The Testimony of Joel Emerson
of God’s Grace and Love in his Life,
read before the congregation of Beech Grove Baptist Church,
November 18, 2012.
Praise the Lord. I will extol the Lord with all my heart in the council of the upright and in the assembly. Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight In them. Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and compassionate.
Psalm 111:1-4
The book of Daniel tells the story of King Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, at the time the most powerful kingdom on earth. For not acknowledging God as the Almighty, he came to live much like an animal for seven years. My story is its modern day counterpart:
I need to start by saying that I was raised in a Christian home, and if I give out too much information about things I’ve done, I’m going to save my mother the trouble of jumping up and telling everyone, “He wasn’t raised that way.” Because I wasn’t, we went to church every Sunday and there was no cussing, drinking, smoking, or fighting in the home where I was raised. When my Dad was in the last months of his time here on earth he couldn’t walk or talk and I used to be there most every night when we helped him to bed. I would read him a chapter from the book of Psalms. Sometimes they were a little on the gloomy side so often times I would skip a certain passage and read from Psalm 61. One verse in particular gave thanks to him and also to my heavenly Father. “You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.” When I was a teenager my dad and I butted heads a lot. I think within the same week I turned 18 I left home. I was a free spirit that was determined to do things my way and have a good time doing it. I was sworn to fun, loyal to none. Isaiah 22:13 says, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die!” That was me, to a tee. Needless to say it wasn’t long after that before I had lost my job, my place to stay and just like the prodigal son; I returned home with my head hanging in shame. But I not only returned home to my mother and father, but also to my heavenly Father also. You see I am one of those people who don’t look up till he’s at the bottom of the barrel and there is nowhere else to look.
I returned to God with a great deal of enthusiasm, and although I don’t think I had it in mind that I was trying to work for my salvation, I think I was trying to please God and work for Him on my own strength. Things were going along pretty smoothly until my kids came along; and don’t get me wrong, my children did not in any way cause me to lose my faith in God. Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.” He did not say that we will overcome the world. The power is in Him, not ourselves. I had never been too concerned about myself, or my own welfare. I knew I would get by, but when you have a family that depends on you, that changes the game totally. Now my own strength wasn’t sufficient and my faith was tested and was shown for what it was and it came up lacking.
Very quickly I took my eyes off Jesus and just like Peter, I began to sink. There’s a hole in every person’s life that can only be filled by God. If God is not there, a person will go to any extreme to fill it and it is quite sad; and when I look back, ridiculous is the best word I can come up with as to what we use instead of Him. In my case it was beer, drugs, beer, running the road when I should have been home with the kids, beer, motorcycles. And I must say, I still own a motorcycle, but now it is a mode of transportation, and not some shiny chrome idol that says “I’m cool” or should I say “fool.” Oh yeah, did I mention beer? Remember what I said about ridiculous? I’m trying to fill a hole with something that goes in one end and out the other in no time flat. To make a long story short, I wasted about 30 years ignoring God while He so patiently waited.
About 10 years ago I went to visit my Aunt in Georgia. She called and told me that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer and the doctors only gave her a couple of years to live. I had gotten to know her just recently before that when she had taken my grandmother into her house. I had a lot of respect for her so I went to Georgia to see her. When I got down there what I saw shocked me. She was chain smoking cigarettes one after another. I never touched another beer or cigarette after that day. After close to 30 years of smoking and 20 years of drinking every single day, my habit and craving was gone. I want to stress the word craving. I had not one ounce of desire for either one since that day. I truly believe this was nothing less than the Hand of God to take these habits from me. There is no other explanation.
My biggest regret during my season of ignoring God was my failure to teach my own children about Him, His Son and His Supreme Love. Although I lived in the same house with them I know I did not come close to fulfilling my job as a parent. The closest I came to doing right was for a few years when I dropped my son and oldest daughter off at this church and picked them up afterwards. I am eternally grateful to those here who helped to minister to my children that I so miserably failed to do. Some I know, but I’m sure all had a hand in it in some way. Thank you. I think that is why I’m so passionate about these children here.
One other thing I would like to share about this church. When Mrs. Edith Fleming (she was my father’s Aunt and we had lived in her house for about 10 years after she went to live with her daughter in Oklahoma. We eventually bought the property.) passed away many years ago, her funeral service was in this building. As a pallbearer I was sitting on the front row. It was the first time I had been in a church in many years. I believe it had been Mrs. Fleming’s request for everyone present to sing, “How Great Thou Art.” I didn’t, I cried like a baby through the whole thing. I really didn’t know Aunt Edie that well, so it was not grief. To this day I have no idea why I did this, but it was powerful, moving, embarrassing none the less and I will never forget it. Do not underestimate the capability of your voice and the magnitude of power of many voices joining together. If such could stir the tarnished soul of a lowly sinner, how much more the hands of such a Loving God.
Several years ago while I was working on my house I encountered a problem that was about to get the best of me. I tell homeowner’s all the time who are having difficulties in their construction projects that there is no problem in this business that money can’t fix. Ha! Ha! That came back and bit me hard in the butt more than once. The roof is made of a vinyl membrane with a dome shape that’s attached to the brick walls that had already been built. After it was securely bolted in place, fans would blow this air form up until foam insulation and concrete was sprayed from the inside. This process takes an extreme amount of air pressure to hold the wet cement to the ceiling until it dries. It was real difficult just to get the door open because of the air pressure. Before the crew came to spray the foam insulation, I noticed to my horror that the brick wall up close to where the air foam was attached had begun to crack. I had put threaded rod beside every window on each side all the way from the bottom and added some steel reinforcing bar at the last two feet of the wall, but I guess it was not enough. These dome homes have been built before, but me using brick for the stem wall was something new. If the bricks where this crack had developed had completely came loose, it would have probably spelled doom for the whole project. It would have meant taking maybe six feet of wall down and adding more reinforcement, and who’s to say that would have been sufficient.
