Summary: This page recounts the formative early ministry years of David Cox. (1) Importance of repentance in salvation and evangelism. (2) Assistant pastor at Harvest Baptist Church.

David's Ministry the early years

These are the events and teachings of God 
that has formed and molded me and my ministry. 
These things account for my view of the ministry today.

Importance of Repentance in the plan of Salvation and evangelism - While at Bob Jones I participated in various ministries, doing all kinds of things. One that stands above the rest as far as having a spiritual impact on me is a Christian Servicemen's Center I helped. I drove for some 5 guys each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to ferry this other students to and from this Serviceman's Center. I would take soldiers that came in, and at times I had sat down with 20-24 soldiers by myself and lead a good number of them to the Lord. In our weekly reports, I would turn in sometimes 50 people I personally had lead to the Lord in that weekend.

One day a soldier entered with woman soldier. We separated them and I took the man. I presented the plan of salvation to him (I was a junior in Bob Jones at the time). He eagerly wanted to be saved, and didn't even want to wait for me to finish reading the verses, he wanted to get saved and NOW! I said a few things to introduce him to the Lord's prayer (for salvation), and then he abruptly refused. I was astonished. I asked why? What had I said that totally destroyed his desire to get saved? He said "well, what you just said. It makes it impossible for me to be saved!" Searching desperately for what heresy I had just told him, I could find nothing. I asked him, "What did I say?" I had read Romans 10:8-10,13.

KJV Romans 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; 9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

I had told him, "These verses teach us that we must do two things to be saved, first, we must believe in our heart, which means you must be sincere with God, and secondly, you must confess Jesus as your Savior. Many Muslims are sincere without confessing Christ, and many supposed Christians confess Christ without being sincere. You must have both to be saved."

As he explained, he got off the base with this woman soldier, and they came into town to have sex. They were not married, he had just met her that week. They got a hotel, and they were looking for a restaurant to eat when they came into the Servicemen's Center. He said, "When I leave here, I am going to get something to eat and have sex with this woman. We are not married. How can I accept Jesus if I am not willing to give this up? I would not be sincere." The elderly man who ran the center came by as I was taking a long time with this soldier, and simply broke in the conversation and asked him to repeat the sinner's prayer after him. The soldier refused. I tried my best to get him to a decision, but nothing.

I went back to school that weekend with a heavy burden. If I was wrong about my understanding of salvation, perhaps even I was not saved. I did not do school work that week instead I spent all my free time in the library, sitting and reading the Bible trying to sort things out. The Lord lead me to a passage of Scripture that was my answer.

KJV Luke 13:3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Here was my answer. I had left out repentance out of the presentation of the gospel I was giving. It is not enough that you say you are a sinner, you must turn from sin to Christ to be saved. That does not mean you must go to the altar and cry, nor does it mean that you must do some "work of repentance" to be saved. What it means is simply that your attitude must be that Jesus is the solution, sin is the problem. You must renounce sin (whatever God says is sin), and especially anything that God touches your heart that you have in your life that is sin. This man discerned better than I that he had a great sin, and not being able to give it up, he left unsaved but with a heavy burden. 

KJV Matthew 19:22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

Like the rich young ruler that could not be saved by Jesus Himself, this soldier could not enter heaven's gates holding on to his sin. God conditions salvation on an attitude of turning from sin.

KJV Isaiah 55:6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

I started inserting this simple point in my presentation of the Gospel, you must turn from your sin (open your hand and let it fall out) and turn to the Lord (accept it by replacing sin in your hand with Jesus) in order to be truly saved. I do not specify what sins you must abandon, but rather it must be an attitude, and you will have guidance from God and the Holy Spirit as to what God tells you is sin in your life and what you must work on. As I did, my "statistics" in soulwinning went through the floor. I could only report 2-3 per week instead of the sometimes 30 or 40 I previously had been "winning" to Christ. I later left that ministry as the man in charge wanted to know why I couldn't produce results like before. I explained, and his reply was, "you never deal with sin in the person's life until after he is saved and you have given him assurance of his salvation".  I simply disagree.

HARVEST BAPTIST CHURCH

Having gotten a good Christian education at Bob Jones University through their missions program, and then on in their seminary, I felt that the Lord was leading me to go to the foreign mission field under a mission board. While a missions major at BJU, I attended Missions Seminar for most of the years I was there. I also regularly visited with recruiting people from a large group of Fundamental mission boards that recruited on campus. I started a file my first year and wrote and got information on different mission boards about their doctrinal stand, policies, practices, fields, etc. I believe I had close to 100 (/supposedly all Fundamental) mission boards I had received information from over this time. I also decided to write to individual missionaries in Mexico and other Spanish speaking fields and ask their advice about what to look for and not to look for in choosing a mission board. In 1983 I also wrote several missionaries in Mexico to get financial information for a budget so that I could get a good idea of how much I needed in financial support.

