Richard's Testimony, Originally posted by TheStoryTeller Options

[Disciple]

Great Day Brothers and Sisters In Christ……….


I need to bring a message to you all today that I believe that Holly Spirit has given to me to pass on to all my Brothers and Sisters…

If you’ll bear with me because this is a little long but I think it’s worth your attention.

Just this morning as I woke from a restful sleep the Holly Spirit gave me this message….

GOD needs our help…….

How, you ask? Before answering that I need to give you some history on myself.

My name is Richard Causey and I live in New Jersey. Growing up I never went to Church. My parents never even mentioned it. Not because they didn’t believe but because that’s the way they were brought up.

I’ve wasted half of my life waiting for the true understanding of my call to Christ. I was never a Christian, I didn’t even know what a Christian was. That is until my wife, now of 27 years came into my life. It was Bobbie, my wife, that Gently, pulled me into the body of Christ. First through asking me if I wanted to play softball for her Church.

That’s how it started. First the softball and then the Church rules. If you wanted to play for Blue Anchor Church you had to attend Church twice a month. It was to hard to keep track of which two weeks so I started going every Sunday. After attending this Church for about 2 years one Sunday as I was sitting in the pew thinking to myself. Life was good to me. I had a wife that I know GOD sent to me and two beautiful girls. I had a good job and was able to provide for my family so that we could live in comfort. What else could I ask for. I had it ALL.

Then our preacher, Don Ott, who was into preaching salvation said, “Suppose you have a good job, a loving family, small children, and a wife who is saved. What if you were involved in a car accident and because of your injuries you were going to die, here’s the catch, and your whole family was with you and you knew everyone else was dead. What if you weren’t saved? Would you go to Heaven? Would you be there with them to live forever?” Well he caught my attention.

Then what he said next, “NO you will not go to Heaven and you’ll never see you family again. You’ll never know their love or the love of GOD ever again. You will however live forever in pain and agony and then you’ll wish you had listened to me today. But it will be too late. No matter what you say, no matter what you do you’ll be there for eternity.”

With the Left Behind books out, which I’ve read all 9, how could one not BELIEVE?

Whoa, was I wrong. How could I be so wrong and not know? What was I thinking? Could my giving, my good works, and my helping feed the hungry all count for nothing?

Then Don said,” It say in the Bible: (Mark 16:16 NIV) Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. “ Then he quoted, “John 3:3-7 3 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." 4 "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" 5 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' “ Then Don said “Let us pray.” and we all know to bow our heads and close our eyes. “With all heads bowed and eyes closed, if there is anyone who wants to except Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior raise your hand.

I didn’t have to think, I didn’t have to wait, I raised my hand.

Don said, “I see you, GOD Bless You.” After Church Don and I got together and talked for hours. I WAS SAVED!!! PTL…….

This brings me to the Message.

It comes from John 12:42-43 42 Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.

I read this story…..

The Lonely Ember
--------------------------
A member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services regularly, stopped going.

After a few weeks, the pastor decided to visit him. It was a chilly evening. The pastor found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire.

Guessing the reason for his pastor's visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a big chair near the fireplace and waited. The pastor made himself comfortable but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the play of the flames around the burning logs.

After some minutes, the pastor took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone. Then he sat back in his chair, still silent. The host watched all this in quiet fascination.

As the one lone ember's flame diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it was cold and "dead as a doornail."

Not a word had been spoken since the initial greeting.

Just before the pastor was ready to leave, he picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.

As the pastor reached the door to leave, his host said, "Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday."

Author Unknown

A Great story….

Christians…….. We need to be more like the flame in the fireplace. I see all the people who are not saved are like the ember. A lot of them believe but they really don’t want to give themselves over to GOD. That’s where we come into play. We have to bring them closer to the flame of Christ. We need to invite and tell everyone about our Churches. We need to get everyone INVOLVED. People need to see that we are everyday people just like them, except we have JESUS in our hearts and minds. We have to let them know it’s OK to cry, OK to have their emotions out in the open. It’s a part of us and part of turning our all over to GOD. It’s time to stand up for what you believe in and preach it.

