This past Sunday night Catherine Knapp was baptized. She is the wife of the pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas where Curtis Knapp is the pastor. Last week Curtis gave his testimony in this newsletter. Why are we looking at testimonies like this? Remember that for several months we have been looking at how the judgment of God is on America and more specifically upon the professing Church in America. We have turned to looking at what it will take for God to turn His face and shine His countenance upon us again. Testimonies like this are making the point in ways that other discussions seem to lack. What if the professing churches have many people like the Knapps? Could it be that there are many people, perhaps more than we care to imagine, were raised in churches across the land, made professions of faith, were baptized like they were told, and then either led a moral life but really do not know Christ? That would lead to a church being a nice place to be and yet it would be spiritually dead. Perhaps people led a rather immoral life and yet rested on their profession as being enough. Either way, if these people never repented they would be damned through the local church. If people never hear of these things, they can go from a profession of faith as a child to an elderly person that is too proud to admit that s/he is not a converted person. Pastors, could it be that people are not being awakened to their lost conditions because we are slothful in the pulpit?
John Murray wrote a haunting volume entitled Damned Through the Church around 1970. It has been years since I have seen my copy but hopefully I can find it in the coming hours or days. The point, however, is that the preaching can be relatively orthodox and people can make sincere (in many ways) professions of faith and still be lost. We can be active in a local church and still not truly have Christ as our life. We can love what we call fellowship when in fact what we love is ourselves and the attention others give us. We can be very moral, even more moral than all of the other kids or neighbors and still not have Christ. We are not judged by the standard of others, we are judged by the standard of the holiness of God. We are not saved by our profession of Christ, but only by Christ Himself in the heart. Could it be that there are many professing churches with great programs and many activities that are simply busy places that are busily deceiving people about their souls?
Many people would condemn the testimony of Catherine Knapp because she leaves out certain elements that they consider essential. One of those would be an exact day and time when the profession was made. Does the Bible ever require such a thing? What Paul teaches is that we examine ourselves to see if Christ is in us (II Corinthians 13:5). The issue is not whether we have made a profession, but if Jesus Christ is the life of our soul and if He is in the heart. In I John we are told several things about how to know and not know if we are believers or not. However, he never tells us to look back and remember a day when a profession was made. My great fear is that many churches are full of people who have made professions, are orthodox in theology, lead moral lives, and attend church on a regular basis which deceives them about the true state of their souls. The testimony of Catherine (as seen below) takes into account what must happen and that is a change of heart and the life of Christ in that heart. May we all read what she says and be moved to search our own souls.
The Testimony of Catherine Knapp
Like my husband, I was raised in a church-going family. I was a faithful attender of even optional events, faithfully read and re-read all the interesting Old Testament stories, participated in family devotions, prayed every night, loved to sing praise songs and hymns, and used my Bible as a talisman against bad dreams, scary thoughts and shadows. I thought I was trusting in Jesus because I wasn’t praying by name to someone else. I do not remember ever being exposed to the gospel, and I never thought of sin as anything more than a vague blanket that covered us all. There was really nothing to be ashamed of because all people sinned. I prayed the sinner’s prayer many times, and even persuaded a guest to do it once. Neither of us ever exhibited any change in our lives whatsoever. I went through the act of baptism unconverted and not even realizing it, but I did enjoy the attention, praise, and the dinner afterward in honor of the candidates.
I did not understand that there were different kinds of belief, or that saying something with my mouth and going under water did not make it true, anymore than making a wish and blowing out candles makes the wish come true. I did not know about the verse that says, “even the demons believe, and they shudder.” I would have vehemently denied that I had been an enemy of God. I did not even know enough of my Bible to understand that denying my enmity with God was proof that I needed to be reconciled. Nor did I know that I needed to be saved from SIN, and that being saved from hell was a benefit of that. The warning signs were there: tuning out of the worship service after the singing was over and as the minister got up to preach; being enslaved to the approval of other people but not God; reading selected passages and skipping over those that made me uncomfortable; viewing devotional time as a duty instead of a meal for my soul; the fact that I was repelled by the idea of worshipping God in heaven all the time; often siding with “moderates” in my thinking and considering certain parts “dated” instead of the viewing the Bible as living; rarely being able to make sense of or remember anything that WASN’T a story in the Bible; the resentment that welled up in me when I read something I didn’t like (what seemed like the unfair death of Uzzah, and the instructions to the Israelites to kill even infants of other tribes, and that women were not to preach); and the audacity (that amazes me still) of thinking that the Almighty King and Creator of all I see and have not fathomed, was blessed to have me on His team because so few had been joining the club recently.
It never occurred to me that I didn’t HAVE a testimony. There was no before and after. No then and now. My “conversion” (which time?) was just an event in my life, not a change OF my life. I was a rule-keeper, and the most important rules to keep were, of course, the ones I was keeping. Sometime between the end of my sophomore year in college and several years into our marriage I was saved. I can’t pinpoint the time because I was not on the lookout for it. I became aware, gradually, of two things. That I had been blind, and that now I could see. I knew I needed a bigger view of God and I had been praying that God would show me my sin. He did. I really WAS a sinner-not just generally, but specifically. And that, strange as it sounds, was so relieving to me. The more I saw of my sin, the more I saw of God’s greatness. It was me who was blessed to be chosen by God. I was so happy to know these things in my heart, and I thought about them often. I received a power to do REALLY HARD things, like submit to my husband when I had thought my way was better, to recognize when I am sinning against my children and to ask their forgiveness, to consider that I might be wrong in a conflict and to pray for God’s grace in it, and other things I could not do in earnest before.
I still sin, but now I can’t bear it very long and want forgiveness instead of a cover-up. I understand that God is always right, and if I don’t understand something in the Bible or in life, the problem is with my fallen understanding. I became hungry for the Bible and missed it when I didn’t take the time for devotions. I began to see that God doesn’t get old and irrelevant, and that His genius is beyond my comprehension. I did not become brave, but I began to love Him so much that I wanted to be brave for His sake. I began to think of His approval and to worry that I might not be a faithful servant. I began to understand that I needed His discipline in my life, and to see it as a sign of His love. I loved church time, and I began to be able to remember sermons past noon on Sunday.
Our minister is my husband, but when he is in the pulpit he becomes first the tool of God for our congregation, and I have a vested interest in praying that God will keep him faithful in his study. Earthly things that once were so important to me have receded in their significance and I enjoy talking about God and His Word in the appointments He has prepared for me. I have come to see that not even my dear family can come ahead of God in my affections. I have a concern over who I listen to and learn from and I have become one of those true
Bible believers I used to privately scorn. I have been surprised by how much scripture has remained in my memory, and God brings it up at just the right time. I am no longer appalled at spending all my time worshipping God in heaven and sometimes can hardly wait to get there and see so much more of the riches of His glory. Before I was converted, if I had read a sentence like the last one, I would have thought the person was pretending holiness. Now my life, my mind, my heart, are all changed. They function differently toward and around God. And I am so glad.
God Loves... Himself 
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