Introduction
I am providing this companion to my Testimony because it (my testimony) contains many statements of fact, descriptions of events and experiences, explanations of unusual occurrences, and the telling of personal history which many people find controversial. Even friends and family members have preferred to write off many of my experiences as merely psychological. They find it hard to give any credence to things outside of their own experience. I think we all have a tendency to do that. If you are not a believer, but you are a searcher after TRUTH and wisdom, put aside what you think you know; seek to understand my account without prejudice. Then exercise your free will. If you are a believer, remember that it is not Church that saves, but The Word of God.
Pastors and leaders in many congregations tend to think that God only works through people such as themselves; people who have been properly prepared through programs and studies at a seminary or college that specializes in training people to work as priests, ministers, pastors etc. They fail to realize that such training produces a mindset that often acts as a barrier to taking seriously anything God might do that challenges their views on reality, propriety and even morality. It is true that there are a great many pastors and priests out there who have faith in God, who love God and do their best to serve Him in their chosen profession, and who do help many people to find God in this evil filled world. Such servants of God are wonderful people, and they do work endlessly to promote the Kingdom of God, and to help people become citizens of that Kingdom. Often it is these people who put themselves out, and often go without, in their service of God and His Gospel. They may have to do so in spite of the organisation and hierarchy above them; to do so in peril of their own welfare and chances of promotion. Such genuine people are frowned upon and held back from gaining positions of influence because they are a challenge and a threat to those who love their high place, and its benefits, more than any regard for truth and love of God. This was true in Jesus’ day, and it is true now. I eventually came to understand that many, perhaps most, theologians are atheists. It seems they believe that humans need religion not because it may lead us to God and an eternal life with Him, but because without religion we would be even more murderous and rapacious than what we are. In fact, some so-called religions are nothing more than evil ideologies the purpose of which is to subjugate and oppress all opposition to those in high office. They teach their followers to lie and cheat when that promotes their aims without difficulty, but to maim and kill, to rape and plunder, and to cause nations to fall, and multitudes to suffer when that suits their agenda. Some of those people are not really atheists; they know there is a God, but they hate God and his rules.
My journey did eventually bring me to believe and have faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I believe that the very earliest versions of The Torah, and the larger work generally known as The Bible, are indeed the written Word of God. Later versions, and that includes nearly all versions written since the beginning of the twentieth century AD, are to some extent “politically correct”, and have many distortions, deletions, and additions ; the outworking of which has produced the chaos present and growing in the Christian Church today. Redactors began their work long ago, and so it is that much of what calls itself “The Church” is actually paganised. Those major distortions go back to at least the 4th century AD. In the so called Christian nations, Easter is more about the fertility cult of Aster, with its bunnies and eggs, than it is about Passover and Jesus on the Cross. Xmas is more about the northern Winter Solstice and Santa Clause, than it is about the Birth of Jesus. And anyway, the birth of Jesus was months before December.
Early days
My parents and extended family were Catholics. In those days Catholics tended to have large families because they did not believe in birth control. I was the second of eight children. There were seven boys and one girl, the youngest. We also had many cousins because Dad had thirteen siblings, and Mum had five. Most of Dad’s siblings lived in Dunedin, as we did. There was quite a lot of interaction between the families, but hardly any with families we were not related to. Of course, we children played with other neighbourhood children, but their parents did not interact with ours. It did not seem strange at the time, though looking back it does seem that it was very unusual. I mention this because there was a conspiracy of silence in the family about various things that other people may have spoken up about had they known about them. Things like the fact that I was sexually molested by some members of the extended family from a very young age. (Not by my parents) My siblings like to deny that these things happened. This is not so surprising because such things did not happen to them. I was always under dire threat not to mention anything about these things, so I did not tell anyone about it at the time. I was nearly 50 years old when I first mentioned anything about this to my immediate family, and they flat out refused to believe me.
To understand why I was singled out you need to know that my Dad thought he was not my father. They believed that Mum fell pregnant whilst Dad was away with the military on War service. Before he died, Dad told my sister that Mum had been raped whilst he was away with the military. You can easily understand how that had made many difficulties for both of my parents. It explains why I had such a difficult relationship with Dad, and why there were no hugs or words of love from him, or from Mum. In fact I believe they were wrong. I believe that Dad was in fact my father, that when I was born I was at least many days premature. My birth was induced when they thought I was some weeks overdue. I believe that Mum fell pregnant to Dad immediately after he returned to Dunedin on furlough, some weeks after the rape episode. I know that many relatives believed I was not Dad’s child because they used words like “Mamser”, ” Love child”, “Bastard” When I walked into a room at an extended family gathering. This may explain why they thought it was ok to molest me; if I was a cursed child then I was fair game to be brutalized. It began when I was just a babe. It continued until I was eight. At that time I was sodomised by an uncle with a knife at my throat. On the same day that uncle had attacked another family member with that same knife, and I was a witness to that. Others found out what had happened because the mutilated family member needed medical assistance. I was not sexually molested again, but still treated very differently to my siblings. One brother who understood how differently I was treated said that was ok because I was born to be a servant to him because he was born to be a boss. Another brother said in fact he was Jealous of me because the fact I was not given new bikes, guitars, music and singing lessons etc. meant that I had freedom to do what I wanted. In his view they treated me like a dog so I was free to act like a dog.
