Jesus and the Amish

[Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] knowing the strictness of of amish church what was the circumstance that led to you guys leaving that church there was a fellow that i worked with in the logging in the lumber industry that we kind of got to sharing um our life stories and first of all he was working with my older brother in the salmon business and for about 10 years going on timber tours that i didn't know about until one day he my brother came to me and you know i i read a lot of fishing and hunting stories and and he knew i was a bookworm and and so on and he one day him and i were walking together and he said i think i have a book that you'd be interested in and i got real curious as what for book so he said he was really slow in answering his head an english bible i'm like english bible what what's the matter with my brother what's going on with him because in our community we were raised on the german bible and uh we do have the english bible the 1611 translation than the old king james but we were discouraged in studying it we could look to that to understand a word in the german but anyways um it was a the church the amish church was kind of going through a struggle as far as farming how you farm and so on and there was a lot of issues rising through that uh as as allying more more like milking machines and stuff like that because the amish move by hand okay and the church was going through struggling weather loud habit and they came some people went ahead and put them in and others were fighting to keep that from happening and and in that process there was um different people from the church that had to uh get rid of the machine because they wouldn't want to head without the ministries for the minister's permission or the church so they had kind of got him to get rid of all the milking machines and and kind of do confession and apologize that they did this without approval from the bishop and leaders so in that process i got real upset with the church that i was living grew up in and i was upset it seemed like the excuse me it seemed like the ministers were always getting their their way or the people that are as members that are always pulling back on how we how we progress in being able to make a living and anyway they got everybody kind of do a confession that went ahead and got these these this equipment and and i was very upset with the ministry i was very upset in the position i was in and i was just in a very uh restless mode and while the same time my boss which my older brother rufus uh was in kind in a partnership in some way with samuel in the logging business and here the mennonite guy was ministering to my brother he was uh he was the forester and he was ministering to him for about 10 years and i didn't know it until you know my brother started talking about in this english bible and i'm like this is not allowable in the amish community so i got very uh kind of my wheels started turning in my own mind and and one day uh he invited him up the house up to his house to babysit their children and he was gonna leave for the day and my wife and i arrived to his house and and i just i never asked my brother can i have that bible i'd like to read that bible so he reached out and got it down it was an niv with footnotes so i started reading through the old testament and i was i was just shocked how easy it is to read the bible in english in a language that we i understood more than it did the german because we didn't have a lot of teaching in the german but we did go to school to do your the math and english and all that and and learned how to speak english but uh to have a bible the first time in my hands that i could read and understand i was just thrilled and and excited but i knew at the same time this is disapproved in my church that i grew up so how do i deal with this so uh just just keep it to myself and my brother and not talk to anybody else nobody else about it so uh the the time went on i i really started reading i remember i was pretty much the whole day i was reading that bible and i was just totally shocked how easy it is to read it and understand and i'd go read the bottom the footnotes that just gives you more of an insight understanding what it's talking about so that evening when he came home i said i want to have a bible as soon as i can soon about a week later he'll arrive his forester in our office and hand me my first english bible in the king james nelson study bible and at the bottom was written stephen and susie romans 12 1-2 that was very special so i took it home and i stuck my nose in it and i just started reading it and and uh we the the sawmill moved to another new location and it happened to be that it's right where he wasn't working so in the mornings he'd come out in front and ask me well what are you reading and different times i was embarrassed because i just hadn't been reading lately but uh i i'd go home to and now tonight i'm going to really read and i'm going to have a question for him in the morning and uh so fast forward uh it kind of takes too long but anyway as time went on one morning i met him at the well no sorry one weekend we had some friends from lancaster coming to the cabin right beside our house and they were talking about when they were saved and they were talking the other guy was talking about when he was saying the other guy is he's talking about his mom when she was saved and yet his father and his mother had a divorce weren't living together anymore and and they were talking about how they're saved in the enamish community you're not allowed to know there's no way that you can know that you get to