God told Uncle Bill to write a book 40 years ago. Today, He told me to finish it. Here you go.
INTRODUCTION
Yo my nieces and nephews! Over the years you may have heard about “this book” your Uncle Bill is working on. If you know the whole story, then you know I have been trying to finish it since the day 10-year-old Billy swore he would. Everything I did from 1987 until now was centered on becoming a successful writer.
I put it all on the line to try and achieve my dream. I told myself to burn the ships so I couldn’t retreat back into corporate America. I tried to “think” it into existence by never letting that unachieved goal out of my mind. I tried “picturing” what my life would be like when I got there. I dreamt about the cars and houses and perks I would get being rich, but I also put up posters of these “things” in my office as motivation.
I quit jobs to free up time to write and ended up having 30 different jobs in 20 years. I made little money, no money, and lots of money. I was never truly happy because I felt like I failed. I had to write or die. There was no choice for me. I had my mind so set on writing that I told myself anything less would be a total and complete FAILURE.
So, I kept trying. No matter how great the job I had, I always thought of it as just temporary until I finished my book. I bought writing desks, new computers, books on writing……anything I thought could help get me motivated to write and finish something. I thought getting married would motivate me to finish it for your aunt. I thought when Zach came along, I would get motivated to do it for him. Nothing worked. Nothing got finished.
At 20 I was bragging as if my book was already done.
At 30 I was afraid it would never happen.
At 40 I finally gave up on my dream.
Yet here we are with an introduction to a book? Did Uncle Bill start writing again? Did he finish something?
I’ve been trying to find the right way to talk to you all for over 10 years now. I literally ache every day that I don’t do anything about it. I “HAVE TO” tell you what God has been doing in my life and how important you guys are to His plan for me. I don’t have a choice; it’s the only thing I think about!
Haley was around 15, and the youngest of you (Riley) was 4 when God started putting things in motion by ending my high paying corporate gig. Today, only two of you are still younger than 18. I’d classify all of you as young adults now, but that term “adult” doesn’t quite fit one of you. (Jack) 😃
So, what changed after all these years? Why am I finally able to finish writing something?
Because there is a real story to tell you guys. An adventure filled with lots of ups and downs and characters you will definitely recognize and relate to. Most importantly, because this is the time God wanted it done.
So, it looks like writing a book was the plan all along! I just had the subject of the book and the decade I’d finish it all wrong. I was also way off on the audience……you.
This book is for Haley, Nikk, Jack, Miles, Kali, & Riley.
God is real! This book is a testament to that fact. Uncle Bill’s book doesn’t have all the answers to life that God’s Book does, but make no mistake, God wrote this one too. He not only wrote it; He orchestrated my life so that I would have every experience and piece of knowledge I needed for it to say exactly what He wanted. He also made sure I didn’t finish it until now.
I’ll never forget the day the journey to writing this book started. I was just a young punk kid when God put the desire in my heart to write. I was laying in my bed day-dreaming as usual, when I felt like I just knew what I was supposed to do with my life. I felt like I figured out the reason I was here. I felt like I found my purpose. I felt like I was going to make a difference in this world.
In my mind, at that time, I had no doubt it would happen and happen quickly. I bet EVERYTHING on it.
What God didn’t tell me that day was how it would all go down. He didn’t tell me I’d have to wait this long for it to happen. He didn’t tell me what I would end up writing about. He didn’t give me a “heads up” about all the challenges and trials I would have to go through first. He didn’t tell me about all the sleepless nights, the stress from failure, the countless jobs, or the worries about money. He didn’t tell me I’d have to wait until you all were born.
I can tell you that this is how God usually works. He doesn’t reveal the whole plan right away because He wants you to rely on Him for updates and guidance on your progress….something I didn’t do much of. I didn’t know any of this at the time, but there is no doubt it is true looking back now. Every little piece of my life had to align perfectly for this book to be written. Where I was born, the parents I had, the schools I went to, the people I’ve met, the jobs I lost, the trials I went through, and the joys I experienced were all directed by God.
It’s mind-blowing when I sit back and really think about some of the details. First, I had to be born. That took making sure your grandma and grandpa actually met and got married. (not to mention their parents and their parents and so on over all the centuries…) In fact, you can see God’s divine intervention in the fact that my mom, your mom, and your aunt all said “yes” to men not in their league. 😂
Then, God made sure you guys were all born and that you actually liked hanging out with your Uncle Bill. He gave me plenty of free time to spend with you too. It’s not an over-exaggeration to say God gave me more time with my nieces and nephews than 99% of the uncles on earth. I also find it fascinating that God waited until I was engulfed in the Bible and changing my own life before He allowed me to have a bigger influence in yours.
God lit a fire in me to learn more about Him. He led me to do a Bible study for Zach, and now this book for you.
Nothing was by chance; nothing was a mistake. It all had to happen. You’ll see, just keep reading.
Let’s start off with some of the things God was doing early on to prepare me for this. It’s not a fluke that both my parents believed in the “One True God”. It’s not by chance that they dragged me to church every Sunday, Wednesday, youth event day, and potluck night. Do you think it’s a coincidence that I ended up in churches that preached the Bible? Was it just dumb-luck that the same church gave my dad a job and a place for his young family to live right next door?
Why did my parents make sure I spent more time in church than my siblings? Why didn’t any of my friends have this kind of church schedule? Why was I the only kid sent off to private Christian schools? Why did so much of what I learned stick in my head, when not much else did?
I should have been asking more questions back then. God gave me signs all over the place, but I didn’t see them for what they were. I saw them as inconveniences, roadblocks and unfair treatment. God wanted me to ask Him what was going on. Instead, I tried to figure it all out on my own. I doubt God would have made everything clear to me right away had I asked, but a lot of stupid stress could have been avoided. Don’t take as long as I did to learn that. Always ask, and keep your eyes and ears open for answers.
One of things God made stick from that little church in Phoenix was His creation story. I was sitting in Sunday School watching a video about God creating the heavens and the earth. It had awesome special effects; and I can still visualize it in my head today. I was filled with awe and wonder! I knew it was true, and I didn’t question it. That simple belief helped me answer so many questions and doubts I would later get in my head about who God is and what He can do. It helped me avoid all the false theories about how everything came to be as it is today.
