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My Personal Journey to Christ: Pastor Larry Kirkpatrick
Larry Kirkpatrick
Today I want to share with you a portion of my journey. I want to be very personal, if you don't mind. I want to give testimony this day of how God has led a miserable, erring sinner from nothingness to glory, and given me so much more than ever any wicked person deserved in giving me Jesus, and opportunities to serve Him. Nor are your journey or mine complete. We are feeble. We are still learning and growing and fumbling along. But a God of love reaches out to us, down to us, to lift us up and reclaim us. And if we will but let Him, He shall heal the wounds of the wounded, and make us useful for Him. I want to trace with you the leadings of God. We dull blades can be sharpened to fine point if we submit to the working of the Holy Spirit. Hear now chapters from the life of one dull blade.
Childhood
I was born in Oregon City, Oregon, on December 20, 1962. What had been the hospital then is a rest home now. My parents had married in January of 62'. In 1963 my folks were living in a trailer and there was an electrical fire, and they ran out of the trailer with me. Damage turned out to be minor, but that was probably my first dose of excitement.
Our family's religious situation was interesting. They had been raised with mostly a Baptist background. They joined what was called the Christian church in Oak Grove. My dad was off work a lot those years and some people from church came to him and urged him to give more money. Then there was some incident where he felt slighted by the pastor, treated like he wasn't there. They stopped attending church when I was about five or six years old. I remember stories about Noah's ark and David and Goliath and marching around a city seven times. But my religious education was cut short right there. After that I was only in churches for weddings and funerals.
Growing up
I had a strange experience when I was about nine. It was as if it were a voice that spoke to me and out of the blue said, "You are going to be a preacher some day." I remember being quite surprised at the time. We weren't attending church or anything, nor hearing or watching anything religious. Except of that I had no serious religious happenings during that period. Soon I had forgotten it.
While I was growing up, my grandmother kept giving me religious books. I read some of them. The one about the people smuggling Bibles into Russia was interesting to me.
Once I saw a television program called "Chariots of the Gods." I went and asked my mother if there was any place in the Bible where there were flying saucers. She said she thought there might be something in the book of Ezekiel. I remember looking around in Ezekiel and not finding anything that seemed very promising.
Through those years I can't report that I was very religious. I began to draw early on, do artwork, and people always encouraged me to pursue that. Halfway through my high school years I switched from drawing to music. Soon I had an electric guitar and was playing in rock bands.
All around me my fellow students were partying and doing booze and drugs. I saw a chart once that showed substance abuse among my contemporaries spiking in 1981, the year of my graduation. After school I began to give guitar lessons for pay. At one time I had 30 students a week coming. I did a variety of things after that time, some of it with computers. Never "got religion" though.
And some how I avoided the drugs and the stupidity. Somehow I saw it in some respect for what it was
I came to a point after many years of thinking that I could get somewhere doing my own thing self-employed, to the idea that I needed to go ahead and get a full-time job. I began to work at a warehouse on graveyard shift, these 12-14 hour shifts. That was very wearing.
I used to walk through the graveyard in Oregon City in the mornings while the dew was still wet, and look at the tombstones; all the tombstones; all the epitaph's written there in stone, their lifeless testimony saying, "There was a life here. Someone lived and dreamed and hoped and loved and cried and died. And there must be a tomorrow, so we mark this place until such a day." But the graves lay there, silent still. And you know, the newer tombstones, they are just slabs in the ground so they don't obstruct the graveyard lawnmower. Was that, I asked myself, all there was? Is man but food for worms, and does every life wax away into nothingness never to speak again?
The Theodicy Question
Around that time, which would be maybe 1986, I came face to face with something that really made the gears turn in my head. One of my former guitar students became very ill. And I remember that at school he was one of the few un-wild ones. No one had anything bad to say about Jay. He was kind. He was everyone's friend. At the ripe old age of 21, Jay was stricken with Lukemia. He called me from the hospital in Seattle. I meant to go up and see him. But I never did. Death came much too close this time, as it never had before. I was constantly thinking about Jay. Of all the people who could be afflicted with this terrible disease. Why him? Why the good guy? Word eventually came. Jay was gone.
Within two or three weeks of that, another major incident happened. My aunt and uncle had wanted a child for years and years. But as it worked out, they had never been able to have one. But finally there was pregnancy! My cousin was soon to be born! Everyone's hopes were up. There was joy. But at the last, little Samuel was stillborn. He never saw the light of this world. You might say he had been a rather innocent person. Sure, he had the fallen nature like all the rest of us. But he had done no evil.
