HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2008 / JULY/AUGUST / STORIES OF FAITH

JULY / AUGUST 2008
VOLUME 9, ISSUE 4

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D E P A R T M E N T S

STORIES of Faith

I am in the arms of Jesus
Phillip E. Harris, Jr.

I grew up in the fourth generation of a family of Adventists. Dad's grandfather was an Adventist lay preacher, and his own parents were medical missionaries who were trained and married at the St Helena Sanitarium. From there they were sent to China by Ellen G. White herself. Mother's grandmother was a nurse at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, trained by Dr. Kellogg's staff. I remember my dad's parents living near Ellen G. White's home at Elmshaven, California, before they moved up the hill to Angwin near Pacific Union College. We lived at Angwin for over two years so dad could be near granddad during his declining years. I spent my first, third, eighth and ninth grades in Adventist schools. Even though I am no longer an Adventist, my sense of "family" ties me to these people whom I will always love.

When I was six and my brother was four, our grandmother asked us to invite Jesus into our hearts as our Savior. We eagerly did so. Shortly after that my brother Shermy died of leukemia, and I was assured that he was in heaven and safe in the arms of Jesus. As I grew older I was taught that I had to keep the Sabbath, avoid certain foods, confess all my sins, join the "true church" by being baptized into it, become perfect, and then maybe I would learn that I was saved when I stood before Jesus at the great white throne judgment. When I was sixteen a visiting preacher told us that at least 90% of us were going to hell.1 At that point I saw no reason to continue the struggle and left the church. If my salvation depended on my ability to do the right works, I was obviously lost anyway.

 

God's faithfulness

When I was in the third grade at the Westlake Adventist School, some of us were playing a game of "kick the can" during recess one day when one of the other boys threw a section of roofing shingle at me. It hit me in the face resulting in cuts on both sides of my left eye. They required twenty-one stitches—but my eye was not harmed. Later, this intervention became God's testimony to me that He had always been with me.

As I grew into my teen years, my struggle to overcome sin led to a very poor self-image. Other people could do things and live happy lives—but not me, because I was different. After high school I went directly into the Marine Corps; the Lord used this stage of my life to change how I saw myself. When I passed the apprentice test at the shipyard, it was a revelation to discover who I really was and what I could do.

At Mare Island, while inside a submarine missile tube I was building, a welder brought out his pocket New Testament in response to my bragging about what a wild weekend I had just had. For the next two years that man prayed for me, and he became my closest friend. He helped me meet and court my future wife, and his wife led my wife to the Lord.

Because of my friend I began reading my Bible. After I read Romans 8:31-36 over and over, the voice of the Holy Spirit revealed not only that I had been saved with my brother all those years ago when I accepted Jesus but also that He had never and would never abandon me. This new-found knowledge was life-changing.

By then I was married and we were expecting our first child. We had been fellowshipping with a small group of Christians who were meeting in a local mortuary in the center of a cemetery. The songs, the prayer, the love they expressed—and above all, the intense Bible study were almost overwhelming. This worship experience introduced a major conflict in my mind because I still believed that Adventists were the only true "remnant" church. We visited the Adventist church and found it very deadening. How could this be? At this point I decided that I had to resolve my conflict by putting Seventh-day Adventist doctrine to the test of Scripture and letting the Holy Spirit guide me to where the truth of the matter lay.

Having been well-trained in Adventist theology, I believed that the investigative judgment was their unique, core doctrine that I needed to test. My study led me to Leviticus 16. In verse five I learned that the two goats—the sacrifice and the scapegoat—were a single sin offering because the sacrifice provided the means for God's atonement, and the scapegoat carrying away our sins provided the sacrifice's effect. This fact implies that both goats represented Christ on the cross. In verse twenty-one, Israel's sins were confessed over the scapegoat. The claim that the scapegoat represented Satan because the "goat of departure" is "evil" or "cursed" is not confirmed in the Bible. Jesus hung on the cross, and Deuteronomy 21:23 teaches us that the cross was a curse. Galatians 3:13 further teaches that Jesus became a curse for us. Clearly, Jesus is our Scapegoat and the one to whom we confess our sins. To suggest that anyone else carries responsibility for our sins in any way is heresy.

