Nilsson: "Jump Into the Fire"

Another rock singer who never enjoyed much fame was Harry Nilsson. Even so, he did release some fascinating music and he had a five-octive vocal range. Check out one of his lesser-known songs here:

Since Harry didn't say what we are never free of, I'll write about it here. Nothing is hidden from God Almighty. As Psalms 139:11 and 12 (Bible in Basic English) tells us, "If I say, 'Only let me be covered by the dark, and the light about me be night;' Even the dark is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day: for dark and light are the same to you."

To we who believe in Christ, this is comforting. But the wicked fear the presence of the Lord. Even when God used the Romans to punish Jerusalem in AD 70, his wrath was frightening.

As Jesus was being led to be crucified, he prophesied this in Luke 23:30 (BBE). "And they will say to the mountains, Come down on us, and to the hills, Be a cover over us."

Likening the Judgement Day to net fishing, Christ warned his audience in Matthew 13:49 and 50 (BBE) about that time. "So will it be in the end of the world: the angels will come and take out the bad from the good, And will put them into the fire: there will be weeping and cries of sorrow."

We also read about the future of wicked people in Revelation 19:20 (BBE). "And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who did the signs before him, by which they were turned from the true way who had the mark of the beast, and who gave worship to his image: these two were put living into the sea of ever-burning fire."

We anticipate Christ's return but Satan's people dread it. If our Master hasn't arrived by Saturday, I hope to post about blunders made by people in scripture.

WAS A CHURCH PAINTING PROPHETIC?

When I think back to the fifteen years I spent in a toxic house church, I notice how superstitious the elders of it were. This is especially true when it came to its leader and his supposed visions. One of them involved a painting on the plaster of the basement wall above the baptismal tank.

When I returned from my summer holidays at my parents place to the house church, I immediately noticed that somebody had painted a picture of a river and impossibly steap green hills behind it. When I remarked about it to Sister Roberta, she crowed, "Brother Herald had a vision. He saw the city of refuge in the Nahanni Valley  mentioned in Revelation Chapter twelve."

As I admired the painting, Sister Roberta continued, "The swirles in the plaster matched exactly the hills and river in the vision so we painted them."

I stood and gawked in amazement at this supposed vision. We had been taught that when the mark of the beast was imposed on the world, the weak christians would be taken to a city of refuge in the Northwest Territories for three and a half years. The able-bodied Christians would fight the mark of the beast while the young and infirm believers would be kept safe in that northern location.

Now I realize that what we had been taught was completely wrong. The books of the Bible were written for us but not to us, as Hank Hanegraaff of the Bible Answer Man show rightly says. Consequently, the last book of the Bible was written to seven churches in what now is the nation of Turky.  Though we learn much from Scripture, none of it was written to twenty-first-century believers.

In Revelation 12:1-6, John portrays in symbolic form the life of Christ. The woman is Mary who fled to Egypt with Joseph and the Christ child.  The readers of the letter that John wrote to the seven churches would have recognized the allusion to Old Testiment apocolyptic language immediately. John used it to amplify his message to these congregations. That's why Revelation seems such a mysterious book to us. We can't relate to Old Testiment figures of speech. For more on the subject of the Bible being written for our instruction but to ancient peoples, check The Christian Research Institute's web site.

If I had only known how to read the Bible for all it's worth, and all its wealth, I would never have fallen for a blasphemous minister and his twisted lies. Even so, I feel that God wanted me to publish How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

CHRISTIAN TALK SHOW HOST REVEALS MARK OF THE BEAST

To almost everybody who has read the last book of the Bible, the mark of the beast is a mystery. Furthermore, many teachers and preachers have widely diverging notions of what it is. In all the welter of suppositions, one answer stands out as the most logical reading of Revelation and its mysterious imagery.

In The Apocalypse Code, Hank Hanegraaff reveals the key to understanding John's letter to the seven churches in Asia.  Knowing the other sixty-five books of the Bible is what decodes this mysterious book, writes Hanegraaff.

According to The Apocalypse Code, the mark of the beast was a mark of character. Just as the mark of the lamb was a mark of Christ-like behaviour on the part of believers, so the mark of the beast was a worldly attitude displayed by non-believers.

Unfortunately for those unskilled in biblical exegesis, many divergent ideas have been proposed by teachers and preachers today. Some say it's a microchip implanted in people's hands and foreheads. Others claim it's a spiritual mark which people receive for worshipping God on Sunday instead of Saturday. The errant teacher at a house church I attended for fifteen years claimed it was a tattoo visible only under ultraviolet light.

Hanegraaff's Apocalypse Code book clears up the muddle of ideas by noting that the books of the Bible were written to the people of the times when it was written. Though we learn much from these writings, they weren't written directly to us. Therefore, we must keep the customs and history of each book's readers in mind when reading scriptures.

Because I wasn't taught discernment skills when I gave my life over to Christ in 1969, I believed many errant and blasphemous doctrines. I wrote about how God led me to his marvelous truth in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Visit Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers to read more about this glorious testimony of God's faithfulness.

THE GREAT FAMINE OF 1975.

