Michael Mace
My name is Michael Mace, I was born in Paris, France. Michel is my French name. I never received a Christian education or heard about Jesus Christ at home or at school. My teachers were all communist or socialist… I didn't believe in God… In fact I very much knew that God did not exist! I was not that stupid as to be going to believe in a God!
What I was seeing of religion made me completely disgusted of it: It was more superstition, idolatry and hypocrisy than anything else.
My parents had a restaurant, loved food, alcohol and gambling…
I have had a scientific education. Of course I believed in "evolution not in superstition", and I was active defender of this theory against illiterate and superstitious Christians preaching creationism…
At the age of 20 I was pacifist anarchist. I was revolting against the society, revolting against the government, the family, the school, the army, the exploitation of workers in factories… Against everything…
Therefore I decided to drop out of college, to leave my family and to go on the road, hitchhiking with a backpack. Destination? Middle East…
I stopped in the mountains of South France, and I lived there taking care of autistic children. People were calling us hippies. I was looking for truth and by reading health books I became a vegan. I loved to read, and I read a lot about Natural Remedies, Nutrition, Veganism.
One day, when I was 26, I considered my past life, my readings and I said to myself, "Michel, you are against Christianity but you actually don't know what Christianity is, since you never read the Bible! You have to read the Bible to know what you are against, if you pretend to have a scientific way of thinking!". So I decided that when I will have the opportunity, I will read the Bible…
I also decided that I would go in Italy in September of that year to join a group called "The Red Brigades", the terrorist gang who had killed Aldo Moro.
Two weeks later, I had to go to live with a friend whom I knew was a drug addict, in the mountain. After 3 days of being with him he asked me what I thought about Christ and God. I said that I didn't believe in God, that I knew that there was no God, and that even if there was one I didn't need Him since I believed that everything could be (sooner or later) explained by science…
I went to bed and on a bookshelf I saw a Bible. I remembered my decision to read it, and I began reading. After one hour of reading I clearly heard a voice saying aloud, "This book is the truth, all the truth, only the truth. It's not what men say, what the churches say, but it is this book that is the truth." As I said previously, I was looking for truth. I accepted the conviction given by the voice, decided to put all my past behind me and to take the Bible for the guide in my life.
The next morning I went to the brook where we used to spend our days in swimming, “tanning” and reading. But that morning I went with the Bible in my hand. My friend had a hard time believing his eyes when he saw me reading it all day long! And I read it from cover to cover in one month!
After 2 weeks of reading the Bible, my friend invited me to church.
I went, but when I arrived there I physically couldn't enter! There was like an invisible barrier at the entrance. Only when my friend saw me from inside and made a sign to tell me to enter was I able to do so.
During the service, when people were singing hymns I had goose bumps, and during the sermon two voices were fighting in my mind. One was saying, "What are you doing here, Michel? This is not your world. You are an anarchist, a hippie. Get out of this place!". And the other voice was saying, "Stay, Michel, stay!". I stayed!
My friend presented me to the pastor who was his uncle.
The pastor invited us for lunch. Then after sundown he invited me to help him and his family move to the countryside the next day. We did so.
There he offered me to stay with them working in the garden on the farm they had just bought and to study the Bible. That's exactly what I wanted!
I said to them, "There is a book called "New Testament" in the Bible, I don't know what it is, I'll go home to read it and when I am done I will come back to be with you. Two weeks later I was back.
I remember especially when, one month later, a young man came to the farm, we became friends and he explained to me “justification by faith”. It was a rainy evening. I went outside in the fields. In my mind I saw like Satan showing me my sins of the past. Then I saw Christ taking them upon Himself on the cross. Then again Satan showed me other sins, and Christ was taking them on the cross. It was like this many times. I was crying for joy, laughing, dancing under the rain, and running in the fields. It was a wonderful experience. That's really at that time that I became a Christian.
I studied the Bible and I was baptized in a river, even though my parents wanted to stop me to do it.
As you see I am a Christian today because I followed what the voice told me: "This book is the truth, all the truth, only the truth. It's not what men say, what the churches say, but it is this book that is the truth."
This is to say that my religion is not of a church but of a book - The Bible - and of the true God - Jesus Christ.
....
I am amazed at what God did in my life. Praise be to God.
Talk to me:
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2009-01-13 13:06:58 Hah, yeah, almost all the code I have ever written was basically copied from someone else. If you want to put something on a page, my best advice is check what the code is on another page that already has it. —JoePomidor
2009-01-13 23:58:10 Not all human beings exist. For example, many are fictional. —IDoNotExist
2009-01-14 14:19:46 Cool story. —NickSchmalenberger
2009-01-21 19:22:53 Do you know what the differences between the Preachers with Signs and edits like ![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
this and this are? —JasonAller
2009-01-21 20:11:55 It looks like you are on the fast track to getting cross-threaded with the wiki. I'd like to suggest that your goals can be more effectively reached by demonstrating a lifestyle that others would feel called to emulate rather than instructing others on how to live their lives. Take some time to read the Wiki Community pages. You can help to make the wiki a better place, and I hope that you do, but how you go about that will determine how much joy you and others get out of the process. —JasonAller
2009-01-21 20:17:30 Howdy again, I am going to delete the thing about coffee again because it really doesn't have much to do with the page. The page is about what people think Davis is missing, and as such it is not really a place for personal views about the inherent dangers of some substances. If you really feel that you must be heard about it, it would be better to leave a comment on the coffee page. Also, you can often see why people have made certain edits by going to the Recent Changes page or by looking at the info tab at the top of any given page. —JoePomidor
2009-01-21 20:29:15 You asked me to be a little clearer, so I'll try. The wiki generally sides with keeping comments, the exceptions to this include being off topic for the page (as some of yours have been), being truly offensive, invading someones privacy, or being spam.