Those two deaths raised the question: If there is a God, and He is a good God, then why does He allow such bad things? That was the burning question. Later, at college I would learn that this was "the Theodicy Question." Namely, the question about the justice or righteousness of a good God and a bad world.
Now heaven had my attention. Now I had a question. Now I had to have an answer. And God was the bad guy. Or so it seemed. And so I talked to God. Let me share with you what I said to Him. And I said it in my ignorance, and no, this isnŐt really the proper way to address God. But let me tell you what I told Him.
I said to Him, "God, I don't know if You are real. But I do know that if You are real, I'll find You in the Bible. And I am going to read Your Book through, and see what kind of a God You are, who let the innocent fall down into the grave. And I am going to read through Your Book, and see what You have to say for Yourself, and then I am going to judge You. I am going to decide whether You should be worshipped or condemned. And I am going to do it all Your way. I am going to pray for understanding. And we'll see if You are and what You are." And I may say to you, I didn't say it with very much love. The innocent had died and I thought maybe I knew at whose doorstep to lay the blame. But I would be fair. I would read the Bible first.
Confrontation by Christ and Conversion
So I began to read. I started with the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke John, Acts, Romans, and there's where we need to come to a grinding stop. By the time I had arrived in Luke I was noticing a lot of repetition. John was very powerful. Acts was intriguing the first time through. But Romans
My heart was softening toward God after I had read of Jesus. When I read Acts I was impressed by the history surrounding the church. When I came to Romans, I came to a personal confrontation. Until then, I had been evaluating God. But in Romans, He evaluated me. In Romans I saw that He was the judge. I saw that I was a lost sinner. I saw that I was condemned, not Him.
The conviction came down overwhelmingly. I had been weighing God, but now, He weighed me. Now I agreed that I was weighed in the scales and found wanting. Now I came to Romans and God appealed to me. This came to pass when I came to Romans ten. Can we turn there together? Here is what it says:
The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:8-10).
The word was near me. God was ready to put it into my heart and into my mouth. He was ready to grant me the gift of the word of faith. He offered me salvation, faith to believe in Jesus and accept Him as my personal Savior.
That morning I knelt on my bed, in my tiny basement studio apartment along Seventh Street in Oregon City, and with tears and the pleas of prayer, gave my heart to Jesus. He made it possible for me to receive Him as my personal Savior. I confessed with my mouth to Jesus that I accepted Him in this capacity, and thanked Him for it. I then knew at last the joy of sin forgiven, a heart made new!
I thought maybe I should confess to another person too, and I called my uncle, an American Baptist minister, and announced to him that I had done this. This came out of the blue as far as he knew. We had never had very much in the way of religious conversation. And you know, you don't know what experience your neighbor or your relative is having right now, spiritually. How many times do we walk past someone who's at the brink, where the Holy Spirit has already cracked the door for us. But we don't know. You don't know who's on the point of conviction.
Was that a Sabbath or a Sunday morning? You know, some people say you have to know the day and the hour and the exact moment when you were "saved." I cannot honestly recall for certain. I do most decidedly recall that at this point I became very interested in finding God's people, whichever church they were, and joining with them.
Finding the True Church
Some would close their narration of their conversion with finding Christ on the personal basis. But friends, Christ is also the Head of His church. He has a fortress which He holds in a revolted world, a church in which He desires that no authority shall hold sway save His own. I had to find that body of people. I had to find that group.
I wanted to join with the people of God. Heaven has a present truth for this age. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is, even now, the Way, the truth, and the Life. And the church is, even now, the pillar and ground of the truth. The church, God's formally denominated (named) people on earth is here, somewhere, I thought. That is where Jesus will be. For I had read, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Matthew 18:20. Now that I belonged to Jesus, His church was where I belonged.
I went down to the library. They had a book there called The Handbook of Denominations. And I read starting at "A." And Adventists were not under "S," they were under "A." So yes, I read about the Adventists; I read about the Baptists.
When you get to the Baptist section, its really long. Because they have these troubles, and they always break off into these little groups over whether you should have five buttons on your vest or six. And one time there was a split between the five and six button Baptists. I'm not kidding. One time there was a split over whether you should meet in a church or only in homes. And we could go on. But I read through the Handbook of Denominations, and I sorted it down to two groups. And I don't really know how I missed the Methodists, but I sorted it down to the Baptists and the Adventists. And I was doing some research there in the library.
