A Way Out of Darkness

Christian Testimony of Justin Hughes

Justin 2005

I have been saved for 20 years as I write this.

It seems to be a common feeling among many of the Lord’s people that they knew that they were ‘different’ from others long before they were saved. They seem to find themselves strangely drawn to ‘religion’, as they see it, though not always the case. So it was with me.

I went to Sunday School at a little chapel at the end of the lane where I lived for a while when I was a little lad. So, some seeds were sown in me way back then, I suppose, which did not bear fruit for many years.

After some years of growing up I moved to the West Country where I met and married my wife. We began to do very well, by the grace of God, but I was still a sinner and into all the things that the wicked get into.

Sin begins to bear fruit as one goes on, and so it did in me. I now know that the Lord God engineers these things and was working on me. I did not know it then. As more and more of my sins came out I found myself having to confront the person I really was, and I knew without a shadow of doubt that there was no good in me whatever. It is a sad fact that it is not until we are forced to face the person we really are that we will repent. Such is the wicked state of human beings that they cannot repent except God engineer it.

All the time someone thinks that they are not too bad, and that there are some redeeming factors in them, they will not come to Jesus and repent. Most will say that they know that they have done wrong, but will not accept that they are fundamentally wrong, until God show them to themselves and all their pretension is undone.

I was down in a deep dark hole. I could no longer hold my head up, and I had no way out as far as I could see. My dear wife, who was saved, and had become, by the grace of God, a real Christian by this stage, wanted to take me along to a Christian meeting, and after the preaching, an appeal was made for those who wished to turn to the Lord. I responded, and I was saved.

Not knowing any better we stopped at the pub on the way home for a beer, and I knew something had really changed in me. It was not my doing, and I knew that I could not change or help myself. But I felt very different; lighter, happy, free.

We stayed up chatting for a while when we got home before going to bed. The next morning I was as high as a kite. Jesus Christ had come into me by His Spirit and I knew it. I was as silly as a rook for days on end; what Christians call the ‘Heavenly Haze Phase’! I could not get enough of the Bible. I had never really read any of it before. The words on the page sunk deep into my heart and changed me, and fed me on the inside. I was so different that I did not know myself.

In my newly saved state I knew that the Bible was the Word of God, not because someone taught me, but because I had Jesus Himself, myself, and I had I heard Him speak to me through the Scripture. And I also heard him directly, when in prayer, and through his ministers.

I did not have to change myself in any way. Things I once loved I had an instant loathing for. I hated sin and all its works. I loved holiness and righteousness. For the first time in my life I was truly free, praise God. It was all His work. He chose me, He drew me to Jesus, and He saved me.

It does not stop there. There is an ongoing work in those who are saved too, called sanctification, where one is progressively conformed to the will of God and to the nature of God. It has not been plain sailing from that time. However, we are not promised an easy time. The world loves its own but it hates the Lord’s people in the same way as they hated Jesus. It has been hard losing once good friends who were still sinners and enemies of God as I was. Those friendships have been replaced with new Christian friendships, but it is difficult to find out that those who were your friends now despise you. The reason is simply that if one is filled with the Holy Spirit then you are in another camp to those who are of the spirit of this world. They hate God, and they hate God in us by His Spirit.

Now I know the Person who made me. Now I am safe. If I die tonight I have no doubt as to where I shall be, and who I shall be with. There is nothing in the world more valuable than to know God. It is sin that separates men from God, but there is a cure for sin - JESUS CHRIST.