一个少年人的见证(双语/含音频)

—— 圣经的话语真实有力,常常击中我的心,使我信服愿意改变

作者受洗见证

一个少年人的见证

文 | 杨倚乐
《生命与信仰》第41期

音频为何杨弟兄朗读，背景音乐为黄滨姊妹小提琴/孙锺玲姊妹钢琴圣约“奇异恩典”：

编者按：本文为作者的受洗见证。作者是一个16岁的高中生，相信他的见证会对北美的青少年有帮助。文后附有英文原文，以方便读者转给读英文的子女阅读。

作为一个牧师的儿子，我从小就在基督教的环境里长大，我对神的接触还是蛮多的。不过我一直都不太能理解基督信仰的道理，以及耶稣钉十字架的恩典。我常常会挑战圣经里的教导，当我无法按照我的标准找到一个满意的答案时，就会感到失望。

随着时间的流逝，我渐渐成熟长大，我对神的认识也在逐步增加。不过我脑子里还是经常会有很多的疑惑，比如我会想：“既然神比我们人类伟大得多，祂要欺骗我们应该是非常容易的，”或者“如果神是一个超越我们所能理解的存在，祂为什么还需要我们呢？”诸如此类的想法和疑虑使我无法全心全意地相信神、敬拜神。因此，我就踏上了一个不可能完成的旅程：那就是想去探索关于神的所有奥秘的答案。

现在回过头来看，我想追求关于神的一切答案的想法是愚蠢和可笑的。既然人连地上的事物都不可能完全理解，又怎么可能完全理解天上的事呢？而且我们人与上帝不在同一水平线上，因此单凭人的理性和智慧是无法理解关于神的一切。但在前几年，这样的想法确实阻碍了我，使我无法全心全意地投入到圣经学习以及主日敬拜中。不过后来我渐渐地明白到，人确实永远也无法完全地明白和理解神，这就是为什么在选择跟随神的道路上需要信心。从明白神对我们的爱，到理解祂对人类的救赎计划，再到我们决定一生跟随祂，这些都需要信心！而追求自己的每一个问题都得到解答，这实在是愚昧的！

我曾经听人说过，人们往往不会对信仰有需求和渴慕，直到他们认识到，假如这个世界没有神，没有永恒，那么生命本身就没有意义，曾经所拥有的一切都是枉然。可是当时我却想：我的生活中还有很多事情要去尝试，有很多人生目标需要实现，有财富需要去获得。

在过去这一年的疫情隔离期间，无论是我个人的生活，还是外在的世界，都有很多改变。一方面，我有很多的时间与父母亲在一起，并且和他们建立了比过往任何时候都更好、更亲密的关系；另一方面，我们生活的美国乃至世界，发生了许多以前从未发生过的事情。与邪恶的人性相比，所谓的“善行”以及“好人”的努力都显得苍白无力。人们需要做很多善事才能让世界变得好一点，但是破坏起来却容易的多，几件坏事就能造成极大的破坏！并且我也意识到我们人本身的无助和软弱，再加上这个世界的堕落，实在让人对未来难以抱希望。人所建造的一切都只是暂时的，都会化为乌有。

尽管如此，这个世界仍然有很多美好的事物，人之间有宝贵的爱的关系，这使我感到生活还是有目标的。但是，关键是：暂时的！这一切都是暂时的。连我与家人建立的亲密美好的关系也是暂时的，也将因着死亡而消失。单单这一点就足以使我想更多地了解上帝的救赎计划，以及圣经中关于永生的教导。就这样，我在信仰的门口徘徊多年以后，我重新将注意力转向主耶稣，这一次，祂彻底地帮助我解开了心中的枷锁！

首先我意识到，我们人常常也会表现出好的一面，比如当我们向彼此传递和表达爱的时候，或者其他我们可以称之为“好”的行为，我们就好像一个有些残缺破碎的镜子，时不时也可以反映神的光，但是大多数的时候我们都在犯罪，反映出来的是罪人的形象。上帝按照祂的形象创造人类，可是当我们的始祖亚当夏娃犯罪之后，我们就失去了反映上帝形象的能力，虽然有时候我们也能做点善事，但是这些善行并没有改变我们仍然是破碎的罪人的事实。