Now remember my grandmother there, who was praying for me? Who was giving me the books? My grandmother was an interesting lady. She was married to my grandfather who was a Catholic, Ceril Chambers. And grandmother, Barbara Chambers would go down to the Adventist camp-meeting six miles away. And grandpa wouldn't take her. So she had to walk. So she walked. And when she went down to the Adventist camp-meeting, she came back with a little book. The name of that book was, The Great Controversy.
Now my grandma kept the Sabbath, but she was not a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. All of her children kept Sunday. And there's another story in that. But we won't do that now. But I went and talked to my grandma. And I said, "Have you got any books by these people, the Seventh-day Adventists?" "Oh, I think I do. Let me look in my closet," she said. So she opened it up and began to root around. You know how grandmothers are with their closets. Sorry grandmas. But she came up with this book. And the title on this book was, The Cosmic Conflict. Now you know which book that is. That's The Great Controversy. "This is one by the Adventists I think." "Well, thank you grandma." I took the book home with me. And I began to read.
Sunday Morning TV
About this time I began to watch religious programming on Sunday morning, because Sunday is the seventh day of the week. Now we all know that. Everyone goes to church on Sunday. So the first program I tuned in to, they wanted $220.00 from the viewer. And the show that came on after that, they only wanted $120.00 dollars from me. Now some of you have been young bachelors. Young bachelors do not plan at random to give $220.00 to the church. Certainly not young secular bachelors at least. That's not normally in your frame of mind. And I was not very impressed.
But then it came to another program called Amazing Facts. And they didn't ask for any money. And there was a man on that program who I would later meet; and his name was Joe Crews. And he didn't ask for any of my money. And he preached from the Bible. And he preached about the Sabbath. And he also preached about the state of man in death, which, as you now know my story, you can imagine my eyeballs were now glued to the screen and to the India paper pages of my Bible. And those pages were flipping back and forth from end to end as I studied. Incidentally, I asked my uncle, the American Baptist pastor about the Adventists. And he said, "Stay away."
Now you know from Romans I learned that men are fallen but God is holy. And from the book Great Controversy, I learned the answer to why men were fallen and how God makes them holy again. And God was working. The Holy Spirit was leading me.
My First visit to the Adventist Church
I had to find the Adventist church, and it was hard to find. I finally went onto the campground in Gladstone and they pointed out where I would find it. It was a Tuesday morning. Monday morning I had gone around knocking at the doors of several local Sunday churches, to try to talk to the ministers. But guess what? On Monday morning do you know what the Sunday ministers do? They sleep in. The doors were all locked. So Tuesday morning I said, I am going to go over to the Adventist church.
Guess what? The Adventists were there, they were home, they were in. So I went and I knocked on the door of the Adventist church. And when that door opened, I said, "Hi. I want to find out more about the Seventh-day Adventists." Alfred Sayler, a member there answered the door. And his eyes went wide. And he said, "Well, come on in." And his wife, Freda, was the secretary. So they led me up to the pastor's office and I said "I want to find out more about the Seventh-day Adventists." The pastor wasn't there, but I talked with the Saylers for a bit, asked them some questions, told them a couple of my problems doctrinally.
They said, "Let's get you some literature." So Alfred went and then he came back. And guess what he had in his hand? The had The Great Controversy. I said, "Oh, donŐt give me that. I've almost finished that. That's an awesome book. He said, "Wait, wait!" and he went back and came back with a book called Desire of Ages. And I said, "Well, I haven't seen that one before. I'll take that one." So I took that one home and began to read.
My first visit to an Adventist church service was at a prayer meeting on a Wednesday night. And I had long hair, and I won't get into that part of the description. But I wasn't quite the way I am now. I went to the prayer meeting Wednesday night. And I donŐt remember what it was about, I can't give you the detail, but I do remember this. Near the end of the prayer meeting there was a lady sitting near the front, and she brought out this little book and she read a quotation from it. And I said, "What is that?" Here I'd just walked in off the street so to speak.
And the Pastor's wife, and what a blessed lady she was (you might not think that in a minute but you'll be wrong), she is a godly Christian lady. But she said, "Oh, don't worry about that book, just read your Bible. Don't be concerned about that book"
So I go in there, and there's a wall, now maybe I'm exaggerating, but there's a wall coated with books all by this same person. And there was Early Writings there. And I thought, wait a minute, this is something. But I saw the Great Controversy there, and Desire of Ages there, and I knew those were good books. I saw the Cosmic Conflict paperback sitting there. So I took and I bought Early Writings.
