My Faith Journey
By Jon Jennette
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| Photo:Jon Jennette |
Before I begin sharing the testimony of recent events in my life, I would like to make one thing clear: I'm a wretch. I won't go into the details of my sins, as it would make it difficult for me to look some of you in the eye. It has been difficult enough confessing my sins before God and He was already aware of them. I only mention this so that you will know that anything impressive or inspiring about my story is God working in my life. The only thing I can take credit for is getting down on my hands and knees and asking God to take over my life, to allow me the honor of having Him work through me.
I didn't start to learn about God until my early twenties when my mother gave me my first Bible. She had started going to church some and I would go with her occasionally. I was reading the Bible regularly and God was a part of my daily life for a few years.
About seven years ago, I decided to move to Los Angeles. I was thinking less and less about God and more and more about me, my career, my wants, hopes and dreams. For years I treated sin like a to-do list and I was miserable. I knew I was throwing my life away. If I didn't make some changes I was going to wake up one day and realize I had ruined my chance to do something great with my life. In the back of my mind I knew I needed to reestablish my relationship with God. The problem was that I had messed things up so much. How could I face Him now?
I needed to put my life back in order. I resolved to getting out of the pit I had dug for myself. I have to give myself an "A" on pit-digging, but I just couldn't seem to get myself out. I'd make some progress and then fall right back down to the bottom.
The Awakening
One day I was amusing myself watching videos on Google when I came across one that is part of the Amazing Discoveries lecture series. They are produced by the Adventist Church in Canada. Speaker Walter Veith gives most of the lectures and he has a great style, very amusing and personable. The topic was a little controversial; the important part of the story is that I was led to watch all of the videos in the series. Covering almost everything from creation to Revelation, with an emphasis on prophecy as it relates to current events.
I was literally sick to my stomach after watching them all and realizing that the world wasn't exactly what or where I thought it was. I felt like I had been on a roller coaster ride. My eyes had been opened and I decided to go back to the Bible and to reestablish my relationship with God. I didn't know how much time I had left to make things right. (Matthew 24:36)
I finally came up with a plan that worked for getting out of that pit: I got down and humbled myself and asked God to fix my problems for me. I obviously wasn't very good at fixing my problems. I asked God to take over, to make me the kind of person He wanted me to be. I prayed, "God, it's your life now. Do whatever you want with it. Point me in any direction and I'll start walking."
Much to my surprise it was not a slow change. It was like someone flipped a switch. Things which I'd had a sweet tooth for all my life had lost their appeal. I was able to make changes to all aspects of my life, including lifestyle, diet, exercise and religion. I was suddenly happier and healthier than I had been in my entire life. There was just one problem: the Sabbath.
Meeting the Test
What to do about the Sabbath. I had started working in the film industry a few years back. Although I was making progress, I was still just barely able to keep my head above water. Most of the work I did was on low-budget movies, working mostly six-day weeks, with at least 12-hour days, which was not very conducive to keeping the Sabbath. I was at an impasse: either the Sabbath or my career had to go.
I decided to do a little more research into the Sabbath matter. This was the first I had ever heard of the seventh-day Sabbath still being in effect for Christians. So I went back to my trusty Google search engine and did some Internet searches for more information about the Sabbath. I found a website by a man who was a former Adventist. He made a compelling argument against Sabbath, listing several verses of scripture to back him up. Most were in Paul's writings, talking about the law having been "nailed to the cross."
I got out my Bible and looked up the verses for myself. Sure enough, there they were, plain as day. Well, I was thankful. Those Adventists really had me going. I still thought they were right about everything else in the lecture series. Luckily for me I'd found out the truth about the Sabbath. I had almost given up my career, and I really didn't want to do that. I was just starting to taste some success.
Everything went well for a couple of months. Then, slowly at first, sin started creeping back into my life. I started slipping back into that old pit of mine. Before I knew it, I was right back where I started. Worst of all, I could feel that the Holy Spirit had left me. For awhile I had a kind of inner peace and joy I had never felt before. I knew God was with me. I could literally feel Him in my life. Somewhere I had gone wrong and allowed sin to separate me from God. So I went back to the Bible and to the videos that had brought me to God most recently. I made an honest effort to find out the error of my ways. I was determined to get God back into my life.
There was that question again, what about the Sabbath? Anything but that! Let me be wrong about anything but that! All the changes I had made in my life so far had come pretty easily. Obeying the Sabbath would be anything but easy for me.
For a couple of years, I had already been struggling to pay the bills without trying to keep the Sabbath. Maybe that was it. Maybe I had been searching for the answer I wanted to find. Had I really made an honest search for the truth before? I went back to Dr. Veith's lectures and found one dealing more directly with the Sabbath. He went over all the arguments for not keeping the Sabbath, including the "nailed to the cross" idea.
