Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Greetings again from the mountains of Intibucá, Honduras! These two months have really been chalked full of blessings and surprises! I have so much to report and so little space, so I’ll try to summarize as much as possible.
On June 13th, my wife got saved! She thought she was a Christian most of her life, but that evening she couldn’t sleep, struggling with the question of her salvation all night long. She then woke me up early in the morning and told me, “I wasn’t saved before, but now I am!” This surprised me, so I questioned her about it. She then told me, “I realized that all my life I’d been trusting in what I did rather than in what Jesus did for me. I finally quit trusting in what I did, and rested upon the finished work and precious shed blood of Jesus Christ to save my soul. Now I know I’m saved!” I’m enclosing her testimony in her own words with this prayer letter, so you can read it for yourself. She puts it much better than I can!
On June 15th, I led thirty-year-old Nicolasa Mejia Hernandez to the Lord after services in Quebrada de Lajas!
June 27th to July 5th we spent in Guatemala with Missionary Carlos Donate. He invited me to preach in his various works, and God blessed with souls saved. After Wednesday night service in Guatemala City on the 28th, I personally led Nelson Alberto Barrera, 20, to the Lord. With tears in his eyes, he trusted the blood of Jesus Christ to save his soul. What a blessing!
July 1st, we visited in the little town of El Socorro in the scorching, hot Guatemalan sun close to the Pacific Coast. Sweating profusely, I witnessed to many people, but they didn’t want to be saved. Bro. Donate told me afterwards that this was a hard area, full of very sinful people, and they needed a lot of prayer.
The second of July, I preached Sunday morning service for Bro. Saul Garcia, a pastor ordained out of Bro. Donate’s church, in the small area of Tinco, outside of Guatemala City. Tinco is the Mayan word for heaven. Praise be to God, I led four souls to Jesus Christ during the invitation, and now they are on their way to Heaven for real! It was a father and his three daughters. Their names are: Nolverto Antonio Camel, 39, Oralia Yessenia Camel, 16, Suly Nineth Camel,13, Carmen Veronica Camel, 15. (It’s funny that their last name is Camel. Laura and I joked later that I led a bunch of Camels to heaven).
In the afternoon, Bro. Donate took us to the little village of Puente Nuevo (close to the town of Cuilapa in the area of Santa Rosa), where Bro. Paulo Dieguez (sent from Bro. Donate’s church) is starting a Mission. While there Bro. Donate baptized two boys, who had recently gotten saved. Afterwards we visited with the natives in the area. I was surprised at all the wickedness in this little town. It’s full of prostitution, robberies, murders, and more. One story greatly disturbed me. A mother in the village was selling her thirteen-year-old daughter into prostitution. We meet them and I encouraged them to come to service. The little girl came, but her mother made her leave. How sad that a mother could be so wicked! What kind of mother does that with her daughter?
That evening service, I preached on the subject of “What Salvation Is.” My points were that it’s 1. Gratis (Free), 2. Grande (Great), and 3. Gozoso (Joyful). They had two loudspeakers on top of the church, and the whole neighbourhood heard my message. I tried to preach as hard as I could and stress the need to be born again. When I gave an invitation, no one came forward. I then said, “All of you that are already saved, please raise your hand.” Some did, but I noticed several young teenage girls did not. I then looked them straight in the eyes and asked, “Don’t you want to be saved today?” They all shook their heads no. What a shame! Please pray for this sinful area.
Returning to Honduras, we received the most wonderful news. In our absence, Erick Sanchez, a native Missionary who helps us here, led two people to the Lord in Quebrada de Lajas on the 29th of June!
On July 8th, I met the team from Tulsa, Oklahoma who came to visit Missionary Mike Lane and help him with the church building. They were very nice, and I translated for Bro. Mark Shivers, who preached our Saturday night Youth Group meeting.
In the month of July, I celebrated two birthdays. On the 13th, I turned 32 years old physically, and the 29th, I turned 14 spiritually.
