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OF THE SAVING GRACE OF GOD
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AN ORDINARY VIRGINIA BOY
WHO FOUND AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE WITH GOD
My Testimony
"When Christ calls a man He bids him come and die."Dietrich Bonhoeffer
By Pastor Del Wray
This testimony is written as actually experienced knowing full well we are now living in the end days of the Church period which is described in the Bible as apostate. I’m fully aware that our Country and government is "New Age", “Anti-American”, “Anti-Patriotic”, “Anti-Traditional Marriage”, “Anti-Holy Bible”, “Anti-Truth”, “Anti-Pro life”, “Anti-Straight”, “Anti-Equality” of all people! America hates God, has rejected the Bible and is accepting the Eastern religions. She has set herself on a course to make war against God and now exists on borrowed time. It is very difficult for anyone not to realize that all of Academia; the Public Schools our Colleges and Universities, all of our Legal System; Court Houses, Lawyers, Hollywood, the Work Place, the Market Place, all of Government and the Political System with its “Political Correctness” are all “Anti-God!” “Anti-Christian!" “Anti-Church!” And it’s time we Bible believers stand up and are counted coming out publicly against this Christ-less society an every false and evil way!
“…and I hate every false way.”Psalms 119:128
In the United States today, there are very few words that provoke as much outrage as the name of Jesus. It is being banned from graduation ceremonies, chaplains all over America are being forbidden from using His name in their prayers, and many school officials all over the nation have become absolutely fanatical about eliminating every trace of Christian expression from their schools. One elementary school in North Carolina even ordered a little six-year-old girl to remove the word “God” from a poem that she had written to honor her grandfathers. Political correctness is spreading like a cancer in this country, and our “freedom of religion” is rapidly being transformed into a guarantee of “freedom from religion” for those that hate the Christian faith. Without a doubt, there is a war on the Christian faith in America today. It is being waged in classrooms, courtrooms and churches all over the nation. As America turns its back on and walks away from the Grace of God we who believe know that our “redemption draweth nigh.” Knowing very well that these characteristics describe a nation that is about to be turned into Hell.
“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”Psalms 9:17
With this knowledge, I put pen to paper sharing my testimony of the saving power of God and the walk of a believer who has walked on the highest plane with Christ in the heavenlies:
“AN ORDINARY VIRGINIA BOY
WHO FOUND AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE WITH GOD”
How God saved an unknown, unworthy, undeserving, nobody special, just an ordinary Virginia boy that was inspired to walk with God through life leading to an extraordinary life in the heavenlies, experiencing the taste of what it means to walk in His footsteps. "Just a simple speck of dirt is all I am."
"Unworthy to have been called to have been chosen and used of God."
Having tasted His presence within, "The Creator as creations friend" My first birth was in the Fort Monroe Medical Facility an Army Hospital in Hampton, Virginia, February 5, 1943 in an area known as Hampton Roads. There I spent my childhood growing up on the East side of Newport News, a place of meagerly means, it was home though, and played a significant role in the path that had been laid out for me. To say the least, I've gone back to my home town many times in my thoughts an imagination. One preacher said "that if a thief came to his home to steal, he would have to help him find something to steal." That was home. If I may let me jump ahead right here and tie it all together as I proceed: After a few years past, I was led to leave Hampton Roads, something I thought I would never do. Constrained to obey His leading and having only forty-five cents in my pocket I accepted an open door to follow the Lord and serve as a Baptist missionary to the Hawaiian Islands out of my home church Tabernacle Baptist, Greenville, South Carolina. Where I watched the Lord found the International Baptist Church, Honolulu, Hawaii beginning with only sixteen souls and seeing the Church grow to over five hundred in a period of three years. Certainly, not by my labors alone but our young people prayed down fire from God and the whole Island of Oahu, diverse as it was, lit up with a fever pitch for the lost. It was then that I experienced an inward revival that transformed my life and the lives of thousands that I've come in contact with through the years. Having gotten a taste of seeing souls saved and lives changed God revealed how He wanted me to serve Him in evangelism. Souls are more important! For many years now, I've been led to travel all over the world, as any evangelist would, thousands of miles carrying His message
