Peace Everlasting, a Testimony of Salvation by Cliff Silliman

The world was a different place in the late 1960’s, especially in Berkeley, California. There were demonstrations and riots over the war in Vietnam, the student uprising in France, and a decision that the University of Berkeley made that students did not like--any excuse would do—that led to “The People’s Park Riots.” Berkeley was the gathering place for about 100,000 hippies—most of whom were using drugs. On any given Friday night 25 to 30 thousand young people would descend onto Telegraph Avenue looking to buy drugs. LSD was the drug of choice. In 1969, at age 20, it was here that I saw myself as king, for I was the main connection for LSD.  

Cliff Silliman, July 2012

It was on Telegraph Avenue, the main street in Berkeley, that I encountered Holy Hubert, a bold street preacher for Jesus. He told me daily, as I passed by, that I was going to hell and that I was not only destroying my life but others lives as well, and that God was going to hold me accountable. I laughed. I was raised as far away from church as possible. Holy Hubert quoted any passage of the Bible from memory—he actually had the whole Bible memorized. It seemed like a complete waste of time to me.

My organization consisted of me, two body guards, a driver, a courier, and a woman named Linda, who had flipped out on an LSD high and thought she was a frog for about seven months. We drove around in a VW van painted with red and white stripes down the sides, and a blue top with white stars. I wore a leather fringed jacket, a purple shirt, and bell-bottom jeans. In June of ‘69 our house was raided by a newly formed federal drug task force. During the raid an undercover police officer was shot by “friendly fire” while he was shooting at me. When the dust cleared, my two bodyguards and I were in jail awaiting trial, and Linda was loose on the streets.

No one knows how Linda ended up at the Baptist Student Union, a fraternity house a few blocks from the University of California, Berkeley campus.  The fraternity brothers came home from a Bible study and found Linda squatting like a frog on top of the kitchen table trying to figure out what to do by throwing I-Ching cards, an old Chinese fortune telling trick. The fraternity president said, “I rebuke you in Jesus’ name.” The result was that Linda got instantly healed, no longer thought she was a frog, and came into her right mind. A month later, when I was finally able to get out of jail on bail, Linda’s story was circulating on streets, but I did not see Linda for another nine months.

As soon as I got out on bail, I went straight back to dealing drugs, adding cocaine to my inventory. My daily drug use increased to at least five tablets of LSD and up to three grams of coke a day to stay high all the time. Sometimes I’d take more to party in the evenings. We mixed the powdered LSD or “acid” with Kool-Aid and drank it—never knowing how strong it was. These parties were called Electric Kool-Aid Acid Parties. Once I tripped out on 21 tablets of LSD and three glasses of Kool-Aid acid, and went to a Terry Reed, Ike and Tina Turner, B.B. King and Rolling Stones Concert at the Oakland Coliseum.

I was arrested three times, but I always got released. The police had made errors in their strategy every time. Finally we made a deal where I would plead to lessor charge and could possibly get up to two years in jail. When I went to court the judge scolded me about how I was a menace to society, but then he suddenly switched and put me on probation to the dismay of everyone in courtroom. (I now know this was the hand of God!) I got out of there before he could change his mind. When my mom found out she was shocked. My old friend Jimmy, that first turned me on to drugs, had just come back from Vietnam. We celebrated my release and Jimmy’s homecoming with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Purple Earthquake was the live band at the party—they were also our LSD connection.

In December of 1970, fed up with hypocrisy and dishonest dealings, I decided to retire from drug dealing and move to the backwoods of Oregon. I had found out my connections were stealing from me, so I wanted to do one final deal and get back at those guys and rip them off in a big way. I got one group to front me a literal ton of marijuana (100 pressed bricks each weighing a kilo) and another group to front me the money to pay for it, but instead of doing the transfer I took the money and the pot and took off.

As I drove north up Highway 101 in Northern California, in my brand new tan V.W. bug, I happened to stop in Petaluma to get gas. I had heard Linda became a Christian and moved into Zion’s Inn, a Christian discipleship house for women. She had converted my friend, Jimmy and he moved into a guy’s house called Berachah House. As I waited at the gas station, I realized Linda and Jimmy lived in Petaluma somewhere with some Jesus People. I asked the guy at the gas station if he had ever heard of Berachah House. He just happened to live next door and gave me directions.

