From Sin to Redemption — Levi Miller

Levi Miller, of Coshocton, Ohio (Atlee Miller’s brother), shares a candid testimony focused on sin and redemption. Raised in a traditional old order Amish setting, he was exposed to sexual sin around age 10 and to pornography at 17; a back-breaking accident, deep bitterness toward his father, and a growing bondage to sin left him a fearful church member who was "not converted." Marriage at nearly 21 did not fix things—the couple nearly drifted apart, and a church conflict that pitted both sets of parents against each other pressed them to take sides. Their refusal to do so, though costly, began to draw them back together. Blaming the church’s elders for his own defeat, Levi began reading Scripture, Anabaptist history, and the early church fathers, growing hungry for truth—yet still trapped and now disciplined as a troublemaker. The 2016 election, which he followed anxiously, crystallized for him the clash of two kingdoms; reading David Bercot’s "The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down" and then months of pouring out confession and releasing old pain brought a genuine conversion (John 3). His marriage and family transformed, his wife was likewise converted, and the family eventually left the Amish (without excommunication). A season of busyness and lukewarmness (Revelation 3) let small sins creep back—vividly pictured in his paint illustration (Isaiah 1:18)—until a second broken back woke him up. He closes by urging that we stop trying to conquer sin in our own strength or hide it behind a facade, and instead focus on loving God and seeking his kingdom, from which the power to overcome flows.

Key Points:

– Being a baptized church member is not the same as being converted; Levi was a fearful, sin-bound "total sinner" until a genuine new birth (John 3) changed everything.

– Refusing to take sides in a bitter church conflict—though it cost the couple their friends—was the beginning of healing in his marriage, and the whole recovery was a journey of confessing sin and releasing bitterness (especially toward his father).

– The 2016 election exposed the real battle as a clash between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God; David Bercot’s "The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down" was a major turning point.

– Conversion brought power to overcome sin and dramatic change in his marriage and family; his wife was also converted, and they later left the Amish without being excommunicated.

– Post-move busyness bred lukewarmness (Revelation 3) and small "creeping" sins—illustrated by drops of red pigment quietly tinting white paint (Isaiah 1:18); only Christ’s blood truly cleanses, and repentance restores it (1 John 2; James 4:17).

– The way out is not self-effort or a good facade but focusing on loving God and seeking his kingdom; stop fighting one another, take up the sword against the real enemy, and let older men disciple the young to fight sin.

Scripture References: Isaiah 1:18; John 3; Revelation 3:15-16; 1 John 2:1-2; James 4:17; Galatians 5:19-21; John 8:34, 36; 1 John 1:6-7

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. All right, it’s good to have everybody on here this morning. And welcome to each and every one that’s listening this morning. And as this talk goes out later on, welcome. This morning we’re pleased to have Brother Levi Miller on, from Coshocton, Ohio. He’s our most recent admin team member. There’s four of us: myself, Brother Elam Peachey, and Atlee Miller and Levi Miller. Atlee and Levi are brothers, and we’re pleased to have both of them on here. If you have any questions about Hope for Wondering Amish, just jump on hopeforwonderingamish.com, and there’s information on there. You can join our email group. We welcome your participation.

So this morning, we have, like I said, Brother Levi Miller from Coshocton, Ohio. He lives there with his wife, Anna, and seven children. He enjoys working on their hobby farm, growing his own fruits and vegetables. Levi’s a people person. In fact, he says strangers are friends you just haven’t met yet. Levi works for Christian Aid Ministries and really enjoys that. His first interest and desire is to promote the kingdom of God, and influencing others to do the same. So may that be what this is about this morning—to influence each other, or encourage one another, all of us to love the Lord Jesus and build his kingdom, be faithful to him. Levi’s going to share his life story to some extent. I don’t know what all he’ll be sharing, but that’s always interesting and encouraging and edifying, to just hear people’s stories of how they came to the Lord, and what the Lord did in their lives. And so, yeah, this morning I’m excited to hear another new story—new to me, at least. I haven’t heard it before.