“And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” John 11:26,
(favorite verse) In all those years God has been planting Independent Fundamental Bible believing Baptist churches everywhere I've gone. It’s been an extraordinary life and here is how it all began: If I may, let me share with you briefly how this unworthy boy was made a partaker of eternal life and how freely it was given to him as a gift from the very Son of God. He and He ALONE made all the provisions for it, He paid the only acceptable price in a sacrifice that His Father would accept and then gave it to me when I was a sixteen year old teenage boy growing up in Newport News, Virginia. How I learned about that life was from the Holy Bible that for years had sat on a mantel in my parent’s living room, untouched, I’m sorry to say. Here is how it all happened: After the death of an older brother, I would walk to a nearby cemetery and stand over his grave in tears, for hours asking God why? Many evenings I would make that same trek and stand over his grave asking why? Why did he haft to die? Why death? It became such a fixation to me that I was determined to find a cure for death. I didn’t want people to die. I wanted to rid this world of the scourge of death! After much exhaustive imagining and heart searching I was on my way to go swimming one Sunday morning when I was drawn to return home and attend a local Baptist church in our neighborhood. There in the balcony of Ivy Memorial Baptist Church I heard the claims of Jesus Christ:
“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”John 11:25-26
There it was, the answer I was seeking “…shall never die.” That morning I accepted His claims, took Him at His word and received everlasting life an eternal protection that can never be lost and where death is no more, the plague and scourge conquered. Ever since then I've been traveling all over this world WARNING all who would listen of the WRATH to come and the only hope, the cure for man’s dilemma, “DEATH”, that being the very ONE whose words are found in the Holy Bible, the promises of Jesus Christ. Here are those very words, promised by Jesus Christ Himself as written in the only book He has ever authored, the King James Bible, that you too may receive life eternal as I have: I remember reading in the ONLY book, the Bible that God has supernaturally passed down to us, how our first two parents succumbed to temptation as they, so have you and I, we all sin and have failed. That sin brought the entrance of death into this world, the plague and scourge I've fought against all my life. We all have inherited that rebellious nature and so to its consequences.
“For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
Romans 5:19
As I've traveled, no matter what country I've been in, human nature is precisely the same in every human being. Sin is inherent, we were born in sin, and someone said “man was born wrong.” Sin is inherited, inborn, and innate in every human being, instinctive, congenital, ingrained, inbred, habitual, hereditary and natural in all of mankind. I cannot stress that enough! I hate saying it but the truth is we cannot help being unconsciously sinful. Our parent’s sin is not our fault, still we too sin and all of us will be held accountable for our own sin! You see, SIN is the problem, it is an inward problem and it separates man from a Holy God.
“But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” Isaiah 59:2
Another name for sin in the Bible is “HEART” the Bible says the heart is “deceitful,desperately” wicked! A man doesn't die because of who he is, he dies because of WHAT heis, A SINNER! A man doesn't go to Hell because of what he has done; he goes to Hell because of what he hasn't done, he refuses to receive the Lord Jesus Christ! You can be the best person who has ever lived and still die and go to Hell without Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ is God’s mediator!
“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.” Jere. 17:9
The Apostle Paul was no different; the greatest preacher to ever walk this earth other than Jesus Christ Himself had the same problem. Look at what he said:
"For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do" Romans 7:19
And he ultimately asked:
"O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" in Romans 7:24
The following is the answer to man’s greatest dilemma, death: And that answer is found in the Bible. He loved us so much that He died on the cross and paid the penalty that God required for SIN. Now He extends His offer of eternal life to each one of us in the forgiveness of sin. Jesus Christ is the only way to obtain forgiveness so that we can live eternally, right now, with the redeemed in heaven, freed from this body of sin.
“And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Rom. 8:23
You must accept His gift of forgiveness, it cannot be earned. How does one accept or receive this gift?
