Dan's Testimony
Dan & Agusta Harting
Families Against Cults

I  am not entirely certain that it is possible to give my testimony on how I came to know Jesus Christ.  Even now I look back and ask with great wonder, "Why me Lord"?  Why did Jesus Christ reach down into a world teeming with lost souls and lift me out of the muck and mire of sin?  Why did He choose me to save instead of millions of other who were and are living a "better" life than I?  I truly do not know, and not knowing I can not give a full and accurate testimony of how I came to know Jesus Christ.  I know only that my life and heart are full of love and gratitude to the God who drew me to His Son, Jesus Christ.  I thank Him for choosing me before the foundation of the world; I remain in awe of the goodness and mercy of God.

Although I can not explain exactly how I came into His loving arms, I can and will try to piece it together into some semblance of a testimony that may make some sort of sense.

I grew up in a loving home and we all attended the local Presbyterian church on a regular basis.  I won my share of awards for Sunday school attendance, and suffered through many a sermon under the watchful eye of my determined mother.  As the saying goes, however, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

I did, however, apparently through the process of osmosis, learn much about the Bible stories.  I knew how Noah built the ark and that God rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah.  I often pictured myself, like Samson, with hair flowing, wreaking vengeance upon the Philistines, and I slew more than one giant Goliath with an imaginary sling borrowed from my friend David.  Sometime I even let David help me cut off the giant's head.

Oh yes, I loved the Bible stories, but somehow, someway, my brain must have stepped out for a bite to eat whenever the saving grace of Jesus Christ was taught.  I am not saying that it was not taught in the Presbyterian church; I believe it was, and I believe it still is today in many Presbyterian churches, but somehow Lucifer in all his cunning, closed my ears, or guided my mind into other paths whenever the Gospel was preached.

As I grew, clever lad that I was, I formulated my own "gospel".  If I did more good works than bad I would go to Heaven:  if I did more band than good, I would slip off into Hell.  Since I knew Hell was a most unpleasant place, I determined to do more good works than bad.  I did not, however, wish to do an over abundance of sterling deeds; after all I did not want to lose my macho image.  And, life all other unborn again humans, I knew down deep, I was a very good person.  I grew older, but no wiser, and stumbled my way through High School and slipped silently into college.  I joined SAE social fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi business honorary fraternity, and helped found an English honorary society and served on the advertising staff of the school newspaper.  I learned to consume large quantities of beer and in my spare time I even managed to squeeze in enough studies to graduate in the upper third of the class.  All in all, not a very glorious undergraduate career.

It was enough, however, to help me qualify for Air Officer Candidate (AOC) in the Navy.  I complete Pre-flight training at Pensacola, Florida and was commissioned an Ensign in the United States Navy.  After considerable training, and learning how to drink whiskey along with the beer talents I had acquired at college, I was assigned to a Fleet Service Squadron in Keflavik, Iceland.  As a young virile Naval officer, I considered this duty somewhat akin to burial alive.  My commanding officer cheered me immensely when he informed me there was a girl behind every tree in Iceland.  But what the rascal did not let me know, however, was that there are no trees in Iceland!

Much to everyone's surprise, I did find a tree and there was a beautiful girl behind it, name Agusta, and we fell in love almost at first sight and were married shortly thereafter.

When we returned to the United States I was stationed in Florida.  No small change this, for a girl raised at the arctic circle.  But she survived and I survived and we had a son, quickly followed by a girl and another girl and still another girl.

Somewhere between the first boy and the first girl, I left the Navy (except for the reserves as a Weed-end Warrior where the Navy managed to survive my contributions for 20 years total).  I went to work for the E I Dupont company in Wilmington, Del. and attended graduate school at night in Psychology.  This alone should prove that I had not progressed very far in the evolutionary scale that I believed in at the time.  I determined to become the president of Dupont, at the very least.

To make a long story a bit longer, I worked hard, I drank hard, I did a very few more good things than bad and worked my way up the evolutionary scale to vice president of a rather large company and finally president and CEO of my own corporation.

Somewhere along the track Agusta, my wife, decided we needed God in our lives and invited not Jesus, but two young, sweet Mormon missionaries into our home.  Before you could say "Joseph Smith was a latter day prophet", we were baptized into one of the many "only true churches" in the world.  I spent the next fifteen years working my way up to become a God.  I didn't know, as my wife is so fond of saying, that the position had been filled.  I now did stop drinking and smoking.  I even gave up coffee and tea, and gave a substantial percent of my income to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  In the way of reward, I was permitted to become part of the bishopric, go to the Mormon Temple, be married for time and eternity and have the Melchizedek priesthood bestowed upon my very worthy head.  My good works were piling up in my heavenly accounting office, and I knew some day  after I had worked hard enough my "calling and election" would be made sure and I would be crowned God and King of my own Kingdom in Heaven.  I was not only going to be a God, I was (praise be to "Eloheim") going to be a rich God!