So it was that I grew up a renegade. I did not set out to hurt anyone, but I certainly believed that rules were there to break if one could get away with it. Since I saw that the law was set up to help the rich get richer, and to keep the poor in submission, I thought nothing of lying and stealing when it suited me. I was a user, so it was not surprising that I made no lasting relationships in those years. At times I was suicidal; a lot of the time I was very lonely. I did have a number of girlfriends, and the sexual gratification was what I sought. Any idea of a meaningful relationship was beyond my experience and not something I pursued. The idea that there was a God who knew me and cared about me was crazy as far as I was concerned. I had no experience of love and had never been told I was loved except occasionally by a girlfriend who really meant only that she lusted for me. How could I think there was a God who loved me? The church attended by the family when I was young and still going to church in an attempt to stay in good with my mother, only talked about an angry God who wanted to catch me out so he could somehow be justified in torturing me eternally in a big fire. Why would I give credence to such small minded pagan ideas? I thought it unlikely the God I heard about was real, and if he was he must be very different to the stupid being priests talked about. So yes, I was agnostic bordering on atheist.
The ten rules called The Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-17) were a puzzle. I wondered why a being who was supposed to be Eternal, Infinite, Omnipresent and All Knowing would want us to stroke his ego by keeping the first three laws. The fourth was ok because everyone needs a day off, but why did we all have to have the same day off? And why do most churches keep the Sunday as a day of rest when God’s law says it should be the seventh day which everyone recognises is the Saturday? (Of course, Judaism and some denominations of Christianity do keep the Sabbath on Saturday.) The fifth law asks us to honour our father and mother. What about all the dysfunctional families where the child is brutalised and in many cases used as a sex object? How do children in such families honour their parents? Yes, I had lots of questions. The sixth law instructs us not to murder. How do we decide when killing is murder and when not? When is killing not only ok, but actually required? Still, at least I could agree with this one. The seventh I could see the point of, but not many people seemed to take it seriously. Adultery is what adults do isn’t it? The next one I thought was a real laugh. I mean have you ever checked out how banks are set up? Talk about highway robbery! Nine, I thought was a good one. We shouldn’t lie to get someone in trouble. But now that number ten; how can anyone get through life without breaking that one? Not anyone I know.
Well, I have very good answers for all of those questions now; and answers for a great many others too. But this is not the place to deal with that because it would be a digression that would be longer than the whole testimony. But back then I didn’t know much and I certainly had no wisdom. Looking back I cringe at the things I did. I am very sorry for all the people I hurt in my selfishness. All I have said so far is just background, and many other youngsters had similar experiences and tougher circumstances without turning out badly.
Now I want to tell you about some of the paranormal events that happened along the way and worked together with my reading to form a mindset that expected the unusual, and even the inexplicable, as regular occurrences. To begin I will tell you about an event that happened when I was five years old, and had been going to school for only several months. I had been told that if you had enough faith you could move mountains. I have said that the church our family attended was dead and full of cant and hypocrisy, but there was one occasion when a travelling preacher was allowed to give the sermon that day. He was so fired up that people were crying and praying all over the place. Anyway, one of the things he said was that if you have enough faith you could move mountains if you spoke to them in the Name of Jesus. I decided to put that to the test, so I went to Kew Gardens and there was a large shade tree right there taking up playing space. In the Name of Jesus, I commanded the tree to turn itself upside down. Nothing happened. I looked at the tree and thought that it could not turn itself upside down because it could not move itself at all. Trees bend and sway when the wind blows. That brought a memory of the adults talking about winds that blow in a circle, and can sometimes lift up stuff like houses. In the Name of Jesus I commanded the sky to revolve, and I waved my hands at the horizon in a very slow circular motion. Gradually the clouds began to move in a circle. When that motion was established, I caused it to spiral inward toward the tree as a centre. That took a while and a lot of concentration. As the diameter of the storm tightened the wind speed increased until it was roaring and sweeping dust and debris up in a spiral, far up into the sky. I was standing back a bit against a large fence and being buffeted by the edge of that whirlwind. I willed it to tighten over the tree and keep away from me. The tree was shaking and pulling upward, but the roots were holding it down. As a child I had no idea that the roots of a tree were generally spread as widely as its branches. I had some notion that the root would be like a tapering carrot that I knew from our home garden, but to my astonishment the whole shaded area of the tree was now rising up; earth and all. I was so surprised that I lost my concentration and the whole thing twisted around and fell almost upside down back to the hole it had left in the ground. The wind died out immediately. Shaken by this experience I was unnoticed by the crowd that was soon gathering in the park. The whole neighbourhood was buzzing with talk about the freak weather event. I leave it to the reader to check out the newspaper reports that I am sure were in the Otago Daily Times, and probably the Evening Star, though I have not done so. I know what I experienced. That would have been late in 1949 I think, although I am very hazy about dates from back then. I know very well that many people will say it was a freak weather event that I witnessed but had nothing to do with, except in my imagination. Your call. What is important here is that you understand that I was developing an outlook on life which was at odds with the way people around me saw the world. I was constantly in trouble with the teachers at school and with the adults in our neighbourhood. When I was seven I joined the Boy Scouts Cub group. After a few weeks the lady in charge barred me from attending.