“…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Acts 16:31
Please click and read "GOD'S SIMPLE PLAN OF SALVATION" it was this tract that, Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, picked up one day off the street in downtown Tokyo and read that led to his becoming a Christian and later an American citizen spending the rest his life telling others about Jesus Christ and the “hatred of sin in the human heart” through evangelism. And do not turn away from this tract, read it again, until you accept God’s saving gift, Jesus Christ His Son! As revealed in the very Words of God and spoken by Jesus Christ Himself! Now if I may let me add some substance to what I've just said:
I was saved on May 15, 1960, at sixteen years of age, setting in the balcony of Ivy Memorial Baptist church in Newport News, VA. God had His hand on this little poor boy for some time calling and I was too blind spiritually to recognize it. Having turned eighteen He revealed His purpose for my life and I surrendered to preach. God used many circumstances and a dear friend’s mother, who at the time was dying of cancer, to show me His purpose for my life. Earlier, at sixteen years of age I found myself under great conviction for the rebellion, sin that was controlling my life and too the sudden death of a brother. I called upon God and ask Him to save me. That very moment, seated in the balcony of that church an awesome feeling of peace came over me. God had used His Word to awaken in me His Son and with His Holy Spirit He entered in saving another fallen soul opening up life's real meaning. My outlook on life began to change. There is no way I can explain what happened that morning, except in the light of Holy Scripture. God found me, I didn't find Him! At once, instead of questioning God, I took Him at His Word. Something people refuse to do today. Then and there, I made a vow to God, never to question Him again, and began in earnest to search and read His Word. The Bible became an open book to me. It came alive! That book changed my life. I continued to read, saturating my mind with His Word. I would read nothing else, with my thoughts and mind fixed on Him. Remembering what my mother once said, "If you want to know God you must look at Jesus Christ." I began to see people, my friends in a new light. It was as if someone else had moved in and taken over, and He had! Tragedy then struck our family and I couldn't understand why. My older brother had taken his life, why, I would ask myself, why? I would visit the cemetery alone, stand over his grave for hours crying, asking God why? I promised God, that if He would show me why, that I would spend the rest of my life in His service telling others why men die? I wanted to know how to prevent such tragedy. I wanted to know if death could be defeated, life for me would be meaningless if it just ended in death. Was there more to life than it ending in death? It sure is! Well He has answered my question in more ways than I could imagine. The answer is in His Word! (Rom. 5:12, Rom. 6:23, Heb. 9:27) The answer I took and ran with and still I’m running.
One of the first churches I was ask to preach in was Williamsburg Baptist Church in Williamsburg, Virginia. At the conclusion of services the pastor asks to speak to me privately, and he told me that he was the pastor that had held the funeral service for my deceased brother. “Two hours before your brother committed suicide, he came to me for help and I couldn't find time for him” he said. With tears in his eyes that pastor told me how sorry he was. Leaving that church that night, I promised God, that I would never commit such a terrible sin by turning any earnest inquirer away. Before God and conscience, I have not. Traveling all over the world, I have seen God help keep that promise, never turning anyone away. He has helped me start at least twelve Baptist churches across this country, with Bible believing people, full of real love and compassion for the souls of men helping keep that promise. Untold numbers have been saved in many states, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Texas, California, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and all across America and many foreign lands. In churches, prisons, street corners and homes. Thanks go to God! Jesus Christ kept His word, moved into a young boy’s life, "an ordinary speck of dirt", took control and carried on His ministry using a fallen man that He had rescued from a life of sin. Most preachers never see the power of God at work as He has allowed this poor Virginia boy to see. Truly,
“AN ORDINARY VIRGINIA BOY WHO FOUND AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE WITH GOD”
The further I've traveled and the closer I've been drawn to God, the more amazed I am that God would save a sinner like me. He's answered all my questions of life, met all my needs and still as sinful as I am He still loves me. "When I stumble He understands, He picks me up, wipes off my sin, stands me on my feet again, and still, He loves me, even as small as I am." Let me put it this way, as I once heard a blind brother sing:
"Acres of diamonds, Mountains of gold,
Rivers of silver, Jewels untold,
All of these together could never pay
for the peace and contentment
That Jesus has brought into my soul."
