[05]

V Indicates Scripture or other reference inserted at the end of this chapter.

 

Chapter 5        Who we are today ...
 and where the Lord brought us from.

Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
               1^st Corinthians 6:10,11

 

No one is “born a Christian” into this world. We were all born in sinV1. We all practiced sin – and that includes every one of us who had a part in producing this book. When the Apostle Paul says that “some of us” were once thieves, or drunkards, or extortionists, he means it; but he also means that “the rest of us” were something just as bad. Paul himself was an anti-Christian terrorist before he was born again into the Kingdom of GodV2. Some of the people who now serve in our ministry were once drunkards, drug users, rebels against society, and haters of God. Not a one of us was “holier than thou” before we were born againV3.

In fact, none of us are holier than you are today – if you are a born-again Christian. We are exactly the same in the eyes of God – because all of us were saved by the grace of the same God, through faith in the Son of the same GodV4. Jesus shed the same blood for you as He did for us. It cost Jesus exactly as much shame and pain to purchase our salvation as it cost Him to purchase yours ... and He paid that price because He loves you every bit as much as He loves us.

Later on in this book, we’re going to challenge you to take a close, hard, and honest look at yourself and your relationship with God. That is exactly what God demanded of us before He allowed us to write this book. This chapter will give you an idea of where the Lord had to bring us from ... before He could make us into what we are today. 

 

Harold M. Zimmerman

Coordinator, Home Fellowship Leaders International

I was born on April 27, 1927, in the Pennsylvania Dutch country, on our family farm. I was raised in the Mennonite tradition. We went to church regularly, and they did preach the Bible. But when the men got together after the service, they talked about the traditions of the church, or about business, but not about the Lord. Sometimes they’d even joke about the preacher’s sermons. They’d say, “Well, that was for the church, but not for us.” There was a mixture in the church then – people who were born again, and people who weren’t. It’s still that way.

We all have to make our own decision on whether we want to be born again. My father wasn’t born again until I was 16 years of age. I didn’t want that at the time, because I didn’t want to go all-out for the Lord; I was satisfied to just go to church and be religious. I wasn’t involved in personal immorality, but I think it was only because the group I was a part of didn’t go for that. Other church groups did go for it. But my personal morality didn’t make me any more saved than they were, because when you’re not born again you’re part of this world no matter how you live. There are a lot of people who live moral lives, but they’re not born again.

I went into the crop-spraying business when I was 18, still in the church, and still not born again. Anything I could get away with, I did. If I could get away without paying all my income tax, I did. Honesty wasn’t my highest goal – it was getting away with everything I could without getting caught, the same as everybody else out in the world. I had tremendous drive, and a lot of goals that I was determined to achieve. I guess I overdid it, because I had a nervous breakdown when I was 22. My world fell apart. Two and two didn’t make four any more, and I didn’t know what was wrong, so I cried out to the Lord, and He saved me.

From that point on my whole life changed. The Gospel goals became my goals: supporting foreign missions, going out in the streets to witness, going into prisons to teach about Jesus – that kind of thing. And instead of owning my business – or letting it own me – I became the steward of it. I looked at business as part of my ministry, as a way of supporting my Christian goals; and God blessed the business and made it grow. I stopped farming tobacco, and started inventing machines. One of those machines was a mixer that could make concrete in small batches.

After 10 years my old religious traditions didn’t satisfy me any more. I was active in the church, but I felt there was something missing. I was doing a lot of work, but not much was happening. One of the leaders of our church traveled all over the world setting up missions. One day he said to me, “You know, our church doesn’t have what it really takes for a successful missionary program.” I said, “What does it take?” He said, “I don’t know.” I said, “Now wait a minute. The Bible doesn’t say there’s no answer. What is the answer?” He said he didn’t know. And I made a resolution at that moment: first, I was going to find the answer; and second, I was going to be part of the answer.

I started looking at different churches, different teachings, searching, asking, and getting nowhere. I knew quite a bit about the Bible – intellectually – but at the time, I still saw the Bible as just part of my religious tradition. Finally I said, “Lord, You show me! What am I missing?” A short while later I got a magazine in the mail – I don’t know to this day who sent it to me – and there was an article in there about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Then the Lord revealed to me by the Spirit: “That’s what you’re missing. You don’t have enough power.” I said, “Lord, is there anything I have to be delivered from?” And He told me, “Depending on religious tradition – that is what’s keeping you from getting the release of My power in you.”

I had heard of the baptism in the Spirit before, and I knew it was the Lord speaking to me that day. But still I didn’t jump in overnight. I spent several months praying and studying what the Bible had to say about the baptism in the Spirit, and finally I became certain it’s what God always intended for all Christians to have. So I said, “Lord, this is the answer I was looking for. I want this experience.” And, in due time, the Lord gave me everything I had been looking for.