I showed up at dinner time and was invited to stay. Jimmy and Linda announced they were getting married on Saturday. They asked for my help so I delayed my move to Oregon. I was in turmoil because of the light in them and the darkness in me. No one witnessed to me about their new-found faith, probably because they were afraid of me. Restless, I decided to drive around the San Francisco Bay Area for a day and a half not staying in any place long, since the drug dealers I ripped off would be looking for me.

I stopped for gas in Martinez. An off-duty policeman I knew came over to say hello to me. I told him I was retiring and moving to Oregon. He said, “I probably will not see you again, so I need to tell you something. God told me that I was to protect you since He had plans for you. This is why I applied to be the lone beat cop on Telegraph Avenue.” I was dumbfounded. The inner turmoil in me could not cope with the information that God had plans for me! After driving back to Petaluma on Friday morning, I had finally calmed down enough to deal with being around these Jesus freaks. I did not know that when I left they began praying around the clock and for 36 hours they had prayed for my salvation.

While eating breakfast at Beracha House, I saw a newspaper on the coffee table called “Right On” put out by Christian World Liberation Front. Down in the left hand corner on the cover was this highlighted box that said, “If you are not sure if Jesus is real and died for your sins, ask Him. If He does not answer you, go on your way. If He answers, give Him your whole life.” I noticed that uncomfortable feeling again. During the course of the day as I helped Jimmy and Linda move their stuff into an apartment, I continued to feel this weird stirring inside. While Jimmy and I drove up Highway 101, on December 11, 1970, I decided to pray and do what the newspaper suggested. I decided if Jesus showed up, I would want to get to know Him better. So I prayed quietly in my head, “If you are real, Jesus, be real to me.”

Immediately, my heart was flooded with a peace that passes all understanding, quite different than any drug high I had ever experienced. I knew that Jesus was real for nothing could duplicate what I was experiencing. I quietly said to Jesus, “I am Yours.”

About ten minutes later, still driving north on Highway 101, Jimmy realized that this would be our last time together before I left for Oregon. He shared with me about his faith and “the Four Spiritual Laws” (a pamphlet he had memorized). Jimmy asked me if I wanted to pray to receive Christ.

I said, “I already did that about five miles back.” God’s peaceful presence has been my constant companion these 41 years. Jesus has always been there for me, in good times and bad. The turmoil was replaced by peace—peace everlasting.

Jenna and Cliff Silliman, July 2012

Let Me Introduce You to My Jesus

I am thrilled beyond words that I've been asked to contribute to this purposeful blog.  Thank you so much for the invitation and honor.  I feel I should give a brief background to offer a little insight into my relationship with Christ.  I spent fourteen years of my life being a staff kid.  My father was the business administrator at one of the largest Baptist churches in Arkansas.  I came to accept Jesus as my personal Saviour when I was ten and have grown up with an understanding of the responsibility we all share when it comes to leading others to Christ.

Mark 16:15 ESV    
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation..."

        
As Christians we are created to serve two primary purposes.  The first being to worship and give praise to our Lord Jesus.  The second being to lead others to Christ.  Evangelism was an integral part of our church's foundation and many classes were offered to help teach Christians effective witnessing techniques.  I remember many nights overhearing my parents and their friends practicing and studying their "Evangelism Explosion" notebooks in preparation for the door-to-door visitations which would start upon completion of training.  My parents and their friends memorized verses, knocked on doors, and presented the Gospel to any and all who would listen. My most vivid childhood memory, however, of my mother telling someone about Jesus had nothing to do with a planned presentation.  It happened instead at our local grocery store.  I was about nine years old and standing in the checkout line with her.  A young mother with her two children was standing in front of us frantically trying to count out change for her milk as one of her children was crying inconsolably.  Even I picked up on her distress.  She was coming up short and the cashier was being neither kind nor patient with her.  My mother quietly stepped forward and said, "Let me buy your milk for you in the name of Jesus.  It's what He wants us to do for one another." That tiny snippet in life made a lasting impression and taught me that even in our gestures and actions we are given the opportunity to tell others about our God.  It doesn't have to be a perfectly-scripted scene and we don't have to be Biblical scholars to do the task which is set before us.