How peaceful it is to be able to pillow your head at night with a clear conscience. Do you have that peace? You can have that very same peace, right now! Why don't you trust Him to save you? To reject Him will cost you your never dying soul. To reject Christ is to lose all. Are you prepared to face God? He wants to save you! No one can be saved and not believe God's Word. It's impossible! Simply, believe what God says in His Word, the King James Bible and He will save you! Then surrender control of your life to Him daily, believing! I've learned in life from the Word of God that being saved did not immediately bring perfection, that's still to come. What it did show me is my imperfections, my sinfulness, and my need to surrender to Him daily. It's been a long journey, but a wonderful journey, as I've traveled down this road of life. I thank Him for allowing me to carry on in His ministry as He once ministered down here in person. Dark days are ahead!
Even though we live in dark days, perilous times are ahead. The falling away has swept through our churches, midst the great apostasy. We look anxiously for our Lord's return in the clouds, to ever be with Him! Thank God! By the way, are you seeking for real purpose in life? "It is God's great purpose that we are brought to the end of ourselves, where we no longer trust ourselves, butwe trust God!" Author, Ruth Paxson "Walking on the Highest Plane" Trust God! The person must be insane that trifles with his eternal destiny and God's purpose for his life. It is that trust that has brought such incredible experiences in my life: My experiences have been many through the years, and they all have been unexplainable, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures. Briefly, let me share with you a few of those experiences, as I've traveled down this road of life. Let me here thank God for two men in my life, my brothers in the faith; Chief Dan Liu, Honolulu Police Department, who was a Chinese American, a Baptist that had his people look after me while serving the Lord in the Hawaiian Islands. As I walked the streets of Honolulu and preached from street corners, his officers had been instructed to look out for me. This I did not know until after we finally met, having been made and honorary police officer and the chaplain of the Honolulu Police Department. The second was a missionary who had returned from China, David Cook, one of the many fine missionaries that I have had the privilege to cross paths with. You would have had to meet him to understand. He was a missionary of missionaries, who suffered the loss of his wife and two boys while on the field, all three dying of the same disease two years apart. Forced to leave them behind in China, China had just closed the doors to all American missionaries, he came home a broken man and became the spiritual giant that God used to inspire the lives of many young people and bring about revival there in the Islands. So many Christians never having tasted the thrill of walking with Him moment by moment and seeing lives miraculously changed. Surely, I saw Christ in him. Christ was alive in our hearts! There are so many more I could name, but one in particular should be mentioned, that alt to be sufficient, who I met and shared a pulpit with. Here is his incredible testimony that validates:
"CREATOR AS CREATIONS FRIEND”
Click and read: "THE STORY OF MITSUO FUCHIDA'S CONVERSION TO CHRIST" the Japanese pilot who lead the attack on Pearl Harbor and his "War against the hatred in the human heart." God still loves us even as small and sinful as we are! We are all but a “speck of dirt” from which we have come. There are twenty-eight minerals found in our blood streams and all twenty-eightare found in the dirt. Just a “speck of dirt” is all I am without the Lord.
"A speck of dirt is all I am
Nothing worthy of the Lamb
But in mercy and in grace
My precious Saviour took my place
What is man that God would love?
His virtuous soul much higher above
Human minds can’t comprehend.
Creator as creations friend"
I know the world is at enmity with God and hostile to anything that hast to do with Jesus Christ.'That is as He said it would be. There still remains a remnant of those who are willing to “Count the Cost”, “Pay the Price”, “Take up the Cross” to be believers and if they haven’t already they too will experience the walk with Christ in the heavenlies. I know, even though I haven’t seen Him with my eyes, as all believers will, He has been so real to me that all I've needed to do was reach out and touch Him. Will you reach out and touch Him with your faith? Will you reach out and touch Him with your faith?
