My Conversion to God – April 10, 2006 – Forty Years Later

I was one of the very privileged, being born into a home where both my parents were saved before I was born and had a real reverential fear of the Word of God. As a result, from my youngest years, I was made known of my need as a guilty sinner, that I needed a Saviour if I ever would be in heaven.

This was impressed upon me when  each night my Dad would take me up on his shoulders and before tucking me into bed, he’d sing an old favourite: “There were ninety and nine that safety lay in the shelter of the fold”. It seemed as he told the story o’er and o’er, I liked it all the more and so, it became my theme song and story even until the present day. I realized at an early age that I was the lost sheep and the Lord jesus was the Good shepherd who was seeking me to save me. Looking back, there never was a time that I can remember that I didn’t want to be saved and know for sure that I’d be ready for heaven should death come or the Lord Jesus would snatch away those who had believed forever leaving me lost forever.

This ever on my mind, whether in school, at gospel meetings, or in my bed and occasionally I’d dream that the Lord had come. I remember waking up one night and feeling for sure that I had been left behind, when I ran down to my parent’s bedroom to see whether they were still there. This with many other occasions was used to speak to me that I not put this most important question off until I was older. Two occasions in my school days come to mind where I really felt the Lord was speaking to me. In public school I always came home for lunch and knowing Mom would be home, never took a key but this day I arrived home for lunch the normal time and no one answered my knock. The first thought to my horror that entered my mind was ‘The Lord had come and I’m left behind’. I sat down on the front step and burst into tears. Of course, I didn’t have to wait too long as Mom had just been delayed at the grocery store but this experience was impressed on my mind to not put off this most important question of my soul’s eternal welfare.

In 1961, my Grandpa Moore passed away suddenly and many nights as we cousins stood around the funeral parlour and the christians spoke of seeing Grandpa again, I longed to be able to say it too. When the funeral was taken in Bracondale Gospel Hall, we cousins were spoken to personally and as I gazed upon the last remains of the one that I loved so dearly, the spirit of God reminded me that I’d never see him again unless I was born again.

Later, in junior high school as I began to get older and the thoughts that troubled me as a young boy started to disappear, I remember coming home one night and going inside, doing my homework, playing the piano and trying to occupy my time with anything but suddenly noticed that it was past supper time and neither Dad or Mom had arrived. The first thought was to phone someone and I don’t know why I phoned Mr. Bill Young, but when he answered, I was speechless. He said, “Is that you Glenn? And although no response was given , he said ‘You thought the Lord had come and you weren’t ready, didn’t you?” I broke down on the phone and couldn’t find the words to speak. He reminded me of the folly of putting it off until a later date.

Countless gospel series of meetings were attended every night, as my parents in love to my soul made it possible for me to hear the gospel sound. However, sad to say, in the desperation of my soul in trying to get saved, I made a few false professions of faith in christ which only ended in tears of sadness, still unforgiven and going down the same road to eternal ruin that I had always been on.

Finally, at the end of myself, knowing I was truly lost and could not save myself, I tearfully promised God that I wanted more than anything else to know for sure that I was truly born again.
The 1966 Toronto easter Conference was approaching and so I made up my mind that I would get saved then and not put it off any longer. Both Saturday and Lord’s Day nights were gospel meetings and I sat, tears running down my face trying to see that Jesus died for me but to no avail during both meetings.

On the Lord’s Day evening the late Sydney Maxwell and Norman Crawford were speaking in the gospel and the theme that night was very solemn: “Eternity and where the sinner would go if he rejected Christ” and “The Coming of the Lord” gripped my soul. These were truths that always terrified me and that night was no different. It was if  I was the only sinner in that whole auditorium and I was going to be left behind. I wept throughout the whole meeting. Now, as I look back, the words of the hymn writer could very well have been my thoughts as I sat on the seat: “Jehovah-Tsidkenu.. as friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree, Jehovah-Tsidkenu was nothing to me.” The preachers spoke as if this was the last gospel meeting there ever would be and impressed on the hearers the urgency of the matter. They said that if anyone would like a conversation to just remain in their seats. The meeting ended and the solemn hymn sung, “Eternity, time soon will end” and the auditorium emptied --- and I still wasn’t saved. I remained in my seat, even though I knew that the preachers couldn’t save me – but it also seemed as if they ignored me too and my thoughts were these “I’ll just have to go to hell, I can’t save myself and I’ll never be in heaven”. I got and looked at the time. It was 9:45pm and it was if the Spirit of God spoke directly to me ‘Time no longer, Glenn’. I almost reached the back when in a moment of time that verse that I had possibly memorized in early days flashed into my mind, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin’. It dawned upon my darkened soul that all my sins were laid on Jesus and had cleansed them all away. What rejoicing flooded my soul as I realized I had trusted Christ. I could hardly believe it had really happened and so quickly.

Today, forty years later looking back on that April 10th, I can sing like others who know this Saviour, “O happy day that fixed my choice, on thee my Saviour and my God; well may this glowing heart rejoice and tell its raptures all abroad. Happy Day, Happy Day, when Jesus washed my sins away.”

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