Testimony of a young man

I was reading some old posts on the blog of my closest friend and found this testimony which touches me now as deeply as it did when I first read it over three years ago. As I am empty of anything of my own to post here, I'd like to share this with readers of my blog who may not have been with us then, in the hope that they will be encouraged by it as much as I am.

God’s inerrant, truthful Word is always relevant. If it isn’t, then it cannot be the eternal Word that will endure even though heaven and earth pass away. And therefore, we would all be fools for believing and living in it accordingly. Let God be true and every man a liar.

My Father in heaven has placed in me a hunger and love for His Word. It is not of me, but of Him, and I give Him the glory. How can I not share it, then, with all those around me? Does that mean I go about with it erupting from me at every moment and passing day? No, but I do desire that more and more—to be able to speak powerfully and passionately at anytime I’m asked about the hope I have.

Now, back to ‘relevance’.
I do not see the words ‘relevant’ or ‘relevance’ in any passage of scripture. But what I do see is…

Enoch walking faithfully beside God after the birth of his son Methuselah and then, after living 365 years, being taken away by God.

What I see is Noah building an Ark in the middle of the desert while scoffers look on, mocking him and his preaching, but yet who is saved from judgment in the end, because he obeyed everything God commanded him.

I see Abraham being told by God to sacrifice the very son that is to bring forth the sons of Abraham.

I see Moses and Aaron, two ordinary men, confronting the Ruler of Egypt 10 times, and finally bringing about the exodus of the Jews.

I see Joshua obeying the command of Yahweh by marching around the city of Jericho a total of 13 times in 7 days and, by that obedience, bringing down the city wall.

I see Samson, who was rebuked by his parents for going to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife, yet it was from Yahweh that this came about, because Yahweh sought an occasion to confront the Philistines who ruled over Israel.

I see a child named David shaming all the soldiers of Israel by smiting a Philistine giant.

I see Elijah the Tishbite, last prophet of Israel, confronting 450 prophets of Baal because his God was the true God of Israel. I see Elijah also being taken up into a whirlwind by a chariot of fire.

I see Josiah, one of Judah’s most favored kings, coming to the throne at the age of 8, and in 31 years of reigning, extensively reforming Judah.

I see Daniel sealing up vision and prophecy because it dealt with the times of the end.

I see Ezekiel, unashamedly lying on both of his sides, bound with ropes from Yahweh Himself, for a total of 430 days, bearing the sin of Israel and Judah as a sign to them.

I see John the Baptist, clothed in animal’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey, as he preached the one, simple message of repentance to Israel.

I see the Apostle Paul being bound with his own belt by the prophet Agabus, who said through the Spirit, ‘In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles’, and yet Paul was not persuaded by the brethren to remain in Cæsarea, though they pleaded, but he went courageously on, knowing what he had to face.

I see John the Revelator imprisoned on the isle of Patmos because of the testimony of Jesus that he maintained, yet from this imprisonment, he was given a vision and prophecy that was not to be sealed, because the time was near and is even nearer now.

In that prophecy I see also the two future witnesses who are given power to prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth, and who devour their enemies with fire from their mouths.

And most importantly, I see the God of Heaven sending His willing Son, the King of Kings, down to a broken, helpless earth to be born in a manger, living a servant’s life and dying a thief’s death on a cross with no one, absolutely no one, knowing that during that execution on the tree He was being judged guilty for all mankind’s sin by His Father, and so by paying the debt, reconciling the created world to the Father.

I see Him descending to She‘ol and preaching to the captives, and taking all the above-mentioned, and more, up to heaven from paradise, opening the way by pouring out His blood fully on the mercy seat.

And the greatest thing I see is after three days this same ‘one like a son of man’, rising from the rich man’s tomb, with death conquered and Hades bound, glorified in a body that is an exemplar of the bodies that we ourselves will put on at the last trumpet.

Now let me ask you a ridiculous question. Is any of this relevant?

Okay, whatever your response was, this is what I feel when I hear of the church saying we want to be ‘relevant’ in our day.

We are relevant!
We have the only saving message that has any relevance to this arid, loathsome world!

As you can see, this gets my Cherokee/Irish blood boiling, but it is a chance for my brothers and sisters at Village Baptist to hone their patience with me and to show the love and forgiveness of Christ.

Some will say, undoubtedly, that my brow is headstrong, that I do not understand the word relevant and that I need to learn how to contextualize the gospel so that it synchronizes with culture.

Someone else will say that I’m just another KJV bible-thumping Fundamentalist. Well, I used to don a ‘reverse mullet’, trench-coat and ripped jeans (before the style came back) and listened devotedly to NIN (the industrial band, Nine Inch Nails, for you that are not culturally relevant).

My translation of choice is NIV, and my bible itself has been blanketed in layers of duct tape because it keeps wanting to fall apart on me. Perhaps that bible reflects the state of the soul of its owner, before the binding hands of Jesus descended and took hold of his heart, piercing it with the same nails that bled His hands.

What am I getting at?
I’ve been changed, my friends. My conscience will not let me go back to that world that I was once imprisoned in, a world where the only escape I saw was the great escape of ending my life, attempting to erase the maze of confusion, the lies of the world and Satan, and the sinful path I led as the Prodigal of Prodigals, with the whore Jezebel running with me bare, hand-in-hand, to our destruction.

That was the culture I was in. It dogs my steps to this day, that old shade Brock does, but the new created being, ******* (I don’t know his name yet, not till I see the Prince of Peace face to face and He writes it on a white stone, given only to me) is restored to new, day by day.

Another person’s past always looks better than the one that is deemed yours.

This is getting long and I knew it would, so I’m breaking it up in parts. But I want to end with this:

We, all of us who have been born of the Blood, are of a different world now.
We are, and have, the first-fruits of the Spirit and the Kingdom, a down payment, so to speak.
We are some type of metamorphosis, yes, until we take up that imperishable body, but we have been called out of this ‘world’ to be born into the Kingdom of Spirit and Truth.
Let us worship there.
Let us live there.
Let us fellowship there.

Let us take the Salt of that Kingdom and dash it on the dry tongues of men so that they will come thirsting for more.
Let us take the Light of that Kingdom, and as we hug it, yes, let us flash it, even hold it forth as a beacon where our steps sound the Good News and send up dust of this world where darkness resides…