heaven okay they say there's no way that you can know we only hope we get to heaven okay so i saw okay i have a question when i get to work next morning to ask my the the forester um so i came the next morning and of course you know with all the other rest of the amish in the in the break room i don't dare ask any questions in front of them so i waited until everybody went out to work and i was kind of slow and leaving and since this forester were still in the office i said hey i got a question as he was about ready to get ready to leave himself i said we were to have a discussion saturday night at this cabin right beside us and so so well martin was saying that when he was saying that lloyd was saying he was when when he was saved and when his mom was saved i said can you really know that that you can get to heaven for sure and he just started going down the list of all the promises of god in the new testament and i was so shocked to hear someone spit out truth from the bible without even holding a bible or reading out of the bible within his hand i didn't i was so shocked i can't even remember to this day even what he said but he said a lot of truth out of the bible and and and when he was done i said okay tell me is it okay to have have a a telephone or they're okay to have a phone because in the amish community it's all always our you can't have this you can't have that you're not allowed to have that you can't allow that so my mind was just wrapped in this amish setting of do's and don'ts and things what you can have and what you can't have so my mind wasn't really tuned in towards the bob but it was in some way but yet i was still concerned i wish i could have the subtle ones whether it's right to have a phone or whether it's right to have a television or whatever and he just looked at me and said uh i don't i don't know i jumped in this pickup and left and i'm like what do i do now but anyway i was it did but the the story that he shared with me from the bible the the promises i was so shocked what he knew that i i've even i couldn't remember barely what he said but there was enough curiosity rising up in my mind that whatever does this guy know that i should know and just by being around him i wanted to be around him more because here seems to be a guy that had a lot of wisdom instead of saying like a lot of people previously did say you need to come to our church you need to remove yourself from the army's church or the bible doesn't say you can't have a have a car the bible doesn't say you can't have forklift the bible doesn't say you can't have this that he never addressed those issues he always went straight to the bible so the next time we came to get uh we got together again in the office was on a like a morning so unlike a monday morning after i trip into church the ames church i don't remember what all my my questions were but i remember i came coming to the off say well yesterday he talked about that we need to have um a church where where the ministers are put in order and we know that we need an ordinance or or rules to keep us out of it out of the world we know they might not get it keep us they might not get us to heaven but if we don't have have wolves we might not get to have it it's a it's kind of like a mixed up understanding not getting a clear understanding we thought we were understanding what it means to get to heaven but yet we knew we also had to have woo so you never really got the clear picture of understanding what it meant to get to heaven so a lot of it was based on your works yes a lot of works a lot of works and so as time went on um i i would i was just so confused and trying to sort things out i used to come to the office over and over because he would always be sitting at the computer and sending emails overseas because he did a lot of missions overseas so one day i came to the office again i said well what do i do the the minister says that we need to have an ordinance to keep us separate from the world i just asked him these questions over and over he'd say steve look we we were focusing on the cross why jesus came down to the earth why god sent his son into the world to die for us we're trying to focus on put our focus on who he is why he came why he died for us and all that what all this other stuff is way way out here i think we need to focus and talk about who jesus is and he would repeatedly over and it would go back to the bible he'd always open the bible and turn around and lay them right in front of me and say read here and i just didn't understand how he always knew where to go or what scripture to point out for to answer my questions so this kind of went on and on and on until one day he went to uh in the chapter in his eagle talks about the the shepherd not taking care of the sheep and he he handed that bob to me and turned around said read this this chapter here and it goes down through and talks about the shepherds would only clothe themselves and they would they would feed themselves not taking care of the flock and i talked about how the flock was scattered for lack of lack of a shepherd how they were scattered all over the the hillsides and so on and on and then later on the chapter talks about how um god would bring his sheep together again through his servant david and he'll take him on on a green pasture on the hillside and gather himself and that instant at that instant i got the picture i i couldn't hold material back anymore i said i got it i just took off and went out to work and i was a number greater so i was grading lumber and i was just tears coming down my eyes and going down my face i was just like i praying god i want everything that you have