Tap’s Testimony

Early Years

            I was born in Carlisle, PA on a farm in 1955, the youngest of three — an older brother and older sister. Baptized as a baby in the Episcopal church, confirrmed in the sixth grade, I wanted to be an acolyte like my older brother. I practically had the high mass memorized after five years of regular duties.

Speechless and Uncertain

As a sixteen year old junior in high school all those in my English class were given the task to write our first official research paper with formal footnotes. I don’t know why but I chose the topic Religion vs. Science. Advised by a teacher to ask a pastor of a local Bible church, I knocked on the door of of Faith Chapel, Independent Bible Church. After explaining the purpose of my visit, the pastor asked me a question that that I had nevered pondered: “Young man, if you would die tonight and then stand before God and if God would ask you: ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ — what would be your answer?” For about the first time in my life I was speechless — my mouth almost hit the floor due to the my lack of confidence in supplying any good answer. The pastor went on to say that it was possible to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

When I got home, it bothered me that the pastor seemed to possess a confidence about God and heaven that I knew I lacked. In the course of events during my studies I read several Gospel tracts and learned about why I was so spiritually bankrupt and blind. I had to honestly admit that I was a sinner incapable of hiding this awful truth from God. I knew mentally that Jesus Christ was crucified and supposedly had risen from the dead. Up to this time I had used God’s name as a curse word more than the subject of my memorized occasional prayers. God, to me, was very vague — almost like my personal genie in a bootle that didn’t seem to make much difference in my world, helping me to get out of trouble, living like all the other kids my age, and anxious to graduate from high school and get on with life.

It didn´t take much for me to see that Jesus Christ had died not only for the pagans in Africa or the Buddhists and Hindus China and India, but also for a ordinary seventeen year old in south central Pennsylvania. I came to see myself as God saw me: a sin-stained sinner separated from a Heavenly Father who was offering me a full pardon and eternal life if I would just trust His Son Jesus Christ and receive Him as my personal Savior.

Born Again in a Moment!

One night near the end of January 1972, around nine o’clock in the evening, all alone in my bedroom with tracts and a Bible open on the mattress, I kneeled down and began to talk to God about what I had been reading in His Word. I told the Lord that I didn’t understand everything but I told Him I didn’t think He would lie. I asked Him to show me the truth, to give me purpose in life, to forgive my sins, and to give me the “gift of eternal life”. I accepted my guilt as a lonely sinner lost and on my way to hell. I told me I finally understood that His son Jesus Christ died in my place for my own sin and that I wanted to invite Jesus into my heart as my Savior and trust Him as my only hope to be able to go to heaven.

Just as God promises in His Word, I was saved in an instant and felt like a big burden had been taken off my shoulders.

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