So, Brother Levi, let’s have a prayer first, and then the time will be yours. Lord God, our gracious Father, thank you for this opportunity to hear another testimony this morning, another story of how you’ve worked in a brother’s life. I pray for Levi, that you would give him the words to say. May he not forget things that should be said, and may he not take the time to say things that you wouldn’t have him to. Just bless him. Bless the talk. Bless all those that are on here this morning, and encourage our hearts to love you more. In Jesus’ name, amen. I want to say that at the end we’ll have an open time, where we welcome your questions, feedback—have something ready. We enjoy hearing from our audience. Brother Levi, the time is yours.

Okay. Hello, everyone. It’s really good to be here, and I’m excited to be sharing my story—but it won’t be my full story, my full testimony. I’m going to focus on sin in my life, and then how I was redeemed through the blood of Christ. I’m going to focus on actual practical application. I’ve noticed that we’re struggling in sin, and that most of us, we just want to know how to get released. And I would like to share some of those thoughts and inspirations, and maybe some of my actual experience from that. So this is a story of pain, and a story of sin, and then the redemption of Christ.

Just going to jump right in there. I grew up in a traditional old order Amish setting. I wouldn’t say it would have been one of the more dark settings. We had some light. But still, I was exposed to sexual sin somewhere around the age of 10—not quite sure of the exact age, but somewhere in that time frame. And as those things usually do, it progressed, it became worse. And then at the age of 17, I was exposed to pornography for the first time. I’m not going to be speaking on that specific subject, but that definitely became part of it.

During this, I had an accident. I broke my back, and I went through some very, very difficult times. I had a lot of spiritual pain as well. And during that time, I came to hate my dad. We did not have a very good relationship. I became very bitter. And sin was becoming a monster in my life. With my physical situation, I couldn’t face life, and sin was my escape. Sometimes I would wake up during the night, way into the night, and just grapple with this whole monster that was just overwhelming me. I didn’t know—I thought I was going to hell. By that time, I was a member in the church. Obviously, I thought that is what it took to be saved and to be able to make it into heaven. But at the same time, I knew that I had sin in my life, and it was bad. And I was scared, because I wasn’t sure of what was happening. And I was very, very fearful. I was afraid to die.

And I thought that that would give me strength, but it never did. I was, as I said, a member of the church, but I was not converted. Nothing changed. I was just a total sinner at that point. And it seems like everything I did was just wrong. I started dating, trying to find fulfillment in life. And then at the age of almost 21, we got married, and I was still living in sin, and was discouraged by the sin that was in my life. The relationship between me and my dad had improved by that time, and it did continue to improve, but I was still living in sin. I was assuming that once we got married, everything would be okay, everything would become better. I was trying to control my sin, in my own strength.

As you can imagine, after getting married and still not redeemed, things only got worse. We had marriage problems probably within a year, and they started progressing and becoming worse and worse. And I’m not sure exactly when in that time frame, but eventually I began contemplating whether it really was that wrong to leave my wife. We weren’t fighting, like in abusive, open fighting, but we just did not understand each other. We were not able to communicate, and there was just this coldness. We just drifted apart. We couldn’t understand, we couldn’t function.

And also during that time, the church we were attending started having major conflict. And the bad part of the conflict was not that there was a conflict in church, but that both of our parents were on opposite sides of that conflict. And they put a large amount of pressure upon us to join their side, because both of them saw that the other side was completely wrong and they were all headed to hell, and we had to be on their side, or we would also be caught up right in it, and we would have the same destination. And it was a very difficult time for both of us. We were faced with having to make a decision, and the easy route would have been—you know, for me it would have been to join my parents, and for my wife to join her parents. But I think that was the very beginning of us coming back together. We started talking about these things.

And I looked at the whole situation, and I said, well, they’re both wrong. They’re both fighting. They’re both hurting each other. They’re not being redemptive. So I couldn’t take a side. And we eventually told both of our parents that we were not taking a side, we were just going to stay neutral—which was also a very difficult position, because we were basically the only people that did that in that church, and we basically lost all our friends. It really felt that way, because nobody trusted us after that, because they didn’t know where we stood. So after a while, most of the one side did move away. We were heartbroken. Some of our very close friends moved away, and that kind of closed a chapter. We felt very alone. We were still struggling with our marriage, and I was still in bondage to sin.

Several years later, it reawakened, I would say. Not everybody had moved away. Both of my parents were still living there. They were very against each other, and the whole strife recreated itself. And I was so discouraged. I was like, is this all that life is about? There was just always fighting in the church. I was always struggling with sin. We were still struggling in our marriage—it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been, but it definitely wasn’t good. And then this sin problem would just rear its head again, and I was just frustrated. And I would get to the point where I would be like, I’ve got to get my life together, this can’t continue this way. And I would try so hard. I would be victorious. But then down the drain I would go again.

