GOD'S GRACE TO A RELIGIOUS ROMAN CATHOLIC
Salvation Testimony by Tom Stegall

"Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see." John Newton penned these famous lyrics, the cruel slave trader turned preacher and hymn writer. Though John Newton and I came to Christ from different backgrounds, I echo the exact same sentiment expressed in his popular hymn. Today I proclaim to you that I am, and ever will be, eternally grateful to the Lord Jesus Christ for having saved me by His marvelous grace! Now I can finally say with absolute certainty that I am heaven-bound, but not for the reasons you might initially think. God's salvation did not come to me because I lived a moral and religious life by human standards, but actually in spite of this.
Like many people, I was born and raised in a fairly religious home. We were brought up in the Roman Catholic Church and attended Mass every weekend. The Stegall family comprised nine church members, filling an entire pew. Church was fascinating to my young, impressionable religious mind. Multi-colored stained-glass windows each told a story, a story more often heard than the priest's sermons. Stations of the Cross depicted the horrible violence done to Jesus Christ. A marble altar was the centerpiece of attention, covered with golden objects, and occasionally surrounded by plumes of incense. The sights, sounds, and smells of church enticed me I was captured.

Thankfully, I learned some valuable truths at church, such as the fact that God is a trinity of three persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I came to believe that the Bible is God's holy Word, to be respected and obeyed. I was instilled with a healthy fear of God, believing that He was quite holy and that I was somewhat sinful. We learned to say the prayer known as the 'Act of Contrition' which I prayed daily "O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen." Also, as a very young child, above my bed was the embroidered prayer which I prayed every night, "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." This simple prayer revealed my childhood theology: no one can be assured of making it to heaven from day to day! In catechism classes we were taught the existence of a literal heaven where good people went after death and a literal hell where only the really bad people went, like mass murderers and atheists. Those of us who were somewhere between "good" and "bad" would have to make a brief pit-stop in purgatory, but even that was okay, since we'd still get to heaven; we'd just have to wait a little longer.

By most accounts I was considered a pretty moral kid. I didn't smoke, swear, drink, or fight. I received good grades in school and rarely gave my parents a reason to worry. Even in high school when the rest of my family quit attending church regularly, I still took the initiative to get there every weekend. I even went to St. Joseph's Catholic bookstore and purchased my very own Catholic Study Bible and Rosary. Somewhere I got the idea that it was every Christian's obligation to read through the whole Bible at least once in this lifetime. So I began to fulfill this duty. Also, every morning, I would try to pray the Rosary on the twenty-minute bus ride to school, hurrying to get through all 5 decades. While other kids were wasting their time in frivolous chatter about last weekend's party and the new Van Halen song "Jump," I was engaged in fruitful meditation and discussion with Jesus and Mary, privately muttering the words ". . . Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

I was taking steps beyond what was minimally required in religious matters and I knew it. My religious pride was beginning to swell. Reading the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew stirred me, "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." Looking around church one morning, I concluded, "surely Jesus spoke about this place. I think I'll shake things up around here." So at the customary sign of peace, instead of just shaking each hand around me and repeating the same old mantra of "peace", "peace", "peace"; I tried to startle each corpse by saying something new, like "the love and peace of the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior be with you today…dear brother." They must have thought, "Oh, brother!" By performing this simple extra measure, I was quite proud of myself.

Toward the end of high school I began to seriously question my purpose in life and what career path I'd take. After examining my options in the rat race of life, it didn't take long to conclude that the only meaningful existence for man was to live a life of service and devotion to God. In Catholicism, if someone has religious fervor beyond the average, it is considered to be a calling from God. So I made a commitment to Christ, a commitment to serve Him all my life as a Roman Catholic priest.

I enrolled for my first year of college at the Divine Word Seminary in Epworth, Iowa. Like most seminary students, I would take approximately 18 credits in Philosophy and only 6 in the Bible. Besides this, we were involved in many charitable community programs. Seminary life was going well and I was convinced that I was being faithful to God, until the Lord used several incidents to show me that I was actually faithless.

On one occasion, our seminary was having a soccer scrimmage with students from the Emmaus Bible College, a nearby Evangelical Protestant school. As I was standing on the sidelines, two of these Protestants came over to talk with me. I was naturally wary and not ignorant of their devices. Surely they were at our seminary to convert us. My suspicions were confirmed as they started to speak about Jesus Christ. However, I was struck by the personal tone with which they referred to Christ, as though they actually thought they knew Him personally. One student declared how personally thankful he was to Jesus Christ for having died on the cross for him.