从小到大，我干过不少坏事。虽然从小父母就教导我很多圣经的话语，知道什么是罪。我也曾背诵过不少经文，记忆最深的是小学的时候背过整本雅各书。可是知道什么是善的，却行不出来，这常常令我痛苦。比如我从十岁开始，就像大部分男孩子一样喜欢打游戏，甚至上瘾。可是我的父亲总是想方设法地限制我打游戏的时间，并且会定期检查我使用电脑的内容以及时间。其实我也知道他是为了我好，可是玩游戏的诱惑对我来说一直都在。为了能更多地打游戏，我就发挥我的“聪明才智”，用各种的方法破解电脑的密码。比如我曾试过在房间的一个隐秘处安装摄像头，记录我父亲输入的电脑密码。为了打游戏，我也曾撒过不少谎。表面上我很顺服，一周就按照父亲规定的时间玩一会儿游戏。可是事实是：只要一有机会，趁他们不在家，我就偷偷地玩，然后想办法清除电脑上自己玩游戏的记录。玩的时候一面很过瘾，一面心里不安，做贼心虚。在这种交战中常常感到疲惫。终有一天，良心觉得过意不去，就去和妈妈坦白（那时的我特别害怕父亲，所以凡事都是找妈妈）：“妈，趁我还没后悔之前，赶快去把电脑密码换了吧，密码我已经知道了。”等他们换了新密码，过了一段时间，我又有新办法再一次破解密码，然后再次偷玩，然后再次认罪.…..这样周而复始的经历使我深深地体会到保罗在罗马书7章第18–19节里面所描述的：“立志为善由得我，只是行出来由不得我。故此，我所愿意的善，我反不作；我所不愿意的恶，我倒去作。”因此，我也无数次从心底发出和保罗同样的呐喊：“我真是苦啊，谁能救我脱离这取死的身体呢？” 靠着我自己，我实在无法从这样不停犯罪、而后又苦苦挣扎的循环中解脱出来，我无能为力，因此我需要救赎，需要一个外在的，比我强大的力量来帮助我。

当我明白到这一点时，我就能理解耶稣替像我这样的罪人死在十字架上，为我们赎罪的恩典了。神的恩典何等伟大，通过祂的儿子耶稣基督救赎的工作，引领我们获得永生。没有上帝，这个世界就没有希望，人类的努力永远不足以把我们从这个堕落的世界中拯救出来。

作者的父亲杨华东牧师亲自为儿子施洗

在疫情隔离期间，我们一家四口每天晚上坚持家庭敬拜，一起读经祷告。我乐在其中，在不知不觉中，每天的圣经学习对我产生了巨大的影响。疫情刚开始时，就听许多人说，与同一批人日复一日地呆在同一栋房子里是非常困难的，容易导致家庭成员之间很多的冲突。我们家本应该也是这种情况，因为我们每个人都有脾气不好的时候。可是，借着真理，我们每个人都看到自己灵里的软弱，并且借着圣灵的帮助，愿意悔改自己的罪。特别是我和我父亲，以前我和父亲最大的冲突就是：他对我采用的是权威式的教导，可是我总是不服，所以总有冲突。然而，每天我们一起的灵修祷告却在改变着我们。我们俩都认识到我们自己在各方面的软弱，并愿意一同向神祷告，寻求帮助。神回应了我们的祷告，我们之间有了很多坦诚深入的沟通，也彼此道歉，神使我和父亲之间存在多年的问题得以化解。如果不是因为一种外在的力量帮助我们，我们靠自己永远不可能取得这样的进步。这外在的力量就是来自上帝的力量和圣灵的工作。并且圣经中的话语是真实有力的，常常击中我心，使我信服，愿意改变。这种切身的体验是我以前没有体会过的，我实在感谢神的恩典！

