Dave's Testimonial

                                        The Testimonial of Dave Thomas

I am the firstborn child of a young evangelist, named Everett Thomas, and his wife, my mother, Mary Jo Thomas.

On November 20, 1953, at their home in Indio, California. Even before they had time to call the midwife, waves of God's Holy Spirit washed over my mother, according to her lifelong testimony, and as corroborated by my father’s observance, who was present on the occasion. 

She said, whenever the waves came over her, they would produce a "tightening of her stomach" as she described it, to bring forth my delivery without any pain to her. My dad reports he asked her in the moment, "Does it hurt?" She said "no".

A remarkable experience as witnessed by both my parents present on the occasion, who each spoke of the miraculous event often throughout their lives, as there was never a repeat of the same in the birth of 4 additional children to my mother.

My father would often say, "Before her pain came, she was delivered of a man-child", quoting Isaiah 66:7, from the King James version, pausing before moving on to verse 8, "Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things?" he would say, tilting his head a little as he was speaking, then after another appropriate pause for effect, he would give his answer of eye witness testimony with a big, broad smile, and a slower cadence, "I have".

My parents would sing on the radio, and they helped plant the Foursquare Church in Indio, California, where my dad would preach. I had an experience in my youth while we were still at that Church, where the Sunday school teacher gave me an intense moment, sitting down close to me, and reading John 3:16, the second part of the verse three times, asking me if I believe in Jesus, three times I said yes. “See here it says, whosoever believes in Him, will not perish, but have everlasting life.” I knew it was an important moment, but I wondered on the way home, there must be more to it than that. You just say, I believe in Jesus, and you get everlasting life?

After serving three years in the U.S. Army and being honorably discharged in November 1973. I found immediate employment as a welder in the shipyards of San Francisco, at Bethlehem Steel, and worked at U.S. Steel, American Bridge Division, on Oyster Point Blvd in South San Francisco after that.

I hired on with Southern Pacific Transportation Company in July of 1974 and retired after 28 years of service in 2002, as a Locomotive Engineer from Union Pacific, which had purchased the former railroad.

Kathy and I were married on March 27th, 1976, and we had our four children one after the other.

Firstborn Tammy: May 9th, Rachael: May 2nd, Jacob: March 30th, and Elizabeth: August 20th.

I had a profound experience of inward conversion led by God's Holy Spirit in early 1981, while spending the night on layover in passenger train service, at San Jose, California. We were living in West Pittsburg, California, at the time, and I was working trains between San Francisco and San Jose.

During the night of the layover, as soon as I lay down, it was pitch black in the room, and I began to have an overwhelming sensation of fear taking a grip on me, and throughout my whole body. I had the strong, almost uncontrollable urge to jump up and turn on the light, but I wanted to resist the fear. 

In our conversation, I began to recognize the internal voice of God, as I heard Him in the thoughts of my mind. He asked me, “What do you think is going to happen to you when you die?” I felt even more terrified, I said, I don’t want to have this conversation, He said, “Well, wouldn’t you like to know what is going to happen to you after this”?

At this point, I am wondering if I am talking to myself. If so, why don’t I know what I am going to answer myself, and what is making me feel this terrible fear, it’s unmistakable; however, while the voice is talking, the fear goes away. When I talk, I’m terrified, so again and in trembling I said, according to the Bible, “I think you have to send me to hell.”

Then He said, “I don’t”… [there He pauses and I am waiting]…” because a man was willing to die for you,” ..[another pause]…” not just any man, but it’s my only begotten Son.” I could feel God’s love for His Son. All the fear that I had been feeling went away. It was in that moment, I understood as never before the profound love God had invested in His Son, and Jesus, His Son, had offered back to His Father by His willingness to die on the cross.

God's love and mercy washed over me as He continued the conversation with me, to convince me, He could save me, because Jesus Christ, His unique and only begotten Son, had given His own life voluntarily offered to death, on the cross for me.

The phrase “all the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner that repents,” immediately came to my mind, and I answered, “Yes, I am truly sorry about all my failures and sins, but I have no confidence that I could possibly turn away from them for the rest of my life, and remembering a verse in the Bible, I thought, my life might get seven times worse if I repented and then I couldn’t maintain a holy life.”