AN ORDINARY VIRGINIA BOY
WHO FOUND AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE WITH GOD
WHO FOUND AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE WITH GOD
My Testimony
By Pastor Del Wray
This testimony is written as actually experienced knowing full well we are now living in the end days of the Church period which is described in the Bible as apostate. I’m fully aware that our Country and government is "New Age", “Anti-American”, “Anti-Patriotic”, “Anti-Traditional Marriage”, “Anti-Holy Bible”, “Anti-Truth”, “Anti-Pro life”, “Anti-Straight”, “Anti-Equality” of all people! America hates God, has rejected the Bible and is accepting the Eastern religions. She has set herself on a course to make war against God and now exists on borrowed time. It is very difficult for anyone not to realize that all of Academia; the Public Schools our Colleges and Universities, all of our Legal System; Court Houses, Lawyers, Hollywood, the Work Place, the Market Place, all of Government and the Political System with its “Political Correctness” are all “Anti-God!” “Anti-Christian!" “Anti-Church!” And it’s time we Bible believers stand up and are counted coming out publicly against this Christ-less society an every false and evil way!
“…and I hate every false way.”Psalms 119:128
In the United States today, there are very few words that provoke as much outrage as the name of Jesus. It is being banned from graduation ceremonies, chaplains all over America are being forbidden from using His name in their prayers, and many school officials all over the nation have become absolutely fanatical about eliminating every trace of Christian expression from their schools. One elementary school in North Carolina even ordered a little six-year-old girl to remove the word “God” from a poem that she had written to honor her grandfathers. Political correctness is spreading like a cancer in this country, and our “freedom of religion” is rapidly being transformed into a guarantee of “freedom from religion” for those that hate the Christian faith. Without a doubt, there is a war on the Christian faith in America today. It is being waged in classrooms, courtrooms and churches all over the nation. As America turns its back on and walks away from the Grace of God we who believe know that our “redemption draweth nigh.” Knowing very well that these characteristics describe a nation that is about to be turned into Hell.
“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”Psalms 9:17
With this knowledge, I put pen to paper sharing my testimony of the saving power of God and the walk of a believer who has walked on the highest plane with Christ in the heavenlies:
WHO FOUND AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE WITH GOD”
How God saved an unknown, unworthy, undeserving, nobody special, just an ordinary Virginia boy that was inspired to walk with God through life leading to an extraordinary life in the heavenlies, experiencing the taste of what it means to walk in His footsteps. "Just a simple speck of dirt is all I am."
"Unworthy to have been called to have been chosen and used of God."
Having tasted His presence within, "The Creator as creations friend" My first birth was in the Fort Monroe Medical Facility an Army Hospital in Hampton, Virginia, February 5, 1943 in an area known as Hampton Roads. There I spent my childhood growing up on the East side of Newport News, a place of meagerly means, it was home though, and played a significant role in the path that had been laid out for me. To say the least, I've gone back to my home town many times in my thoughts an imagination. One preacher said "that if a thief came to his home to steal, he would have to help him find something to steal." That was home. If I may let me jump ahead right here and tie it all together as I proceed: After a few years past, I was led to leave Hampton Roads, something I thought I would never do. Constrained to obey His leading and having only forty-five cents in my pocket I accepted an open door to follow the Lord and serve as a Baptist missionary to the Hawaiian Islands out of my home church Tabernacle Baptist, Greenville, South Carolina. Where I watched the Lord found the International Baptist Church, Honolulu, Hawaii beginning with only sixteen souls and seeing the Church grow to over five hundred in a period of three years. Certainly, not by my labors alone but our young people prayed down fire from God and the whole Island of Oahu, diverse as it was, lit up with a fever pitch for the lost. It was then that I experienced an inward revival that transformed my life and the lives of thousands that I've come in contact with through the years. Having gotten a taste of seeing souls saved and lives changed God revealed how He wanted me to serve Him in evangelism. Souls are more important! For many years now, I've been led to travel all over the world, as any evangelist would, thousands of miles carrying His message
