In yesterday’s blog, which was a brief review of our guest speaker, but primarily an account of my Legislation/Constitution Report to the ladies (and some men) at the Henderson County Republican Women’s Club—I mentioned briefly at the end of my report about the shocking (to some) news that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) had just been indicted by a Grand Jury on several serious counts. Cheers went up from the audience.
I told them how that news was very personal to me but there was no time to tell the story. However, I told the group that I would do so in my blogs. So I do believe that some of those friends will be visiting this website to read the story.
As later yesterday I reviewed what I had written when FBI Director Kash Patel announced late last year that the FBI had severed any and all ties with the SPLC, I realized I needed to back up even further to tell my story.
It was part of a lecture I gave in October 2009 and which I published in my monthly Feed My Sheep (FMS) teaching letter for October 2025. Here is that story which I entitled: A Personal Experience with the Holy Spirit.
In our study of the covenants, we are continuing our look at the New Covenant, and we see how the Holy Spirit is the sign and seal in us of the New Covenant. Let us begin in John 15:26.
Here we see that the Holy Spirit, as the Executor of Jesus’ last will and testament, that He was to enable the disciples of Christ to witness and testify of what Jesus had done.
John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
This reminds me of a little anecdote—a very personal story—that I have shared with some friends individually but I don’t think I have ever told the story to our CD Ministry audience, or before the advent of CDs, to our Cassette Tape Ministry, and I guess I am telling it to the world now because this may eventually—years down the road—go on my website. [Sure enough, here it is.]
I shall begin with a confession. I have trouble memorizing Scriptures. Do any of you share that particular problem? Maybe God gave it to me as a burden. I call it a burden because sometimes it has been embarrassing. At least it was.
I have tried numerous times over the decades to memorize various Scripture passages. I have even made a packet of little 3 x 5 index cards with a verse on it, and I would work on a verse numerous times on a given day. I would try all kinds of ways to memorize Scriptures. Always without lasting success. That’s background to my story.
Now remember how I was telling you previously how various so-called “watchdog groups” still attack me from time to time? They get their news releases published in the newspapers and so forth. I have learned to just praise the Lord for those scurrilous slanders and libelous attacks.
Even as recently as just a few months ago (from October 2009), I was again contacted by the Asheville newspaper and TV station, and the Greenville, SC newspaper, all of them wanting me to comment on the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) had named Stone Kingdom Ministries as a prominent “hate group.” I did not return their phone calls.
But the story I want to share with you happened even earlier than that, back in 1996. My family and I had been regular attendees at a fairly large Presbyterian church in Asheville. The pastor was a good man and Roxanne and I had a private visit with him once we decided we wanted to become “regulars” at his church.
I told him we wanted to have fellowship with other Christians, but that in good conscience we could not become members of that church because we would have to sign a statement that we agreed with their denominational statement of faith.
I explained that a few of those Presbyterian doctrines we simply did not believe. And that was fine with Pastor Bill. We were most welcome, he said, to attend and participate as much or as little as we wished.
So we attended every Sunday when I was not traveling in my own ministry. And even when I was out of town, Roxanne and the girls attended. The girls were in the teen youth groups and really enjoying their fellowships.
We also attended Sunday School faithfully, and I attended several small men’s groups for weekly Bible study for a number of weeks at a time. For three years we had been doing that. I personally enjoyed just being part of the classes, and thus I did not volunteer what my profession was.
Then one Sunday, Tom, the teacher of our adult-couples Sunday School class, said to me privately that he discerned that I would make a pretty good teacher and would I be interested in teaching Sunday School the following fall semester. It was spring at the time.
I asked what the course would entail and he said it wouldn’t be too hard to teach, and that the course title would be “Basic Presbyterian Doctrine.” So I said, sure, I suppose I could do that.
(Inside, I was chuckling as I imagined that would be an interesting class with me having the opportunity to bring forth some Scriptures to induce some critical thinking in the minds of the class participants.)
Then he said, “Now I understand you are not officially a member of the church, and so your being a Sunday School teacher would have to be approved by the men that sit on the Board of Elders.”
