Okay, today we're going to be hearing listener testimony of a former Zionist who grew up in the Jewish religion, how he came to understand Paul's gospel, the gospel Christ gave Paul to give to you and I.
In the book of Acts chapter 20 verse 24, Paul calls his gospel, and I quote, "The gospel of the grace of God."
If you're listening today and you come from an abusive upbringing, if you were raised
in bondage, placed under legalism as so many are, if you have or are wanting to escape that life and be set free by God's grace, stay tuned.
This Truth Time listener's testimony is for you.
This gentleman was brought up in a denominational religious system and when he told one of his pastors about the abuse he and his siblings were enduring at home, he turned a deaf ear, refused to believe him.
Here's a young man who was depressed and on the brink of suicide, crying out for help
and finding none.
Thankfully, he found God's grace and through the word of truth rightly divided, he discovered Paul's gospel and was saved.
Then with eyes wide open was able to extend that grace, to extend that love to the very ones who abused him.
I came out of a Zionist family.
My dad believes in enduring until the end.
His belief system, he was raised in a very abusive household.
His dad is a member of the Masons.
I think he is a member of the Masons too, but he's never told me.
The reality of the situation is that he follows Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John only.
As a kid growing up, I was taught to endure to the end and when you read the Bible, you read how the Jews would have to follow the law at a certain age.
Even the apostle Paul would say that when the law came, I died because they get put under certain aspects of the law as they get older.
As a kid growing up, I was always under the condemnation of the law and I never knew what grace was.
I was raised in a very legalist, traditionist household that never gave you grace and never told you these things.
My parents pretty much used the religion as a way to control me and my brother and
my big brother and my two sisters to the point that my big brother had to leave and he became a pastor at one point.
But the religious way that he was raised, because he was put under the law, it drove
him to becoming an Anabaptist and now he believes in annihilationism.
My big sister, she is now a lesbian, and my little sister, she had sex with a 50-year-old when she was only 20.
So, because she was put under a form of legalism and she was never allowed any peace, not only that, in our home, my dad would manipulate us with religion as a way to control.
When we were kids, he would take us out to the country and we moved out there and we
weren't around a lot of people.
And when we were there, he would minister his law to us.
And, as a kid, I could never measure up to it.
But I became overly self-righteous, so my entire family did, to the point that anyone
who didn't measure up to our standard of the law, which is impossible, we would look down on and we would hate.
And we became incredibly self-righteous people.
We were all right-wingers, and I'm not against being a right-winger, but we were
far, far right, and we despised the left.
And for me, my story really started to amp up as a child because the older I got, the
more intelligent I got, to the point that I could actually start reading my Bible.
But my parents were supposed to teach me, they were supposed to raise me and homeschool me.
But my mother and my dad, because of all the years of mental and physical abuse they put their family under, they realized that if they put me in public school, they would go to prison probably because I would have told people what they've been doing, literally using religion as a crutch to manipulate their children.
So, my mother looked at me and said that my education matters more than your education.
And she went to college and became a nurse practitioner and they abandoned me and my
brother's education.
I got my diploma in the mail, one that I had to earn by instructing.
I actually taught my brother and myself how to read and how to write and how to, just
everything that I've currently learned.
And my parents didn't do really much at all because they walked away from their responsibility.
Well, again, they're self-righteous people who think that they were perfect.
So you can really understand in some aspects how my life was like, because they put me under the law of Moses.
And the thing is, is whenever I would question my dad, he would get mad at me and he
would spank me.
But the spankings progressively got worse as I progressively got away from my dad more and more and more to the point that when I finally got out of that house, there was some severe abuse that went on in that house.
I'm going to tell you right now, he hit me so hard that he nearly broke a belt in half.
And the main reason why he pushed himself to that level to hurt me, my brother and my
siblings was because he put himself under a law and he tried to make us follow that
law.
When I finally got out on my own, I had been under the law for so long, I was about 28, no, not 28, 26.
I had been under the law for so long that the stress of being under it so much.
And again, I wasn't even under the full law because I was raised under this legalism,
under this bondage.
I only thought the Bible was about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
I never really thought much of Paul.
And when I was at work, I worked at a hospital, a good friend of mine leaned over
and said, hey, Josh, you know that you're under grace.
You know that, right?
You don't have to put yourself under all these laws because they were fulfilled in
Christ.
Why are you doing this?
