A BRIEF
PERSONAL BIO
A BRIEF
PERSONAL BIO
By Gavin Finley
I returned to Australia in 1965 and studied at Trinity Grammar School and Balwyn High School in Melbourne. My studies then took me on to the University of Melbourne Medical School on a Commonwealth Scholarship. I graduated in Medicine in 1973. During those years our family was part of the East Kew Baptist Church in Melbourne. I was also a member of the Evangelical Union at Melbourne Uni.
It was during the early 70's when I was in medical school that my pilgrimage took me into the Holy Spirit renewal. This revival had come across to Melbourne from New Zealand. A dental student friend, Judy Brabham, invited me to a Tuesday night meeting held in an Anglican Church. It was called Melbourne Outreach Crusade. I had never seen anything like it. The movement gathered in many seeking hearts during those early days. God called out His people and filled them with His Presence in many wonderful ways. The Charismatic Renewal was a genuine move of God back in those days. Unfortunately the movement has subsequently been taken over by Mammon and seriously compromised. But back in the early 70's it was like spring rain falling on a dry and thirsty land. I saw many people wonderfully saved and blessed. These were exciting times. Many hard bitten evangelicals, grimly hanging onto their faith, as I myself was, found ourselves swept up into this Holy Spirit renewal. And it came just in time. In my case I had been on the verge of spiritual burnout. Suddenly we found ourselves in a serendipity, even an Emmaus experience. Somebody was walking alongside us. He brought us His encouragement and His cheer. He provided us with some fresh oil for our dim and flaring lamps. The Holy Spirit was present with us, recharging our flagging spirits. What a joy that was! Through it all I found myself infused with a new level of faith in Jesus Christ I had never experienced before. In spite of my many shortcomings and failures I found myself drawn into a deeper walk with God.
In 1975 after a year of internship at the Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne I took off on a round the world trip. The first leg of that trip took me back for a visit to the USA. That was quite a memorable segment of the journey. I visited old friends from the church in Renton, Washington I had not seen in over ten years. It was also memorable for another reason which I will explain shortly.
I had some memorable experiences in India and then later up in Nepal. On one occasion a few of the missionary kids from the local Christian high school decided that they would collar me and that we would take a little backpacking trek together up into the Himalayan mountains. We loaded up with some medical instruments and medical supplies and set out.
I had trouble keeping up with them. We went into remote areas where there was no road access at all. As soon as we entered a village the word would get out and hundreds of people would gather around. They would bring us their sick. We stopped and gave whatever sort of treatment we could provide. We saw a lot of people and did what we could with what we had. One of them was a little boy who had fallen over a cliff two days before. His little head was covered with old dried blood and he had a high fever. The flies swarmed around him. We bathed and dressed his head wound as best we could, gave him an injection of penicillin and left his father some antibiotics to give him. Then we hiked on to the next village.
On that little excursion I came to understand Eastern Mysticism (or pantheism), and "Karma" in a way that I won't forget. At that time the Maharishi Yogi was wowing the Beatles and millions of westerners with the alleged virtues of Eastern Mysticism. It may well have sounded real good in California, and especially after a couple of puffs of marijuana and some oriental music. But I was here in the Himalayan mountains. I was seeing Eastern Mysticism, Buddhism, and Hinduism right at the very source. The picture I was seeing up here was anything but good.
Here is an example. We came to one village and heard some disturbing news. A young woman had just died. Apparently she had endured a complicated childbirth a couple of days before. The newborn baby was ok. But the childbirth had been complicated by a 'retained placenta'.
The relatives could have done something about this. After such an event the natives of Africa will put their family member on a litter and carry them a hundred miles if need be. They will take them straight to the nearest mission or government hospital. But here in this land beyond the Indus River a great spiritual darkness brooded over the people. The young woman was judged to have 'bad karma'. The spell of death had been cast. Nothing could be done. And she was going to die.
Eastern mysticism has within it a spiritual poison that cripples the will. (A trip to Calcutta will drive this lesson home in a hurry.) A spirit of inevitability hangs over the land. So in the case of this young woman with her retained placenta nothing was done.
