| Christians United Fellowship |
 Chapel |
... For the Unbeliever ...
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It is Easter again...the day that we commemorate the resurrection of Jesus, the Lamb of God. Make no mistake, people, he is definitely alive! I know that most unbelievers say, "Well, the only reason that people believe that is because that Book says it's so, and I just don't believe that Book.
It is true that when any Christian teacher or preacher begins to speak or write about Jesus and God, he or she will always use scripture to back up what they are saying. We do that here on the CUF Chapel too...because we know the Bible to be true. But we also realize that to the unbeliever all those writings mean absolutely nothing. So, in this message, I am going to do something a little different. I am going to explain to you unbelievers why I believe and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it may surprise you.
I want every unbliever to know that I and my family do not serve the Lord because of theological teachings that we have had drilled into us since childhood. We do not serve God because of beliefs or persuasion. We do not serve Him only because that's what the Bible says to do, and we do not believe the Bible just because someone said "It's true." We serve the living God and believe every word in his Book because we have literally experienced his reality and his truth. I don't think there's anyone who doesn't realize that experience is an absolute fact, and that is why we know that God and all his Word are absolute fact.
I believe the first time I came to realize how real God is was about 30 years ago. You see, all my life, up to then, I had accepted the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ because of what I had been taught, and because of many things I had seen concerning others. But at the time I'm talking about I was in a very deep and dark valley. In fact, it was so deep and so dark that I began to doubt the existence of God, until one day I stood up, faced the wall, and said, "If you're real, if you are really there, then you've got to show me; and I don't mean 'butterflies in the belly'... I am a scientific and logical man, and I want some scientific and logical proof!" And I was deadly serious.
It happened that there was a miracle preacher in town that week, brother Shambach, but in my condition, I wanted nothing to do with church or anything connected with it, so I stayed home. On about the third day, my wife and a friend of hers tried their best to get me to go to the meeting, but I abruptly refused. After they left, however, a strange urge came on me to follow them. I didn't know what it was, but it finally got the better of me and I went to the meeting.
When I got there, I tried to be as inconspicuous as I could be, because I felt totally out of place, and I wanted as few people to see me as possible. I scooted down low in one of the folding chairs and kept my head down and my mouth shut. But as the music began, something very inexplicable happened. A still, small voice began to tell me to get up and dance in the spirit. I laughed inside! "I don't even believe in this garbage," I thought, " and I'm supposed to stand up here and make a fool of myself?" Nevertheless, the voice persisted to such a degree that I began to look around to see how much room I had. When I did that, the friend who had come with my wife jumped up and began to dance, and the voice released me. Again, I slouched down in my seat and tried to disappear.
I sat there in boredom and complete disregard as the whole service ran its course. At the end, there was a "prayer line"...where people line up to be prayed for by the preacher. Everyone was up and milling about, and I was ready to leave when my wife walked up to me, handed me her Bible, and said, "Hold this while I go through the line. I took the Book and moved over to the side of the building, still trying to be inconspicuous and unnoticed, when some little black girl trotted up, grabbed the Book out of my hand and said, "Ain't you gonna get your's?" Well, I couldn't argue with her...that would have caused me to stand out, and I certainly didn't want that, so I walked non-chalantly to the front of the building.
When I turned the corner around the chairs, the preacher had finished the prayer line and was walking away, which suited me fine. He was about 30 feet away with his back to me when he spun on his heel, looke directly at me, and said, very loudly, "Whadda you want?" In spite of all my earlier efforts to be invisible throughout this service, here I was, in front of the whole crowd facing a very loud preacher. I wanted to run. But the words "I didn't get mine." rolled off my tongue, and at that point he placed his hand on my head.
Instantly, I felt a very warm, all-encompassing feeling begin to come over my toes, and it scared the tar out of me. But it kept coming over my feet, then my ankles, and started up my legs. I stood there in awe, being very scared and trying to rationalize what was going on. At that time, the heavy warmth reached my knees, and I began to fall. I ... the invisible, non-believing, inconspicuous one, after the whole service was over, in front of a crowd who had nothing else to gawk at, was falling to that dirty floor! And there was nothing I could do about it! Somehow, some man had come up behind me and lowered me gently to the floor, and there I laid, the toes of my fancy boots sticking straight up in the air, my arms spread out, unable to move anything but my eyeballs and the tips of my fingers, trying to figure out what had happened to me. I was literally paralyzed!
I had asked for scientific, logical proof. Well, neighbor, I got it! The God whose existence I doubted had taken every ounce of strength out of me, and made me a public spectacle by his awesome power. I am not an idiot...I know now, beyond any possible doubt, that the Lord God is alive and real. I have never doubted Him or his Word since, and I never will. I had experienced fact, and fact is irrefutable. Did He stop there?...No. Since that time, I have heard his audible voice, I have watched trees fall under his power, and I have experienced miracles. You can read about some of these facts here on this site, under "Testimonies". If you are an unbeliever, come see me, I can certainly straighten you out. But I won't need to...the living Lord Jesus can do the job much better than I. PRAISE THE LORD GOD!
In Jesus' Name,
AMEN
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