21 and I put on the brakes and I looked into this open door 06:25 and I saw a bunch of men dressed in black 06:28 and I thought that's kind of strange 06:29 and I was kind of looking in there 06:30 and these men were smoking cigars 06:32 and they were drinking whisky 06:33 and then I realized this is the church, 06:35 those are religious men 06:37 and it was just another one to those things along life's way 06:41 that just really tuned me off 06:43 to wanting to have anything to do with Christianity, 06:45 just didn't seem right. 06:48 You know, all of us are searching 06:50 for some kind of identity. 06:52 Everybody wants to be somebody as the old song goes, 06:55 we all have our role models, we in a sense all wearing mask 06:58 and we want to deal with our insecurities 07:00 by hiding behind our masks. 07:02 Young people often times and probably very guilty of that 07:05 but as adults we're pretty good at doing that too, 07:07 you know, putting on our mask and pretending to be something 07:10 and it's the way they make us feel better of ourselves, 07:13 you know, if we can look good to other people 07:16 or we can model somebody 07:17 and fit into a certain type of way 07:19 people respect a certain individual 07:21 and that way you can feel good about yourself. 07:24 And as a young kid I was dealing with those insecurities too. 07:29 I wanted to be somebody and I was trying to decide, 07:32 who will be role model? 07:33 And I didn't have a lot of role models 07:34 but one thing I did have was my father. 07:36 And my father played music. 07:38 In fact my dad used to play 07:41 in the 3C camps during the depression. 07:43 He traveled around with his guitar 07:44 and played barn dances. 07:46 He was raised playing music. 07:47 I remember I was just a toddler growing up 07:50 between crawling around and walking 07:53 and crawling around between my father's tip tapping toes 07:56 as he was playing old Hank William songs 07:58 and Marty Robbins and some of these old songs 08:01 and I started playing music 08:02 when I was six years old in fact. 08:05 In fact, the very first instrument 08:06 I learned how to play was this one right here. 08:09 This is called a Supro slide steel guitar 08:13 and I was six years old when I started playing this one. 08:15 And lot of people may be have never seen before. 08:17 This is a Hawaiian steel guitar or electric dobro. 08:21 But at the age of six I got into playing that 08:24 and then by the time I was, oh, 11, 12 years old 08:28 I became very serious about wanting to be a musician. 08:32 And I tell you why I wanted to be a musician. 08:35 Because in the 70s rock stars where the ones who, 08:39 it seemed to me had 08:41 all the good things happening for them. 08:42 I mean, after all they had girls, 08:44 they had cars, they had drugs and they didn't have to work, 08:47 all that he had to do was play music. 08:48 And I was thinking to myself, 08:49 hey, what a way to beat the system, you know. 08:53 Well, every young man wants to be popular 08:55 and to have money and cars and girls 08:57 and that just seemed to be the icon of who I wanted to be. 09:02 And so I pursued my dreams. 09:04 I pursued the cars. 09:05 In fact at one time I had 13 old cars, 09:07 all pre 1940 cars, some of them street rods, 09:10 some of them are antiques and classics. 09:11 I got guitars. 09:12 I had amplifiers and when I was at the age 17 09:16 I lived in a music store 09:17 and played in five different bands at the same time. 09:20 You see I was achieving my goal, 09:23 yet, down inside I was still empty 09:25 and I was in need of something. 09:28 Hey, I'll tell you what. 09:30 I was just been on having a good time, 09:33 but was it in all those good times? 09:37 Why is it that seems like in all those good times 09:40 they always get ruined somehow? 09:44 You know, some people have uffa expression. 09:47 Man, I had a really good time last night 09:49 but I can't remember what I did. 09:51 What kind of a good time is that you can remember 09:53 what you did the next day? 09:54 And then I remember one time when I was a young boy, 09:56 and I was probably about 15, 16 years old 09:59 I got into drugs pretty heavy and staying out all night 10:02 and 3 o'clock in the morning down 10:04 behind some old buildings in the city 10:05 where I lived there was a guy 10:07 who was high on drugs 10:08 and pulled out a big butcher knife 10:09 and he was gonna kill us and I had a talking down 10:11 and take the knife away from him. 10:13 You know, hey, we were just trying 10:14 to have a good time, right. 10:16 And then there was the guy that was in the back of van 10:18 that died from a drug overdose. 