The Plain Bible Truth Ministries

  The Testimony of Russ Schmidt...

I grew up in a Catholic family who was your typical Catholic family of the 1960s. We went to church every Sunday, and me, my brother, and my sister went through all the Catholic Catechism and received all the Catholic Sacraments. 

When it came time for me to get involved in extra-curricular activities like sports, my mom signed me up to the local Catholic Church’s sport program. I played the usual kids sports in baseball, basketball, and even soccer for one year. 

The 1960s was the hey-day of the Catholic Church in the US. Children’s sports, adult sports, bingo nights, carnivals, you name it, it was happening at the Church during these years. There wasn’t a night without activity in the Church.

But as fast as the Catholic Church grew in the 1960s, it also came to a screeching halt just as fast with the accusations of child sexual assault by priests in the early 1970s. Our families immediate Church Pastor was accused, not of child sexual assault, but of being a womanizer and shacking up with a few women. Once he was demoted in the Church and sent elsewhere, the activities in our local Church congregation came to a standstill.

By this time, with me being the youngest in the family, and having finished receiving all the required sacraments, my families church attendance stopped. I was around ten or eleven years old at this time. But there was something in me that kept me going to Church. Even at this young age, while none of my family or friends were still going to Church, I would get up on Sunday mornings and ride my bike the 3 miles to our local Church.

At that time there was a 7:15 AM Sunday morning service I would go to. Now, I didn’t make it every Sunday, but I always felt the need to be there. This stayed with me right through high school. 

By the time I got out of high school, I started working and had to work Sundays as the Blue Laws that forbid stores being open on Sundays was rescinded. Once I started working on Sundays, my church attendance came to a stop. 

But that didn’t stop my interest in God. By the time I was 21, I wanted to know more about my faith and decided to by myself a Bible. Strangely enough, in my house there was no Bible. I say strangely because it seems every house had a Bible in it, even though nobody would read it, at least not anyone I knew, but at least they had one.

I remember being in the book store and seeing all the different Bible translations. Me being naïve about the Bible, I had no idea they were really all the same, just different translations. As confused as I was, I suddenly saw one that said The Catholic Bible. Since I was a Catholic, that’s the one for me.

When I got it home and began to read it, of course, I was familiar with many of the stories about creation and Adam and Eve; the story of Noah. But then I came to a part where God instructed the Israelites to enter a city, He was giving them, and to kill everyone, including women and children, and even their livestock.

I remember putting the Bible down and very confused about this God who I was always told was a loving God, who is now telling His people to kill. That was so disheartening to me that it took me a few years before I would even think about going back to read the Bible. It couldn’t have been the wrong one because it was the Catholic Bible.

Also, that same year I started reading the Bible, my father died and I was devastated. My brother and sister were both married at the time and I was now home by myself with my mom. We weren’t very financially in a good place since my father was the only one who worked in supporting the family and didn’t leave much behind.

My mom who was your typical stay-at-home mom, which was common in that day, had to now go out and get a job for minimum wage. I was working full time, and had to now start helping my mom with the finances because she just couldn’t make enough. 

Losing my dad had taken a toll on me, and then I lost my girlfriend just after my father died, so now I was hit with that as well. And yes, suicide came to mind. I didn’t think life was worth living anymore. I had the pressure needing to help my mom, while at the same time I was young and wanted to go out find myself in this world, but was reluctant to leave my mother.

I remember one night I was so depressed; I got in my car at about 10 PM and drove to our local church. Back in that day churches were open 24/7 so you can go pray, so I did. It was the first time in years I had gone back to the church, and I just sat there and poured out my heart to God.

My two best friends had met girls who they were going to marry, so I didn’t get to see my friends as often as before since they were now engaged. So, I prayed that God would send me someone special, and if He did, I would always serve Him. I don’t even think I knew what I meant when I said that.