for me to understand i want to follow you i want to do everything you ever asked me to do it's just like all of a sudden my eyes just opened understand i knew now that the word of god is the truth to go by and to live by it was just all of a sudden my eyes were opened okay all these other things are are earthly things and this is talking about eternal listening that's why we had a misconception for years and years and years we were mixing bible with our works right therefore that muddies up all the water yes therefore we never have a clear pictured understanding what goes on yeah well susie let me ask you this um as steve's gone through this wrestling and questioning and whatnot were you two discussing uh what was going on and when he came to this realization and shared it with you what were you what were your thoughts and feelings what was going on in your mind um when well when the forester started talking to him he would come home and tell me what they talked about and pretty much i knew what was going on okay one thing that he did that was different from some amish homes he he was a kind of guy that i trusted before we ever came to that place that's great so if he came home and you know told me this stuff that told me what they talked about i trusted him because i trusted him before and to be honest my sister accused me before we were even christians about i trust everything my husband says pretty soon he'll he'll drag me off to whatever and today she'd probably think it's true and so that was a big thing that helped me to believe you know when he would come home and start sharing what they talked about the second thing was when i met this guy i was like there is something different about him i have never met anybody that whatever he says that's what he does that's what he lives i wasn't used to that okay i wasn't used to somebody ex doing exactly what they said and that's what they lived he didn't just tell us the truth he lived it amen and i was like i never saw anybody like this before and now i say it was the spirits telling us it's true amen because i just never saw anybody like that that's what made me come to the conclusion that there is something about this right there is something about this i mean i know that the holy spirit spirit reveals it to us but right that's what was a big eye-opener for me and he didn't come and say you have to do this he introduced the bible to us okay and he didn't tell us you have to go here that's where jesus is he brought jesus to our house if that makes sense yes makes perfect sense he was jesus foreign so that's what made the difference for me so that would be different from a lot of um christian marriages or excuse me amish marriages that he didn't come in and tell you what to do that would be normal that that would be uh the husband would tell the wife what they were going to do in a lot of homes it is like that okay the wives have to listen to what the husband says and do that so even if he sits there and say bring me breakfast bring me whatever right i mean to that extent right so you watched his example all along even before this and that trust just continued to grow and grow and deepen for you well that's that's powerful right there an example god's made you the high priest of the home and you certainly have you know done your best to fill that role and your wife's testimony is powerful in that regard that's that's and that's going to be powerful to other people amish or not that's going to be powerful for people so the changes in your life let's talk about how much has your life changed since you've left the amish church known joined a mennonite church had a long time talking about that one thing um we were amish is all about making a living and i was told by my grandfather that you work hard save up your money for when you're old well to this day i hardly have saved up the a penny because way too much help around us missions to be filled given to yes we find out that i when i think about the bible talks about not to worry about tomorrow or lay up for yourself treasures for our own you know for ourselves but lay up your treasures in heaven so what does that mean sharing the gospel sharing your whatever god bless uh as god progresses us um we progress in giving and and and uh sharing the bible we very different we have at least two bible studies we go to uh once a week well one bible studies every two weeks monday night and the one the second one is every wednesday night and now we have one in new york we try to go to once a month friday night so we drive friday night to three and a half hour drive and then drive back again that same night the bible said my cousin's startup in new york penang area so our life is really changed and i tell you there's my visions my focuses uh my everything has totally changed from what it was when i was amish always your amish views was raising a family and teaching them everything about what it means to make a living and live the amish life and and your your fear always was that you would teach them good enough they would they would ever always stay on me right main amish and when my grandfather was uh on his deathbed in so-called what we call in the amish term was about dying he had cancer i went to visit him one evening he said stephen if there's ever any divisions in the amish community as far as disagreements in the church divides be sure that you always stay back with the more conservative one and i thought that's wonderful always remember that look where i'm at today my focuses and my dreams have all all as paul talks about uh is pretty much rubbish i mean there's no value in it because god has a has a focus a new focus