Over the years, I have learned that the Lord always gives us goals that He created us to achieve. The question we must answer is: what are we going to depend on to achieve those goals? On our own intellect? Or on the moving of the Holy Spirit? If all you have is intellect – even a highly trained intellect – all you can do is try to help other people be what you want them to be. But when you have the Holy Spirit, you see things as Jesus sees them. You see people as Jesus sees them. In other words, you get a vision from the Lord. The worst thing you can do at that point is to think it’s “your” vision. It is God who gives these visions to His people, and they are always to be used for His glory.

One example was the Jesus Festival that I was asked to co-ordinate back in the ‘70s. It was supposed to be a Christian answer to “Woodstock,” a massive gathering of teenagers that was based on “drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll.” A lot of Christians didn’t want anything to do with “those” people; but the Lord said to me, “Why not!” So we opened the Jesus Festival to anyone who wanted to come, and the first year we had 12,000 teens show up in a farmer’s field. Many of them came from the sub-culture; a lot were hippies, and some were into drugs. We brought in nationally-known speakers and music groups. We had Bible teachers. We had altar calls. And we baptized several hundred kids right in the farm-pond. They got turned on for the Lord, and it created an interesting situation. Traditional pastors came to me and said, “You got these kids all fired up; what do we do with them now?” I said, “You have a problem that you need to have. Let ‘em minister. Let ‘em teach. Let ‘em bring the Gospel into your church. Shake that tradition up!”

Another example was when the Lord first called me to Russia, in 1967. I went to see how a persecuted church operates, and what the people in those churches have to go through. But as it turned out, that call was the Lord’s way of establishing contacts for us in Russia, so we’d be ready to take advantage of an opportunity that would come up when the Iron Curtain came down: house fellowships!

I was already interested in the idea of Christian people meeting in their homes – just like they did in the first century – where they could worship Jesus and commune directly with Him. With house fellowships, there is no need for big budgets or religious structures. It’s the quickest and most “cost-effective” way to spread the Gospel, especially in places where the Gospel had not been preached openly for a long time. Lay people can start house fellowships. Poor people can start house fellowships. The only thing our ministry would need to do is explain the house fellowship concept to the Russians, give them some teaching materials, and get out of God’s way!

And we’ve seen the Lord work! Right now we’re counseling and encouraging more than 685 house fellowships in Russia, plus more than 125 others in India. These fellowships bring the church to the people; and that’s where the church belongs anyway, I think. Jesus says in Matthew 18:20, “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” And that, I believe, is the church.

I’ve also seen the Lord work marvelously, over the years, in my own family. I was twenty years old when I was married. My wife Verna was saved before I was, but both of us were deeply involved in religious tradition. After I was born again, we were set free to do as the Apostle Paul tells all Christians to do in Ephesians 6:4: raise up our five children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Many of them became active in the Lord’s work; and many of our 13 grandchildren are also turned on for the Lord. I believe this is part of the fruit of the Christian heritage that has come from our forefathers, because many of them were born-again Christians. But, as oft-times happens, our family fell into religious traditions, and I had to get out of that and get into a fresh, born-again experience for myself. Now I praise the Lord for saving me half a century ago, and for giving me the opportunity to pass on to my family my hunger to know, love, and worship God.

 

Sherry Meyer      

Office Manager

I was born in California. My father died when I was very young, and my mother moved back to Pennsylvania to live with her parents while she was raising her four children. I remember being sent to Sunday School with my brothers and sister. My grandmother attended church every Sunday. My mother only attended on “special” occasions, and I never remember seeing my grandfather in church.

As a child, I attended Vacation Bible School. Back then, it was held at someone’s house in the neighborhood. It was during a Vacation Bible School meeting, at the age of 8, that I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. At the age of 12, I decided I’d had enough of church and the people in it. I still believed in God, but what I saw happening and being taught in church didn’t seem to fit with what I read in the Bible.

In the ensuing years I had my share of problems – an abortion, a failed marriage, and many emotional problems. However, God blessed me with a beautiful daughter in the midst of all that. As I struggled through the emotional problems, God brought some wonderful people into my life. They showed me what it meant to have a relationship with God. I started attending church again – but changed churches several times until God showed me where He wanted me to be. That was where I found the family I had so desperately wanted and needed. That was where I learned the meaning of “family” – God’s family. And that is where I stayed. My wounds from the past are continuing to heal, and I find myself wanting to help others find the PEACE and JOY and HOPE that I have found in the Lord.

Life is good now. Where once I wanted to die to escape the pain in my heart, and where once I had no hope of anything ever changing, now I know that I can make it through anything in life because I have Jesus in my heart. Jesus is my HOPE. I still have problems, but I know He will be there to comfort me in them and guide me through them. I know that Jesus and I have a real relationship, and all I have to do is keep listening to His voice.

