Testiomony, John Novak

For those of you who don't know me, I'm John Novak. I'm from the Blue River Assembly. If you could open your Bibles up to John chapter 3. John chapter 3, we'll read at verse 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. And this is the part I'm reading for, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. Titus, book of Titus chapter 1. Titus chapter 1 and verse 2 says, And this is the part I'm reading for, which God that cannot lie.

Now, these are not verses that I was reading when I got saved. But they are verses that the Lord used to prove to me that I was saved. I was born and raised in a Christian home.

All my life I heard the gospel. But I never really believed it at all. There was nothing in me that responded to it.

I didn't really want it. I would just go and I would listen. I would zone out and not really think about it at all.

When we would leave the gospel meeting, it was just the end of it. But Jim Frazier and Ike Frazier came to Montfort in the summer of 2012. And I don't know how it was in Iowa, but the summer of 2012 in Wisconsin was a drought.

And I'm very thankful for that drought. My dad was a farmer and it cost him a lot of money. But if it wasn't for that drought, I don't think I'd be saved today.

That summer you could look out across the corn field and it was dried up. It kind of looked like top of pineapple. And we would go down fishing to the Wisconsin River and there was just water between the sand bars.

And every time I would look at that, it would speak to me. Because I would think about the Lord's coming and what it was going to be like during the tribulation. Because things were being destroyed by that drought.

And then a little later on in the summer, Brother Tim Draves, he came over to borrow some gravity boxes. I remember him standing in front of the shop and his shirt was completely soaked through with sweat. And his face was dripping sweat.

And he was just standing there. He wasn't even working. But it was hot and it was dry.

And he was suffering. And it made me think. But in August, Jim Frazier and Ike came to Montfort.

They preached for three weeks. And I didn't have a single thought. I wasn't concerned, nothing, until last night.

And Jim Frazier was the last preacher. And he preached about hell and why we were going there and the penalty of our sins. And I tell you what, it struck me right there.

That night on the way home from meeting, I realized that I had to get this matter settled. There was no turning back. We got home that night and Dad was there in the basement.

He was talking to us boys. And he prayed with us and he went upstairs, went to bed. And being a young man, I like to read.

So I would, lots of times at night when I would get home, I would have a lamp in my bed. I'd read a book. And that night, I didn't.

I'd just shut the light off and stare at the ceiling. There was nothing I could do. I tried reading the Bible, that wasn't going to work.

I tried reading tracts, that didn't work for me either. But not until I shut that light off and just stared at the ceiling, it came to me, Jesus really did die for my sins. I didn't think I was saved.

I'd never heard anybody say that they got saved that way. I'd always heard them say they were reading a verse or a tract. I didn't think that was salvation.

And the next day, my dad was packing silage and I was riding with him. Actually, I think it was about a couple days after that. I told Dad, I thought I got saved.

He said, well, what do you mean you thought you got saved? I said, well, I don't know if I'm saved. He says, well, you've got to get along with God. And read the Bible and see what it says to you.

And before, when I would read the Bible, I would see, for all of sin to come short of the glory of God. And I didn't like that. But when I opened the Bible up after I got saved, I saw John 3.16, for the first time, whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Come over to Titus 1 and 2, God doesn't lie. And that's what I ask for eternity tonight. And if you're a sinner in this meeting tonight, you've got to come like the prodigal son did.

He had to repent, go to his father and say, I have sinned. That's what I had to do before I was saved. I had to shut that light off.

I had to be alone with God before I could be convicted and brought low. And he could reveal to me that Jesus died for my sins.