Michael Fackerell:
Marilena Fackerell
Let me begin by saying that it is a miracle I ever got saved. In the gospels, Jesus reserved his hardest words for the Pharisees. He told them that prostitutes and tax-collectors were entering the Kingdom of Heaven before them. Folks, in my heart I was at least as bad as the worst Pharisee.
My parents come from a Dutch Reformed (Calvinist) background. I thank God for their godly influence on me. Every night they would pray before meals and after the meals Dad would read a portion of the Bible to us. I think we covered most of the Bible in this way. They put into me the habit to go to church twice on Sundays, to respect certain standards of morality and lots of good things. As I grew up I considered myself to be a Christian. Why? I believed the Bible was the Word of God, that Jesus died for me to pay for my sins and that I was doing what other Christians did.
In the stream of Christianity in which I grew up, it was very commonplace to do Bible studies. I was very proud of my ability to know the stories and have an opinion on everything. I grew up with the feeling that I had the right religion and that I was better than other people. I was so proud of my academic results at schoolalso. I looked down on others and had little regard for their feelings. As a result I failed to develop socially.
As I entered into adolescence I had a hyper-active mind. It was constantly thinking and planning according to the thought "What's in it for me?" It was constantly seeking to inform me of things to feed my pride. My grandmother said to me a few years ago, "Michael, when you were growing up, you were a ball of pride."
At the same time I was convinced that I was a Christian. I knew I had sins and was basically selfish, but I had confidence that I was saved because I mentally assented to the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of Christ. There were times, however, when certain people made me uneasy, because of their obvious joy in serving the Lord and their clear proclamation that they were no longer their own masters, and they were living for Jesus and not for themselves. During such times I was always waiting for an escape so I could get back to enjoying my various hobbies and avaricious pursuits.
I went to University determining to be a great computer scientist. I guess I was a computer nerd. I'd written my first commercial game program at 14 in 1980 and I know now that the love of computers (which were essentially tools to praise me and my cleverness) was a major form of idolatry in my life. But I was sure I was a Christian! I had felt sorry about some of my sins and had even asked Jesus into my heart! I was doing what others in church were doing! I could discuss theology with the best of them! I was outwardly moral, principled etc. - but utterly self-centred.
The one thing I was most uncomfortable with in those days was witnessing. Being socially backwards and with more than my share of acne on my face, it was not something I wanted to do, especially with strangers.
But there came a day when a young ethnic Chinese man from Campus Crusade for Christ gave me a call on the phone and invited me to meet with him. I don't know why I agreed, but I did. Over the next few months with this man, my life began to change. He helped me to start telling the gospel to others. Doesn't the Scripture say that if we keep on confessing Christ as Lord and believe God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved? Strange as it may seem, it was at this point that I believe I truly surrendered my heart to God. For I had surrendered to Christ the thing I was most unwilling to do for God. And I think until we come to that point, we still have not received Christ as Lord. Until that point, we do not really belong to Christ. I didn't know that Jesus had to be Lord before His saving work on the cross was applied to your life.
That act of obedience on which surrender to Christ hinges could be different for different people. For some it could be in fact baptism in water. For another person, it might be commitment to a local church. For another, it could be simply willingness to call upon the name of Jesus. What is important is that we yield to Christ on the point where our old nature wants to resist the most, for whatever reason. Then we are on the path of true faith. Mental assent is not enough. After the heart is surrendered to Christ, we will eventually be changed in every area in which we hear the Word of God rightly divided and act in faith on that.
One of the surprising things for me was the joy I found in doing the thing I was most fearful of - to talk with others about Christ. What I found was, Christ became real to me as I went in His name. Before that, I knew lots of Bible and had done some things for God (I thought). But I was miserable. However, taking these first steps in living for God released a joy and a happiness in me that I was not expecting.
Some of you may be asking, "But when were you baptised in water?" Well, that came later. You see, it is not baptism in water that justifies us. The important thing is that one submits His life to the Lord Jesus Christ. That way, the free gift of pardon and peace with God obtained at the cross can be ours. There is no way to be at peace with God if you are inwardly rebelling against his desire to govern your life. The only way to be in the Kingdom of Heaven is for Jesus to be your King! You can get baptised in water by the greatest saint in the greatest church without truly surrendering your heart to God. However, once you do surrender your heart to God, then if by God's grace you can get past all the theological mirkiness that has historically covered the issue of baptism, and you understand that it is God's will for you, YOU WILL WANT TO GET BAPTISED. This is what happened to me.
But there were still other things that the Lord did before He could get me to that point.
This is part II of my personal testimony. I share it hoping that it will bring glory to God and maybe even help someone else come to know the Lord better!
Many people have amazing dramatic testimonies. Its true - some people get off drugs miraculously and become the most radiant, wonderful joyful people so quickly that you can wonder: "God, what about the rest of us?"