How I learned to have out of body trips.
Dad was at a loss to know how to deal with me. Due to the things I had experienced, I was a highly sexualized child, and one day I got caught doing some personal exploring with one of the neighbourhood girls. He had tried whacking me about the legs with a frayed battery strap, but Mum stopped him because I was yelling loud enough to disturb the neighbours. She washed my legs with warm water and Dettol whilst she told me how bad I was, and that if I did not change I would go to hell. The scars were both physical and emotional. Anyway, Dad got less physical and more inventive with his punishments. Not letting me go to the movies with my brothers on a Saturday morning did not work because I had learned to steal, so I had money and I would just run off and go to the movies anyway. I was about nine and a half years at the time, and Dad came up with a punishment that Mum allowed, and which I really hated. He made me stand in a corner of the room and face the corner. I was not allowed to look around or move. If I failed I would go without my dinner. At first he would set a time like 15 minutes which seemed like an eternity to me because I was a highly active child, always rushing about investigating things. It was doubly hard when a couple of my brothers joined with Dad in taunting me in the hope I would turn around or run off. But after going without dinner a couple of times I learned how to do it. Dad responded by increasing the time in the corner to 45 minutes. I really could not stay in that corner for one more minute, but neither could I turn around to take a peek at the clock on the far wall. So, somehow, I left my body standing there and went off elsewhere. I sort of fell backward out of my body and floated up to the ceiling. That first time I gave myself such a fright that in mere seconds I was back in the corner crying. I got another 15 minutes for making noise. Next time I was back in the corner I thought back to that falling out of my body event. It had not hurt in any way and I wondered if I could do it again. Oh YES! I got to like it. It was fun spying on the neighbours. It was interesting seeing what people got up to when they thought no one was looking. It was amazing to discover that places which were miles away by road were right next door as the crow flies. I started going to my corner without being told to; my secret life was great fun. I had many adventures including a few trips to far off places which took hardly any time at all to travel across the seas.
One day when several relatives were visiting I ate the cakes when no one was looking. One cake too many and I was caught out, and got sent to my corner. I don’t know how long I was in my trance state, but one of my uncles noticed that I was not there mentally. I was watching him shouting at my body and shaking it. Then he was having a big argument with Dad. Others got involved. An aunt wanted me committed to an asylum, but the local doctor examined me and declared I was more sane than some of the ones picking on me, so the matter was dropped. However, I was no longer allowed to stand in the corner doing nothing. This was a great blow as I had come to look forward to my experiences. So, I took to hiding out where I was unlikely to be disturbed; tripping off to my heart’s content for a while. But the neighbour uphill from our house caught me hiding between his fence and the side wall of his house. It was a narrow space, and there was only a lot of old junk stored there. I had prised loose two of the palings from the lower batten. Thus I could push them aside and crawl through into a very private space. I don’t know how the neighbour found me there; perhaps he heard me getting through the fence. The neighbour accused me of trying to steal his stuff, and Dad fixed the fence and I was in trouble again. I did not deny the stealing accusation because otherwise I might have to explain what I was really up to. The family doctor got to examine me again, and this time he told me that if I would be honest with him about what I was trying to do he would not tell anyone. He said there was a thing that doctors did which meant they could not tell people about stuff told to them privately. I took a risk and told him what I had been doing. Well, that doctor was pretty smart. Instead of telling me off, or trying to convince me I was imagining things, he explained that there were dangers I was not aware of. He said that if I kept doing that stuff I might get stuck out of my body, which might die or be like a vegetable; alive but not aware. So I stopped doing that stuff for some years.
It seemed I was always in trouble with nearly all the adults around me; getting told off by every adult I had to deal with. The looks on their faces whenever they did speak to me were a pain to me, so I blocked their faces from my perception. Once I had that habit it became so automatic that I clean forgot how to see them. I could see the bodies and the heads, but the faces on those heads were blank space. I did not really listen either. I only took notice of their tone of voice; not their words. I just stared off into space until they stopped talking, and then they sometimes would shout at me; sooner or later they would walk off and I would too. In those days I had withdrawn from a reality I hated. About then I made a new friend at school. He loaned me some Enid Blyton books. I could read quite well, but had never been loaned a book before. There were no books in our house in those days except some Carter Brown detective stories Dad liked to read, oh yes, and some “Westerns”. I was NOT allowed to read those. The only books I had ever read were the school “Primers”. I did read comics which neighbouring kids had, but if I got caught with those I was in trouble again. So by reading books I learned that I could escape into an imaginary world. This was both good and bad. Good in that I was getting an education, and developing a love for books; bad in that it made me think that all those exciting past experiences might have just been imaginary, like the stories. I learned that the school had a library and I read most of what was in it, which was a collection of the old classics and not much else. Stuff like Huckleberry Finn and The Last Mohican etc. Years passed and I became so involved with the imaginary worlds in the books, particularly the SciFi books, that I spent almost all of my spare time reading. Dad had given up trying to stop me. I pinched all his books and read them; boring mostly. But eventually I found books about “Out of Body Experiences”. Gradually I came to realize that my earlier experiences at stuff like that were real and not just imaginary. So I did do that again from time to time, but I also remembered what the doctor had warned me of, and so I did not do much of it. However, I could tell more accounts of the trips I made, and the people I met in those trips. I did seem to have “senses” that worked just like the five physical senses, but mentally I seemed always to be in a state of confusion a bit dream-like.