Could I have defended my belief to someone else? Probably not very well, but that didn’t matter to me at the time. This is called child-like faith. I’m praying that at a minimum you all have this type of faith. Child-like faith means you believe God is real even when you don’t have all of the answers as to why you believe it. All new believers start this way. If God were to allow you to ingest everything about Him all at once your brain would explode. You wouldn’t retain it all. Instead, we all start like a baby does; needing milk before we hit the solid food, which is in God’s Word.
Now think about what would happen if all you did was live off milk and you never started eating bread or meat as you aged. You wouldn’t be very healthy, would you? You wouldn’t be very strong or mentally sharp either. In fact, you would be pretty useless. This analogy is the example the Bible gives for those who never take their faith to the next level. They stay in that milk only stage through life. They end up being weak Christians living in fear because of what they don’t know. They become almost useless to God.
The moment my life really started to change was when I got off the milk and dug into the meat. (The Bible) What kept me on milk so long? In short, distractions. (more on that later)
For now, let’s get you some milk and a little bread for the creation story. 🥛🍞
The purpose of Uncle Bill’s book isn’t to give you all the little details on everything that’s in the Bible. That’s for future Bible studies (Lord willing) where we can break it all down verse by verse. For my book, I am just hoping that it gives you some simple Bible truths you can rely on because you trust and love the guy who wrote it. Having said that, trust but verify by reading and studying it for yourselves.
In case you’ve haven’t heard the creation story, here is some basic info about how we all got here. I’ll start off by telling you what the Bible actually says, then I’ll go into what the world thinks happened. I’m hopeful that you will see it takes a lot more “faith” to believe the world’s view than the Biblical account. “Faith: is believing something is real even though you have never seen it. Just like believing in what happened in the distant past is faith, because no human witnessed it.
It doesn’t take faith to know the Bible is real, but it does takes faith to believe the words and promises in it are. Same goes for your science books when it comes to our origins. No matter how many times evolution is promoted and taught biasedly in your classes, no one can “prove” it is true. It will take faith to believe in either creation or evolution.
Let’s get started. The Bible tells us plainly that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 literal-24-hour days. (See Genesis chapter 1)
In days 1-3, God created “spaces”. These spaces would later be “filled” with what God created in days 4-6. Days 1-3: spaces. Days 4-6: filling the spaces. (Check out the chart below)
CREATED
FILLED
Day 1 All matter, energy, light, and time in the universe
Day 4 Sun, moon and stars
Day 2 The atmosphere & water/seas
Day 5 Sea Creatures & birds
Day 3 Land & plant life
Day 6 Land animals and mankind.
There is nothing from the past, present, or future, that ever existed, in all the universe, that God didn’t create. This means everything you can see and don’t see, over all eternity past and future. This includes stuff you don’t even know exists. The Bible is very clear on this, and God alone takes credit for bringing it all into being.
Everything God created in days 1-3 (the spaces) were designed specifically for our benefit. They weren’t random. God made them for our use and daily needs. Just look at what we use the spaces for. We have an atmosphere that allows us to breathe outdoors and protects us from the sun. We have light & dark repeating every day after day, month after month, year after year, giving us a way to count time. We have the land we walk on and the plants we need for oxygen and food. All of it created with purpose and order. Nothing God does is random.
God then filled the spaces with the sun to light the day, and the moon & stars to light the night. Did you know God named all the stars? Astronomers can’t even count them all, yet God created them all and named them in one day. God also made the sea creatures, birds, and land animals that are vital for food and our eco-system. (All the stuff science tells you they are great for.) God knew what He was doing when He created this place. He was making a home for us.
I have found that the majority of Christians agree with all I have told you so far. They know God created everything. Exactly how God did it, and how long it took Him, are what many disagree on. The Bible tells us everything came from nothing and was created in an instant. Trees, plants, fish, birds, and even man all created in a flash, and in a mature state as if they had been there for years. God needed these things to be ready for man when he got there on day 6. He wouldn’t have created a process for life that took billions of years.
Adam didn’t start off as a baby. The fish were swimming; they weren’t eggs sitting on the sea floor. Birds could fly right away, cattle were fully grown so they could help work the ground, and the chicken definitely came before the egg. If God could create it at all, why couldn’t He create it all fully grown? Why would God make Adam wait until all the trees and plants were grown before he could eat from them? Animals were not part of Adam’s food source, so he would have starved if God didn’t make everything ready to eat and use.
Unbelievers, and many Christians, think God used evolution to bring His creation into being. They won’t accept simple Biblical answers and instead believe that life came into existence very, very, slowly through survival of the fittest. They try to marry the Bible and science books together so they don’t have to go against what the world thinks is true.
Remember this for a later study: Evolution tells us that death after death created new stronger and different species over a lot of time, until we reached the pinnacle, man. The Bible tells us death did not exist before man. In fact, death did not exist until Adam and Eve ate the apple God told them not to. Death came as the penalty for Adam’s sin. If death existed before sin, then God is a liar and Jesus died for nothing. You can’t believe the Bible and evolution. It is impossible to reconcile the two.
Wait, what about the dinos? Everyone says the Bible isn’t real because dinosaurs aren’t mentioned. Many Christians freak out when someone asks them to explain what the Bible says about Dinosaurs. It’s the craziest thing! All this doubt about the creation story over something easy to explain.
Dinosaurs were real., we have proof of that. It doesn’t take faith to believe it. Fossils are everywhere; unlike the fossils the evolutionists are still looking for. So, what is all the hysteria about in Christian circles? It all comes down to laziness and fear. Too lazy to go find the answers, and too afraid to go against the world.
For one, the word “dinosaur” is a relatively new word. It wasn’t around back when the Bible was written. Two, there are several mentions in the Bible of large animals that seem to resemble dinosaurs, but called by different names. Three, there are lots of animal species that are not mentioned in the Bible. God, during creation week, lumped all animals into just a few different “kinds”. From these few “kinds” we get all the different variations of birds, fish, and animals that have ever existed. This is opposite of the evolutionist view. They believe we started with millions of species over billions of years and by survival of fittest we are down to a much lower amount than we started with.
