An Unexpected Journey

The Power of the Gospel Call

Good Morning!

Some of y’all know my conversion story.

While I was raised in the faith by godly parents who had the covenant sign placed on me as an infant, took me to church every week, and welcomed me to junior high, high school, and summer retreats from 3rd grade on, by the time I was a young adult I was nowhere near where I needed to be in my relationship with the Lord. I was engaged in all kinds of sinful activities and worse of all I had no real conscience fear of what would happen to me if it all ended at a time of God’s choosing. “Conviction” was what Jack McCoy did every week, not something I was personally acquainted with in my soul. I was pretty content with life. Happy even. The funny part about all that is if you look at the caricature one of the graphic arts Marines made of me when I left Quantico to go to Japan I have a Bible in my hand. I went to Church almost every week, and was an active member at that, but if you take a look at the rest of the images on that drawing it paints a far different story.

I didn’t attend church at all while I was in Japan. I was about as far away from Christ as I’ve been my entire life. When I finished out my four years in the USMC I attended Shawnee State University, where I of course met Mrs. Brandy…but that wasn’t the only person the Lord was faithful to introduce me to after I stepped on campus. Of all the folks I expected to meet in 2002 probably the most unlikeliest was a fundamentalist Presbyterian and Northern Irish preacher. The Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley, Sr. was 76 years old when I first made his acquaintance. Somehow in God’s providence He had led me to this man who had been faithfully proclaiming the gospel of Jesus for over fifty years at that point. Now, I need to clarify something. Rev. Paisley wasn’t actually in Portsmouth, Ohio. He was on Sermon Audio on the internet and was safely across the Atlantic from me. I also had no idea who this guy was. Ministers of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster were not popular conference speakers at the PCUSA youth events I attended growing up. But my dad had given me a book by John Calvin before I went to Japan. It was an abridgment of his Institutes. I didn’t know who he was either. To remedy that I did what any rational man of my age would have done at the time. I got on Ask Jeeves and typed in his name. In what can only be described as odd one of the first listings was a talk by Rev. Paisley and man if you’ve never heard him preach stop what you are doing and listen to a sermon by him. You will be blown away, and blessed. I was hooked.

There were a whole series of autobiographical lessons by Rev. Paisley and I hoovered them up as quick as I could. At the time I was working a VA-work study job in the Financial Aid Office of the university. Back in these dark ages we still filed everything by hand. However, it was far enough in the future that I had an mp3 player. So to pass the time I started listening to the Bible sermons. I wasn’t super interested in the religious stuff, but his preaching style enraptured my brain. That along with his accent made it good background noise for the monotonous work I was engaged in.

Then something funny happened on the way to the forum.

I started actually listening to the religious stuff. On purpose. It was doing things to me. I decided to go back to Church. I even stole my dad’s Bible (I still have it) when I was home for a break and took it back to Portsmouth with me, then the bottom fell out. There is a sermon (which I will link) called “60 Minutes to Go”. In the opening sentence of that preaching Dr. Paisley says this, “I want to preach to you this evening the Gospel…” and boy did he. And the Holy Spirit made sure it took that day. I can still feel the quickening as I recount this moment in my head as I write. No feeling that I have ever had compares, and frankly never will, to that moment. The Bible calls it “conviction of sin”. Salvation wasn’t something I thought I needed, nor was it something I was looking for, but guess what? The Lord knew I did, and He brought it to me. Life was never going to be the same again.

Now, I need to be clear that I was a pretty rough and broken cistern in those days, and still am today. A sinner, saved by grace. But as my grandaddy used to say, I told you that story so I could tell you this one. The passage that Rev. Paisley uses as his text in the above sermon is Matthew 20:6. That’s from the middle of the parable of the vineyard. It says, “And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?” You can see where he got the sixty minutes title and the question which gripped my soul twenty years ago is just as pertinent as it was then. I am not daft enough to think that everyone who may read this is a converted saint. I’m also not crazy enough to think that no one who reads this doesn’t need a little fire under the tookus.

In the few words I have left think about that last question of verse six. Idleness is one of the great sins of our age. At no point in human history have we had more free time than we do now. So the thing we need to think about is this: are you ready to die? Are you ready to meet your Savior, or your judgment? Do you rest in your good works, or do you find peace in Christ and His blood?

Either way let’s close on this from Jesus:

But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Here’s something to consider:

https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/a-reformation-of-the-heart/

and here is Rev. Paisley’s sermon:

http://www.fpcaudio.org/sermoninfo.asp?SID=6860

Blessings in Him,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church