 

Alexey Topilov

Russian Coordinator

I was born in Ukraine, in 1975, into an average Soviet family. My father was a miner and my mother worked in a construction department. They were both members of the communist party, although I can’t say they were communists indeed. Nevertheless, I never heard about God until I went to school. That is where a girl once asked me if I believed in God. The question was so strange to me that I mocked her. That was how I had been brought up – to believe there is no God and Christianity is a means to fool people.

But then the year 1986 came, and Soviet President Gorbachev started perestroika, the Russian term for “openness.” This resulted in opening churches, and open talks about God in the streets and in the newspapers. Since Ukraine is very close to Poland and other European countries, we had a lot of different churches being opened: Russian Orthodox, Ukranian Orthodox, Old Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, etc. Most of them had priests with bad morals, strange rituals that I never understood, and a lot of gossips in the congregation. This environment influenced my attitude toward religion in a VERY negative way! So at the age of 16, when I was graduating from school, I was an atheist by conscious choice.

In 1992 I went to Kostroma, in Russia, to enter the Teachers Training University. It was a very difficult decision for me since Kostroma was an unknown city for me, although my family visited it from time to time because my grandparents lived there. I knew absolutely nobody in that city, which was very difficult for a sociable person like me. I felt very lonely while taking the entrance exams at the University. But then I found out there was a church nearby with a few Americans in it. I thought I could practice my English there a little bit. So I started to come to church meetings, met some young people, and we became friends. Thanks to what I saw in their lives, I got saved.

I saw tremendous changes in their lives, and I realized that a man can’t change himself in such a dramatic way so quickly! I started to listen more attentively to the preacher, and I started to realize that Christianity gives me a lot more answers to the Universal questions than atheism does. So I started to pray in my heart for God to save me. And I remember as if it were yesterday, that day in October of 1992. I was walking home from the University when all of a sudden I felt like God spoke to me and said, “Look at yourself. You are a totally different person now!” And at that moment I was able to look inside of myself and see that God had changed my heart!

That is how I started my walk with the Lord. Jesus blessed me with a desire to be changed into His image. He gave me a purpose in this life, a lot of new friends, and a ministry of service to Him. I have been leading praise and worship in the church for eight years now, and I have been working with the youth pastor for six of those years. Jesus also set me on fire for house churches, and now I am very blessed with many opportunities to help various house churches in the former Soviet Union. One of the ways I help them is to distribute training materials sent by the Home Fellowship Leaders ministry in America.

During the ten years that I have been walking with the Lord, I never regretted my choice to follow Him, because God kept blessing me more and more, day by day. He gave me a beautiful wife and two children. He helped me graduate from the University. He provided for my daily bread, both Spiritual and physical. And I know that He has prepared something even more beautiful for my life!

I know that Jesus is alive, because He is alive in my life! My prayer is that more people will come to the knowledge of Jesus’s redeeming work on the Cross for us! If you read this testimony, I pray that God shows His reality to you right now, just as He did to me!

 

Norman Saville

Scribe

I was born on October 24, 1938, in Pittsburgh. I was born feet-first, after three days of labor, with the umbilical cord wrapped three times around my neck. By the time I was born, my parents both realized they had gotten themselves into a marriage they didn’t really want. But they stayed together because of me. 

I was never the same as other kids. When I began to crawl, I crawled backwards. When I started to walk – at 14 months – I walked backwards. When I was still a toddler, my parents had a major marital crisis, and I had to go stay with one of my aunts for three weeks. She was terrified that something might happen to me, so she kept me in a crib all that time. When I got back home, I had to learn how to walk all over again.

My parents were Jewish, but not “observant.” We were poor, and lived almost on top of a steel mill. It was during World War II, and the blast furnaces ran every hour of every day. People “got used to” the sulphur fumes. The smog was so thick, you had to drive with your headlights on at any time of the night or day. The best thing I can remember about those days were the times my mother would pack a lunch, and she and Dad and I would walk about a mile to Schenley Park and eat our picnic on the grass under the trees. Then they’d talk, while I went over to play in a big old concrete planter that had some kind of face sculpted onto the front of it.

One day, when I was about six, I ran away to the park all by myself. I climbed up into the bowl of the planter and pretended I had escaped from Pittsburgh. Maybe I fell asleep there. I saw the trunk of a nearby tree open up like it was on hinges. The trunk was hollow. A little man came up out of the tree and asked if I wanted to go back down with him. I went. There was a magical world down there, full of little men doing all kinds of things I’d never heard of before. Everything was bright red – an exciting contrast to the gray life up above. Somehow I knew the place under the tree was hell and the little men were demons ... but I also felt I belonged there, with them.

