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"We're not going to let the Christians get to us." Aaron Edwards Testimony · The Becket Cook Show

0:02
Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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Speaker 2: You are listening to The Beckett Cook Show with your host,
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Speaker 2: Beckett Cook. For more information about Beckett and his ministry,
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0:39
Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome to the show.
0:40
Speaker 3: Today we're going to look at Aaron Edwards, who was
0:45
Speaker 3: recently on.
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Speaker 1: We're going to look at his testimony.
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Speaker 3: We actually went into overtime in the last episode with
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Speaker 3: him where he talked about his testimony of coming to Christ,
0:57
Speaker 3: coming to faith in Christ.
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Speaker 1: He doesn't struggle with same-sex attraction. He was never gay.
1:03
Speaker 3: He's a heterosexual man married with five kids, I think.
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Speaker 3: So We're going to look at that testimony because it's
1:13
Speaker 3: really great. And I think it'll be very encouraging to you.
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Speaker 3: But first, a word from our sponsor. Please welcome back
1:20
Speaker 3: Aaron Edwards.
1:21
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:21
Speaker 3: So you mentioned on a previous... Or you mentioned off
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Speaker 3: camera to me that you... Something about your testimony. And
1:32
Speaker 3: I would love to hear your testimony. And I think
1:34
Speaker 3: my audience would love to hear it.
1:35
Speaker 4: So....
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Speaker 1: Take it away.
1:39
Speaker 4: I'll take it away. Okay. If you or I fall
1:43
Speaker 4: asleep at some point, then, you know. It's very late
1:47
Speaker 4: in London.
1:47
Speaker 1: It's very late in England.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, but don't worry. It's good. So
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Speaker 4: my testimony starts really in the 1970s. I know you're
1:59
Speaker 4: thinking I wasn't alive in the 1970s, but my dad was,
2:03
Speaker 4: and he was working. in an island called Jersey, which
2:08
Speaker 4: is in the English Channel. That's where Henry Cavill is from.
2:12
Speaker 1: Henry Cavill's an old friend of mine. He's from Jersey.
2:15
Speaker 4: Oh, there you go, Jersey. And they've got great milk there.
2:18
Speaker 4: Jersey cows are great. So Jersey's like a– I think
2:21
Speaker 4: it was while Dad was working there in a hotel,
2:24
Speaker 4: which where– they happened to be coming to this hotel
2:28
Speaker 4: this week. There was a bunch of Anglican chaplains. And
2:31
Speaker 4: whoever the guests were in the hospitality industry, my dad,
2:34
Speaker 4: as a Liverpudlian, a chancer, he would just pretend to
2:40
Speaker 4: be into whatever they were into that week.
2:41
Speaker 1: By the way, Liverpudlian means from Liverpool.
2:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, from Liverpool. The Beatles, et cetera. We called them
2:47
Speaker 4: a scouser over there. So my dad's a scouser, a Liverpudlian,
2:51
Speaker 4: as was my mom. So he was working there in
2:55
Speaker 4: the hotel. This one particular chaplain, a Christian minister, is
3:00
Speaker 4: trying to evangelize my dad for the whole week. And
3:02
Speaker 4: my dad has to, with his, like, I'm looking to
3:05
Speaker 4: forget for a good tip. I'm going to, at the
3:07
Speaker 4: end of the week, I'm going to get a good tip.
3:09
Speaker 4: Like a good American. I mean, Americans understand tipping. We
3:11
Speaker 4: don't ever bring, we're terrible tippers. And we're not good
3:14
Speaker 4: at the service industry in general, but in America, you
3:16
Speaker 4: can't do it. And so he was like, whatever, whatever
3:20
Speaker 4: you're into, I'm into it. If it's pride or whatever,
3:22
Speaker 4: whatever he's into, he'll be into it for that week.
3:26
Speaker 4: And so this guy was talking to him about biblical prophecy. And,
3:30
Speaker 4: he was, you know, kind of whatever, feigning interest for
3:33
Speaker 4: like a whole week, every time he's serving him at
3:35
Speaker 4: breakfast or lunch or dinner, whatever. At the end of
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Speaker 4: the week, the guy comes up to him as they're
3:40
Speaker 4: all leaving and gives him a book and says, I
3:42
Speaker 4: think you'll find what you're looking for in here, kind
3:43
Speaker 4: of gives him a wink. And my dad's like, oh, excellent.
3:46
Speaker 4: He's obviously given me like a note, cash note, you know,
3:50
Speaker 4: not just a few coins. He doesn't want to embarrass
3:53
Speaker 4: me in front of my colleagues. I'll take it back
3:55
Speaker 4: to my room and I'll see how much he's given me.
3:57
Speaker 4: And so he goes back, he's like, rifles to this book.
4:00
Speaker 4: And he's like, Where's the money? There's no money. Can
4:03
Speaker 4: I just waste a whole week talking about biblical prophecy?
4:06
Speaker 4: What on earth was that? He was really frustrated. But
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Speaker 4: then he just sat there in his room, annoyed, and
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Speaker 4: of course he then reads this book, and it's a
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Speaker 4: book about biblical prophecy. He reads it all the way through.
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Speaker 4: He doesn't become a Christian, but he has this weird
4:18
Speaker 4: seed planted there, where he then has this sort of
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Speaker 4: fear of God. He has this sense that God is real,
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Speaker 4: and the sense that Jesus is coming back one day,
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Speaker 4: and We need to think about that. And Jesus, there's
4:34
Speaker 4: something about the Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled in Jesus,
4:37
Speaker 4: et cetera. There's also some weird dispensational stuff, which is
4:40
Speaker 4: a bit odd about it. But he had, he just like,
4:43
Speaker 4: I remember him occasionally, like every like few years, he
4:48
Speaker 4: would just randomly talk about something about like the book
4:51
Speaker 4: of Revelation or something. It would be like, oh, dad's
4:53
Speaker 4: doing his like thing. But it was more like just
4:56
Speaker 4: a general once every three or four years fatherly thing.