So because of the strife, at some point in time there, I started looking at the whole situation, and I said, you know what, I think it’s the elders in the church that are the problem. Obviously, I still didn’t think I was the problem, but I decided it was the church leaders. They were not feeding the flock, and that’s why I couldn’t overcome my own problems. Sometimes when I committed sin, I would justify it with, well, you know, the bishop, he is just as bad as me, and probably even worse, because he is destroying the flock and he’s not nurturing the flock. So, yeah, I was justifying my own carnal nature by their lives. But through that, because I started focusing upon them, I was trying to figure out, well, what are they doing wrong, and what should they be doing differently? And I started reading Scripture to try to find how a church should be functioning. Obviously, that was not a very good reason to be reading the Bible, but it was at least a starting point.

I was also a very avid reader. I just read a lot of books. But then I began reading Anabaptist history, and I also began reading the early church fathers. And the more I read, the more hungry I became. I couldn’t get enough. And slowly, some things started coming together. Obviously, there were many answers on how a church should function that I found. And I did start speaking out against some of those wrongs that were happening in the church. But I really shouldn’t have been doing that, because obviously I was still a sinner just like everyone else. I started becoming convicted. These books were convicting my heart. I began sharing the gospel with others. And I was able to get a fairly good grasp of what faith looks like—what it means, and what it looks like in our lives. And I thought, well, I just need to accomplish that. I need to get my life together and follow that, and then everything is good.

I thought everybody else would like to know what I had to tell them. I thought that this was very exciting, so obviously everyone should be interested in this good news that I had discovered. But I fairly quickly found out that that was not the case. I was in trouble very quickly. In the beginning, it wasn’t really on the surface—it was behind the scenes. Eventually, I was actually disciplined multiple times, generally not for what I was really doing wrong, but they would find some very small detail that they would discipline me about. And I was angry at the church. I thought they were just being mean to me, that they didn’t love me.

And then in 2016, that summer and fall, obviously the presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was looming. And you may think that this is not relevant to the subject of sin. It was. We lived in a coal region, and the economy—at least that’s what everybody said—the economy depended on a Republican in office, because the Democratic Party was always trying to shut down the coal mines. And that specific election was even more so. It had to be the right person, because the green energy thing was coming out, the clean energy and everything. And so that was the election that we had to win. And I was very, very fearful, because it seemed like there was a very good chance that we wouldn’t win, and probably the economy would collapse in our area. So I followed that election very closely. I didn’t actually vote, but I knew everything that was happening. I was almost daily—probably not daily, but I was keeping up with everything as it went along, through my friends that were planning to vote.

And the reason I say that this has something to do with the sin: I was actually not as trapped in sin anymore. I had my life together, in a way, because of everything that I was learning. But at the same time, it was like I was focused upon something else. The conflict still was between the two kingdoms. And it became very real in my life, because I realized I couldn’t be loyal to the kingdom of God and to the kingdom of the world. And that was where the conflict was. That’s where the battle was. It was between those two. And it was very real to me in that election. The morning after the election, I had a guy doing some excavating work at my place, and he showed up very early, and he got out of his truck. And the very first thing he said was, we won. And I remember very distinctly the relief that just flooded me. It’s going to be good, or continue to be good. But that left a dramatic impact on my life.

Sometime during that time, I read a book, The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down, by David Bercot. And I finally understood the two kingdoms. I understood what the kingdom of the world is, and what the kingdom of God is. And that was a major turning point. That would have been in November, when the election was over. But sometime during that winter of 2016, and then 2017, early spring, I came to the breaking point. I had grappled with this for years. I think it was probably close to three years since I had started on my journey of searching and seeking. And I got to the breaking point.