It didn’t happen right away, but when I turned 26, I received a promotion at my job to district manager. Although I lived on Long Island, every Monday I had to travel to Carlstadt, New Jersey for a weekly district managers meeting. 

I remember my first day there, the warehouse manager, Nick, took me under his wing and was showing me around the warehouse and office. I remember, like it was yesterday, we were coming back into the office area from the warehouse when suddenly a door swung open and almost knocked me out. It was the lady’s room door and the girl coming out realized what had happened and she just smiled at me and said sorry.

All I remember is I think I stuttered a few times and finally said, it’s okay! But inside, my heart was fluttering like crazy; I was immediately in love! I knew at that moment, that just maybe this was my prayer of 4 years ago finally coming to pass.

Long story short, I made sure I got to know this beautiful girl, and eventually I got up the nerve to ask her out. We dated for about a year and half before we got married. After we got engaged, I began to feel the need to get myself back in the Bible and really begin to understand my place in this world, since I am now going to have a family of my own.

So, I began to read my Bible again, but started to come up with many questions that the Catholic Church couldn’t seem to answer. After we got married, I continued to read, but as I read, I became more confused about how the Catholic Church fits in. There was something that just didn’t seem right.

I remember getting ready for work on a Saturday morning; I turned on the television, as I always did in the morning, as I made breakfast. But for some reason the television was on channel nine. We never watched Channel nine, so I have no idea how it got there, hmmm. Anyway, I would always have the television on in the background as I prepared and ate breakfast before work. But as I was doing things a program called, The World Tomorrow, came on.

The narrator was speaking about prophecy and the Book of Revelation. A lot of what he was saying was answering questions that I had. I remember I just sat there, as my breakfast was getting cold, so overwhelmed at what he was saying. I thought to myself, is this God answering my prayer again because I was praying for understanding what I was reading in the Bible.

I ordered the literature they were offering and was amazed at what I was finding out. Well, that was the end of the Catholic Church for me. After going through all their religious instructions and sacraments, I was learning more from this little booklet then I ever learned from the Catholic Church.

I began attending services in the local congregation of the Worldwide Church of God. This was a Sabbath keeping Church. It was the first I ever heard of the Sabbath. The problem was that I was the only one in my entire family that was changing. My wife who believed in God but, was not religious, and was fearing I was getting involved in a cult.

My mom and in-laws thought I was turning Jewish because of the Sabbath, lol. Shortly after this I left my job as a district manager and went into my own home improvement business. My father-in-law, and my wife’s brother-in-law were contractors and I worked with them when I could before I left my job to learn the business.

In doing this, it allowed me to observe the Sabbath because in the retail business, Saturday’s were a requirement to be at work.

With my new found faith, I was coming into all this new understanding of the false man-made doctrine that was, not only in the Catholic Church, but in most all Christian churches. I was finding not only that the Sabbath was still God’s holy day, but that the Christian observances of Christmas and Easter, were nothing more than the paganization of Christianity.

The traditions surrounding the Christmas and Easter celebration had nothing to do with Christ. On the other hand, I found that the Christmas tree was described in Jeremiah chapter 10 as an abomination to God because of its pagan roots.

Things really got difficult when I decided to get baptized by the Church as a born-again believer. Although my wife supported me, in allowing me to pursue this new way of looking at Christianity, she was not very pleased about me getting baptized. She thought that they were brainwashing me into this cult religion.

I remember the night I was to be baptized; I came home from work and was getting ready to go. My wife was hoping I would have second thoughts, but when she saw me getting ready, she confronted me and we had the biggest argument of our two years of marriage.

It got so heated the she took our 1-year-old son and left to go to her mom’s. I was devasted. I remember sitting in my bedroom and praying to God that I was doing the right thing. I debated whether I should go to get baptized or go to my wife and tell her I wasn’t going to do it.

But as I prayed, I just felt led to get baptized and trust that God will make it okay. So, I went and got baptized by the pastor of the Church, and I got home at about 10 PM. When I got home, I noticed my wife’s car still wasn’t there. I didn’t know if that was it, and whether she was going to leave me or not.

