For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things [are] naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Hebrews 4:12-13 (KJV)
Greetings and blessing to you all in the name of Jesus Christ the living and true God, I am Matthew J. Davis the founder of BibleFreak. org and presently a faithful adherent of the RCUS Rehoboth Chapel mission work in La Habra California.
I was born in 1964 in the city of Downey, California. Over the past years I have found no source of peace more lasting than the love of Christ on the day I repented of my sins and followed him. I was 19 years old pretty much a stupid young fool on the pathway of destruction. I looked to drugs, sex and the world as sources of comfort and found none. After years of self-abuse I was invited to receive Christ as a personal savior and to be baptized. I had no idea what that meant, and on that day I rejected the call. God’s spirit was unwilling to let me go and from that moment I was sure of only one thing, I want to follow Him. I returned to the church and though I do not remember the sermon, I remember the shouts that resounded as I was baptized into the fellowship of Our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus.
Those days were filled with a resonating hunger that lasted only a few months. I was soon using drugs again, and blaming the world for my woes. My pathway of destruction didn’t stop there. I went on to ruin personal relationships through the years. I damaged myself and brought shame to the name of Jesus.
1983 through 1986 are pretty much a blur, I spent time on the streets, lived a carnal lifestyle filled with every vice known to man and was rushing head long into death.
God had not forgotten me and though I tried to flee from Him I was unable to out run His grasp. I remember the day He drew me into the Christian Cornerstone Book Store. I was high as a kite and I walked in and began to talk to the owner Kent Wilken. Kent for whatever reason took me under his wing and over the next year and a half we forged a friendship that endures to this day, despite living thousands of miles apart and in two different countries.
God used Kent to soften my heart, and while we did not always agree, it was Kent who introduced me to Jay Fluck. Jay at the time was a pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). Jay recounts the first days of our relationship saying, “I remember when you couldn’t stay focused on one subject for more than a sentence or two” as part of the blur making up my life during that period I know he is being kind in that description.
Despite the best efforts of Kent and Jay I continued to follow the path of destruction. I’m sorry if I keep using that particular word. The truth cannot be disguised. I know full well that if God had not pulled me kicking and screaming from the life I was then living, I would today be dead or on the path to death.
In late 1986 I met my wife, Daniella, while hanging out at a local convenience store waiting to score some drugs. We spent the next 48 hours in one another’s company and during that period of time I asked her to marry me. We struggled together trying to discover who we were. By ’86 my drug usage had become an on again off again struggle and while I fully believed Christ was my Savior, I was fond of forgetting that fact, often twisting the truth for my own ends.
Less than a year later I asked God to send me a child to secure Daniella to myself as a wife. We married in February of 1987, Jay joining us as man and wife. We began a life of struggles and hurt.
On April 6th Sarah Kristin Ashley Rebekah Davis was born and was taken quickly to the Intensive Care unit for Neonatal children. Despite the best efforts of the doctors Sarah was born early and we were told she had a 50/50 chance of surviving.
I remember those days with sadness; I was neither a good husband nor a good father. I was unwilling to go to the hospital, using my work as an excuse to escape the possible shroud of death that hung over my child.
Two months later Sarah came home. Daniella and I struggled to be parents, being more or less irresponsible children ourselves. Daniella spent long nights caring for Sarah, caring for a wounded kidney that was in need of surgery. Over the next 6 months Sarah grew and was happy, and her happiness acted as a seed, which grew in Daniella and I. Her illness gave Daniella strength and bonded us together in a way nothing else ever had.
We went to church sporadically and received faithful support from them. God continued to bless us and as days and months went by, we struggled through one thing then another.
Sadly Daniella and I separated after less than a year and remained apart for some 18 months. I worked and was numb, tears often filled my eyes, and my evenings were often spent in anger, demanding an answer from God-“Why?” One day a package came, it was a letter from Kent and several tomes of scripture he had placed under various headings and bound into note books. I remember reading the first one titled “Fear of the Lord” it changed my life. The wonderful thing was, Kent had sent scripture alone, nothing in the study came from Kent it was all God’s Word! (I can send you a copy of this study free if you desire contact me!)