In my teenage and adult years I've been blessed by having the experience of getting to pray with several people as they accept Christ.  Sometimes it has been a situation where I feel God telling me very clearly to speak to someone and other times it is more subtle, quiet.  About five years ago I was feeling very convicted that I hadn't lead anyone to the Lord in such a long time.  I told God that morning that if He would open the door for me to speak to someone I'd be more than happy to do so.  I was having a yard sale that particular day and spoke to all of the visitors who came into my yard.  A girl I had never seen before came up to discuss a picture of mine she was wanting to buy and I noticed cuts and scrapes on her arm.  I asked if she was okay and she went into a lengthy story about a car accident she and her child had been in just a few days earlier.  She said to me (and I PROMISE this is exactly how she said it), "It's a good thing we didn't die cause you know I'm not a Christian and all..."  My mouth literally fell open.  Are you kidding me, God?!  I get the message loud and clear!  I asked her to wait for a second, turned around and marched into my house, came back outside with my Bible, and read John 3:16 to her. Sitting right there on my white porch swing this sweet girl prayed to receive Christ.  I was so happy for her and thrilled that God had so clearly set this up.  As Christians we are happiest and have the most joy when are living in the fullness of His plan for us.  I was so thankful to know that in that moment the fullness of His plan for me that day was being accomplished.

Several years ago I was praying for a friend who was very ill, dying in fact.  In an effort to coordinate her friends and family from across the country I decided to start a Facebook prayer group for her.  Through no reason other than the amazing power of Jesus this prayer group in less than a week grew to over 800 members.  People my friend didn't even know from all over the world were praying for her.  God healed my friend and allowed this wonderful prayer group to become the foundation for "Church Without Walls (the not-so-small small group)" on Facebook.  I described it as an "uncommon common ground for people to meet on Facebook" and encouraged people to "check their denominations at the door".  It serves as a place to meet and leave prayer requests and share testimonies of what God is doing in their lives.  After seeing God move through the prayer group in such a palpable way it was obvious that His work needed to continue.  This group has been life changing for me in ways that I never even expected.  I realized a new-found accountability to the people I was writing to through the devotions and songs on that site.  When Jesus is speaking through us and using us as a tool we must be sure that we are living up to that privilege.  I've had days of struggle with this, days I didn't feel "worthy", but the beauty of the Lord is that He is always loving, always accepting.  He died for us and wants to spend eternity with us.  That's the Jesus I want people to get to know.  In the age of social media we are able to reach miles beyond where our legs could carry us.  That's one reason I get so amped up about groups like Kingdom Bloggers.  I can't imagine a more productive use of the Internet than bringing people into His kingdom.

We are called to share the good news of our Lord through our word and our actions.  Whether it be face to face, on the phone, or through the computer God wants to use each of us as His mouthpiece.  Pray that He will provide the opportunity.  I promise He will bring it to you.

Active listening is a spiritual necessity...not a talent.

When I first recommitted my life to God after years of wandering aimlessly through life, I struggled trying to find His will for me. Don't mistake what I just said in any way to reflect on God's ability to effectively communicate said will...the problem was all on the receiving end.

God had been continuously communicating with me even through my dark pilgrimage, but I had forgotten how to listen. Still, I was fired up with motivation to amend for lost time serving my Father, and I got busy doing instead of praying for direction. Goes back to last week and my post on longing for the spiritual gift of message of wisdom.

There's a lot of  useful insight to the idiom about spinning your wheels in one place. Sure, you can exert a tremendous amount of effort and energy, but you still don't really get anywhere. The word go appears almost 1500 times in the King James version Bible. Now, I don't want to come across Yoda-like, but go obviously is inferring both movement (action) and purpose (direction). I don't know how many times the word try appears in God's word, but I can't think of a single verse off the top of my head.

So does that mean God won't bless us for trying? Well that's not really the point here. We can easily get what purpose God intends for each of us by first asking then taking the time to listen. Keep in mind, the latter part is on His schedule...not ours.

Back to my situation. I was doing a lot to try to serve the Lord, but I'm not sure how effective I was in doing so. More importantly, I don't think I was doing what He was intending for me. As I prayed and studied, I kept coming back to the point where my own spiritual wheels had come off. I was in college when it mostly began. Not a stretch because statistics show seventy percent of young people leave church around that age.

Finally I realized what God was impressing on my heart. Talk to young people about your plight. My pastor said in his sermon a few weeks back that everyone should  feel comfortable telling their own personal story about what God had done in their life. After all, nobody knows the subject matter any better. Right?