我的生命中需要神，祂的救赎计划是我唯一能抓住的东西，把我拉出这个堕落的世界。将来在永恒的天堂里，神应许会擦干我们一切的眼泪，在那里我可以和我的家人在一起，最重要的是和我的主耶稣一起，直到永远。耶稣已经为我而死，祂代替我而死，我所要做的就是相信祂，把我的生命献给祂，让祂做我生命的主！这是我所知道的最伟大的真理，比我所梦想的任何事情都要美好。

我非常乐意接受洗礼，我愿意与基督同埋葬，摆脱旧我，拥抱我在耶稣基督里的新生命。我愿意接受上帝对我的美妙恩典，并跟随祂直到永远。受洗并不意味着我今后在信仰上不会有挣扎或难处，而是标志着我生命中新篇章的开始。将生命献给主耶稣基督，我义不容辞，满心欢喜！阿们！

 
作者全家福（摄于父亲杨华东牧师按牧典礼）

A Teenager’s Tes­ti­mo­ny

By Enoch Yang

The fol­low­ing audio is read by Sam Ou

As a pastor’s son, some­one raised with Chris­tian­i­ty, I actu­al­ly had a lot of expe­ri­ence and con­tact with the Chris­t­ian faith. But I wasn’t able to under­stand its teach­ings or the grace of God’s plan through Jesus dying on the cross. I would often chal­lenge the teach­ings of Chris­tian­i­ty and would be dis­ap­point­ed when I couldn’t find a sat­is­fac­to­ry answer accord­ing to my stan­dards.

But as time passed, and  I matured, I would slow­ly come to under­stand the depth and val­ues of Chris­tian­i­ty. But this was not enough, as I would often have a lot of uncer­tain­ties in my head due to us humans not being on the same lev­el as God and there­fore, I was not able to under­stand any­where even remote­ly close to what God does. “Since God is so much greater than us humans, it should be ridicu­lous­ly easy for Him to trick us, no?” and “Why does God even need us if He is a supe­ri­or being beyond what we can com­pre­hend?” Such thoughts and doubts pre­vent­ed me from being able to wor­ship God whole­heart­ed­ly and set me off on an impos­si­ble jour­ney to find answers for all of God’s mys­ter­ies.

Of course, look­ing back, it was fool­ish and laugh­able of me to pur­sue after answers to every­thing about the reli­gion. Since it is not pos­si­ble to under­stand even every­thing on earth, how could there be such under­stand­ing when it comes to heav­en? It was tru­ly a shame that thoughts such as these held me back dur­ing my youth and pre­vent­ed me from whole heart­ed­ly devot­ing myself to the study of the Bible stud­ies and the ser­mons I heard. There­fore, as more time went by and I grew up, I real­ized that is why faith is required in reli­gions. Since humans will nev­er be able to under­stand God com­plete­ly, from just how great God’s love is for us, to his plans for human sal­va­tion, we need faith and trust when ded­i­cat­ing our lives to God. To pur­sue answers to every sin­gle ques­tion in my head is but a fool’s jour­ney.

I once heard from some­one that peo­ple would not find the need nor have the des­per­a­tion for reli­gion until they rec­og­nize the lack of mean­ing and the futil­i­ty of life with­out such a God and eter­nal life. I thought at the time that I still had a lot to live for in my life, such as earth­ly goals and rich­es that I need­ed to obtain. That is why it was so sur­pris­ing when I came to real­ize how Chris­tian­i­ty is the only way out of this hell of a world in this past year.

Dur­ing quar­an­tine, many things hap­pened, both inside my life and out­side. On one hand, I was able to take advan­tage of the extra time I had to spend with my fam­i­ly and devel­op a strong rela­tion­ship with my par­ents — stronger than it’s ever been in my life. On the oth­er hand, numer­ous events were occur­ring through­out the world, events that made me rec­og­nize just how dark and worth­less this world real­ly is. The so-called “good deeds” and efforts of “good” peo­ple pale in com­par­i­son to the evil of human nature and makes it hard to be hope­ful for the future of human­i­ty.

It didn’t take long for me to real­ize just how hope­less and weak we humans are and how cor­rupt­ed the world is. It takes a lot of good deeds to make a change for the bet­ter but just a few bad deeds to change the world for the worse. Every­thing that human kind builds is tem­po­rary, and all turns to dust after death.

