KEITH ANDREW PETER MERRIMAN: MY TESTIMONY
Author: Pastor Keith Merriman
July 01, 2023
I was raised in a devout
Roman Catholic family. I attended a
Catholic grade school for eight years and then attended a private Catholic high
school for boys run by the Jesuits. I
was religious growing up. I was an altar
boy for six years and was in a Catholic boy scout troop, where I earned the Ad
Altare Dei medal for finishing the religious program. I was baptized at six weeks old and confirmed
at 12, when I received my first communion. I believed that I could get to heaven by works and therefore prayed the
rosary, did the stations of the cross, went to confession weekly, and even made
Novenas to the blessed virgin Mary at the Carmelite monastery in Indianapolis,
Indiana. I attended mass six days a week
during my Catholic education. When I
started working, I gave 11% of my income faithfully to the church hoping that
1% extra would please God.
In reality, all of this was
just outward conformity because I was living a life of sin. I was a thief, a liar, and a drunkard. I ran with a gang in Indianapolis called the
Counts for a while during high school. Sin was a pattern of my life even though I was religious.
In 1969 (I was 16), I met
Nancy Blair at a Catholic Youth Organization ping pong tournament. She came with a friend who was Catholic, but Nancy
was raised a Baptist. I fell in love
with her the moment I saw her and determined to marry her. Our parents did not approve of our seeing
each other and tried to split us up. That didn’t work! We dated for
four years through high school and into college. During those four years Nancy would at times
attend the Catholic church with me. We
decided to marry in 1973. Nancy had to
take instruction in the Catholic faith and sign a paper saying we would raise
our children in the Roman Catholic faith. We had two children, Michael and Melinda, over the next three years. While we continued to attend the Catholic
church during this time, Nancy had an increasing dissatisfaction with the church. She wanted to hear the Bible taught, but
the priest, who was always asking for money, focused on the social gospel instead.
One day in the summer of 1976,
the Jehovah’s Witnesses came to our door. Nancy began to study with a lady from that group. Our real troubles began when the lady told
Nancy there was no hell. Nancy and I
began to have conflict over what I believed as a Catholic and what she was
being taught by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I went to see our parish priest, but he was no help. In the fall of 1976, the Jehovah’s Witness lady
revealed to Nancy that she bought a dress for a special occasion, used it, and
then took it back, claiming to the clerk that she didn’t use it in order to get
her money back. Nancy and I wondered, “How
could someone who ‘knows’ the Bible be so dishonest?”
It was during that time that
I met Scott May at Kroger where I was working. I was intrigued by his life. He
was joyful, and he did not smoke, drink, lie, tell dirty jokes, or act immorally.
One night, I invited Scott over
to our house to play bridge with another coworker. That night, Nancy and I got into a fight over
the card game. I went to bed mad, and
the other coworker left. Scott stayed
and talked with Nancy. He shared with her
the booklet, “The Four Spiritual Laws.” It reminded Nancy of what she had learned in the Baptist church. Afterwards, Nancy called the Jehovah’s Witness
lady and told her not to come back to the house. Scott asked her to visit the Eagle Creek
Grace Brethren Church where he was attending. She asked me if she could go and I said yes.
After attending Eagle Creek
for a few weeks, Nancy asked the pastor to come and visit me. This was in the middle of winter and it was
very cold. When the pastor came to the
door, Nancy answered it, and I locked her outside on the porch because I was
mad she brought a Protestant pastor to our house. She had to climb back into the house through a
bedroom window.
It was about that time that Kroger
transferred Scott to another location. Nancy
continued to attend Eagle Creek. She
kept asking me to go with her, but I refused. She also kept asking if the pastor could come and visit. I finally said yes just to get her to stop
asking me. He was to come on a Thursday
night at 6 p.m., because I wanted to watch an Indiana University basketball
game that started at 7 p.m. Nancy left
with the children so the pastor could talk with me alone.
The pastor did not come until
7 p.m., and I was not very happy. But I
allowed him in. After he sat down, he
asked me a question no one had ever asked me: “Keith, if you died tonight do
you know you would go to heaven for sure?” I replied that no one could know that for sure. He pulled a little pocket testament out of
his suit coat pocket and said he wanted to share something from the Bible with
me. I interrupted him and said that he
did not know anything about me. I was
raised in a devout Roman Catholic family, was an altar boy, and even attended a
Jesuit High School. He looked at me and
said that he too was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family, that he was also
an altar boy, and that he had gone to a Catholic High School run by the
Dominicans. Now I was ready to listen.
As Pastor Paul attempted to
share from his pocket testament, I said that he could not share from a
Protestant Bible. I had a Catholic Family
Bible under the coffee table (that I had never read, only entered marriage and
birth information), so I pulled it out and instructed Pastor Paul to share from
this Bible. He was happy to do
that. He shared with me that there was a
book in the Bible that told people how to know for sure that they could go to
heaven. It was called the book of
Romans. He explained how God looked down
on the rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, and that God’s conclusion about all
mankind was found in Romans 3:10, which states that “there is no one righteous,
not even one.”