But I guess the worst part would have been that I would have given up. I had a few problems just recently before this happened that had drained me of what little patience I did have. The only choice I had was to pray. But the thought came to me that I have been ignoring God for close to thirty years, why should He help me out. I had it in my mind that if I were Him I’d flick it with my finger like you and I would do a pesky insect and sit back and laugh. But, he didn’t. I didn’t understand why in the world He would do this. I believe it was a miracle that this thing held together. It was under pressure for over a month while the foam and concrete were being sprayed. I had a great deal of time and money invested in this, not to mention my reputation as a mason. It probably would not serve my masonry business well for everyone in the area to know my dome home popped like a balloon. Why Lord? Why would you do such a thing for me?
Although I’d clearly seen God’s grace and Love through the years, this time it finally penetrated my hard heart. Shortly after we moved in we were visited by some Mormon missionaries. They had the name of Jesus on their name tags so we invited them in. Their doctrine seems to be works equal salvation and they also believe no one can be saved unless they are physically immersed or baptized in water. This contradicts the total dependency for eternal life on the work of one man (not me) Jesus Christ. My only job is to accept this unspeakable gift. I have been baptized, but I know that no water on earth can remove the stain of my many sins. Only the blood of Jesus can do that and I rest my eternal future on that and that alone. But I do thank those Mormon girls for one thing. They caused me to read my Bible and seek the truth for myself. After six months of weekly visits they finally told me since they couldn’t seem to teach me anything it was time for them to move on. I told them I thought I was teaching them. When they quit coming it made me miss breaking bread (by that I mean Bible Study) with fellow believers. They do believe Jesus is the Son of God, but as for their other doctrines, God will be their Judge, not I.
One Sunday morning I got up, put on a suit and my wife asked me what in the world I was doing. “Going to church,” I said; and I guess you all know the rest of the story about how when I got down in Coke, that it crossed my mind that maybe I’d just go down to the boat landing and turn around and go home. Within one hundred feet of the church the chain came off my bike and I had to push it up in the parking lot. I didn’t have to turn around at the boat landing because I had arrived home. Not my permanent home, but a temporary place to study God’s word which is our true shelter.
I talked with someone last week who said he wasn’t going to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family because and I quote, “All those people are unsaved.” He went on to say that the Bible says we are to separate ourselves from the world. I also quoted scripture, “and how can they hear without someone preaching to them. (Romans 10:14) He said the first chapter of Romans states by seeing nature all men are without excuse. He said he presents the Gospel one time and if they don’t get it they’re on their own. It took God thirty years of patience, waiting and showing me miracle after miracle before I let His sweet Love in my heart. I am so glad He didn’t quit on me after twenty-nine years.
I’ve survived two motorcycles accidents, cancer and no telling how many guardian angels I’ve worn out. But I pray that everyone here will walk away today with something learned. Children do not waste your life apart from God’s Love as I did. Every day is a diamond when you walk with the Master. To those adults who do not walk with the Lord, it is not too late to change your direction, but one day it will be. I beg you in Jesus’ name not to refuse His magnificent gift and to those who do walk with Him, never, ever, give up praying for and praising God in front of those who stumble in darkness. Never, ever give up.
Jesus did many other things as well.
If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
John 21:25
The following was written after I gave my testimony at Church because I feel it is a very important part of my story of God’s Grace in my life: For Christmas (2012) my wife, Debbie, gave me a compilation of emails my sister had written during the final year of my Dad’s life here on earth. I didn’t care too much for the memory of that year, but I very much enjoyed my sister writing about her faith in God and her trust in His wisdom no matter what the circumstances were. I felt at one time, and I still believe, that the possibility remains that my father’s illness could be linked to my evil lifestyle. When King David had Uriah sent to the front lines where he knew he would be killed and stole the man’s wife, Nathan the prophet told David the child of his born to Uriah’s wife would die, and it did (II Samuel 12:14) I am certainly no better than David and I don’t know that I was responsible for my father’s suffering and death, but one day we will know. Whether or not I am, I could be, and it is one more reason my shame is great, but my Salvation is greater. Over and over in my sister’s emails the same verse came popping up, And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him who have been called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) Now this is real hard to understand when you see someone you love wither away like a cut flower. But now that a few years have gone by I start to see the big picture that sometimes is hard to distinguish up close. My Dad was stuck in a wheelchair and unable to talk the final 8 or 9 months of his life. I believe he must have spent a great deal (if not all) of this time in prayer, and I’m sure I must have been included quite a bit in his conversations with God. Although when he was first diagnosed with a brain tumor I told him, “Dad, you believe in Jesus, I believe in Jesus, so we don’t have a problem” my faith was shaky at best. Over the course of that year my faith grew by leaps and bounds to the point where when he passed away I was not overcome with grief for my father and best friend, but I had the absolute assurance that it was more like he had gone out of town and we will reunite very soon. Even if I live to be 100, with an eternal mindset, that is very soon. Although he suffered for a year, his prayers have provided me with an eternal blessing and blessings for whomever my prayers and God-given light shines upon. So no matter what, trust God and pray for those you love, those you don’t love, and everyone in between, And when God says all things, that means all things. One of my favorite verses is I Corinthians 13:12: Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. Thanks Dad, and thank you to my Heavenly Father. What an understatement!