Suddenly, I became aware of the great cloud of witnesses and the testimony of the saints, and I heard them say, “We lived out our faith, for all of our lives, and we overcame, and have entered into our reward, we will be your family, and you can join us”, and then the Lord said, “If you keep on asking Me, I will keep on helping you”. At this, I fell fast asleep. 

At the end of the following week, I was solicited by the same voice of the Lord to “pursue Him”, by going to Church.

It happened like this:

My daughter Tammy asked me to go to Church with her, my dad, and the other kids. Sadly, I said no and sent her away, in tears. She was just five. While I was still there finishing up after shaving, and immediately as she left, the same voice of the Lord that had spoken to me before, said, "Remember what happened when you were alone in the room at San Jose?" I said, "Yes".

[Waiting for Him to continue...] 

He said, " It's a secret, right?"

Me: "....uh..."; [getting a little nervous about where this is going...]

Him: "Well, you haven't told anyone yet?".

Me: "...uh ... right, yes, that's right, I mean, no, I haven't told anyone yet".

Him: "You don't ever have to tell anyone".... [uncomfortable pause...] "you could just go back to living your life the way you were before."

Me: [Terrified now!] "Oh no Lord, I don't ever want to go back to living like that, not ever, any more at all". It was at that moment that I realized I had been living differently and feeling differently deep on the inside for the whole week after that conversation in San Jose.

Him: "If you want the opportunity I am giving you, you must pursue Me".

I wiped off my face in a hurry and ran out the door without so much as a wave or bye-bye to my wife. I jumped in the van just as my dad was pulling away to take my children to Church.

I have been intentionally "pursuing Him" from that day forward, and forevermore!

At Open Bible Church in West Pittsburg, California, after responding to the altar call, Pastor Glen Biles read Romans 10:9 and asked me point-blank, "DO YOU BELIEVE THAT JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD"? [He was kind of a loud guy, and a big man.]

Up to that point, I had only received the supernatural witness that Jesus is, in fact, the only begotten Son of God, and was entirely convinced of God, that He was historically crucified to accomplish God's desire to forgive me of my sins, if I would repent of them!

So at the point of the question going from person to person on my left, leading then to me, I listened as the first two people on the left answered straight away, with a bold "YES"; it was a terrifying moment of demand for an answer that was approaching. The strongest answer I could muster in the moment of surprise, and in the fear of the Lord, knowing all that I was thinking and that I certainly had never considered this before, was "I certainly hope so".

This seemed to give pause to the Pastor, who had moved quickly from person to person in the first two answers, and he reflected for a moment, with one hand in the air, and the other holding the open bible, staring at me eye to eye, then he suddenly moved to the next person and beyond asking each the same question.

I was profoundly aware that my answer was not as assured as the direct "YES" that had been forthrightly answered by each of the others, and I could not stop inquiring inwardly, how it might be possible at all for me to answer "YES" with any reasonable assurance, or confidence of certainty, as the others had done?

Before the previous week, in addition to the express conversation in San Jose, I had an open vision, while wide awake, of Jesus in the living moment of His crucifixion on the cross, He turned His thorn-crowned head aside, to look face to face at me. As soon as I was captured by the vision, I was incapable of moving for the entirety of the vision; my body would not move, though I was trying to run away. Jesus seemed to notice me there, as if I had just walked up to the cross and was appearing before Him. He turned His head towards me.

Because of this, I was doubly aware that He is God’s Son and that He was crucified. Only on the occasion of the vision, I thought certainly He must hate me for making Him go through that.

And that’s why I was trying to run away.

This holy and inward conversation of God's desire to forgive and deliver me from my sin, by which he had engaged me in San Jose, gave an explanation of the vision, though I did not understand it that way at the time. 

There was no conversation at the time of the vision, but the follow-up conversation in San Jose was also accompanied by an abiding physical sensation of God's genuine affections, and a sense of well-being abiding within me, as I had remarkably retained throughout the week, such as I had never experienced in my life before. 

This had come in cooperation with a directed understanding of Christ's voluntary partnership with God in obedience, faith, and bold courage to face down the cross, and this was the very thing that had precipitated my attendance at Church, along with that instant experience of inward conversation when asked by my 5-year-old daughter to attend Church with her, my dad, and the other children that Sunday.