4:59
Speaker 4: Like sit us down and talk to us about the
5:02
Speaker 4: end of the world or something.
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Speaker 1: Has he read the Bible at this point?
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Speaker 4: No, I think he'd only read the parts of the
5:11
Speaker 4: Book of Revelation the dispensationalists talk about. So he'd really
5:14
Speaker 4: be talking about things like, you know, you've got to
5:17
Speaker 4: watch the news. watch out for like ID cards that
5:21
Speaker 4: might be the mark of the beast and that kind
5:22
Speaker 4: of thing. No Christianity actually in it. Like Jesus wasn't
5:25
Speaker 4: really like, there was obviously a sense in which Jesus
5:28
Speaker 4: is part of it. But like, we had never heard
5:30
Speaker 4: about that. We didn't hear the gospel or anything. And
5:32
Speaker 4: it wasn't really a big thing. So we weren't, it
5:35
Speaker 4: didn't really take over. He would just do it in
5:36
Speaker 4: this fatherly way. Like, I'm going to sit you all
5:38
Speaker 4: down and talk to you about the future. Cause like
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Speaker 4: one day the world is going to end and you
5:41
Speaker 4: need to watch out for the signs or whatever. So that's,
5:44
Speaker 4: that's probably why I think you could say dispensationalism is,
5:47
Speaker 4: flawed that you can be one without being a Christian.
5:51
Speaker 4: And so he had this, this was all the fruit
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Speaker 4: of this like random book that this guy had given him.
5:56
Speaker 4: But it just wasn't really a big thing. It didn't
5:57
Speaker 4: really take over his life. It's just this like interest
5:59
Speaker 4: he had in like current affairs. And it kind of
6:01
Speaker 4: spilled over to this like pseudo biblical, but only really
6:04
Speaker 4: about the book of Revelation and selectively. And then one
6:08
Speaker 4: day we had a really hard time. So my parents
6:11
Speaker 4: got divorced in the mid 90s. when I was seven.
6:18
Speaker 4: Then when I was 12, I had one of my
6:23
Speaker 4: older sisters who was 16, completely suddenly died of meningitis.
6:28
Speaker 4: She had like a horrible strain that came that they
6:31
Speaker 4: didn't have a cure for. And she just had the flu, basically.
6:35
Speaker 4: I remember her sat, not feeling very well, watching TV
6:39
Speaker 4: with a blanket over her in the lounge. And like
6:41
Speaker 4: that evening, she was rushed to hospital and the next
6:44
Speaker 4: day she was like dead. It was insane. Like it
6:46
Speaker 4: was so, it was completely shocking to our whole family
6:48
Speaker 4: and it completely, it crushed all of us in lots
6:51
Speaker 4: of ways, but it crushed my mother in particular. Um,
6:55
Speaker 4: and my dad responded to it very stoically. And by
6:59
Speaker 4: the way, at this point, none of the revelation stuff
7:01
Speaker 4: had like happened. I think that probably happened more after
7:04
Speaker 4: she died. Um, but it was interesting that, um, Yeah,
7:10
Speaker 4: the way that he responded, my mum was just completely broken,
7:12
Speaker 4: as she would be. My dad was very stoic and
7:15
Speaker 4: trying to hold everything together for us, which was good
7:18
Speaker 4: of him. But he was kind of dying on the inside,
7:22
Speaker 4: not showing us that. So we'd go and visit him
7:25
Speaker 4: on the weekend, because, of course, we'd stay with our
7:27
Speaker 4: mum on the weekend, go and visit dad on the weekend,
7:29
Speaker 4: me and my siblings. And he would just clean himself up.
7:34
Speaker 4: He was actually on... drugs, lots of cocaine and getting
7:38
Speaker 4: drunk and stuff during the week. And then he'd come
7:40
Speaker 4: with his friends and he'd clean himself up for the
7:41
Speaker 4: weekend when we'd visit him. And then one day, like
7:45
Speaker 4: a few years in, I think it would be three
7:47
Speaker 4: years after Kerry died, he just announced to us one
7:50
Speaker 4: weekend that he'd become a born again Christian. And we're like, whoa, okay,
7:54
Speaker 4: this is crazy. Is this the revelation cocktail? And he
8:00
Speaker 4: was just like, I've become a born again Christian. I mean,
8:03
Speaker 4: I don't know. Dad's kind of gone mad. He's got
8:05
Speaker 4: religion and like, this is going to be awkward now.
8:07
Speaker 4: What are we going to do? Um, and it was
8:10
Speaker 4: bizarre that like that we did see this fundamental change
8:13
Speaker 4: in him. I was by that time, 16, my, uh,
8:17
Speaker 4: younger siblings who were twins were, I would, I think
8:20
Speaker 4: were 12. And then I had an older sibling who's
8:24
Speaker 4: completely off the rails and had like been disowned by
8:26
Speaker 4: my dad. He was like on drugs in Ibiza, uh,
8:29
Speaker 4: which is an Island you go to in, Yes, and
8:32
Speaker 4: do drugs and dance. Yeah, do drugs and raving. So
8:35
Speaker 4: he like, literally, I didn't see my older brother for
8:37
Speaker 4: a long time. And he would steal from us. He
8:40
Speaker 4: was like a textbook prodigal brother in many ways. I'm
8:45
Speaker 4: probably doing him slight disservice, but he probably didn't see that.
