Post by Admin_Dan on Nov 21, 2006 16:25:40 GMT -5
My Testimony:
By Steven Armbruster
I was raised in a Lutheran home with a mother, father and a younger sister. We went to Church every Sunday, however the Gospel was never preached at this particular Church. They concentrated more on baptism and conformation, than they did on repentance and dependence on Christ alone. I can remember a conversation I had with the pastor where he stared that, "God can save people outside of His plan for salvation if He wants to". This Church now teaches homosexuality is not sin.
I had a very rebellious sprit when I was in my teens. I struggled in school and eventually I gave up and started to hang out with the wrong crowd. This led me into a world of heavy metal music and alcohol abuse.
Later when I was about 15 my parents became so discouraged by my behavior that they took me to an Assembly of God Church to see if I could attend the school there. I was able to attend Bible study and Chapel services with the students. In all I spent about a week at the school and at the very end of my stay the pastor led me to the Lord.
For me it was an experience that I didn't totally understand; however, I remember it felt like a weight being lifted off me and I had a different knowledge of sin. I remember going back to my friends and looking at drinking and cursing in a completely different manner. My parents made the decision to keep me in public school and to also stay in the Church we were attending, unfortunately without any further edification, I began to backslide. .
Thus several years passed and I entered the US Army, this was in 1986. I became a military police officer and was sent to a place called Goeppingen West Germany. I spent three years there and they were without a doubt the darkest, most lonely, melancholy years of my life. There were very few women their, I had no friends their and I continued to backslid into a life of drinking once again.
Somehow the Lord brought me through this experience and I did learn a very important lesson. That is there is a place that is "that bad". It made me realize that if God allowed a person to be that alone, then he must also allow those who reject Him to spend an eternity in Hell, without Him. It also showed me how bad sin is. Being 18 years old and a military police officer, I was on countless incidents of domestic violence, fighting and alcohol related crimes and injuries. When my time was up I sat on an airplane on a runway in Frankfurt . I asked God to forgive me and to show me the way to live right. I also asked Him to send me a wife and to let it be someone who really needed me.
I arrived home and got a job at a loading dock. There I met a person named Jason Hertzog who was a boxer and had boxed with Larry Holmes at his Gym in Easton. Jason was also saved and he was always laying Gospel tracks all over the office. Late at night when everyone left I would always read those tracts and pray. Looking back now I understand that God was dealing with me over un-confessed sin.
God did send an unsaved woman into my life named Tara and we got married. We began to attend the Church of my childhood. I prayed and asked God that he would save her and help my family grow in the Lord. About a week later she was out walking our son in a stroller and a man gave her a tract. We went to the Church and we were met with a powerful serman and upon leaving a large man stood up to shake my hand, I looked up to see Jason standing there. Tara did get saved a few weeks later and we have both been totally sold out to the Lord ever since.
We are raising three children, two boys and a girl and it is our sin sear hope that they will enter the ministry. As a family, by God's grace we desire and seek to advance His Kingdom.
By Steven Armbruster
I was raised in a Lutheran home with a mother, father and a younger sister. We went to Church every Sunday, however the Gospel was never preached at this particular Church. They concentrated more on baptism and conformation, than they did on repentance and dependence on Christ alone. I can remember a conversation I had with the pastor where he stared that, "God can save people outside of His plan for salvation if He wants to". This Church now teaches homosexuality is not sin.
I had a very rebellious sprit when I was in my teens. I struggled in school and eventually I gave up and started to hang out with the wrong crowd. This led me into a world of heavy metal music and alcohol abuse.
Later when I was about 15 my parents became so discouraged by my behavior that they took me to an Assembly of God Church to see if I could attend the school there. I was able to attend Bible study and Chapel services with the students. In all I spent about a week at the school and at the very end of my stay the pastor led me to the Lord.
For me it was an experience that I didn't totally understand; however, I remember it felt like a weight being lifted off me and I had a different knowledge of sin. I remember going back to my friends and looking at drinking and cursing in a completely different manner. My parents made the decision to keep me in public school and to also stay in the Church we were attending, unfortunately without any further edification, I began to backslide. .
Thus several years passed and I entered the US Army, this was in 1986. I became a military police officer and was sent to a place called Goeppingen West Germany. I spent three years there and they were without a doubt the darkest, most lonely, melancholy years of my life. There were very few women their, I had no friends their and I continued to backslid into a life of drinking once again.
Somehow the Lord brought me through this experience and I did learn a very important lesson. That is there is a place that is "that bad". It made me realize that if God allowed a person to be that alone, then he must also allow those who reject Him to spend an eternity in Hell, without Him. It also showed me how bad sin is. Being 18 years old and a military police officer, I was on countless incidents of domestic violence, fighting and alcohol related crimes and injuries. When my time was up I sat on an airplane on a runway in Frankfurt . I asked God to forgive me and to show me the way to live right. I also asked Him to send me a wife and to let it be someone who really needed me.
I arrived home and got a job at a loading dock. There I met a person named Jason Hertzog who was a boxer and had boxed with Larry Holmes at his Gym in Easton. Jason was also saved and he was always laying Gospel tracks all over the office. Late at night when everyone left I would always read those tracts and pray. Looking back now I understand that God was dealing with me over un-confessed sin.
God did send an unsaved woman into my life named Tara and we got married. We began to attend the Church of my childhood. I prayed and asked God that he would save her and help my family grow in the Lord. About a week later she was out walking our son in a stroller and a man gave her a tract. We went to the Church and we were met with a powerful serman and upon leaving a large man stood up to shake my hand, I looked up to see Jason standing there. Tara did get saved a few weeks later and we have both been totally sold out to the Lord ever since.
We are raising three children, two boys and a girl and it is our sin sear hope that they will enter the ministry. As a family, by God's grace we desire and seek to advance His Kingdom.