Of course she went on to develop sepsis. She died a couple of days after her baby was born. This woman, hidden in the folds of the Himalayan Mountains, had in effect been judged by the spirits of the area. She was considered to have "bad Karma". Now she was paying for her sins in a previous incarnation. Nothing that anyone did was going to change that. So she was left to die.
I shall never forget that woman. Even today when I hear the familiar strains of eastern mysticism which says in effect "everything is relative" and "Que Sera, Sera, Whatever will be." I stop. And I remember that woman.
 Painting by Alfred Soord (1868-1915) |
God has given us a ton of information. It is sitting right there in the Holy Scriptures. We are being wooed by a gracious and eternal God. He has sent us His Holy Spirit to comfort and to guide us. He has big plans for all of us. Most of us have only responded to a small portion of this high calling..
In such times I realize what a rich and wonderful inheritance we have
in our God. Even in our tribulations the gold of His glory is refined within us.
He throws open a treasure chest before us.
It is full of His jewels, of faith, hope and of love.
No one is cut off. No one is deserted or abandoned. No one is
left behind. This is the character of our God.
The Good Shepherd goes out even on a dark and cloudy day.
And he finds His lost sheep.
Every last one of them will be found!
In those times when I begin to realize His goodness towards us and I begin to thank Him the Presence of His Holy Spirit becomes more precious than ever.
When I returned to the mission hospital from that little excursion up into the Himalayan foothills I found that I was in a spot of bother. The higher powers had heard about our little jaunt. Officers of the Indian Army were there at the hospital, waiting to meet us. Apparently we had not been given proper authorization to do our medical service in those lost valleys up there in the mountains.
Fortunately the matron of the hospital, an Anglo-Indian
lady, was there. She stood before them with her hands on her hips.
She was speaking to the army officers in fiery tones in Hindi, apparently on our behalf.
The heated interchange went on between them for some time.
Finally the soldiers withdrew.
I never heard any more about it.
On the way back to Australia I stayed at Dilaram House in Kathmandu. This was a way station with a Christian outreach to lost and sick hippies. There were lots of them in India back in those days. I was glad to be there. During those last two or three days in India before I flew out I had to take to my sleeping bag with a fever and the usual G.I. symptoms of the tropical zone.
I had first met Mary when we were both 11.
Our family had come down
from Canada on a summer vacation.
We had driven down into the deep south from Toronto, camping in state parks.
We stayed with the Phillips family in Mobile, Alabama for a few days that summer.
I had noticed Mary during our visit.
Her dad was a family doctor in a town near Mobile, Alabama.
He was interested in the Civil War and his hobby was digging up
artifacts on old battlefields using a metal detector.
This photo shows us all gathered
around a cannon from that era. We were about to leave.
Mary is the blond girl 4th from the right with
the white blouse and blue shorts.
The guy on the left looking in her direction is yours truly.
At the time this photo was taken we were saying our good-byes.
I would not see Mary again for another 16 years.
Our families had known each other from friendships dating back to the war years. Mary's dad, and his Marine Corps buddy had been in the 1st Marine Division at Guadalcanal during World War 2. They had come to Melbourne in Australia for 'rest and recreation leave'. The two marines had been more or less "adopted" by my mother's family. A lot of lasting trans-Pacific friendships had been made back in those days. That family tradition was destined to continue.
Mary and I found it increasingly difficult to forget one another. The following year I called her on the telephone from Australia. We were married a few weeks later in Mobile.
We spent our first three years together in Australia. I was in family practice at the time. We went to some interesting places to do locum work. I would relieve country doctors who needed a break. On those assignments I had to do everything including family practice, casualty/ER, and obstetrics.
We returned to the USA in 1979. I did my anesthesia residency at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. What a wild place that was! It was the first hospital that I have ever worked in that required its own police force. After residency we moved to Slidell, Louisiana. We were there for seven years.