Thinking about my wife’s testimony and how probably the greatest sin of modern Christianity today is omitting the blood of Jesus Christ in their presentation of the Gospel, I sat down on July 20th and wrote a hymn entitled, “I Trust the Blood.” I’m not good at music, but I did have training on the piano as a kid. With my violin, I played the tune that kept passing through my head, and carefully wrote down the notes. Enclosed with this prayer letter is my hymn. I only wrote the treble cleft, as I don’t know much about the bass. If anyone could add the notes in the bass, and then mail it to me, it would be greatly appreciated!
July 22nd, I showed my slide show on Creation vs. Evolution to our young people during our Saturday night youth meetings. As I’ve reported before, I plan to enter into schools and churches with different slide presentations, doing the work of an evangelist. Please pray for this endeavour.
July 24th, a group from Texas came down for a week to visit Bro. Mike Lane and to help paint the church. While here, I invited them to go with me to Quebrada de Lajas. They did some visitation and sang during service. Andrew, the Youth Pastor of one of the churches represented preached while I translated.
So the months of June and July were full of fruit, fun, and fellowship. I wish every month on the Mission Field was the same! Thanks again for all your continued prayers and support, for this is what makes our effort possible for the Lord.
Because of Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour,
Robert and Laura Beth Breaker
1 Sam. 12:24!
My Wife’s Testimony of Salvation
By Laura Beth Breaker
A few years ago, I read a tract entitled “The Other Jesus,” by Ovid Need Jr. It explained how one is not saved by simply praying “Jesus, please come into my heart and save me.” I never heard this until that day. I said that prayer when I was five years old. And as “assurance,” I prayed it again at age thirteen and a few other times before I read this tract.
The tract explained further that salvation is only by trusting in the finished work and shed blood of Jesus Christ. Despite this truth, I justified my experience of praying when I was five by saying to myself that I believed Jesus died to save me and that God knew what was in my heart. I thought that even if I didn’t fully understand the gospel when I was five, surely I did before I asked God to save me again when I was thirteen.
But nonetheless after I read this tract, I prayed in my heart, “Lord God, if I’m not saved, I’m trusting only in the finished work on Calvary right now,” (just to cover all my bases). I did this again about a half a dozen times over the next couple of years.
I didn’t realize then that my prayers of “assurance” showed I had doubts. But my “ifs” proved I still held onto believing I was saved when I was five.
Then one day I read a tract called, “The Bloodless Gospel.” It showed how the ecumenical, modernists preach that someone is saved by simply “turning their life over to God,” or “making a commitment to Christ.” But this is not the plan of salvation, even if one heard that Christ died for their sins. I questioned within myself, “Was what I did similar to this apostate teaching?”
The next day another such tract came across my hands. Written in the 1800’s it was called, “No Forgiveness Without Blood,” by T. T. Martin. I quote the tract:
“When one faces the question of his sins and realizes that he deserves just punishment, one of the first impulses is to pray and beg God to be let off, to be forgiven. Alas! Much of the religious instruction to the sinner is to the same effect. Many feel that God forgives the sinner because he begs to be forgiven instead of because he accepts and relies upon the atoning death of Christ as his Substitute… [However] Every transgression must have a ‘just recompense of reward.’ … A man who has violated the state law comes before the judge, confesses his sin and begs the judge to forgive him, to let him off; and calls men from the audience to come and help him beg. The judge replies, ‘If I should yield to these petitions I would be a perjurer; I would trample on law. Every transgression must receive a just recompense of reward.’ Would that all could realize that every prayer from sinner, priest or preacher for a sinner to be forgiven, let off, is a prayer to God to become a perjurer…they would then realize their real need of a Saviour, a Redeemer.”
When I read this, the truth finally sunk in. This was exactly what I had done when I was five years old. I may have heard the right gospel, (i.e. Jesus Christ died to save me) but in my heart I thought that if I believed what He did for me and if I only asked God to save me, he would, knowing the sincerity of my desire that I wanted to be saved. I had the right gospel, but the wrong plan of salvation. Asking and trusting are conflicting ideas. Really it was faith plus works although I didn’t recognize it for that at the time.
But, I managed to shrug all that off too as since then I have said within my heart that even IF I was not saved then, I am trusting in his blood now and that’s what counts.
