ONE PASTOR’S PILGRIMAGE

This isn’t what I learned in school!

by Bob Vincent

I was brought up in a teetotaler home, and my father was a ruling elder in a Presbyterian Church. In spite of that, I developed a problem with alcohol. I kept it hidden from the adults in my life, until one night in high school when I got drunk. Someone saw me and called our family physician who was also my Sunday School teacher. Dr. William Ragsdale came and got me then drove me home to my parents. From then on, Dr. Ragsdale took a special interest in me. He invited my mother and me to a Bible Study in his home.

I suppose that the sins of my youth were not substantially different than those of others. But I was a man in torment. Though I appeared to be happy, inwardly I was being ripped apart by feelings of inferiority and worthlessness on the one hand and pride on the other. I was consumed with despair. I felt vile and guilty. Once I heated a small cross on our gas stove and branded myself in the middle of my chest. Now I will live the way I should! But mental determination lacked the ability to persevere. The only change in my life after that incident was a small scar which I still have.

Then someone in the Bible Study shared the gospel with me:

It isn’t how you live that makes you right with God. It’s faith in His Son, Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross, He didn’t just die as an example for a cause. He wasn’t merely a victim of human injustice. He died by the plan of God—He died in your place, as your substitute. He went to hell for you. He actually paid for your sins and removed them. When you put your trust in Jesus, God views you as free from all guilt because of what happened on the cross.

I thought about that idea a lot, but still my life was as it had been until several months later. Everything changed dramatically on September 4, 1964 when I heard four young men share how they received Jesus into their lives. I became overwhelmed with a desire to know Jesus personally myself They prayed for me, and I prayed with them silently, Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus! And He did just that. I didn’t feel anything—no great surge of emotion or anything—I simply knew that He did what I begged Him to do. It was the beginning of my senior year in high school.

Personal Relationship With Christ

Everything was different after that Friday night. My speech and conduct changed in one day’s time. I became excited about reading the Bible and began to attend several different weekly prayer meetings, sharing what the Lord had done for me. I felt good about my family and myself I actually began to like my parents. Before then, I had put them through a lot of misery with my rebellion and drunkenness.

Nearly two years later (on John Calvin’s birthday) I responded to another invitation. July 10, 1966 I sang in the evening service at a nondenominational meeting in Newcastle, England where a Baptist minister preached. He invited me to his home after the service, and we talked at length, continuing a conversation from earlier in the week when he shared with several of us about his fresh experience with the Lord which brought him new joy and communion with Jesus in prayer. He received the gift of tongues.

Immediately, our doctrinal alarms went off, and we told him what we had been taught—the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased to be given once the Scriptures were completed.

But he cheerfully countered each argument, going to the Bible for his answers.

Then I was alone with him and at a place where God had brought me to openness. I wanted all that the Lord wanted me to have. The pastor talked with me for some time, answering each question I posed. He asked me if I wanted to ask the Lord for the gift of tongues, and I said that I did. I prayed but nothing happened. After some earnest prayer on both his part and mine, we stopped and talked. He said, “You’re a person who takes great care in how you speak. I think people like you have difficulty in fully surrendering their tongues to the Holy Spirit.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I find that difficult, and I can’t seem to get rid of this skepticism. It’s something that dogs me so much. Even though I’ve known the Lord for almost two years, still I’m hounded by atheistic thoughts at times—particularly at those times when I seem to be closest to the Lord.”

“Just give all that to the Lord. Say to Jesus that you give Him your tongue and your mind. Tell Him you don’t care if you look foolish—you want everything He has for you.”

I did just that. I prayed sitting in a chair; he was praying standing beside me, laying his hands on my head while I prayed. Suddenly, I felt a tingling in my body and my legs jerked—if! had not been sitting in a chair I would have fallen down—then words came out of my mouth, words I did not understand, and I praised the Lord Jesus and worshiped. Afterward, the pastor drove me back toward the outskirts of Newcastle where our group was staying.

Knowing how my friends felt, I prayed about when to share my experience with them and waited several days before I did.

Somehow I got the words out during one of our conversations, “This past week I received the gift of tongues.”

“Well, Vincent, you don’t seem to be any different than you were before.”

Doubt

It was faulty logic, connecting the gifts of the Holy Spirit to sanctification, but it planted significant doubt in my mind. I still had immaturity; I had not attained perfection. The only real difference was that I experienced a greater joy in prayer when I prayed in tongues.

That joy soon began to fade as doubt wormed its way into my heart. It was not long before those words, “Well, Vincent, you don’t seem to be any different than you were before,” cut off my exercise of tongues altogether, because they echoed in my soul every time I began to use the gift.

Quenching the Spirit

I actually began to quench the Holy Spirit Himself, and days later something strange happened. On the morning of August 26, 1966, I came under what seemed to be an irresistible pull to sin against God. It was diabolical and overwhelming, different from anything I ever experienced before. As I yielded to sin, waves of despair and guilt came over me. After some time I was able to pray, and I repented of the sin. But then this pull came over me again, and once again I found myself bound, my will in chains, powerless to resist. Time and again this cycle continued. I lost my boldness to witness for Christ.