For clarity: I tell you about these things, not to glorify them, but to help you to accept that the things I wrote of in my testimony are true; I did know how to have out of body trips, and there is a danger of not being able to get back. If you do not return to your body, sooner or later it will die. I have not provided you with details of how to go about learning to have these experiences, because I am not encouraging you to try to do so. It may be that these things are morally wrong. Many would say that the Bible tells us never to do such, but the only times I find ‘out of body experiences’ mentioned in the Bible, it was when God, or an angel of God was telling someone to, “Come up Here.” as was the case, for instance, with Ezekiel Ez.3:12-15, and with John the Revelator Rev.4:1,2. And clearly these trips have nothing to do with the occult which is the study and effort of communicating with the dead. To do that is to defy God, and we know what happened to King Saul because he did so with the Witch of Endor (see 1 Samuel 28:1-25, 31:1-6. But either way, I have not attempted any more such ethereal travel since my Epiphany; my coming to the knowledge and relationship with Yeshua Ha Meshiac.( Jesus The Christ)
High School
A funny thing happened to a friend of mine. It was a new year and she was about to get a high school education. “A” was sure she did not want to go to the school her parents had chosen because she was sure it would be difficult and she would not fit in, and it was a school for girls only. Another nearby school, where lots of boys she knew were going, was where she wanted to be. Her parents had their way. The first morning at that school changed my friend forever. All the new students were assembled in a hall, and a teacher came onto the stage area. She was dressed in clothing that appeared shabby and ill fitting, her shoulders were slouched, her head hung low, and she dragged her heels as she walked out to the centre stage. In a monotone she informed the students, “Life can be a bitch, and then you die. Everyone wants something from you, but they don’t give you stuff.”
“A” thought she may like this teacher because she could relate to what she was saying, and sort of looked like her too in some ways. All around her, students were ignoring the teacher and talking among themselves, some jeering at the teacher too. That teacher shrugged her shoulders, threw up her hands and slouched off stage. There was a loud bell sound and the students stopped talking and looked to the stage where a slimmer, taller lady was striding to the centre. She walked with a brisk confidence, head held high. Her clothing seemed almost a part of her. Her penetrating gaze swept the audience in a way that caused immediate attention from the students. After a brief pause, she began to speak with a voice that easily reached every part of the now quiet hall. Her words were unhurried and somehow pleasant to listen to.
“Good morning girls! My name is Miss Upward, and I will be taking some of your classes. I teach deportment and elocution, among other things. You will be seeing a lot of me, but you will not see much of Miss Doormat who was out here few moments ago. “
A gasp could be heard from the students but was quickly muffled when Miss Upward cast her steely eyes around the hall. “What? You think I am cruel to speak about her that way? Well, I shall bring her out here right now so that you can show her some sympathy.”
At that, Miss Upward slowly turned a full circle. The whole hall was very quiet for there stood Miss Doormat . “I am sorry I have to come out here again. I know some of you are a lot like me, but I don’t want your friendship or your pity. “said Miss Doormat in her monotone. “You may not believe it yet, but each of you can be just like Miss Upward if you work at it. And then the world will be at your feet.”
Miss Doormat slowly turned a full circle and there, to the amazement of the girls, stood Miss Upward in all her imposing self. Shoulders back, head held high, wearing her clothes with poise; her penetrating gaze sweeping the hall. Almost without thinking, most of the girls straightened up as they attempted to emulate this amazing woman. This event greatly changed the life of “A”. In her time at that school she did become the young lady she was always capable of being. No longer was she the plaything of boys who treated her wrongly; no longer was she expecting a life of disappointment and trouble. No longer did she skip classes or “forget” to do her homework. When “A” told me about this event, she said it was no longer possible to be my friend because I would pull her down again to my level in life. That hurt a lot, but it also sowed the seeds of the idea that maybe I could find a way up in this world too. At least I knew that some people could be transformed by remarkable experiences in their lives.
