My Father’s Bible Woke Me to God’s Marvelous Word

Ezek 36:25-27 May 1, 1998

When did I know the Bible was the Word of God? Having had church-going, Bible-believing parents and grandmothers, in the “Bible Belt”, I never really questioned that. I simply took it for granted. But when did that truth become alive, when was it set on fire? When did I begin to forever defend it as the truth and nothing but the truth?

I believe it was somewhere between my determination to seek God with all my heart and find Him, and when I was actually born-again according to Jesus’ answer to Nicodemus in John chapter three (or when I was born of the Spirit). No, I couldn’t and didn’t go back into my mother’s womb to be “born again”. Jesus told Nicodemus; “That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit, marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye must be born again.”

After a long stretch of being depressed, hopeless and near suicide, I was prompted to search to know more about God. I even wrote Him a note asking Him to help me make the right decisions. For a number of months I had been seeking God because I wanted to know Him in a personal way. (I HAD incorrectly believed that I had known Him all my life.)

I started attending a Charismatic worship group and began reading my Bible as never before. I was so hungry for His Word I would stay up until 2 or 3 A.M. reading the Bible. At this time I was attending to a class on how to receive the Holy Ghost – or as they said in those days, the Holy Spirit. It was basically a meeting run by the Catholic Church.

The week before I was to have someone lay hands on me to receive the Spirit something in my spirit had compelled me to read my father’s bible which he had marked several passages. It was given to me by my mother seventeen years earlier at my father’s death. I stayed up until 3 A.M. reading what was of importance to my father.

Among those things highlighted in his Bible were John chapter 3 and three verses from Ezekiel 36 which said:

“Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” vs 25-27

Inside the Bible was a scrap from an old check with Psalm 107 and four verses written on it. I read the verses and found they were all the same, “0h that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and His wonderful works to the children of men.”

There were many, many more, too numerous to go into. But I know each one pierced my heart to stay there forever. I didn’t understand all of it that night, but my heart had been changed. As Ezekiel said; “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.”

That new spirit within me caused me to sing in my sleep. The singing, of my own voice, awakened me. I was singing a very familiar prayer, often sung from the Episcopal prayer book. I just now realized after twenty-four years that it was the best way I knew to sing praises to God. It begins with “Glory be to God on high” and ends with; “For thou only art holy; thou only art the Lord; thou only Oh Christ, with the Holy Ghost, are most high in the glory of God the Father.”

I believe that morning I awoke a completely new person, NOW born of the Spirit, the Spirit of God. I believe this was promised to me the night before without my realizing it as I read from both John 3 and Ezekiel 36. Those words had sunk into my spirit and came true as I slept in the arms of my Saviour. He even spoke the confirmation of my rebirth to me soon after I awakened. He said; “This is the first day of your life – not the rest of your life – but the first day of your new life.” I was literally passing over a bridge en route to church when He spoke this to me. As I had done spiritually in my sleep, I was crossing over to Salvation.

I believe it was that very day when I became fully aware that the Bible was indeed the Word of God. I knew the power and might of God’s Word like never before!!! And it has only grown stronger every day of my life since.