To The Confused

[Nicholas Carpenter]

To all who care to hear a testimony.

My story is not long, neither is it special. More so than anything it is mundane and trivial in my eyes, yet it could possess power beyond myself should the Lord see fit.

My life in the secular world was plagued by the trivialities that come from the season of life within sin that all must start in and leave before being with Christ. Indeed one might say that before reading part of Ecclesiastes, God had already revealed to me the reality of life under the sun. I grew up in Christendom, am surrounded by it, and cannot seem to escape it. Only within the past 10 1/2 months has God moved me to take Him seriously. All the while these past months as I moved from "Charismatic" to "Conservative"; I realized that almost all if not all organized church has taught woeful and devilish doctrine that only exacerbated the agony in my heart thanks be to God. The Lord could have left me content in my sin yet ever does he push me towards greater and greater understanding and desire for him.

I will speak candidly of the least horrid of my sins, and patiently wait till a time when I might confess all of them with a man of God. I was addicted to pornography, drunkenness, getting high, frivolous living, prideful intelligence, self-righteousness, masturbation, and being a foolish counselor. Though I never committed to fully having sex with a woman, as far as I've gone that is hardly a comfort and I repent for it all. I carry shame only to the point of remembering that the Lord Jesus Christ has separated me from the shame of my sin as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

Though I know much is left to be done for one as young as myself (such as being filled with the holy spirit), my sadness and tears are turned to joy and thanksgiving in the knowledge of Jesus's sovereignty over all. All evil done by me and to me will work out for the good of those that love him, and that is enough (Rom 8:28). Also knowing that I don't love him unless I obey within recent months brought me to Paul Washer, ironically the Lord used that to bring me to TPOT. That list is a blessing straight from the Lord.

My situation even now is less than favorable, for the consequences of all my past sins have led me to this point. My struggle against adultery within the heart, slothfulness, fear, and impatience are constant. Only in the past few days have I found any kind of rest because the Lord has seen fit to give me another time of rest to come to him for direction and guidance. I've lost more than I care to explain, but know that eventually he will lead me to see all that I lost as trash anyway.

The only reason I don't see what I have left to lose as trash is because of a confusing series of events over the past 10 1/2 months. All of which boils down to one thing. I believed false doctrine because I trusted man to tell me about God, and not God. Because of the false doctrines I believed, I can only count almost every last thing that has happened to me as utter rubbish. There are a few experiences that I still hold in question. Sadly I have neither the understanding, knowledge, or wisdom to know if God was speaking to me. For 8 months I propagated that he did. Of that I repent.

The first 2 experiences happened whilst I was high on marijuana so on that basis alone I would think they'd be thrown out. The 3rd was whilst high on molly so once again that might well be thrown out. After receiving counsel on this then God willing I'll post about it later. During the 3rd experience though I bartered with God which (since coming to the site) I've learned is definitely not of God.

Since that time I went from being heavily in the charismatic movement, speaking in babel tongues and under a female apostle which doesn't exist SO I can effectively conclude that as stated within TPOT she is most definitely a witch, deceiving all those under her. And I was effectively taking part in witchcraft, of which I repent. Praise God I was taken out of there. However until even as recent as a couple months back I suffered from the delusions I was taught leading to the babel tongues which I can most assuredly say were opening me up to demonic influence. I don't know the details, but I repent for it all.

(Update, Viktor said it wasn't God talking when i was high. Kind of a "no duh" moment right there for me but praise God I can just toss those experiences out for good. I realize that for a long time I was just looking for a spiritual high and I repent for that.)

I could spend the next lifetime muddling through everything that has happened to me, experience, by experience. But by the grace of God it has been revealed that I cannot base my knowledge of God on my experiences or that of others, but I must look at all my experiences through the lens of faith (though I'm not 100% sure what that means), and base my knowledge of God on who He says He in the Scriptures.

Sadly even those are heavily tampered with and that has been a struggle as well, which even led me to believing a false gospel, the gospel of the holy twelve. May I be forgiven for ever telling anyone about that accursed document as if it were of any value. Only by His mercy will that blot be taken from me. That is one of my most recent sins, and in light of what grievance I have brought the Father, and what damage I have caused to others, I can only hope that the few that I showed it to discard it as false whilst I myself repent for propagating it as insightful towards the things of God.

Needless to say my walk up until this point has been filled with anything but God almost the whole way in all but one constant. An indescribable dissatisfaction. A gnawing pressure to keep pushing, to keep learning, to keep searching. Over the course of this search I fallen more times than I can count but as the Lord lives He is faithful and true to pick me up when I need it and encourage me to keep on.