As it turned out, I left school before my 15th birthday, so I lacked a “Secondary” education. I entered the full time work force, and did seasonal work at the meat processing plant, and at the wool stores etc. I forgot about rising up in the world; I was far from God. Mostly, I spent my money on cigarettes, booze, fuel, cars and motorbikes. During those years some of the lads I had gone to school with died in motor accidents and from other causes. At the time, I thought I was just lucky, because I had many close shaves with death. Looking back now, I see the Hand of God protecting me from my own stupidity. Why did he protect me when others died? There was nothing worthy in me. I have come to realize that God has a plan for each of us; how we shall live, and what we should accomplish in our lives. He knows from Eternity who will eventually come to Him asking for forgiveness, and help to walk in his ways. These He protects until they do so. Those He knows will never repent are allowed to reap the consequences of their wrong ways, even if that means an early death. And even if it means they will live long and hurt many people. Free will is costly; it makes evil possible, but without it we would be automatons, nothing more than organic robots pre-programmed to behave in certain ways.
In my testimony, I wrote about being surrounded by impenetrable greyness. But a glimmer of the suggestion of light led me to seek that light, and eventually the glimmer became an undeniable light. “At the same moment that I knew there really was a light out there, I realized that I was surrounded not by greyness, but by impenetrable darkness. It is as if one cannot see darkness unless there is some light to measure it by.”
In our daily lives this phenomena is true also in a spiritual sense. Even sceptics would agree that in recent decades there has been a vast change in our sense of what is acceptable behaviour in our Western culture. Most modern Western societies and nations were founded on Biblical principles. For centuries The West prospered far in excess of The East. This was mostly due to the outworking of Biblical Principles. Those who hate God and who wanted our laws changed so that they were free to openly practise abominations, made little headway by openly opposing God. In time, they learned that by subtly changing the Gospel, little by little, they could severely undermine the status quo. The light began to dim. I think we can say that the Twentieth Century was the “End Times” and that these early years of the Twenty First Century are the “End of Days”. I am not writing of the end of the Earth, but of the end of this present civilization. Now we call good evil, and we call evil good. We have shut God out of the courts, and out of the schools, and we persecute those who seek to promote the true Gospel. The light has become very dim; hardly more than a faint, far off glimmer. All is grey in the moral arena. We murder countless helpless babies in the one place they ought to be most protected; their mother’s womb. Today I heard a so called Liberal woman praise God for Abortion. The lights are out, and we can expect huge calamity upon calamity to engulf the world. The prophets of Yahweh tell us that in the days to come there will be fires and floods, hailstones and fire from the Heavens, something like a mountain will fall in the sea, (perhaps an asteroid?).Rev. 8:8; 18:21. There will be widespread and great earthquakes, and the Earth will vomit.(Volcanic eruptions?) These things will be a direct result of the evil upon the Earth. The whole of Creation groans under the weight of sin. Soon the evil upon the Earth will be greater than it has ever been; even greater than before the Great Flood. This time we cannot blame the Nephilim; all is our own doing. We force the mixing of genes from one kind of animal with that of another in an effort to “create” new kinds of animal in our quest to raise ourselves above God. As we genetically modify our food, the grain and the fruit, it becomes useless as a defence against disease. As we legalize homosexuality, sodomy, same sex marriage, and bestiality, there are now calls for the legalizing of paedophilia. Child molesting has become acceptable. This is a low among lows.
As I review these words in November of 2019, I am expecting more of the words of the prophets of God to work out before our eyes. Isaiah, 17:1-3, informs us that Syria ceases to be a nation, and Damascus becomes a rubble heap, in those days there will be a successful attack upon Israel; Isaiah 17-4. God has been protecting that nation from the attacks of her enemies ever since she was rebirthed as a nation state in 1948. In several wars, when she was attacked by overwhelming numbers from surrounding Muslim nations, miracle upon miracle guaranteed the survival of this tiny democratic nation. However, over the years as the population has grown, it has also become quite secular. It is true that there are many God fearing believers in Israel, both Jew and Gentile, but the greater numbers are secular. In general, the people of this nation are only distinguishable from others by cultural factors; their Jewishness. Tel Aviv has become known around the world as Sin City. A Gay Pride parade held there each year is one of the clearest ways that we can see Israel defying God. Thus, God will soon cease to protect that city. As a direct result of sin, Israel repeats her long past mistakes. This time, God has informed us that for His own Name’s sake he will not allow Israel to be overcome, but he surely will allow her to be made thin. “Jacob will be made thin.” Isaiah 17:4-14.
Also, a time will come when Israel will be over-run and a remnant will be hidden away and protected until Messiah returns. Matt. 23:37-24:44
As the multitudes upon the Earth abandon the precepts of the Bible, and laws increasingly reflect and protect the desires of an extremely small number of incredibly rich people, darkness prevails everywhere. We will see the rise of the Anti-Christ. Whether that is a person or a system of Government remains to be seen. The evil ideology of Islam is, I think, a tool in the hands of those who work to destabilize nations and destroy everything good. People will cry out for strong central world government in the hope that this will bring back stability and prosperity. In their duress they will accept draconian laws that they otherwise would not contemplate. There will be a demand for a set of precepts that every person must adhere to. These will form an umbrella religion over all established religions. It will make such statement as, “All religions are equal. Every path leads to the same God. There is no devil. The Earth is sacred and must be protected. The population of Earth must be reduced to about one billion.” And so on. Under that umbrella everyone can choose their own religion, but there can be no claims of being the only true way. Anyone espousing the Gospel as we know it from the Bible, will be declared to be a terrorist, and will be sentenced to death.