10:19 We had to take him to the hospital 10:21 and they had to shock him and bring him back to life. 10:22 But hey, you know, we were just looking for a good time 10:26 and I had that opportunity many times of talking down. 10:30 My friends they were high on drugs, 10:31 they are freaking out 10:32 and may be they just having a good time, right. 10:34 And then you had the good time of your friends 10:36 breaking into your car, into your apartment 10:38 and stealing things from you, 10:40 just having a good time. 10:42 One of my friends name Tex 10:44 and five of his buddies were in a Volvo 10:45 and they were driving down this road really fast 10:48 and they slammed into a tree 10:49 driving about 95 or 100 miles an hour, 10:52 three of the men in that car died 10:54 in that tragic accident and he broke 12 bones. 10:56 He was on crunches for over two years 10:58 and had multiple surgeries. 10:59 But, hey, we were just trying to have a good time. 11:03 You know, and then I can think about all my friends 11:05 who some of them died from drug overdoses, 11:08 they are mentally disabled 11:10 and from the drugs they have taken 11:11 and they were just trying to have a good time. 11:15 I had a incident that just happened, 11:17 just actually about two years ago. 11:19 I went and visited one of my old musician friends. 11:21 You know, we're getting up in our 40s now 11:23 and I stopped in a music store 11:25 where he worked and his name is Pete. 11:27 And I said, hey, Pete, 11:28 I just want to ask you a question. 11:30 So what happened to Jeff so and so? 11:33 Oh, haven't you heard he's in rehab. 11:35 Well, what happened to so and so the drummer? 11:37 Oh, didn't you hear he died of drug overdose. 11:39 Oh, what happened to so and so? 11:41 Oh, don't you know, he's in rehab. 11:42 Well, what about this girl used to sing in our band? 11:44 Oh, don't you know she's in rehab. 11:46 And I looked at him and I said, hey, Pete, how are you doing? 11:48 He said, hey, I quit drinking, you know, a couple of years ago. 11:51 And I was thinking, you know, 11:52 I could have just been one of those people on the list 11:54 if that's the channel or direction 11:56 I would have just kept going in my life. 11:58 And then I remembered the story of the pastor's son 12:01 who ran into a bridge indictment 12:03 and he ended up in a wheel chair, you know. 12:05 He's just trying to have a good time. 12:07 You know, you stop and think about it all this good time 12:09 that people are trying to have, 12:10 sometimes it's just totally crazy. 12:14 You know, why is it that Satan is a master at having us forget 12:18 about all these good times? 12:21 You know, for some reason he's we're being lied to, 12:24 we're being fooled in the thinking 12:26 that we're really having a good time 12:27 when we were really miserable. 12:29 And yet we continue to pursue it and pursue it and pursue it 12:33 and God is speaking to our hearts saying hey, 12:35 there's a better way, come this way and walk in it. 12:38 In fact in Proverbs 4:19 it says, 12:40 "The way of the wicked is as darkness, 12:43 they know not at what they stumble." 12:45 And that's so true because I know in my own life 12:47 I was stumbling through darkness and I was trying to find answers 12:51 and at the same time 12:53 I was totally turned off to Christianity, 12:54 I didn't want to have anything to do with churianity 12:56 or Christianity or anything like that. 12:59 And something significant happened one time. 13:01 You see, my brother who is five years older then me, 13:03 he met this gentlemen who claimed to me warlock. 13:06 Now some of you maybe have never heard of a warlock before, 13:09 but warlock is a man who claims to be a male witch 13:12 and my brother started whizzing with him, 13:14 he was quiet an elderly fellow 13:15 and he gave my brother this old book 13:17 and he brought it to me and say, 13:18 hey, Jeff, check out this book 13:20 and I kind of like antique things 13:21 and I was looking at it and I was looking though it 13:23 and I see-- 13:25 saw in this old book was published about 1850s, 1860s. 13:29 As I was flipping though the pages 13:30 I saw how you could influence people, 13:32 you could have magic powers, 13:34 you could do out of the body projection, 13:36 you could even summons a spirit guy. 13:38 But, as I started reading through this book, 13:41 you know, I talked to myself, I have a bunch of hokey pokey, 13:43 you know, it's not anything truth of this. 13:45 I don't believe in a God, I don't believe in a devil, 13:46 I don't believe in spiritual, 13:47 but it was interesting looking through this book. 13:50 And out of curiosity I went into a bookstore one time 13:52 and I was looking around 13:53 and I saw this book called a Satanic Bible 13:55 by Anton LaVey and I stole the book, 13:58 I shoplifted it, I took it and I was reading that. 14:00 Down inside I thought this is just a bunch of monk you know. 14:04 And then one day I decided to try and experiment. 