I think the What Alcohol Does To One's Health got trimmed a little to much in recent edits, that might have been a more effective place to add your comments.
2009-01-21 20:33:32 Finding, or creating a place on the wiki where your comments and edits are on topic will insure that they will not be deleted. Take some time to read the Welcome to the Wiki pages. The same people who are removing your comments now will be happy to help you with improving the wiki. —JasonAller
2009-01-21 20:38:56 Actually your comment was off topic for that page because you were still arguing about what should be linked from the Front Page. —JasonAller
2009-01-21 20:50:53 You've lived in a variety of different place and each had their own customs. I'm supposing that you learned to adapt and even learned new languages along the way. This too is a different place and has customs and a language. I welcome you to learn the customs and the language and if possible I'm willing to help with that process. —JasonAller
2009-01-21 21:26:32 Hey, I started cleaning up the Seventh Day Adventists page you were working on. I'd be good if you could expand it more and fill in the information about Friday night Bible study. Also, I'm confused about the role of the pastor vs. Bible worker... I may have mischaracterized what's going on there. Also, remember that the wiki page for your group is something that belongs to everyone. Talking in terms of "us" and "we" works against that... save that stuff for your website when you get it up!
Don't take the removal of your comments personally.... people on here are just protective of their wiki (myself included) and like to keep things on topic. Your voice is welcome here... just keep your comments relevant to the page in question and respect the voices of others.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave me a comment. —WilliamLewis
2009-01-23 18:39:39 Not to be mean or anything, but you're mistaken about the Sabbath. Sabbath observance was instituted as part of the Mosaic covenant (Exodus 31:12-17). There are no Biblical or historical records of ritualized Sabbath observance before Moses. In regards to Sabbath observance by early Christians, you are also mistaken. Obviously, Jewish Christians who retained their practice of Judaism retained the Saturday Sabbath, as did the Judaizers who insisted that gentile followers of Christ observe the whole of the Mosaic law. However, observing Sunday as a day of worship dates back to the very beginning of Christianity. Clement, Polycarp, and many of the other early church fathers reference Sunday worship as early as the first century. Paul may have even referenced it in I Corinthians 16:2, among other places. —WilliamLewis
2009-01-24 23:15:44 Genesis 26:5 doesn't mention the Sabbath. The laws referred to here are God's instruction to man up until that point, up to and including the second Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 17.
In Exodus 16:22-30, Moses has to explain what the Sabbath is to the Israelites. Obviously, they had no idea what it was. If anything, this was Moses instituting the Sabbath prior to the formal Mosaic covenant. This actually indicates that the Sabbath was unfamiliar to the Israelites prior to Moses.
Exodus 5, again, doesn't mention the Sabbath. You take the verse massively out of context. If you read the entire passage in context, you see that Moses is asking the Pharoah for permission to take the people out into the desert for three days to feast and rest.... it isn't anything about the Sabbath. Even if it were, this reference, again, dates back to the time of Moses, not before.
As for Genesis 2, Sabbath observance is not instituted there. It is definitely foreshadowing of a tradition that was yet to come.
As for the writings of the early church fathers, I understand that you do not ascribe inspiration to them outside of that which is traditionally included in the Biblical canon. I, too, hold the same thing. However, I was not arguing a theological point, thus inspiration is irrelevant. I was merely observing that observance of the Sabbath on Sunday dates back to at least the late first century, regardless of the theological issues that surround the practice. That is a historical observation, not a theological one.
2009-01-24 23:53:54 I don't wish to argue the theological merits of the Saturday Sabbath or the Sunday Sabbath, at least on the wiki. For one, you are an Adventist. It is a defining doctrine for you and one that few, if any, people in the world could get you to depart from. Secondly, I actually agree that the Sunday Sabbath is a silly invention by the early church... I'm not going to argue that we should worship on Sunday (although I might argue that it's irrelevant for Gentiles, but again, I'm not going to argue this on the wiki).
I do, however, object to two statements of fact that you made that are incongruent with the Bible and other historical documents.
First, you state that Christians observed the Sabbath on the Saturday up until the 4th century. Ample historical evidence, for better or worse, shows that at least some Christians used the Sunday observance as early as the late first century. There are also references to Sabbatarians after the 4th century and before the modern revival of the Saturday Sabbath in Christianity. This is factual information, not an opinion.
Secondly, you assert that Sabbath observance dates back to the times of Adam. The Bible as read plainly does not contain any references to Sabbath observance that predate Moses. You are free to infer all you wish... and some inferences may support your position here, but I hope you can acknowledge that such inferences depend on an article of faith that is peculiar to your church (i.e. that Sabbath observance is a fundamental law of God that has been prescribed for all times and peoples) and is not reliant on the scriptures alone. —WilliamLewis
2009-01-26 23:01:18 Big Lols to the 2009-01-21 19:22:53 post! I'd like to see you debate the Mormons in Davis. I'd pay to see that. —ThanhVu