Scientists and textbook authors would like you to believe that most dinosaurs were huge like the t-rex, brontosaurus, and pterodactyl. In reality, the fossil record shows us that the vast majority were normal sized or smaller sized animals. They always fail to mention the average size of a dinosaur was around the size of an American bison. That’s not anywhere near t-rex size or the other huge dinosaurs found in the Hollywood movies. Why is this important? Because one of the popular ways people try to disprove the Bible is by saying no dinosaurs could have fit on the ark. The ark is what God had Noah build before He flooded the earth. (More to come on Noah and the flood down the road)
Are you seeing a pattern here? Scientists didn’t just come up with all their theories out of thin air. They took the creation story and then made up their own theory(s) to try and debunk the Bible. Every time the Bible proved true over time and discovery, they tweaked their theory to try and overcome it. Every time one of their theories was later proven wrong, they just pivoted to the next BS theory and the unbelieving world gladly accepted it. That’s not science, that is a blatant attempt to silence Truth. There are many Christian scientists who believe the creation account in the Bible. You just don’t hear from them as they are often silenced or shunned for going against their colleagues.
As to how Noah could have fit dinosaurs on the ark, you know the answer. They were average size or smaller. They could have even been very young and small when they boarded the boat. The next question is where did all the dinosaurs go? Why aren’t they around today? We will save that for a little later.
Now, let’s look at the timing of creation week. Did you know that God had a specific reason why He created everything in 6 days and then rested on the 7th? He didn’t need the rest, he wasn’t tired. Even though the Bible tells us the answer, many Christians still struggle with the fact that such a complex and vast universe could be made in only 6 days. They say it’s just too impossible to believe and they think science backs their beliefs.
Part of the struggle for Christians is that everything we are taught in school, everything we see on tv or socials, even words we hear in some churches, all teach that this place was created billions of years ago. Evolutionists and big bang theorists need these billions of years to be true so that they can explain why there are no signs anywhere of evolution in our world today. Scientists explain it by saying fossils don’t last billions of years and the evolutionary process is really slow. That is why no one has, or ever will, see anyone changing from “the goo, to the zoo, into you”.
So, because of all the outside influence to believe in evolution, many Christians look for ways to fit long periods of time in between days 1-6. They take words and whole paragraphs out of context. They make up stuff and ignore what is written. Many just live with the confusion and contradictions that come with trying to hold both views as true. They then become useless to God for spreading His Word. They do all of this just to support a theory that is harder to believe than the truth the Bible teaches. No one wants to question science, but they are fine with questioning God’s Word. Go figure….
In summary, you have a choice to make. Believe the world, or believe the Bible. Over the centuries, the world has changed its opinion on how the universe and everything in it came into existence, more times than you can count. The Bible has not changed since it was written 2,000+ years ago. I’ll believe the God who created everything over the people trying to study everything He created.
The real question every good Bible student should ask instead of “how could God do all that in 6 days?” is: “Why did He take so long?” If God could do it at all, He could certainly have done it in a split second, all at once. He didn’t need 6 days. He didn’t even need a minute. You’ll have to wait for the answer on this one. It takes a little more detail than I plan to go into in this book. In the meantime, rest assured God had very specific reasons why he created everything in 6 literals days.
There is so much more detail in the Bible about the creation account than I could possibly discuss in this chapter. This is just the milk, remember? I’ll end chapter one with this question:
“If God could create everything, is there anything He can’t do? You should think about that anytime a doubt or question comes into your mind about what God is capable of.
As I told you all last week when I texted you, I am writing this book in real-time each day. I know what I want to write about, I have an idea how it should flow, but I am leaving it up to God to direct it. Because I am writing the book this way, I have to go back and read it all from the beginning each morning before I start working on the next piece of it. I want to make sure I am not jumping all over the place with my thoughts and that it comes out organized and easy to read. It’s weird writing a book without an outline, but it’s also very exciting.
This morning, when I was reading back through everything I’ve written so far, I started to question a few things. I just spent 2×12 hour days writing the creation section in chapter 1, and all I could think about was that it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t help but want to add more and more to it. There is so much to the creation story that I didn’t share. I want to dive deeper into it, but it would take up my whole book, and I didn’t think that was God’s purpose for it. He has His own Book with all the detail.
Because I’ve been waiting for almost 40 years to write this book, I question when things are going well with my writing. This morning, I started wondering if God really wants me to write the book now. Maybe He was actually trying to tell me to start my Bible studies first, so I could go into all the detail and tell you the whole creation story. Maybe I just got the signals mixed up. I do have everything already set up for Uncle Bill’s Bible Hour. (yes, that’s the name I came up with lol) I have the green old man chair, the camera and mic, and I’ve already checked the lighting and acoustics. Maybe that is what God wants me to do. I can always put the book on pause for a while….
Well, that didn’t seem right either. Ugh, what do I do?
I decided to go for a walk with the pups and get some fresh air. As we walked, I kept questioning whether or not I was doing what God wants. It’s all I could think about for some reason. As I let my mind question things over and over, I started to doubt. Maybe I was wrong about all of this? Maybe I’m getting ahead of God’s plan by starting the book now? Maybe He has more training He wants me to go through first? Maybe I’m not a mature enough Christian yet? Maybe I need to keep working on myself before I jump into all this?
Before the questions in my head got out of hand, I got home. I plopped down on the couch, turned on a “relaxing sounds of rain video” from YouTube, and got ready to pray and ask God if He would confirm what I should do. I do this a lot, but not enough. I usually try to keep the surroundings as quiet as possible, but then the darn dogs start barking at every noise they hear. So, I turn on the rain sounds. It distracts the pups, but doesn’t distract me when praying or deep in thought.
Today, I literally just closed my eyes to start praying, when I heard the sound of a text coming through on my phone. Normally, I don’t stop praying to look at a text, but I was waiting for an answer from God on what to do, so I checked it. It was a text from one of your moms, telling me that she heard the introduction of my book, because one of you read it to her. She wanted to follow along as I write it.
Wait, what????? I didn’t even get the question out before I got an answer?
I laid back down and started to think about it some more. I was half blown away by it all, and half skeptical because it happened so fast and was so obvious. I started thinking maybe the text wasn’t a sign/answer. Am I overthinking this? Maybe it’s just a coincidence? I don’t get a lot of answers this fast and this clear, so maybe it’s a fluke? Before I could stew in my own thoughts much longer, I got 2 more alerts back-to-back on that same phone. I jumped up to read them, half expecting to see a spam text or an alert that The Golf Warehouse is having a sale. Instead, what I saw were 2 notifications from my website.
The first one said this: “people are liking and reading your book”.
