Question-Comment: My church is involved in prison ministry at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La. The prison is in need of large print bibles for the aging population. Are you involved in this type of ministry or could
you direct me to those who can help us get these Bibles to the inmates.

Hello Sherri,

I've done some surfing on the web, but really didn't come up with anything. Might I suggest that you approach one or more of the Sunday School Classes in your church. In this day when con men have no fear of fleecing the Lord's sheep, perhaps your fellow-church members would welcome the opportunity to give to an outreach that THEYCANKNOW is bona fide--one that they can share in and actually see the fruit of their seed.

Question-Comment: No problem my brother
For the Body of Christ!
My name is Robert ______ and about ten years ago my life was in shambles. I was in divorce court. I was going to D.U.I. school and I was so bound up by alcohol that I would get up at 5:30 in the morning and guzzle down some beers before going to work. I was going to church but not before drinking two or three tall boys on the way to church. I had started reading the Bible and was falling asleep every night with a Bible in one hand and a tall beer in the other. I did everything with beer. Then one night I had a dream that I still remember even today and when I woke up I was filled with the spirit of God and I was delivered from the bondage of alcohol. I was so excited that I went to D.U.I. school that day and started telling everybody about Jesus.

After about six months I got this unquenchable desire to study and write a book on the Book of Revelation and so I did for the next eight years. Almost immediately I ran into a problem because the Bible didn't say what I had heard televangelists, prophecy experts, and preachers preach. My first problem came with Ch. 4:1 of the Book of Revelation where it says among other things (come up here and I will show you things which must be hereafter). I had heard it taught that this is where the Bible is speaking about the Rapture of the church. The teaching was that the verse was not only speaking to John but also to the church. But I could not find where it said that at all. The Bible always backs itself up. One scripture is reinforced by another scripture which in turn is reinforced by another scripture and so on. But I could not find where the Bible said that was the Rapture of the church nor could I find any scripture that reinforced that concept. Only John was being called up and no one else. Through out the eight years I ran into many such contradictions between what is taught and what is actually written in the Bible and what the Greek words mean. But I will stick with the most prevalent and most important teachings of today.

My next serious problem came with the so called Restrainer spoken of in 2 Thessalonians ch. 2:6-8 which is supposed to be the Holy Spirit or the body of Christ. Immediately after I read these verses my quest was to find scriptural proof that this Restrainer was in fact the body of Christ or the Holy Spirit. We can find scripture that would lead us to believe it is suggesting or indicating, or even alluding to something but unless we can find a beyond the shadow of a doubt factually clear scripture to reinforce what we think we are understanding it is nothing but an assumption with no real bases to continue believing it much less teaching it and to continue to do so would be foolishness.

The bottom line here is that there is no scripture that tells us out rightly that the Restrainer is the Holy Spirit or the Body of Christ neither in the book of Revelation or anywhere else in the Bible and God is in no way, shape or form vague about anything in His word.

It is also taught that the 144,000 chosen Israelites spoken of in Ch.7 & 14 of the book of Revelation are going to be Evangelists who will be traveling around the world re-evangelizing a new body of Christ after the Rapture or Resurrection of the body of Christ. But once again one can not link up the word evangelists with the 144,000 Israelites using any scripture anywhere in the Bible and the Bible speaks of them being located in Israel and says nothing at all about any traveling around the world preaching the Gospel.

It is also taught that there will be seven years of tribulation but there is no place in the Bible where the words (seven years of tribulation) can be found in sequence. Why? Because there will be seven years but not seven years of tribulation. You see teachers and Pastors like John Hagee, Charles Stanley, Jerry Falwell, Benny Hinn, Adrian Rogers, and Morris Cerullo have mixed up the Tribulation period and Wrath of God as being the same thing but the words Tribulation and Wrath have two different meanings and speak of two different events. There are only one set of seven years so if there are seven years of tribulation when does the Wrath of God take place?

Prophecy experts like Perry Stone, Hal Lindsay, Tim Lehaye, Jerry Jinkens, Ed Hinson and J. R. Church all teach that the 144,000 Israelites will be Evangelists and Jack Van Impe calls them Flaming Evangelists. Yet this concept cannot be found in the word of God. These are men of God who are blessed with wisdom from above who's words can set a persons heart on fire for God. Yet they teach something that they cannot use any scripture to reinforce. Many people would ask, “If it is not in the Bible then why do they teach it?” The answer is simple. It is a concept that has been handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. Jack Van Impe claims that this Pre- Tribulation Rapture of the church has been taught since before the Nicene Council in 325 A.D. but in all of the eight years of research that I have done the only reliable documented evidence I could find was a letter written by a woman whose name was Margaret MacDonald in early 1830 and Jack Van Impe has never shown any reliable documented proof that the concept existed before the year 1830. The letter in it’s actual form has been inserted into my book.

