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His name is Ronald James Johnson; he is 52 years old and grew up here in Anderson. He became a believer in 1975. He was a college WOW with someone the 14th and 16th Corps knows and loves; Marguerite Keil, in 1976. Who knew the world could be THAT small.

Over the years I’ve reworked all sorts of things from God’s Word. Some I see a little more clearly than before; others I’m still working. If you want to talk the word, I think you can post a comment to this blog. If that doesn't work go ahead and post a comment to my page or e-mail me at logos.live@verizon.net.

One of the cool things I saw this year was the difference between the Good Seed of the gospels and the incorruptible seed by way of which we are born again. The good seed of the gospels (Luke 8:5, 6) can perish. It was corruptible. The seed by which we are born-again, the spirit within, is like our Messiah incorruptible. Applying the truths of the sower and the seed must be in light of to whom it is written. It is always a brand new day for each and every believer and his Heavenly Father.

I’ve done a little work lately on:

• baptism with the holy spirit (and with fire – the hendiadys)
• LORD and Lord
• S.I.T. + INT = Prophecy in the church

(one of the things that arose from this last study was the importance of seeing from God’s word the Father’s view on the power of these manifestation of the spirit, and then acting)

The process through which a diamond is formed is a dirty, sweaty process completely unlike the glittering jewels they turn out to be. A diamond is unique in that it is one of the hardest substances known to man. That's why the word diamond is derived from the Greek work 'adamas' meaning indestructible.

A diamond is also unique in that it is formed from a single element: carbon. It is the only gem known that is composed of a single element.

Diamonds are formed under a tremendous load of both heat and pressure usually far below the earth surface. There is nothing pretty, delicate or dainty about the birth of a diamond albeit most of the earth has chosen it as the symbol of love, romance and wedding.

Ideally a flawless diamond would be composed solely of carbon atoms. This is very rare however. Since the birthing process is not a laboratory experiment but done in the melting pot of minerals found within the earth, diamonds many times contain trace amounts of these minerals. This leads to an interesting occurence. Rather than ruining the diamond, the run in with these minerals actually lends color to the diamond like the world famous Hope diamond which has a brilliant blue coloring due to its encounter with boron during its pressure filled growing process.

Remember that growth is a continual process not a one time occurrence. Of course there are times within our life where growth spurts cause us to look back and remark upon the differences but it is always a process. And although innocence and youth is most associated with childhood it is not always the purity that comes from going through the fires of living. Foolishness also is associated with childhood and it is something that does need to be rooted out before adulthood. But innocence and youthfulness need not be sacrificed on the altar of adulthood. Just consider the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. What child is this? Though our outward man perish, yet our inner man is renewed day after day.

Have a nice day after day after day…

If like myself, you somehow missed for many years, the simple fact that any interaction involving human beings is much less predictable than say, whether the sun will come up tomorrow, then it is quite possible that when you “came” to this “revelation”, as I did much to my chagrin while trying to bring a kind of balance back into my life: you may have subsequently gone on a logic-free diet. Let me explain in more detail using a common example I’ve seen in the Church.

For many years, since the Reformation, the emphasis in the Protestant Church has been on the accuracy of the Holy Scriptures. And what a wonderful revelation this was to so many of those great pioneers of that movement when they, coming out a completely irrational system, basically the Roman Catholic Church of the early Middle Ages, clung desperately and thankfully to the truth that the Scriptures are both understandable, reliable and consistent for both faith and practice. This was a revolutionary understanding after the non-distinct, subjective teachings of faith and practice that were so predicated on the relationship between an individual and the Church, specifically the Pope and his pronouncements.

So it is no real wonder that there was a subsequent rise in scholarship, the etymology of language and the birth of textual research. This movement spilled over into the secular starting with the Age of Reason (17^th century or 1,600’s) and culminating with the rational movement of the 18^th century (1700’s). These movements were bracketed by what we know call The Enlightenment which ended in about 1800.

This was the age of Shakespeare and the King James Bible. It was during these years that men starting to move beyond just discovering the old Greek and Roman philosophers and started to publish new ideas and treatises concerning everything conceivable topic under the sun. It was also the age that gave us 1^st comprehensive English dictionary as well as the 1^st Encyclopedia (cycle of knowledge). Finally it was during this time that modern science, the father of technology was wrestling with and conquering concepts like gravity, longitude and the idea of the cell.

