Author:
Robert (perrin) Nicholson
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Date Posted: 16:55:59 12/14/01 Fri
Dear friends:
Please excuse the length of this post.
When Jesus Came to Our House: To Stay
The reason for writing this account is overshadowed with the words of Paul, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ...”.
I was born on a small farm located at Glenarm, Ontario Canada on May 23, 1946. A very close bond was formed between me and my father in those early years. I was his shadow and looked up to him as my hero. Our home was a loving and kind environment, but in the early years of my life we did not know anything about God or Jesus except to hear of them as swear words. In order to tell of my own path to Christ, I will give the background which illustrates that God in his loving grace had his eye on our family even before we knew it.
In the early part of 1952 my father was doing well at farming, but within his soul he felt an empty void; such uneasiness may have been due to teaching he had received in Sunday School and had put out of his mind. He was riding one day on his new tractor and the thought came to him
“things are going well, but what about eternity?” Another day as he was saving his face dirty from working in the straw the thought came “if you could make your heart as clean as your face you would be alright”. His soul was troubled as he thought of his sins and he worried about his
family knowing he had nothing to offer them spiritually, nevertheless, unknown to himself his heart was seeking after an answer.
In the fall of 1952 a 1948 Chevrolet came up our long lane and a tall older man got out and asked to talk to my father. Mr. John Merrydo had many years as a missionary in Venezuela and on coming home to Canada continued to spread the good news of the gospel to those who were out of the way. He talked briefly with my father and than invited him out to some gospel meetings he was having in the area. My dad gave him a “maybe” and did not go to the meeting that night. My father had underestimated the persistence of the old preacher and of the Spirit of God who were searching for his soul and the next day the preacher was back with a fresh invitation. This resulted in my father attending his meeting that night.
During the gospel meeting, Mr. Merrydo went over the story of the gospel, citing man’s ruin & God’s remedy in Christ and warning sinners not to trifle with the claims of Christ, but to seek him out with all their hearts while there was yet time. God got his hooks into my dad and he was thrust into deep conviction. No one needed to tell him that he was a sinner, indeed if anything he felt that he was beyond hope and that he at 35 years of age would never be forgiven. This went on for weeks, others including his brothers were getting saved, but for my father there only
seemed to be darkness. One morning in the early hours he sat on his bedside trying to find answer in the Bible and had said to himself “I can’t see it, I will be lost forever”. As he pondered this awful thought, his eyes looked down on a verse which said “when were yet without strength,in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6) It seemed that God by his spirit shone into his dark soul with those words and gave him the understanding that Christ had died for him the ungodly sinner. He bowed his head and thanked God for the gift of eternal life through his Son.
Conversion! The gospel and the work of God in our community was contagious, it was indeed a time of visitation for that farm community which had far reaching effects for the future and for eternity. My father was so happy in his new found joy and spent much time chatting with anyone who would listen and to some who would rather not hear. My mother thought that this was what he needed for he certainly was a sinner. Yet she felt that she was not that bad, after all she belonged to the church before moving to the country. It wasn’t long that the reality of people who were changed persons around her that she finally bowed her head before God and acknowledge her sinful condition and trusted Christ. Little did she know that it would only be 11 years before she would go to be with Christ forever.
Growing up in this atmosphere soon caused my older sister and I to realize that we too needed to know Christ. We would sit as a family each night and listen to the scriptures and kneel down at our chairs and pray. In addition, to this we started attending the gospel hall and heard the message preached by many people. Some would ask does God really speak to children? Are children capable of understanding the gospel? Jesus said, “suffer the children to come unto me and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God ”.(Luke 18:16) In fact Jesus said, “whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter in” V.17 In other words coming to Christ for salvation is not something that happens through intellect or vain reasoning of men, but is received by simple child-like faith.
In March of 1954 Mr. Merrydo came back for more meetings. Deep within my heart I hoped that this would be the time when I would get saved. My sister and I would sit and read well known gospel verses to each other and try to explain the meaning. We read John 3 where it told us that
“except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” We cringed as we read of the rich man who died and went to hell and tried to imagine what torment was his. At the meetings we heard over and over again our need to be saved, of God’s love, Christ’s atoning death, and the
scary part was the danger we were in as “not saved”. My world came to a crashing down when my sister came home from school and told us that while talking to her cousin she had come to know Jesus, she was saved! My parents were happy, but I observed quietly from the background, feeling left out and alone.
The hopeless feeling of being alone which could be forever, filled me sadness to the point I could hardly focus on school at all, the need to know Christ was constant in my thoughts and yet I could not figure out how to come to him. My sister tried to help me and my father prayed aloud
for me each night. One night my father heard my crying in my bedroom and came in to help. He read the Bible to me, he explained the story of the gospel to me and he prayed, but I found that my dad, my hero, could not save me or in fact it seemed like he couldn’t even help. The next day
as I walked home from school with my sister & cousin they tried to explain in simple terms that if I would only come to Jesus as a sinner and believe on him that I would be saved. However, I could not see it or bring about any change in myself. I decided not to go home for a while and sat alone on the snowbank at the gateway of our home. I sat there telling God that I believed that Jesus died for me and yet I could not feel saved. Finally, I gave up and cried out to God “Please help me get saved, I don’t know how!” As I sat there thinking, my mind went over the truth of John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It was then that God revealed to me that Jesus died for me and I thanked him for suffering for me on the cross. In a moment I had
passed from death unto life spiritually.
Is this the end of the story some might ask? You are saved, happy and on your way to heaven so that’s it? This was only the beginning in Christ. When I told my school friends about getting saved, they simply beat me up; this tended to temper boldness. I found that even though I was a
Christian I would still experience growing up as a boy. I had a conscience about many things,but was far from perfect and at times I wondered if I was really saved at all. This fear seemed to grow and at about age 13 I thought that I was probably not saved. I carried a new Testament with
me and read it frequently. One day sitting on a rail fence in the back field, I came across these words, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37) I thought “I came to him and he promises that he will not kick me
out”, it was at that time I realized that I belonged to him “warts” and all.
As a teenager I found that knowing Christ and attempting to live for him causes a branch in the road of relationships with friends. I had many friends and we had great times growing up together. However, the teen years bring about choices which are hard to make. At 15 years of age I decided to obey the Lord in believers baptism, which especially in a small community is a confession of our faith in Christ and our desire to live for him. This was a turning experience in my life, I seemed to have more focus on my Christian path and a desire to know God and his
precious word.
As I write this account it is now over 47 years since that happy day when Jesus washed my sins away. He is indeed, a friend which sticketh closer than a brother and is the God of grace as I think of his dealings with me throughout my life. As I look backward over my short history, hindsight is 20/20 as we see the hand of God in our life. He deserves all the glory and we know that we are after all sinners saved by his grace and placed in his family by adoption, praise his precious name.
The title of my testimony is based on a song which I enjoyed as a young boy.
“If Jesus came to your house to spend a day or two
If he came without asking, I wonder what you’d do”
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When Jesus Came to Our House: To Stay
An Ontario boy, eh?