The next one was a comment from one of you. This is what it said: “This is the 2nd thing I’ve read today after my Bible.” “Made me cry”. “Thank you for this gift, I am so excited to see what God has put on your heart”.
Well, I guess that takes care of my question! 3 alerts on my phone, all mentioning the book, right when I needed it? Wow!!!!! This type of quick and obvious answer from God is definitely more the exception than the rule, but God wanted me to show you it can happen this way. I think that is why He made it so obvious this time. I’m also quite sure He wants me to finally quit asking Him about it. He will always answer our prayers in His timing, and in His way, we just need to keep our eyes and ears open. It is also awesome to hear at least one of you is reading the Bible!
I missed so many attempts by God to guide me down the right path growing up. When I did notice something, I called it a coincidence. Most of the time I was too distracted and in my own world to spot them. It was only after I started really paying attention to the signs, did I see more of them. However, just like this morning, I still have moments of doubt. The first text that interrupted my prayer should have been enough. It shouldn’t have required the extra confirmation, but I am Glad God gave it to me this time.
This is a pretty typical example of how it works when I try to understand all that God is doing in front of me and behind the scenes. It can be bumpy, because God doesn’t usually come right out and clearly tell me all the answers I seek. Sometimes it’s just a feeling I get that I can’t shake. Sometimes a song, a Bible verse, or even something your aunt says out of the blue, can confirm an answer for me. Lots of times I don’t get the answer until days, weeks, or even years later.
Many answers won’t come until we are face to face with God. This is what having a relationship with an almighty God, who for the time being, is separated from us because of our sin. But, just like this morning, God can also make His answers and guidance very clear!
I won’t generally make a habit out of sharing comments I get about the book as I move through it, but today, God wanted me to put them in here so I don’t have to ask Him if I should be writing this book again. It should have always been obvious, but it’s a process to learn to trust what God is telling me sometimes.
I really like how the first chapter of my book aligns with the first chapter in God’s Book. I’m sure that was by design. This foundational belief, that God created everything in an instant, over a literal 6-day week, tells you all you need to know. It tells you how you got here, and that your life has purpose, because an almighty God created you. He didn’t have to create us, so the fact that He did tells us something. This is why Genesis is the most attacked book in the Bible from the unbelieving world. If they can diminish, discredit, or destroy Genesis, they know you will be ripe to believe anything they say. That is what the darkness really wants.
If someone can convince you that the very first book of the Bible is wrong, then they can convince you the rest of it is wrong too. If they can convince you that the book is all just a bunch of children’s stories and fables, then they can convince you evolution is real and that you have no worth. If they can convince you that God didn’t create us, then you won’t have to feel obligated to live up to His standards. If there is no creator God, there is no higher authority mankind is accountable to. If there’s no problem, there’s no need for a solution. Get it now?
It’s so much deeper than a simple disagreement on what a book says. It’s a spiritual darkness that has to try and make sure you don’t see the light of truth. In Genesis 1:3 we learn that there was light before there was the sun. The light was day 1, but the sun didn’t exist until day 4. Why? Because God is light. The brightest, most radiant light in the world. This light, is how God is described in the Old Testament when Israel had a temple that God resided in. This is the light the darkness doesn’t want you to see.
Everything that goes against the light is darkness. A tiny little flame can extinguish the dark, but the darkness can never extinguish the light. This is not some fancy philosophical statement, this is truth.
This is why the book of Genesis and the creation story are so dangerous to those living in the dark. The light exposes their lies and circular reasoning. This is also why God put Genesis as the first book. It is the foundational piece to the Bible. Get Genesis right, and the rest of the Bible makes a lot more sense. Get it wrong, and you’ll have to jump through hoops trying to explain the rest of it.
Genesis is the most important historical book ever written. It tells us about the foundation of all things. In Genesis we learn about matter, energy, life, marriage, family, society, morality, Law, even the 7-day week.
It is also a book of firsts: The first human beings, the first marriage, birth, death, lie, trial, murder, first self-defense, ownership of property, natural death, rainfall, boat, nations formed, cities built, calendar established, first example of God’s grace, and on and on. Genesis has everything we need to know about the person of God and man’s relationship to Him.
Are you starting to see why the world wants to make sure you don’t believe the book of Genesis is truth? Look past the people pushing the evolution nonsense. It’s a spiritual issue. Normal people would not care so much about what we Christians believe is truth. Why would anyone care what we believe? Our beliefs don’t impede their lives in any way. We aren’t killing people who disagree, or shaming those who don’t believe as we do. Bible believing folk are supposed to be humble and meek, the Bible doesn’t teach hate or violence.
The only logical answer you can come up with as to why normal people hate the truth, and those that spread it, is Satan. We will get into his antics later, but I need to make sure one thing is perfectly clear now. Before Satan came into the picture in Genesis chapter 3; the world God created, and the people He created, were perfect.
Adam and Eve didn’t have to plow the ground or pull weeds from the garden. Everything they needed to eat was always readily available without having to work for it. The animals all got along, they were tame, and you could have a bear as a pet if you wanted to. A mist from the ground watered all the vegetation automatically. There was an additional layer of water above the atmosphere of our planet, that somehow made this place like a greenhouse too. It was heaven on earth.
Even better; there was no fear, no stress, no pain, no hate, no lies, no sorrow and definitely no death before evil came around. The place was perfect. Adam and Eve’s bodies were perfect and built to never die or wear out. But, that’s not the best part. The best part, was that Adam and Eve could walk and talk with God. They weren’t separated from Him like we are today.
All it takes is a second to look around, and you can easily tell that the world is far from a perfect place now. Almost everything is the opposite of the way God created it.
Something had to have happened between what we read about in Genesis chapters 1 & 2, and our current day. Something that made this place a living hell on earth at times. I keep asking you guys to pay attention to why unbelievers hate and try to discredit Genesis so much. Here is your first major reason: They are on the same team as the guy the Bible says made this mess. Their boss let our home go to hell and fall into disarray. Their false teachers have more students than the Bible teacher does. There are far more unbelievers in the world than there are believers. What happened?
Don’t give up hope! Keep reading. The God who created it all, knew evil was coming, and He already has a plan to fix it all.
One might think after all the time I spent in church and in private school, I would have been this perfect little angel as a kid. Uh, nope, not even close.