The very next day I heard a story of a ten-year-old boy who went to vacation Bible school and prayed and asked Jesus to come into his heart and save him. He was so excited that he went and told his grandfather about it. But after some discussion and studying of the Bible this ten-year-old boy realized he was not saved at all by asking God to save him no matter how sincere he was. And so it was right then that he put his faith in nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
The day after this, I was reading a church newsletter with an article about this very same subject. A preacher, who had asked Jesus into his heart when he was five, went to the mission field. After doing some studying the subject of salvation in the Bible he realized he wasn’t saved at all and finally put his faith solely in the shed blood of Jesus to save his soul.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I stayed up for hours thinking on these things and how I’ve tried to justify what I had believed for salvation. I then realized there was no way I could have been saved when I was five, or when I was 13 or any other time when I prayed and asked God to save me. Why then, when I learned the truth of what salvation was, was I still praying, “IF I’m not saved…” My “ifs” proved to me that I still held onto the idea that I was saved when I was five, when I was not.
It wasn’t until this night (June 13th, 2006) that I rejected all my prayers and all my sincerity for salvation. It wasn’t until this night that I realized I was lost! Finally there was nothing left for me to rest in for salvation but the FINISHED work of Jesus on the cross - that is, His shed blood. That’s when I took God at his word, and received Him by faith. And I didn’t even have to manifest that faith with a prayer.
All those other times that I had said a prayer within myself, I never told anyone about it. I thought it was just as well that people kept believing what I already told them about when I supposedly got saved. But this night I couldn’t keep it to myself. I had to wake my husband and tell him that I just got saved. And now I have to tell my friends and family about it too.
Many are deceived like I was. It is as if Jesus is saying, “Look, I’ve done the work already needed to save you. There’s the blood on the altar. All you have to do is trust in that work. Do you?” And one responds, “Jesus, I know you died on the cross to save me, now will you save me?” Or, “I’m trusting that you will save me if I want to be saved - God I want to be saved!” Or, “God save me!” Or, “Lord God, you gave your life for me, now I give my life to you. Please save me today.” Or, “Jesus will you come into my heart and save me?” Or, “God please forgive my sins and save me.” These are all false plans of salvation. And Jesus is still left saying, “I’ve DONE the work needed to save you! I’ve already shed my blood for you. Will you just trust in that cleansing blood?” Yet still someone asks, “ Jesus, will you save me?”
Just knowing what the Gospel is isn’t salvation. Sincerely admitting to God your damnation without Him and your desire to be saved isn’t either. Nor is just begging him to save you. Only faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, that is, His shed, cleansing blood, is salvation.
Knowing that Jesus died for you is not the plan of salvation. You can believe in your mind, not in your heart. Inviting Jesus into your life is not, according to the Bible, the plan God set forth for salvation either. (Christ does dwell in the heart of a believer by faith according to Ephesians 3:17, but not by asking or inviting). God has set forth Jesus to be our salvation through faith in His blood. Rom. 3:25 states clearly, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood…” Jesus only becomes our personal Saviour when we accept his finished work by faith. Not when we ask him to be our Saviour, and not when we beg him to do so.
After having my eyes opened to that fact, I went through my husband’s big box of tracts to see what each one had to say about how to get saved. 99.5% of them said something to this affect:
“If you’ve never received Jesus Christ as your Saviour, bow your head this minute and ask Jesus to save you.”
I couldn’t believe it. Could so many “Christians” really be so deceived as I was? I used to think that almost everyone who was saved had doubts occasionally. But now I can see that a lot of people, who think they are saved by this method, AREN’T. No wonder they have doubts!
I know there may be some people who read this and will say that I was saved the whole time. They will think I’m probably mixed up in some cult religion that tries to talk people out of their salvation. They may be angry at me for writing at all and encouraging suspicion in the minds of others about their own salvation. But it is for those people who have had doubts that I am writing this. The Bible tells us to examine our hearts in 2 Corinthians 13:5 when it says, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves…”
I now know that I am saved. I have no doubts. I know that I know that I know that I’m saved the Biblical way, by grace through faith in the blood of Jesus. How about you?