So what kind of attitude ultimately prevailed in our Protestant Christian thinking? Well of course: scholarship, rationality and scientific research. So the 1800’s, while the secular world was actually rebelling against the Age of Reason and dabbling with the more emotional and organic ideas of Romanticism in Art, Literature and Philosophy, the Church had it’s greatest progress in the era of Biblical History and Textual Research. For the first time in history, we were reaching back through the vail of the so called Dark Ages and re-connecting with our Eastern Oriental Biblical roots. And of course since the majority of reliable texts were in the Greek language (the Roman Catholic Church having taken Latin for their own domain), Greek became the language of Biblical Scholarship and there was a revival in Greek learning, understanding and even thinking.

Now there were certainly some Estrangelo-Aramaic texts (the Hebrew of Jesus’s day) but even the Apostle Paul himself, although writing in Hebrew, probably translated directly the earliest manuscripts into Greek because he was the Apostle to the Gentile world. And quite frankly, there are places where Greek, is a more exact language than Hebrew.

Now this became for the Church a two edged sword especially in the area of the prophetic. If language can be said to be either more rational or more emotional than certainly the Greek would fall on the side of the rational and the Hebrew would fall on the side of the emotional. The Greek would keep the texts intact and open up the Scriptures to an entire world even as English as done in the past 400 years since the King James version with the message of the Gospel. But some of the Hebrew relationships and the shades of meaning that come along with a word like spleen in Hebrew which can mean two or three different things depending on context, get either lost or overlooked in translation. We get the gist of the message but we lose some of the beauty and depth of the written Word.

Thankfully we are no longer totally dependent on the Written Word for relationship with God, now having a more sure word of prophecy than even the Old Testament Law and the Prophets (Tanakh) as Peter tells us in his epistle. We know have relationship with God through or by way of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. So the things that were hidden to both angels and to the Old Testament prophets, who wrote about the grace that would come unto us, is now freely available to both know (theoretical, rational) and experience (practical, emotional) in Christ Jesus.

Unfortunately some of us, have stubbornly or ignorantly clung to either or Greek or our Hebrew heritage, blind to or unaware of the Truth that today in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, but all are one in Christ Jesus. This vestage of the Reformation in Greek texts plus the attempt in the past 50 years or less of sincere, well meaning Christians to bring balance back to the Church by clinging to all things Hebrew, even some things that have been rejected by God himself and superseded by the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ, have caused a new division in the Body of Christ which is not new but was there even in the Book of Acts when the followers of James, the Lord’s brother, in an attempt to show Paul their righteousness according to the Law, these “Jewish Christians” were “zealous for the law” and in their zeal some of the attempted to actually kill the Apostle Paul the former Pharisee who was handpicked and called by our Lord Jesus himself to lead these same former Jews, out of the bondage of the Law and into the greater understanding of the new life in Christ Jesus.

But for some reason, their irrational adherence to the letter of the law, caused them to shut their ears against the Truth and they became those of whom the Apostle wrote in Acts 28 that because of their hard heartedness to accept the Truth, “I turn now to the Gentiles.” As he wrote in another place, the letter kills but the Spirit gives life”.

It is my assertion, because of this and many other truths like this, which we have not had time to go over here today, that it is the Spirit of the Living God, alive within a person who has been born from above, that, if allowed and heeded, governs the balance between the emotional and the rational within man thus bringing peace within each individual soul, and consequently to the Body of Christ as a whole.

It is my prayer therefore, that the Church can come away from our uneducated fascination with all things Hebrew, taking the good but leaving the rest and that we can turn away from our overeducated coldness with Greek theological speculations and that together we can go up and find green pasture away from the city, up on the grassy hill where the true shepherd of our soul waits patiently to instruct us in His Ways which will validate both the Jew and the Gentile in a way that history itself never can.

There is one Body (the Church), one spirit (the gift to the Church) and one hope of our calling (Christ’s return).

There is one Lord Jesus Christ, one faith, one baptism (in his name).

There is one God the Father of all who is above ALL, and through all and in you all.

In Mathematics these involve two or more variables that we call numbers.

In Science, the application of Mathematics, these variables describe physical phenomenon like the inverse relationship between pressure and volume as discussed in Boyle’s Law.

In these two disciplines, relationships are somewhat fixed and distinct and therefore predictable with some degree of accuracy. Of course as one ventures farther into the physical world, i.e. the micro as well as the macro level, we find relationships between physical phenomenon that increases in both complexity and, to our finite human understanding, appears to be somewhat less fixed and distinct and therefore less predictable.

Of course this unpredictability is well known to the aficionado of the humanities and social sciences where one is almost surprised, at times to find any possibility of predicting anything with any degree of reliability anywhere near to approaching the exactness of a scientific or mathematical discipline.