and a new dream for us which is jesus himself and be his followers what are he calling us into so our life has changed our family has changed we've lost all basically 99 of our amish friends that we've had because nobody wants to do what's what we have okay so um everything is is changed um lost to all of our amish friends and because nobody wants nobody wants to be labeled as we they're afraid to step out even if they do kind of get a glimpse of what we're doing might be the right thing but they don't want nothing to do with it but we have gained huh double triple the friends that we used to have we've made new friends we have made yeah we just it's like sometimes you sing you have too many friends because it seems like you just can't get to meet them all in a in a routine that you'd like to but you always have to think well what is god doing what is god calling into into so yes our children are starting to end up in different areas our oldest son wants to go alaska work at a bible echo bible range okay this summer and our daughter's working in gator camp in florida so life has really changed god it's like god has a new agenda for us a new focus for us and uh not be involved in in the church that we go to there's lots of lots of lots of need for teaching the bible and for ministry around us everywhere wow susie may ask on that is there anything else you could add from your perspective of change that um that you've seen well in one sense our life has changed everything okay all together up upset right turned upside down because the way that we used to live the way that we now now live the way that we dress everything i mean when i was still when we were still amish i made practically all of our clothes okay most most everything was done by hand so i was just always busy i mean there was something to do if nothing else and there was just so much to do and i remember talking to him one time we were on our way to go visit somebody i said well there's one good thing about not having a car at least we have an hour to get there and that's one time that you and i can talk without four other house full of other people that's a good point because after we became believers there was night after night after night that there was people at our house and we didn't have a lot of time to just talk by ourselves about what we were dis learning in the bible or what jesus was speaking to us or that kind of thing so that was one thing that i thought well and now i think well i'm not sure how i'd get things done it would take forever to go somewhere with a bucket anymore but yes it has changed a whole lot i mean when i was amish we were taught that going house to other people's houses and having bible studies and prayer time is wrong you don't do that you do that in your own house in your own heart okay nobody needs to hear what you pray or what you think or that kind of thing so now we are involved in a lot of things like that and it is just so much greater than any of the fellowship we had in the amish culture even though we do miss our families in our you know we do miss them i guess that would be the biggest sacrifice show i've made that there are family who cannot speak with you or or fellowship with you or whatever the amish churches about all the amish churches in our community have told since there was a group about half a dozen families that came out of the amish at the same time we did that the churches all the churches in in our community the bishops announced it that if it's their children that is part of this group they're not allowed to allow them to come into their homes other than just to tell them that you need to go back to your bishops and your ministers and do what they require from for you to do before you can have anything to do with your family to get together so but to this day i can still go to my parents house and we do go we haven't quit that good even though that was sad right we spent a lot of time praying and praying and asking a lot of people to pray for us at the same time because there was a lot of times we we went back to our after we've been excommunicated we still went back for about three years and not welcome to our church because we thought well nobody tried this so we're gonna try something different right just go back and try to show them love that we still love them and care for them we figured maybe someone would come up with a question come to our house and ask why are you why are you coming back why are you arguing doing these things so that would provide us an opportunity but it never happened nobody ever came nobody ever showed up that's when we started our health church but to this day we don't go to her family but i was able to somehow god providing to keep the door open and go to my parents house and i had a lot of conversation with my my parents but he still don't approve for what i'm doing but he he welcomes me into his house okay but uh yeah it's very difficult you pretty much lose all your friends family and everybody no christmas dinners there's no sunday afternoon dinners no thanksgiving dinners no no no birthday parties you don't eat in the house nothing really i understand it also affects business in certain regards absolutely yes so all this sacrifice that you've had to go through do you believe it's been worth it i'd do it again i'd do it again absolutely and why one thing it changes us okay it changes me from who i am okay it also keeps me from looking at myself what i'm able to do because i when i first was excommunicated the reason for state well i'm sure it was the thing to do in a lot of ways one thing i always said in my mind that i will some way change the my community