I took it home and began reading. I went to church that Sabbath
So I came back to prayer meeting the next Wednesday. And when it was over I approached the same lady again and I told her I wanted to thank her so much for pointing out to me that book. I said, "I've been reading this book, it's an awesome book. It's so very much like that other one I read, the Great Controversy. And the pastor's wife, she just turned pale. She was afraid about me reading the writings of Ellen White prematurely I think. But that was a wonderful book. And Early Writings, if you havenŐt read that book, go get one. They still have them right there, at the ABC.
Amazing Facts
So I also sent a letter to Joe Crews. I said I don't have any money, but could you send me this booklet and that booklet, and I pointed a few out, but I said eventually I wanted to get them all. Well, about a week and half later the thickest envelop I'd ever seen arrived. In it, ALL Joe Crews' library of sermons booklets, and a few more things too. And personal page and a half length letter. I was very surprised.
One thing led to another. I began to study with the pastor., prepare for baptism. I was still reading my Bible through. And on the day that I was baptized I finished the Bible. I still remember, it was second Chronicles, that was the last book of the Bible that I had to read to finish reading it all the way through the first time through. And I was baptized around easter, and I think it would have been about 1987. So that's how I became a Seventh-day Adventist Christian.
Now let me accelerate very rapidly and just tell you one or two more items and I'll finish off. Now we were studying Leviticus in the Sabbath school class. And I loved Sabbath school. Soon I was teaching the pastor's Sabbath school class from time to time. And one day someone said, "Larry, you should be a pastor." I thought what in the world is this person saying? A pastor? Me? I'd never thought of that. One thing led to another, and I'll skip over a bunch of stuff, but I went up to school. One of our colleges in the state of Washington. Actually, we only have one college in the state of Washington. And the first thing that happened when school began was they began to attack the King James Version Bible.
Conflicts at Our Colleges
And by the way, if this were a regular testimony I'd leave a couple of these last points out. OK? But we're all together here. And I was a little bit disturbed, so I had to study about the Bible versions. And the King James came out really well as I studied more and more deeply into it. There was also somebody there teaching that the earth was probably some 4.6 Billion years old. I didn't agree with that. There were some people there who taught different things about the prophecies than what I'd read in the book Great Controversy, let alone than what I'd read in the Bible itself. And we had a few go rounds in the class room.
Once I managed to get into trouble in a conflict with one of our professors about movies. And the teacher told the class, "If you go to this movie, you donŐt have to do your Greek assignment." I raised my hand and I said, "When I joined this church, it said, 'No movies.' What do you think youŐre doing? What's going on here?" "You have to go to this movie. It's a great learning experience. You won't have to do your Greek assignment." "Well," I said, "I'm not going to go." So my assignment, and one other person who stood with me, was to translate a portion of Matthew chapter six from Greek to English the best we could. It was first year Greek. So we were up to almost midnight translating. Anyway, we turned in our assignment the next day. We didn't see the movie. I think we learned more on that night than the other ones did. And I could tell you a number of these type of experiences, but they wouldn't all be that uplifting to you.
The Angel's Hand
I will share one or two quick incidents though, because when I went there there were some incidents of special supernatural guidance that met me where I was at during those times of tears and sorrows and thinking the ground was going to open up and swallow that campus at any time. And we want to trace the working of the Holy Spirit when we talk about our experience.
I want to tell you, I had a lot of tears and soul-searching while I was there. I couldn't understand why the church I had just joined, had people teaching things that were destructive and unbiblical, and not the same as what I had just come in under. And I had conflicts with some of my professors.
And one time I was in tears in my basement apartment. I donŐt know how it is I always managed to get the basement apartments, I guess they were cheaper. And I was crying out and pleading with god and saying, "God, why did you send me to come here?!" And I was crying and I took my Bible and I did this thing [flips the Bible all around in a variety of rotations, then flips it open, eyes closed, and sticks finger in]. By the way, I found out there's a name for this. They call this bibliomancy. It's not right. Don't do that. But I put my finger in the Bible, and I opened my eyes. I never shared this part publically before. Do you want to know what it said? Do you want to know what my finger was parked on? Do you want to know where the angel of the living God pujt the finger of this person who was saying, "Do you really want me to carry on and be a pastor in this church?"
Now I'm going to read you the text. And I am telling the truth of God here, this is what happened. Now this isn't a sound method of learning God's will, but I believe He met me where I was at and in my moment of need. But this is the text, where my finger landed, and remember, I am at that time studying to be a Seventh-day Adventist minister. "And I saw another angel, fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." And the angel put my hand on Revelation 14, verse 6. that was a help to me.