14:08 In this experiment I decided to do something 14:11 that was in this whole book. 14:13 And that experiment basically to summons the spirit guide, 14:16 I thought that would be cool. 14:17 I would like to see one, 14:18 you know, some kind of spirit guide appeared 14:20 and talked about how you can go through this whole ceremony. 14:22 And I'm not gonna tell you what I did 14:23 because I certainly don't want to encourage 14:25 anybody to try this. 14:27 But it was the beginning of an awakening for me that, 14:29 hey, may be there's a possibility 14:31 that there is some kind 14:32 of spiritual dimension in this world 14:33 that we're gonna have to content with or deal with. 14:35 So I did this thing, I made a circle 14:37 and I went through this whole ceremony 14:39 and did some stuff. 14:40 You know, I followed the prescription 14:42 and then finally came the magic moment 14:44 where I sit down by the circle and read this Latin chat. 14:47 You know, it's-- you're gonna go 14:51 through this mumble jumbo thing 14:52 and I sit there in suspense and I watched and waited 14:55 and you know, what happened? 14:56 Nothing, nothing happened. 14:59 And I close the book and I wiped the circle, 15:01 I talked to myself, it was just a bunch of bunk, 15:03 you know, so silly. 15:05 It was fun to try it and it was summer 15:07 and school was out and I didn't have anything to do 15:10 and I went over and laid down on my bed and took a nap. 15:14 In those days my hair was down to my shoulders 15:16 and when I woke up I went over 15:18 and started combing my hair in the mirror 15:19 and I was combing my hair in the mirror, 15:21 I looked into the mirror 15:22 and all of a sudden my face started to change 15:26 and there was somebody else on the other side of that mirror 15:28 looking at me and I turned and I looked away 15:31 and I looked again and that same face was there. 15:33 And I turned and looked away and I thought 15:34 what's happening am I not awakened? 15:36 And I looked again and that same face was there. 15:39 I ran out into the living room 15:40 and I looked into this big mirror, 15:41 my parents had in their living room. 15:42 I looked into the mirror and that same face was there 15:46 and all of a sudden I had my heart pounding in my chest, 15:49 I thought, you know, what can I do I can't go 15:51 and tell my parents that hey, 15:52 I'm seeing a strange face in the mirror. 15:54 I can't tell my friends they would think 15:56 I was crazy and my parents would probably send me 15:58 to some kind of counseling or something. 15:59 So I didn't know what to do and I just kept it secret. 16:03 And my brother came to me and said, 16:05 you know, I've been having a lot of weird things happening. 16:07 Have you been having strange things happening? 16:08 I said yeah. 16:09 And I started talking to him 16:10 and we started to comparing notes 16:12 and he told me about how you know, 16:14 he would be in the bathroom 16:15 and all of a sudden he would hear this sound 16:17 and he turn around the hot water would be going, 16:19 full blast and he hadn't turn it on. 16:21 And at night time I would start having things, 16:23 well, my bed would start bouncing 16:25 and all of a sudden I came to a conclusion. 16:29 I realized that there was a spiritual dimension, 16:32 a spiritual reality that was beyond the physical. 16:35 You know, in a sense I was kind of like 16:37 looking at from the Star Wars approach. 16:39 You know, back in those days because I didn't believe in God, 16:41 I didn't know anything about the Bible 16:42 and it was basically that there are forces of good and evil 16:46 that exists in this world. 16:47 There's unseen forces, 16:49 the spiritual forces of good and evil 16:50 and they are contending for the minds and souls of men. 16:55 And at that point in my life I decided 16:57 that I needed to start finding spiritual direction. 16:59 I needed to get away this eclectic stuff. 17:01 I burned the Sanatic Bible and I got rid of this old book 17:04 and I started looking through ways to find to change my life 17:07 but you know, I'd said I never be a Christian. 17:10 So I started looking at different alternatives. 17:13 In fact, one of those alternatives was Zen Buddhism. 17:16 And I was reading books on Zen Buddhism, our new age. 17:19 I was in a rock n roll band and driving nice old cars 17:22 and hey, that kind of went along 17:23 with the whole hippy scene of the 1970s. 17:26 In fact we got into this thing called I Ching. 