I remember sitting on my bed with tears in my eyes thinking, “God I did this for you, I can’t lose my wife over this.” Only a couple of minutes later, my wife came home and came into the bedroom, and hugged me and said, “whatever you decide to do, I will stand behind you.” The relief that I felt was like 10,000 pounds being taken from my shoulders. I couldn’t thank God enough!

As time passed, The Worldwide Church of God began to change after the Pastor-General of the Church died. His son took over and began to bring the Church more main stream. No longer did they have the same view toward Christmas and Easter. Yes, they still pointed out the pagan traditions around them, but no longer thought it was wrong to observe, as long as you kept Christ at the forefront.

Around this time in 1994, we had purchased our first house, which was further away from the Church I was attending. Since I had become disillusioned with the Church and the changes that were occurring, and the internal disputes that were coming up over these changes, I decided to stop attending and found a local non-denominational Church in my neighborhood.

For the next six years I attended there, but was back to observing Sunday instead of the Sabbath, and also Christmas and Easter. However, since I was baptized, I had become also disillusioned in my progress both in my business and spiritually. I just didn’t see the answers to my prayers that I was asking for. 

One prayer in particular, was that my wife would be onboard with me in going to Church. So far to this point, I’ve always attended Church by myself, and I wanted my wife to join me, but she wasn’t interested, and my prayer wasn’t being answered.

After about ten years since being baptized and seeing very little progress in life, I became very disillusioned to the point where I told God that I was done. None of my prayers were being answered, the churches I was going to were not fulfilling my spiritual needs and just seemed to be falling short of answering important questions I had. So, I walked away.

It’s funny how God works. As time went on, I didn’t notice it, but my wife did. She said I was changing, but not for the good. She didn’t like the man I was becoming. A more secular man who was leaving God in the background. Oddly enough this led my wife to pursue her faith, hoping she can find answers for me.

Before I walked away, I began a website selling Christian books, and I had purchased a bunch of Christian books I was selling on it. After I walked away and my wife was now seeking how to bring me back, she picked up a copy of a book I was selling called, The Power of a Praying Wife.

As she was reading this book, the author, Stormy Omartian, was saying, just talk to God and tell Him what you praying for and He’ll talk to you. So, my wife just said, “Okay God, if you are real and this is true, so tell me how to bring my husband back to the way he was.”

Let me add, the night before this we had a big argument about my wife’s concern for me, and that I just didn’t seem to care about anything anymore; I was just going through the motions of life, which was true.

I went to work that next day without talking to my wife. When I came home, I didn’t even want to go in the house because I didn’t want to fight anymore. But when I went in, I saw my wife sitting on the sofa. I looked at her and just said hi. She looked at me and said, you are not going to believe what happened to me today. 

She went on to tell me that “I was cleaning the house when I heard God speak to me.” I said, “God spoke to you?” She went on to tell me God said to her, “I am calling you to save Russ.” When she told me that, a chill ran up and down my spine, and the first thing I thought was, “All these years, God, I was wanting you to talk to me about how to get my wife on board, but here you are talking to her about saving me?” Talk about working in mysterious ways! Lol!

Yes, I know, that’s a selfish thought, but long story short, my wife was now coming to Jesus, and I came back also, and was so glad because I didn’t like who I had become either. So, I went back to Church and now my wife was coming with me. I couldn’t be happier.

However, we just couldn’t find a Church that was feeding us spiritually. Churches just seemed to become places to be on Sunday’s, we wanted to go deeper spiritually, but the churches we were going to all seemed superficial. I began thinking about my days observing the Sabbath and biblical Holy Days. When I did observe them, God just seemed more real.

In 2015, my wife and I both decided to begin a home Church. So, I renovated my garage into a room where we can have people come and worship together. It was wonderful. Every Sunday we had about ten friends that would come and we would worship and have a word from the Bible.