In His Name and Amazing Grace
Richard Causey

[Daywalker]

I have a question for you and a reason for asking. First, the question. According to what you say here you were never a christian and when you went to church the minister got your attention by mentioning the concept of heaven and hell. With no disrespect intended, I must tell you, I've heard this many times. It is always the same, that a minister or someone basicly tells you that if you don't accept Jesus you will burn forever in hell. Every time, the person in question decides they don't want to burn in hell so they accept Jesus.

Before I finish this, allow me to digress slightly and say I don't believe in hell. According to the bible, in the end, all of the incorigable wicked who are unrepentant after two resurrections will be burned up once and for all in a fire which is stated to destroy death, evil and the old heavens and earth which burns out when all it has pruposed to destroy has been destroyed. I don't believe a loving God would torment ANYONE in an ETERNAL fire in which they would endure unimaginable agony for all eternity. I cannot believe any human would be that evil, except possibly Satan himself. I have endured third degree burns and have a scarred up arm, and that made me think.

This said, my question to you is if there is anything inside you down deep that tells you that you should be a follower of God, that he is truly there and truly loves you. Something other than a minister with his hell fire comment (which is highly affective on alot of people, I might add).

The reason I ask is because I have personally witnessed the baptisms of a few people, three of them close to me, and while they claimed to have the holy spirit, one of them was my abusive mother who ended up with two of us near suicide, one an alcaholic and one an atheist after her tirades, all the while claiming to be filled witht he holy spirit and going to church regular among all of the other lists of duties we were supposed to fulfill to avoid the lake of fire. Essentially, witht hese people they were christian in costume, but absolutely nothing else changed.

For the record, I respect your views and if you are sincere in your feelings I commend you and encourage you if you are one of the ones who tries to be a TRUE christian. I have family members who have been baptized, accepted Jesus and I can't see anything but more watching of televangelists. This leads me to wonder what their true motivation is, a fear of hell fire or something deeper, more maningful.

Most people dodge this question, when I ask it, which makes me wonder why.

Best regards.

Gene

[Phoenix]

Daywalker, I hate to answer a question with a question, but, I'm going to do it anyway

I have a question for you and a reason for asking. First, the question. According to what you say here you were never a christian and when you went to church the minister got your attention by mentioning the concept of heaven and hell. With no disrespect intended, I must tell you, I've heard this many times. It is always the same, that a minister or someone basicly tells you that if you don't accept Jesus you will burn forever in hell. Every time, the person in question decides they don't want to burn in hell so they accept Jesus.

This said, my question to you is if there is anything inside you down deep that tells you that you should be a follower of God, that he is truly there and truly loves you. Something other than a minister with his hell fire comment (which is highly affective on alot of people, I might add).

Maybe I just don't get out enough but I've never seen this question posed by a minister.

Anyway, I am curious, you seem to let someone else's religious experience define your own. You bring up a lot of examples of others, who seem, less than followers of God, and then hold their hypocrisy up as a reason to not believe in God yourself.

Why?

The Bible is very clear 1 John 2:19

“They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us;

That there are a lot of people like that and especially within the community of Church.

[Daywalker]

I never said I was a minister. I am not, nor ever will be. I thought about it once, as I thought about being a cop, and happily I became neither. As far as my unbelief goes, I was a very hardcore believer at one time, but things happened which simply made me question my beliefs. I said in my intorduction that I did not know what to believe anymore. I have seen people pofess to have the holy spirit and prove otherwise. I see people profess to know the bible yet believe things that are not in any way biblical, and I can point out reasons why to them. The wife is one of those people.