Makes a ton of sense now. So , I set out with the purpose of preventing as many young people as possible from being in the majority of aforementioned statistic. Finally, a peace fell over me. Not the you have done well my child kind of peace. No. More along the wow you finally got what I want you to do kind of peace.

Could God change my spiritual destiny? Of course He could. But as long as I feel His hand upon my efforts, I will stay on this path. I humbly pray daily that any and all glory coming from the process be reflected upon him...

If you haven't already, I encourage you to seek your spiritual path too. When you see the destiny God has set in motion for your life if you are just obedient to His will...your excessively high electric bill from last month takes on a complete different perspective. That goes for a lot of other things too.

How you start the race is rarely how you finish...

Be prepared to fish when you go looking for worm cans to open...

I found that out about 4 years ago when I started spending time on Yahoo Answers. Maybe I was looking for a fight...hard to say...but I loved getting into theological debates with atheist and agnostics who would invade the Christianity section and start bashing away at the 'ignorant religious people.' Some of my aggressiveness wasn't a bit Christ-like. Okay. None of my anger was very Christ-like at all. I lashed out from my own guilt that I had failed to let go of when I pleaded with God to forgive my years of tarrying in darkness.

The website I had created (stickwithjesus.com) was rudimentary at best and the obvious first efforts of a website design novice. Lots of information but not a cohesive core or even theme. My goal was to convince those who had strayed away from Jesus the error in their chosen path. After all, I had been there myself. So with a website, a mission and a passion, I started venturing into online conversation on a near nightly basis.

Funny thing you don't realize when you hit the forums and chat rooms with an agenda...everyone else there has an agenda too! Very few people are actually searching for answers because they believe they already have them. Ahem. Guilty as charged. But even after coming to that conclusion several weeks into my self-proclaimed ministry, I refused to let up. It was almost an addiction...no...it WAS an addiction!

My email inbox was almost constantly bombarded with love and/or hate messages. I wasn't being a very good steward of God's light. I also wasn't finding very much joy in my endeavor. But somehow, I convinced myself I was His warrior. A champion for His cause. Yet I knew in my heart something wasn't quite right.

While scrolling through my emails one morning, I came across one from a fellow with an Asian looking name. That wasn't unusual in itself, but the Subject Box really caught my attention- WHY DOES GOD LOVE ME? I proceeded with the normal security precautions and scans. No attachments...just text. When I opened the email, the body of the message was very brief and broken English asking why God would love someone who has nothing to offer in return.

Although it's very hard to explain, in that very moment...I was broken.

Nghor was sincerely reaching out to a born again child of God. He was actually looking for answers about God and His plan of salvation for man. The email couldn't have been any more effective in changing my online direction had it been a Cease and Desist Order. I carefully weighed my options for a response. After a prayerful day of asking for guidance, I knew what God wanted from me...

There is nothing I can offer God that begins to repay the love He has shown to me. Nothing. What I can do those is be obedient to His Word and share with other people what God's love has done for me...personally...my testimony. God's plan for me is unique, as is His plan for you. Through the course of a dozen or so emails, I explained to Nghor how I had come to realize my plan and to accept that it was also a work in progress. He always responded with questions. I always answered to the best of my ability after thoughtful prayer and study in Scriptures. Nghor had access to a Bible and that helped.

Our online relationship lasted a little over two months. To this day, I don't know if Nghor ever accepted Christ as his Savior. I'm okay with that too. That wasn't in God's plan for me in this situation...as far as I know. He used a lone cry from the wilderness to do a little loving discipline with me. By sharing my testimony and reaching out to Nghor, He reiterated that His love is about choice. He graciously chose to give it...we must humbly chose to accept it. Debates and discussion may have a place in the grand scheme of things, but even the simplest minded child of God can witness to someone else by reflecting His love and the effect of His love in their life.

I try to be a much better steward of the Light these days...

I don't want a life full of missed opportunities

A verse that permeates my thinking just about every day is Philippians 4:4-5. I'm especially enamored of the way it reads in The Message paraphrase:

Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you're on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!

This is what I want my life to be like. I want to work with the people who I encounter every day. I want to always be open to ways that I can let God minister His love through me to people. To never miss out on a chance to share this great gospel of love, reconciliation, and eternal life with God.