I was just 12 years old when I started dreaming about moving out. Getting out from under the thumb of oppression that was my parents, motivated me, and got me through those dark years. Lol When your grandpa used to wake me up at noon to go mow the yard on a Saturday, I would think about that moment of freedom when I turn 18, and I’d get through it. I was going to be rich; I didn’t need them. My dad was a tightwad, and scared to take risks….not me! I’ll show him.
You have to try and picture this: For 8 years of my life, I was like a guy in a cannon waiting to be shot out. I was stuck in that cannon, and if somehow, I could light the fuse of adulthood, I would blast off into everything I ever wanted. Every argument I had with Bil & Pat, (I called them by their real names a lot ) would end with me reminding them that my move out day was just XX days and 12 hours away. I remember telling them that they would regret the way they treated me, especially when I become rich and famous.
Writing this now, looking back, it all seems pretty stupid. I don’t remember my parents giving me any real reasons to want to escape. Well, maybe a couple…. There was that one-time mom put my bed in the garage after I left to go out with my friends for the night. When I came home at some ridiculous hour, boy was I surprised! It was the peak of summer in AZ, but I wasn’t going to let her win, so I slept in the garage. I can’t imagine what that place smelled like the next day.
There was also the time mom threw all my clothes out the bedroom window, and the times she would try to yell instructions to me while I was mowing the yard. Your grandma was a little psycho back then, mostly for good reason. I was a pain in the butt! My dad always wanted me to do stuff, and do it for free. We had some epic battles on chore days. I’m not sure what my parents thought back then. I was a nightmare teenager. I think maybe they just finally threw up their arms and said: “oh well, let’s focus on the other two kids.” Lol
When I go through my old writing, I get to see what my state of mind I was in back in the day. 50% of what I wrote before 18 was about my parents and how strict they were. The other half was about all the cool things I was going to do when I wrote my book. The stuff I wrote after high school….now that is a different story.
Let’s flash forward to high school. I’ve had about 8 years of dreaming about writing, and a few thousand words hastily scribbled on notebook paper to show for it. So, I took matters into my own hands and decided I needed to live a life worthy of writing about. It sounds pretty good, until I tell you I thought partying and doing stupid funny crazy stuff, was what I needed to make my writing come alive. I started thinking maybe I’ll write a movie instead. I took a few film and screenwriting classes, and I even got an awesome video camera from my parents for Christmas. Although I had a very good imagination that I used often, I could never come up with anything that seemed better to write about than my own life.
I’ve included some pics of things I was working on, or thinking about between ages 17-30. I call this my BS time. “Before Steph”. As I told you before, there was a lot of stress when I was in my twenties. Everything I wrote about was a future scene in my movie or chapter in my book. At least that is what I thought at the time, not knowing God had a different plan. I walked around like my eyes were a video camera, filming the next adventure. There were plenty of adventures, but most of them never made it down on paper. I’d come home, write down some bullet points so that I wouldn’t forget, then never come back to finish it.
If I were to summarize everything that happened during that period it would be this: Even though I was a rebel child, God still protected me through it all. He surrounded me with the best friends in the world, and a 2nd family who all looked out for me. I don’t want to glorify this time in my life, but it did help shape me into the man I am today. I just wish I had 1/10th of the money I wasted back.
Uncle Bill was a great example to follow when you are looking for what “not” to do. I have been to more parties than I can count, and I have a lot of them written down in my pile of old writing. Nothing substantial ever came out of any of it, except a bunch of hangovers. That is how my twenties felt from a success standpoint too. Ugh, what a waste… I tried so hard to fight against the current and get something accomplished, but God wanted me to turn around a go with the flow.
I was 20 when I wrote the letter predicting my future would be full of wealth from sold writing and fame. I was going to be rich in 10 years, and I wouldn’t need the parents anymore. Well, that aged well!
Flash forward 7 years after I sent the letter. I was driving my mom’s mini-van, while working part-time at the Arizona Republic newspaper. Not in a writing job as you might think, but taking classified ads over the phone. I had moved in and out of the parent’s house several times, and if it wasn’t for your Aunt Steph, I would probably still live there. Life sucked! I felt depressed, I felt hopeless, I felt like a failure.
In the decade following that letter, a lot went wrong. I spent several hours in the pokey, and narrowly escaped serving a lot more. I had a car repossessed because I needed the money for beer, and I got kicked out of a couple apartments for partying too much. I had 15 jobs, and I spent very little time working at any of them. I had to sell some of my favorite things to pay off debt, rent, or for buying alcohol. The 69 mustang and the jeep were the hardest to let go. I lived paycheck to paycheck, and always above my means.
As far as the being famous prediction went, the closest I got was being in a few local insurance commercials. I always played the part of the loser without any money, a part I was perfect for. They only picked me because I worked there, and they wanted free talent. I must have been a decent actor, because people used to recognize me and shout my name. Too bad it was just at the mall, and the only people that saw my commercials were the people who were home all day instead of working. There was the one girl who wanted to dance with me because she thought it was cool I was on tv. I might have married her, had your aunt not come into the picture and snatched me away when she saw us dancing. You aunt was the jealous type. lol
The stress was rough. Not only did I have all these financial worries, but major doubt was creeping in. I had a few jobs that helped take away the hole I had not filled yet, but they were always just temporary. I had a mid-life crisis breakdown at 27. I was only 3 years away from the cutoff I told my parents about in the letter. I was nowhere close to having anything written.
Look at the poem I wrote. (Life Lessons) I can’t tell you how much anxiety, fear, stress and tears were behind it. But, if you notice, there is also hope! I wrote this after praying. Although I didn’t have much of a relationship with God during this time period, I always went to Him when I felt everything was unbearable. I went to Him when I was desperate. He always calmed me down and brought me hope.
I was failing, and I had very little time to get it done. The partying helped me forget that I was a loser too. I talked so much crap over the years; on purpose. I figured if I talked a ton of smack about being successful, surely that would help my pride kick in, and I would “get er done”. Again, I was wrong. 15 years after I had vowed to become a writer, I felt further away than ever.
God kept the spark there though, and occasionally, especially during very high stress times in my life, He allowed me to write some of the best stuff I ever put down on paper. I never let anyone see how disappointed I was in my life. I kept up the charade. I drove fancy cars, I dressed like a 50-year-old poser rich guy, and I still bragged about the writing, but only when I was drinking.
