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My
personal testimony by Dr. Michael
Brown |
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"I'm burning in hell! I'm burning
in hell!" |
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It
was |
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I
became delirious on
the bus and got off too soon, more than a mile from my family's
home on |
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Then,
at that late hour of the night, a
friend of my parents came by, walking his dog. He looked at me with shock as
I screamed, "I'm burning in hell!" I was shocked too. "Why is
he walking his dog in hell?" I wondered. |
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As
soon as he walked away, I made a decision: "I'm going to jump in front
of the next car that comes by. I can't take it any longer." I was losing
my mind. |
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Within
minutes, a car came racing around the corner. I
jumped into the road directly in front of the car and threw my hands in the
air. The car came to a screeching halt just inches from my body. It was my
parents! The man with the dog had gone
to my house and, deeply shaken, told them what he had seen. They came
looking for me. They were ready to stop at that very corner. If it had been
any other car I would have been killed. |
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But
what I was doing there anyway, stoned out of my head? How did a nice Jewish
boy like me get so messed up? And why
was I thinking about hell? Let me tell you the story. I think you'll be interested to hear what happened! |
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I
was born in |
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When
I was eight years old I started to play drums. There was no question that I
had ability. In fact by the time I was fifteen I had played on a studio
album. But my favorite music was rock,
and after my Bar Mitzvah in 1968, I got interested in playing in a band. I wanted to be a rock drummer, and
all my role models were known for their heavy drug use, rebellion, and
flagrant immorality. I wanted to be like them! |
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My
sister went away to college in 1969
and began to use drugs there. When she asked me if I wanted to try smoking pot,
I was only too happy to oblige. Soon I tried
smoking hash too. But neither one had any effect on me. So I tried
harder drugs until I started using ups, downs, and LSD. "But I'll never
do anything worse than that," I
thought. Yet I was deceived. Soon I starting using speed, then I started shooting speed. (Of course, I had
been sure I would never put a needle
in my arm!). Then, I got the opportunity to try heroin. I loved it! I was fifteen years old. |
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By
the time I was sixteen, my grades
began to go down in school, and drugs, rock music, and filthy living were my
daily portion. For fun, my friends and I even broke into some homes and a
doctor's office. We experimented with the drugs we found and almost killed ourselves. But after all, we were
cool! We were doing "our thing." And one day we would be famous
rock stars! |
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Less
than one year later, I was living for
God and telling people about Jesus, the Messiah and Lord of both Gentile and Jew. Today, I
have traveled around the world preaching
and teaching. I have had the privilege of speaking on university campuses
(including Harvard and Yale), written books and articles that have been
translated into more than a dozen languages, debated and dialoged with rabbis
on radio and TV, and earned a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures
from New York University, lectured as a visiting professor at leading
theological institutes, and served as president of two Bible colleges. The
Creator of the universe is now my Father, Jesus the Messiah is my best and
closest Friend, I live my life free of
anxiety and fear, and the peace and joy of God renew me every day. |
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"Well,"
you might
say, "you were just messed up. You were looking for something. You
needed to change." |
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To
be perfectly truthful, I was messed
up, and I was looking for something -- but it was not God! And I absolutely
did not want to change. I had found my lifestyle, and I loved it! I enjoyed
using drugs. I enjoyed my music. I enjoyed
fulfilling the lusts of the flesh. What I was looking for was more sinful
pleasure and more musical excellence, leading to more recognition as a rock drummer. |
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As
for Jesus, he was no more important to me than Mohammed or any other foreign
religious figure. After all, I was Jewish! And, I thought, if there really is
a God, he knows that, deep down, I
have a good heart. If there is a heaven, he'll surely accept me. In spite of my lying, my
drugs, my drinking, my pride, my
rebellion, my stealing, my immorality, my filthy mouth and mind, I
thought that I really was a pretty
good person. Little did I know then that the Bible said: "All a man's
ways seem innocent to him, but it is the Lord who weighs the hearts." And, "There is a way
that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Human nature always tries
to justify itself! |
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During
the spring of 1971, my two best friends (and members of my band) began
attending a little gospel-preaching
church. Why? Because they liked two girls who went there! And why did the girls go? Because
their uncle was the pastor and their father was praying for them. Then, in
August, I went to the church too. Why? Because I wanted to pull my friends
out! They were beginning to change, and
I didn't like that. They weren't partying the way they used to. I had
to stop them before it was too late.