I made a pact with the little man who had invited me down into the tree. I forget what I promised him, but I do know what he promised me: an “escape” from all the boredom I had to go through up above. He kept his word. He taught me to live in a fantasy world, where I’d be safe from the demands of real life and the smothering weight of personal relationships.

My experiences in the crib and the tree worked together against me. I grew up physically weak from having my muscles cramped in the crib for so long, and I was extremely hostile toward anyone who tried to force me out of fantasy and into the real world. My hostility got me into a lot of arguments that I was too puny to fight my way out of. On top of all that, I was against anyone who wanted to help me. I despised school, and rejected everything they tried to teach me. I had no respect for companies that wouldn’t hire me, and even less respect for those that did. I  wound up bumming my way out to California seven times, as an “adventure.”

One night I was huddled around a barrel-fire in a California railroad yard with a bunch of other tramps, telling them how much I knew about life. A man who had lived through the Depression and World War II got fed up, grabbed a two-by-four out of the fire, and swung it at my skull. I felt the flames come right up to my ear. Then the blazing club flew away over my head, and the man who had tried to kill me ran away. It never occurred to me that an angel of the Lord may have intervened to save my life. I figured it just worked out that way because I was “cool.”

In any other country, a man with my attitudes would have been considered “expendable.” But here in America, we have an advertising industry that welcomes “creative thinkers.” My experiences on the road (plus some creative lies) qualified me for an ad-writing job in Pittsburgh, and then a job in a Philadelphia ad agency where I was ridiculously overpaid. All of this helped to reinforced my opinion that I was “so cool.” One day I was ambling down Market Street toward the Philadelphia City Hall, lost in my dreams, about to cross 15^th Street, when a huge Black man grabbed me from behind ... and pulled me out of the way of a trash truck that had run the red light and was inches away from mashing me into the asphalt. He saved my life ... and then disappeared. Another angel? Maybe. Enough to shake me out of my fantasy world? No. Not for a minute!

In August of 1978, through a series of small miracles, the Lord brought me to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He took me there against my will, and He kept me there against my will. Then He brought a number of Christians into my life, who told me about Jesus. How I hated them! Some I  mocked, others I cursed, depending on which I thought would hurt them most. They kept telling me Jesus loved me. I started writing a book about how stupid they all were. Around 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 28, 1982, I was searching my mind for the perfect word to describe the idiocy of any “X-tian” who would obey a law just because it was the law. Nothing came to me. To clear my mind, I got up from my typewriter and looked out the window.

It was a second-floor window, and looked right out into the branches of a horsechestnut tree. It was a tree that only bloomed once every seven years, and 1982 was the year. For weeks I’d been watching that tree come into leaf, and then into bud, and then into blossom. The leaves were a rich green, and always came in clusters of seven The blossoms were cone-shaped, up to a foot long, and made up of bright red petals that danced over the bright leafy background. Taking all this in, I started talking to myself:

“Every leaf on that tree is unique – individual – just like a snowflake. The leaves come in clusters of seven; and every cluster has its own shape, size, and personality. There are millions of horsechestnut trees in the world; and every one is an individual ... just like people. And there are thousands of different kinds of trees, each one perfectly suited to the soil and climate it grows in. And all that evolved from one little seed that washed up out of the ocean, billions of years ago.”

I stopped for a moment. Then said to myself, “That doesn’t make sense.”

Then I said to myself, “That tree did not ‘evolve.’”

Then I said, “That means I did not evolve.”

Then I said, “That means there is a God. 

And then I said, “That means I’m in trouble.

That was enough to get me down on my knees and pray: “Jesus.... Jesus? Did I just say ‘Jesus?’ What am I doing, praying to Someone I made fun of all my life? But anyway – Jesus – if You’re real, please show it to me.”

And that is how I came to be a Christian. Thirty-eight years before that day, a demon had seduced me into a living death through a tree. And that was the way God called me back to life ... through a work of His hands, a tree. My Creator spoke to me in a way that would touch me, even if it wouldn’t make the slightest impact on anyone else in the world. His touch was as gentle, and as individual, as a snow-flake. And then, when God had me on my knees, Jesus showed me – in a way that touched me on the Person-to-person level – Jesus personally showed me that He is my Jewish Messiah. 

Whether you’re trapped in tradition ... trapped in a communist country ... trapped in everyday problems ... or trapped in a pact with the devil ... it makes no difference to God. God loves you, and He wants you to live for Him. As Jesus Himself says in John 3:16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

  

V1  Romans 5:12 

Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for [because of] that [sin of Adam] all have sinned.

 

V2  Acts 22:4,5

And I (Paul) persecuted this way (Christianity) unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.

 

V3  Isaiah 65:2-5