I was really scared. I didn’t know what life would be like living with the disappointment I set myself up for. I didn’t know if I could handle that type of pain, so I couldn’t let the dream die, or I’d risk dying inside.
So, here we have an example of 2 things: 1. I wanted to write with every ounce of my being for more than 40 years, but never got anything completed. 2. I wanted to be a good Christian, but I wasn’t anywhere close to good. I was very thankful for all the times God helped me out of a mess, but it didn’t lead to me to obey Him more. After God saved me that one time in the desert, I told Him that I’d never drink again. The next day I was right back to the hair of the dog that bit me.
It was one of the most frustrating periods in my life, and it lasted a long time. Everything I wanted to do, I didn’t. Everything I didn’t want to see happen, did. UGH!
Then, God sent me a life preserver; your aunt. God sent her in to help clean up all the messes, and make me smile at her dresses. Lol The friends and family God provided for me during my party days, were being replaced with my own family. I got married when I was 30, and we had Zach at 32. I needed motivation and my hopes lifted up, and that is just what marrying the love of my life did! I was down in the dumps about my writing, but now I had a wife and a son to think about. I would do it for them! The timing must have been all wrong before.
Nope! Wrong again. God was just planting seeds at this time. He knew what would happen over the next decade, I didn’t.
How can you believe something will happen with your whole heart, but never see it come to fruition? How can you know how you should act, but still don’t? Why did I have to go through all this stress and anxiety?
I have the answers now, but I’ll tell you later. Keep reading.
God picked me to get this book to you. He did so, to make sure you had no doubt about who to give credit to for getting it done. Since I am not smart enough, dedicated enough, focused enough, or hard working enough, you have to give the credit to God. I have no college edumication, and I barely got through high school. God had a ton of Godlier, more respected, and higher educated people out there to pick from than me. Heck, even in my own household, I should have been picked last.
God chose me, because it was the perfect way to show you that He was at work. There is no way Uncle Bill could have done it on my own, I tried for 40 years. God knew the day he put the writing bug in my heart, that I would rebel and do all the stupid things I did in the years following. Yet, He still wanted me to do it? Why? Asking questions like this will help you grow closer to God. He wants us to ask why. The same goes for the Bible. A good student of anything, will always ask why. I’ll keep reminding you of this as we go along.
The biggest question we didn’t answer from chapter 1 was: If God created this world and everything in it to be perfect, and God saw that it was good, why does it look and feel like anything but perfect now?
It starts with Genesis chapter 3, but you can tell God knew it was coming in chapters 1 & 2. As a reminder, when God created it all in those 6×24-hour days, everything was perfect. There was no pain, no fear, no anxiety, no lies and most importantly, no death. It was heaven on earth, because God was there.
In the Bible, heaven is defined as anywhere God is. Right now, God is in His throne room which is outside the known universe. That is heaven at this point in time. If you have family members who believed Jesus was God, and that He came to save us, then they are in the throne room with God right now, in heaven. In the future, Jesus will be with us here on this earth. At that point, we will call this place heaven. In the distant future, there is a new heavens and earth created, and then that will be heaven, because the fullness of God will live there with us. Much more to come on the future locations of heaven later in the book.
How do we know that God knew beforehand that the events in Chapter 3 of Genesis were coming? I’ll give you one clue: He created this world with certain features that will not be around when the new heavens and earth are created. He created certain things for this universe, solely because He knew sin was coming. Jump to Revelation Chapter 21 if you want to see what is missing in the new place we live in down the road, when there is no sin.
So, what happened that took what God created, and turned it into what we have today? In short, sin. I would imagine every one of you has heard the story of Adam & Eve in some capacity. I will also assume there is a lot from the story you have never thought of, or heard about.
Let’s start with Adam, and how He came into existence. The Bible tells us in Chapter 2 verse 7, that God formed man from the dust of the ground. This is a very important detail. It explains why our bodies decompose and go back to dust after we die, and why both our DNA and the dirt are built from share the same chore chemicals. Remember this, we will get back to it shortly.
The other detail that verse 7 gave us was that God “breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life”. The meaning for the word “breath” in Hebrew is “spirit”. It is telling us that God formed man as a shell first, then He gave Adam his “spirit”. The spirit is what gave Adam life. Adam needed both his spirit, and the physical body container, to live here on earth.
The Bible teaches that everyone has two separate parts to us. One is our physical body, often called “flesh” in the Bible. The other is our “spirit” or “soul”. Our spirit is invisible, and without it, our body would die. We know all the ways the body can die; we see it all around us. But how does a spirit die? Hold on to that one, keep reading.
When God created Adam; his physical body, and the spirit God placed inside him were perfect. Since they were perfect, (without sin) they would live forever, and they could be in the presence of God forever. God won’t hang out around sin, He can’t. Because God is a perfect and righteous judge, He would have to judge sin at the moment He was in the presence of it. The Bible tells us that the penalty for sin is death, so God is doing us a favor by separating Himself from us and our sin right now. ( see Romans 6:23)
We also find out from reading the Bible, that mankind was created specifically to live on this earth. We have physical bodies that are made to thrive in this environment. If we were all in spirit form only, then we wouldn’t need a physical earth to live on. Remember, there are two parts to every human being: the body and the spirit/soul. We know the physical body can’t live without the spirit, because we saw what Adam’s body was like before God put the spirit in him.
So, what happened to change everything? Sin. It came into the picture from a source that is evil, Satan. God had one instruction for Adam and Eve to follow: “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. He told Adam that if he eats from this tree, he will surely die. Both Adam and Eve could eat freely from any tree in the garden, just not that one.
Satan, who we start learning about in Genesis chapter 3, approaches Eve in the garden in the form of snake. Satan is a spiritual being, meaning he doesn’t have a physical body like we do. In fact, all angels and fallen angels (demons) are spirit only beings. God the Father is also all spirit. Jesus, when He came to earth as a man, was the only time God was in a physical body like ours. Much more to come on that one.
Since Satan is a spiritual being and not physical, he will at times indwell a physical body to help his cause. He did this with the snake. The snake was just an innocent bystander; it was Satan inside the snake that caused the trouble. We know later in the Bible that Satan also went into Judas and led him to betray Christ.