My question in this post was and is very simple. I have heard all sorts of people come forward who decideed to accept Jesus because someone told them they would burn in hell fire if they did not. For one thing this seems a bit odd to me that it would be the age old threat of hell fire that would make them accept Jesus, not because they had a more personal reason, but if one reads the book of Revelation they will find that two resurrections are spoken of, and that hell fire is an old invention of a larger body of church people who used this concept for what it is good for: to scare people. It strikes me as odd als that, as I've pointed out in other posts, that most professing Christians believe in hell fire, yet the body decomposes in the grave and spirit cannot burn, along with the fact that sending people to heaven or hell at death would negate the need for what is commonly referred to as "judgement day" when they have affectively already been judged.

My question was and still is, to find out if there is something deeper in the person's soul which makes them a a believer in God other than a minister warning them of hell fire. When I see people wear the Christian name and claim to have the holy spirit, as I have personally seen, yet their actions and mentalities prove otherwise, I look for a bit more evidence. A great example is Peter Poppoff, who is a major fraud, yet he has led multiple ministries, duped many people and still has a following, yet this man should be terrified of God's wrath for what he has done.

My wife has had four visions and heard a voice speaking to her on three occasions and every time it was proved false. This makes me ask questions. She has promised me that she will stop betraying me as a wife again and again, yet we have been brought to the point of breaking up recently as you could tell when I poured my soul out, which I possibly should not have done. People believe what they want to believe, often without much for evidence. I studied the reasons Wiccans pactice, and found that they also use their whims to invent gods.

There are many people who wonder these same things. Possibly one day we will get our answers. Who knows.

[ScarletKY]

I'd like to offer a verse outside of Revelations that speaks of a torturous afterlife for unbelievers. It's the parable of "The Rich Man and Lazarus the Beggar" found in Luke 16. It's a parable told by Jesus.

¹⁹"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. ²⁰At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores ²¹and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. ²²"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'

²⁵"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. ²⁶And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'

²⁷"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, ²⁸for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'

²⁹"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

³⁰" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

³¹"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

My husband and I were discussing this topic just yesterday morning. Not the existence of hell, but whether or not it is okay to come to your faith out of fear of the consequences. We are divided on the topic.

He says, "Well, what about faith? If you only believe because you're afraid of what will happen, can you truly be saved?"
My answer to him was, "Do you believe that I have faith? That I am truly saved?"
Him: Of course.
Me: Then the answer to your question is yes; you can come in fear of the consequences and THEN develop faith.

You see, I went to church off and on as a child but I never got the message. I never understood that I needed to be saved from my sins. Then one day, I heard the question that many ministers like to use. It was the first time that I had ever pondered the thought of it.

Here is what I heard that day... if you walked out of this building today and were hit by a bus and died, do you know for certain what would happen to your soul? Would you go to heaven? Would you go to hell? If you say you would go to heaven because you were a good person, let me ask you this... have you ever broken one of the ten commandments? Of course the answer is yes. No one has lived a sinless life (save Christ Himself). Therefore, asking for forgiveness through Christ's gift of salvation is the only way to save yourself from damnation.

Well... this terrified me. Absolutely terrified me. I knew then that I had to do something.

The faith, the love, the trust, and the relationship with Christ developed after this. So, in my experience, you CAN come to faith and a relationship through fear of consequences. The major thing to keep in mind, though, is that it cannot stop there. The other things (faith, trust, love, and the relationship) must also present themselves. But, yes, I really do believe that you can begin that journey through fear.

[MissGinny]

In the end it doesnt matter, destruction is destruction. At least those who have their hope of salvation don't worry about it.

[Daywalker]

Thanks for the replies. Hi Ginny, I remember you.

I guess it really isn't important. I went through the process because a guy preaching on the subject of prophesy told us that we would have to make a decision who o follow and so I felt that by going through baptism I was rejecting all others. I also wanted alot of help with personal problems. The wife didn't want me to be destroyed. I think my mom felt differently.