The Judgement
Stuck in my scary out of body trip that was so different to any I had previously experienced, I eventually found my way toward the source of light. There I met Yeshua. He looked quite different to the various paintings and statues I had seen that were supposed to look like him. He seemed a little taller than me and far stronger. I would call him rugged in build and swarthy in countenance. His skin was dark; a kind of Mahogany in which I saw all the colours of man. His hair was a dark brown. In a little book I read recently, “Heaven is for Real.” I saw a sketch done by a little girl who had a vision of Jesus. That sketch comes very close to the memory I have of Yeshua as he appeared to me. Sadly, I cannot say what colour his eyes are, because when I think of his eyes all I can see is what his gaze revealed to me:
“Every wilful and wrong thing I had ever done was revealed for what it was. Every selfish and uncaring word or action, every lie, distortion of truth or rejection of God and His Word was there to see, along with its affects in people’s lives.”
For the first time in my whole life I had the beginnings of understanding of what sin is, and of the destruction it causes. I saw and understood the damage of sin to me and also to those I sinned against. Somehow I knew that every sin goes someway to undoing the work of The Creator. Every lie is also an attack on Yeshua because he is Truth. Every act of defiance against The Word of God builds a barrier between the sinner and God. It is not that God wants to punish us for what we do, but that what we do causes us to die permanently unless he intervenes. He wants to intervene and bring us back to everlasting life and community with him but the whole of creation has to be brought back into balance and harmony. This takes the spilling of innocent blood. I don’t know why that is, I just know that God has said so, and that He said that life is in the blood. Heb.9:22. The Word of God was made flesh and hung on a stake until all his blood was spilled to bring the whole of creation back into balance and harmony. That includes all of us being brought back into right relationship with Him.
Imagine a very rich landowner who decided to use his great wealth to make a wonderful country where there was never any shortage of food and clean water. A country where there was no shortage of any good thing; all were well housed and clothed and provided with all they could ever need. He made entry into citizenship of this country free, but there was one condition: every citizen was required to wear, and to keep wearing, a bright white robe. Many people flocked to enter this new country, but many were turned away because they would not humble themselves and wear the required robe. Only the rich man had paid for everything; surely it is justice that he gets to make that one condition of joining in to his community.
Some ask why God allows pain and suffering and death. Some wonder why God does nothing to stop evil men abusing, enslaving and killing others. There are as many such questions as there are people. God has told us over and over that he wants us to live our lives in harmony with Him and with His Laws. We find that not a single one of us is able to do that. We all sin, and that insures that we will go to destruction. The damage done through sin actually kills us. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23. If God does not intervene we go to destruction. The ancients spoke of a burning.
I imagine it is like a tree that is cut down and left to rot. Rotting is a slow burning process. Now, I am not saying this is exactly like it is. Eventually all will be made clear to us about the manner of destruction and so on. What we do need to get clear is that scripture tells us over and again that unrepented sin brings us to destruction. God is willing to save us from that, but He requires us to wear the cloak of righteousness purchased by Yeshua at the cross. If we repent and ask God to change us, He works with us by His Holy Spirit to refine us. We become much more like the men and women we were meant to be. When we die God completes this transformation for us, and fixes our nature permanently in that mould. This is our will when we ask Yeshua to be our Saviour. Therefore God is not over-riding our free will. In the Hereafter there will be no sin in the Heavens. Satan has been cast out. The rich man has determined that only those who are willing to wear the white robe will be citizens of His country.
So it was that I stood in Judgement. As the gaze of Yeshua revealed me for what I was, my sins were clear to me. I saw the affects of those sins rolling out into people’s lives; corruption, disease, heartbreak, and betrayal damaged people causing them to sin more than they may have otherwise. In addition, I saw those times when I had failed to act to help someone in need. One such thing: There were two little girls who had insufficient to eat. They had only rags for their clothing, and no one to care for them. A brother, not yet fourteen, was out trying to find some food to get them through another day. I had met him in the neighbourhood; a new face. He had told me their mother had left and would not be back. He was worried that the government would separate them, so they were hiding out. He knew it was only a matter of time before they were found out because no one was paying the rent. Their mother had sold all of the furniture before she left. When I saw those two little girls, I was struck by how thin and pale they looked. It was apparent that they were hungry and cold. I left them there wondering what I could do about it, and to my shame I put them out of my mind. I do not now remember whether it was the next day or some days later when conscious stricken, I gathered some bread and scraps from my home when no one was looking, and went to their house. They had gone. I left the food in case they were merely hiding again, but I never saw any of them again. Now I know what a sin that was; “For I was hungry, and you did not feed me.” Truth to tell; if those girls had been teenagers I would have tried to have sex with them. So you see, my soul was depraved, and as I stood in Judgement it became clear to me that I deserved to go to destruction. That moment was the lowest moment in my life. I lost all hope.
