Mark_Mulvey
Yes, what a man he was! A man’s man.
As far back as I can remember, I would (at least periodically) look for somepurpose, some meaning for life. Besides making mud pies and hunting frogs,snakes, mice, and crayfish, a friend and I had some interest in searching forartifacts of past ages. There was an older boy in the neighborhood who had arich collection of Indian arrow heads. My Grandfather had also given my dadsome Indian artifacts. These objects would bring out much curiosity in me. Iwould search in the fields of my village for ancient relics and fossils. Ionce found a perfectly preserved fossil of a Trilobite; an extinct marinecreature. This one was oval shaped and about two inches long. Of course I wasno scientist; I was a curious boy. Where did such things as this Trilobitecome from?
School was interesting to me as a young boy, but as I grew older, my interestbegan to wane, as did much of my interest that had been growing in what couldbe called, a crude form of archaeological research. My greater interestclearly became following the Green Bay Packers, and later included theMilwaukee Brewers. Grades in school fell steadily after the seventh grade. Igraduated in the class of Seventy five after finishing in summer school. Nowthe question came. What was I going to do with my life? It was as though Iwas thinking that things would begin to happen when the time came. As thoughthings would just sort of evolve. My life continued to degenerate further. Isoon became involved with people who spent most of their time either partying,or preparing for one.
At the age of nineteen I was bar-hopping and began to smoke pot.
One afternoon I was over at the house of a party friend; and as we werelistening to the latest on the rock music scene, there was a knock at the door.There was a young man at the door accompanied by his mother. My party friendsmother answered the door and let them into the house. He kindly greeted us. Iwas soon to find that he had something to say about God. I was interested inhearing him at the time to be sure. Jeff had a Bible with him and the best Ican remember, he was fielding questions from Mark W. and I. I was interestedin finding out more of what he had to say. He befriended me and would oftenmake arrangements to meet with me and talk with me about God.
At his church he presented me with a box of various Bibles and New Testaments.He told me to choose one that I would like to read from. I remember choosingthe Amplified New Testament. The only other Bible that I had any awareness ofbefore this was the Catholic Bible that my parents kept in their bedroom.
Nowadays I read the King James version (kjv). After getting that NewTestament, I read through it in a few days. I was intensely interested in theperson of Jesus Christ. In his earthly ministry he was pure, undefiled,humble, innocent,and loving. I know that there are many other gracious wordsthat could be used to point to his character. And it was obvious that he wasmore than a man. Yes, what a man he was! A man’s man. A perfect man. And he wasGod! (1 Tim. 3:16) One evening, about the month of April in 1977, Jeff took meto an evangelistic meeting in Zion Illinois. At the close of this meeting thequestion was asked the people at the meeting. “If you were to die today, ortomorrow, do you know that you would go to heaven?” !you are not sure, Pleaseraise your hand so that someone can help you.” I realized that I simply wasnot sure that I would go to heaven in the event I died. I raised my hand. Soonafterwards, a man was explaining to me that I needed to call upon the name ofthe Lord to be saved from my sin. Jesus had suffered and died in my place andhe was buried, and he rose again for my justification. I asked Jesus to comeinto my heart and save me and I know that he did. “Therefore if any man be inChrist, his a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all thingsare become new.”
Now that I had received Jesus Christ as my Savior, I had a whole new lifeto live and a purpose to live for. But the change in my life did not appear tobe a radical one. I was not drinking nearly as much and was staying at homemore often. I don’t remember if staying home was due to wanting to stay homeor if it was because of my drivers license being suspended for six months,starting around the month of April in ’77. I had my stereo in my room and Ihadn’t given up rock music; Not yet. I continued reading the Bible but notconsistently. As far as church attendance- I wasn’t attending a church anywhere. Jeff had been coming around with less frequency. He attended anAssembly of God church at that time. I had been raised Catholic. My Dad nolonger required me to attend the mass by the time I had reached about 16 yearsof age, and I took full advantage of the privilege to abstain from attending.Even so, my emotional attachment was still with the system of religion that Iwas raised under. There was something revolving in my mind that was notable forthat time. It was a sense of need to be busy doing something, and to beresponsible for providing for the basic material needs that I had.
What was I going to do now? I had lost my last job and I had no driverslicense. I had sold my car. Television was a big attraction for me. Sometimes Ididn’t know what else to do with my time. Back then there was always acommercial sponsored by the U.S. Navy with the slogan, ” The Navy, It’s NotJust a Job, It’s an Adventure.” That may have given impetus to the idea ofgoing to the armed forces for work. When I walked into the recruiting station,the first person that I met was the man that I bumped into in the hallway.The navy recruiter. Shortly after this time I enlisted.
The day before I left for bootcamp in Orlando Florida, I attended mass. It wasthe first time that I had been there for probably a year or more. Once inbootcamp, I found that chapel services were held every Sunday; Catholic andProtestant. I’m not sure that I knew what Protestant was. I continued toattend the mass. After being in the Navy about half a year, it came to myattention that the Protestant chaplain was holding a Bible study and all werewelcome to attend. I was persuaded to go since I didn’t think that I could gowrong by attending a study of the Bible (Gods Holy Word). Through thesemeetings I met some former enlisted men who were involved in a ministry tosailors and marines called the Navigators ministry. This was in Long BeachCalifornia, where I was stationed for about a year while the ship that I wasassigned to was in dry-dock. These men operated a service-men’s center intown. I had the freedom to spend much of my free time with them and was helpedtremendously. It was as if I had found a pool of cool water after wandering inthe middle of a desert. They encouraged scripture memorization (the rightthing to meditate on) and helped me to see the evils of such things as rockmusic more clearly. I also had the privilege to attend, along with these men,the Bill Gothard seminar (Institute of Basic Youth Conflicts).
About December of “78, the USS Bagley was restationed in San Diego; About 100miles south of Long Beach. On the weekends I would take the bus back to LongBeach to have fellowship with my new found friends. They encouraged me to takeroot in San Diego after a couple of months or so. I I looked through the phonebook for a church to attend in San Diego. I found a Baptist that I attended thelast 3 years of my enlistment.
The church of my choice did not have high standards that a Bible believing,Christ honoring church ought to have. I never did think that the Christianrock bands (so-called) were edifying for a blood bought, will-of-God-seeking,sin hating child of God. One group of musicians began with the “Praise” typesongs and subtly progressed to “hard” rock. It was troubling to me. Theredidn’t seem to be anyone in the church who thought it should be stopped,although there probably was.I don”t know that there weren’t people leavingbecause of a lack of standards, but it was a very big church and it wasn’tnoticeable to me.
Today I am happy to say that I am serving God in a God-fearing,Christ-honoring church, with real standards. I believe that my love for Godand my understanding of his dealings with me is due in a large part to theministry of Henry Stiller whom I’ve known for about 4 years now, and a preacherthat pastor Stiller has joined in the Lords work with, Pastor Williams. Andthere are others that have been a real blessing to me. I don’t want to mentionmore names because I wouldn’t want to leave one out. I’m thankful for all thehelp I’ve gotten. There is another person though that I ought to acknowledgeand express a debt of gratitude. That is The Holy Spirit, whose operation isalways consistent with the revealed word of God. I also believe that I Irealize now more than I ever have before that no man is an island. No man is aself-made man. If a man is going to amount to any thing for God, it is theresult of godly men that have fought and have gone before him, and for godlymen that have with him and beside him.
Mark Mulvey