Another Answer to Prayer
There was another incident too that I have to share. One morning on another occasion I was asking God the same question. Namely, "Why did You ask me to come here and go through this? And I prayed that morning and asked God to have someone tell me why I was there. No, I wouldn't say anything about this to anyone. But if He would please, I asked God to do that. Speak through someone to me. And I promptly forgot about it. Really, I never thought about it again all the day. Now that night my friend and I, we were studying Greek again. Now Greek was hard. Some of you here know this experience.
And we finished around 11PM, and we stood in the parking lot of the Psych building and chattered for a few minutes, and then we prayed together. And then we parted he was walking toward his car, myself, toward my basement cave not far away. When suddenly I heard him call out behind me. "Hey Larry," Sam said. I stopped and turned. "Yes?" "Larry, do you know why you are here?" And I said, "No. What do you mean, why am I here?"
He says, "Larry, you're here to make us think. You're here to get us to study for ourselves, so that whatever we hear, we study for ourselves too." And I said, well, thank you brother, and God bless you tonight. And we each turned and proceeded as we had parted. And I walked maybe ten or twenty feet more and then I came to an instant stop. Suddenly I realized what I had forgotten all through the day and even to that moment, what I had asked God to do for me that day. And I realized in that moment that God had come again to this feeble and faithless person, and had answered my prayer, and showed me in some small measure, why, I was there.
The Call at Last
Well, I'm going to skip many things and come to one last incident and close. And I'm going to even skip over the death of my father, which happened near the end of my experience in school. But at the end of school, when you go out then and you finish your degree, you start interviewing with the Conference presidents. And I learned about how this works. I had transferred from the first college to Southern College in Tennessee where I finished my last three years. And we had a very large class there, and most of my classmates had been snapped up already my various conferences. So at the end we had these interviews with different conference presidents who would come through. And there was a sign-up sheet and everyone who wanted an interview tried to get a slot on the sign-up sheet and get an interview.
But first the religion professors went in and talked to the conference presidents. And it just so happened that one morning I was the first guy in line for the interviews. My name was on the first slot on the sign-up sheet. And I heard one of my professors come in and go into the next room with the conference president. And I wasn't trying to overhear. But I heard my last name spoken by the professor. Now I strained to hear whatever I could. And the only other thing I could hear clearly after my name was, "Spirit of Prophecy." And I couldn't make out for sure anything else that was said. A few moments later the president came in. We had a brief interview and then he was gone. No call. And when it was all said and done, there were three of us that didn't have a call.
Anyway, the Lord led. And without attending right now to the details, I wound up going to the state of Nevada where I began my ministry right after my graduation, as a contract pastor on half salary in kind of a sink-or-swim deal in a little district out in the desert amidst the scorpions and sagebrush. And there is more to tell there. One church, I had to spend three years trying to get them so they would do evangelism. We fought for three years. They were ready to die, and they wanted to die. In fact, the main family there ran the mortuary in town. Really! And Pam knows all about this, because I met Pam for the first time when she came to that church. But that's another story.
Conclusion
But I want to tell you something in closing. This is not my whole experience, and its not important for you to know my whole experience. Sometime, if there's another occasion and interest, I'll tell you the rest. But for now I just want to say this. I was called by God to serve as a minister in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. But most important, Jesus is my personal savior. And everything else, its wonderful, but Jesus is the most wonderful of all.
Now friends, God has His church. She has never yet left earth. She stands today in midst of battle and challenges as never before. The hordes of hell are beating against her doors with fury to destroy her. Inside her fortress are mingled workings of both treason and loyalty. And although the end is nigh and members and ministers are imperfect, God isn't through with her yet. He is working. His flag still flies over His fortress. And God's church will not be the Alamo. She shall triumph at last against every challenge to her authority and every misstep she takes. God has not forsaken her.
We are workers in God's church together. We are in His army. Jesus is our personal Savior, and His work upon us continues to this hour. We have not attained. But may we never confuse what we see with what shall be. For just as Jesus promises to be with His people always, even to the end of the age, as we saw a previous week, God's church will not be broken up. "There is not the least evidence that such a thing will be." Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 69.
So let every heart maintain our own connection with God. And let us never forget how we've been led individually by the Holy Spirit. Let us not forget the tracings of the footsteps of Jesus in our own personal experience. And hold on tight no matter what vengeance is brought to bear upon us as we do the right thing in service for our Lord.
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