Tom instructed me to just to show up at their next meeting a week from Monday night and it would be on the agenda. But, don’t worry about it, he assured me, because it would be just a formality and I would be rubber-stamped and ready to go.
Well, on the next Sunday, the Asheville Citizen-Times (owned by the USA Today/Gannett chain) newspaper ran a top-of-the-front-page story with a banner headline that read “Hate Groups in Western North Carolina.”
As you no doubt guessed, Stone Kingdom Ministries and I were featured prominently throughout the story which continued for a half-page on the inside. Lies, lies, and more lies.
Well, the next evening I showed up at the Board of Elders meeting and there they sat—24 of them around tables set up in a big square. And there was a chair for me at one corner. Literally on the corner with hardly any legroom and no table space for me to even put down a glass of water. You will see why next.
Dr. Bill, the pastor, gave me a warm smile as he motioned for me to sit down, but almost all of the rest of the “4 and 20 elders” were wearing very visible frowns. I sensed this was going to be interesting, to say the least, because there on the table in front of my chair at the corner was the Sunday newspaper.
Three hours later I left the meeting very saddened by the fact that apparently 23 of these church “brethren” preferred to believe the newspaper story rather than believe me whom they had known for three years.
The newspaper story had been spurred by the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center had sent news releases all across the country in conjunction with the release to the media of another TIME magazine-length publication of theirs, a report on so-called Hate Groups in America.
During my mini-Inquisition, the only man who was fair to me in the three-hour grilling was Dr. Bill. By the way, Bill had told me some time long prior to that, that he was of part Cherokee Indian ancestry. Three years earlier when I had first met with Pastor Bill and had asked him if our family could attend regularly without being members, I had been right up front with him.
I told him what I did for a living and shared with him that I believed and taught that we are the literal descendants of the 12 tribes of ancient Israel. More than that, I told Bill that I also believed that God was ultimately going to save everybody.
As I said, I left the meeting saddened on the one hand because of the palpable and verbally vicious animosity. I don’t think the reception could have been more harsh had I been Charles Manson!
But I also left with a feeling of great joy in my heart. Why? Because I knew that I knew that I knew that it was not me answering those men during those three hours of very hostile, javelin-throwing questions and demands, but it was the Holy Spirit. Jesus had told His followers in …
Matthew 10:19 But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
20 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
I fully recognize that the context of that passage is speaking of some very serious persecution, and my experience did not even come close to life and death persecution, but nevertheless, it certainly happened in exactly that manner for me.
You see, when they were hurling their darts and demanding answers, for example, about why I hated other races so much (per the SPLC) … Well, of course, that’s like asking if you have quit beating your wife yet.
But the Holy Spirit just took over, so that I was able to remain calm and smile at them, and I heard words coming out of my mouth that were along the lines of, “Well, brothers, as you know, it says in Deuteronomy that that we are not to abhor the stranger and such and such, …” whatever it was. You see? I couldn’t even quote to you today what came out of my mouth.
But that’s the way it went for the whole three hours. They had made it clear immediately, of course, that there was no way they were going to let me teach Sunday School or hold any other position at their church.
And then they went on for the rest of the three hours trying to find me guilty of what the newspaper article had charged me with. Which, to repeat, was all based on information supplied to them by the bogus “watchdog group,” the Southern Poverty Law Center.
With every question, and to every accusation hurled at me, I was consciously astonished at what was coming out of the mouth of James Bruggeman. I almost felt like I was out of my body watching me! Because I knew that I was not able to memorize Scriptures as well as some first-graders could. And yet, here was the perfect answer coming out of my mouth every time, and I soon realized this is what Jesus meant:
That He; i.e., His Holy Spirit would bring all things to remembrance and, we should take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak…
Now I know that I do not have to worry about memorizing Scriptures and I do not need to feel embarrassed if some little first-grader can quote Scriptures better than I can.
Because I am confident, that if and when such a need ever arises again, that it will be given to me in that hour. And if not, then there will be a very good reason why I might stutter and stammer. Either way, I will praise the Lord!
In the next installment (probably Monday), I will share what happened as a result of that Inquisition by the elders of that church.
(To be continued)
~END~