8:49
Speaker 4: And so we had a bit of a, it was
8:51
Speaker 4: a bit of a messed up situation. My dad's born
8:53
Speaker 4: again Christian. He announces this has like changed his life.
8:57
Speaker 4: And then he invites us to church with him. We
8:59
Speaker 4: go along to his church with him and it's like
9:00
Speaker 4: a charismatic evangelical church. Everyone's holding their hands in the
9:03
Speaker 4: air and, um, prophetic words and things like that. It's
9:05
Speaker 4: really weird for us. And we were like, this is
9:08
Speaker 4: like crazy, but dad's we're happy for dad. He's like
9:11
Speaker 4: less upright. And he's, you know, he used to find
9:15
Speaker 4: us our pocket money for like the most tiny things,
9:17
Speaker 4: like not having a drink on a coaster or something.
9:20
Speaker 4: And so, and so like, it wasn't actually very fun
9:23
Speaker 4: going to his house at the weekend. This is like,
9:24
Speaker 4: that's like a slave driver. And so he suddenly like
9:27
Speaker 4: lightened up and was like a lot, he was still himself,
9:29
Speaker 4: but he was like a much more loving, gentle person.
9:32
Speaker 4: It was like, okay, this Christian thing is kind of
9:34
Speaker 4: working out well for us. We'll let him have his Christianity.
9:37
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this short break.
9:40
Speaker 4: And then he, then we said, after a while we said,
9:42
Speaker 4: look dad, like, you know, I'm a teenager now. I
9:45
Speaker 4: was 15. That was it. And it, it's getting a
9:49
Speaker 4: bit embarrassing to tell our friends why we can't come
9:52
Speaker 4: and hang out with them on a Sunday. Cause they're
9:53
Speaker 4: going to our dad's church and they're like, why are
9:55
Speaker 4: you going to your dad's church if you're not a Christian?
9:57
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, okay. So we all just said, we
9:59
Speaker 4: don't want to go to the church. with you. Is
10:00
Speaker 4: that okay? And he said, that's fine. I don't want
10:01
Speaker 4: to force you. But there's this one week in the
10:04
Speaker 4: summer where your mum's going to Portugal for a week.
10:07
Speaker 4: And so I'm looking after you for that week. And
10:10
Speaker 4: I happen to be going to this thing called Stonely,
10:14
Speaker 4: which is a Bible week. And I was like, ah, okay,
10:17
Speaker 4: a Bible week. And it's like it's the largest gathering
10:20
Speaker 4: of Christians in Europe. It's going to be great. They
10:23
Speaker 4: have like football and badminton and coffee shops and, you know,
10:27
Speaker 4: music and things. So, you know, you'll have a great time.
10:30
Speaker 4: You don't have to go to any of the festival,
10:32
Speaker 4: the Christian stuff. Just come along and we're going to
10:34
Speaker 4: be camping. Oh, dear. I was like, well, I'm turning
10:38
Speaker 4: 16 the next week. I'm allowed to just be on
10:40
Speaker 4: my own, aren't I? So I'll just stay home. He said, well,
10:43
Speaker 4: you're not technically 16 until the following week. So by law,
10:47
Speaker 4: you actually have to be under my supervision. So he
10:50
Speaker 4: has to be with me. So I'm going to gain
10:52
Speaker 4: some magical maturity. I can just gain this ability to
10:56
Speaker 4: live on my own and not kill myself without, you know,
10:59
Speaker 4: and the following week I'll just magically be there. It
11:02
Speaker 4: was before that I'm totally untrustworthy. So, yeah, I came
11:05
Speaker 4: to him with my siblings, not the older one. He
11:09
Speaker 4: was off the rails somewhere. But me and Heather and Stephen,
11:12
Speaker 4: we made a pact and we said, okay, we're not
11:14
Speaker 4: going to let the Christians get to us, okay? That's
11:16
Speaker 4: like a pact to make. and they were like okay
11:18
Speaker 4: we'll do that we all shook on it and then
11:21
Speaker 4: over the course of after the first day i think
11:22
Speaker 4: we all got separated and and divided into the different
11:25
Speaker 4: youth groups that were hanging out and meeting i got
11:28
Speaker 4: so loads of people at the church that my dad
11:29
Speaker 4: would go to because they would camp as churches as
11:33
Speaker 4: of 26 000 christians which for us in in old
11:36
Speaker 4: blighty is quite a lot in america that's just like
11:38
Speaker 4: one of many mega churches whatever.
11:40
Speaker 1: Yeah that's like every Sunday.
11:42
Speaker 4: That's Yeah, at the time, that was the largest gathering
11:45
Speaker 4: of Christians in Europe in one place. So it tells
11:48
Speaker 4: you how crazily secular Europe has become. And it was
11:51
Speaker 4: the last ever one of these things because they'd felt
11:53
Speaker 4: God tell them, this is, you know, this is, we
11:56
Speaker 4: ought to just spread out like dandelion seeds and not
11:59
Speaker 4: gather in this way anymore. And so you're going to
12:02
Speaker 4: bless all the places you are. So again, I didn't
12:04
Speaker 4: care about that. My dad said, this is the last
12:06
Speaker 4: ever one. You've got to come to the last ever one.
12:07
Speaker 4: It's going to be momentous. But then he wasn't pushy
12:11
Speaker 4: at all. And he got on with whatever he was
12:13
Speaker 4: doing that week. I didn't even see my dad the
12:15
Speaker 4: whole week. I hardly saw Heather and Stephen either. I
12:18
Speaker 4: just got to hang out with the Christians who were there.