Satan came in and deceived Eve. In so many words, he told her that God doesn’t want her to eat the fruit, because she will become like God. He told her not to believe God when He said they will surely die if they eat it. These were the first lies ever told on earth, and look where they came from. The Bible tells us Satan is the father of lies, a truth we can see from Genesis 3. So, Eve ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Adam followed right along.
What happened next is how everything changed. Sin was now in God’s creation. To put it simply, sin is anything that is an offense to God. Who gets to determine what offends God? Only God does. Sin is like a virus, and once the host is infected, the whole thing dies. It spreads and spreads, causing chaos and death. It becomes part of our nature; it becomes who we are in God’s eyes.
Flashback to Chapter 2 of Genesis, when God had man name all the animals, birds, and all living creatures. When you name something, it means you have authority over it. It means you have dominion. I named Zach, so I have dominion over him until he becomes an adult or moves out of the house. lol God gave Adam (man) authority and dominion over everything on this earth. He was in charge of it all, until he gave it up.
When Adam listened to the council of Satan instead of God, what Adam did was relinquish his authority and dominion here on earth over to Satan. He gave it to him, not knowingly at the time, but that was the result. Had Adam & Eve never sinned; they would have lived forever and would still be running the place.
Now back to the first thing we read about after Adam and eve ate from the tree. They hid from God. They were naked and afraid. This is the first clue that something happened to them spiritually, as they never hid from God before. They used to walk and talk with Him, now they are hiding. That in a nutshell is what sin can do. It not only separates us physically from God, but spiritually as well. Both parts of us are affected by sin.
God knew what Adam and Eve did before they confessed it to Him. God knew they were going to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil before He even created the tree, or the two who ate from the tree. In other words, God knows everything Adam did, will do, or is thinking of doing. He knows the same about all of us. There is no hiding anything from God. He knew about it before you even thought about it.
Now that sin was here, God had to judge it. He is perfect, and can’t let them all off the hook, when the penalty He promised was death. God never goes back on His word. That wasn’t good news to Adam and Eve at the moment, but in the long run, it is awesome knowing God won’t change His mind on His promises. You’ll see why that is so important later. God also made noise when He entered the garden so that Adam and Eve would hear him and hide. He did this as a show of mercy, because had they been face to face with God in their current sinful state, God would have had to judge them instantly. Instead, we hear about how God judges their sin below.
God first cursed the snake. Snakes didn’t always crawl on their bellies, did you know that? He also made woman and the snake natural enemies. Ever wonder why snakes are always associated with evil, con-artists, and liars? Well now you know. This curse is also why very few people actually like snakes in general. Before the curse, the snake was walking either on all fours, or standing up, and Eve wasn’t afraid of it.
God next moved to punish Eve by telling her the pain from childbirth would be multiplied and that her husband would rule over her. Spiritually speaking, man was to be the head and protect women from anything like this happening again. It was Eve who was deceived by the snake, so God instituted this charge for Adam to be the lookout and guard against the lies of the enemy. This didn’t make eve Adam’s slave, because the Bible tells us “all” are created equal in God’s eyes. Any attempt to take this verse. or any others in the Bible. as permission for men to rule over women like task-masters is absurd. This is strictly talking the spiritual, Bible teaching, defender against false truths, and protector of the home type rule.
Lastly, to punish Adam, God cursed the earth. Anytime in the Bible we hear about God cursing something, it always means eternal destruction. As in, it will be destroyed at some point, and it will never come back. When he curses a person, it means that person will be given eternal judgment and never has a chance to find or be with God forever. It’s pretty rare when it does happen in the Bible, so we should pay attention to the “why” of it all.
Notice that God did not curse Adam. He cursed the earth. This means the earth is destined to be destroyed. 2nd Peter 3:10 is one of the verses that confirms the earth’s end. God could have cursed Adam, but He didn’t. God cursed the ground where Adam came from. Since the earth is destined to die out, and Adam and Eve and everyone born after them comes from the earth, we are all destined to die out. If you know the rest of the book, Adam and Eve didn’t physically die right when they ate from the tree, but something did. Adam lived until he was 930-year-old.
What died the second they ate the forbidden fruit, was their spirit. Not in the gone from existence type of dying, but as in now corrupt, full of sin, dead to God. Their spirits that once were perfect, and would live forever with God, are now doomed to an existence without Him. The Bible tells us that as a consequence of Adam’s fall, all humans born after Adam would inherit that same corrupt spirit, dead in nature, and separated from God. We also know from studying God’s Word, that a person’s spirit will never cease to exist. So, even though Adam and Eve’s physical bodies now had to suffer death under the same curse as the earth, their spirits will go on to live forever.
Uh, Houston, we have a problem. Adam and Eve, and anyone born after them, are now on a course to live in darkness, away from the light for all eternity. This is all of us. This is not metaphoric, this is real. Since we know that your spirit lives forever, the sin nature lives forever with you too. Remember when I told you God can’t be around sin without judging someone for it? Well, that means if your spirit is dead and corrupt and sinful, you can’t be around God, ever.
There is the problem, now how do we get around it? How can we change our spiritual nature, or our soul? At minimum we need a perfect spirit to be in heaven with God. Since we know our earthly body dies, we know it won’t go into heaven with us. It seems like a catch 22, as there is no way “humanly” possible for us to exchange out our spirit with a brand new in the box, perfect one.
We have learned that every single one of us is made up of a physical body and a spirit. We have learned like Adam, our physical bodies will die at some point. We have also learned that part of us, our spirit, is going to live forever. That’s pretty eye-opening stuff! All of this within the first 3 chapters of the book. Just wait until you hear the rest.
Remember when I told you that God created our bodies to live and thrive on earth? Well, guess what? We will all have physical bodies, beginning when Jesus comes back. We then keep the same perfect body through all the rest of eternity. Anyone who died before you that is in heaven right now, is in spirit form only. They don’t have a physical body; it is in the ground. They get their new physical body at the same time all Christians do, right before Jesus starts His rule as king on earth.
Wow, lots to digest, and probably a lot to wonder about. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it all right now, it takes time to take in all the incredible things we learn about in God’s book. If anything, this should ignite your curiosity and get you to study more about it.
To recap: Most Bible scholars call the events of Chapter 3 in Genesis “the fall”. This is when man fell from being perfect, and lost an opportunity to be with God.
BEFORE FALL: Adam & Eve had perfect physical bodies and perfect spirits.