Because of this, as we're sharing this week about an opportunity we've had to share God's love, I decided to simply share a recent opportunity that I've had. Because I truly believe that, although sometimes God does do spectacular things through us, sometimes He does choose to manifest His great power through us, but, that much of life seems ordinary. Scripture indicates repeatedly (Ephesians 6:11-13, 2 Kings 6:8-23, & Daniel 10:1-14 just to name a few locations) that there is an unseen reality, a spiritual realm, and often we don't really know what's going on in that realm. We don't always see how God will use even the smallest of gestures to work in another person's heart and life to bring that person to Himself.

Close to 3 months ago I started a new job. The quality manager, who is in a sense my boss, is a wonderful woman who I like more and more each time that I deal with her. She's smart, funny, positive and has a whole heart for the work that we do. But, you know how the Holy Spirit bears witness in you when you meet another Believer? Well, I've never gotten that from her. I know that she's without faith. Just the other day I was in this woman's office discussing some work issues and for "some reason" she suddenly says something about how when she really looks at it she thinks religion isn't such a good thing, that if you look through history at all the different religions, they've all done just as much harm as they've done good. I smiled at her and said that I think, from what I read in the gospels, that Jesus Christ would agree with her. That when you look at His life here on earth, the ONLY group of people He was hard on were the religious people. Then I went on to talk a little bit about how Jesus came to give humanity so much more than religion, that He came to make it possible for us to come into relationship with the God who created the entire universe. We didn't talk for long, and nothing "big" happened. I didn't even get to give her a chance to pray with me. But I'm continuing to pray for this woman, continuing to believe that God is going to bring her to Himself.

I think that daily life is like that. When the opportunity presents itself, we just step forward and leave the results to God.

The Cost of a Soul? Just a Couple of Bucks

T. Austin Sparks said, "We just don't know the opposition to a man's soul." What he meant was this, there are legions of demons and other demonic forces that keep us from salvation. And that's not including the influences of this world!

This week, your Kingdom Bloggers are going to talk about an unexpected chance to witness the love of Christ to another. As much as I love what goes on in the church, I adore it when Jesus gets outside the walls!

On my third trip to Brazil I was part of a movement to transform cities and countries by the power of public prayer and fasting. I was traveling with a ministry named: The Call. The event in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was entitled The Call Brazil. There were churches from all over the country that came to pray at their nation's capital. The informal national day of fasting and prayer took place from 6AM until 6PM on the mall surrounded by federal buildings.

We had arrived a few days before the event to pray and get to know the Brazilians that we would be serving. On a few of the days before the event, we prayer-walked the perimeter of the mall area. At one end there was bricked plaza near a museum and other monuments. It was nearly 90 degrees in the shade and probably 100 in the sun. At midday very few people ventured outside. We probably should have done the same - but this was our time to pray.

I was teamed up with 3 or 4 others praying as the Holy Spirit lead. As we walked the square where, in the shade of one of the monuments, was a lone ice cream vendor. just a few hundred yards a way. I decided we should probably get some water as I had run out in the intense heat. I approached the young man and spoke to him in Portuguese telling him that I needed a bottle of water. He took out one bottle and told me the price. "Duis reis (2 Reis)," he replied. I only had a $10 Rei bill and asked if he had change. He said that he didn't have any change because there was no business yet today.

I felt the nudging of the Holy Spirit. If you know me, you know I am not very good at talking to people in public about Jesus; not to mention that my Portuguese is barely acceptable. I tried to remember some of my best Christian-ese in Portuguese. I told the vendor that he did have to make change for the $10 Rei bill if he would let me pray for him. He tried to offer me more water then I could carry. I told him it would only be a minute so he relented. I placed my hand on his shoulder and he bowed his head and closed his eyes. In Portuguese I asked God to bless Him and give him a drink of the living water (bebido aqua viva). I felt a supernatural heat in my hand and he started to shake a little. I prayed in the spirit for a minute or so. As I took my hand from his shoulder, he opened his eyes and there was a Brazilian woman standing there that we did not know. When I had thanked him for the opportunity I handed over the bill that I had promised.

The woman, waiting her turn, began to preach the Gospel to Him. She told Him that by the blood of Jesus, God would save his soul that day. "Agora! (Now!)," she shouted. "Aqui! (Here!), she said in a loud and passionate voice. He bowed his head and began to cry out "Jesus," as tears ran down his face. He accepted the Lord and gave her a hug. He turned to me and gave me the "thumbs up" sign.

5,000 miles from home, God was at work. The strange woman and the gringo... I believe the opposition can be beaten.