Now that should have been the end of me, but as those who have read my testimony know, God had a different plan for me. He knew that if I lived a normal human life for a further twenty years, the day would come that I would reach out to Him and become his disciple and servant. In due course, I was to be an instrument in the salvation of many people. Churches do not save, priests and pastors do not save, I do not save; Yeshua saves. God has many servants and many instruments of salvation. This works out in many ways. Sometimes the written word prevails; sometimes conversation; sometimes preaching; often just the example of a humble life lived in accordance with the Laws of God is what it takes to help another into the Kingdom of God. Yeshua told me that he would anoint my words to touch people who otherwise may never be reached for the kingdom of God. So it was that he sent me back with a three-fold message: “I AM.” He said, with such authority that it seemed to me that the whole Creation shook in its foundations . “I LOVE YOU.” He said, and I understood that “YOU” meant everyone. He loves us but he hates a lot of what we do. “I AM COMING BACK SOON.” was the third part of his message. That word, ‘soon’, has different meanings depending on who says it, and in what context. When I say I will do something soon, it generally means I have the intention of doing that something in minutes, or hours, days, weeks or months, depending on both the task and the context. As Yeshua said “soon”, he opened a vista in which I saw all of human history: the rising and falling of empires and times of great barbarism and also of relative civility. Then he showed me a very short period that he called, “The Last Of Days.” The former, it seemed to me, was somewhere between six and ten thousand years. The latter was very brief; a matter only of tens of years.
There are some who claim that the most recent two thousand years were the “End Times”. The arguments in support of that idea are both cogent and wrong. The Bible calls that period, “The Times of The Gentiles.” And I regard the whole of the twentieth century as the “End Times” of that period. But now, in this twenty first century CE, we have moved from the “End Times” to the “Last of Days”. This does not refer to the end of the world, but the end of this present civilization; the end of man running the planet. It is now that evil is growing worse even than it was before the Great Flood. According to the last book of the Bible, “The Book of The Revelations of Jesus Christ”, these times will wipe out two thirds of life on the planet, two thirds of the fish in the sea; two thirds of the trees and the grass will be burnt up. There will be famine, war, disease and tribulations of many kinds. It will be the time of the Anti-Christ. Of these times, Yeshua has said, all life on Earth would cease if these days were not shortened. When things are at their worst, Yeshua will come back on the clouds in Power and Glory, accompanied by a great host. Every eye on Earth will see Him and all will bow before Him. Rev.19:11. Then Yeshua will rule the Earth for One Thousand Years before the final war between the forces of God and the forces of Satan. Beyond that, the Earth and the Heavens will pass away and a new Earth and a New Heavens will be created. Rev.21
Satan knows his time on Earth is very short; he is using everything at his disposal to lead as many people as possible into rejecting God’s Word, and as a consequence, going on to eternal destruction. One of his false teachings is the doctrine of a Pre-Trib. Rapture. This doctrine, which pervades much of the church, is that we don’t have to worry about the Tribulation because God will remove us to be with Him before the Tribulation starts. But in fact, the Word of God says we will be taken up after we endure and keep our faith until the end. Those martyred for his sake will already be with him, as John the Revelator saw in his time “Up There”. The reason this Pre-Trib. doctrine is so dangerous is just that when the time of tribulations proceeds with believers still here, many will say that if the church could be so wrong about that, then they are likely wrong about everything they teach. Thus people will lose their faith in God and His Word. Another ploy is to ask, “Did God really say…” This is powerful, and did win away both Adam and Eve from obeying God. This now manifests as the insidious, creeping humanism in the churches today. There are many who claim that the Gospels, as given us, are a distortion of what God meant. They claim that as God is love, then he loves us so much that he is going to save every human no matter what we do or say. It is this weapon that has managed to have huge numbers of churches now preaching that it is ok to indulge in homosexuality because that is a form of love.( Though in fact it is not love, but is lust.) In doing this and many other contradictions of the word of God, they are leading huge numbers of church-goers into a lost eternity.
Before he sent me back; Yeshua showed me some of his VAST WRATH against those who treat his Father’s Word with disdain. Although Yeshua is the Word of God made flesh, it is not on his own account that he is wrathful, but at the dishonouring of his Father in treating His Word with contempt. Believe me; when He uncovered part of his great wrath I was in maximum fear. I quaked and trembled and wanted somewhere to hide. It was clear that I had caused and deserved his wrath because of many things I had done and said, but in particular that I was in adultery with my young lover. Any and all blatant breaking of any of the Ten Commandments creates and deserves that wrath and its unleashing. I felt that I was about to be annihilated. It seemed that his wrath was being held back by only the slimmest of margins. Only because of His foreknowledge that the day would come when I would sincerely repent and ask for forgiveness was I given a reprieve. So if you are tempted to accept new Gospels that contradict the Gospels as given by the apostles; turn back to the ancient paths of righteousness. Seek the help of The Holy Spirit to know and to understand the true Word of God. God does love us. He does seek to save us from the consequences of sin. But he has made it very clear that he will only intervene to save us from the automatic consequences of sin (“The wages of sin is death.”) if we turn away from our sin; return to the ways of God with a whole heart. Salvation is free, but it will cost us everything. Works cannot save us, but it is works which show that we are saved and have been changed. Faith without works is dead.