Since 1988 we have lived on the Florida Gulf Coast. Our two older children now grown, are out on their own pilgrimages. The youngest, Ruthie, is a Down Syndrome child and is at home with Mary and I. She is our special little girl. She loves Christian praise and worship music. She always brings a level of cheer to our home. She enriches the lives of all who come to know her.
About that time I found myself drawn back into Bible Prophecy. This had been an interest of mine since I was saved at age 14. I had wondered about it even back then. Like many evangelicals I read Hal Lindsay's book "The Late Great Planet Earth" when it came out in the 70's. Some of the elements of the Pre-Trib Rapture story seemed ok. Other parts just didn't ring true to the scriptures. They just didn't "sound right". But in the 80's I was a busy man with a family and a medical practice. I had little time to pursue such seemingly arcane and obscure matters. So I put the whole issue of Bible prophecy on a back burner.
Things started to come together for me in the early 90's. I read Marvin Rosenthal's book "The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church". After seeing the straightforward way in which he presented the relevant scriptures and then laid out the various end-time events on a time line I was encouraged to do the same and to handle the scriptures in the same way. I delved back into the Bible with renewed interest. I started by discounting all that I had heard in the evangelical church tradition. Then using the Bible alone I tried to put the various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together as faithfully as I could. Pretty soon the religious fog began to clear and the true picture began to take form quite clearly. I found myself staring the truth in the face. The picture that was emerging from Holy Scripture was quite different from what I had been taught in church. I was flabbergasted. And yet I was convinced that what I was seeing in the pages of the Bible was quite correct.
The human mind does not just receive and crunch out information. It is connected to a human heart and a big emotional department. The devotional aspect of eschatology is something that has become increasingly apparent to me in recent times. There is a divine romance between God and His covenant people. This is only going to get more wonderful. As we enter the arena of the latter days of this age we are going to be making some mind-boggling discoveries. Christian believers are going to enter into a serendipity and into a depth of relationship in God that will be unexpected and magnificent beyond words.
So end-time truth is not just a matter of "head-knowledge". It is not just useless arcane religious data for religious nerds. Nor is End-Time Bible prophecy just an intellectual or theological matter for the seminary. Here at the Second Coming we get to know the cosmic Christ, the Creator of the universe and the One who came as Immanuel, which means "God with us". God is the protagonist here. He is the One who draws us. This is not just an exercise of the mind. It is also a wooing, and a devotional matter of the heart. The end-time drama is actually a divine romance. The reception of End-Time truth is very much a relationship issue. It cuts to the very core of our being. The days to come will reveal just how much we are willing to surrender ourselves to God and allow Him to draw us us into the wonders of His Kingdom.
In recent years I found myself drawn into a deeper study of the history of Israel and Church history. I have spent 25 years on a study of Daniel's prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. The lunar cycles are an astronomical timepiece that I have used to complement the data from the calendar years and the solar cycles. Bible scholars have not yet used the lunar data to measure out the Seventy Weeks of Daniel. So using the lunar cycles as well as the solar passage of years I was able to confirm the remarkably accurate work of 19th century Scotland Yard Inspector Sir Robert Anderson. He laid out his chronology of the 69 weeks in his book 'The Coming Prince'.
In recent years I have also been interested in the Seven Feasts of Israel. Four of them have been fulfilled. Three are yet to unfold into world history. It was in some musings on the subject of the yet to be fulfilled Fall Feasts that I made a rather startling discovery. I had looked into the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement as possibly emerging into holy history as waypoints that would initiate and terminate the 70th week of Daniel, the final seven years of this age. Did these next two upcoming feasts actually "stake out" the final seven years of this age? When I checked it out astronomically using data from the U.S. Naval Observatory and the the Hebrew calendar the results of my calculations blew me away. It was a perfect fit! The two feasts seven years or 86 moons plus 9 days apart measured out the 1260 + 1290 = 2550 days precisely, to the very day!
