My Testimony

MY Testimony
By Tyris Horton Sr.
August 31, 2007

I was born in 1980 in Rancho Cordova, California a suburb of Sacramento. From birth I was born with a type of cancer of the nerves called Neoplastoma. I had this until I was about 2 years old. By the grace of God obviously I survived and have been cancer free since that time. As a young child the first 10 years in my life I resided in California with my family. My father served in the Air Force for 21 years. My family was above the standard when it came to comparing us to the world but of course fell short according to Biblical standards. We attended church up until I was about 7 years old and stopped due to my fathers work schedule. As a child my mother taught me prayers to say and I remember talking to God constantly (at least I thought) because I had such intense nightmares as a child until I was 10 years of age. I remember quoting the Lords Prayer repeatedly as some sort of magical mantra to escape the fear of my nightmares.
When 10 years of age my dad retired from the military and we moved from California to Omaha Nebraska due to the cost of living along with the desire to be around family. When I was 14 I joined my family congregation and began reading my Bible that my father bought for me. Around this same time I was introduced to pornography by my aunt’s boyfriend and became accustomed to watching these videos on a regular basis. I even made trips to the shop to purchase the sinful videos while seeing people from my church in the video stores. This later took me on a long road of battling lust. While partaking in this gross sin I knew it was wrong but had no power to resist this temptation. I viewed the people in my church(not all of them but some) as hypocrites and lost a lot of respect for the adults in my church because they did not live what the Bible taught.

James 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

I lived in Omaha until about 21 years of age and moved to Kansas City. I came to Kansas City for school. While here I met my wife within 3 days of being in Kansas City. I remained a virgin until 21 and thought I was above reproach but now after examining scripture I see I was not. Matthew 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. I had been guilty of this since I was a young boy. My wife and I participated in fornication for over a year in a half. During this same time I was invited to a church in which I did not know was a Word of Faith Prosperity Health and Wealth Church. I genuinely was interested in knowing God and not after riches. While here I really started to examine the scriptures as the pastors encouraged us to do. I whole heartedly partook in all the ministries that I could and was literally at church 7 days a week.

While at the church I worked nights for about 2 years. I worked at a hospital and did security and had more than enough time to read through the scriptures. In doing this I was challenged to examine the Bible all the legalism that my church taught. I prayed for the Lord to show me truth at all cost. He did and everything that I was taught I started to come to the hard reality that it was not entire truth. I started to go through the scriptures with J. Vernon McGhee on his radio program which goes verse by verse through the scriptures in 5 years. In that same time frame I listened to John Macarthur and read many of his books. From that time the present I was hooked on expository preaching. This brought many questions I had in the back of my mind to the forefront. I sought out answers in my church from many of the preachers and ministers to no avail. I started to feel as if I was losing my mind and that I was totally alone in my thinking. After wrestling for 18 months I finally left that church and was more so prompted to do so when my son was born in July 2006. I want my son to see true Biblical Christians who use their brains & know how to interpret scripture correctly aside from their fickle emotions. I searched for a church for about 3 months and got tired of wasting gas money and seeing the same type of ignorant preachers espouse the sloppy doctrine of our day and not the Bible.

MY CONVERSION

It was though grace that I was saved through faith in Him and Him alone. I believe the Lord saw that I was genuine when I joined my previous church in pursuit to be like Christ. At this point I started to have a hate towards sin and what it produced and a more intense love and desire to be like Christ. I was not interested in getting rich or any materials from the Lord. Honestly I believe while working night shift at my security job is when the Lord by His precious Holy Spirit began to teach me truth according to the scriptures and put application to my knowledge. I received a foreign urge to read everything I could concerning the Bible and specifically concerning the type of church that I was attending and its background. The breaking point was when I read D R. McConnell’s book named “A Different Gospel” and Hank Hanegraafs “Christianity in Crisis” Once reading these along with the scriptures I was fully convinced that I was attending a non-Biblical Church and the things I was thinking from reading Paul‘s epistles started to make more sense. Our heartfelt affections should be set on things incorruptible, imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Not on the temporal things of this world. I sought after confirmation with the people in my congregation of about 700-1000 people and no one could hear me. I in my ignorance I thought if people can get a hold of enough factual information that they would be convinced and turn from such lethal teaching. I was wrong in my Armenian view and now I understand through the lens of Calvinism that they can and will only hear if the Lord opens their eyes and their heart.

In the midst of this I married Alicia in April of 2004 and began to act the way that I had become accustomed to seeing couples interact with one another growing up. It was contrary to what scripture commands. My whole life I saw couples in the world and in the church just loving conditionally and not the unconditionally like Christ commands.

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as also Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 to make her holy, cleansing her in the washing of water by the word.
Up until March of this year 2007. I for 3 years have neglected my marriage in my pursuit to gain knowledge about Christianity. I did not understand that my Christ-likeness should be shown in my love and servitude towards my wife first and foremost and others second. God in his Sovereignty used Christ Fellowship to open my eyes to my sin towards God and my wife in not loving her in a Biblical manner. While all of this was going on I had become unloving in my dealings with my wife. I had become very hard hearted towards my wife and was not acting in accordance with scripture regarding loving her unconditionally. I have realized my sin and repented before God and my wife. I hurt her a lot during the 3 years in my sarcasm and condescending language. Five months ago God made it painfully obvious in my sin towards Him and my wife. Since then I have been making an effort to be gracious and loving towards her while remembering Christ‘ love and graciousness towards me. I did not realize the wickedness in my heart towards her and most importantly towards God. I am making every effort to be obedient to Christ.

In John 14:23 it says, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.
By the grace of God I ran across a Pastor’s website named John Coleman on the Internet who is a black expository preacher. He knows John Macarthur personally and lives in the same area. John Coleman is very hard with the truth the he espouses and also very loving after getting to know him. I could totally feel his anger in the midst of these heresies we see in the church today. John encouraged me to leave the Word of Faith church and find a local Biblical church. I emailed Pastor Jim Elliff and asked him some very tough questions. He answered accurately and most importantly Biblically.

While wrestling with my previous church I learned a lot of truth. There is nothing I can do to be made righteous apart from the work of Christ. All sin is sin in the eyes of God and my sin is what put Christ on the cross. There is liberty in Christ. In conclusion
Galatians 3:11 Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." 12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them." 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us,

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.