12:20
Speaker 4: And I was really struck by the love I saw
12:22
Speaker 4: between them, that they were very down to earth. They
12:25
Speaker 4: were very much culturally connected in lots of ways, which
12:29
Speaker 4: were appealing and normal, but also they were really different
12:32
Speaker 4: and radically different in ways that none of my friends
12:34
Speaker 4: at school were, not just how they loved one another,
12:37
Speaker 4: how they'd express love for one another, in ways that
12:40
Speaker 4: I just don't see in repressive teenagers normally. And so
12:45
Speaker 4: it was quite amazing really. And they were really mature
12:48
Speaker 4: in their faith. They were challenging each other in their faith,
12:50
Speaker 4: et cetera. I think they, yeah. So I just hung
12:54
Speaker 4: out with them. I played football and whatever. And I
12:56
Speaker 4: went to some, I went along to some of the
12:58
Speaker 4: meetings with them cause they were going the, you know,
13:01
Speaker 4: evening worship services. And I just have to like hang
13:04
Speaker 4: back whenever there was some like gospel appeal or something or,
13:08
Speaker 4: I think even at one point they asked people to like,
13:11
Speaker 4: just lay hands to pray on the people around you
13:13
Speaker 4: in groups. So I had to just like pretend I
13:15
Speaker 4: was part of it and just be like, Oh, I
13:17
Speaker 4: put my hand on someone's shoulder. Like this is just,
13:20
Speaker 4: but the great thing is like no one, no one,
13:23
Speaker 4: you can't be embarrassed because no one that everyone else
13:25
Speaker 4: there is a Christian except you. So you could be like, Oh,
13:27
Speaker 4: I'll pretend. And so that's what happened. So I had
13:31
Speaker 4: a good week with them. Got to the end of
13:32
Speaker 4: the week. My dad comes up to me on the
13:34
Speaker 4: football field. I've been playing and said, Oh, Just so
13:37
Speaker 4: you know, we're packing the car to go home tomorrow.
13:38
Speaker 4: But some of the guys you got to know this week,
13:41
Speaker 4: they're actually staying for another week. There's a second week
13:43
Speaker 4: of this. And they're serving in the tent shop. But
13:46
Speaker 4: they just asked me, are you staying or are you going?
13:49
Speaker 4: So I'm happy for you to stay. It's like, hang on,
13:50
Speaker 4: I don't turn 16 for another few days. Are you
13:54
Speaker 4: saying that the parental supervision is no longer necessary? I said, yeah,
13:58
Speaker 4: you'll be fine here. I divulge my authority to the camp.
14:03
Speaker 4: It's legitimate. I was like, oh, okay, that's interesting. As
14:06
Speaker 4: I said, well, to be honest, I have had a
14:07
Speaker 4: great week, but I'm not going to miss my 16th birthday.
14:10
Speaker 4: Because in England, I don't know if it's like in
14:12
Speaker 4: the US, but you don't get to drink until you're
14:14
Speaker 4: 21 there. But we're not allowed to drink until we're
14:16
Speaker 4: 18 in Britain. But really, the 16th birthday is when
14:19
Speaker 4: someone gets absolutely hammered. And that's just the thing you
14:22
Speaker 4: do at the end of what you would call high school.
14:25
Speaker 4: And I've been to these parties all year with the
14:28
Speaker 4: people in my year group at school and gotten blind
14:32
Speaker 4: drunk at lots of them. And It would be really
14:35
Speaker 4: weird to tell my friends who are expecting me to
14:37
Speaker 4: have one of these like lock-in house parties, I'm not
14:40
Speaker 4: going to do that because I've just chosen to go
14:43
Speaker 4: to a Bible week that my dad isn't even at.
14:46
Speaker 4: So I can't even use the excuse of like, oh,
14:48
Speaker 4: I have to go because my dad, like I'm choosing
14:49
Speaker 4: to stay on my own. He's back home, but I'm not,
14:53
Speaker 4: and I'm not having my party. That would be like
14:55
Speaker 4: unthinkable to say to my friends. So I was like,
14:57
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry, I can't do that. So I'll go
15:00
Speaker 4: home and have my party. And then basically he said,
15:02
Speaker 4: that's totally fine. I'll start packing the car, get your
15:06
Speaker 4: stuff in. And then I don't really have a memory
15:10
Speaker 4: of what happened next. I just remember walking from the
15:12
Speaker 4: football field kind of with the people I was with.
15:15
Speaker 4: I think they were going to queue up to fill
15:17
Speaker 4: in the form to serve in the tent shop, which
15:20
Speaker 4: meant working for free, I soon learned. That's what a
15:24
Speaker 4: Christian term was to a non-Christian. Serving means just you
15:27
Speaker 4: don't get paid for what you're doing. And this is
15:31
Speaker 4: all new to me. And so I was with them
15:34
Speaker 4: and then I found myself just going forward to the counter,
15:37
Speaker 4: getting a form and like filling it in and like
15:39
Speaker 4: kind of half processing. It's like, I don't really understand
15:42
Speaker 4: how am I going to explain this? I don't really
15:44
Speaker 4: know what I'm doing right now. I'm just like, there's
15:46
Speaker 4: something greater part of me that was compelled to fill
15:49
Speaker 4: this form in than, than like my rational faculties of like,
15:54
Speaker 4: but how will I, how does this make sense? I
15:56
Speaker 4: don't know what I'm doing, but I feel like there's
15:58
Speaker 4: a stronger part of me that just wants to be here.
16:00
Speaker 4: And so I fill it in, not knowing how it's
16:02
Speaker 4: going to make sense at all for the rest of
16:04
Speaker 4: my life. I still wasn't a Christian. And then I
16:07
Speaker 4: worked in the tent shop. We had to pretend to
16:09
Speaker 4: be a Christian for a whole other week. They have
16:11
Speaker 4: prayer meetings at the beginning of the day, the tent staff.