As I have shared in another post, I believe that salvation is both a package and a process. Our sanctification through faith in Christ is a process, although it can certainly have some powerful life changing events in the midst of it.
At the time when I started living for God, back in 1984, there were still a lot of things that God wanted to deal with in me. (I'm sure there still are!) Until that time, my desires had been after intellectual stimulation and personal recognition based on performance. I was still into computers pretty heavily and still played Dungeons and Dragons with my friends at times, sometimes until the early hours of the morning. I was no longer playing in a rock and roll band as I had done in high school, but I was still listening a lot to the radio.
It still seemed to me in many ways that the really appealing things were in the realm of fantasy, and that reality was kind of boring. Yet God had begun to work in my life. The fact that my pursuits did not always coincide with my belief in the gospel didn't worry me too much, since most of the other Christians I had ever seen were the same.
Late in 1984, while in 2nd year Uni, I came across some people who talked about a dimension of spiritual life to which I had to admit I was a stranger. I wasn't sure if it was real. Around the same time, the popular Anglican [Americans read Episcopalian] preacher we listened too began to preach about the Holy Spirit. I didn't realise it at the time, but he was preaching against charismatics. The effect his preaching had on me, however, was to stir up curiosity. We had been so well taught that the Bible was the final authority on matters of faith. So I decided to check things out against the Bible. I was not satisfied with this preacher's response to my question: "If being filled with the Holy Spirit in the NT meant one thing - why doesn't it mean that anymore?"
Anyway, these people (who turned out to be charismatics), invited me to one of their small groups. I decided to check it out. I remember feeling really out of place there. Everyone had their hands in the air and the leader was saying, "Come on. Just reach out and touch God!" I thought it was silly to think of God being in the ceiling somehow.
I wasn't particularly impressed with what I saw. I thought: those so-called prophecies - anyone could have made them up. But then again, who knows? Maybe there is something in it. I asked a lot of questions. I said, "If you guys are right, where are the miracles?" The leader said words to the effect of "We're getting there".
The leader of that group came and visited me in my college dorm, wanting to pray with me, but I put him off, since the exams were near.
Two other things happened around that time. One was, my mother gave me a tape from a charismatic Anglican preacher about the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. It turned out my mother spoke in tongues, but she had not wanted to push it on me. The other thing was my best friend told me he had started to speak in tongues while he was alone in his room.
Another event worth mentioning is that God led me to ask forgiveness from my father for certain things and to forgive him myself. I believe this was very important for what was to come.
I continued my search, reading the passages in the New Testament and wanting to know more. I visited an Assemblies of God church with my friend. I was under the impression that Pentecostals were like a cult - pretty heretical. Imagine my surprise when I heard the preacher preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and salvation through the blood of Jesus. I concluded it couldn't be that bad after all. I'm so glad it wasn't some fund raising message or something really far out that day, like you can find from time to time in Pentecostal churches.
I ended up seeking this pastor out at his house, without invitation. After sharing with me, we arranged another appointment. What really impressed me about this pastor was that he had seen blind eyes open in Jesus' name. God had also saved his life miraculously in an amazing way. I sensed he was telling the truth.
On the second appointment, he asked me, "Do you believe you will speak in tongues when I pray for you?" I said I wasn't sure, but he assured me it would happen. I was scared that nothing would happen.
To cut a long story short, I prayed to the Lord something like this: "Dear Lord Jesus, I want you, and only you. Fill me with the Holy Spirit and give me the power of God." I prayed this prayer based on Luke 11:13. God will give his children the Holy Spirit if they ask, not a serpent (a demon).
I believed that I should open my mouth and speak what came out - so I did. At that very instant something very surprising happened to me. I felt like 240 Volts of power was going through my body - it was also a bit like pins and needles. I thought, "Something real is happening". I had never experienced anything like that before. At the same time, I continued to utter syllables that I did not comprehend at all. It was something that was right outside my experience. I had never felt anything like that when I prayed before! I knew it was God's power that I had asked for.
I went home and kept praying in tongues. Then I went to a Christian conference organised by Campus Crusade. I noticed in my life a greater desire to serve God, a desire after holiness and purity which I had never known before. Up until that time, holiness had a very negative connotation for me - something like doing the dishes. But now things were different. The first unbeliever I talked with prayed to receive Christ.
When I returned to University, I knew that what I had experienced was not going to be accepted by most of my Christian friends. And I was right. I had already made the commitment though, that I was after truth no matter what it would cost me in terms of social relationships. I have never regretted that decision.
I started attending an AOG church. It wasn't long before the matter of water baptism was brought up. Having now experienced the Holy Spirit in a new way, I was eager for everything God had for me. I had long suspected that baptism was for believers, not babies. I remember wishing I could be baptised before as a believer when I was in the Anglican church. I was glad to learn that it was still part of God's plan.
