9. A Lifelong Effect in Misinterpreting Scripture.

It wasn't all my fault.

After my father ripped his own KJV Bible into shreds and binned it, I bought two new versions: a new KJV and a Revised Standard Version  (RSV). Reading the Bible was a frequent occurrence, and my knowledge of its contents gradually grew. However, a failure to rightly divide the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV) led to a life without real peace and assurance of salvation. This was not so much my fault in its entirety, but the failure of the church pastor, elders, or fellow brethren to show me the right way. After all, the Ethiopian eunuch needed the tutelage of the apostle Philip to help him understand the writings of the prophet Isaiah. Such tutelage led to the eunuch's conversion to Christ (Acts 8:26-40).

I have already explained what it meant to "divide the Word of Truth" in my previous blogs in this testimony. Using a cake illustration, it needs to be "cut straight" into slices before consumption. That is exactly what the word "divide" here means. To cut straight into sections.

Thus, in the spring of 1975, I began to attend Bracknell Baptist Church. The pastor, a strong-minded Welsh extrovert named Ben Davies, used the Gospel of Matthew as his favourite text for preaching. His sermons were practical rather than theocratic and were delivered in an authoritative tone. That is, "You heard my message, now apply it." This was also known as mechanical preaching.

Hence, between the years 1975 and 1989, although I attended both the morning and evening Sunday services, along with the Wednesday evening prayer meeting, I never sat comfortably at Bracknell as I did in St Jude's. Neither had I experienced lasting peace in my soul with definite assurance of salvation.

This was because Matthew's Gospel (along with Mark and Luke's Gospels) contained the Sermon on the Mount, and an in-depth exposition of the Law of Moses. For example, just being angry with someone without a valid reason is murder, and simply calling someone a fool is in danger of hellfire. And looking lustfully at a woman is committing adultery in the heart. Furthermore, it is more difficult for a rich man to enter Heaven, and one must sell all his possessions, take up his own cross, and follow Jesus for eternal life. Also included is the need to tithe, and fasting is added to prayer. Furthermore, one must forgive the wrongdoer to be forgiven by God, and one must endure to the end to be saved.

All these make up the Gospel of the Kingdom, an earthly kingdom promised to Israel. The nation of Israel is the future Bride of Christ; they are the people of God. This is where dividing, or cutting straight, the Word of Truth, comes in. We are not the Bride of Christ. We are more intimate. We are the Body of Christ, with Christ himself as the head. This slice of the cake is set apart from the Kingdom Gospel slice, even though both are inspired Scriptures.

I remember our wedding day. It was a combined nervous and joyful moment. She stood by me, I made my vows, she made hers, and we joined as one in holy matrimony. But at my birth, I was born with both my arms and legs. I didn't ask any of my body parts to marry me! As the Body of Christ, we believe in the Gospel of Free Grace. In this Gospel, advocated by the apostle Paul, one has to accept as true the death of Jesus Christ on the cross to pay for all our sins, and his burial to prove that he truly died, and on the third day, he rose from the dead, and can save everyone who believes. Once saved, he could never be lost again, as Christ paid for all his sins, past, present and future. He is sealed with the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption, a guarantee of eternal life.

Indeed, Once Saved Always Saved (OSAS) was advocated by Ben Davies and his deacons; in reality, by mixing the Kingdom Gospel with free grace, I didn't benefit from this sweet truth, despite convincing myself of its truthfulness as well as standing up to anyone who denied OSAS in favour of the idea that salvation is forfeitable. To sum up, I wasn't that happy at Bracknell Baptist Church. With the arrival of graduates taking up high-tech employment, the church began to fit the description: The Tory Party on its knees.

During my latter years at Bracknell, a building project was launched, as the number of people began to overspill the main sanctuary and into the adjoining meeting room. Thus, emphasis on tithing and double-tithing was delivered from the pulpit. I felt ill at ease. The main text of Scripture was Malachi 3:8-12, and according to Malachi 1:1, this book, like all the others in the Old Testament, was addressed to Israel, and not to the Church. The need to tithe placed me under the Law; thus, material and financial blessing from God was earned rather than from free grace already paid for by Christ, his death and resurrection. At the end, I had to leave Bracknell Baptist Church altogether, and I was without a church to go to throughout 1989, into 1990.