When we say that we are ‘born again’, we mean that when we trust in Yeshua, God removes the death consequence of our sins from us. We are now “Alive in Christ.” God then works with His Holy Spirit within us, and about us, to change us to begin to conform to the likeness of Yeshua. It is not a matter of taking on a list of religious rules that we slavishly follow and which are one more set of bondage makers. Rather, it is that because we trust in Him, God changes us from within. He gives us a new heart of care and compassion; gone is our hard heart of stone. Over time we are renewed in our heart of hearts. We become more reliable, more trustworthy, more established in our resolve to do right; we become more like Yeshua even though we will always fall short. Our words and actions become righteous; these are the works that enliven our faith. Faith without works is dead. This is part of what Yeshua meant when he said you know a tree by its fruit. A person who merely mouths the words of conversion, as a sort of religious liturgy without an inner change of heart, is not changed. Such people will still inherit the consequences of sin in their lives. No amount of rule following can save them. And they will be known by the fruit in their lives. Many of them may even have taken up a position as a church minister, but they are ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing. It is such who get caught up in sexual misconduct and other wrongdoing. It is they who seek to change the word of God to accommodate their lusts. Thus homosexuality becomes acceptable behaviour in many ‘churches’. They really have become a circus.
God has wrought many changes in my heart, and in my life. I am not claiming to be a better person than others; I am claiming to be a better person than I formerly was; a better version of Neavei. Some brothers of mine, seeing the changes in me, say I have been brain washed. I reply that my brain was so filthy it needed a good wash
If you are reading this it probably has been published. If so, I hope it helps many people come to know Yeshua, and to build a saving relationship with Him.
Salvation is free for all who come to God in humility; turn from their sins, and begin to walk in the ancient paths of righteousness. That walk is not easy; it will cost you everything. Yeshua said that if you seek to save your life you will lose it, but if you lay down your life for his sake you will find eternal life with Him and The Father. Are you ready to do that?
“Dear God, please accept me just as I am, a sinner. I come to you hoping for a new life. I turn now away from my former life, and I seek to live the way you want me to with the help of Your Holy Spirit. I will follow Yeshua, and the way that He has made for us. Teach me Your Ways that I may know You. Amen!”
If you are a Jew, know that you may remain a Jew. You do not have to join in with those who call themselves Christians. Live in the fullness of Judaism; Yeshua is your Passover Lamb. There is no more need any longer for the sacrificial system, which was always just a shadow and prefiguring of the reality of God sacrificing Himself to save you from the consequences of your sins.
If you are a Gentile, Know that you ought to congregate with others on a regular basis. You do not need to practice Judaism, but you do need to study God’s Word, and seek to live by it. Remember that you have been grafted in to the olive tree; you may not replace it.
Both Jew and Gentile must seek the original unchanged Word of God. Do not accept any changes. Do not take away nor add to it. The Mosaic law, with all of its sacrificial system, and a great number of regulations done away with at The Cross. The Ten Commandments however, were understood from Eden; from mankind’s earliest days. And they will stand until the Earth has passed away. They were given on stone tablets at Mount Sinai, but it is clear that they were known from the beginning. In Genesis 2:3 God called the Seventh Day Holy. In Genesis chapter 4 God makes it plain that murder is heinous and requires punishment. In Genesis Chapter 6, God speaks of the great wickedness of all mankind, and kills off all human beings except Noah, who was righteous, and his immediate family. Mankind knew good and evil, but sinned anyway. In Exodus 16:23 Moses reminds the Hebrews that The Sabbath is Holy and no work is to be done in it. This way before they get to Sinai, and it is clear in the text that they understood this. It may be that they needed reminding because in their years of slavery they would not have been permitted a day free from work. Each of the others of the Ten Commandments can also be shown to have been understood from the earliest days, but at Sinai God wrote them on stone so they could not forget them, and to indicate they were to be permanent.
Find a congregation that teaches the whole Word of God; the original Ten Commandments, and the whole Gospel. Note that the Ten listed in the Catholic rendering are not as the originals. I recommend you get a more accurate version, based as closely as possible on the original Hebrew and Aramaic in which it was given.
The Second Testament can only be properly understood in the context of the whole of the First Testament. It is the sacrificial system that was completed and done away with by the work of Yeshua Ha Meshiac. Jesus The Christ: Our Saviour.
The First Commandment is the most important, because if you do not keep it, you will only keep the other nine when it suits you.
Almighty God, The Creator, deals with us in three aspects of Himself: There is that which Yeshua calls, ”The Father”; that which The Father calls, “My Son”; that which They call, “My Holy Spirit”.
Hear, Oh Israel, There is only One God; The Lords my God.
