From a Methodist to a Baptist and Why
By Frank A. McCrum, Detroit, MichiganI was saved on December 20, 1929, at 9:45 p. m., in Asbury Methodist Church, Detroit, Michigan. I became a member the next Easter. I was called to preach February 7, 1930. According to my watch, God's dealings with me in the call lasted three hours, but to me it seemed just a few seconds. It is something I shall carry to the grave with me, and for which I shall sing praises when I swing past the pearly gates. I rejoice in the holy privilege of preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. and by the grace of God I shall defy Satan and all of his perditious plans.
At the next church service after my call to preach I naturally told the preacher about it. And after a few questions, he told me I would have to wait until I had finished my high school course (which would have taken two years) and then enter Asbury College, which would have cost some hundreds of dollars each year (as I understood him) for tuition, board, and other necessities. My heart sank to my heels like lead, I became discouraged and neglected reading the Bible. But it was only a few months later that the truth of Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose," began to be made real to me.
It all began when I visited Brother T. P. Simmons in Marion, Ky., last December for better than three weeks. He, knowing I was a proud Methodist, tried in his pleasant way to correct my wrong beliefs. Naturally I put up Methodist arguments; and they wouldn't hold water, let alone the blood of Jesus Christ. My chief difficulty was as to salvation being WHOLLY BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH AND NOT OF WORKS. I now see this truth. It is declared in Ephesians 2 :8-10. In this Scripture the writer emphasizes that works have absolutely no part in salvation, lest any man should boast. When I realized this and quit fighting this truth, I felt lower than a snake. I hung my head and prayed for God's forgiveness; simultaneously praising him for my chastening, which he had so mercifully bestowed upon me to show me that falling from his grace is untrue. I saw that no matter how rebellious I was toward God, I was his by the second birth (John 3:5), and, therefore, that I would be his always, regardless of my spiritual laxness or stubbornness (John 6:37-39). I thank God for such a man as Brother Simmons. He started something in my heart that refused to quiet down. Nevertheless, I would not acknowledge it.
I attended the services at the First Baptist Church during my stay in Marion, and Pastor J. C. Lilly did not hand out any salve for Methodist stubbornness. Instead he started more "fireworks." I was a badly licked Methodist when I started back to Detroit.
But I was a glutton for punishment, so when I got back to Detroit I attended a mission conducted by Missionary Jagoe Washer. He furnished the knockout blow in one of the services. It made me feel microscopic before the eyes of God.
Now as a Baptist, without a compromise standing between me and God. I can drink down as much Bible truth as the next one. My unceasing prayer is that not only the Methodists, but that others as well, will stop killing time trying to fit their doctrines to the Bible. It is impossible. It is like trying to fit a square plug in a round hole. There is only one true church. That is the one Jesus founded, and which is his body (1 Corinthians 12:27). I have every reason to believe it is a Baptist church. Baptist churches alone have prevailed against the gates of hell. Baptist churches alone have stood since the days of the apostles. From three hundred A. D., down the origin of every other church is recorded in history. In my estimation these churches are gambling against the certain wrath of God. May God have mercy on them. Amen.
============ [From: T. P. Simmons, editor, The Baptist Examiner, July 1, 1931, p. 5. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall]
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