my family until i've tried and tried and tried went back to the church again and again after they excommunicated i took the membership totally away i have nothing to do with us i had in my mind we will change them until one day i was so desperate i was working at the sawmill i said god i've tried everything i've done anything i don't know what else to do i guess you have to do it and it also at the same time uh first one we're excommunicated you you there's the bitterness of trying to rise up inside which did saying that bishop just didn't do that right thing of excuse me and trying to say that he can hand me over to satan therefore i could turn to god say lord i need to get rid of that bitterness right i need to be able to forgive these people if i want to be your witness because i cannot get angry and be your witness at the same times and the bible says the angerness of man will never accomplish the righteousness of god therefore we learn how to deal with our issues instead of packing up moving out of the house and moving out of the community we stayed and worked through the issues and it wasn't easy but as soon as we agree that we need help then then there can also be healing yes as long as we deny that we have a problem then there never can be any healing we need to be honest with ourselves who we are and then go to god said god i have a problem the sooner we do that the sooner we have healing and the sooner we can go on and then the faster we can grow so that's one reason why we didn't move out we were also highly encouraged not to move out of the community okay one thing number one was who's going to stay back to witness to the community right since we had a history of in the past a lot of people packed up and left we we're not dealing with issues we're getting out of here we decided to stay because he will be the witnesses if we move out that was one reason secondly is it taught us how to get over our anger and bitterness for the our own church people who would mistreating us we felt like we're mistreated but if you look at what joseph said to his brothers you know as the story goes with joseph and his brother when they got together and they couldn't believe that this is joseph years and years and years later that was being their provider providing food for them it's like they were like oh you know i can imagine all sitting around in a circle and say we just can't we we just can't say sorry enough how what we've done to you but what was joseph's answer you meant it for evil but god meant it for good amen so i look at the same way god's in this it was him leading us through all this process so i can't get angry at the people because the bible talks about it's not between flesh and blood but it's a spiritual warfare going on i know that people don't realize what's going on but we do so if we understand that we need to forgive them we need to go back to love them again and again and to this day it's been a tremendous blessing to live right where we're at but if we wouldn't have people to go to and say can you please pray for us because we had nowhere we didn't know where to turn right many times we didn't know whether we're going to hitch up that horse and buggy next morning go back to church because all we see is air is pointing at us you're in the wrong you're on your way to hell there's no way you're no way you can get to anywhere until you go come back and say you're sorry that what we believe is wrong and that what we have promised on our on our knees when we got baptized as homage members we would never be acceptable back accepted back in the church okay well let me ask this question i'll start with susie on it and stephen i'd like your input on it as well um it's probably difficult to come up with one thing but if you could what would be the most important lesson or truth that you've learned that you could share with others that were in your situation or with others in general what would that be well if i look look at it as some of my friends that were women i mean the biggest thing for everybody in general is jesus one thing that it taught me when we were shunned and like none of our families would well my family especially didn't talk with us didn't respond to any letters i send or any cards i send or like if i'd go to the store and i'd see my brother he he turned to the wall and i could tell that he tried to ignore me and you know all that and one day i was in the garden working and i was just kind of complaining to god about all this like why do they have to do this why can't they see the truth you know and i at the same time i was reading through exodus about the children of israel and how much they longed to go back to egypt and have the the leeks and the onions and all the the good stuff they had in egypt and i couldn't understand how they could want to go back there like in my mind i was like don't you remember how you know how bad they treated you and everything else and all of a sudden it was i just heard this voice saying that's who you are that's you know that you're exactly the same there's no difference and i was like really i didn't want to be that person but at the same time i knew that that was the only way that we would come to the place where we would only want jesus because if our if my family would have agreed with us or would have been on you know if we would go to their house and if they would have associated with us i don't think i i would have been that close to jesus okay i i would have wanted my family and jesus okay yeah but because they didn't associate with me i had no place to go except jesus so that was one thing on the women's side for him when he came to the truth and