A Call To Truth: My Search

By Gary Nicks

Have you ever questioned the teachings of the church? Do they make sense to you? When there are teachings you don't understand, have you ever been told, "Just take it on faith, brother?" I have! This was not acceptable to me. If God wants us to know him and his son, Jesus Christ, and the Word of God is his communication to us, then we as individuals should be able to study his Word and understand it. However, I believe that we are in the unfortunate time for the church in which the prophecy of the Apostle Paul has come to its fulfillment: For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4) This book presents many of the questions I had in my quest for truth. It addresses some of the most egregious doctrines that lead people away from understanding God's plan and how they are to fi t into it. In order to effectively seek God, you must ask questions. Why? Mainly because it is just as easy to believe a lie as it is the truth. Remember John 4:23-24: Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635256512

Book preview

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A Call

to

Truth

My Search for The Truth and

The One True God

Gary Nicks

ISBN 978-1-63525-650-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63525-651-2 (Digital)

Copyright © 2016 by Gary Nicks

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

1 5

In the Beginning 5

2 13

So What’s the Problem? 13

3 23

Words Have Meaning 23

4 30

Meet the Devil 30

5 40

What Is Truth? 40

6 48

Lies: The Devil’s Doctrine 48

7 56

Religion: Truth or Lies 56

8 74

The Trinity 74

9 116

Who Is Really in Control? 116

10 123

The State of the Dead 123

11 131

Got Rewards? 131

Conclusion 157

Appendix A 161

Appendix B 223

1

In the Beginning

As I sat down to start this project, I had to ask myself the question, Where do I begin?

The only logical answer, of course, was to go back to the beginning—that is, the point in my life where my quest to find the one true God originated. My search started as a result of being subjected to a traumatic situation in 1976 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ll elaborate on the details of the situation with the exception of giving the real names of the people involved in order to protect their privacy.

It was midnight on a Sunday night, and I was playing cards with my roommate, Joe. Someone knocked on our front door, and I got up from the table to answer. I opened the door to find Pete, a guy we previously worked with who’d been fired the week before for insubordination. I invited him inside, and he sat down on the couch. Pete wasn’t saying much so Joe, and I began some small talk. We questioned him about what his future plans were and if he was going to try to get his job back. Pete didn’t say much, but then out of the blue, he asked if we wanted to smoke some weed. Knowing Pete had a history of mental problems from illicit drug use, I declined, but my roommate accepted Pete’s offer. Pete stood up, said he was going out to his car to get the pot, and walked out the front door. Joe and I didn’t give this a second thought until we heard the door open again and saw

Pete standing in the doorway pointing a 12-gauge shotgun at us.

I was completely caught off guard by this. It was like my body froze, but my brain started mapping an escape route. Behind me was a small kitchen without windows, and to my left was a hallway that led to the bedrooms, which was blocked by the table where I was sitting. There was no place to run. Not knowing what to do, I dropped to the floor. At that moment, Pete ran into the living room as Joe stood up and bolted from the kitchen table, trying to turn and run toward the bedroom. He didn’t make it. Pete shot him twice in the head at point-blank range.

As this was happening, I put my hand over the side of my head and pulled my elbow and arm in tight against my side, thinking I might somehow be able to withstand the blast. My life flashed before me, and the only thing I remember was saying this short prayer, God, if you get me out of this, I will search for you the rest of my life.

Then what seemed like an eternity but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds passed by. I glanced to my left, fully expecting to see the barrel of a shotgun pointed at my face, but there was nothing. Pete was gone, and Joe was lying facedown with a river of blood advancing across the kitchen floor. I knew he was dead. My heart was beating a thousand miles an hour. I ran to the front door (which had been left open), closed and locked the door, and called 911.

Afterward, I sat down on the floor beside Joe and waited in silence and tears for law enforcement to arrive. As expected, they questioned me about the whole incident, and I explained the entire sequence of events from start to finish. Three days later, Pete was arrested and was eventually convicted and sentenced to a fifty-year prison term for Joe’s murder.

As a result of witnessing this violent and tragic event, I began to notice an unusual chain of events taking place in my life. Even before Joe’s murder, I had been struggling to get out of the drug scene in combination with overcoming depression. Now, I was dealing with the added burden of PTSD.

About a month after the incident, while still experiencing personal turmoil, I clearly had a thought come into my mind that was so strong and crystal clear it was almost like someone saying to me, You made a promise.