According to Scripture, if what a prophet teaches is wrong, that person is a fraud, and his or her words are to be ignored because they are not from God. This fact put Ellen White, who taught that the scapegoat represented Satan, in a bad light. For about five more years I continued my research, and I intellectually rejected the beliefs of Adventism. What was harder for me, however, was to surrender fully to the control of the Holy Spirit and let Him make changes in me.

 

Surrender

By 1984 I had again turned to worldly living, and my wife and I were separated. I had to do some deep soul-searching about what I had done with my life and where I was headed. When I finally understood how Ellen White's teaching had affected me and realized that she was the foundation behind much of my thinking, I beat on the walls of the little trailer where I was living and burst into tears. Simultaneously I saw that my own love of myself was what had kept me from fully surrendering to the lordship of Jesus. That night I released my desires and goals to Him.

The next day when I came home from work there was a phone call for me. My wife wanted to put our lives back together. Needless to say, I was overcome and cried some more.

Since that time, my life has no longer been about me. Rather, it is all about Jesus.

God demonstrated his care immediately. During our separation my wife and I had lost our home. When we reunited, one Christian couple offered us land next to where I was already living. Within another couple of days, another Christian couple insisted that we take their mobile home because they had to get it off their property. God didn't stop there, however. Even more amazing than the land and the home is the fact that we have now been totally debt free for over ten years, and life has been a series of miracles that demonstrate how God works when he is in control.

Eventually I left the shipyard where I had worked for years and asked the Lord for a job with "a short commute". He answered. It now takes me all of six minutes to drive to work. Sometime after beginning my new job, I was driving the company truck on a Friday night during heavy commute traffic across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in a torrential rainstorm. I was feeling sorry for myself, wondering if God really was doing anything in my life. Right at that moment the truck lost all power. I was terrified and completely blinded by the rain. The truck coasted up, over the center of the bridge, and to the off ramp without hitting anything. I steered to the shoulder and stopped. A jeep pulled up in front of me, and the driver offered to tow me to the nearest weigh station. As soon as we were there, another car pulled up beside me with a sign on the side that said "Auto Angel". This driver offered a cell phone, and I called my boss and told him what had happened. The lesson I learned was simple but profound: look out to be astounded when God moves in your life.

Recently the Lord used the experience of my having two total knee replacement surgeries to deal with another level of my pride where I have protected my tendency to be a recluse. During the first operation, I stopped breathing on the operating table. The next day a blood clot went to my lungs, and I nearly died again. Being totally dependent for my every need—indeed, for my very life—was humbling and led me to the understanding that I need to have a heart for others and also allow myself to be vulnerable enough to share my life with them.

Shortly before he went to be with Jesus, my Bible study and teaching partner, who was suffering from terminal cancer, took me to the hospital for my second surgery. He and his wife spent most of the day there, and I will never forget the smiles reflecting the love of Jesus on their faces when I came out of recovery.

When I finally saw how Adventism had shaped my worldview, God also revealed to me my deep self-centeredness. As I released both to Him, I was finally free to experience His faithfulness more fully. Now I realize I am part of a family that is far larger than merely my wife, kids, aunts, and uncles; I am part of God's family. The central focus of my life is the Lord Jesus Christ, His saving grace and His complete atonement for my sin.

I submit my life to Him. †

 

Endnote

1. Ellen White wrote that "not one in twenty whose names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their earthly history…" (GCD.1893-02-04.009)
   
    

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My mother holding me and my brother Shermy, on the left.

Phil Harris and his wife Janeane have been married 42 years and have three children and six grandchildren. After 25 years of ship fitting, Phil changed careers and now works as a maintenance mechanic at a local food processing plant. He and Janeane live quietly on two-and-a-half wooded acres on Puget Sound, Washington, where they both teach Bible study classes. Faith in Jesus and their family and friends are the focal points of their lives.