What might all of this mean? Well it would seem to indicate that the "Roadmap to Peace" will almost certainly end up being confirmed on Rosh Hashanah, a very auspicious day of the Hebrew calendar. It looks like the 7 year covenant of Dan.9:27 might be signed right on some future Tishrei 1. If the treaty is signed on this Hebrew calendar date for the Feast of Trumpets then this would certainly fit the theme of the feast. It would certainly be an awesome occasion in which the blowing of trumpets of alarm would be especially appropriate. There would perhaps be trumpets of celebration of a New World Order. But there would also be trumpets of alarm. The watchmen of Israel would be calling "all Israel", (and this includes the Church), to God's sacred assembly. The new moon of Tishrei, Tishrei 1, is the Feast of Trumpets. It is also called Rosh Hashanah, (head of the year). This is a very auspicious day on the Hebrew calendar. It is the Jewish new year!
This yet to be fulfilled 7 year Peace Treaty involving the national sovereignty of Israel is a big story prophetically. What is also very interesting is to see the religious spirits hard at work today trying to blow a smokescreen of religious disinformation over this entire issue. They are trying desperately to "cloak" seven year treaty of Daniel 9:27 which prophesies a coming peacemaker, a false messiah. Of course Preterists and Dominionists are in an absolute tizzy over the Biblical information concerning an ecclesiastical betrayal and apostasy in Daniel 9:27. They are all working overtime to try to erase or obfuscate the message God is bringing us in this key Bible verse. This is absolutely amazing to see. And a bit spooky as well.
It seems that the terminus of the "Roadmap to Peace" in the Middle East will be a blockbuster covenant making day in future holy history. The prophet Daniel spoke of a 7 year covenant (or treaty), which would be 'confirmed' and signed for a contract period of one "week" or "seven" of years. (Daniel 9:27). Moses warned God's covenant people about this shady deal about 3.5 millennia ago. It is outlined for us in the 'Song of Moses'. Moses told us quite clearly the mischief God's covenant people would get up to in the latter days.
Jesus said much the same. He said that His people would receive 'another'. A false messiah would come on the scene. He would not come in the Father's Name but "in his own name". It seems that a certain peacemaker will emerge, probably in the midst of some future global crisis. He will enter into a sovereignty sharing, power sharing covenant with Israel, (and probably the G-7 nations as well). The treaty will be confirmed for a space of 7 years.
Hopefully we have many more years before all this comes down. But awesome events will surely be opening up, probably in the fall season of some future year. My old 5th grade teacher used to say, "a word to the wise is sufficient". Every single Christian believer should at least be aware of this possibility. Wise Christian believers will be as those wise virgins Jesus spoke about. They will make it their business to find the oil for their lamps against the coming night.
So our work is cut out for us. Every Christian believer should seek the face of God and seek the fullness of His Holy Spirit. Because it seems quite likely that these epic events will open up during our lifetime. In our present day laid back Laodicean Church many untested western Believers are Biblically illiterate and spiritually unprepared. They have not even been given a "heads up" concerning any future trials or tribulations. Will these Christians be O.B.E. overcome by events? Many will be offended Jesus told us. And at the midnight hour many will not have the oil. They will be facing 'burnout'. Our Apostle Paul spoke of a coming great apostasy, a coming 'Great Falling Away'. (2Thes.2:3)
The Apocalypse is an unveiling, or Revelation, of Jesus as Messiah. these epic events might not come in our lifetime. But then again, they might. So God's covenant people need to know about these things. And they need to prepare their hearts for the end time witness should they be called upon to take the stand.
This is not such a terrible thing. Our Chinese brothers and sisters are not offended by this call to witness. So why should we be? They take up their cross daily. They know that their lives are on the line.
They love their Redeemer.
And so in this devotion they keep themselves prepared.
So why is this notion of preparation for witness this so strange to us?
Have we been coddled by our western merchant churchmen?
Why have they not fed us meat to help us grow up strong in the Lord?
Why have they fed us milk and kept us as children?
