Out Like a Light

Jim Sullivan uses the image of light to reflect on witness, faithfulness, and the danger of letting spiritual clarity fade in a darkening world.

By Jim Sullivan

Read Time: 5 minutes

I couldn’t sleep. This condition was nothing unusual, of course. I had always had trouble sleeping. I was taught at an early age by my mother, whom I love, that you could worry your troubles away. “If you consider them intensely enough, they’ll never happen to you.” And to be truthful, it worked pretty well. I had never been hit by a bus, mauled by wolves, swarmed by bees, or fallen off a cliff, so I had a pretty good track record. The problem was that I tended to worry about these things at the end of the day, which led to the ongoing insomnia. One late night, as I sat wide awake, rummaging through TV channels looking for something to watch besides The Three Stooges and QVC, I noticed, for the first time, a VHS tape in our collection that I had never seen before. It had a list of strange numbers along its spine (which I later discovered were program listings) and an even stranger title: Christadelphian Apology.

Now, I knew a few Christadelphians because my wife was Christadelphian. Still, at the time, I was a recovering ex-Catholic and had no interest in any religion, Christadelphian or otherwise. I would describe the few Christadelphians I had met as quite pleasant and very sincere in their beliefs, whatever those were, but as for my interest, “no thank you.” I was, however, instantly curious as to what they might be apologizing for, so I put in the VHS and began watching.

The setting was minimalist at best. There was a bearded, middle-aged man in nondescript clothes sitting at an empty desk with nothing but a book in front of him and a map of the Mediterranean behind him. He introduced himself as Tom Hawksworth, a Christadelphian. He then proceeded to explain that, though he had titled his talks Christadelphian Apology, he wouldn’t be apologizing in the sense everyone understood, but would use the word in its original Old English sense, which meant to offer an explanation, not a confession. I didn’t appreciate the deception, but I listened on. Speaking with almost no inflection to speak of, Tom started expounding on what he called the “First Principles” of Scripture, and in almost no time at all, a miracle happened. I fell fast asleep! It was like a gift from above. After that, any night that I had trouble sleeping, I’d plug in old Tom, curl up on the couch, and in minutes be out like a light. The key to my sleep was that I had to listen to what Tom was saying. As long as I listened to him, my mind would forget about the wolves and the bees, and I could relax.

But as I listened, and before sleep would overtake me, I couldn’t help noticing that what he was saying was dramatically different from what I had always understood about God and faith. He was saying that faith was, in fact, not a mystery but could be understood, and that anyone could understand it if they just opened the Bible and looked for themselves. In fact, the most powerful thing he expressed, over and over, was “Don’t take my word for it, look it up”!

Well, looking up Bible passages isn’t conducive to falling asleep, so I resisted for a long time. Finally, I heard Tom mention something that I was sure was wrong. He said that Lucifer was not a fallen angel but an ancient king of Babylon. That couldn’t be right. After all, I had once seen the picture of one angel walking happily up the side of a mountain to heaven, while another was sinking. If he were right, then that meant my understanding of the devil and sin and everything else was wrong. So, I looked it up, Isaiah 14:12 “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” “See,” I thought, “there it is, an angel fallen from heaven,” until I looked at verse 4, which showed clearly that this was a proverb against “the king of Babylon.”

It’s hard for me to describe what it feels like to have your entire belief structure upended. But I’ll tell you this: it doesn’t help your insomnia! From that point on, I started looking everything up. How could it be that faith comes by hearing the Word of God? Faith was an inexplicable mystery given solely to those ultra-pious Catholics who went to Mass seven days a week; but there it was written clear as day in the letter to the Romans.

How could my natural inclination be to sin? I was a good person who just occasionally did bad things, though, admittedly, my “occasionally” tended to be more occasional than most. Still, there it was, quoted from Jesus himself: “Verily, verily I say unto you, whoever committeth sin is a servant of sin.” (John 8:34).

And it simply can’t be true that we don’t go to heaven when we die! I’ve had a grandmother in heaven watching over my every move for years! “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5).

I would also add how Jesus could be a man and not God, but truthfully, I never believed that one anyway.

At first, it was very discouraging, but after a while, I started to realize, with Tom’s help, that for all the scary truths, there were many, many wonderful truths about God, about His son, about redemption, and about God’s plan and purpose. Thanks to Tom, the Word of God came alive in my mind and in my heart. I still wasn’t sleeping, but I was changing.

That summer, I attended the Mid-Atlantic Christadelphian Bible School, where a man named John Martin taught a series of classes titled “In The Fullness of Time” on the early life of Christ. The fire that Tom had ignited in me, John inflamed. The way he expounded upon Scripture, opening up the most wonderful meaning to the smallest of words, showing the power and the depth and the wonder of God’s word, impacted me profoundly. Six months later, I was baptized into the saving name of Jesus Christ, and it has become my lifelong passion to seek out God’s truth and reveal those truths to whoever will listen.

About 10 years ago, I called Bro. Tom. I had never spoken to him, but I was going to mention his influence on me in a class at a Bible School, and I wanted to make sure he was okay with me telling this story. We had a wonderful conversation. We had a great laugh together about his ability to put me to sleep. “The LORD works in marvelous ways,” he said. He was fascinated to learn that the cable access program he had produced back in the 1970s had reached someone in Massachusetts in 1990. He either didn’t know or didn’t remember that the Tidings Magazine had turned his program into a VHS series. At that time, they offered it to the community, and my wife ordered it on a whim.

A little while after our conversation, I received a nice note from Bro. Tom and a picture of him at his home in California. I hung the picture right behind my desk, where I work on my Bible studies as a reminder of his role in igniting my love for our Father’s Word.

This past January, Bro. Tom fell asleep in Christ. He now rests awaiting his Lord’s return. It is my dream, should the LORD be so gracious to me, to one day meet Tom in person, to once again thank him for all his classes did for me, and spend a little time with my brother in Christ and an old friend. And, should he have a lot to say, maybe squeeze in a nap.

Jim Sullivan,
Boston Ecclesia, MA