saw that this is the truth and you know there's there's this is it it it happened like that for me but not for me it was more of a struggle like i knew i was saved but some other day i'd do something and i'm like well am i for sure safe now or not i struggled with that a lot more than my husband did and i i would you know think about this and think about this one thing i learned for the most part men tell what they think and okay they talk about it and that's it women think about it and talk about it until there is nothing to think or say and that was exactly me i wanted every question answered and everything but it took me a while to think through it until i even asked the questions and so that really i really struggled with that until one day i thought well what did i do when i became saved i prayed and jesus forgave me and i thought well that's so simple why did i never think about this i just need to pray again and ask him to forgive me and then i came to this verse in john 17 where it's jesus was talking to his disciples because i was struggling with how do i know for sure that this is truth because when when this forester guy would come to our house and i mean he always had loads to to explain to us about the bible and i was i was struggling with like when he was there i was i believed it 100 i knew it was true in my mind i knew it was true but the next day when i would start thinking about it and at the same time think about what my mom and dad would say or the church people would say i was like how do i know what is true how do i know for sure that this is true and i will not be deceived in anything until i came to this verse in the bible um it's john 17 17 it says i can't remember the first the first line but the last line is thy word is truth it's truth and i was like wow the bible even says it is true i don't have to question anymore i know now that it is the truth so that was a very big step for you i appreciate both viewpoints as well that's helpful how about you stephen one thing that i think helped me a lot when i look back is that the good thing was i love to read i read a lot of magazines before i was a bible follower and when i started sticking my nose in the bible and reading it i couldn't stop it was so interesting it's like i was dragged pulling this wagon of loads wagon loads of of garbage yeah and the more i read the more the sooner another wagon got unhooked and it's it's as the bible says it's jesus jesus is the truth he's the way the truth and the life and it's his truth that sets us free jesus himself sets us free from our bondages because he gives us something brand new when i came to when i started reading through romans talked a lot about the jewish laws and i looked at our rules as similar that how the jewish were trying to keep a set of rules but the bible talks about the law was a tutor or a school master point them to christ well ours didn't point anything to christ he would just appoint you to be an ambition well when i when then when i jumped to galatians was reading through galatians talks about uh galatians 5 i think it talks about those who have been severed in christ who are justified by the law have fallen from grace that's just totally incredible so i have accepted christ his blood as my atonement bought me from sin but if i turn to a set of rules or regulations i remove myself under that blessing and i just thought my people have to know this so number two is how much do we spend studying god's word the more you study the more you learn and the more it can set you free of course we have to do more than just study it in gym and read it store information we need to then repent then i can think what i learned through our life of of christianity is that you have information i always felt good about having information but if you never do anything with it it doesn't do any good because if you if you don't have if you um if you don't repent when god actually repent when you find out oh i do have a problem but i denied then i then there's no repentance there's no no healing but when i come to if i have an anger problem they gotta have this anger problem and then it's like uh we would work we'll have a discussion with one of our guys that he said always blow off my topic that's just part of his nature he just blows off you know he can control before he can control himself i said there's this thing about i said bible talks about god's mercy being new every day and jesus also said to his disciples talks about want to ask how often shall i you know forgive my brother seven times a day from jesus sometimes 70 so what does that mean sometimes 70's 490 times a day for the one sin that's a lot so let's say you next day you get angry again so what do you do ask god to forgive you and be honest with yourself and then he watches the old clean only again then what have happened to the day three when you do the same thing then day four would have happened again and do the same thing then there comes a wonderful day where you'd rather be clean and dirty and it works it works and my encouragement to anybody that come from a community where we did with an amish community is is somebody needs to explain there needs to be somebody around can explain what the bible's talking about i know not everybody is a reader but there's something about reading the word it is just encouraging it helps you to grow it helps you to see who you are it's like a listening to um a preacher recently he said a mirror is the bible talks about being like a mirror he said it shows us who we are but you don't fall into the marriage don't clean you it just shows you who you are same with the law the law wasn't meant to