DARREL CARSON | Off the grid and loving Jesus |
“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love has been perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:15-19 LSB
I think it was the winter of 2006. We were touring Hill Aerospace Museum at Hill Air Force Base in northern Utah. We had finished touring the first building and were passing through a covered walkway enclosed with glass on both sides. As we entered the next building, right in front of us was a delta-winged jet that I instantly knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, I had seen as a child. As a seven-year-old, I had seen the underside of the plane as it rushed over our house just above the tree tops at supersonic speed. I remember lying face-up on the grass, toes pointed towards Camp Beale, waiting for it to come by again. It felt like an eternity, but at long last, there it came in total silence, shining in the sun. In a second it was almost out of sight, but suddenly, with a bang that cracked the air, those delta wings disappeared in a deafening roar.
As I stood there in total awe of this aircraft that had so filled me with terror as a child, I was even then feeling an adrenaline rush as I read on the placard “Convair F-102A Delta Dagger”.
Sunday Law Fear
At this point in my life, my memory doesn’t serve me too well as to the order of the tumultuous events of history. There was so much happening, both in my life and in the world. I do recall that fear ramped up with the election of John F. Kennedy for president in 1960. He was Roman Catholic, and as such, he was going to bring about the Sunday Law which would legalize all loyal Sabbath-keepers to be hunted down and killed. At the same time there were missiles in Cuba with the threat of the atomic bomb, and all night long the planes flew. I had no way of knowing which ones were ours and which ones were Russians coming with bombs.
And if those national threats weren’t enough, there was Church and the fear of the Lord. The Bible said, “Fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of His judgement has come (Revelation 14:6).” The church people talked about the the time of the end and about wars and rumors of war. They talked about President Kennedy and the Sunday Law and how only the righteous would survive the coming time of trouble. The Judgement was going on up in Heaven at that very moment, and we never knew when our names might come up—and all our sins had to be forgiven. We had to confess every last one of them, and if we forgot even one of them, well, too bad for us; we just wouldn’t make it. We had to be ready for Jesus to come, and I knew for a fact that I wasn’t ready, and as nearly as I could tell, I never would be. Yes, at church I heard the “everlasting gospel”, and it filled my heart with terror.
Headed For Hell
My poor mother read Ellen White and believed with all her heart that my salvation was her personal responsibility. I was a bit of a strong-willed child with a rebel attitude, and she was determined that I was going to go to Heaven even if she had to beat me every step of the way—and believe me, she tried.
But no matter how hard my mother tried to keep me from sinning, the only thing that happened was that I sinned all the more. School teachers ridiculed me in front of my fifth grade class; another teacher did far worse and my sins continued to accumulate. I gave up and quit trying to be good—deep down, anyway. On the surface I was a good kid; I was a junior counselor at Pathfinders. I taught an adult Sabbath School class at age 15; I did all the right things, but on the inside I didn’t even try; there was no point; I was headed for hell, and I was convinced that not even God cared.
Then there were the nightmares. They started when I was very young and continued for decades. Most of time I had no recollection of what was happening in those dreams other than something very evil was trying to snuff out my life…
Then there were the nightmares. They started when I was very young and continued for decades. Most of time I had no recollection of what was happening in those dreams other than something very evil was trying to snuff out my life, and it required every ounce of strength that I could muster just to speak the name of Jesus.
The nightmares ended in 2019 on a beautiful fall day at Pastor Steve’s home in Selma, Oregon. You see, that is the day I met the real Jesus and knew for the first time that my sins had been washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ: “He who knew no sin became sin for me, Darrel Eugene Carson, so that I could become the righteousness of God in Him.”—2 Corinthians 5:21
Surprised By Love
I didn’t know that my nightmares had ended when we left Pastor Steve’s home that day, in fact it was some time later when I realized that I hadn’t had a nightmare in quite some time. You see, the perfect love of God had cast out fear. When the Holy Spirit lives within the heart of the believer nothing is ever the same. The demons, be they devils or demons of my own mind, that used to terrorize me no longer have access. Nothing about my life has really changed as far as my history and its baggage is concerned. But what has changed is that I have been born again, and the Holy Spirit lives within me.
In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus invites us to come to Him, and He will give us rest. That rest is real; I can go to sleep at night and rest without fear, nightmare free! As good as this physical rest is, however, the rest that He gives goes way beyond that. I now have rest from the futile work of trying to be good ,because He is my righteousness. I have rest from guilt; all my sins have been forgiven and forgotten. I have rest from the worries of everyday life because I know that my Sovereign God has all things in His control. I can rest because salvation is a free gift, not something to be worked for. My fear is gone, displaced by love and rest—the love and rest that Jesus gives.
The shock of terror that the Delta Dagger plunged into my seven-year-old heart has lost its power. Sunday laws and atomic arms races no longer threaten my existence. My future is secure because the Lord Jesus is sovereign over kings, presidents, armies, and even me. He has neutralized the curse of death by His perfect sacrifice, and the supersonic boom of that jet is nothing compared to the singularity of Jesus shattering the tomb three days after the cross!
If you haven’t experienced this wonderful gift of God first hand, I invite you to bring your sin, guilt, fear, and whatever other baggage is weighing you down to the foot of His Cross. Receive the forgiveness and rest that He has for you. He will rescue you from darkness and bring you into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13).†
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