And what happened was, suddenly, I just started pouring out. I started confessing my sins, and also releasing all of those painful happenings that I had experienced earlier in my life, and still a lot of anger and bitterness that had happened. And I should clarify—during all of that, and I still do, I was still struggling with my health, because of the accident I had, and then how everything transpired. It affected my health. I’ve always had severe back problems because of my accident. And so we faced a lot of challenges in that area. So I was still grappling with that, still blaming other people for what had happened, and I was not releasing them. So it was a journey of releasing other people and realizing my sins. It took many nights. It didn’t all happen just back to back. I would say that it probably happened over a several-months time, that I was confessing my sins and just releasing all of that pain. Obviously, my wife didn’t even realize what had happened in my life. She didn’t know what was going on inside. And she was shocked many times by the things I was saying. She didn’t know that I was involved in a lot of the different things that I let out.

And during that time, I would have been converted. Obviously, I didn’t know that that’s what that was. I had read the account in John 3, of Jesus telling Nicodemus that you have to be born again. It was something I hadn’t heard in church, but it didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know that we had to be converted. It was a dramatic change. I suddenly had control—or I shouldn’t say I had control, but I was able to overcome sin. Our family life changed dramatically. Our relationship in the marriage changed dramatically. Everything started becoming better after that. It was a very strong shift. And it felt to me that the election was directly tied in with that. That was kind of the last great battle that I fought.

And it’s not a very good allegory, but it’s almost like we could compare it to the Union Army and the Confederates. Let’s say I was fighting on the Confederate side, and I transferred my allegiance to the Union Army halfway through the war. I mean, I was loyal to something else, and then I transferred my allegiance over to a different kingdom. And up to that point, the church had a reason to discipline me, because I was a very angry and outspoken and divisive person. I was telling everyone else what the church was doing wrong, but wasn’t taking care of my own sin. But something changed. I’m not sure that anything changed in the church, or from their perspective, because I don’t know what their perspective was, but my perspective changed. Before that, I felt like they were just being mean, and I became angry, but now it changed. I actually was joyful in receiving maybe persecution. I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but it felt like persecution, and I was joyful in that.

And that actually made my wife angry. She could not understand—or was not okay with being persecuted. And she was angry at the church. She was angry at me. But she did like that my life had changed, and that everything was becoming better. But she used to say, you can live it, but please keep it to yourself. Because I was still speaking. At that point, also, something else changed: instead of tearing down the church, I started witnessing to people and telling them about the kingdom of God.

And just to clarify, my wife was converted. And I remember we were in church afterwards—I’m not sure exactly how long after, but we were in church, and the preacher was talking about turning the other cheek and explaining that in detail. And she suddenly turned to me, and she said, so that is how you felt back there in that church. And I said, yes, do you understand it now? And she was like, yes, I do. So that was a very good feeling, to know that we were actually understanding the exact same things. It seems like if we are still in our carnal nature, we cannot understand the kingdom of God. It is foolishness to us.

So after a time—that was in 2016, 2017, that winter—I was converted. Up to that point, the church had viewed me as a troublemaker. But after that point, I became dangerous to them. They were actually scared of me, because obviously my evangelizing, if you will, had changed to something different, and they didn’t know what it was. And the pressure became pretty severe. And there was a deadline of spring of 2020. Obviously, I don’t think the church—probably most people didn’t even know what was going on behind the scenes. We were asked to leave, and we left. And they did not excommunicate. And that was the stipulation: if you are gone by then, we’re not going to excommunicate you, but you’ve got to leave. They wanted us gone. And we left.

When we left—up to that point, we had a battle. We were trying to stand for truth to the best of our knowledge or ability. After that, we left, and it felt like the battle was over. We were in a church that had a lot of dialogue about spiritual things, and I thought that was really good. But the battle ended, and we were very busy in the time of moving. And through that time, I kind of lost my zeal. I was too busy to read a lot. And sins started creeping back into my life. Nothing major, just these small—you know, maybe some anger, maybe some critical spirit. And slowly that started undermining me. I became lukewarm. I wasn’t really excited about the Lord anymore.

In Revelation 3, Jesus said to the church of the Laodiceans, "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth." So I think that’s where I was at at that point in time. I was lukewarm. I was just not really excited about the things of God. I had no strength and desire to serve the Lord, and I just became one of those benchwarmers.