One thing that I struggle with is the clergymen who insist that end time truth is a side issue. It is not! The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. (Rev. 3:10) Bible prophecy is essential Christian education. The latter days will see all of Biblical truth come to a climax. So Bible prophecy is, in fact, the basics! Our preparation in God and matters of the heart are not just peripheral issues. Being established in our faith is very important and needful for all of us. Knowledge of things to come keeps us sober and responsible before God and keeps us exercised in the faith. And this robust challenge to our worldly preoccupations is good for us spiritually. The truth about our essential role of witness in the latter days helps us to stay Biblically focused, on task, and spiritually healthy.
These are just some of the reasons why I took to writing and setting up this website. It seemed that this important matter of the witness of the saints in the latter days of this age is being dodged and seriously neglected. It is certainly not being addressed by the "post modern" or "emerging church". There is virtually no teaching on the 5th seal 'final witness' of the saints in the end time and how it leads on to the 6th seal and the Second Coming of Messiah. All too often the Way of the cross and these basic matters of blood covenant Christianity are regarded as "negative" or "irrelevant" by today's motivational speakers who have installed themselves and their money machines inside the merchant church. The issue of blood covenant Christianity has been seriously, even critically, neglected.
Classic scene from the movie "Chariots of Fire". |
In a future time could we be among them?
We had better believe it!
I began writing articles on end-time themes in the late 90's. This was just as the internet came along. Early on I wrote a short play entitled 'The Rapture Train Shuffle'. Another play was 'A Post-Tribulation Hammerlock'. Both of these plays are still unfinished. And as is my policy they are not copyrighted. If any sincere Christian believer is energized in these themes and would like to work on the stories I have opened up and wishes to finish these plays please email me. I have a whole pile of these sitting on the back burner. I will probably not get to these articles for years. I feel like a miner who has struck the mother lode of gold or a thick layer of precious jewels. I can't possible mine all of this myself. Whenever a new "jewel" is uncovered in the scriptures any digging I do just exposes many more jewels I had never seen before. The exercise of studying out the Biblical themes in the devotion just opens up more and more gems.
There are a host of these themes in need of development. I cannot find time to do even half of them. I lack the time. Nor do I have the talent as a writer to polish up these wonderful themes in the manner that they deserve. Quite frankly we need help from those of you out there who are committed to Jesus Christ, love Biblical truth, and are also budding devotional writers.
There is a very important devotional approach to the study of Holy Scripture. These are meditations on Biblical themes, or the study of 'types and shadows'. This has become an interest of mine in recent years. The Bible contains recurring poetic themes running throughout the Holy Scriptures. Many of them come to their conclusion with the return of Messiah. The Old Testament displays a host of these "Biblical themes". These continue on in the New Testament. The parables of Jesus are a rich source of these recurring patterns. Jesus often told "king parables" in a way of illustrating Himself in the role of "the Returning King".
In Hosea we see YHVH/God as the Husband of Israel. We see Him wooing His covenant people back to Himself even as the prophet Hosea wooed his wayward wife, lost Gomer back home again. The day would come when Gomer would remember her Husband. She would rediscover her love relationship with Him, even in the Valley of Achor, the Valley of Trouble and Tribulation.
Romance themes abound in the Bible. In the the Song of Solomon we see the cosmic Christ coming to His people. The absent Shepherd lover returns to seek out the Shulamite. He is outside, knocking at the door.
Later, in Book of Revelation we see Him once more. He is knocking at the door again. This time He is at the door of the final latter day church, the church at Laodicea. (Rev.3:14-22) Our Messiah is outside the door knocking. He is waiting for us to let Him in. He is the Beloved at the door'.
Quite clearly there is great drama and a divine romance to be seen at the end of the age. John saw the climax and consummation of it all. He saw the Bride, the City of God with 12 gates and 12 foundations. He saw a glorious city of 12 gates and built up of 'living stones'. All His jewels are pure having been tried in the fire. (Rev.21) John saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem descending from heaven. He also saw the divine romance come to its splendid conclusion. And he saw the 'Marriage Supper' of the Lamb.
The deliverance aspect to the Second Coming of Christ is another truly magnificent and inspiring theme. The deliverance of Jerusalem at the end of the age is well known. But the deliverance of God's covenant people who are abroad in the prophesied exile at Bozrah is clearly laid out in Holy Scripture. (See Micah 2:12-13.)