Shame

Early in my Christian life I openly shared my faith with others, telling my classmates about Jesus, preaching and handing out literature on the streets of my home town. Now that was gone. How well I remember one incident. I was walking downtown, and a stranger approached me and asked if l knew the Lord Jesus. I hesitated and felt great embarrassment at his question.

Perseverance

In spite of that, I continued to study for the ministry, growing in my intellectual understanding of Scripture and theology. I graduated from college, then seminary and was ordained to the gospel ministry. But I lacked the joy and fulfillment that I had known the first two years of my Christian life. Not even getting married and having children filled that void.

For over 15 years I was plagued by the cycle of temptation, sin, guilt and despair. Once, while watching the film “Becket,” I commented to my wife how I identified with Thomas’ response to the query, “Thomas, do you love God?” He answered, “I love the honor of God.” Looking back, I did love the honor of God, was willing to defend the Christian faith with my life and wanted to live a godly life, but I lost my boldness in evangelism.

Sick in my soul, one day I had enough and prayed, Give me victory whatever the cost. I want victory, or I want to die! It was March 19, 1982. I went to my study and came across a booklet with a Bible reading plan. It prescribed ten chapters a day. I thought, Nobody has time to do that. But, if I don’t have time to do that, what do I have time for? I made the commitment.

Victory

I don’t know what happened that day. It was only God’s grace. There is no power inherent in reading large portions of Scripture. Somebody could prescribe it as a formula for victory over sin, and nothing would happen. But God brought me to a point of desperation—life or death desperation. And God brought about victory that day, a victory that has lasted.

Soon after that, healings began to take place in our church. I had a new desire to worship Jesus. Then, one afternoon while I prayed with another pastor, tongues came out of my mouth.

What I had renounced, Jesus restored. That restoration involved several blocks being removed. The first involved my theological objections.

Sometime toward the end of the 1970s I came to the conclusion that the standard arguments for the cessation of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit were so complicated that they were ineffective—based on logic rather than on the simple exegesis of Scripture. I began preaching through First Corinthians and found my thinking changed as I worked through chapters 12, 13 and 14.

Different Gifts

As I look back I realize that the gift of tongues was another step in my pilgrimage to the Celestial City. That pilgrimage is unique and special for each believer. God works one way in one person, differently in another. For me—just for me—tongues represented a willingness to appear foolish in the sight of others.

The willingness to appear foolish is why my rejecting that gift was so significant. I pushed God back because I was afraid of what others would think. I did not want to look stupid. So, I made intellectual Christianity a substitute of the simple relationship with Jesus, a relationship chat began before I ever spoke in tongues and continued even after I rejected the gift.

But that relationship was like a marriage after the honeymoon is over—the zest and excitement were gone—but we would never consider a divorce.

Then the Bridegroom came and renewed me, and now I can say again not only that I love the honor of God, but I love the Lord Jesus. He is precious to me. Nothing can compare with Him.

EPC POSITION ON THE GIFTS OF GOD’S SPIRIT

The EPC affirms the gifts of God’s Spirit as biblically valid for today, and counsels that they be exercised under the guidance of God’s Word and the authority of the local Session. Since the Holy Spirit is the source of Christian unity, we must ever guard against any use of the gifts which would lead to division within the Church. We also affirm the priority of the fruit of the Spirit over the gifts in the Christian life.

As a denomination in the Reformed tradition, we subscribe to the ancient affirmation of orthodox Christian faith, and believe in “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). This baptism, while visibly expressed in the covenant sacrament that bears its name, is invisibly the work of the Spirit that takes place at the time of the new birth.

The EPC adheres strongly to the reformed belief in the sovereignty of God, a belief that does not allow us either to require a certain gift or to restrict the Spirit in how He will work. We call upon all Christians to open their lives unto God’s Spirit to fill, empower, and “gift” as He sees fit.

·      Excerpts from EPC Position Paper on The Holy Spirit

CV as of 1999

Robert Benn Vincent, Sr.is pastor of Grace Presbyterian in Alexandria, LA, formerly known as Jackson Street Presbyterian, PCA (where he was installed as Pastor in 1975). He has been married to Sandy Jean Price since 1968, and they have five children.

·      Graduate of Presbyterian College, Clinton, SC

·      Graduate of Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 1973, Pittsburgh, PA

·      Ordained as pastor of the Park City Reformed Presbyterian Church, Wichita, KS, Midwest Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America

·      Served as Stated Clerk of LA Presbytery of the PCA from 1990 until 1996

·      Served on the PCA General Assembly’s Theological Examining Committee

·      Served as Moderator of LA Presbytery (PCA) in 1997, until his congregation petitioned Presbytery to dismiss them to the EPC

·      Served as Secretary of a Rotary Club, Boy Scouts Council vice-president

·      Moderates an e-mail list called Reformed-Charismatic@xc.org Rev. Vincent can be reached through e-mail at rbvincent@xc.org

Reflections. Livonia, MI: The General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Summer 1999, pp. 10-12