Imagine my shock and surprise when my very devoted Mormon wife announced to me one August afternoon in 1981 that she had found out that the Mormon church was not true, and that she was never going to set foot in the den of Satan again!  I knew right away that either she had gone insane, or that Lucifer, who I believed to be the spirit brother of Jesus, had stolen her "Testimony".  I didn't know that during a recent illness, she had been reading her Bible, and, Heaven forbid, listening to  apostate preachers on Moody Bible radio and on Christian television.  I did not know that she had fallen to her knees a Mormon and stood up a Christian gloriously delivered and cleansed by the blood of the real Jesus Christ of the Bible.  I didn't know that she had finally seen the error of Mormonism by reading "apostate literature" written by the hound from hell, Walter Martin!

With great arrogance and more pride than intelligence, I ordered her to give me that book, The Maze of Mormonism, and I would prove to her that it was all lies from the pit of Hell (even though I didn't believe there was such a place).

For some reason the Mormon church had never destroyed my faith in the Bible.  I certainly had not read it, but thanks to my mother, father and the good old Presbyterian church I was still convinced that it was the unadulterated word of God.  And by three o'clock in the morning, Walter had made it very clear to me that I must either believe the tales of Joseph Smith and the Mormon church OR the Bible, there was no other choice.  I chose the Bible.  PRAISE THE LORD!

I will not bore you with the trauma associated with leaving Satan's grip.  It was difficult and it was painful; after all, we had known nothing but Mormons and Mormonism for fifteen years.  Most of our friends stopped speaking to us, and cold fear was often our companion.

We also had one other small problem.  We were both Ex Mormons but only one of us was a Christian (you guessed it, it wasn't me).  Agusta wanted to find a church, and I could think of nothing I wanted less!  Gusta wanted prayer and Bible study, I wanted football and work.  Finally I consented to attend a local church, and much to my surprise, I enjoyed it.  I even agreed to attend a Christian business men's meeting the following week.  We had a delightful dinner and met people who are still our dear friends even to this day.  I also met my dearest friend, who will remain my Lord and Saviour forever.

I don't recall the name of the speaker, but after the talk he asked if anyone would like to be "saved", and filled with the Holy Spirit.  I really wasn't familiar with these terms from the Mormon church and was going up to ask him exactly what he meant by this.  I never did reach him!  A sweet brother intercepted me and asked me if I was saved.  I replied that I didn't know what it was.  He explained and asked my if I would like to know for sure that I would go to heave when I died.  I assured him that I would like that very much indeed.  He put his hands upon mine and led me through what I later learned was the sinners prayer.  I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour and was filled gloriously with the Holy Spirit.  All fear was gone, Satan lost his icy grip on my heart, and Jesus set me free.  I was laughing and crying and hugging anyone in sight.  I was even giggling like a little child.  I wanted to tell everyone about Jesus when only the day before I was embarrassed if someone said his name in my presence.  My wife wondered if I had gone slightly mad, but if so, it was a wonderful madness indeed.

Miracles happened, not 80 foot Jesus's talking to me, or cripples being cured, but miracles none the less.  For instance, I literally could not read the Bible for more than a few minutes without getting sleepy before, and it made no sense tome anyway, but now I devoured it for hours at a time, My wife and I would argue over who was to have our only copy (needless to say, we now have many copies).  I used to like dirty jokes, now they offended me.  I used to be embarrassed when the name of Jesus was mentioned, now I would witness to a tree if it moved.  I never cried, it was against my macho image, now I cried when someone was saved, when I heard "Amazing Grace", when I read the scriptures.

Well, that's about the gist of it.  I hope these few words have been an encouragement to someone who is frustrated to see no effort in witnessing to their loved one lost in the Kingdom of Darkness.  It is often a difficult thing to communicate what God has done in one's life.  His grace is unfathomable, His love beyond our understanding, His salvation beyond our comprehension.  Now I hope to serve Him in some small way before He returns.  Even so, come Lord Jesus!

 

So let me ask you....

Dan & Agusta Harting
Families Against Cults

Read Agusta's Testimony?

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