However, even with all that, I was not at all prepared to answer when Glen Biles read Romans 10:9 and demanded an answer of affirmation about the resurrection of Jesus, it seemed at first a great hesitation and roadblock, it seemed obvious in the moment to be a prerequisite to salvation, and each of the other people who responded that day, as he was asking each one face to face, point blank, "Do you believe that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead?" were able to answer with a forthright "Yes".

This became for me the focus of all my attention to obtain a complete affirmation of salvation, in addition to that which I had already become convinced of with great assurance proofs of supernatural encounter, as had happened by God's interventions, I had been fully convinced that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He had been crucified voluntarily offering Himself to God, for the forgiveness of my sin! 

But how could I know, He had raised Him from the dead?

So while everyone of my children and my dad were so happy, I was deeply perplexed, for the inward voice of God had not helped me at the Church, and the message was about the rich young ruler who obeyed all the commandments, it says, and was “loved”. While I had obeyed none of them and was pretty sure before all this that I had been hated, I had, however, made my weak and partial confession.

Then, when we got home, my wife, of course, was not that happy that I had left so abruptly without an explanation or any consideration that we usually would go somewhere, while the kids were at Church. She was waiting for me at the door, smiling at everyone going in before me. She caught me by the arm, saying, “So what happened, Dave, did you get saved”?

I could only answer, “sort of”, to which she turned and walked ahead of me, saying, “That’s what I thought”.

After wrestling this out internally while my wife was making dinner, and my dad was trying to celebrate with me my supposed salvation, and through the review of all my bible knowledge, and by coming to terms with the eyewitness account and Biblical testimony of the Apostles and over 500 people who identified Him as resurrected bodily, and of them, 120 people observed His ascendance in His resurrected and immortal body.

The Holy Spirit's voice finally said, “You either believe it, or you don’t believe it.” 

This at first terrified me, because what if I don’t, and how can I make myself believe it?

But I began to feel the sensation of His presence with me, and from a deep place within me, I began to realize, it is just as simple as that, I don’t have to figure anything out, I just have to believe it, according to the Bible and the reports of all the people who saw Him, touched Him, ate with Him, and celebrated with Him after His resurrection, and watched Him go up to where He is now! 

And I do believe it! 

When I realized I do believe it, I jumped up and ran into my bedroom and started crying and praying out loud with my voice, which had never happened in all of these dealings up to that moment. I had only whispered my prayers at Church, saying, if this is really You, God who has been speaking to me, and who brought me here, and you can also change me, I want to be saved, save me, Lord. 

I realized as I began to believe, He has eyes to see me, and ears to hear me, and confessed there my sins, relying upon Him to forgive me and change me forever.

I believed and prayed for the first time out loud and full of emotion and faith, in my bedroom, with great faith and supernatural encounter of affirmation, to receive and understand that Jesus is certainly risen from the dead, and listening, with great attention to my prayer and saving my soul. As the flood of prayers to God subsided, and I was a little bewildered by the whole thing, I thought, what should I do now? The bible verse came to mind, “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your heart, as unto the Lord.”

I got up from my knees at my bedside and went into the kitchen, where my wife was finishing up and setting the table. I said, "Honey, I got saved today". She turned to look at me, and said, “Yeah, that’s what you said”, I said “no, I didn’t really say it yet, I am saying it now, Jesus Christ is the son of God, he was crucified and died on the cross, but God has raised Him from the dead, and He has heard my prayers and He has forgiven me, and He is changing me, I really got saved today”. 

She looked at me with focused intention and knowing I had never said anything like this to her before. Then she said, “Okay, Dave”.

She came to Church with us the next week and responded to the altar call.

So I have continued from that time forward in daily verbalized prayers out loud to God, and we were both baptised in water at Open Bible Church in West Pittsburg, California, on November 10, 1981.

Thank you for reading this! God bless you to know the truth, and lead you to Jesus Christ, who died for you to be reconciled with God, and join His everlasting family and household of faith, in the promise of salvation and blessed hope to be changed at the consummation to the body of likeness to Himself, immortal.

May God help you open up the conversation today!

Sincerely in the deep affections of Him who so loved us that He gave Himself for us,

Dave