But inside, I still had this yearning for the true Sabbath. I spoke to my wife about it, but she said until God speaks to her about the Sabbath, she wanted to continue Sunday. Eventually, we moved out of our home and began renting a conference room in a local hotel. We tried hard to grow the Church, but found it difficult. We did have a few new people come, as well as some go, but just couldn’t grow the church like we wanted.

Then COVID hit and although we kept the services going because we both agreed that during times of crisis, regardless of what it is, people need God and to be with like-minded believers. With that said, most of those who were attending, stopped coming out of fear of COVID.

We were down to just four of us, including me and my wife. But we were faithful to God and didn’t miss a beat even though it was just four of us. Even the owner of the conference room we were in, felt bad for us and took $50 off of the rent. We just rented it for four hours every Sunday.

When COVID finally subsided, some began to come back who were coming before. We also got a few new people start coming, so things were looking up. However, in 2023, my wife began not feeling well, but wouldn’t go to a doctor; she was trusting in the Lord for healing of whatever was ailing her.

By September of 2023, she got worse to the point where she started to miss service, and I would go myself. By that October, it got to the point where I had to leave my work and cancel quite a few jobs to care for her. All this time she refused to go to the hospital or a doctor.

By late November, right after Thanksgiving, I told her I was taking her to the hospital whether she liked it or not. I myself was torn at this time for allowing her in trusting God for her healing. We both believed in the promises of the Bible, particularly Psalm 91.

Now, I need to state a disclaimer right here; I still do believe in the promises of the Bible, just not in the way we did before. I am beginning to understand where we were wrong in how we applied those promises. It’s unfortunate it came at the expense of such a devastating loss. 

On November 28, 2023, my wife lost her battle, with what I found out to be colon cancer, that spread to her liver. I don’t even know if my wife fully understood what she was dying from as she went into a coma in her last hours when the diagnosis came in. I truly believe if we understood God’s promises and applied them correctly, and not just ignore the symptoms, she would still be here today. 

But as guilty as I felt and still feel at times, for not being more forceful in going to a doctor, there was no way of convincing my wife to go anyway. As a matter of fact, only a few days before she passed, I got upset with God, and wanted to know why this was happening. My wife shut me down, and said, “Don’t you dare blame God!” I was ready to blame God, but she wasn’t!

And right to the very last day, she was still on the phone with others and praying for them and trying to do God’s work. She had such a heart for God, if God told her to go to Siberia to preach the Gospel, she would have gone in a heartbeat. I only pick on Siberia because my wife’s favorite place was Florida; she hated cold weather.

Although I stopped services in the conference room, I did begin services back in our home. Only a few continued to come, but we are faithful.

2024 was a year that I just basically was going through the motions as I struggled with mourning my wife. I missed her dearly, and was trying to come to terms with my faith, and also forgiving myself for allowing this to happen, as well as trying to move on alone. My wife probably would have never listened to me, but I should have pressed seeing a doctor more.

In my defense, my wife wasn’t even telling me what was going on for the first few months of her becoming sick. I did notice certain things, but I caulked it up to just the ageing process, because I know I was starting to feel the effects of aging myself.

But to end this long testimony, I got back to the roots of where God had led me some 22 years before, and that is having our services on the Sabbath, and observing the biblical Holy days. 

I believe that this is God’s mantel for me to take on an to educate Christians that much of Christianity that we know today has picked up a lot of pagan doctrine along the way. We can see a lot of this began with the early 1st and 2nd century churches. 

So, from here on out, as long as I have breath, I want to preach the TRUE Gospel and get back to the apostolic Church that began with the apostles. So, I dedicate this website and ministry to, of course God, but also to my wife, who if it wasn’t for her, I would have never fulfilled my end of the bargain with God in that prayer, so long ago, when I prayed, I would always serve Him, if He brought me the perfect wife. And boy, did He come through!!

Thank you, Lord!

Maranatha!