“And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” John 11:26,
(favorite verse) In all those years God has been planting Independent Fundamental Bible believing Baptist churches everywhere I've gone. It’s been an extraordinary life and here is how it all began: If I may, let me share with you briefly how this unworthy boy was made a partaker of eternal life and how freely it was given to him as a gift from the very Son of God. He and He ALONE made all the provisions for it, He paid the only acceptable price in a sacrifice that His Father would accept and then gave it to me when I was a sixteen year old teenage boy growing up in Newport News, Virginia. How I learned about that life was from the Holy Bible that for years had sat on a mantel in my parent’s living room, untouched, I’m sorry to say. Here is how it all happened: After the death of an older brother, I would walk to a nearby cemetery and stand over his grave in tears, for hours asking God why? Many evenings I would make that same trek and stand over his grave asking why? Why did he haft to die? Why death? It became such a fixation to me that I was determined to find a cure for death. I didn’t want people to die. I wanted to rid this world of the scourge of death! After much exhaustive imagining and heart searching I was on my way to go swimming one Sunday morning when I was drawn to return home and attend a local Baptist church in our neighborhood. There in the balcony of Ivy Memorial Baptist Church I heard the claims of Jesus Christ:
“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”John 11:25-26
There it was, the answer I was seeking “…shall never die.” That morning I accepted His claims, took Him at His word and received everlasting life an eternal protection that can never be lost and where death is no more, the plague and scourge conquered. Ever since then I've been traveling all over this world WARNING all who would listen of the WRATH to come and the only hope, the cure for man’s dilemma, “DEATH”, that being the very ONE whose words are found in the Holy Bible, the promises of Jesus Christ. Here are those very words, promised by Jesus Christ Himself as written in the only book He has ever authored, the King James Bible, that you too may receive life eternal as I have: I remember reading in the ONLY book, the Bible that God has supernaturally passed down to us, how our first two parents succumbed to temptation as they, so have you and I, we all sin and have failed. That sin brought the entrance of death into this world, the plague and scourge I've fought against all my life. We all have inherited that rebellious nature and so to its consequences.
“For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
Romans 5:19
As I've traveled, no matter what country I've been in, human nature is precisely the same in every human being. Sin is inherent, we were born in sin, and someone said “man was born wrong.” Sin is inherited, inborn, and innate in every human being, instinctive, congenital, ingrained, inbred, habitual, hereditary and natural in all of mankind. I cannot stress that enough! I hate saying it but the truth is we cannot help being unconsciously sinful. Our parent’s sin is not our fault, still we too sin and all of us will be held accountable for our own sin! You see, SIN is the problem, it is an inward problem and it separates man from a Holy God.
“But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” Isaiah 59:2
Another name for sin in the Bible is “HEART” the Bible says the heart is “deceitful,desperately” wicked! A man doesn't die because of who he is, he dies because of WHAT heis, A SINNER! A man doesn't go to Hell because of what he has done; he goes to Hell because of what he hasn't done, he refuses to receive the Lord Jesus Christ! You can be the best person who has ever lived and still die and go to Hell without Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ is God’s mediator!
“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.” Jere. 17:9
The Apostle Paul was no different; the greatest preacher to ever walk this earth other than Jesus Christ Himself had the same problem. Look at what he said:
"For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do" Romans 7:19
And he ultimately asked:
"O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" in Romans 7:24
The following is the answer to man’s greatest dilemma, death: And that answer is found in the Bible. He loved us so much that He died on the cross and paid the penalty that God required for SIN. Now He extends His offer of eternal life to each one of us in the forgiveness of sin. Jesus Christ is the only way to obtain forgiveness so that we can live eternally, right now, with the redeemed in heaven, freed from this body of sin.
“And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Rom. 8:23
You must accept His gift of forgiveness, it cannot be earned. How does one accept or receive this gift?