Why is this? Well, the answer is quite obvious of course: humans. Homo Sapiens. We have met the friend and the foe and it is us.

Why is it that human beings are so unpredictable? Well some would argue that we are unpredictable. And certainly the social sciences try valiantly to predict using complicated formulas and analyses what outcomes to expect in a given situation.

But the fly in the ointment of all these theories, for the pure scientist, seems to be the potential irrationality of the subject matter, i.e. human beings. At any given point in time, although it would be completely irrational to do so, we will make decisions that overthrow all attempts to categorize and codify human behavior.

For some this irrationality lies in what we call the emotional state of man arguing that man is a dynamic, albeit somewhat unstable, mix between the emotional and the rational.

The emotional seat of man is usually associated with the belly or the gut is can be described by the word “feeling”. The seat of rationality (although some would argue that this is a purely theoretical construct) is usually associated with the brain or mind of man.

Furthermore some thinkers and social scientists, especially in the fields of human behavior and psychology, have gone so far as to associate these two seemingly poles of humanity, rationality and emotion, as being more closely associated with either the masculine or feminine gender. This is such a historical, cultural phenomenon in both Eastern and Western Civilization that I hardly need to tell you any of you which is considered the more masculine trait and which is considered the more feminine one, do I? All value judgments aside for the time being, that’s an interesting fact wouldn’t you say?

But whether the irrationality of human relationships can be traced to the balance (or lack thereof as the case may be) between the rational, thinking side of man and the emotional, feeling side of man, I cannot say. Perhaps passions would be a better indicator of behavior and I’m not clear that passions are always derived from either one or the other: feelings or thoughts.

And there’s that word decision. Decisions are so often in our daily discourse associated with the rational or thinking mind. But how many gut-level decisions are made? Marketers and sales professionals tell us that most of us are influenced strongly by our emotions when making buying decisions.

So wherever decisions are made (in the heart perhaps?), it seems that they can and are influenced by one or both of the classical understanding of human motivators: rationality and emotion.

Perhaps this is why human behavior is less predictable than other observable phenomenon in the physical world like the motion of planets, or the growth of a plant or the effect of gravity on the trajectory of a ball hurtling through the air: we can make choices. Some say that this makes us a free will agent and in some sense, the distinction between the animal species and the human species (Darwin be damned), lies in this very area of free will. Again, I am limited, as are all of us, in speaking about this from a purely human perspective since I must think, feel and hypothesize from within the very vessel about which I’m trying to speculate on. But as one who admits to the authority of the Holy Scriptures (the Judeo-Christian Bible, as it were), I have a belief that informs me of the truth that yes indeed, it was certainly man’s free will in the Garden of Eden that has led to all kinds of chaotic, cosmos busting effects.

So, after all this dancing around the subject, suffice it to say that relationships can be volatile, unpredictable and irrational. I believe this is a statement that any married couple, and certainly many non-married couples, would affirm from their experience. Can you relate?

Well 2007 was an excellent year for foraging far and wide and my boots are well muddied and the lab is quite piled high with artifacts for collating and codifying. Here is a brief sample of some of the diverse discoveries, still covered in dust and in no particular order, from a year spent well:

The pastor went on to describe the process of dying that historically has occurred in the institutional church. You may be familiar with the example he cited of those magnificent cathedrals all through Europe, many of them built to accommodate congregations of four thousand, where the average Sunday attendance is about twenty-eight. This was his summary of their decline: God invests his message in a man, which becomes his ministry. Then the ministry becomes a movement, implemented by machinery. Then a monument is built to an institution. And finally it becomes a mausoleum.

Excerpt from Dying in the Institutional Church – Elaine Stedman, Ray Stedman’s wife – Peninsula Bible Fellowship, Palo Alto, CA

Without Dad to confirm his manhood, the boy over-bonds with Mom, and later looks to women to define his destiny and save him from the crippling shame of fatherlessness. He's afraid to get close to a woman, for fear she'll discover his inadequacy and reject him. He's afraid to get close to a man, for fear men will take advantage of his weakness. It's hard for him to grasp a sense of calling or purpose in life.

Blaming Dad, who was himself abandoned by Grandad, only leaves a man alienated, bitter, and angry. Who can a man go to in order to get what he missed from Dad? Many of us have tried to get our masculinity from women, but it doesn't work. But we can't get it from other fatherless men, either.

When a man realizes that no human being can meet his need, he's ready to get real at last and cry out for his true Father God.