17:27 Maybe you have heard of that, 17:28 it's the famous 5,000 year old book of changes, 17:31 where they claim to be-- 17:32 they claim it to be 5,000 years old. 17:34 You take the sticks in the morning 17:35 and you throw them down in the ground 17:36 and then you look up how they landed 17:38 and a little diagram in this book 17:40 and you can predict your future for the day. 17:42 And of course we were practicing things like Kundalini yoga. 17:45 But you know one thing that was interesting is, 17:47 we are trying all these different ways 17:49 of trying to find a religious experience. 17:53 I found out that I had no power over myself. 17:58 I still had a violent temper. I would smash things. 18:00 I would get arguments with my girlfriend. 18:02 We were still using drugs. 18:03 Of course these religions didn't condemn the use of drugs. 18:06 In fact the whole concept of being young 18:08 was to have a little good and have a little bad 18:10 and mix them together and find balance. 18:12 But I couldn't find any kind of power in those things. 18:17 And so I turned hesitantly to another source 18:22 and that was the Bible. 18:23 In fact, I asked myself, 18:24 could it be this book that this book right here, 18:27 this Bible has something in it to offer us 18:30 that we could actually find power to overcome ourselves. 18:34 You know, and the whole time I kept it secret 18:36 because I didn't want any of my friends to say, 18:38 oh, Jeff, what are you doing, 18:39 becoming a Jesus freak or something? 18:41 And I had such a hard time understanding the Bible. 18:45 I would sit and smoke a Marijuana cigarette 18:47 and I would read the Book the Romans 18:48 and I was trying to figure out what is Paul talking about, 18:50 with all these, these and thous and I look at the Old Testament 18:53 and there was these bigots and I'd close it 18:56 and I would just be so disgusted 18:57 because I couldn't understand, you know, 18:59 what it was about and I tell you 19:00 what it's scary to let other people know 19:03 that you're interested in the Bible. 19:04 You know, why? 19:05 Because soon as you tell people 19:07 that you're interested in the Bible, 19:08 you have-- I don't know how many different Bible 19:11 believing churches out there saying, 19:13 we have the truth follow us. 19:15 So do as we tell you and listen 19:16 to our interpretation of the scriptures 19:18 and you will be saved. 19:19 And that kind of turned me off too 19:21 because I figured you know, 19:22 if God really existed that somehow 19:24 He would be able to speak to my heart through His word. 19:27 And as I continued reading the Bible 19:29 and looking at the different books like-- 19:31 I kind of looked at the Book of Revelation 19:32 and the Book of Daniel, 19:33 it's was like the national enquire of the scriptures. 19:36 And I just be honest with you. 19:38 There was a lot of times I moved in with my sister 19:40 and there was lot of times I would be in the basement 19:41 where I had a recording studio set up 19:43 for playing music and I'd get on my knees 19:46 and I would pray to God and I would say God, 19:48 please don't give up on me, don't give up on me. 19:51 I know that there this forces of good and evil. 19:53 I know You must exist. 19:55 I'm trying to find You but, Lord, 19:57 I know I'm not overcoming things in my life 19:59 that I should overcome. 20:01 I know, I'm doing many things 20:02 that are wrong but please don't give up on me, 20:04 don't take Your Holy Spirit from me, 20:06 that was the other prayer I used to pray 20:07 because I remember reading about 20:09 the work of the Holy Spirit in the scriptures. 20:11 You know, life is like a road 20:13 with many different signs along the way 20:16 and Christ is speaking to each one of our hearts. 20:18 This is the way you walk in it 20:19 and I'm sure as I was say earlier 20:21 if you look back in your life 20:22 and you look at the different things that happened 20:26 you can see the mile post markers along the way. 20:29 You can see the little signs 20:30 where you can see where God was pointing you this direction 20:32 or bringing you through experience 20:34 that was happening over here to show you 20:37 that He was trying to guide you to an understanding of truth. 20:40 You know, we blindly stumble along 20:42 but as we look back we can see 20:44 that God is leading you all this mixed up confusion. 20:47 He's trying to do what? 20:48 He's trying to bring us to the light of truth. 20:52 And speaking of road signs, 20:53 I remember one situation that happened. 