I knew exactly what that meant, but for weeks I resisted taking action. However, I began to realize I was expected to follow through with the request I’d made while lying on the kitchen floor of my apartment. In other words, God had done his part. Now it was time for me to do my part. Knowing this, I decided to begin my quest to find the one true God.

So where do you go to find God? Church, right? Armed with this basic thought, I woke up one Sunday morning, put on my best Levis, a clean T-shirt, my Dingo boots, and headed out to a huge First Christian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was terrified as I walked in; the church was packed. Even though it was a hot August morning, it seemed ice cold in that church. Everyone was dressed in their finest Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes, which made me feel so out of place. Not one person in that frigged building greeted me. As I listened to the pastor, I had no idea what he was trying to teach. In my heart, I didn’t feel I’d come to the right place and just wanted to leave.

After the sermon ended, the congregation sang a final song. As people were exiting the back door of the church, the preacher was shaking each person’s hand as they passed by him. When I’d almost reached the place where the preacher was standing, he shook the hand of the man in front of me and then turned and shook the hand of the man behind me.

While walking to my car, I was thinking, What the heck just happened?

Again, a strong thought came into my mind, like a still, quiet voice, which said, God doesn’t live in a building.

These words led me to the realization that if God doesn’t live in your heart, it doesn’t matter what building you’re in; and if God does live in your heart, the building you are in still does not matter.

All these experiences took place in 1976. Today it seems like a lifetime ago. My social life was falling apart at this time since I was still battling drugs, depression, insecurity, loneliness, and fear. Because of all this turmoil, I finally picked up a Bible and started reading. For the most part, I had no understanding of what I was reading. They were just words on a page. In addition to reading the Bible, I began praying during this time. One of the things I prayed for almost every day was to meet a woman I could love and one that would love me back. It was three years later when she finally came into my life.

The decade of the 1980s began to show improvement in my life. In June, I married my wife, and we moved to Colorado. My search for God that had begun in 1976 continued through 1981 and consisted mainly of reading the Bible and prayer. I’d learned my lesson well that going to church was not necessarily the place to start looking for God. As a married couple, we talked about God, but I didn’t know where to go beyond what I was already doing.

Fortunately, in 1981, we were introduced to some people in the Denver area who were on a biblical outreach program. They were teaching a class on how to study and understand the Bible, specifically for untrained individuals. When they told me about this opportunity, I immediately knew I wanted to be a part of their next class. The class was called Power for Abundant Living and was taught through a ministry named The Way International. The people involved in this ministry were incredibly loving individuals and had answers to many of the questions I’d had for years.

In October of 1981, my wife and I took the Power for Abundant Living class, and I immersed myself in the books that came with my class registration. The books gave me the basic knowledge I needed to learn how to read, study, and understand the Word of God on my own. We associated ourselves with and studied with this ministry for the next five years. However, by 1987, elements within the ministry began to fall apart. Some within the leadership tier were starting to accuse the ministry founder and his staff of sexual misconduct and of using money inappropriately (we were told). We found out about this during the time we had begun the application process for The Way ministry’s leadership college program. Thankfully, we were counseled by our local leadership to put our college plan on hold until things could be straightened out. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

By the end of 1987, my wife and I separated ourselves from The Way International ministry after learning more details of the top leadership’s misconduct. I wasn’t terribly upset because I wasn’t looking for a ministry to associate myself with as much as I was searching for truth and the one true God. My Bible study continued as did my prayer life. Fortunately, for all who broke away from the ministry, there were some leaders who were incredible biblical scholars and teachers who also broke away at the same time. We stayed in touch with them and devoured everything they shared regarding what they were studying and learning from the Word of God.

During this time, I began to realize the only people I had been interacting and studying with were people from The Way International. I began thinking about going to some local churches to see if I could find other people who had the same hunger for God’s truth that I did and decided I would give other churches a try. This was quite an eye-opening time in my life. One thing I discovered was that I could walk into almost any church for the first time and be completely ignored by most of the people. A few friendly individuals would actually talk to me, but that was a rare occurrence.

I began looking for churches that promoted home fellowships in conjunction with what was happening at the individual churches. During the home fellowships, I would have a chance to talk and ask questions. What I found was startling. By far, the majority of Christians I met had no clue about what the Bible said, and sadly, most didn’t care. They were content to believe, without questioning, whatever their pastor, minister, or priest told them. I wondered if people were going to church looking for truth, or were they just wanting to feel good about themselves or attending for the social aspect.