You can guess what happened. I lost the fight! The love of the people began to break down my stubborn
pride, and, totally unknown to me,
their prayers began to have an impact. Something started to get under my
skin! I actually began to feel guilty about the filthy things I was doing. |
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Amazingly
enough, until that time, I had never
experienced the slightest remorse for stealing money from my own father, or putting my parents
through all kinds of grief because of my
drug use, or double-crossing my best friends, or viciously cutting
down anyone I didn't like with my
sharp, cruel sharp tongue. Now, something was happening. When I couldn't
sleep at night after pumping myself up with methadrine or swallowing several
tabs of amphetamine-laced LSD, I started to feel uncomfortable with my lifestyle, seeing
myself as more of a jerk than a cool
teenager, and I began to dread those long night hours, alone with a
feeling of being unclean, alone with
my sin. |
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Of
course, at that time, I had no idea that this was something called
"conviction," a wonderful
process through which God shows us just how sick we really are in
order to make us whole. And I made no
connection between this sudden change in my attitude and the prayers of these
sincere Christians. Instead, I made a decision: I won't use any drugs that
keep me up at night! And I stayed away from the church for the next three
months. |
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When
I finally returned there in November, something completely unexpected
happened to me.
It was not what I was anticipating! For the first time in my life I believed that Jesus died for me (in other
words, He paid the penalty that I
deserved, He died in my place) and that He rose from the dead. |
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This
did not strike me as especially good news! How can I say that? Simple. It was
one thing for my friends to truly put their faith in Jesus. After all, one
was Methodist and the other was
Russian Orthodox. Even though they were only Christian in name, becoming a Christian in truth didn't seem
to me like such a big religious jump. I thought the different Christian
religions were close enough! |
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But
for me, a Jew (even a non-religious Jew), how could I believe in Jesus? (Please
remember: At that time, I didn't
realize that his Hebrew name was Yeshua and that his mother's Hebrew name was
Miriam, or that "Christ" meant "Messiah," or that he came
into the world to save his Jewish people, or that he lived and died as a
faithful Jew.) For me, Jesus was only for the Gentiles. (Again, you have to
excuse my ignorance!) |
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But
there was a much bigger problem I faced: Following Jesus and getting into a
right relationship with God meant I had to turn away from my sins. I didn't
want to do that! There was too much
pleasure in my sin. And how could I be a famous rock drummer and a good, clean church-goer at the same time?
Plus, I was too proud to admit that I
could be wrong. (Some people would rather die than admit they are
wrong.) I was as stubborn as they
come. And how I loved to argue. (After all, I was the son of an excellent
lawyer!) Yet somehow, God's goodness and patience overcame my stubbornness,
my pride, my sinful habits, and my religious misunderstandings. By the end of
1971 I was a new man! The heavenly Father intervened in my affairs, making me to know that I was guilty in his
sight, exposing the corruption of my
heart, and showing me a new and better way. |
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What
does all this
have to do with you? Let me explain. You see, I was not a sinner because I
was shooting heroin. I was shooting heroin because I was a sinner. Sin takes on many forms. But in God's
sight, all of us are sinners. In other
words, all of us stand guilty in the light of His standards and laws.