I realized I didn’t have the right to question God, and that I was undeserving of everything I had, and I had been blessed because God had not allowed Daniella to divorce me. I began searching God’s Word and in those days, by Gods Spirit BIBLEfreak was born. Daniella and I returned to one another and over the years we allowed sin to rule our lives instead of God, and we separated several times. God used each separation to draw us closer to Him and to one another.
By 1992, Daniella and I continued to face various trials and after 6 years at the OPC I stopped going altogether. I recall the elders who came to visit me and encouraged me to return. I remember telling them nothing they could say could make me return, I knew it was wrong to stop going; I had become apathetic. Daniella and I went to this church and that church over the following years. Daniella would stop going or I would stop going. I continued to read the Word of God at home while forsaking the gathering together of the saints. I would listen to sermons on the radio, do personal studies; and once I was even forbidden from distributing a spiritual newsletter I was writing and putting up on the bulletin boards at work.
Four years later Daniella and I were separated for the last time, looking back now it seems such a silly fight, which resulted in our separating. It caused me to return to church and set a course which in 2000 found Daniella and I searching for God as never before.
May of 2000, God used the church and his Spirit to call me to return to my first love. Ironically the church we began attending was named “First Love. ” In His mercy God renewed in me a vision He had sent in the days just before my baptism in 1986:
My father and I were talking and he asked me what I was going to do with my life. He was encouraging me to write, as I had often told stories to friend and long dreamed of becoming the next Stephen King. As we spoke I told him I thought of becoming a pastor, he said “I could see you doing that, speaking in front of people.” In that moment I saw myself preaching the Gospel in a crowed stadium to thousands of people; I had forgotten, God had not.
Today I am seeking Gods will in every aspect of my life. The challenges I face today are more about dealing with the rebellion of my sinful heart constantly struggling to keep vigilant in God’s Word, out of the world, and seeking a servant’s heart daily. I suspect this struggle will remain until my end of days. I hope to one day become a pastor, though I often feel I am seeking a place where fear and trembling tread often, since in seeking such a position I place myself under a greater requirement from God.
It was the knowledge of being a Christian, which caused me to choose the name BIBLEfreak many moons ago. It is a faithful and compassionate God whom has kept it alive to this day. He has called me to His service just as Paul states in the beginning of most every epistle he wrote. I am a Servant of God and as such the servant of all men everywhere.
On July 4th of 2000, at a freedom celebration hosted by Calvary Chapel (CC,) the Spirit of God overwhelmed Sarah my daughter, and I was blessed to see her go forward and make a public confession of faith. As we drove home that evening Gods Spirit brought to my remembrance a prayer I had said years before over my wife’s swollen belly, I had asked God to allow my child to know Him in a way I never had, I realized that God had honored my prayer and my heart was broken.
I had committed to attend all such CC events, preaching the Gospel of Christ, following that night and to act as a counselor to those who responded to the call of faith, as best I could. That is no longer the case after being referred to as follower of a “doctrine of demons” by my then CC pastor, who taught against the doctrine of “Limited Atonement” as such. He refused to publicly retract the statement from the pulpit, though he privately retracted to me. I think you get the picture here. That ended my sojourn with the CC church, though I still have contact with the pastor and members of the congregation.
I and my family are presently attending the RCUS Rehoboth Reformed Chapel mission work in La Habra California, which receives the very gracious oversight of the Ebenezer congregation in Shafter California. I am privileged to have been the webservant for the congregation and actively participate in the spiritual health of the congregation through teaching Gods Word and serving his people.
I hesitantly allow myself to be called a Calvinist, for many reasons I am happy to discuss with anyone desiring such conversation.
BibleFreak.org is my personal ministry desiring to give the Word of God to the world. To provide a resource for sound biblical doctrine and truth for free, just as God freely gives us all things Salvation included. I putter around on it and appreciate support and suggestions, if it can be used better, I want it to be. So please make your suggestions!
Your Servant in Christ