But there are still good things in the world, as well as love in the world that make me want to believe that we have a pur­pose in life, even with all these things hap­pen­ing. The key­word here, though, is that every­thing is tem­po­rary. The bonds I’ve built with my fam­i­ly will be bro­ken and gone after death. This thought alone made me want to look more into God’s plan for sal­va­tion and his promise of eter­nal life. But I could’ve nev­er have imag­ined how many things clicked inside me after all these years, when I final­ly turned my atten­tion to the Lord.

I came to real­ize that us humans have a god­ly side at times, times when we show love to each oth­er, and oth­er things that I could call “good”.  But that is where the prob­lem comes: We rarely reflect God’s qual­i­ties. We are mere­ly bro­ken ves­sels that can only reflect the light of the Lord a small por­tion of the time, with the rest sin­ning and reflect­ing that of the sinner’s image. As a kid, I was quite the trou­ble mak­er, despite my Chris­t­ian upbring­ing. Even though I was famil­iar enough with the Bible to recite the entire­ty of the book of James from mem­o­ry and have a gen­er­al idea of what is good as opposed to what is sin­ful, I didn’t live the vers­es out. Like most boys at the age of 10, I was a big fan of video games — addict­ed even. I remem­ber the way my dad used to lim­it how much time I should spend on gam­ing and how he would uti­lize apps to track my screen time in order to keep me in check. Although I under­stood that my dad was doing this for my ben­e­fit in the long run, I often craved for more time to spend on video games. This is why I start­ed to sneak in gam­ing time when­ev­er my par­ents were out and would find a way to clear my record­ed screen time after­wards. I would do what­ev­er it took to sat­is­fy my addic­tion, which includ­ed a vari­ety of decep­tive meth­ods, from set­ting up a cam­era some­where cam­ou­flaged in my room to record my dad inputting the pass­words for var­i­ous elec­tron­ic devices, to lying over and over again when­ev­er I’m close to get­ting caught. At times, I would be over­whelmed with guilt build­ing up inside of me and even­tu­al­ly, con­fessed to my mom (not my dad,who in my mem­o­ry was much scari­er than my mom) about my mis­chie­vous deeds. My mom would then, under my instruc­tions, change the pass­words of what­ev­er device I played games on to some­thing entire­ly new, which I would crack again through my own shady meth­ods when my addic­tion got the best of me again. My expe­ri­ence can be entire­ly sum­ma­rized by Romans 7:18–19 in the Bible: “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I can­not car­ry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” I would often cry out to God like the Apos­tle Paul did: “What a wretched man I am! Who will res­cue me from this body that is sub­ject to death?” Rely­ing on myself, I couldn’t even break through the small­est of addic­tions, much less big­ger ones that I would have to face once I grew up. This was some­thing that even my 10-year  old self rec­og­nized at the time. This is exact­ly why I need­ed sal­va­tion, or rather, some out­side force that is infi­nite­ly stronger than myself, who can res­cue me from the grasp of sin.

When I real­ized this, it became a lot eas­i­er to under­stand Jesus’s act of dying on the cross in our place to cleanse our sins and how great God’s grace is through the gospel, lead­ing us to eter­nal life through him. The world is already hope­less with­out God, human efforts will nev­er be enough to save us from this hell.

Dur­ing quar­an­tine, my fam­i­ly and I made sure to spend time every night on Bible devo­tions and prayers, some­thing that I was will­ing to par­tic­i­pate in but did not real­ize how big of an impact it will have on us. I heard from many peo­ple dur­ing quar­an­tine that it was extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to stay in the same house day after day with the same peo­ple, to the point that it even cre­at­ed con­flict between fam­i­ly mem­bers. That should also have been the case for our fam­i­ly, since I knew how hot-tem­pered we all were and that there was no way we could endure months of being stuck in the same house with each oth­er for days on end. But need­less to say, the dai­ly devo­tions and prayers turned out to be cru­cial for our fam­i­ly, as it exposed our inner weak­ness­es, both in faith and in spir­it. One of the biggest con­flicts I’ve always had with my father is his way of dis­ci­plin­ing me, which tends to be through force and strict author­i­ty —  some­thing that I despised and often fought back against. But as a result of me open­ing up dai­ly to my fam­i­ly through our devo­tions, what should’ve been con­stant point­less argu­ments and con­flicts turned into God hum­bling all of us through the work of the Holy Spir­it. This in turn led to me and my dad to rec­og­nize our own faults in all areas and reach­ing out to God for help. And God answered our prayers, as prob­lems between my fam­i­ly and I that had exist­ed for years began to resolve through our com­bined efforts.

