In my family, we were raised Presbyterians, and my father was the elder in the Presbyterian church, and we didn't believe in anything.  We used to have to go on Sunday, and all I remember is that my mother used to be so proud when she could get all four of her boys to go at the same time.  There'd be Dad and her four sons, and she'd be so happy.  All four of her sons were in church.  As soon as I was old enough to not have to go anymore, I didn't go anymore.  I decided that I could worship God as much at home as I could at Presbyterian church, but in fact I never did.  I didn't believe anything either.  

And then one day when I was about 17 or 18 years or a little older than that, my brother's wife sued him for divorce, and he was just having a terrible, terrible time.  He lost 40 pounds.  He didn't know what to do.  He got saved.  He was out riding his motorcycle one day and cried, "Lord Jesus!" and got saved.  He used to come around and say, "Hallelujah!" and "Praise the Lord," and started reading the Bible and was really unpleasant to be around.  We used to go out in the car and drive around.  We used to drive 200 miles in an afternoon, and he'd talk to me about Jesus Christ.  He'd tell me the story about the time when Jesus was walking on the water and how Peter stepped out of the boat and took his eyes off the Lord and went into the water and began to sink, and he cried "Lord, save me!"  And the Lord would pull him out of the water, and his blue jeans were still dry, and his pocket watch was still ticking.  I remember the story Jim told me.  I was just so impressed that the Lord had done something, that the Lord was real.

One time he just told me that there's a heaven, and there's a hell, and because I'm such a sinful person, I ought to go to hell.  If I died without Jesus forgiving my sins, I was surely going to go to hell.  The Lord surely could forgive my sins because He died for me.  I was just right on the edge that night of asking the Lord to forgive my sins, but I decided I wasn't done sinning yet.  I was going to sin as I please, and then one day I'll accept the Lord before I die.  

I went to Vietnam that next year.  I remember being very convicted when I was in Vietnam.  What are you doing out there?  Killing people.  Well, uh, Lord, this is standard.  Everybody does this.  This is like a young warrior; this is part of being a man.  But I always had a problem in my heart.  Then the time came toward the end when I was getting ready to return to the States.  I really began to be bothered about what I was doing and about what the whole involvement in Vietnam was.  I remember I went to the chaplain, and I asked him, "Where does it say in the Bible that I'm supposed to kill people for my country?"  He said, "Romans 13. Have a beer; let's talk."  So we sat down and talked, and he gave me a little New Testament, and we drank a beer, and I forgot the whole thing.  

I began to read this little New Testament, and I couldn't understand so much what it said.  I began trying to pray the prayers out of it.  I'd pray the Lord's prayer out of the New Testament like that.  I got to the place where I was an absolute pacifist.  The Lord said, "If somebody hits you, you turn the other cheek."  Amen.  I mean I wasn't going to do anything.  If the communists were going to invade my backyard, I wasn't going to raise my hand.  And I was a platoon leader.  I wouldn't shoot; I wouldn't carry a gun, nothing.

I went back to the States shortly after that.  I was really looking for the Lord.  When I got home, all my friends were doing LSD and smoking marijuana, and I didn't want anything to do with this.  I remember, I was down in front of Ohio State University.  I was looking for the Lord, and a couple young men came up to me.  They were wearing white shirts.  I think they had ties on.  They handed me a gospel tract.  It said, "My God is not dead.  Sorry to hear about yours."  I thought, "Well, if that's Christianity, I didn't want anything to do with it."  I turned my back on them and went the other way.  

I began to use drugs and do this thing with everybody else, but still I used to have the sense inside that there's got to be something more in my life than what I have.  I remember, I used to lay awake at night when everybody else was in bed.  I'd cry, and I'd yell as loud as I could inside of my head, "Isn't there anybody in here but me?"  I was so alone.  I had a bunch of friends;  I had five people that were really my friends.  One fellow got in trouble, so I gave him $650 to pay off all his bills.  This was in 1968 or '69, and it was a lot of money then.  I just gave it to him, "You don't have to pay me back; you're my friend."  We would take care of one another.  We were really close friends. Still my heart was just so empty.

Then one of us got saved.  He really got saved; something happened to him.  We thought he'd flipped out.  We thought he was really peculiar.  We were going to have him committed because he was crazy.  He was talking about Jesus and all this kind of thing.  We had really a kind of problem with him, and one night he came over to our apartment.  He'd been over visiting some friends of ours, this guy and this girl.  He told them that they were living in sin, and that they were going to go to hell if they didn't repent and believe in Jesus, and they threw him out.  We'd been friends for 10 years, and they threw him out!  Then he came over to visit us.  My roommate who'd known him for 15-20 years just walked in his bedroom and closed the door and didn't want to talk to him.  I was just too nice to throw him out.  I sat down and offered him a drink, some liquor, and he wouldn't drink anything, and he wouldn't smoke anything.  All he wanted to do was talk, and he began to talk just funny things.  He talked about how God created men, and God created angels.  I thought it was a funny story, and what's he doing?  Somehow, he just went on and on talking really strange things.  He said, "You know, you need to pray."  He was sitting across from me, and I put my head down, and I closed my eyes, and I began to pray.   It was the first time I prayed in front of anybody in 10-15 years.

I began to pray, and I didn't know what to pray.  I couldn't see how I was any worse than anybody else.  I began to pray, and all of a sudden, I just felt as though I saw the Lord Jesus!  I'd never really seen Him before.  I always thought I was as good as the next person.  I was as good as anybody else.  That night I saw Jesus Christ!  This is the One that God looks at!  It doesn't matter how you compare with your neighbor.  This is God's standard!  When I saw who Jesus was, I just thought I was so dirty and so unclean, and I asked the Lord to forgive me of my sins.  I prayed and prayed.  I began to cry.  Then I was all done.  I didn't have anything else to pray about.  I didn't feel anything was wrong with me.  I didn't feel like I had sinned at all.

I looked up, and my friend was still praying, so I prayed some more, and nothing was happening.  As I was thinking of things to pray for, he said, "Ask the Lord to come into your heart."  I thought about that.  I just figured, "Well, I had been full of all kinds of things: All full of alcohol and all full of drugs, and I am open to be full of the Son of God."  I said, "Lord Jesus, come into my heart."  I didn't really expect anything to happen.  Nothing really happened.  I prayed the prayer, and I got up.  Nothing really happened.  I remember I went in and began making a cup of coffee.  While I was making a cup of coffee, I realized, "I believe in Jesus Christ!"  I had never believed before. I just wanted to dance! My heart felt so light, like when you go roller skating, and you get used to wearing roller skates, and when you take them off, how light your feet feel!  That's how I felt all over.  Like I had taken a pack off my back. I felt so good!  I realized that Jesus had come into my life.  Joy began to burst inside.  I began to laugh and cry. Praise the Lord!  When I asked Jesus to forgive my sins, He did.  When I asked Him to come into my heart, He really did.

It's been a number of years since then, and I haven't always been so very faithful.  But the Lord has always been the faithful one.  He came into my heart, and He's stayed with me all this time.  Praise the Lord Jesus!  He is real!

TM