He asked me if I knew what
“righteous” meant and I said no. He said
that it meant perfect. There was no one
perfect but God, who was holy and just and the only one who is perfect. I knew I was not perfect, but thought I was
better than some. He shared with me from
Romans 3:23: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and I
was convicted at that moment that God knew I was a sinner. I was scared. He asked me if I knew how sin entered the world and I said no. He shared with me Romans 5:12: “through
one man sin entered the world.” He shared with me about Adam and Eve and
the story of God casting them out of the garden of Eden after they sinned and
disobeyed Him by eating the forbidden fruit. I knew I had disobeyed God also.
Pastor Paul then shared with
me Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the
world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all
sinned.” He also shared Romans 6:23:
“the wages of sin is death.” He
shared that the penalty for sin was not just physical death (separation of body
and soul), but also spiritual death (separation of the sinner from God in
hell). I knew there was a heaven and a
hell, and for the first time realized that I deserved to go to hell and that
was where God was going to send me.
In response, I asked Pastor
Paul, “then how can anyone go to heaven?” He shared with me Romans 5:8: “but God demonstrates His own love
toward us, in that while yet sinners, Christ died for us.” He shared that Jesus, God’s Son, became a
human being and lived a sinless life and then died on the cross, shedding His
blood to pay for man’s sin, was buried and rose again. He shared that Jesus took my place on the
cross. I knew it was true! I had a crucifix in my bedroom growing up, so
I always knew that Jesus died on the cross, but I never really understood that
He died for Keith.
Pastor Paul then shared with
me Romans 10:9-10: “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe
in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved; for with the
heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he
confesses, resulting in salvation.” He also emphasized that salvation was a free gift and that it was not by
works. He read Ephesians 2:8-9: “for
by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the
gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast.”
I rejected the gospel at that
point. I could not believe that all I
had done over the past 20 years (going to church, giving my money, saying the
rosary, and doing penance) was worthless. Pastor Paul explained that God’s Word said my works were like filthy
rags. Also, I was not ready to give up
Keith’s life. I knew if I believed in
Jesus it meant turning from my sinful life and following Him, and I was not
ready to do that. I liked living Keith’s
life. But I also knew I was going to
hell if I died.
The next day I was
miserable. I cried, I worried, I was
scared of going to hell. This went on for
a few weeks. Pastor Paul called that
next week and asked if I would like to play basketball with his church
team. Of course, I said yes. I went and played and met a bunch of men just
like Scott May.
One Wednesday night, February
23, 1977, I knew I had to go to the church with Nancy and talk with Pastor Paul
again. After prayer meeting, I went
forward and asked Pastor Paul to talk with me. For three hours I asked him questions about Catholicism, papal
succession, the Mass, Mary, confession, etc. Pastor Paul ultimately said, “Keith you will never understand these
things until you accept Christ.” I was
scared of hell, but I knew how to escape it. I got down on my knees that night at about 11 p.m. in Pastor Paul’s office
and confessed my sins to Christ. I asked
Christ for forgiveness and the gift of eternal life, and I committed myself to
follow Christ. Jesus answered my prayer. The guilt of sin was finally lifted!
Pastor Paul asked me if I
would come forward Sunday morning and allow him to tell the people in the
church, who had been praying for me, that I had been saved. I said yes. When I went forward that Sunday morning, I remember saying to Jesus in
my heart, “if You can save me I will do anything for You.” I did not really know what that meant, but I
meant it from my heart. I was baptized
by trine immersion that same Sunday night (after having two flat tires trying
to get to church). The next Thursday night, Gary Louk (the man in the church
who would disciple me for the next eight months before I would leave for
seminary) took me on evangelism visitation, where we shared the gospel with a
group of young ladies who had visited the church. He instructed me to memorize the Romans Road
and share it the following Thursday night. I practiced sharing the gospel with Nancy over the course of the next
week. When Thursday came, Gary allowed
me to share the gospel with a young man who had visited the church. Gary noted that I shared the verses out of
order and said to the young man, “you don’t want to accept Christ do you?” To our surprise, the young man did want to
accept Christ. I was hooked on evangelism!
That summer, Pastor Paul took
Nancy and I to the Grace Brethren Fellowship national conference in Winona
Lake, Indiana. Pastor Jim Custer was
preaching that God needed men for the ministry. I was convicted by the Holy Spirit that I should become a pastor, and I
found myself in Winona Lake, Indiana that fall preparing for classes at Grace
Theological Seminary. After four years
of intensive study, I became the pastor of the newly-formed Orrville Grace
Brethren church in Orrville, Ohio. After
a dozen years there, a year in Africa, five years as a pastor in Parkersburg,
West Virginia, I am now completing twenty years of ministry at the Grace
Brethren Chapel in Gibsonburg, Ohio. What
a joy and privilege it has been to serve my Master and Savior, Jesus Christ, for
more than 46 years!!
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