And so by His strength I kept on. By his prodding I repented. And currently I am in a phase of making restitution where possible, yet I need more advice on this as well. Finally it has led me here, and for some reason I think I passed through the pages of TPOT at some prior time in my life but at the time I didn't take it seriously. In regards to how my lack of seriousness has affected me, by the grace of God I take 1 Cor 27-32 very seriously now and repent for any time I took communion without the the proper self-examination.

For all those who have made it this far I'm doing a time jump for a moment to give a summary of who I was and some of the events that most shaped me. I was always a child with a guilty conscience and was the only one to raise my hand when in Sunday school all the kids were asked "who has sinned". At least that's how my Mom put it. I remember a plastic fish I stole in 1st grade and while part of me laughs; it's because I know I have asked forgiveness for stealing that stupid fish so many times over the years and if that were really my greatest sin, my life would've been much closer to the Lord. Plus he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins if we confess them (1 John 1:9).

All the times I've been hurt I've forgiven and when ever I feel malice or anger I now ask for help to forgive because I now know I can't do that without Christ. For the most part though until recent months I forgot wrongs against me my whole life and remembered so many wrongs from small to large that I committed. Most people who befriended me just saw a timid yet average "good guy" who was just very awkward but funny every now and again. There were the teenage years where I got bitter very easily but praise God my memory was bad and I never really liked staying bitter.

In my high-school years I just stayed away from people I didn't like, joked about said people (of which I repent because I was gossiping just with a smaller crowd), and tried to overcome the worldly shame of not having a girlfriend till junior year. I can assuredly say I wish I had abstained from taking part in that practice because much suffering would have been avoided and much time redeemed. Problems always came with any youthful lusts, and I now understand why we must flee from them (2 Tim 2:22).

As for traumatic events I'll be brief because in all honesty compared to most people my life has been a picnic. I was grabbed by the throat and slapped with great force by my uncle who may have been acting out of anger and resentment towards the fact that no one respected him. To be fair I slapped him playfully across the cheek first which I repent for because it was irreverent of authority. I was 10 and only know about the slap from the cousins who saw it because I blacked out after he grabbed my throat (the payment did not fit the crime and accompanied with how that part of the family has slandered, gossiped, and defamed my immediate family, it is only by God's grace I forgive them.

Plus I returned there in recent months to tell my uncle I forgive him and he denied it ever happened. There were 2 cousins down there that saw it though and regardless God is the judge, not me.) It definitely affected my trust towards authority figures in general in a negative way though.

The next traumatic event was in 12th grade at the beginning of the year; a new friend of mine who had revealed much of the pain she was going through to me killed herself and I know I was largely to blame. I didn't even try to bring her to Christ more than superficially over the summer when we met. There were more than sufficient signs and I can only move past it because Christ has mercy on the ignorant and unbelieving.

And for some reason he has mercy on me and helps me. From then on I tried desperately to give my life to help mankind which I attempted to accomplish through science. However once in college I simply couldn't shake the desire to study what else was going on in the world and soon fell into worrying about things I had no control over.

Within my freshman year I became very emotionally, socially, and psychologically dependent on a couple of friends who at the beginning of the summer 2 years ago stabbed me in the back through the heart. Slander from those you trust was something I couldn't handle. After that, with all I had learned on the state of the world, the depravity of humanity, coupled with the realization that the one thing I trusted (which was my ability to discern good people); I crumbled like that house on shaky foundation with a mighty crash, and fell into smoking marijuana.

I fought for awhile and even told my parents at the end of the summer and stopped for a few months, God was always in the back of my mind. But that's not good enough if you want him to save you from your sin. So I tumbled into despair and drug addiction till on May 7th I supposedly had an experience with God and gave it all up. Sadly as recounted above I didn't know sin, my God, or how to live righteously, neither did I know the consequences of lacking said knowledge. Hosea 4:6 " My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."

Fast forward to these past 10 1/2 months. I've chased after certainty of my own salvation almost to no avail till finding TPOT. Now I know it's all him and not me, I can rest assured that He will finish the job (Phillip 1:6). The most prevalent false doctrine to affect me has been eternal damnation which PRAISE GOD IS NOT REAL HALLELUJAH! I cannot express my gratitude to the Lord for releasing me from the bondage that lie had on me. I now know at this point that so far I've been much like Saul of Tarsus and because God knew I thought I was serving Him, He has now shed light unto the darkness. I may have also been as King Saul though and need guidance and wisdom from the Lord Jesus so I won't fall away in disobedience.