I will never forget the words going through my mind as he spoke to me. They are indelibly seared upon my conscience. I thought, "How dare you talk to me about Jesus Christ!? Don't you know who I am? I'm going to be a Catholic priest. You don't need to talk to me about Jesus Christ! I'm the one who should be talking to you!" But the fact of the matter was, he did need to tell me about Jesus Christ. For twenty years, from my infant baptism all the way up to being a seminarian, even though I called myself a Christian and stared at a crucifix every Sunday, I never understood why Jesus Christ had to die for me.

As I sat in my dorm room later, my conscience was pricked and I wondered, "Why did Christ have to die anyway? What difference would it really make to me personally if He had never died?" I knew the painfully obvious answer, "It would make no difference to me at all." I thought, "that guy said he was personally thankful to Christ for what He accomplished by His death on the cross. Why am I not thankful?" Religiously, I knew that I should have been thankful, but I honestly couldn't think of a reason to be thankful. I, above all people, should have known why Christ died, and been thankful for it. I remember thinking, "why should I be thankful to Christ? I'm the one who has to do all the work to get into heaven!" It was only later that I would come to understand the truth of Galatians 2:21, which says, "I do not nullify the grace of God: for if righteousness comes by keeping the law, then Christ died for nothing."

On another occasion, we were gathered in chapel for a special liturgical service known as "the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament." In this ceremony, the priest took the communion wafer, which had been consecrated, and inserted it into a golden stand on top of the altar called a monstrance. Since we believed this wafer had been transformed by the priest into the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, we began to sing and pray to Him on the altar. I remember thinking, "What's wrong with me? I'm just not getting into this ceremony like everyone else. I must be doing something wrong." I was. Suddenly, like a lightening bolt from heaven, the terrible realization struck me, "You are worshipping a piece of bread!" An indictment followed in my conscience "You are an idolater!" Surely this was something only ancient pagans did in Bible times. A piece of bread! It may as well have been a stone, or a golden calf! I told no one about my conviction, but simply placed this issue on the "back burner" of my mind and no longer participated in this ceremony.

As I continued to read the Bible, the Lord faithfully continued to shine His spotlight of truth upon the darkness of my religious faith. His Word and Spirit began to convict me greatly. I prayed the Rosary daily, counting through the fifty-plus beads, each representing the same "Hail Mary" prayer. Then one day, I happened upon Christ's words in Matthew 6:7, "When you pray, do not use vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard because of their many words." This cut me. I ceased praying the Rosary and put this issue on the "back burner" also.

Soon after, I read Christ's words to the clergy of His day, "Do not be called `Rabbi': for one is your Master, even Christ; and you are all brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, He who is in heaven" (Matthew 23:8-9). The proper form of address for each priest in seminary was "Father." I saw this as a dilemma. I asked one priest, "Father, Christ said to call no religious leader 'Father;' so Father, why should I call you 'Father?'" He simply replied, "Well, what do you call your Dad?" I said, "Father." He said, "There you have it. You can't take the Bible so literally." This answer seemed less than satisfactory to me. At this point, I wanted to place this issue on the "back burner" also, but I discovered that by now the "back burner" was full. There wasn't room for even one more pot; and furthermore, the "back burner" was boiling over! I could not become a priest and propagate a religion which didn't agree with Christ. I decided not to return to seminary.

To this point, God had graciously removed a major obstacle in bringing me to salvation. The object of my trust was largely in my religion, and not in Jesus Christ alone. This object had stood in the way of faith in Jesus Christ. Though my faith in the Roman Catholic Church was now shattered, this by no means meant I now trusted the finished work of Christ to save me. In my sinful arrogance, I still trusted in my good works to save me. I still thought I was an inherently good person who deserved to go to heaven, but by this point I had just become more religiously refined in my understanding of religion. I did not yet realize that I was still on my way to hell.

I enrolled for the following school year at the University of Minnesota in Duluth. Over the summer I listened to a radio preacher teaching the Epistle to the Galatians, which he titled "The Letter of Liberation." For the first time, I heard such glorious Biblical terms as justification, imputation, and grace versus works. Though it didn't liberate me that summer, the Lord was gradually using His Word to remove the veil of self-righteousness from my eyes.

