I didn’t want to become just a Roman Catholic priest, but even go on missions. I would do great deeds for God. To live as a missionary in a distant land, to learn their language and culture, should be a great adventure, and perhaps - so I thought to myself - God would even choose me to suffer for him or even die a martyr’s death. Such were my performances during my many years of study at the priestly school and preparation for the missionary work for the Roman Catholic Foreign Missions Society of America.
My quest for a greater reputation with God
When I look back on all these years, I can identify the real causes of my thoughts. What I was actually looking for at the time was an acknowledgment to God and an inner certainty that I would come to God’s heavens after my death. Through all the years, all the ten years I have spent in Tanzania, East Africa, as a missionary priest in my heart, I have not had true peace. As Adam hid his nakedness behind a fig leaf (Gen. 3: 7), I myself constantly sought to hide my spiritual nakedness behind religious and missionary fig leaves.
A missionary and yet lost
Looking back on my past, I’m not exactly happy about anything. How very ashamed. I was so sinful, so hypocritical. Some might argue that I did a lot of good to Africans, built schools for their children, provided medicines for their diseases, and offered them religious instruction; but today I know that all the so-called "good works" were in God's eyes only "dirty rags." (Isa. 64.5). I was a poor, lost sinner who desperately needed God’s salvation, but I didn’t know it. I thought I had to be saved anyway as a Catholic priest. I sincerely believed that all Catholics are saved the moment they receive the sacrament of baptism.
To heaven with good deeds?
How much I regret the lost years in which I did not know the true God and his son, the true Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! How seduced I was to believe that I could earn heaven with good works and with effort as a priest and missionary! I was thirty-seven years old when the biblical God was revealed to me. How unheard and abundant are the grace and mercy he has shown me!
He forgave all my sins and filled my heart with peace that satisfied all my longings. I was changed in an instant, thoroughly internally changed. Yes, I was born again, born of God Himself from heaven. “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (John 3: 3).
God's plan
God has already chosen me in eternity to be his property. So he intervened in my life in that way and stopped me on my way to hell. Yes, that's where I, the missionary priest, would land. I was on my way to fiery hell, to eternal separation from a loving God. He showed me who I was from beneath my pious appearance: a disgusting sinner!
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).
"But God, who is rich in mercy, has loved us because of the great love with which he loved us. But God, who is rich in mercy, has loved us because of the great love with which he has loved us" (Eph 2: 4 +8). -9)
Thank God for his indescribable gift. ” (2 Cor 9:15)
In November 1966, I left the Roman Catholic Church forever. Some said I went because I wanted to get married. But this is completely wrong. I was too proud to even think about marriage. I respected the law so little that I thought it would be beneath my honor to enter this state.
But God, who saved me by His grace at the right time, made me realize that it was His will for me to marry. His word is clear enough : "Let the law be obeyed by all, and let the bed be undefiled, for God will judge the unclean and the adulterous" (Heb. 13: 4). He also writes, " But because there is a danger of uncleanness, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry; ) . God has given me a faithful wife who knows the Lord Jesus Christ and loves Him just as much as I do, and shortly before I wrote this testimony, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.
God speaks through His word
But why did I leave the Roman Catholic Church and the priestly ministry? Each time I was asked this question, I replied, "Because God told me so." This is not a lie. He didn’t speak to me in an audible way with his voice. But he was with his written word in Revelation, through which he told me quite clearly:
"Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, 'Come out of him, my people, that you may not share in his sins, and that his affliction may not befall you' (Rev. 18: 4). The true Christ calls his people to go out of the Roman Catholic Church. But whoever does not belong to his people and is not a sheep of his pasture cannot understand this command. “My sheep listen to my voice; i know them and they follow me. (Jn 10:27).
Before God, by His grace, saved me, no one would have persuaded me to leave the Roman Catholic Church. But when he saved me and I first heard his friendly, gentle voice, it was not difficult for me to fulfill his command to step out of this system and follow him. I love him because he loved me first. There was a time when I believed that the Roman Church was the one and only church of Jesus Christ on earth. If a Protestant told me that one religion is as good as another, I would answer, “It is true, one religion teaches as well as another, but only one religion is true and that is Roman Catholic.
Faithful people "see" Christ in the Bible
True believers do not need visible signs such as the Mass and the sacraments, for their salvation happens by the power of the Holy Spirit as soon as they place all their trust in Jesus Christ as the personal Lord. Nor do they need the visible followers of the apostles because they know from the Bible that God calls spiritual leaders of his own free will to feed the community with the precious word of God. Nor do they need images or statues as a remembrance of God, for they see the true nature of Christ in the written word, the Bible. In addition, God condemned the making or worship of images and statues as idolatry (Exodus 20: 3-5).
My current job
I have been working as a printing clerk for 23 years. In the home evangelical community, I lead Bible lessons for adults. In this community, in addition to me, there are a few other former Catholics who, like me, were saved by the wonderful grace of God and now know and love the true Jesus Christ revealed in the Bible.
“ Eternal life is in knowing you, the only true God, and him you sent, Jesus Christ (Jn 17: 3).
U.S.-born Robert V. Julien discovered biblical truth when he was a Roman Catholic missionary in Tanzania. He later lived in Florida, practiced a secular profession, and still served in the Christian community. Anyone who has had contact with him can attest to how much mercy he has had with the lost and with what meekness he interprets biblical truth.
[Source: https://bereanbeacon.org/sl/odresen-zaradi-brezpogojne-bozje-milosti/]
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