Of all of the mission boards that I had received information from, I was leaning towards GFAM (Gospel Fellowship Association Missions), the board associated with Bob Jones University (same overlapping board of directors). I liked their stand and their "pitch". Brother Harry Bain was then recruiting officer, and having spent years in Africa as a missionary, and having asked Dr. Bob Senior to make a board for Fundamental missionaries that would not compromise on points of separation and doctrine, Mr. Bain was in on it all from the beginning. His "pitch" to us missions students is that GFA is simply a servant of the churches and missionaries. They are not over the missionary as an authority, but act like a bank (serving us with rules, but not imposing, directing, or being in authority over one's life and ministry). I really liked that point. The authority comes from the local church, not the mission board. He said that the way they functioned was simply that you tell the board what you feel God has called you to do, and they will either agree that your ministry (and doctrine and stand) are in line with what they believe, or they reject you. As he explained it to us, the calling, ministry, and actually way the ministry is developed and carried out is up to the missionary, not the board.

I applied to GFA in December of 1981, and in the process of interviews and such, Brother Ken Hay (director of the Wilds) did not like something I said apparently and asked questions for a very long time. The official letter I received is that they would not turn me down, but they would not accept me either. They wanted me to get more involved in a local church ministry. So that is why I returned to Charleston after college. My home church, Ferndale Baptist Church, had just taken on a youth pastor, and they had Bible teachers in their Christian school which were also wanting preaching opportunities so I did not feel that was the place to get more involved.

I visited several other churches in the area, especially smaller ones. I finally visited Harvest Baptist Church. I immediately liked the  College and Career class there (about 70) because I was still single. The opportunities there were tremendous. In the end when on church staff, I would go to church every weekday morning at 8:00AM, work all day, go home for supper with my parents, and return for some meeting at night. Every night I had some obligation at church, sometimes I would still be at the church at midnight. Saturday was AWANA's all morning, type the pastor's Sunday School class, and College and Career starting at about 5 to midnight again. Sunday I opened the building, and many times closed at night. 

My one difficulty with Harvest Baptist Church was that the pastor was a graduate from Liberty Baptist College, which I was told in BJU that they were not separated. At that time the main problem was that Falwell strongly supported the Moral Majority (which had Mormon participation for example). I asked Pastor Woods about this the first visit I made to Harvest, and he assured me that they had distanced themselves from Liberty. He was the only Liberty grad at Harvest among a half dozen that had graduated from various Christian colleges. He himself had graduated from the Citadel (a military school in Charleston), and only went to Liberty for for a graduate degree. 

I had difficulties with some things that went on at Harvest in my year or so there, but I will not get into that. I realized that not everything was so ideal as college classes paint them. I also realized that preachers are humans and have failings and problems just like anybody else. My attitude was that God had sent me there to be a blessing and not to straighten out the pastor.

My main problem at Harvest was with bus and children's ministry, which was thrust upon me. They already had Hyles-Anderson grads working that ministry, and I did not agree with the shallow evangelism techniques being used with the kids in Children's Church. I personally worked in Children's Church, and I would take at times half a dozen to ten kids to deal with them for salvation.

The Lord used that situation to teach me more about the ministry. The Pastor asked me to visit all the kids (we made decision cards on each kid won to the Lord) and to try to get them baptized (asking permission of their parents). I got a shoe box filled with decision cards from the last 6 months. I began by alphabetizing them. Come to find out some cards had the same last names, to the tune of 20+. As I studied the thing, I realized that a brother and sister (5 and 7) had "gotten saved" over 20 times apiece in the previous six months. Most of the other children in the box had several decision card when they had gotten saved repeatedly.

I decided that we needed to change how we were presenting the Gospel to these kids. A truly saved kid does not get saved that many times. Needless to say, my ideas were not readily received, and in the end, they (pastor and workers) decided that nothing was to be changed. I asked to be released from Children's ministries (I had enough other things to do, and they were doing what the Pastor wanted and approved anyway), but my request was denied. That coupled with my recent trip to Mexico definitely pushed me into going into the mission field at that point. I decided to resign everything at the church and start deputation. I also felt that I would very possibly "get bogged down" in a ministry in the states, and never leave it for the foreign mission field.

I also learned that not everybody in the ministry (pastors, preachers, missionaries, and full time people in Christian ministries) are always honest. That was a hard thing to learn and accept, but I did have these people look me in the face and knowing lie to me, knowing that what they were telling me simply was not true, but they excused it because "I am the Lord's servant doing the Lord's ministry, therefore what promotes me is good, and what hurts me is bad. Therefore I can do anything to protect me and my ministry including covering up, lying, or deceit." 

I contacted GFA again, told the director that I was on deputation raising money for Mexico, and that I was interested in going out under GFA. If they were still interested please contact me, if not I would go some other way, but I was going. I decided that if I did not get out of the states, I would get "involved" in life, ministry, and probably some girl and I would never end up on the mission field. In the confusion of life at the moment, the only thing I felt definite was my call to the mission field and my salvation.

We had another interview and I was accepted under GFAM. I officially started with them either June or July of 1984. 

David's Personal Information

Updated on 02/02/08
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