Thankfully, the Lord didn’t leave me. I slipped and fell, and I broke my back again. And I didn’t even know I’d broken my back—I hurt my back a little bit, but it wasn’t very significant. I thought, well, it wasn’t a big deal, and I kept going. I finally went to the chiropractor and told him something is going on, I think we should do an x-ray. And he took an x-ray, and he told me I broke my back. And we realized that something was wrong. I was starting to not feel very good, and we realized something is wrong. So we started doing testing, and there was a long—I think there was probably a four-month period that we were trying to figure out what was wrong. And we eventually came to figure out what it was. My bone was so weak, and that was why I broke my back just slipping on the grass. And it didn’t even hardly hurt. That woke me up in a very dramatic way. I realized where I was. I realized that I was not in control of my life the way I thought I was, and I turned back to God.

And just to give us a little bit of a better understanding of what sin does in our life, I’m going to start an illustration—it’s kind of a unique way of illustrating sin, but I’m going to use paint as an illustration. Isaiah 1:18 says, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." So for this illustration, I would like to imagine everyone out there listening to this, that you are unsaved, and that you are a bucket of paint. I know that would kill us, but you’re a bucket of paint without a lid. You’re not full. And because we just established that sin is the color red—it’s crimson, it’s red paint—what we need to do is try to remove that red pigment from the paint, because we want white paint. And we have several options. We could dilute the paint with white paint and try to get the color to be white. But I’ve actually experienced mixing paint and putting in pigments. And something I discovered—if you make something too dark, you can start adding a lot of white paint into it, but you can’t remove the pigment that way. It will still have a tint.

The other option is—and I think this is what a lot of people do in modern American society—you could paint down the red paint, put down a coat, and then cover it with white. And it looks really good. It is not completely white, though—it has a red base coat underneath. When we were doing furniture back in the early 2000s—we still did some around then, I don’t think it’s done very much today—we would take and paint one color, and we would put another coat over the top that was a different color. And then we would sand down the corners, and we called it distressing it. Basically, it was supposed to look like it had been worn for a while, worn down to the second coat. And that is what happens when people take and try to cover their sin problem with a nice white coat. Eventually, that white coat starts wearing off, and then they’re having a lot of distress. The only true way of alleviating this sin problem is the supernatural cleansing power of Jesus Christ. His blood can cleanse us, and when he does it, we don’t understand how it works, but it will cleanse us completely.

And then in my life—to go back to that time of lukewarmness, and sin creeping back into my life—this we could compare to tiny drops of pigment falling back into our paint. That’s something else I learned: if you have white paint and stir it up, you can’t see it—it just disappears. But it’s still in there. So that’s generally what happens with our lives. These small sins start creeping back in, and we don’t really realize it, because you can’t really see it. Nothing changes. But they do compound, and eventually your paint is not white anymore. It actually might be a slight tint of pink, and you notice it.

1 John 2 says, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." So we see that we have an advocate. If we sin, we still have a way of being redeemed from that, and that is through repentance. We need to repent from the small sins, and always come back to have that cleansing. James 4:17 says, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." So if we just sit on our bucket and do nothing, and try to keep it covered, that—I’m not sure how it works, but that, in and of itself, is basically sin, is what he’s saying.

So, I look over the modern American church, and it’s a discouraging picture. So I’d like to just give us a small outline of a problem that I see, and then also bring us a solution. Because I think that many people out there that are struggling with sin, as I was, we want something to grab a hold of. We want to know what we can do. So I would like to make an attempt at giving you a handle of how to start and begin turning your life around. I see too many today, many Christians who have been saved, slowly falling back into sin, and then accepting it. And then the next step in that slide is to justify sin and claim grace to redeem them, even though they haven’t repented and turned from their new sins.

Galatians 5 says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." And I believe that Paul was writing to already converted Christians, so he’s talking about after being saved. We cannot continue in what we used to be doing. In John 8, Jesus told the Jews, verse 34, "Most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin." And also he gives us hope, verse 36, "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."

I had the experience of going out on the street to witness, and it was a good experience for me. There was a lot of open hatred. There was mockery, jeering. And then there were also, obviously, people that were open to the message, and they would actually speak with you, and you could hand them a tract, and they were interested. But there was one person that stood out to me. I said something to her about Jesus. And she made the statement that, I am gay. And I was just like, well, you still need to receive Jesus. You need to get to know Jesus. And she said—I don’t remember the specific words, but something along the line of, I can’t have Jesus, because I am gay. And I was shocked. Because I recognized that she was making a choice between Jesus and sin. She realized that she couldn’t have both. And I thought about that. And I wondered, is she being more honest than we Christians sometimes are? Or those of us who are professing Christ—do we convince ourselves that we can continue in sin, and he will accept us? And are we like the many people that I met that day, who told me that I was doing a good work, but that they were already saved? And you could see, by what they were pursuing, that their allegiance was to a different kingdom than the kingdom of God.

