Jaclyn Horine grew up in church as a Bible-reading pastor’s child, and she later married a pastor. She was even in seminary to obtain a degree when a seminary professor challenged her to examine the foundations of her faith. So she did. And she came up short. So on a Sunday morning at Friendship Baptist Church, she went forward after her husband’s sermon.
“I thought for years that I knew God,” she explained to Southern Baptist Texan, an SBC state newspaper.
“Her hope wasn’t in Christ,” her husband and pastor, Jerry, said. “It was in her religion and herself.”
Reacting to that story, Christian apologist and author Dr. Alex McFarland tells AFN he is not surprised. That’s because the Church was warned about it.
“The great evangelist Billy Graham estimated that maybe 60% or more of the congregants in a church on Sunday morning,” McFarland recalls, “has not had a born-again experience with Christ.”
A similar warning has been voiced in years past by respected leaders such as A.W. Tozer and Bill Bright, and by many other evangelists and church leaders.
So how do you know if you're one of the lost sheep who found the Shepherd?
“The Bible says that we must turn from sin: repentance,” McFarland says, “We must believe that Jesus is the son of God and then we ask and say, Dear Lord Jesus, I'm turning from my sin, I'm trusting in you. Please save me.”
As far as Jaclyn Horine and Friendship Baptist Church, revival broke out after the East Texas congregation witnessed their pastor’s wife humbly admit she was a lost sinner in need of Jesus. To date, 32 people have been baptized and the small, rural church of 60 people has grown to more than 200.