This is a blockbuster of a story. And yet there is virtually no current Bible teaching that addresses this awesome action by our returning Christ at Bozrah. Nor have I heard one peep about the Bozrah deliverance.
But we have some good cross-references to this end-time Bozrah drama. John's vision of the woman of Revelation 12 tells the "rest of the story". Here we see (Isa.63) 'the flight of the woman' and what is clearly an exodus and an exile during the last 3.5 years of this age. This is another perspective to the Bozrah story we see mentioned in Isaiah and Micah. Bozrah, is a place of mystery right now. But it is the place where Messiah as "the Breaker" will pay a visit at the climax of the age. This will be no Sunday school picnic. The wicked will be destroyed at His coming. This judgment will happen not only at Armageddon but also outback of beyond at this mystery place called Bozrah. The prophet Isaiah describes the divine wrath element to this story in rather graphic terms. (Isa.63)
Quite clearly there will be an exile of the remnant Church/remnant Israel in the crucible of the Apocalypse. God's covenant people and other 666 rejecters will be flying off to Bozrah during the 666 regime of the Antichrist which is the Great Tribulation, the final 3.5 years of this age. In Revelation 12 we see that the woman, the greater Commonwealth of Israel, will be given the wings of a great eagle. (What country might be implicated here do you think?) Which country sees more jet travel than any other?
Yes, God's covenant people will fly off to a place where they can be spiritually nurtured. This is during the very same 3.5 year/1260 day time period as the Great Tribulation. (Rev. 12:6 & 12:14)
The Bozrah scriptures obviously are sending us important and even encouraging information concerning the latter days. But virtually no one is talking about it. The flight to Bozrah, the exile in Bozrah, and the magnificent Bozrah deliverance is never addressed by our current popular Bible prophecy teachers.
All this high adventure, divine romance, and epic drama is written down for us in narrative and word-picture form right there in our Bibles. Future world history will come to its epic conclusion with the return of Messiah. This story has been written thousands of years ahead of time. Holy history is a divine play. The action has been pre-ordained. Even now the cast of characters is being readied to go up on stage. The final acts and scenes will be played out before angels and men in the final seven years of this age.
So Bible prophecy is not just arcane theological guff for religious nerds.
The stage is even now being set for the end-time drama. It will be a race to the finish line!
If it happens in our lifetime then we should make it a priority
to invite Messiah into our hearts, to come to know Him personally and to walk with Him daily.
He is calling us! There is a race to be won.
And the way this world is going it is becoming increasingly
likely that we shall be there!
Here is the main burden as presented in this website. For God's covenant people there can be no thought of 'abandoning ship'. Nor can we entertain escapist fantasies of "skipping out" seven years ahead of time! We are the ones who have been called to witness. The Western church must not become a runaway bride. We are to be prepared to finish the relay race of the ages. We do not run in our own strength. We run on behalf of our Saviour and in His strength! We do not run just for ourselves. We run on behalf of all the saints who have gone before us. A cloud of witnesses in heaven and on earth is watching us. They are on tip toes and full of expectancy. They expect us to run. They expect us to complete the race.
And so we shall!
John, in the book of Revelation, tells us the real story. As we come to the end of the age the Ancient of Days will be holding court. The Apocalypse, as seen by John and outlined in the Book of Revelation, is really a heavenly court case. The prophet Daniel and the Apostle John both saw the courts of heaven open and they saw the Ancient of Days sit. (Dan.7:9-28 & Rev. 4:22) When the four horsemen, the four governmental systems of mortal men, have all failed to deliver the Ancient of Days will proceed on to the next order of business. As the 5th seal is opened He will be calling for all His witnesses. They will bring their testimony. And it will be on behalf of the coming Messiah. YHVH will be turning to His Bride, His saints, for their input on these important covenant matters. A true bride will always understand and accept her role in this as she signs the document just beneath the signature of her husband.