In regards to my relationship with the Lord, up even to this day, knowing his will or trying to discern it leads to nothing but confusion which I know He is not the author of (1 Cor 14:33). I realize now that I don't know him and until he sees fit to reveal himself, I won't. I asked him a couple months ago to instill in me the Fear of the Lord which is the beginning of knowledge (Prov 1:7) so now I'm confident I'm finally learning something about the Lord because his word says that I am.

Also Jeremiah 32:40 states "I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me." My continual prayer and hope is that he will inspire me to fear him so that will not turn away from him. What a blessing that would be.

The consequences for lacking any fear/reverence of Him, as far as I can tell, are me losing 2 jobs within the last 5 months and being placed in a mental ward for 5 days prior to that because of a 4 hour mental breakdown. My parents took me to get drug tested and without their consent I ended up in the ward, and if only I'd taken the hint that I was in the wrong about so much and humbled myself I wouldn't have continued in my own self-righteousness.

Plus because of the eternal hell doctrine I continued into despair and suffered because I was not doing everything in my power to save as many as possible from eternal damnation. I now see my current situation is in light of how detrimental my impatience, self-righteousness, pride, and foolishness have been. With the Lord though, even the mess I'm in now will be handled because he saw it from eternity past and knows exactly how I am to be delivered.

So though I am at perpetual odds with all of my family and most of my past friends, I see that it is only normal for those who love God and live by his nature. My greatest sorrow is my own double-mindedness though which has done more to damage those all around me than any other sin of which I repent.

I've been kicked out of the house twice now, sent arrogant and bull-headed questions over text, and have lost the respect and trust of every person I know in regards to the things of God, and in regards to their trust of my sanity. And while I can say I repent, I don't even know how to begin reconciliation because so much of what I was doing was pointing out their own sins and hypocrisies, yet it was all done with a log in my eye, and of that I repent and ask for guidance so I may be rid of the lumberyard that blocks my sight. I'm so naive and immature, and lack so much knowledge.

Only Christ himself can possibly get me out of here, because no offense to anyone here...Psalm 146:3 "Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save." My trust is in Him, I realize though how little I know Him because of my own pride when it comes to creating my own salvation, and that of those around me.

Much has already been reconciled within me due to reading within TPOT site. Now I just need brothers who take God's word seriously and only want Him, to help me so that I don't fail to endure. I want Jesus as soon as possible, but I know in his time He'll choose me, or not. All I know is to obey. My only questions that I need input on are these. I have an opportunity to leave my home and separate myself from so much pressure to sin.

I'm really awful at handling conflict and controversy and it doesn't seem like anyone here wants to hear anything that may force them to change their lives, aside from my sister. But the moment anything breaks out she will choose my parents in a heartbeat. So far my dad has been completely unrepentant and unwilling to change his lifestyle for Christ, and my mother is not helpful either. I can't do anything. Only Jesus can at this point. I want to leave, but does He want me to? And if He does, where to? I can go be a truck-driver or help run a blooming bakery business in the town I went to college. Both have their upsides and their downsides.

But I know without the Lord I will fail regardless. I just want him to choose for me at this point. I just want to know I'm obeying him. Not be speculating whether or not what I hear in my prayers are Him because its ALWAYS contradictory. He says in John 10:27, "My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me." Other translations say "know" or "listen to". I want to ask if I'm just not His sheep, but I know Samuel didn't know it was His voice either when he was being called. I just want to obey, and know that it is my God speaking.

Whatever He says, I just want to know him and obey Him.

[Nicholas Carpenter]

Also I was told to submit this email correspondence to the forum.

Mar 10, Nicholas wrote:

If I had the Spirit of God me first email would not have been so selfish. I just saw your post on the forum and I pray for your encouragement in this troubling time (it was his post about the troubles with Paul). The Lord is good, and may he continue to reveal to us the glory that resides in Jesus Christ. I ask one prayer be resonated among-st the righteous. That anything you saw in the people that turned from the Lord be completely and absolutely eradicated from me. I need Him, and don't want my own damned carnal flesh or mind getting in the way any longer.

Mar 10, Victor Hafichuk replied:

Trust and obey the Lord for your salvation, Nicholas. He Alone can and will save. Read and soak in our site provided for you and all.

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Mar 11, Nicholas Carpenter wrote:

I suppose I'll just keep on trucking and wait for Him to clear up the confusion. We'll just have to wait and see how God works.


Mar 11, Victor replied:

Submit all this, including my replies, to the Forum.

[Michael Condit]

Man everything you are experiencing is exactly the same thing I'm going through. I mean wow. Something that struck a chord was the realization that you won't know Jesus until He sees fit to reveal Himself. I have been realizing the same thing, we are completely out of control. But there's so much in your post that is literally identical to what I've been experiencing.

As you said God will work this all out for good.

-Michael