I'm ashamed to admit that I fell for the false prophecy that there would be a massive famine in 1975. So concerned were my mother and I that she began hoarding food. From my forthcoming How I Was Razed memoir, here's an excerpt showing how deceived we were. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As Mom stripped the sheets from our beds, I noticed that somebody pulled one of them away from the wall. A large cardboard box, half filled with canned goods, sat wedged behind its headboard. "What's all this for?" I asked her. "There's going to be a famine next year and I want to be ready for it." My jaw dropped. "Where did you find this out?" "It was in one of those Awake magazines." "Wow! So the Jehovah's Witnesses know about this too?" "Yes. They've been telling people about the coming famine for years." "Garner Ted Armstrong's been doing that too. It really must be serious then. Brother Herald warned us about the same thing." "I hope I can save enough to last. We've got to set aside enough money to buy extra food before the stores run out." After Mom carried the dirty bed clothes into the laundry room, I held my right hand over our stockpile. "Lord, please bless and multiply this food like you did the loaves and fishes," I prayed. "Thanks too that Mom understands at least one advanced truth." Though she didn't mention what we discussed after that day, I congratulated myself for doing well. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity will be in print and e-book form soon. Meanwhile, have a look at my two previous memoirs on the left hand side of this page.

DOOMSDAY? WHAT DOOMSDAY?

Every once and a while, Jehovah's Witnesses come around to people's houses with their message of a coming doomsday. They cite Bible verses that appear to predict dire consequences for the people of this planet. In fact, this theological cult has predicted worldwide disaster for more than a century. Each time their predictions fail, their leaders set a new date. But will this world end with apocalyptic plagues, falling meteors, and the deaths of millions in a global war? Up until this year, I believed that a time of tribulation would precede the return of Jesus Christ to this world. Hank Hanegraaff, the president of the Christian Research Institute, has convinced me that all these dire predictions are based on a misreading of The Revelation of John the Divine. According to The Apocalypse Code, the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and the terrible persecution of Christians by Emperor Nero was the great tribulation. Hanegraaff further explained in his book that John's descriptions of the sun turning black, the moon turning blood red, and the stars falling from heaven are symbolic, not literal events. Similar language has been used by various Old Testament prophets to describe the fall of empires Similarly, the mark of the beast isn't some sort of RFID chip or tattoo, as many "end times" pundits claim. The mark of the beast and the mark of the lamb are metaphors for character. Those who had the mark of the beast were wicked and unbelieving people who refused the gospel message. They were easily recognized for their opposition to Christians proclaiming salvation through Christ. Believers were also recognized by their behaviour. The great red dragon in Revelation chapter twelve wasn't communism or Islam but a picture of Satan's attempt to kill the Christ child. The woman mentioned was Israel and the flood was the soldiers of Herod searching for Jesus. The key to Revelation is to understand that book by the other sixty-five in the Bible. It was written to the seven churches in Asia and the message was of what would soon take place. Nobody in the first century could possibly guess the identity of a twenty-first century antichrist. Therefore, Hanegraaff says that six-hundred, threescore, and six are the numbers indicating the name of Nero. I could write much more about the false and true interpretation of Revelation but I'll leave it for The Bible Answer Man to do. Check out www.equip.org for details about The Apocalypse Code and other resources.

THE MARK OF THE BEAST.

What is this "mark of the beast" that so many preachers talk about? It comes from Revelation 13:16-17 which reads, "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." The host of The Bible Answer Man radio program, Hank Hanegraaff, recently explained that this mark was a metaphor of character, not some sort of RFID chip or tattoo as many teachers claim. This interpretation makes logical sense as John's letter, which is the last book of the Bible, was written to seven first-century churches. It has no prophetic relationship to twenty-first century believers, with the exception of Christ's return. In my upcoming How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity memoir, I wrote about the erroneous explanation that the minister of the house church gave us and how it frightened me in May of 1974. ----------------------------------------------------------------- As with that explanation, I accepted everything else which Brother Herald taught as gospel. During one Bible study in Revelation, he informed us about the mark of the beast beginning its advance. "My son, Brian, was approached by some promoters of the mark at his job in Fort McMurray," he began. "They wanted him to sell their tattoo banking machines for them." He opened his Bible as he continued, "It says in Revelation, chapter thirteen, verse sixteen, that no man may buy or sell unless he has the mark in his hand or forehead. These machines tattoo a person's right hand with numbers which glow in ultraviolet light. It's pretty hard to misplace your hand, whereas credit cards are easily lost or stolen." While we absorbed that, he continued, "Brian informed me about this and I told him it was nothing less than the mark. He told those men never to come back with their satanic machines or he'd bust their faces." A chill of fear shot through me. "Will it come to Edmonton soon?" I asked. "I believe it will, and it will come quickly," Brother Herald replied. The chain stores will soon own every aspect of food supply. The banks already want people to use the MasterCharge cards so it will condition them to accept the mark. This is why we must save up food for the day when we can't buy it in the stores." ----------------------------------------------------------------- How I Was Razed is the testimony of how God revealed his true character to me after charismatic house church elders misled me for more than fifteen years. You're welcome to contact me directly for more information about this upcoming paperback.