The 5th seal witness of the saints will bring this age to its appointed glorious conclusion. The Day of Atonement will will come into its ultimate fulfillment during the last day of this age. This will be the final Day of Reckoning. This final day of legal closure will be Judgment Day. Then the Ancient of Days will call for his reapers to bring in the harvest. And as the sun sets on That Day the Day of the Lord will open up. The angels of wrath will come first. They will gather the wicked as tares. (Mat. 13:30) Then our returning Messiah will gather His Elect in the Resurrection-Rapture. Then He will judge the nations of mortals that remain in the Sheep-Goat Judgment. This sin-sick toxic planet will then find its promised relief with the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom of Messiah.
So, contrary to what we have been told, we as Christian believers are very much in the loop here. We are vitally involved in all these end time blood covenant proceedings. And we shall be there! As a matter of fact we shall be up front and center! Whether we live or die in the witness is not the issue. Jesus tells us that some of us will be put to death in the witness,yes this is true. But this is not a permanent spiritual death at all. The Tribulation saints will live again! And as Jesus Himself told us, "not one hair of their head will be lost."
And so the whole issue of survivalism and running off to caves in Idaho or to Canada is a moot point. For true Christians the preservation of our flesh is not at issue. The survival of our flesh life is totally and absolutely irrelevant in all this. Because we serve a God who has defeated death. He defeated death at the Cross.
Here is another matter seldom addressed.
The Tribulation martyrs we see in Revelation 20:4,5 are at the head of the parade.
These saints who have died in the witness
are given special mention as part of that glorified company, the
First Resurrection.
These, of course, are basic
blood covenant issues.
Indonesian and Egyptian Christians understand these matters implicitly.
But most of us as Christians in the West are still carnal.
So these matters are strange to us. We do not understand these things.
At least not yet.
But we shall.
Our Savior is our Redeemer.
The Holy Spirit is bringing all
these prophetic messages home to us today.
God is speaking to His Elect by His Word and
through the many wonderful devotional poetic
themes contained in Holy Scripture.
We see this rich prophetic imagery interlaced throughout the scriptures
from Genesis to Revelation.
Needless to say, all of this is very inspiring and exciting.
For those who are interested I hold to a traditional evangelical
pre-millennialist belief.
Here is my
Statement of Faith.
Thank you for visiting the website.
There is some easily digested milk and also some tough meat here in certain places.
But hopefully the romance and the adventure we are yet to enjoy in our
God comes through in some of the writings.
Much of it is written for my pre-millennialist pre-trib evangelical dispensationalist
friends. My hope is that they will not be offended by the articles.
At some point they must appreciate the necessity of the end-time witness.
And yes, when all is said and done, the remnant Church and remnant Israel will be one and the same.
They will become
one single united remnant Elect, even a royal priesthood and a holy nation.
Both will become one as the Jewish House of Judah in Israel and the
Church as the Congregation of Israel are tried in the crucible of the end time.
And together they shall become the Commonwealth of Israel
our apostle Paul spoke about in Ephesians 2:11,12,13,14.
Today's Christians are called to be the saints John saw in Revelation 7:9.
At some point we all must awaken from
our slumbers. Our present day preoccupation with psycho-babble and the
motivational speakers we have installed in the pulpit must end.
Let us abandon our futile attempts to balance the ying and the yang
of eastern mysticism we have embraced.
And let us turn away from the "whatever!" attitude,
that is infiltrating our young people in the West today.
We must decide for ourselves just
what our attitude is going to be to the end-time witness. Because in the
fall season of some future year
these
70 weeks of Daniel will reopen.
And God's
blood covenant dealings with His people will resume in earnest.
My prayer is that those who visit the website will
be challenged in their faith.
Grace and Shalom to all.
***************
YHVH-God's covenant people apparently mean a lot to Him.
"He lifts us up into heavenly places,
And His banner over us is love." (Song of Songs 2:4)
May we all come to see our walk with God as the great adventure and the divine romance
it truly is.
Some more devotional articles on apocalyptic Biblical themes
for the enquiring Christian.