So in the church today, there are many people living in sin. People seem to be fighting each other. People are struggling and discouraged, and many are leaving the truth. But I would like to tell all of you listening: if you are struggling in that way, if you’re struggling with the condition of the churches, if you’re struggling with sin—we have a purpose. Jesus is alive, and he wants you to be alive too. You are warriors, and God’s purpose for you is to take up your sword and fight. And it is not to proclaim the faults of the church down the road that does things differently than you do, or in your own church. Let’s stop fighting each other. Let’s focus upon the true enemy. A house divided cannot stand. And also, we can’t accomplish this with sin in our lives, so obviously we have established that sin needs to be eradicated. And we need older men that show the youth how to fight against sin and the world. We need to give our young people a purpose, other than just entering church and enjoying a life of carnality and pleasure and still being considered okay.

I would like to leave you with a thought here at closing, and maybe give you a small grasp of where to begin. Obviously, every journey is different, so I can’t tell you, if you do this, then you will be able to eradicate sin from your life. But I think, looking back at my life, I didn’t even know what I was doing, but this is what I was doing. At one point, I was trying so hard to eliminate sin. I would realize that this is a problem, I would focus upon it, I would work on it, and I probably was able to overcome that specific small sin. But then something else cropped up, and this went on for years, and I realized, however hard I try, I keep getting these things—there’s always a multitude that just keeps coming. I was doing it with my own strength, and my focus was upon the sin. So you may say that you try so hard to overcome sin, and you just can’t be victorious—and that is correct, because I was in that same position.

But I would like to say that you are focusing upon the wrong thing. Are you trying to overcome sin because you love God with all your heart? Or is it because you want to go to heaven and you are afraid of hell? There is a great difference between that. And we sin because we are selfish. We sin because we want pleasure. We sin because we are thinking about ourselves. And it isn’t about us. It’s about God. We need to focus on the kingdom of God, getting to know Jesus, focusing on holiness with God.

We can create a very, very good facade with self-discipline. I was able to do that. I was actually considered a fairly good person. On the surface, before I started speaking against the church, everybody—I was one of the best youth. I know that for a fact. I was looked up to, even though I wasn’t the oldest. I was looked up to by the younger youth, and I had a very good cover. But inside, I was definitely not. So don’t try to get your life into control by trying to put this big facade on yourself. Because basically all you’re doing is, people will think that you’re good, but God knows better, and you know better as well. So focus upon God, and seek after the kingdom of God. And then he gives us that power to overcome. And I would just like to put out this last call to all of us: let us not be defeated Christians. Let us not be okay with sin in our lives, and with bickering among ourselves. Let’s unite, and turn the world upside down. Thanks for listening.

All right. Thank you, Levi. Really appreciated everything that you shared. The talk was very encouraging and very biblical. Getting our focus off of ourselves and onto the Lord Jesus, and being honest. First John 1 says that if we walk in the light—which means to be open and honest, and nothing’s hidden—if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from sin. Thinking about the person that you met in Columbus, that openly admitted that she was living in a way that wasn’t compatible with what Jesus had, and she was choosing between one or the other—and the one that says, oh, I’m good, I’m a Christian, but obviously living in sin, and believing that the two can go together. There’s a lot of people like that. And I hear that in your story too, when you just became open about where you were. And ultimately, it’s about looking to Jesus and receiving his cleansing, his power, his forgiveness, receiving a new heart, and then going on with him.

There’s a lot of different comments that could be made. I just want to say that I appreciated everything you shared. It validated as biblical and sound. Appreciate you being willing to share your story. And my prayer is that this talk would go out and minister to many more that will have the opportunity to listen to it. Like I said earlier, I do want to open it up. And if there’s anybody that has a comment, a word of encouragement for Levi or for the rest of us—I’ll open it up now, and your opportunity is now. Just go ahead and make sure you’re unmuted and speak up.