16:16
Speaker 4: I'm just like quietly just hanging back, just don't know anything.
16:19
Speaker 4: And then. even more like gospel appeals in the evening.
16:23
Speaker 4: Maybe you're here. Maybe you've been here two weeks. Maybe
16:25
Speaker 4: you're here and, you know, you know the Lord is
16:28
Speaker 4: speaking to you and, you know, you've not quite made
16:30
Speaker 4: that commitment yet. I just love my heart palpitations there.
16:33
Speaker 4: And I'm still resisting it because I'm a faithful man
16:35
Speaker 4: of my word to the pact, of course. So I
16:38
Speaker 4: didn't want the Christians to get to us. And so
16:41
Speaker 4: I managed to get through that whole week. I got
16:42
Speaker 4: to know all these people even more. And I was very,
16:45
Speaker 4: even more sort of great sense of the Holy Spirit
16:49
Speaker 4: really in their life. And I knew that this was
16:52
Speaker 4: all true, but I was still just being a coward
16:54
Speaker 4: and didn't want to like change my life. I didn't
16:56
Speaker 4: know how to explain it. It's just wildly embarrassing to
16:59
Speaker 4: become a Christian. So how could I do that? And
17:03
Speaker 4: I'm not going to, I'm just going to do the
17:04
Speaker 4: Bart Simpson approach of the, you know, when he says,
17:07
Speaker 4: what was it? The life of debauchery and sin and then,
17:10
Speaker 4: you know, hey presto, kind of deathbed repentance kind of
17:14
Speaker 4: thing at the end.
17:15
Speaker 1: It's like Augustine, yeah.
17:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. So I'll do that because then I can
17:19
Speaker 4: have a more fun, free life and I don't have
17:21
Speaker 4: to be worried about religious constraints. Not really realising, of course,
17:27
Speaker 4: the constraints of sin and the enslavery to sin, which
17:30
Speaker 4: is so much more powerful and debilitating. And so I
17:35
Speaker 4: managed to get through the week not being a Christian.
17:37
Speaker 4: The people I was with, these friends of these fellow
17:40
Speaker 4: teenagers who are Christians, they threw me a surprise 16th
17:43
Speaker 4: birthday party, which was very nice of them. and so
17:46
Speaker 4: I did I did get my 16th birthday but it
17:47
Speaker 4: was very different to the kind of 16th birthdays that
17:50
Speaker 4: we'd had with my school friends I got home after
17:54
Speaker 4: the second week and of course you imagine my dad
17:57
Speaker 4: is raving to everyone saying you know Aaron stayed a
18:00
Speaker 4: second week all on his own I dragged him there
18:02
Speaker 4: kicking and screaming and then he's there you know without
18:04
Speaker 4: me even being there missed his 16th birthday would you
18:07
Speaker 4: believe it um And he wanted us to come, me
18:10
Speaker 4: and my siblings, to come to church one more time
18:12
Speaker 4: on the Sunday because they were giving testimonies about, stonely,
18:16
Speaker 4: about the things that happened that week. And so he said,
18:18
Speaker 4: you were there, so you should come along and you
18:20
Speaker 4: might see the friends that you met. So I was like, okay,
18:21
Speaker 4: I'll come along to one more church thing with you
18:23
Speaker 4: on an evening meeting. So we went there and there
18:26
Speaker 4: was an open mic for anyone to share anything God
18:28
Speaker 4: had done that week. And he said, he nudges me
18:31
Speaker 4: and he's like, why don't you go to the microphone
18:33
Speaker 4: and tell them that you stayed a second week? And
18:35
Speaker 4: I was like, why would I do that? I'm not,
18:36
Speaker 4: I'm not, I'm not one of you people. I'm not
18:39
Speaker 4: going to go to the microphone and talk. I get
18:41
Speaker 4: this ridiculous. And so he's like, okay. And then he
18:43
Speaker 4: just leaves a couple of seconds. He just up, he gets,
18:45
Speaker 4: and he walks forward. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
18:48
Speaker 4: So he goes to the microphone. So I say, I'll,
18:50
Speaker 4: I'll tell them then. It's like, great. So he goes forward.
18:52
Speaker 4: He tells his testimony. I became a Christian last year.
18:54
Speaker 4: This has happened in my life, et cetera. Um, he'd
18:57
Speaker 4: been on an alpha thing called an alpha course. And
18:59
Speaker 4: he's telling the story about that. He, um, and he
19:02
Speaker 4: was very cynical by the way, when he became a Christian,
19:04
Speaker 4: he was very, he's very, um, he thought they were
19:06
Speaker 4: kind of after his money and stuff. So he was like,
19:08
Speaker 4: he secretly went on this alpha course without telling us.
19:10
Speaker 4: That's why he just announced that he'd become a born
19:12
Speaker 4: again Christian. He'd actually had a, uh, his testimony is
19:15
Speaker 4: quite amazing that he, on one of these vendors of
19:18
Speaker 4: like on cocaine, he woke up in, in, in his chair,
19:22
Speaker 4: hung over in the morning, tried to try to turn
19:25
Speaker 4: the TV on, but you couldn't find the sky, the
19:27
Speaker 4: kind of cable you call it remote. And, um, So
19:31
Speaker 4: he just had whatever was on the TV was what
19:33
Speaker 4: he had to watch. He couldn't change the actual channel.