And it's like a light bulb went off in my head at that moment.
I couldn't get it out of my head.
What she said, it's like something she said just clicked.
And after that, I spent more than four or five months studying the epistles of Paul,
and I barely got any sleep.
Every time I came into work, she thought I was like she was going to fall over because I was studying so hard.
Even when I was in the process of working, I would turn on the Bible and listen to the apostle Paul over and over and over again.
And I would question all the legalism.
But the more I studied and the more I grew and the understanding of the epistles of
Paul, then I realized the gospel got to that point where it finally all clicked.
I was in my room, in my chair, and I fell to my knees.
I realized I had been trying to earn my way to heaven, thinking that what I'm doing is what saves me.
And I realized it was because my parents put me under a gospel that's not for me, and
I'm stealing Israel's mail.
And I just let it go.
I trusted the gospel, and I understood what faith actually meant at that point.
It's like weights fell from my shoulders.
It's like my health even started to improve.
My back problems stopped happening.
My bowel issues reduced because the stress that you're under when you're trying to
follow these things.
And I know a lot of it is because of the abuse I went under, because every day being
it pushed into my head, pushed into my head, pushed into my head.
I mean, like people like this, especially Zionist people, Jewish Zionist people, which I've been around, they do not think that people who are in sin are savable to an extent.
And again, my dad is just screwed up on his belief system that he believes a mixture of Arminianism, Calvinism.
He believes that God is going to give you a job or God is going to help you.
In reality, he is so far from the apostle Paul, he doesn't realize anything about what he lives in today.
And because of this, he lives by a more superstitious, more misunderstood way of the
Bible.
And when I told my brother this truth and he realized it in the hallway of our home, he fell over and started crying like a little kid again.
And I went over the verses with him and everything just started clicking.
And my brother in that hallway got saved.
And the very next day, he says, he says, like, I don't even feel the same anymore.
It's like all that stress is finally removed.
He just, he looks better now.
He's better to be around now.
And when I finally got out of my legalism, I went back to politics and I look at it
totally different now.
I'm still conservative, I still hold the conservative values, but I'm not as psychotic as I used to be.
And I understand what the grace of God is today and that it's not by works of
righteousness that I do, but according to his mercy, he saved us.
But when I tried to minister this to my parents, and here's the thing, I was physically beaten, abused, I was beaten so badly that my arm and leg were totally bruised to the point that the skin was breaking.
My dad kept the belt until one day when I was doing a skit for a Pentecostal cult I
was in a long time ago, the pastor saw that because I told him and he broke the belt in half and threw it in the garbage.
I tried in denominationalism to tell this, what my dad had done to me and my brother,
to a Pentecostal pastor, he then proceeded to turn on me and my brother and told my
parents, and the implications of that were pretty bad for me and my brother, to the
point that being put under religion for so long, being put under the law of Moses for
so long, that I can't tell you how many times I thought about suicide.
I can't tell you how many times the depression worsened and how the despair
quickened more and more, to the point that I didn't even want to read the Bible anymore, I didn't even want to be around so-called Christians anymore.
And when I finally learned the gospel, it's like the light bulb went on.
It's like just all those years of going to all these cults because they're not really, none of them rightly divide the word of truth.
It's insanely hard to find a church that actually believes the Bible rightly divided.
And even if you find one, you really need to study it and make sure they're really
rightly dividing.
To this day, I am, even after all the evil that was done to me and my brother, I don't hate my parents.
When I got saved, I stopped hating my parents because I remember the apostle Paul said that he wished himself to be accursed from Christ so that way his brother, and according to the flesh, might be saved.
So he was willing, if it was possible, which of course it's not, but if it was possible to separate him from Christ and to throw himself into hell so that way his brother, and according to the flesh, might believe he would have done it.
I understood the love behind those words, because I would give nearly anything to get
my parents to see the truth.
But they're so wrapped up in their legalism.
So when I try to preach the gospel to them, they think that I've become a liberal.
They think that I've gone far to the left.
They make it about politics.
Of course, they believe that God moves and God is guiding and God, again, they don't
even understand what they believe.
They've been so caught in the trap of religious dogma.
It's overwhelming.
It really is.
And they used this as a way to control their children for so long.
First time I went to my dad and explained to him right, division, he couldn't even
open his eyes.
He talked to me and he was so mad, he would gyrate his entire front body in front of me up and down, up and down when he would say, no, I'm wrong.