“…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Acts 16:31
Please click and read "GOD'S SIMPLE PLAN OF SALVATION" it was this tract that, Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, picked up one day off the street in downtown Tokyo and read that led to his becoming a Christian and later an American citizen spending the rest his life telling others about Jesus Christ and the “hatred of sin in the human heart” through evangelism. And do not turn away from this tract, read it again, until you accept God’s saving gift, Jesus Christ His Son! As revealed in the very Words of God and spoken by Jesus Christ Himself! Now if I may let me add some substance to what I've just said:
I was saved on May 15, 1960, at sixteen years of age, setting in the balcony of Ivy Memorial Baptist church in Newport News, VA. God had His hand on this little poor boy for some time calling and I was too blind spiritually to recognize it. Having turned eighteen He revealed His purpose for my life and I surrendered to preach. God used many circumstances and a dear friend’s mother, who at the time was dying of cancer, to show me His purpose for my life. Earlier, at sixteen years of age I found myself under great conviction for the rebellion, sin that was controlling my life and too the sudden death of a brother. I called upon God and ask Him to save me. That very moment, seated in the balcony of that church an awesome feeling of peace came over me. God had used His Word to awaken in me His Son and with His Holy Spirit He entered in saving another fallen soul opening up life's real meaning. My outlook on life began to change. There is no way I can explain what happened that morning, except in the light of Holy Scripture. God found me, I didn't find Him! At once, instead of questioning God, I took Him at His Word. Something people refuse to do today. Then and there, I made a vow to God, never to question Him again, and began in earnest to search and read His Word. The Bible became an open book to me. It came alive! That book changed my life. I continued to read, saturating my mind with His Word. I would read nothing else, with my thoughts and mind fixed on Him. Remembering what my mother once said, "If you want to know God you must look at Jesus Christ." I began to see people, my friends in a new light. It was as if someone else had moved in and taken over, and He had! Tragedy then struck our family and I couldn't understand why. My older brother had taken his life, why, I would ask myself, why? I would visit the cemetery alone, stand over his grave for hours crying, asking God why? I promised God, that if He would show me why, that I would spend the rest of my life in His service telling others why men die? I wanted to know how to prevent such tragedy. I wanted to know if death could be defeated, life for me would be meaningless if it just ended in death. Was there more to life than it ending in death? It sure is! Well He has answered my question in more ways than I could imagine. The answer is in His Word! (Rom. 5:12, Rom. 6:23, Heb. 9:27) The answer I took and ran with and still I’m running.
One of the first churches I was ask to preach in was Williamsburg Baptist Church in Williamsburg, Virginia. At the conclusion of services the pastor asks to speak to me privately, and he told me that he was the pastor that had held the funeral service for my deceased brother. “Two hours before your brother committed suicide, he came to me for help and I couldn't find time for him” he said. With tears in his eyes that pastor told me how sorry he was. Leaving that church that night, I promised God, that I would never commit such a terrible sin by turning any earnest inquirer away. Before God and conscience, I have not. Traveling all over the world, I have seen God help keep that promise, never turning anyone away. He has helped me start at least twelve Baptist churches across this country, with Bible believing people, full of real love and compassion for the souls of men helping keep that promise. Untold numbers have been saved in many states, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Texas, California, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and all across America and many foreign lands. In churches, prisons, street corners and homes. Thanks go to God! Jesus Christ kept His word, moved into a young boy’s life, "an ordinary speck of dirt", took control and carried on His ministry using a fallen man that He had rescued from a life of sin. Most preachers never see the power of God at work as He has allowed this poor Virginia boy to see. Truly,
“AN ORDINARY VIRGINIA BOY WHO FOUND AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE WITH GOD”
The further I've traveled and the closer I've been drawn to God, the more amazed I am that God would save a sinner like me. He's answered all my questions of life, met all my needs and still as sinful as I am He still loves me. "When I stumble He understands, He picks me up, wipes off my sin, stands me on my feet again, and still, He loves me, even as small as I am." Let me put it this way, as I once heard a blind brother sing:
"Acres of diamonds, Mountains of gold,
Rivers of silver, Jewels untold,
All of these together could never pay
for the peace and contentment
That Jesus has brought into my soul."