19:36
Speaker 4: And it was the God channel. The God TV happened
19:38
Speaker 4: to be on. He's never been on God TV. So
19:40
Speaker 4: I don't know how that was on. And it was
19:42
Speaker 4: a program about biblical prophecy. That seed that been planted
19:46
Speaker 4: you know back in the 1970s 30 years later having
19:50
Speaker 4: it been lying dormant laying dormant for many years occasionally
19:54
Speaker 4: rearing its head in some weird way but very really
19:57
Speaker 4: making no significant effect on his life his whole thing
19:59
Speaker 4: is half hung over it's all about biblical prophecy he
20:02
Speaker 4: says you know if you want to know more ring
20:03
Speaker 4: this number it goes to a local church alpha course
20:06
Speaker 4: he goes on the alpha course he's cynical he thinks
20:09
Speaker 4: that after his money And then he realizes it's real.
20:11
Speaker 4: He realizes that they're open to him asking questions. He
20:14
Speaker 4: asks all his questions and he realizes, you know, this
20:17
Speaker 4: is what I want. This is true. I need to
20:19
Speaker 4: embrace this and recognizing that this is God having been
20:23
Speaker 4: working on him for like decades. And so he, it
20:26
Speaker 4: all comes to us. It's like, I'm a born again Christian,
20:27
Speaker 4: but actually there's this whole backstory of what had happened
20:30
Speaker 4: from all those years ago. He tells his testimony and
20:34
Speaker 4: then he says, and you know, my children, you know,
20:37
Speaker 4: they brought, came along to Stonely with me, which was amazing.
20:40
Speaker 4: my younger two children, Heather and Steve, they both became
20:44
Speaker 4: Christians at the week. And I was like looking along
20:47
Speaker 4: the road and I'm like, you absolute wimps. You broke
20:50
Speaker 4: the pact. We broke the pact. I stayed strong. I
20:52
Speaker 4: was there another week. You said you wouldn't let the
20:55
Speaker 4: Christians get to you. They're like, they're really sheepish. Like, yeah, sorry.
20:58
Speaker 4: Became Christians. Outrageous. And then he said, my other son
21:04
Speaker 4: came along to the week, stayed a second week, which
21:06
Speaker 4: was amazing because he didn't even want to go in
21:07
Speaker 4: the first place. Um, he's not quite over the line yet,
21:10
Speaker 4: but I know that God's working on his life. It's
21:13
Speaker 4: a great outing me, kicking me out of the closet.
21:18
Speaker 4: And then there's a worship song comes after this. And
21:21
Speaker 4: during that worship song, a load of the people that
21:23
Speaker 4: I got to know who were on the other side
21:24
Speaker 4: of the room, sidled over to it. Like, Oh, you're
21:26
Speaker 4: not actually a Christian. We didn't realize. Do you help?
21:29
Speaker 4: You hit it really well. So thank you very much.
21:32
Speaker 4: And then, and then they say, do you want to
21:33
Speaker 4: come outside for a chat? And I was like, that
21:35
Speaker 4: sounds a bit ominous. So I'll come outside for a
21:37
Speaker 4: chat in the corridor. And they're like, oh, well, why
21:40
Speaker 4: aren't you a Christian? This is ridiculous. So I don't know.
21:47
Speaker 4: I don't really want to. I just want to keep
21:49
Speaker 4: my options open. I'll do one of those nice long
21:52
Speaker 4: alpha courses I've heard so much about. They can just
21:54
Speaker 4: go and have dinner and ask loads of questions. No, no,
21:57
Speaker 4: you don't have to do that. That's a waste of
21:58
Speaker 4: time for you. Let's just pray about it. I was like, oh,
22:01
Speaker 4: I'll pray about whether or not I can do an
22:02
Speaker 4: alpha course or not. And they're like, just repeat after me.
22:05
Speaker 4: And they start praying the sinner's prayer. And I'm like,
22:08
Speaker 4: in my head, I'm like, I'm not, I didn't sign
22:09
Speaker 4: up for this. What is this? Like, I'm the same
22:11
Speaker 4: as on a filling in the form. Like, I don't
22:13
Speaker 4: really know what's going on here. It feels like this
22:15
Speaker 4: predestination live in action. And so I find myself accidentally,
22:20
Speaker 4: like reluctantly praying the sinner's prayer because they said they
22:24
Speaker 4: wanted to do it. And then like, that's kind of
22:25
Speaker 4: how I became a Christian. Like, I found myself doing
22:30
Speaker 4: something I didn't want to do. But actually, really, it
22:33
Speaker 4: was the exterior. And there's a deeper part of me
22:35
Speaker 4: that did want to do it and needed to be
22:37
Speaker 4: sort of coaxed out of it. And I think that's
22:39
Speaker 4: kind of how it happened. So that's how I accidentally
22:41
Speaker 4: became a Christian, basically. And then, of course, Heather and
22:44
Speaker 4: Stephen had become Christians. And then my older brother, about
22:47
Speaker 4: a year later, there was this kind of prophetic guy
22:52
Speaker 4: who came to the church. And he sort of had
22:54
Speaker 4: this particular gift. If you've got any cessationist listeners, I'll
22:57
Speaker 4: weird them out, but I don't care. He was just like,
23:00
Speaker 4: you know, there's someone up on the balcony up here.
23:02
Speaker 4: There's a thousand people in the room. It's like, you're
23:04
Speaker 4: deaf in your left ear. Jesus wants to heal you.
23:07
Speaker 4: Come forward. And he was even like pushy. He was like,
23:09
Speaker 4: come on. He's from India. He's like, come on. I
23:11
Speaker 4: haven't got all day. Come on. Get down to the front.
23:12
Speaker 4: You're going to miss out on your healing. Don't be stupid.
23:15
Speaker 4: Come on. I know you've got all day. Come on.
