After hearing Jim Durkin’s sermon in Eureka that day, we had a lot of food for thought. We continued being busy with daily life at the ranch, but both of us had lasting impressions, because of the things that Jim had said. There were probably at least, 400 people listening to him, but we received his words as if he was speaking personally to us. He didn’t even know Thomas and I, but we took to heart, his message as of a father to his children.
In particular, it was when Jim said, that he believed that God was preparing our generation, to take the truth of the gospel to the ends of the earth. And then he pointed out, that God was forming ours characters, for this calling. He used the example of Paul writing to his son in the faith, Timothy. He wrote that he needs to train men, to be “able” teachers and leaders.
So Thomas looked up the verse that Jim was referring to. In our King James Bibles, it said in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 2;
“The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”
Then Jim had used the example of our men who went out tree planting, that they were learning to do hard work, that required both physical and mental stamina to be able endure. They were learning to work as a team, and also suffer the hardships that were involved. We were deeply touched, by the way Jim conveyed to us, not only Paul’s teachings, but his heart towards the Lord, and his love for the church.
Here are just a few of the important points that Thomas wanted us to look at. You have to picture us sitting by the oil lamp in our room at the Big House. Naomi was sleeping in her little crib and we were quietly reading through the scriptures. We had only been Christians for seven months and knew that the only way we would grow, was if we studied the scriptures ourselves.
Reading the Bible every day at 11 o clock was part of the daily schedule for everyone at Living Waters. But Thomas and I, found that discussing what we were reading, helped us understand it better. And when we had questions, he would ask Tom Petersen, to explain it to him.
Everything we were reading was in itself, transforming our minds, like Paul had written concerning becoming a new creation. These truths were driving away all the lies that we had accumulated from the hippie philosophies, that we once believed in. And it gave Thomas even more confidence, in writing to his mother, because she was also bound up in various false religions.