I think I got this from Gordon Dalbey at http://www.abbafather.com

There are two spiritual forces at work in the Universe. One is only Good and the other is a deceptive power, using good only where and when it fits its greater destructive purposes. And make no mistake about it, the contrast between these two forces is extremely PERSONAL.

Much of contemporary wisdom tries to convince us that there are spiritual forces and principles that once you unlock the secret, can be utilized at your beck and call. Modern teachers refer to these like George Lucas does in Star Wars as a kind of universal force with a light and a dark side. This portrayal renders the force itself impersonal, a kind of universal mind or law that works like gravity for saint and sinner alike. THIS IS A LIE.

Beginning to a yet unpublished essay (of mine) entitled: The Uncertain Way: The Art of Living the Spiritual Life in a Deadly World

“The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity… By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it…By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly.”

C.S. Lewis speaking of Tolkien’s work on The Lord of the Rings

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Poem Mother to Son by Langston Hughes

I hope we’ll all be able to meet again at the end of 2008 and the best meeting place would be at the Lord ’s Table when he returns to bring the Kingdom of God to earth. But if we are not so blessed, then I hope that each one of you keeps climbing and, for God’s sake, don’t turn back.

King of Jesters and Jester to the King!

Then Jesus said to the Twelve, Do you also wish to go away?
Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the Words of eternal life. John 6:68

What follows is a paper written after I was asked to discuss my position regarding the Rapture or the Return of Christ. It is a bit lengthy, but I trust it will be stimulating in that my views have changed since I first took the Foundational Class on Power for Abundant Living forty years ago.

"The Rapture or the Return of Christ: Articulating My Position"

Whether referred to as “the Rapture” or “the Gathering Together,” or somewhat irreverently called “the Big Snatch,” Christ’s Return has been a passion of my heart for more than 40 years, and lately this “enduring flame” seems to be burning even more brilliantly, since I have participated in or officiated at numerous funerals during that time. Sometime ago the question was raised as to where I stood with regard to the Return (Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib, or Post-Trib). I was asked if I believed that the Christ’s Return would occur before the Great Tribulation or during the Great Tribulation or after the Great Tribulation had begun. This question caused me to assess my position and motivated me to respond more fully to the question as to where I stand regarding this issue.

Without question I believe that the Return of Christ is imminent. This bright hope is one of the threads woven through my most recent collection of poetry Stone upon Stone: Psalms of Remembrance. In the title poem I build an altar of twelve stones of great significance in my life. The twelfth stone is described this way:

Final stone of hope, capstone to complete my life,

standing on tip-toe, awaiting the golden note,

blessed hope of Christ’s appearing in my lifetime.

Such a belief indicates that I would be categorized as a “Pre-Trib” believer, that is, I believe that Christ will return before The Great Tribulation period. After considerable deliberation, however, I must admit that “I am Pre-Trib with modification.” Allow me to elaborate.

In 1998 I sensed that Christ was going to return during the Feast of Pentecost, based on my reading of the Scriptures and a series of Biblical teachings by Marilyn Agee. Although I have continued to look for Christ to return with eager anticipation, I have tempered my desire to know precisely when the Rapture will take place. The poem “If the Lord tarries. . .” reveals a change in attitude following a number of times when the Return of Christ did not occur when I had thought it would.

“If the Lord tarries” and “If the Lord will”:

May these phrases ever be my preface.

With each decision may I learn to be still

And never presume to know your desire.

Though I may read your Word and apply

It diligently to my heart to do

All you ask of me, some secrets are not

Mine to know. Once more you tell me to watch,

To prepare my heart and to look above.

Whether I understand or misconstrue,

I cannot deny I have tasted of your love.

God is still faithful and His Word is true.

In my heart the hope continues to burn,

As yearn even more for Christ’s return.

Clearly “no man knows the day nor the hour”; however, following the description of the Gathering Together in Chapter 4:13-18, the Fifth Chapter of I Thessalonians begins with a reminder:

But of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write you.

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

For when they shall say, “Peace and safety;” then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

Ye are all children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night nor of darkness.

Therefore, let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober.

We are also exhorted “to watch” “And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”(I Thessalonians 1:10) In Luke 21:29-36, Jesus said, “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”

In our emphasis upon what has been characterized as a “new season”, we must remember that the Return of Christ could actually usher in the fullness of that “new season.” In my mind this is “the finish” toward which we are all striving. In his teaching series on “The Rapture of the Church”, Dr. David Jeremiah made the statement that in Bible times before the arrival of a king, ambassadors were sent to prepare the way and announce his arrival. In a similar manner we have been sent as “Ambassadors for Christ” to herald the coming of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who will gather us together in Him to reign on high forevermore.

