With Brother Bill's permission, we have displayed this upon/within the pages of Out of Bondage. We pray there will be more incentives for those who are frustrated with the "religions" of this world to come out of bondage!

Elder Bill Allen
Testimony

Dear All,

We have done this in the past, and I found it to be very edifying for the members of the list server, that are willing to do so, to give there personal testimonies of what God has done for them. Maybe the rest of you all will like to do so again. Anyway, to break the ice, here is mine as it was written to a dear friend who asked last night. I copy it here for the glory of God.

For clarification - SBC stands for Southern Baptist Convention.
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My journey from the SBC to the Primitive Baptist began as an older teenager, late High School. I ought to back up, I guess. I was converted (thought it was eternally saved) at the age of eight. As most any other person, I am a sinner. It continually bothered me that I would fall back into sin in my life. I constantly doubted my salvation while growing up, because I new that I was not good enough to earn it! Now, in all fairness, I have to admit that not a single SBC preacher ever told me that I had to continually EARN my salvation. The CONSTANT pleading and badgering from the stand for sinners to do ONE thing to get themselves saved certainly left me with that impression, however. Anyway, I prayed the sinner's prayer THOUSANDS of times in my young life (this is not an exaggeration). I was confusing conversion and regeneration and the link conversion has to repentance. I just wanted to MAKE SURE that I was saved, because when you sin you sure don't feel that way. I did not know that the burden of sin I felt was a sign of regeneracy. The SBC like to keep your salvation kind of like a good mystery novel where you just aren't real sure until the end of the last chapter. It is a good way to keep the numbers up and the money rolling in. Now back to when my journey started. I was starting to seriously read my bible. In fact, I was reading it during the preaching instead of really listening to the preacher. I had been reading through Ephesians and Romans. One Sunday, I noticed:

Ro 11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

and realized that it was in COMPLETE contradiction to what the preacher had been preaching about. I was concerned! So I went home and looked up "works" in the good ole Webster's Dictionary. It said that a work is any physical or mental activity. Well, that includes thoughts and CHOICES! I had been told all my life that salvation was by grace and not works, but what they told us to do to get saved was to make a choice or decision for Christ, which I then realized was a work and in complete contradiction to what they had been preaching. Anyway, at that point I KNEW that salvation was by grace and not works and that my salvation had nothing to do with praying a certain prayer or making a certain choice.

The second major event in my journey came when at round about the same time I realized the falsehood of the doctrine of the "Wooing of the Spirit". You see, the Southern Baptists teach prevenient grace. In other words, the Spirit gets a hold on you in a Sovereign way, convicts you of your sins, brings you to the point of making a decision, and then either indwells you based upon YOUR CHOICE. If you mess at that one stage, YOU ARE DOOMED. You had better prayed that prayer with the proper devotion and motivation or you might NOT be saved (this was the club they wielded over your head all the time!). "You might not get this chance again." "You just don't know when the Holy Spirit might come around again." "You just might DIE before you get another chance to get saved." Are all things that you would hear from the stand as the congregation sang the 14th stanza of "Just As I Am" and a somebody would FINALLY cave in and go forwards under this extreme coercion. Basically they were teaching that God could have you in His hands and then would just DROP you if you did not do the right thing. Well, I had run across this text:

John 10:28-29 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

I knew that Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit were all equally GOD. I had been taught that real good. It dawned on me that if I could not be taken from Jesus' hands or the Father's hands, then I could not be taken from the Spirit's hands. If no man could do it, and I was just a man, then I could not remove MYSELF from the hands of God either. Therefore, if the Spirit of God EVER has got a hold of you, then you will ever be in the hands of God, eternally. You CHOICE did not amount to a hill of beans as far as your eternal life was concerned.

Once I had these TWO truths under my belt, Salvation by Grace and The Effectual Calling (I did not know those proper terms at the time, just the concepts) I was RUINED as a SBC for life! I tried to tell my friends what I had discovered, but they thought that I was insane. I started asking about all that "predestination" and "election" the Apostle Paul seemed fond of talking about, but got answers that I KNEW where nonsense. I had no idea that there was a body of believers that knew of these things and rejoiced in them. I had asked some SBC people about Primitive Baptists (because I saw a sign once), but they either gave ignorant answers or evaded the question. I thought ALL Baptist believed like the SBC, as far a doctrine was concerned. Brother, I gave up HOPE. I was a man without moorings (or so I thought). It was not long after that (my first two years in college) that I ran rampant in sin. I figured it did not matter anyway, I wasn't ever going to be a GOOD SBC anymore. I was definitely like the prodigal son for a time. The details are irrelevant other than to say things got so bad that if it had not been for the grace and providence of God, I would have died or killed myself.

Then the LORD mercifully knocked me down all the way to the bottom so that I HAD to call upon Him to save me. I could not do the things I had been doing because my health was wrecked, even my MIND was wrecked. I had to TOTALLY depend upon God to deliver me out of the mess that I had gotten into. You know what? GOD DID!!!!! It took time. Lots of time. Finally, the Lord restored my health and my mind. Then He gave me a wife!!!! A wonderful redheaded Primitive Baptist girl. She was DETERMINED to convert this here Arminian (or so she thought). It took me a long time to convince her that I believed the same as she did. I just did not know any of the proper terminologies for the doctrines of grace.

We married. I joined the Church. The Lord called me into the ministry. The Lord gave us two beautiful children. So, here I am today telling you all about it. Nearly in tears, because as I look back I can see how God's hand has held me all the way.

I have never been out of His hands, and He sure never dropped me!!!

I now just want to serve Him the best I can, because He is WORTHY and He is HOLY!

Praise be unto the LORD GOD of hosts!!!!!!!!!

Submittly humbly and in hope that it will give glory to God,
Elder Bill Allen

You can reach me by e-mail at: ballen@wf.net or Out of Bondage
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