NEXT

As we prepared to post the transcripts of several testimonies from Next we realized that it just wasn’t the same reading the testimonies. There was something special watching someone stand and share all God had done in their lives. We’re working on posting all these testimonies in video form, but in the meantime we’ll post them here on the blog.

Here’s David Stein’s testimony. If you weren’t at the conference you really need to hit “play” on the video. His testimony is hilarious and heartbreaking and most of all, God-glorifying.

David Stein Testimony from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.

If you can’t watch the video here’s the transcript of his testimony:

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My name is David Stein. This is the story of how Jesus Christ changed my life. I grew up in a slightly different home than D.A. Carson. The only similarity is that I too was bathed. Imagine growing up in a home where God was never mentioned. Not once. Well a few times but it was not in a glorifying way.

I was born and raised Jewish. But in our home Judaism was simply history and tradition. And not unlike American’s would celebrate the 4th of July, in our house we celebrated Jewish holidays in history and tradition like Hashanah, Yom Kapor, Passover, and Hanukkah – the grand slam of Jewish holidays. And the message was always the same… “Everybody hates us. Don’t forget everybody hates us. Enjoy your dinner.”

I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. Trap, Pennsylvania. And this is not the start of a bad joke. There were only three Jewish families in the town of Trap, my dad was the dentist, my cousin was the doctor, and there was also a Jewish family, he was the podiatrist. I had the pleasure of getting beaten up on the school bus for being Jewish. At least I think that was the reason, perhaps it was because I was in the band.

I was bar mitzvah-ed at the age of 13 and pretty much called it a day as for practicing any type of Judaism, but we remained Jewish in history and tradition.
Two years before that, at the age of 11, I found my first dirty magazine under my brothers bed which led to a life of long addiction to pornography and sexual sin. I didn’t get high until college. I got high for the first time and I liked it, which led to flunking out of college shortly thereafter, which is a proud moment in the life of a parent I’m sure. I stumbled my way into some semblance of a career; had some minor successes and great failures as an Entrepreneur.

But no greater failure than my marriage. I was married in 1993 and began to drink in 1993… there was no correlation. And 10 years later at the age of 42 my marriage ended. There I was on the floor of a half empty closet in February of 2004 in Burbank, CA in a fetal position, balling my eyes out. I’m 42… an alcoholic, pot smoking, porn addict. And I had I knew two choices: self destruction, which I knew I was good at, and what I called at the time (which I did not have) strength, will, and determination. And that moment on that floor someone picked me up. Someone pulled me up off that floor. Not long after, things started to turn around. My health got better. From that day on that floor, complete deliverance from alcohol and drugs. Gone. Gone.

The lust thing took a little while longer. I had to listen to a couple of Josh Harris messages to get that one. Ran for the first time: ran a marathon… once… I’m not crazy. Within four months I applied for a job I never would have applied for because of my fear of failure in that job. And I got it. And that was my dream job and that turned into what I thought was another dream job and things were turning around and almost good.

And this went on for a period of almost 2 years from that night on the floor. And I had the thought in September of 2006 – and I’ve never had this thought before – I wonder if God has anything to do with this. And I didn’t know what to do. So I went to the only place that I figured I’d find God and that would be… a Synagogue.

And I went to a Synagogue on September 8th 2006 and was devastated. There was nothing there. When I was 13 and bar mitzvah-ed I didn’t understand one word and when I was 45 and sitting in that Synagogue, I didn’t understand one word. And I left there in tears, figuring I was going to find God there that night and he was going to greet me at the door, and say “Welcome, I’ve been waiting for ya” …and nothing.

I had done some self help after that night on the floor. Weekend seminar, so I pretty much had it all going on. I knew everything. Had seen a therapist she had since moved 2,000 miles away but I called her to tell her this story that I went to the Synagogue and nothing happened. We set up a very unorthodox phone session. I was in my living room in Glendale, California and she was in her office in Atlanta. And I told her the story and she said the most amazing sentence, she said, “That’s okay David, you just didn’t find him there.” I didn’t know what she meant. I just didn’t know you could look somewhere else. What is this find thing? And she took off her therapy hat and she put on her Christian hat. I did not know she was a Christian. And from 2000 miles away she shared the gospel with me.
And she told me who God was. And what he did for me. And how much he loved me. And right then and there I knew desperately that I needed a Savoir and fell to my knees and I accepted Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. And that was September 26, 2006 and the Lord was so kind, he was so kind. Immediately he got me into excellent teaching and sound doctrine. Almost immediately I got an invitation to go to some church in southern California to hear some guy “speak”… that was the word I used. It was a Thursday night and I was like, okay, whatever. And that some guy’s church was John MacArthur’s… he can bring it! And that some guy “speaking” was John Piper, but John MacArthur came out and said, I’m sorry John Piper can’t be here today, his father passed away. We have someone to fill in for him. And this guy came out and said “no one can replace John Piper” and he preached on something that I’d never heard. I didn’t know what an expository message was, I had never seen one and never heard one, this was my first one and he preached on humility. Thank you.

I’m not the brightest guy in the room, after seeing C.J. preach that night I went to the Sovereign Grace website, began downloading messages by C.J., Josh, many others. Took me 3 months to figure out there was a button at the top of the website that says “local churches”. And there was a local church 5 minutes away from me… and on June 17th 2007 I walked into Sovereign Grace in Pasadena, CA. I knew as soon as I walked through that door I was home and a year later I had an opportunity to move for what I thought was a job and I moved to Georgia. And I was afraid, silly me… he would take care of me. And 3 days after I got to Georgia, I walked into Sovereign Grace in Woodstock, Georgia. And I knew I was home.

It was not a job. God was taking me there to show the local church. And it turns out the local church does live in care group, and local church does live in serving, and local church does live in reaching out in the community, to the lost. And I praise God for unveiling each day more and more of who he is and never giving up on me and for knowing all this long before I was born. And there’s actual documentation, sort of, on that. A 1978 report card, 10th grade high school. Now up until that day in September 2006 I was quite certain I had never had the gospel shared with me, never heard the gospel, never cracked a bible, never heard one word about Jesus Christ. I went to an Episcopalian boarding school in Pottstown, PA… 3 Jews… we had to take a theology class in 10th grade from the very reverent Dr. Regal. That was his actual name and once again I was not a very good student so he wrote this comment “I’m sorry to say…” now this is 31 years ago, “I’m sorry to say David has no grasp of the biblical introduction to Judaism, but has a mastery of John’s gospel”.  Long before he grabs us and turns us away from hell, he’s working on us.

So I praise him for never giving up on me, for pulling me up off that floor - I know now it was him.