When I arrived at U.M.D., I met a friend with whom I shared a mutual interest in God and the Bible. But there was a stark difference between us. He was a "born again" Christian and I certainly was not. Immediately he brought me to Jesus' words in John 3:3, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." I agreed that this verse taught that all men must be born again to go to heaven, but I didn't know what being born again meant. He said it meant personally receiving Jesus Christ as my Savior. And I could do that by placing my faith in Him alone to save me, rather than relying on my good deeds to get me into heaven. He showed me Ephesians 2:8-9 which states: "For by grace are you saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." He explained to me that I was bypassing the grace of God and actually trying to make God indebted to me by doing good works, so that He owed me a place in heaven in exchange for my good deeds. He then showed me Romans 4:4-5, which says, "Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." By showing me these verses from the Word of God, it seemed he was jeopardizing our friendship, and yet he was being the truest friend anyone could have.

His explanation of salvation had effectually bankrupted me of all the good works I had accumulated. My pride burned furiously in an attempt to guard the religious wealth I had stockpiled. I envisioned my fist embedded in his forehead right between his eyes; but I restrained myself since this would not be in keeping with my religious image. God's Word, which is "powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword" (Heb. 4:12), had stabbed me again. This time I was hemorrhaging badly. I stormed from the room, slamming the door behind me. In all this, I knew I was a religious hypocrite and acutely aware of my own sinful heart. As I look back, I can see the hand of God in it all. The Lord has a unique method of dealing with people. First, He reveals Biblical truth to us, then He tests us with personal circumstances to ensure that this truth is appropriated.

Besides this, I was troubled by the implication of the Gospel that the majority of people on this planet were lost and on their way to Hell, while only the minority would make it to heaven. I found this unpalatable. It was just the opposite of my natural way of thinking. But God was right on schedule with another Bible verse. I read in Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because small is the gate and narrow is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." Then I read Christ's words in John 3:16-18, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

As the months passed, I began attending several different Bible studies at U.M.D. Certain verses began to haunt me continually. Romans 3:10 and 3:12 said, "there is none righteous, no, not one" and "there is none who does good, no, not one." The phrase "no, not one" was particularly unsettling to me since it was all-encompassing. This meant that the Pope was not righteous and good. Mother Theresa was not righteous and good. Billy Graham was not righteous and good. I reasoned that if even the world's greatest religious leaders weren't naturally righteous and good in God's holy sight, then certainly I wasn't righteous and good either. In fact, I didn't even have a chance. A revolution had occurred in my thinking. Instead of believing I deserved to go to heaven, I now saw the awful truth that I was deserving of hell.
Though I now desperately wanted to be saved, there was still a vestige of human pride keeping me from trusting Christ alone for salvation. I was stumbled by the issue of eternal security, which is the teaching that one who has been genuinely born again by God's grace can never be lost again because they have eternal life. This issue was frequently debated in the Bible studies I attended at U.M.D. I could see in my mind that eternal security was Biblical and logical and consistent with God's grace and the work of Christ.

If salvation was truly by God's grace apart from any human merit, as Ephesians 2:8-9 states, then maintaining my salvation through anything I could do seemed meritorious and made salvation ultimately based on human works. This plan of salvation seemed no different than the Catholicism I had left. Then I understood that if Christ truly paid for all sins completely when He died on the cross, how could I contribute anything toward paying off the debt of my sins? This blasphemous conclusion would be saying in effect that Christ didn't do enough on the cross. A final thought troubled me greatly; which was the concept of glory. Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches that salvation is not by good works so that no human being could ever boast in God's presence. Christ did all the work and was worthy of 100 percent of the glory. By believing that salvation was even partly by my works, I was actually robbing Christ of the glory He deserved. This type of crime was infinitely worse than stealing hubcaps off of cars!

Though the Lord had graciously and faithfully revealed all of this truth to my mind, I still stubbornly refused to let go of my good works as my ticket to heaven. Then one night I heard a preacher on the radio teaching on John 10:27-28 in the Good Shepherd discourse. He quoted Christ's words, "My sheep hear My voice, I know them and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish." Here was the undeniable truth of eternal security. The preacher said in effect that if someone does not trust in Christ's work alone for salvation and does not know that they have eternal life because they are still clinging to their own works, then that person is not one of Christ's sheep. He is a religious goat. I was stunned, as though someone had hit me in the head with a two-by-four. "I'm a religious goat! How awful! Lord, I want to be one of Your sheep!" I believe it was at that moment I decided to trust in Christ's death and resurrection alone as the only basis for my eternal salvation. From that moment on, I finally possessed the assurance that God had truly saved me - by His grace and for eternity. "How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed." I am eternally grateful to the Lord Jesus Christ, "Who loved me and gave Himself for me," and for His amazing grace that saved a religious wretch like me. All glory to Him!