Shalom Kathy (and all dear ones at 5 doves),
 

Thank you, Kathy, for your note to me and the concern
you expressed at:

http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/oct2005/kathy1025.htm

--- Kathy Nicosia <kathnicosia@comcast.net> wrote:

> David,
>
> I read the article that you referred to at fivedoves
> http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/oct2005/dwz1024.htm
> Before completely buying into what the article you
> ...

I listened to all Chuck's 5 messages at the link you
sent.  Chuck is quite a speaker ... he makes many good
points ...

In particular, his insight regarding how one thinks
about Israel / the Church ... that this will influence
how one might see end time events is useful ...

After reading versions of end times by several
'scholars', and not 'seeing' much of what they said
... I sort of put the whole topic on the shelf for a
while.

Then, some years ago, after the death of our daughter,
and the ensuing trauma to the family, I cried out to
Jesus in repentance and desperation, and I now believe
He began then to graciously show me something of my
own unacknowledged wickedness, but also His Own
wonderful faithful gracious Self, ... just as He
promised ... to all who would trust Him and humble
themselves before Him.

I started then to learn the practical wonderful truth
of His Word:  He gives grace to the humble but resists
the proud ...

I marvell at our humanly impossible looking dilema of
'knowing the Lord, that Chuck alludes to, when he
comments on Peter's revelation that Jesus is Messiah.

I began to see from this verse that the blessed and so
the best knowledge is only what is given from above,
and not just by our own study, which we are commanded
to do, and will want to do, if we love Him.

So, to try to make a long story shorter, let me jump
to where I believe the Lord first started to open my
eyes a little to end time events ... a scripture which
seems to, in hindsight, give a pithy overview of what
to expect to happen ... side by side ... to believers
and unbelievers in Jesus ... at the end of this age:
 

2  Thes 1:

3  We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren,
as it is meet, because that your faith groweth
exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all
toward each other aboundeth;
4  So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches
of God for your patience and faith in all your
persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:

5  Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment
of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom
of God, for which ye also suffer:

6  Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to

   *A*
   recompense tribulation
   to them that trouble you;

7  And

   *B*
   to you who are troubled
   rest with us,

    *** when ***
 
   the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven

   with his mighty angels,

8  In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know
not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ:
9  Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of
his power;
10 When he shall come to be glorified in his saints,
and to be admired in all them that believe (because
our testimony among you was believed) in that day.
 

I also recall thinking back then, that He would surely
help us to see, as He promised, as things got nearer,
if we would look to Him, and not others, and would
acknowledge before Him, the perhaps hindering bias we
might still ignorantly have, by virtue of all the
teachings we have had from religious, but in the wrong
spirit, men.
 

My next key endtimes insight was at the instigation of
my older brother:  He entreated me to study Rev
20:4,5,6 along with 1 Cor 15:51,52 and others so that
I might be able to see what he believd he saw ... and
he prep'd me with this simple but important insight:

"There can be no resurrection before the first
resurrection."

Well, I couldn't see what he said he saw there ...
but something much more marvellous happened; I sensed
that there, was something that God wanted me to see.
And so for the next few weeks, I seemed to be in tears
before Him as I cried to Him to show me what He would
have me to see.

In hindsight, I sense the strong power of bias to
prevent vision for me ... for it took so long for me
to then see what is now obvious.

I must, as we all must, really turn from all pleasure
in unrighteousness if I would really be a lover of the
truth ... otherwise God Himself has promised to send
STRONG delusion which will be impossible to escape,
because God tells us we will then be convinced that
this delusion is the truth.

Some years ago, I became convinced, that this too is a
wicked adulterous generation with the church of today
also sanctioning adultery with all its divorce and
remarriage ... This lead down that slippery sliding
slope ... to the last days sanctioning of
homosexuality ... as it is, today.  (By the way, it
sadly came to my attention, some years ago, that Hal
Lindsay, among many others, had divorced his wife and
remarried,in the church, while she was still living
... clearly contrary to husbands loving like Jesus,
the church, and giving/forgiving, even to death, for
their wife.)

So it seems that Chuck and Hal and all others who
proclaim that Name above ever other Name may
graciously be in for some major shock therapy ... both
about their own wickedness, there false teaching, and
our Lord's faithful goodness to keep His own word.

But this Good News is still available ... if we would
judge ourselves, we would not be judged ... but if we
are (firstly) judged of the Lord, we are not to
dispair, because this is to bring us to repentance, so
that we would not be judged with the wicked, since we
do the same things the wicked do.

Shalom shalom,

David

P.S.  This is especially sad ... since Chuck said he
'sees' Ruth (a gentile believer) helping restore Naomi
Israel) to her own ... via Boaz (Yeshua / Jesus our
Kinsman-Redeemer.)
 
 

dwzavitz@yahoo.com
dwzavitz@mymelody.com
http://www.geocities.com/dwzavitz