But he could never look at me in the eyes.
He had to keep his eyes closed because he didn't want to look at me in the eye.
And I wasn't talking to him anymore out of a place of hatred or like looking down on
him.
I'm on a level playing field and I'm looking at him and I'm like, man, this is
wrong.
You're putting your kids under the law.
You're not teaching them grace.
And again, let me make this clear, not grace to sin, but grace in the concept of, hey, you're not under the law.
You know, Christ died for you.
And, you know, you need to stop putting your children under these things.
You're destroying your family.
Of course, when I tried to preach this to my big sister, she doesn't believe in Paul
because she went so far into feminism now because she was dragged there because of
legalism that she won't come back.
My little sister, because of all the physical and mental abuse she went under as a kid, she won't listen.
My big brother, because he's an Anabaptist and a far leftist, he won't listen.
When I rightly divided the word of truth in front of him and explained the Bible, he
would use the same old stuff.
He would quote James without understanding who James is talking to and what he's talking about.
And so when I'm telling him the truth about the gospel, my brother can't take it.
He runs out to his car.
He runs away.
He opens the door, slams it and runs as fast as he can away from us.
And my mother, when I was trying to explain the gospel to her, she doesn't understand
it.
In reality, she does, but she doesn't want to.
I told her about Ephesians 3 and I explained it to her.
I said, now go read Ephesians 3 and then you can come back to me and we can, you know, we can have a Bible study.
She said, I will never read Ephesians 3.
I don't follow a man.
I'm like, you don't follow a man?
What are you talking about?
You're ignoring a piece of the word of God.
And in reality, what I'm dealing with here is self-righteous people, abusive, psychotic people who have put themselves under the law.
And yet, from the epistles of Paul, when Paul said, you who desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
That's the thing that they don't hear the law.
They don't understand the law.
They've used the law as a manipulative tool for so very long.
And again, Trey, I could have sued my parents into oblivian.
I mean, you know, there are there are Jewish lawyers out there that I could contact that would tear them to pieces within a matter of minutes.
And I wouldn't have to pay a dime to do it.
I could, my parents both make more money than probably you do.
These two people, I mean, I despise what they've done.
I mean, we're talking like they've beaten me up so badly that I'd literally lost my
sanity at one point.
And I had to literally, it took me years to regain my train of thought because of what they did.
And I really want to get them to see the truth of the gospel, but they won't listen. And because I'm dyslexic and because they've ignored my education, they'll be
like, you're just uneducated or you just don't know, to the point that they were trying to convince me and my brother that we are retarded because we're dyslexic.
And I don't know if you've studied dyslexia, but dyslexics are usually very intelligent people.
And I had my IQ tested and I have a very high IQ.
And so does my brother, but they were trying to get us to think that we were retarded, so we would stop trusting ourselves, so we would trust them.
I mean, this is this is really bad stuff.
At this point, you're like, why don't you just call the police?
Why don't you just, you know, sue them into oblivion?
And the fact of the matter is, is that I want to I don't want to do that.
I just want to I want to show them some grace.
I want to get them to see the truth of the gospel.
But every time I explain the gospel to them, they won't listen.
In the area that I work, I have a lot of free time and so I'll turn my phone on and I'll listen and I've watched your work, Trey, and I like your work.
And when you have people on your show and they'll talk about legalism and all this
stuff.
About how they were put under the law and they didn't know the truth, and then
when they finally found the truth, it's like the light bulb went on.
Well, you can imagine for me, it was it wasn't simply that a light bulb went on.
I mean, it was.
But, it's like all those years of legalism fell from me and I could finally breathe
again.
And I hadn't felt that way since I was a child.
It allowed me to finally be free and to think for myself again, getting to what Paul
said, learning the gospel, rightly divided, changed my life, and it's changed
everyone's lives who I've told it to.
It's helped me get through life.
Like the peace I have now, knowing that I'm secure in Christ.
This is beautiful, but my parents, because they don't rightly divide, I'll explain to
them that we're not under the law, they'll go to Romans 11, the verses that sound like you can lose your salvation because they're not rightly dividing the word of truth.
They're not actually studying out the verse according to what it says in context.
They're applying their own understanding to it.
And after all the crap they put me through and everything, I mean, you're
like, when I go to them, I'm not even thinking about all the stuff they've done.
About the only thing that will get me mad is when they try to tell me and my brother
how to live and how to talk and how to act, and the reality of the situation is that
they really have no place in telling us that.