23:19
Speaker 4: And then up jumps my brother who's on the other side.
23:21
Speaker 4: I didn't even know he was there. This is my
23:23
Speaker 4: older brother. I was like, wow, what's Mark doing here? Crazy.
23:26
Speaker 4: And he comes down to the front. And he gets
23:28
Speaker 4: his hand laid on him and he falls on the ground.
23:31
Speaker 4: He's like immediately healed. And he's like, because he went
23:35
Speaker 4: to raves from the age of 12 and he gets
23:37
Speaker 4: these thudding speakers. So he's like, he was like deaf
23:39
Speaker 4: because of going to raves. And it was crazy. He
23:42
Speaker 4: was a rapper, a kind of drum and bass rapper.
23:45
Speaker 4: So it was crazy to see him get healed. Then
23:48
Speaker 4: he became this immediate like tub thumping evangelist. And it
23:52
Speaker 4: still is to this day, like a massive evangelist. um
23:55
Speaker 4: with loads of people get saved from hearing his testimony
23:58
Speaker 4: because he was so in deep in the kind of
24:00
Speaker 4: underground world of the club scene he used to sneak
24:02
Speaker 4: me into clubs in Brighton where we grew up when
24:05
Speaker 4: I was 15 um and so it was crazy because
24:09
Speaker 4: when I first told him that I'd become a Christian
24:11
Speaker 4: I was a bit like my younger brother's sister sheepishly
24:13
Speaker 4: yeah sorry I became a Christian um and yeah he
24:17
Speaker 4: when he became met the Lord it was just an
24:18
Speaker 4: amazing like transformation so then my dad's incredible this like
24:22
Speaker 4: seed that been sown and when my dad got baptized
24:25
Speaker 4: and shared his testimony again with the church he talked
24:28
Speaker 4: about that that chaplain who came to that hotel and
24:31
Speaker 4: amazingly someone in the audience was listening and said just
24:36
Speaker 4: like nudging the person next to him like didn't your
24:39
Speaker 4: didn't your uncle used to work as a chaplain in
24:42
Speaker 4: that area i wonder if that's him he said and
24:45
Speaker 4: this guy was called uh i think his topping was
24:48
Speaker 4: the surname and he said uh any chance that that
24:51
Speaker 4: person's name was Graham Topping? And my dad was like,
24:52
Speaker 4: it was Graham Topping. He's like, do you want to
24:55
Speaker 4: meet him? I'd love to meet him. I haven't seen,
24:57
Speaker 4: you know, that was, that's amazing. I'd love to meet
24:59
Speaker 4: the guy who gave me that book that set all
25:01
Speaker 4: of this in motion and said, yeah, we can go
25:04
Speaker 4: meet you. He's still a chaplain. He's down working down
25:06
Speaker 4: further down the west side of the South English coast
25:10
Speaker 4: in Plymouth. We'll travel down there and we'll meet up
25:13
Speaker 4: with him. It'll be great. And when they finally met him, he,
25:17
Speaker 4: this guy, this chaplain was on the verge of giving
25:20
Speaker 4: up his entire ministry and even his faith. He had
25:23
Speaker 4: been through divorce. He'd been through like a horrible time
25:26
Speaker 4: in his life, loads of setbacks and difficulties. And he
25:28
Speaker 4: was literally that week, like on the verge of jacking
25:31
Speaker 4: it all in. And then he meets my dad who said,
25:34
Speaker 4: because of what you did 30 years ago, I became
25:37
Speaker 4: a Christian. My children have all become Christians. I sent
25:42
Speaker 4: a tract in the post to my brother in Cambridge.
25:45
Speaker 4: He just read the tract and became a Christian. Like
25:47
Speaker 4: when does that happen? then he shared the gospel with
25:49
Speaker 4: two of his neighbors immediately. They became Christians. And like
25:52
Speaker 4: this guy, he was just like, oh my gosh, that's
25:55
Speaker 4: the most incredible encouragement. He's like, I want to thank
25:57
Speaker 4: you so much for what you did in that hotel
26:00
Speaker 4: in Jersey back in the seventies. Like incredible. And, and
26:04
Speaker 4: so like this guy was totally like, buoyant and like
26:06
Speaker 4: totally re-revved up in his ministry and like it had
26:09
Speaker 4: a real you think of the way that god organizes
26:12
Speaker 4: like history in providence it's just unbelievable all those different
26:15
Speaker 4: events coming together and for him to meet my dad
26:17
Speaker 4: with all of those ducks in a row at that
26:19
Speaker 4: time so we had a kind of amazing holistic uh
26:22
Speaker 4: testimony and the and the final epilogue of it there
26:25
Speaker 4: used to be a kind of sad note like what
26:26
Speaker 4: about your mum and because my mum of course dad
26:30
Speaker 4: were divorced and when we kind of, it looked like
26:33
Speaker 4: that we sort of followed dad, even though we'd all
26:35
Speaker 4: independently become Christians and like kind of reluctantly, it still
26:38
Speaker 4: kind of looked like we just followed his new weird
26:40
Speaker 4: born again religion rather than the sort of dead nominal
26:44
Speaker 4: Catholicism of everyone who lives in Liverpool or has an
26:46
Speaker 4: Irish heritage in some way. And so, which isn't everyone,
26:51
Speaker 4: but like, I think my grandma was definitely a solid
26:55
Speaker 4: devout Catholic and the rest of our family, not at all,
26:57
Speaker 4: but would still feel that they're born and will die Catholic. And,
27:02
Speaker 4: she was really resistant, found it really difficult that we'd
27:05
Speaker 4: become Christians. I think she would be like, obviously nice.