I won't make the entire argument against this line of thinking because of the intended length of this testimony, but just briefly give the counter argument that Paul is referring to the ceremonial law of Moses which was a typology that pointed forward to the sacrifice that Jesus would make. Once He had been crucified it was no longer necessary to make the sacrifices that had been symbols of the true sacrifice to come.
I was starting to get that sick-to-my-stomach feeling again. I was at an impasse. Both arguments couldn't be right. It was either one or the other. I went to the Bible to get to the bottom of the issue, asking God to help me find the truth about the matter.
After studying the scriptures, I was able to add some of my own thoughts to the argument. How do you nail a stone to a cross? Wouldn't it be much easier to nail a law written on paper to a cross? How do you blot out something engraved into stone? Don't you blot out things that are written on paper? If the Sabbath is no longer binding, why does God use words like perpetual, everlasting, always and remember when He refers to the Sabbath law?
Dr. Veith had made the point that the Bible must be in harmony with itself, that God doesn't contradict Himself. I agreed with him. God was commanding me to remember His Sabbath and if I wanted a relationship with Him I had getter start doing just that.
I took a deep breath and determined to start obeying the Sabbath, no matter what the cost. I looked up the Adventist website and found the Santa Monica Seventh-day Adventist Church. The following Saturday I went to services and enjoyed my first Sabbath. The next Friday I attended Westside Praise, a social meeting to which I had been invited by someone at the church. I met Pastor Allen (Franzke) for the first time and briefly described my situation, where I was with my faith. I explained that I didn't know what the future had in store but that I had prepared myself for the worst. If God's plan was for me to go homeless and minister to other homeless, then so be it.
That night Pastor Allen gave a sermon about a leap of faith and about letting go of the past in order to take hold of an uncertain future. It was a heartfelt sermon, almost handcrafted just for me.
Another interesting thing happened during that meeting. I got a call from a woman I had worked with a few months before. She had been called about some work she'd had to turn down because she was out of town. She wanted to send the work my way. I thought I probably wouldn't be able to take the work because of the Sabbath, but I told her I would call her back later for the details. I spoke to her again later that night and much to my surprise the gig was in Las Vegas. I would be leaving that Sunday to work Monday through Thursday, returning Friday morning.
I work with my brother in the film industry as a camera assistant, He actually is my boss and has always been the one to book work and then hire me. This was the first time anyone was calling me directly for work and miraculously it coincided perfectly with the Sabbath. "What a God!" I thought to myself, The Lord was working in my life. The next morning at Sabbath service, I was elated to share the good news with Pastor Allen, but when I got home I got another phone call. The shoot had been pushed a day. We would be traveling on Monday, working through Friday and possibly Saturday.
When I informed them I could not work from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, they told me that if that was the case, I would not be able to work any of the days. I was in a bind. This work was going to allow me to pay my rent and get caught up on bills, all in one fell swoop. What to do? They needed an answer right then! I told the man that I would take the work. In my mind, this work had been sent to me by God and He saw into the future. He would have known the shoot was going to be pushed.
Still I didn't feel right about things. I was feeling sick to my stomach again. I kept going over the situation in my head for hours that night. Words like perpetual, everlasting, always and remember kept entering my mind. Then I thought about the book of Job. Satan was the one trying to lead Job to sin against God. Maybe, this had been Satan's doing all along? I still haven't figured out if it was God or Satan testing my resolve, but I did figure out one thing that night.
The next morning I made a difficult phone call and turned down the work so that I could honor the Sabbath. Funny thing was, it really wasn't that hard once I had made the decision. Afterward I felt much better, as though a great weight had been lifted.
Then, just before the end of the month, I got word from my brother that he had a couple of days of work lined up for us on Wednesday and Thursday. Whew! God had simply waited until the last moment to rescue me—He makes a habit of that. I could finally breathe easy.
A couple of days later, my brother told me that because of Memorial Day, the Art Department was behind schedule and the shoot might be pushed to Friday. I had danced to this song before and knew how it ended. Sure enough, the shoot got pushed. I turned down the work and again was staring at that stack of bills, preparing myself to explain things to my landlord.
While turning down all of this work, I had plenty of time on my hands and had started looking to make a career change. My only other career experience was in the restaurant business. Have you ever tried getting a restaurant job when you have to tell them you can't work Friday or Saturday night because of the Sabbath? It's kind of like telling them that you have leprosy except that people don't seem quite as put off by communicable diseases.
The good news is that besides checking job listings and sending off resumes I had plenty of time to think about my situation, study the Bible and pray. During all of this, I had really been feeling that God was calling me to the ministry. After all, I had prayed for the honor of having Him work through me.
John was baptized in the Santa Monica church, and was accepted into the four-month course at the Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism. A member at the Santa Monica church paid his tuition. After graduation, he preached a series in Romania and then accepted a call to become a Bible worker in the Albuquerque Adventist Church in New Mexico.
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