What should’ve been an unbear­able hell due to quar­an­tine taught all of us to take a step back and hum­ble our souls in the face of con­flict, and that is the work of God. Know­ing myself and my dad, we’re great sin­ners that should nev­er have been able to make such progress alone, much less dur­ing quar­an­tine with­out an out­side force. That force was God and the work of the Holy Spir­it, as He strength­ened all of us one mir­a­cle at a time. The Word of God in the Bible was glar­ing­ly bright and burned through my heart, help­ing me under­stand the true val­ue of His teach­ings. And for the first time, I’m expe­ri­enc­ing His grace for myself, more than ever before.

I wit­nessed the work of the Holy Spir­it through my fam­i­ly and the changes in my own heart, and that is some­thing that I can believe in, some­thing that is entire­ly thanks to God and not myself or those around me. I am but a sin­ner, an imper­fect image of God. I need God in my life and His plan for sal­va­tion is the only thing that I can hold on to in order to pull me out of this fall­en world. God will wipe our tears through grant­i­ng us eter­nal life in heav­en, where I can be with my fam­i­ly, and most impor­tant­ly, God Him­self for­ev­er. Jesus died for me, he died in my place, and all I have to do is to believe in him and ded­i­cate my life to him. That is the great­est truth I’ve ever heard in my entire life, more beau­ti­ful than any­thing I could ever dream of.

I’m more than hap­py to go be bap­tized. I am will­ing to die with Christ on the cross, to be rid of my old self and embrace my new life in Jesus Christ. I am will­ing to accept God’s amaz­ing grace for me and to fol­low him till my death. Bap­tism does not mean that I will not have strug­gles in my faith in the future but marks the new begin­ning for a new chap­ter in my life, where I devote my life to Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.

亲爱的朋友：若您愿意接受耶稣为救主，或者是愿意更多地认识耶稣，请您回应这个信息、或者是联系向您转发这个信息的人，我们会有同工帮助您。

如果您已经是基督徒，请您把这些信息，转发给您的亲人和朋友。

福音真义

1.至真、至善、至美的全能的上帝创造了宇宙万物；万物之中唯有人是神按照祂自己的形像创造的。

2.我们的始祖亚当、夏娃悖逆神，犯罪堕落了；罪因一人进入世界，世人都犯了罪；罪的结局就是死。人类开始过着悲惨的生活；并且人人都有一死，死后且有审判。

3.神爱我们，把祂的独生子耶稣赐给我们。耶稣基督道成肉身来到世上，祂担当我们的罪，代替我们死在十字架上，完成了救赎的工作；死后被埋葬，第三天，神使祂从死里复活；祂回到天上，还要再来，施行审判。

4.耶稣基督是人类唯一的救主。我们认罪悔改，归信耶稣，接受祂作我们的救主和生命的主，便能与神和好，脱离罪和死，得享永生。

亲爱的朋友，今天，神的恩典借着这篇微信临到了你。神在寻找你，祂在敲叩你的心扉，祂白白地赐给你恩典。你失去的，只是罪和死的枷锁；得到的，却是一个充满平安喜乐的新生命！如果你承认自己是一个罪人，愿意信耶稣、接受祂的救恩，请你以心灵和诚实作这样的祷告：

亲爱的天父，现在我知道你是独一真神，耶稣基督是人类唯一的救主。我承认自己是一个罪人，我愿意悔改归信耶稣。求你赦免我的罪，接纳我这个罪人作你的儿女。我今天把自己的生命献给你，求你引导我前面的道路，使我从今以后一生为你而活！奉主耶稣基督的圣名祷告，阿们！

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