20:55 I dated this girl when I started 20:56 becoming more interested in the Bible. 20:58 I was playing in the band and this girl was-- 21:01 her family was a Pentecostal Catholic 21:03 which I thought was interesting. 21:05 I never heard of Pentecostal Catholics before 21:07 and she wanted me to go to mass with her 21:09 and I'd never been to, well, mass before 21:11 but a strange thing was, is this mass was at midnight. 21:15 It was called a midnight mass and I thought well, 21:17 this is kind of creepy actually. 21:19 And we went to this Prince of Peace Church 21:22 and we went to this mass 21:23 and this church complex took in a whole city block. 21:27 In fact, I remember exactly how this church was configured 21:30 because over here was the chapel where they had the mass service 21:34 and there was this long glass corridor 21:35 that had a glass wall on it 21:37 and I looked into this area that was like an open area 21:39 where you actually had a bunch of plants growing there, 21:43 it was kind of like an outdoor celery 21:45 and where something and then over on this one side 21:47 there was actually a meeting hall 21:49 for where the young people went and it had a glass wall on it 21:51 and on the other side it was rectory, 21:52 it was like a big shape of a hall of square. 21:56 And as I was standing there I was looking 21:58 because all the young people were gonna go down 21:59 and they were going to have like a rock concert down 22:02 in this special youth meeting hall. 22:05 And all these kids were going in there 22:06 and this rock band started playing, 22:07 the lights were down 22:08 and I saw people lightening up cigarettes 22:10 and they were drinking alcohol in there, 22:12 of course they snuck the alcohol 22:14 in because they shouldn't be drinking in there 22:15 but it was just like going to a rock concert or something. 22:18 And I thought this is so strange 22:19 because we just did this religious service 22:21 that was really solemn and quite 22:23 and this priest all dress in white, 22:24 was doing this Eucharist thing 22:26 and then all these kids went down 22:28 into this fellowship hall and they were down there 22:29 and listening to rock band 22:31 and I was standing there looking out this glass window, 22:34 looking down in there and all these kids 22:35 lighting up cigarettes 22:36 and doing this different things down there 22:37 thinking this just doesn't seem right. 22:40 And all of a sudden I looked over 22:41 and there was this priest standing next to me, 22:44 just, you know, a stone threw away there 22:46 and he was looking down 22:47 and he was standing with this gentlemen 22:48 who was in a business suit dressed very nice 22:50 and they were looking at each other, 22:51 they had this kind of smirk on their face and they were-- 22:54 had their hand on their chin and they were talking in, 22:56 they looked almost like they were saying or thinking 22:59 we finally have the young people in the church. 23:02 And I don't know, but I just didn't think it was right. 23:04 There's something wrong with this whole picture 23:06 and I told my girlfriend, I said I'll see you later. 23:08 I think I'm gonna go and I left. 23:11 And as I looked back at that I just realized, 23:12 you know, there was something wrong with that. 23:14 It was another thing, it was kind of, 23:15 you know, I was reaching out for Christianity 23:17 and looking for a different way of life. 23:19 I was involved with all these east religions 23:20 and every time I turned around, 23:22 you know, it seemed like that there was something 23:24 that just turned me off to it. 23:26 In fact I had a situation 23:28 where I was doing a drug run one day 23:30 and I had to go to a halfway house. 23:32 You know, that's a place where people 23:33 who just got out of prison go 23:34 as they are being introduced back in the society 23:37 and I went there to meet this guy 23:38 how was supposed to get some drugs 23:39 and I knocked on door 23:41 and heard a voice say, come on in. 23:44 And I went in and I said hey, is so and so here? 23:47 And I heard a voice say no he's not in. 23:49 I walked into this room, 23:51 it was this man and I'll never forget this picture, 23:53 this man had long black hair all the way down 23:55 to middle of his back and he was not facing me. 23:58 And I said when will he be back 24:00 and gentlemen turned around and he had a Bible in his hand. 24:03 And he had a long black beard and I thought well, 24:06 this is a strange sight. 24:07 And I said well, what are you doing? 24:09 He said, oh, I'm studying the Bible. 24:10 I said, yeah, well, what are you studying 24:13 because I was kind of curious. 