27:08
Speaker 4: So she's still a mother and was a lovely, a
27:10
Speaker 4: lovely woman, um, most gentle soul. And she eventually got
27:14
Speaker 4: cancer later on. Um, and she was dying, staying with
27:20
Speaker 4: my sister, my younger sister, one of the, one of
27:21
Speaker 4: the twins by this point is married with young children.
27:25
Speaker 4: And she was looking after mom when she was going
27:27
Speaker 4: through real pain and difficulty through the final like weeks
27:30
Speaker 4: of her life. And she was militant about reading the
27:34
Speaker 4: Bible with mum and, and like proclaiming the gospel to
27:39
Speaker 4: her and, and bringing her over the line. And it
27:42
Speaker 4: was kind of amazing because she'd been so resistant because
27:45
Speaker 4: of the connection to my dad and the history of
27:47
Speaker 4: the divorce and the brokenness of losing her daughter. It
27:49
Speaker 4: like felt like she could never get over that. You
27:51
Speaker 4: could never really get in a conversation with mum without
27:54
Speaker 4: her breaking down in some way because of all this
27:56
Speaker 4: past trauma. And suddenly she, it completely changed. And of course, yes,
28:01
Speaker 4: she had cancer and she was dying, but it was like,
28:03
Speaker 4: I was amazed to hear that this had happened. And
28:06
Speaker 4: I went to stay with Heather while my mum was there,
28:08
Speaker 4: which was a real blessed time because we didn't know
28:10
Speaker 4: how long she had. And I remember walking into a
28:13
Speaker 4: room where she was doing the dishes. I mean, she's
28:14
Speaker 4: like in agony in between painkillers, but like one of
28:17
Speaker 4: those motherly things to do, like I'm still going to
28:19
Speaker 4: do the washing up in the kitchen and you're not
28:21
Speaker 4: going to stop me. And so she's there doing the
28:23
Speaker 4: washing up and she's praying on her own out loud.
28:27
Speaker 4: And I was so amazed to hear that because it's hard.
28:30
Speaker 4: The amount of times that we as the rest of
28:31
Speaker 4: the family prayed for her to get saved, we've basically
28:34
Speaker 4: given up because there have been so many setbacks. You
28:36
Speaker 4: just feel like you can't keep going and you want
28:39
Speaker 4: someone else to come and help. Some other evangelists from
28:41
Speaker 4: somewhere else, her own children, you lose faith almost for
28:44
Speaker 4: your own family sometimes. And to hear her praying out
28:46
Speaker 4: loud was an amazing thing. So she did sadly die
28:49
Speaker 4: a week later, but it was such an amazing thing
28:51
Speaker 4: for us when she died that we had that testimony
28:55
Speaker 4: of her giving her life to Christ and that really
28:57
Speaker 4: meaning something. And I was able to preach at her funeral,
28:59
Speaker 4: which was quite challenging, to all of her non-Christian friends
29:03
Speaker 4: who turned up, who loved her, adored her and her family,
29:07
Speaker 4: who of course found it very offensive that I was
29:09
Speaker 4: saying that my mum became a Christian because they were
29:11
Speaker 4: thinking that she already was. We're already Christians, aren't we?
29:14
Speaker 4: And so that was there. And I think actually within
29:16
Speaker 4: a Catholic church as well. And so I think they
29:18
Speaker 4: didn't realise what they were letting themselves in for. I
29:20
Speaker 4: could play the compassion card and say, you know, I'm
29:23
Speaker 4: grieving so I can preach an evangelical sermon in your
29:26
Speaker 4: But yeah, so it's quite amazing that it's hard to
29:29
Speaker 4: tell any of us our testimonies of how we became
29:32
Speaker 4: Christian without telling the whole family saga. But God is
29:36
Speaker 4: certainly very glorified in how he brought us all to faith. Wow.
29:41
Speaker 1: Well, thanks to Chaplain Topping. You're here on my show today.
29:44
Speaker 4: Yeah. Amen.
29:48
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Praise God.
29:51
Speaker 2: Wow.
29:52
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, thank you for sharing that.
29:54
Speaker 3: And And I hope you can get some sleep tonight
29:58
Speaker 3: because it's like 11 o'clock there, 11.15.
30:00
Speaker 4: That's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're good with
30:04
Speaker 4: the time conversion. That's right. We are getting to the
30:09
Speaker 4: witching hour. And in fact, my son behind me, who's
30:12
Speaker 4: been sleeping this whole time, amazingly, in the buggy. Not buggy,
30:15
Speaker 4: in the cot behind. We've had him set up in
30:18
Speaker 4: my office, so he's just stirring now for his late feed,
30:21
Speaker 4: which I certainly won't be providing because we're not. weird
30:24
Speaker 4: like that with our kind of weird fake breast milk
30:27
Speaker 4: or anything. So I'll be, I'll be sending them through
30:29
Speaker 4: to my wife soon.
30:30
Speaker 3: Well, I thank you so much for staying up this
30:33
Speaker 3: late and chatting with us and telling that story.
30:36
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
30:38
Speaker 4: It's a pleasure to be here and to hear from
30:41
Speaker 4: you always.
30:42
Speaker 3: Wait, don't touch that dial. Please like and subscribe. And
30:45
Speaker 3: also please consider becoming a patron on Patreon for as
30:49
Speaker 3: little as $ 5 a month. You can really help us
30:51
Speaker 3: out on the show. The link is below, and we so,
30:55
Speaker 3: so appreciate it.
30:56
Speaker 1: Thank you.
30:59
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Beckett
31:02
Speaker 2: Cook Show. Your support makes this content possible. All episodes
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31:11
Speaker 2: For more information about Beckett and his ministry, visit his
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Speaker 2: website at beckettcook.com.