How peaceful it is to be able to pillow your head at night with a clear conscience. Do you have that peace? You can have that very same peace, right now! Why don't you trust Him to save you? To reject Him will cost you your never dying soul. To reject Christ is to lose all. Are you prepared to face God? He wants to save you! No one can be saved and not believe God's Word. It's impossible! Simply, believe what God says in His Word, the King James Bible and He will save you! Then surrender control of your life to Him daily, believing! I've learned in life from the Word of God that being saved did not immediately bring perfection, that's still to come. What it did show me is my imperfections, my sinfulness, and my need to surrender to Him daily. It's been a long journey, but a wonderful journey, as I've traveled down this road of life. I thank Him for allowing me to carry on in His ministry as He once ministered down here in person. Dark days are ahead!
Even though we live in dark days, perilous times are ahead. The falling away has swept through our churches, midst the great apostasy. We look anxiously for our Lord's return in the clouds, to ever be with Him! Thank God! By the way, are you seeking for real purpose in life? "It is God's great purpose that we are brought to the end of ourselves, where we no longer trust ourselves, butwe trust God!" Author, Ruth Paxson "Walking on the Highest Plane" Trust God! The person must be insane that trifles with his eternal destiny and God's purpose for his life. It is that trust that has brought such incredible experiences in my life: My experiences have been many through the years, and they all have been unexplainable, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures. Briefly, let me share with you a few of those experiences, as I've traveled down this road of life. Let me here thank God for two men in my life, my brothers in the faith; Chief Dan Liu, Honolulu Police Department, who was a Chinese American, a Baptist that had his people look after me while serving the Lord in the Hawaiian Islands. As I walked the streets of Honolulu and preached from street corners, his officers had been instructed to look out for me. This I did not know until after we finally met, having been made and honorary police officer and the chaplain of the Honolulu Police Department. The second was a missionary who had returned from China, David Cook, one of the many fine missionaries that I have had the privilege to cross paths with. You would have had to meet him to understand. He was a missionary of missionaries, who suffered the loss of his wife and two boys while on the field, all three dying of the same disease two years apart. Forced to leave them behind in China, China had just closed the doors to all American missionaries, he came home a broken man and became the spiritual giant that God used to inspire the lives of many young people and bring about revival there in the Islands. So many Christians never having tasted the thrill of walking with Him moment by moment and seeing lives miraculously changed. Surely, I saw Christ in him. Christ was alive in our hearts! There are so many more I could name, but one in particular should be mentioned, that alt to be sufficient, who I met and shared a pulpit with. Here is his incredible testimony that validates:
"CREATOR AS CREATIONS FRIEND”
Click and read: "THE STORY OF MITSUO FUCHIDA'S CONVERSION TO CHRIST" the Japanese pilot who lead the attack on Pearl Harbor and his "War against the hatred in the human heart." God still loves us even as small and sinful as we are! We are all but a “speck of dirt” from which we have come. There are twenty-eight minerals found in our blood streams and all twenty-eightare found in the dirt. Just a “speck of dirt” is all I am without the Lord.
"A speck of dirt is all I am
Nothing worthy of the Lamb
But in mercy and in grace
My precious Saviour took my place
What is man that God would love?
His virtuous soul much higher above
Human minds can’t comprehend.
Creator as creations friend"
I know the world is at enmity with God and hostile to anything that hast to do with Jesus Christ.'That is as He said it would be. There still remains a remnant of those who are willing to “Count the Cost”, “Pay the Price”, “Take up the Cross” to be believers and if they haven’t already they too will experience the walk with Christ in the heavenlies. I know, even though I haven’t seen Him with my eyes, as all believers will, He has been so real to me that all I've needed to do was reach out and touch Him. Will you reach out and touch Him with your faith? Will you reach out and touch Him with your faith?
AN ORDINARY VIRGINIA BOY
WHO FOUND AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE WITH GOD
"It's hard to believe that someone would die in the place of a good man, but Christ went the extra mile and died for the ungodly. Romans 5:6-10 And that is exactly the point of God's love. That sin and ungodliness were so repulsive to God. That He would rather die than let us keep living like that. That Hell was so horrible that He rather die than let us go there." Thank God for such a wonderful Saviour, Brother, Friend who is God and walks with fallen men. What a glorious tomorrow to come, when we shall see Him face to face.
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