And, deep down, most of recognize His laws are right. Yet we still break
them. Why? Because by nature we are a
fallen race. No one had to teach us to lie, to lust, to be selfish, to hate, to hold a grudge,
to deceive, to cheat, to be greedy, to envy. These things came naturally to
us -- even to the best of us! |
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According
to the Scriptures, the first and greatest commandment is, "Love the Lord
your God with
all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your
strength." Instead, we find time
for business, or pleasure, or family, or friends, or sports, or entertainment, or relaxation, or
hobbies, or education, or whatever
else is important to us. But God is not that important to us! He is
certainly not the one around whom our lives revolve. If He were, we would
find more time and energy for Him. He is supposed to come first. |
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What
about the second commandment? Both
Moses and Jesus taught that the next great commandment was, "Love your
neighbor as yourself." We have failed here too! Think of all the murderers, and rapists, and drug pushers,
and child abusers, and warlords, and
crime bosses, and thieves -- the list goes on and on. It is clear that
they have not loved their neighbors as themselves. But let's not be so quick
to condemn. You can get a speeding ticket for going 100 miles per hour in a
40 mph zone, or you can get a ticket for going 70 in that same zone. Either
way, you're guilty. And you can drown in 20 feet of water just as easily as
you can drown in the ocean. Either way, you're dead. |
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It's
the same with God's laws. Maybe you haven't killed someone. But have you
hated them? Then you're guilty of not loving your neighbor as yourself! Maybe
you haven't committed adultery with that good looking spouse of your friend
or boss. But if you're burning with
lust for them, then you've committed adultery in your heart. In the sight of God, you're guilty! And the
penalty for those guilty of breaking
God's laws is death. |
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"In
that case," you say, "we're in trouble! Everyone is guilty."
Exactly. That's why God sent His Son into the world. Although we didn't
deserve it, and although it is more
than we could ever ask for or imagine, God did something incredible. The
Bible says He loved this world so much -- and that means He loved you -- that He gave His one and only Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. |
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Jesus
died for you! Instead of you and I
having to pay for our sins (and it would be perfectly fair if God required us
to pay up), Jesus paid for our sins. Instead of you and I having to suffer
the death penalty, Jesus suffered it for us. That's what he meant when he
said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for
his friends." He also said, "I am the good shepherd. The good
shepherd lays down his life for his sheep." |
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And
that's what the Jewish prophet Isaiah
meant when he wrote about the Messiah's death hundreds of years in advance: |
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"He
was pierced because
of our rebellious deeds, He was crushed for our sins; the punishment that
brought us peace was upon Him, and at the cost of his wounds there is healing
for us. All of us like sheep have gone astray, but the Lord has laid on Him (Jesus!) the sins of us all." |
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Is
this making sense to
you now? Do you understand why Jesus died on the cross? He
carried your sins so that you don't have to carry them any more! |
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Turn
back to God and ask Him to forgive you. Acknowledge your guilt and say,
"God, have mercy on me! I turn away from my sins." Ask Him to
cleanse you and wash you through the blood
that Jesus shed. Put your faith in the Son of God. He died for you and
rose from the dead. Believe in Him and
submit to Him as your Lord. You will never be the same! And you will never have
a regret. |
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What
He did for me “in a unique and personal way“ He can
do for you. He died so you could live. He became guilty so you could go free.
He came down to earth so that one day you
could go to heaven. But if you refuse Him, the door will be shut. You
will die in your guilt, without
excuse. Almighty God will say to you, "Depart from Me into eternal fire!" Then it will be
too late! |
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That's
why I took the time to tell you my story. It can become your story too! You can
experience the greatest love the world has ever seen. Through Jesus, you can
know the God who made you. Then you will truly live -- in this world,
and in the world to come. Serving God
is worth it all! |
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Whether
you are happily married or experiencing
the trauma of divorce; whether you are
healthy or dying of cancer; whether you are rich or poor, Jew or
Gentile, young or old, male or female,
living a "decent" life or stealing and raping, nothing matters more than your relationship with
God. Give me a call or drop me a line
if you have any questions or if you need prayer. My staff would be
happy to help you come into a genuine, personal relationship with the Lord.
And don't be ashamed to acknowledge the truth. It will really set you free! |
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Dr. Michael L. Brown |
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ICN
Ministries |
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4000
West Fairfield Drive |
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850-458-6424
(phone); 850-453-1108 (fax) |
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e-mail:
webmaster@icnministries.org |
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