Herein lies one of the modifications of my “Pre-Trib” belief. Without question, I believe that Christ will return to gather “his bride.” But in a similar way that Eve, the first bride, was taken from the body of the “First Adam,” so the “Second Eve,” the “Bride of Christ” will be taken from the Body of Christ, the “Second Adam.”

Incidentally Eve was taken out of Adam on the evening of the last day, the 30^th, of the month of Elul. During this month the trumpet (shofar) is sounded every day to warn the people to return to God in repentance except on the last day. On that day there is silence in anticipation of the coming Feast of Trumpets which commences the following day, Rosh Hashana, which marks the New Year, both the civil year and the religious year in Jewish culture. Psalm 81:3 refers to this time:

Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.

When Jesus said, “No man knows the day or the hour” in Matthew 24:36, to the Western mind, this saying is said to mean no one knows when Messiah will return. To the Jewish mind, however, this phrase was an idiom referring to Rosh Hashana, meaning that Christ will return at some future Rosh Hashana. Sometimes called Yom HaKeseh, which means the Day of Hiding or the Hidden Day, Rosh Hashana is derived from the Hebrew root “kacah” which means to conceal, cover or hide.

So what I’m saying is that there will be “two raptures,” one of which is spoken of in terms of Noah, who represents a type of rapture that is mentioned in Matthew 24:37-39:

But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

The extraction of the Bride, this “falling away” from the Body represents God’s judgment on the Church. As I Peter 4:17 declares, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” This judgment will be a wake-up call to the Church to repent and to change to become what God intended for her to be. In order not to be left behind when Christ returns again, the Church will correct herself and align herself to be in God’s will.

The taking away of the bride of Christ will actually stimulate great growth and development. In a similar way that pruning a tree produces more abundant fruit, so will the purging be comparable to that which Jesus spoke of in John 15:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

In a sense, those gathered from the Body of Christ could represent “a kind of firstfruits,” (James 1:18) spoken of in I Corinthians 15:20-23:

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

If part of the Body of Christ is raptured with the first appearing of Jesus Christ, what about those who remain? Is there another phase to the Rapture or will those who remain have to endure the Tribulation in its entirety? Jesus speaks of this time before his coming in terms of Lot as well as Noah. The extraction of Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah is another type of rapture, the Pre-wrath Rapture.

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;

But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.

Remember Lot's wife. (Luke 17:28-32)

The second part of the Return of Christ involves what has been described as the Pre-Wrath Rapture, which will occur on “The Day of God” or “The Millennial Day of the Lord.” This event is referred to in Revelation 16:14 which says, “For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” There is a reference to Gog’s army of Ezekiel 38 and that the Lord will fight for Israel. This time frame is also mentioned in II Peter 3:12: “Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” The Pre-Wrath Rapture precedes the Day of the Lord “in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heart, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” (Revelation 8:8-10 and Zephaniah 2:3-5 speak of the asteroid that will impact the earth as a demonstration of God’s wrath on this day)

One of the most revealing parables regarding the Rapture or the Return is that of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13), five of whom were wise and five of whom were foolish. Sometime ago I read a fascinating discussion of this parable in Be the Bride: Volume 3, a wonderful treatise by Daniel Rydsted on the Rapture or the Return from the perspective of individuals in the Body of Christ preparing themselves for the Return of the Bridegroom for his beloved. It was one of those life-changing works that challenged and charged the reader literally to strive to fulfill the title of the book and “Be the Bride.”

There are countless facets to the Return of Christ. One of the fascinating connections centers on Moses and Elijah, both of whom appear with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration along with Peter, James and John. That appearing can be viewed as a foreshadow of the gathering together, in that the encounter involves both an individual who died, Moses, as well as one who was “caught up to heaven” while he was alive, Elijah. I am, thus, in the process of closely examining the records of the Transfiguration from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and I am attempting to connect those accounts with the Rapture of the Church.

I have by no means offered a full discussion of the Rapture or the Return of Christ and its various facets, but I have attempted to generate a discussion of some of my views on the subject. In actuality I have not even begun to scratch the surface. I am grateful to have been inspired to think more deeply about the subject and to attempt to express my views that I am still in the process of clarifying. God’s Word ever exhorts us to patiently wait for Christ’s Return, and I close on that hopeful note:

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.

For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.

Now the just shall live by faith. . . (Hebrews 10:35-38)

Lonnell E. Johnson

Columbus, Ohio

January 1, 2008