Again, I'm dealing with two psychotically abusive people who I desperately want to get them to see what it is to rightly divide the word truth, but they won't.
They believe that it was started by Schofield and Darby, but I've studied
Schofield and Darby and Schofield and Darby did not start this.
This is biblical.
This is in the Bible.
And when you read it, according to what it's saying, it's undeniable.
Um, I have now debated Catholics from all over the place.
I've debated, uh, virtually every denomination out there and spoke with them about their doctrine and you're right.
Absolutely none of these denominations believe in faith alone.
They'll say that they believe in faith alone, but when you actually get into
it and talk with them, they don't.
Catholics believe in the traditions of their mass, of their church,which they can change at a whim.
They think they have the right to change doctrine, but their doctrine isn't even
correct because it comes from the Alexandrian texts, which were heavily
edited by a philosopher by the name of Origen, who didn't even believe in the resurrection of the dead, and it was more of a Gnostic.
So again, learning the truth has awakened me, has shown me just how vain and empty.
I used to be a big Ray Comfort fan, not anymore.
And once I saw through him because of the Bible, I walked away from Ray.
He used to be a big Way of the Master fan, of course, Ray Comfort, not anymore.
I used to, um, love these street preachers that go out and minister to people.
But then I realized how vain they are because they're not preaching the gospel.
They're just preaching their self-righteousness.
So I'm not for those guys anymore.
I'm not against street preaching, but I'm against these guys who are preaching a
works gospel and putting people under the law that I was under.
And I'll tell you right now, being under the law that I was under for so long as a Jew, um, it's not easy.
Like my dad's a Jew, but he doesn't wear the yarmulke on his head.
He doesn't, you know, go to temple or not that, but he takes pride in the fact that
he's a Jew.
And today, uh, we are all equal before the cross.
Today, it's by grace through faith.
Again, my dad can't accept that.
You see where I'm coming from here.
The law is literally a curse unto man in every way, shape of that word.
It is so perfect, the word of God and is so in depth, the word of God.
And it shows and cuts deeper than any sword on earth.
It is a two-edged sword that rips and tears asunder everything.
When you finally understand the word of God, rightly divided, you'll never be the same again.
It will, it will reveal the truth before you in ways you never thought possible.
It's completely transformed my life from someone who was literally suicidal and felt
like he was dying because of the stress to someone who was alive.
And wants to live and wants to grow in the word of God, rightly divided someone who
hated his parents to someone who loves them and wants to get them saved and wants them to see the truth so badly.
Teaching our listeners to rightly divide the word of truth, making the Bible easier
to understand.
This is Truth Time Radio.
The so-called gospel being preached in many of our churches today is incomprehensible.
It is Paul's gospel that predicates the good news of our salvation.
It is so clear, so precise, but in comes man with his ego and out goes the truth.
There's not room enough for the both of them.
What an inspiring and encouraging testimony from that dear brother, raised under the bondage of the law system, but was able to escape and find his way to God's grace.
The law says do, grace says done.
Grace doesn't say if you sin, I won't love you.
No, grace says I love you, so don't sin.
Folks, this is non-negotiable truth.
The law is fear-based and it don't work.
Fear is false evidence appearing real.
When someone puts you under the works of the law, they're instilling fear.
We're not under law, we're under grace.
So, they're making the false evidence appear real.
That's what happens when you don't rightly divide the word of truth.
God is looking for some ambassadors, some that will stand up and preach the unadulterated gospel of the grace of God, tell it, speak it, make it known.
Hey, how many others are out there who, like this listener once was, are blind, blind to this truth?
Open your mouth and be clear.
We have too many calling themselves preacher who's speaking nuances and vagaries.
Hey, just say what you mean.
The gospel of your salvation is clear and easy to understand.
Just ask Paul, 1 Corinthians 15 verses 1-4.
Get in the word.
You need to arm yourself with the truth.
Hey, the ignorance virus, it's looking for a host.
Don't fall victim to it.
You who think your law-keeping, your rule-keeping, your obedience is going to save you, you've fallen for the false gospel of moralism.
Moralism is a one-way ticket to hell.
Listen, the holiness of a sinner can't clean anything.
You're not good enough for heaven on your best day.
The holiness of a sinner can't clean anything, that's like cleaning a glass of dirty waterwith that same dirty water.
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