24:14 And he said I'm studying the Book of Revelation right now 24:16 and I'm studying chapter 17 24:18 about this woman riding a scarlet colored beast 24:20 and he said and he stoked his beard very slowly. 24:23 I'm coming to the conclusion and this was the church, 24:26 there's was a persecuting power during the Dark Ages. 24:28 And I like what? 24:30 I talked to myself, this guy is strange and I just left. 24:33 And about a year later I got involved 24:35 with what was called a Shalom House. 24:37 Now a Shalom House was a coffee house 24:39 that was designed to take street kids off the street 24:42 and get them down into a place where you could get them "saved" 24:45 and you speak in tongues 24:47 and it was Pentecostal coffee house 24:48 it's what it mounted to. 24:50 And what were speaking in tongues in one room, 24:52 we were dealing drugs in the other room. 24:54 And I just saw so many inconsistencies 24:56 and once again just like when I was a young boy 24:58 I talked to myself, you know, 25:00 Christians are a bunch of hypocrites. 25:02 And I just got to the point well, I had enough. 25:05 I didn't want to have anything more to do with religion 25:08 but something significant happened. 25:11 One day there was a knock on my door. 25:12 I was living in this flophouse of a place over 25:14 by the railway tracks on the north side of town 25:16 with a bunch of musician friends 25:19 and it was a rundown kind of like shack 25:21 and there was a knock on the door 25:22 and this two nice dressed men said, 25:25 would you be interested in studying the Bible with us? 25:27 And nobody was around I said, well, come on in. 25:29 And they came in 25:30 and they were from the Jehovah's Witness Church 25:33 and they started sharing with me, 25:35 but they had their own translation of the Bible, 25:36 it didn't quiet go along with the translation 25:38 I was using at that time 25:40 and I was you know, studying with them 25:42 and I studied with them several times 25:43 and they started sharing with me about Jesus Christ 25:45 really wasn't God. 25:47 And there was some teachings 25:49 that they were going through I thought, 25:50 you know, I've read the Bible some 25:51 and I don't really quite understand it 25:52 but this just doesn't seem right to me 25:54 and they quit coming to visit me. 25:57 Another time I received another knock at the door 25:59 and there was some nice dressed boys, 26:00 young boys with suits on and they came in and they said, 26:03 hi, we're from the church of Jesus Christ 26:05 and Latter-day Saints. 26:06 And would you be interested in studying God's word? 26:08 And I said sure and so I started studying with them 26:11 and after a few lessons I started asking them questions 26:14 about this guy called Joseph Smith 26:17 and he found this golden plates. 26:18 So I asked him how heavy were those golden plates anyhow? 26:21 And he carried him and translated them 26:23 and it was all this different things 26:24 they were saying, I thought to myself, you know, 26:26 this doesn't make any sense, 26:27 this doesn't go along with what the Bible says. 26:30 And again I was turned off. 26:32 And finally I just came to point rightly said, 26:33 I've had enough. 26:35 And but yet down inside I just want to share with you, 26:38 down side I secretly prayed 26:41 that God still wouldn't give up on me. 26:43 I secretly prayed that God would still 26:46 somehow enlighten me with truth but I got to the point 26:49 where I didn't want to have anything 26:50 to do eastern religions, 26:51 I didn't want to have anything to do with the Bible, 26:53 I didn't want to have anything to do with anything. 26:55 And then something significant happened. 26:59 My parents who had been church hopping a little bit 27:02 that they were over religious at the time 27:05 went to a Seventh-day Adventist Church 27:08 and they went through a whole set of 27:10 what was called evangelistic meetings 27:11 at this church and they were baptized 27:13 into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 27:15 Well, my brother and my sister 27:16 and I all thought my parents 27:17 had just kind of really gone crazy, 27:20 in order to join this church 27:21 because we heard they went to church 27:23 on the wrong day of the week and they just seemed like 27:26 I never heard of Seventh-day Adventist before 27:28 and it was probably about three four months later. 27:33 I am sorry we're out of time. 27:35 If you would like to see this complete presentation, 27:38 please write or call Layman Ministries, 27:40 414 Zapada Road, St. Maries, Idaho, 83861 27:46 or call 1800-245-1844. 27:51 You can contact us on the web on the www.lmn.org. |
Revised 2014-12-17