I really wanted to understand, and that’s why I took any opportunity I had to ask the preacher questions. Not surprisingly, this didn’t go over very well, and I’d usually get a standard denominational religious line. Or some said I would burn in hell for believing what I actually knew and understood to be true from the Bible. Many simply wanted to argue that they were right, no matter how nonsensical their answers sounded. Then, when they were pressed for explanations or shown from scripture why their beliefs were misguided, they would simply get mad.

The majority of the ’nineties decade consisted of my college education pursuit and eventual graduation with a physical therapy degree. My quest for truth had continued throughout these years, and when we met people who were also looking for answers, we hosted home Bible studies. In the late 1990s, as I studied the Old Testament, I began to notice King David’s consistent prayers asking God to teach him his ways, to search his heart, and to cleanse him if he found any evil way in him. I started incorporating this into my prayer life also. Additionally, I began asking for the Lord to teach me truth and give me guidance and understanding as I studied the Bible. While remembering the scripture, Ask and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you (Luke 11:9), I began asking and then receiving guidance on what I believe the Lord Jesus has been encouraging me to do: open up a churchwide discussion on church doctrine versus what the Bible actually says on each subject.

Here are a few basic biblical questions I had:

If the Bible is the revealed will and Word of God, then why are there so many denominations—nondenominational sects, groups, and churches—that all claim to be Christian and all claim to have the truth? In other words, how can one preacher take a verse of scripture and teach one thing, while another preacher from a different group takes the exact same scripture and teaches something completely opposite to what the other preacher taught? They both claim to be right and both claim to be teachingtruth.

Does God allow man to decide what scripture says, or is there a framework that has to be understood first in order to put together what God is trying to communicate to mankind? Based on the fact that there are over ten thousand different Christian sects, could explain the confusion in organized religion in this day and time. When you couple those facts with what Jesus said, A house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:25), wouldn’t that be a good strategy for an enemy to use against God if he were trying to defeathim?

Is the church of today supposed to be the source of truth and practice, or is the Word of God the source of truth and practice? This question also relates back to the first question. If all the different Christian sects are teaching as they say, from the Bible—or at least using the Bible to prove their point and say they have the truth—how can this be true? Would this not cause massive confusion? Life itself teaches us that where there is confusion, evil is not farbehind.

If the one true God is all loving and all good and always wants the best for me and you, then what about all the evil we see in the world today? Many Christians say that God is in total control and that everything works out for the best for those who love God. If that’s true, then how do such Christians explain 1 John 5:19, We know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one? If God does have total control, then are those Christians saying that he is the evil one? Wouldn’t that be blasphemous to believe that? Remember that Jesus said the only sin that would not be forgiven is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31). I believe that attributing evil to the one true God would fit into that category. Many people would say God is not responsible for doing the evil; the devil is responsible, but they say that the devil has to get permission from God. If that’s true, then those that believe this are still saying God is responsible because he could just say no when the devil askspermission.

These questions will give a basic foundation to build upon throughout this book. Of course, there will be more questions to come, but I want to emphasize that asking questions is a good thing to do. The one true God wants you to ask questions because it shows you’re seeking him and not just looking for the easy way out.

The main reason for writing this book is to open up a dialogue with those who, in their heart, are genuinely looking for truth that fits with life and fits with scripture. I have found that seeking truth and seeking religion are not one and the same. Put another way, seeking truth through religion is like trying to find your way through a maze that has no path to the true endpoint.

2

So What’s the Problem?

As I began to seek God, I found that I was going to have to make a decision, which was surprising to me. I also did not realize this in the beginning but through hindsight. The decision was, Is the church going to be my source of knowledge about the one true God, or is the Bible going to be my source of knowledge and information about God? I was surprised about this because I originally thought that one should reflect the other. This is not what I found, though. It seemed, the more I looked in scripture for what the church taught, the more confused I became. Questions to people in the church about this generally yielded a response like, Just take it on faith, brother. In other words, I was being asked to believe what I was being told without being able to understand it or document it from the Bible. This was not acceptable to me.

I realize now in hindsight that there are two main problems in what we know as the church. The number 1 problem is false doctrine that is being taught as truth. The second problem is division. The division more than likely sprang up as a result of false doctrine being introduced to the church. One person or group would introduce the new doctrine, which was or was not true. And then the other people in the group—if they did not want to believe this new teaching—would split off from the original group, making two groups, hence division.

These problems can easily be seen by studying the church epistles.

In 1 Timothy 1:3, we read,

As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies.

So the Apostle Paul was dealing with the problem of false doctrine from the very beginning. He was also dealing with division in the church as well. In the epistle of 1 Corinthians 1:10–13 Paul writes,

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe’s household, have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is