All of these discrepancies have one thing in common which is the idea of a pre-tribulation resurrection. But if non of these characteristics of a pre-tribulation Rapture are reinforced by scripture or not written in the word of God then the concept of a pre-tribulation resurrection is a false teaching and it is one that has millions of Christians deceived into believing that God is going to take us out of the back door just as Satan is coming in the front door. This is a message that must be stopped and my book is making an effort to do just that. How do I know that these teachings are false? Because to do my book correctly I had to research each and every word in the book of Revelation and because of that there is an enormous amount of information in it. My book reveals these false teachings as well as containing a message of unity in the body, enduring to the end and most of all an intimate relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Gods word says that He will us the foolish to confound the wise.

For those of you who find what I am saying very hard to believe; Please do not take my word for it. Go to the word of God and find out for your self if what I say is true or false! One of the grandest false teachings of all time was that the world was flat. The experts taught it, the scholars taught it, the collages taught it, Kings and Queens believed it and so most everybody else in the known world believed it also until Christopher Columbus challenged the concept because there was no real proof that the world was indeed flat but just the same they were still deceived. And today once again we are deceived about end time events.

For those who are interested my book which is titled Understanding Revelation can be purchased from Selah
Publishing Group/www.selahbooks.com who uses Ingram/Spring Arbor Distributors. For comments my e-mail
address is Christiscoming1@msn.com.
In Christ We Walk!
Robert P. Cook

DON WROTE:

Hello Robert,

I've always heard that in this life there are doers and there are those who stand on the sidelines and watch the doers--from the tone of your WRAP, I would guess that you are a doer who likes to take charge once you commit yourself to something. (The fact that writing a book became part of your study process would, perhaps, support this assumption.) The Lord is able to use all of us if we are willing; and perhaps, He can use "doers" more than those who are inclined to "watch"! (However, I'm satisfied that He can make "doers" out of all of us.) I say this to make a point. As I read your WRAP, it appears to me that you grabbed the ball and took off without waiting for a blocker. I know that the Bible commands us to study the Word to show ourselves approved unto God. But we are also told and that as we do, we are to do so comparing spiritual with spiritual.

I Cor. 2:
¹² Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. ¹³ Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

The Apostle John added more insight to our study of the Bible.

I John 2:
²⁷ But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. ²⁸ And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

In fact, when we get into the realm of prophecy, there is another dimension that we must consider when studying the Word.

II Peter 1:
¹⁹ We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: ²⁰ Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. ²¹ For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

If you will read our on-line book THE CLOCK OF THE AGES, you will see that we dealt in some detail with this aspect of prophecy, noting that men of old were led of the Spirit to use mysterious language so as to confound those who would approach prophecy with their own understanding--often writing things that probably made no sense to the prophet themselves. This being so, then we who read these mysterious passages must rely upon the same Holy Spirit if we are to understand them. As I read your WRAP, I notice that you have problems with some of the concepts that are popular among popular Bible teachers. If you will read our book, you will note that we hit some of the same snags--so we gave them to the Lord and we go into detail as to how we feel that He imparted understanding to us.

When I began studying the Bible, the Lord impressed upon me that, even though I had not been a religious person, I was to forget all that I thought I knew about the Bible and let Him teach me. Even though I had read little of the Bible previously, nevertheless, I found that all kinds of clichés and opinions had inadvertently become a part of my thinking process--simply because of my association with others. Consequently, forgetting all I thought I knew about the Bible was not as easy as I first thought it to be. Nevertheless, the Lord was with me in the task; and after trashing many opinions and errors, I feel that I gained some understanding. How much, God knows, but I do know that I keep adding to and correcting that understanding even today! (This is the reason that we named our website: doweknow!) Consequently, I would suggest for all who want to study and understand the prophetic portions of God's Word that they humble themselves before God and make a conscious effort to "lean not to their own understanding." I feel that if they will look to the Holy Spirit for His understanding, they will be able to discern truth from error and have peace about the preparations that He is making in their lives for the days ahead!

.

It's apparent that you haven't gone very far into our site; for if you had, you would have seen that I explained early on in our WRAP AROUNDS that although we do have a section that deals with the Book of Revelation, our site tries to touch upon the revelations throughout the Scriptures. In other words, our study is an effort to understand all the revelations imparted to God's servants, not just the revelation given to John.

Question-Comment: Thank You! this is a wonderful site.

Don Wrote:

THANK YOU! We're confident that God uses the site...but it is encouraging when we hear a good word from someone.

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