Yeah, Levi, I’m happy to hear your testimony a little bit. Obviously, I’m your brother, so I kind of remember a lot of things. I never knew what all was going on behind the scenes, because I remember knowing that that marriage doesn’t seem very good, but we didn’t really know what was going on. It was like you said, maybe a year or so after you were married. And I remember us at home just saying to one another—might have said, like, we don’t think that marriage is very good, or whatever. I’m not sure how it went on, and we didn’t really know what to do about it, or where it’s at. So, yeah, it was very interesting to listen to, because I knew where you were going in your story, and where I was at.

One thing that stood out to me, and I think it’s a very important thing in our life, is: is our focus on ourselves, or is it on God? You know, are we doing good for the kingdom of God, or are we trying to do good so that we’re recognized ourselves? And that’s something that was very important in my life, because I discovered that if I try to do it for myself, or if I’m trying to be important, the end result is always—I mean, that’s pride. And the end result is always bad, because, you know, something happens, and then you get knocked down, and then it hurts. It’s so much better, and the right way to do it, if you’re doing it for God. So I really liked that one. So, yeah, you did a very good job, Levi. And it was extra interesting to me, more than it would be to the rest, but that’s okay. God bless you.

All right. Thank you very much, Atlee. Appreciate those comments. Anyone else that would like to say anything?

Well, good morning, Levi. I was very blessed and very inspired by your message here this morning. So you went from living a secretive life, living in darkness, to coming to the light, confessing these things to your wife—probably doing something that you originally couldn’t dream you would ever do, but I’m sure you found a lot of peace and liberty and life with coming to the light and confessing these things. In 1 John 1:6, it says, if we say that we have fellowship with him, but walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practice the truth. So if we’re walking in that darkness, yeah, we’re living a lie. But then verse 7, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. And the beauty of having fellowship with one another—the beauty of you finding fellowship with your wife, finding unity and oneness with her.

And you also mentioned about the state of the church. I think that’s a very sad thing. Yeah, when I think of the church—if I think of across the landscape of our churches here in America, there’s a lot of luxury, ease, wealth, materialism. We have about everything we want, as far as earthly speaking. But the big question is, do we have that fellowship? Are we walking in the light? Yeah, I think, as far as finding that fellowship, is something I think we all want. But I think there’s a challenge with opening up with one another that we experience many times. Like, for an example, if there’s a brother that I maybe know something’s not right in his life, do I feel comfortable approaching him? Would I feel comfortable if he would open up to me and start confessing the big, bad, ugly sins that he would have in his life? I think that’s something we’re afraid of many times. But that’s the only way we’re really going to have fellowship—if we venture into conversations that are uncomfortable. But that’s where the life comes from. That’s where liberty comes from. As long as we’re not talking about it—talking about things is one big way of bringing things to light, where it doesn’t just remain in darkness and the bondage continues. So may we have wisdom in opening up with each other, talking to each other, confessing our sins, and finding that fellowship and finding that freedom. So may God help us all. God bless you, Brother Levi, for sharing.

All right. Thank you for those comments, Brother Elam. I appreciate those as well. That’s all very good. Lots of good things to think about here this morning. Is there anybody else that would like to come on and share anything? We’d love to hear from you.

Just want to say this yet, that, you know, in spite of all the problems in America, in spite of all the problems in the churches, in families—you know, we all can look around and easily be discouraged. But I do want to say this: we live in a time of great opportunity. We have so many opportunities, and there’s a lot of sincere believers left over, compared to the amount of people that are in darkness. Maybe it seems like very few, but there are many, many sincere believers.

Thank you, Brother Levi, for sharing. It was very, very much worth our time to be on here, and worth your time and laboring to get ready, and may God be pleased with you. Would you close us, Brother Levi, with a word of prayer? Heavenly Father, we thank you humbly this morning. We thank you for your Son, Jesus, for that redemptive blood that he shed for us. And Father, we thank you that you have provided a way that we can be cleansed, and that we can be released from this bondage of sin. And Father, we just pray that you would inspire all of the listeners to this. Give the increase, and may those who are seeking for truth be able to find you. And Father, we pray that those of us who are seeking after you, and are attempting to follow in your footsteps, that we would be strong. Give us strength to take up the armor and the sword, and that we would fight the good fight, and reach out to those who are lost and are seeking. Father, we just pray that you would glorify your name, that you would expand the kingdom, and that you would just continue blessing your church, that your church could be united, and that your church would be a powerful witness to the lost. We pray this all in Jesus’ name. Amen.