clean us it could never clean us but it showed us who we are but then we then god gave his son jesus to cleanse us because he's the living word and he desires to do that more than anything and there's nowhere else we can go to find cleansing and become holy than turning to the living the written word and the living word yeah amen is there anything i didn't cover in in sitting with you and discussing this is there anything that you would like to add before we close i mean i appreciate all the the insights and the information and i have to tell you personally it has been an honor and a privilege to sit here and speak with both of you knowing the sacrifices that you've made knowing the commitment you have to the lord and how blessed i am and every answer that you gave you referenced scripture which is rare unfortunately in the body of christ just inject a little bit oh good the comment into this now that after we went through we look i'm hearing story a lot of stories from what the muslims go through and i'm singing we haven't even faced anything what they face it was difficult gone through this shunning and i seen it coming long before it came and i was struggling very much at work one day when i was creating lumber i was running the questions through my mind what the ministers will ask me when they find out that i'm i'm a different believer that i believe differently from what they do or they ever find out that i'm intending bible secret bible studies they will come to my house and ask me all kinds of questions and i try to ask myself those questions then i try to go to the bible and find those questions that i would answer them with with a question they bring i mean yeah provide answers for their questions i did it for a whole day for two days until one day i came home from work i was so exhausted i was totally exhausted because i was fighting with the idea of being excommunicated from the church right out of the church where were communication and taking from your anything from your hand or having any kind of fellowship or meal sharing would all be shunned i dreaded you know facing that someday but i knew i couldn't turn back no way now i have too much truth that is way to go the trade for anything else i wouldn't trade it for anything else the life that jesus provides is just up and beyond that life that i have ever lived and when i came from or home from rugged right after age i was walking outside in the driveway and i just finally said god this load is just too heavy i can't carry it no more it's too heavy if it means to go through the process of being excommunicated in front of my church where everybody will see you and look at me and condemn me or or whatever accusation i'm wanting to go through it all of a sudden i just felt like a flying bird the weight just lifted the thing of it is i was trying to deal with the issue myself i was trying to find the answer for the questions i was trying to have everything all lined up so i would have an answer for every question that they will come with [Music] until it gets too heavy when it comes when you come to that point you gotta god it's yours i can't deal with it i'm just totally exhausted so when the when i actually went through that process that day i was shocked when i walked out of church that day they asked me to leave then after they announced that we're no more part of the church and they there's a saying he goes through drawing out of first or second string talks about handing over the same obstruction of flesh a lot of people think well now you're going to go to hell as soon as that's said well i knew that who i have i knew that jesus never confused never accuses anybody never rejects anybody and if i would have studied the bible and knew the truth that i did before that it would have been a tremendous struggle i might have turned around and went back to the church again it was the bible that helped me through that process the bible that i looked to for answers that jesus is the way that's the only way i could survive through this amen and with that freedom it's obvious to me comes a joy that is unspeakable because it's all over you you can't hand it to someone else and i got it from the bob i spend hours and hours and hours searching through the bible reading the bible morning and evening and praying and praying and there's people praying we had prayer prayer making bible studies but even myself getting in that bible and i had truth in my mind i could see how the jews were going through struggling over their loss and their tradition to know that the the uh the the tradition they added to the law yet that's what we were doing in a lot of in pretty much the same way and i thought well that's that's where we fail that's where we're stumbling and i i just seen it as clear as i you just can't hand it to someone else right all i can do is go the bible and show someone else the truth that i was understanding that's our duties so point the the people to the bible actually our job with the plan to jesus through the god's word and he does the rest yes he does the rest yes thank you so much for your time very much for answering my questions pleasure getting to know you susie thank you so much for your time and i can't imagine how this couldn't be powerful to you i can't add anything more to what they've said so i know you'll be blessed if you watch this uh we look forward to speaking with you again until then lord bless your day [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: Thomas Fry

Views: 57,957

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Id: 2SFWWlAjrj0

Length: 46min 0sec (2760 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 18 2020