The new building, known as the Kerith Centre, is named after the brook Kerith flowing through the ravine in Israel, east of the Jordan River. It opened in 1989 to house the renamed Bracknell Community Church. It is a smaller version of the 7,200-seater Willow Creek Church in Chicago, whose senior pastor, Bill Hybels, knew Ben Davies personally. The Kerith Centre houses 1,000 people.

The old 70s-style Baptist Church co-existed with the Kerith Centre for a short while until funds were raised to demolish the old building. In its place, the K2 was built to house children's meetings during the Sunday services and for midweek meetings. The K2 was named after the world's second-highest mountain, located in the Himalayas, near Mt. Everest.

The Kerith Centre, Bracknell.

In 1990, I joined Ascot Baptist Church under the recommendation of Tim Kingcott, a close friend of mine. At the time, the pastor was Barry Buckingham, now deceased, and his two deacons, Bill Hopkins, who now lives in Florida, and the late Les Draper.

Work and Leisure.

As already mentioned in weeks past, my first job after leaving school in 1968 was an apprentice wood finisher, although the training fell short of a proper apprenticeship. For example, after five years, I still wasn't qualified to spray colour a cabinet. Skilled finishers such as Alf Earl never wanted to pass their skills to the next generation. In 1973, I took on the post of a pool attendant in Reading, where life-saving qualifications were required. After four months, I returned to factory life, but this was very different to the first. At Bardens, the precision engineering workshop specialising in ball-bearing races, I fitted in well as a machine setter/operator. It was here that my growing knowledge of the Bible inspired me to backpack the Holy Land in 1976, just weeks after flying the nest to set up my own home.

Then, just over a year later, in 1977, entrepreneurs such as Freddy Laker, along with his rival, Jetsave, opened the door for economy Transatlantic travel, and for the first time, fulfilled a dream of walking through an American street, swimming in the Great Salt Lake, and standing by the thundering Niagara Falls.

I was settling at Bracknell Baptist Church when, in 1977, not long after returning from America, Barden decided to close its Bracknell branch and move to Plympton, just east of Plymouth in Devon. I, along with most of the other workers, was made redundant.

Soon after, I settled at the British Aircraft Corporation in Weybridge, Surrey. It was the largest company I had ever worked for, with all of its buildings on the site of the disused Brooklands motor racing circuit. While I was there, parts of the original racetrack could still be seen. The job I had was very similar to Bardens', but more challenging, as I learned to shape parts of the aeroplane with precision. I worked there for nearly two years, between 1977 and 1979. While I was an employee at the Corporation, in 1978, I flew across the Atlantic Ocean for the second time, with the intent of visiting the Grand Canyon. I ended up on an unscheduled hike to the Colorado River and back over two days.

British Aircraft Corporation, Weybridge.

Like at Clarke's, the public swimming pool, and Bardens, at the British Aircraft Corporation, I didn't hide my Christian faith there either.  But still not properly dividing the Word of Truth, the lack of assurance of my salvation began to suppress my keenness to share the Gospel, as I did with greater enthusiasm before. Furthermore, there were young men, fellow employees, who out-argued me to the point that I couldn't give an adequate answer.

Then, in June 1979, I lost my job at the Corporation (which by then was renamed British Aerospace) due to a serious machine error which probably cost the business thousands. The next 14 months, I lived on Unemployment Allowance as I tried to look for work and, at the same time, sustain myself. I was against any idea of the Bank of Mum & Dad, and to be fair, Dad in particular was also against that idea.

Spiritual testing came during this period of unemployment. The trip to Israel in 1976, along with the two trips to North America, rapidly receded into the past. The money dwindled, but the energy bills kept dropping through my door. One morning, the electricity bill dropped through. I wasn't able to pay it. So I laid it flat on the kitchen worktop, and I prayed over it. The next morning, an envelope dropped through. The sender was anonymous, but the contents of the envelope were a cash sum which matched the payment demanded by the bill.

And so, living was scarcely above the breadline during those fourteen months. However, our current church housegroup leader, who, in 1980, ran a high-tech job agency, helped me in setting up my own self-employment business. At first, it was painting and decorating people's homes. However, the business struggled through its first winter, and so, the birth of domestic window cleaning. The business was still ongoing by 2015, when I sold it to a fellow window cleaner and retired at 63, due to deteriorating health, after 35 years of self-employment.

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Next Week: Did this Window Cleaner receive a life-changing supernatural vision?