Lewis D. Williams — Writer, Evangelist, Son of God

My story

My story began in 2020, amidst the worldwide lockdowns. I would look out at the world around me and find myself using the word “evil” to describe much of what I’d see. This would lead into the study of politics, philosophy, and ultimately history, in my attempt to understand the nature and origins of these things I’d condemn in such moral terms.

After about five years of believing that humanity’s salvation lay dormant in this or that ideology yet to be realised (which was for me anarchism, pacifism, free market capitalism), and having come to see the State and its actors as the source of all these things I’d call evil, it would gradually be revealed to me something that I had never considered before, despite all my time spent pondering the problem: that perhaps evil is not exclusively a governmental or political problem that men can solve; perhaps it’s a human problem, something universal and intrinsic in all of us that we are incapable of solving, no matter how hard we try.

“There can be only one permanent revolution—a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.” — Leo Tolstoy, On Anarchy

With this revelation, evil being made apparent to me to be a transcendent reality—reflective of the existence of an objective moral law in the universe, like that of the objective mathematical law of two plus two equals four, rather than a subjective description of people and things that I harboured resentment in my heart toward—I would begin to wonder about the transcendent good that must surely exist to meet it. And with this I would be led to what I had been looking for all along, unbeknownst to me, the only serious solution ever offered to overcome the transcendental problem of evil, contrary to all human reason and efforts to solve the problem themselves: the sacrificial love and forgiveness of Christ.

I would come to recognise that the only way to truly overcome the inclination toward evil in a man’s heart and mind—which would include my own—is to give him new ones. This is something that men themselves, of course, cannot do, however ingenious or strong they might be; they cannot change their own nature—for it is not theirs to change. But this is, in fact, explicitly what the Son of God left the Father’s side and became man to achieve on our behalf, that which we could not do on our own. To pay the penalty for our evil (our sin) that we could not pay, that we would not be separated (by sin) from a good God any longer, but rather reconciled with Him through Christ’s death, and ultimately, resurrection: and in so doing, making us one with His divine nature, giving us new hearts and minds like His as a consequence—making us new men after the image of His Son, having been born again through His Spirit that now dwells within us—then sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters with Christ by this divine adoption.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” (Galatians 2:20-21—ESV)

I would learn that this, as simple as it seems, was always God’s plan for me and for all men from the very beginning—love, peace, family—and that the entire Bible can be summed up in these few words: love God and love your neighbour, in that order.

So what is the significance of Luke 17:21 to me? Having been a militant atheist for twenty eight years of my life, someone who hated God, hated His Son, hated His sons and daughters, who would war against them in my heart and mind every chance I got, and in my flesh whenever the opportunity presented itself: at once I had come to recognise the true nature of evil, and then almost as quickly the true nature of good, the very first bit of the New Testament I recall reading was this—“the kingdom of God is within you.” These words would be so revolutionary to me, so profound, so wondrous and true, that they would melt away any and all of my defences, the false preconceptions I had about who Christ is, what He did, why He did it, and what it cost Him to do it. And I would come to understand that He did it not just for all those who will ever believe and receive the free gift of eternal life in His name, but that He did it for me personally—me, who couldn’t fathom that I now believed in Him likewise, just the same as all those before me who would find their hate unexpectedly met with a love that overcame them (like Paul on the Road to Damascus—he who would write the above to the Galatians).

“And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21—KJV)

In short, I would come to understand that Christianity is not a list of rules and regulations, but an intimate relationship with He who paid your debt first and foremost. That shattered my world, transformed my heart and mind, found me falling in love with the Son of God who embraced me and saved me from what I deserved for my transgressions (death and separation from Him—that is, Hell).

Throughout all these five years I spent to come to know the wisdom and beauty of Christ, allow me to share something to sum up all that I learnt, that I might save someone else that time I spent to discover so simple but so illuminating a truth. In order to conquer the evil without, one must first conquer the evil within, and as we cannot do that, being evil by nature due to man’s descent into sin and separation from his Father and Creator, someone had to do it for us: and that’s where Jesus Christ and His finished work on the Cross comes in. We can do nothing about the evil in this world, because we cannot do anything about even that which lurks within ourselves—only Christ can, and we can only through Him.

After coming to know the real Jesus—and Him the real me—I would get baptised on an Easter Sunday, join a local church and discover a whole new family I never thought I’d have, get married to my girlfriend of eight years (and by the pastor of our church who would win my now wife for Christ), and give up my software development career of almost ten to go into full-time ministry as an evangelist—specifically a writer.

And this is what this publication represents, how it came about. If you would like to support me, please subscribe, please pray for me, and if you feel moved in your heart to do so—and only if—please become a paid subscriber to fund my ongoing work.

I appreciate you listening to my story. I hope you might become a part of it.

My mission

Every writer needing a target audience, and abiding by the principle of writing what you know, mine is those characteristic of who I used to be before Christ, naturally.

That said, my being an evangelist, I aspire for my writings, and indeed everything I do, to be accessible to all and from all walks of life, regardless of my own. More, I intend for my work to be useful not only to non-believers but to believers likewise—to help grow the Church as well as equip it.

And my mission with regard to every reader is ultimately the same: simply, that by reading me one comes to know Jesus as I have come to know Him. If I can be instrumental in that for someone, I’ve done my job.