Accordingly, I was baptised in water in July, 1985. To me this was also an act of consecration. No longer was I to live for the old desires, for the old nature. I was dedicating myself "unto all righteousness".
In 1985, while in my final year of University, studying computer science, several significant events took place in my life which changed my life and destiny. I had gone to University with the plan to become a great computer scientist. I wanted to do honours in Sydney and then a PhD at Stanford University in the States, and I was very much on track until the end of my third year at Uni. But these goals and ambitions seemed less and less meaningful to me after the encounter I had with the Holy Spirit (which I mentioned in part II).
This encounter with the Holy Spirit made an impact on my world view. I had entered into a totally new realm about which I knew very little. Many of the assumptions which I had held about the way God works in the world and which parts of the New Testament were relevant to me, I had been forced to modify.
Many different things started to happen in my life in 1985. I had an increased desire to win souls to Christ. But more than that, I wanted to know why the Pentecostal church I belonged to fell so short of the mark as far as revealing the truth of the promises which I had previously assumed to be "not really for today".
Don't get me wrong. That church had a great record as far as evangelism and church planting, and in the 20 years in 1977 from when it was planted from 9 adults and 5 children it has grown to a worldwide movement with tens of thousands of people involved. However, my soul was reaching out for something more.
Why was it, for example, that there was so much talk about divine healing and so little concrete evidence that it was actually happening? My mind rebelled also against the teaching that one should say that they were healed even when there was still no sign of change. The whole thing seemed unreal.
There were meetings with loud contemporary music, enthusiastic preaching and salvation appeals that drew 10-15 new decisions for Christ every meeting, but where was the promised power of healing so much talked about?
Earlier that year, however, I had been to a meeting organised by a charismatic pastor who invited a certain old gentleman by the name of Gordon Gibbs to preach there. Oddly enough, it was my mother who took me along there. I was pretty skeptical still about divine healing even though I had spoken in tongues and knew that was real.
There were about 100 people at this meeting. After the time of praise this old preacher was introduced. It was nothing like I expected. Basically, all he did was share different stories from his experiences with God, and a few texts of Scripture. He didn't shout - he just talked, and he had the funniest mannerisms.
What was interesting though was what was happening on the inside of me. This incredibly warm presence gripped me in the area of the stomach. I can't describe it exactly, but it was like molten iron was in my belly (but absolutely no pain). I found myself absolutely riveted by the presence of God in the place.
Then something equally astonishing took place. The preacher had finished preaching, and some had come forward for salvation. But the meeting didn't end there. The preacher started calling out all these medical and emotional conditions - not general ones like back problems that someone is bound to have but very specific things. It seemed like he called out about 30 different things and always it matched someone in the crowd exactly. People were coming forward, receiving prayer, falling to the crowd, and getting up testifying that the pain was gone.
At the time I had RSI from typing too much at computer keyboards. He never called that condition out, but what I noticed was that the blood in my hands started circulating very quickly it seemed, and the pain left.
Some friends of mine and myself returned with an unsaved friend to another one of these meetings. It was much the same, but this time the preacher started naming the problems that our friend had. Our friend would not respond. But the preacher kept going into things in more and more detail. When my friend still refused to come out the preacher addressed him personally in front of everyone and asked him to respond. He got saved that night, and is in the ministry today.
All this put in me a strong desire to know God like this preacher did. Yet in the church I was attending, it seemed there was more smoke than fire.
Another important thing happened to me in August 1985. One night I had a dream in which I saw what seemed to be the faces of a multitude in darkness being sucked down into everlasting perdition. I woke up so shaken by that dream. I said, "God, I want to be an evangelist. But I'm asking you to confirm this by giving me 5 prophetic words from others in the next 10 days.
What was interesting was that although people didn't usually prophesy to me, in the next 10 days I did receive 5 prophetic words which indicated to me that I should make the preaching of the gospel my central activity. One of them was from a preacher. He said in the name of the Lord, "I've been calling you for a long time. And don't let a career get in the way." This was significant for me because in those days I had the opportunity to earn big bucks with my computer skills. I had made $10,000 at least in my third year of University without much effort and it seemed the world could offer me a lot in that area. But now my direction was to change. Money meant nothing to me, winning souls meant everything.
Around this time, I was still agonising about the Scriptures concerning divine healing (like Ex. 15:26; Ps. 103:3; Is. 53:4,5; Jas 5:14; Mk 16:17,18; John 14:12; Matt. 8:16,17) and many others. I wanted to believe it was true, but I could not! I felt tortured in my mind whenever I considered the matter. I had already seen some concrete evidence for it in life, but the failures in this area were all too evident to me also.
Determined to obey God whatever the cost, I finished my University degree without doing my honours year and entered into student evangelism on the Universities.
To Be Continued