AFTER FALL: Adam & Eve had sinful bodies that would now die, and dead natured/sinful spirits, dead to God.
TO GET TO HEAVEN: You need a perfect body and perfect spirit, or a perfect spirit and no body.
WHEN JESUS COMES BACK TO EARTH: You will need both a perfect body and perfect spirit to enter into the Kingdom. (Lots more to come on this one)
God won’t let this problem we have go unsolved. In fact, you don’t even get out of Chapter 3 of Genesis before we read that the solution is coming.
God gave us the solution right in the middle of passing judgement. Yes, God had to punish Adam and Eve, but He also showed them mercy by sharing the “good news” at the same time. The good news, is that God has a plan to save us from the mess created by sin and the fall. The word “gospel” means: good news! This is the first place in the Bible the gospel was given.
Genesis 3:15: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.
There is so much behind this one verse. Without going too deep, and taking up a couple chapters of my book, I’ll give you this: When God told Adam and Eve that He has a plan to bring them a Savior, He purposely left out most of the detail that we all have now. God didn’t tell them who the Savior would be, and He didn’t tell them when He would come. He didn’t tell them the Savior would have to die, or that He would rise again. All God said is that the seed of woman, (seed is singular) would bring down the enemy (Satan) and restore all things back to perfect.
Adam and Eve could choose to believe in this promise from God, or they could follow Satan and look to create their own paradise on earth. The word “seed,” is the reproductive material men carry, so there has to be a reason God said “her” seed. Women don’t have seed, only men do. How could a woman have a child without a man involved in the conception process? It would take a virgin birth. There is only one human ever born who did not get Adam’s corrupt, sinful, and fallen nature passed down through the normal human conception process. That was Jesus!
The snake was also there when God gave the good news to Adam and Eve. The promised Messiah was anything but good news to Satan though. He took this Word from God and started working to stop it. Since Satan is a created being, he is no match for the God who created him. So, Satan uses man to try and stop the seed from ever being born, or by corrupting the seed line, so none were worthy to be a savior. Eve thought her first born son Cain was going to be the Messiah, so Satan turned Cain into a murderer and he killed his brother Abel. That shows you how fast sin moved, when the 1st kid born on earth, kills his only brother because he was jealous.
This pattern of God keeping the seed promise alive, while Satan does all he can to stop it, happens over and over again throughout all of history. Every God-fearing Jewish mother from the time of Eve to the time of Mary, prayed and hoped their child would be the promised Messiah. This made the Jewish people Satan’s #1 target. If he could corrupt the seed line, or kill any who might be in it, Satan figured he could disrupt God’s plan.
The verse also tells us that Satan would bruise the future Savior on the heel. In human terms, you can strike a fatal blow to the head, but no life-threatening damage comes from a strike on the heel. This was God’s point in bringing up this comparison. The deeper meaning behind it was revealed when Satan thought he won by helping get Jesus killed, only to later realize it was just a strike on the heel, because Jesus arose from the dead and is alive now.
On the other hand, Jesus dealt a death blow to Satan’s head. Satan could no longer hold the fear of death over us, because Jesus rising from the dead would give us life after death. Even though the true end of Satan is not yet here, God is still in control, and Jesus is ruling from His throne in heaven. Make no mistake about it though, Satan is here on earth with a multitude of fallen angels, always looking to stop God’s next step. The problem is, Satan is not all knowing like God is, and so He is always a step behind and too late. In fact, God utilizes Satan and his minions to bring about Jesus’ return, so there is no doubt Satan can only go as far as God lets him.
It was impossible for anyone born before Jesus to know all that verse 15 meant. It didn’t become truly clear until Jesus came, died, and rose again. God slowly revealed the full plan over time, until the day Jesus was born. He did this to keep the plan secret enough that Satan would not know how it would play out. God did give the nation of Israel plenty of clues that would help them recognize when the real Savior came, but as you may know, most still rejected Him when He showed up.
The Bible tells us that until Jesus comes back again, this place will only get worse. Almost every scientist in the world thinks the earth is falling apart. They believe mankind is causing it, and if we would just stop eating cows, stop having kids, and build more wind farms, we can stop the damage. Others are drastically searching for life on other planets, trying to find a place to move to when this earth goes away. It is no coincidence that most of humankind has a feeling that the earth is wearing out. Before anyone ever thought about it, the Bible declared it over 2,000 years ago. What are the odds?
In Genesis 8:22 God says that all will remain predictable on the earth from the time after the flood, until the end. Seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night, will never stop happening. Climate change scientists say nothing will be predictable, because we are seeing weather events and ice melts, that are unparalleled in history. They argue for the opposite of what the Bible says. Climate change predictions see chaos, where summer becomes winter, or the opposite. They are always looking for “never happened before” events to support their predictions. God says everything in our environment will work as usual until the end of the earth. It’s part of a cycle that God created, and it won’t change or go away until the earth goes away.
So, the nightmare scenarios that climatologists have thrown at us for years, is all just part of God’s plan. Man isn’t speeding up or slowing down any of it. God set the timing of it when He cursed the earth after Adam and Eve’s sin. From that day forward, earth was like a ticking timebomb, waiting to be destroyed. For those of us that know this place is not home, there is no need for doom and gloom, because God replaces His creation with a new heavens and earth. It’s the same place we read about in Revelation chapter 21. If you know your Bible, then you will know when we are getting close to the end of earth. I’ll save that discussion for later.
God wants us to be good stewards of this planet and respect His creation, but holding on to a lie that we can stop God’s plan by driving electric cars is willfully ignoring Bible truth. Letting the fear they are selling you invade your life is wasted stress. The earth is passing away. Everything in this world wears out and eventually stops working, just look around. Your car doesn’t start running better, it always runs down. The same with every single thing on this earth. Can you think of anything that gets better and more efficient the longer it is used? Do you understand now why the world makes climate change such a priority? Why do they want to scare you into believing that you are responsible for the earth’s decay, and not Genesis 3?
It’s an attack against God, and Bible truth. If there is no judge, there is no judgement. If there is no fear, they you don’t need them for a solution. The Bible makes clear in many places throughout, that the world is ending because of a judgement against sin. I wrote about this earlier; unbelievers don’t want to believe in a creator God, because that implies that there is someone they need to be accountable to. Of course, they can’t believe the reason why the universe is wearing out, or they would be admitting there is a higher authority.
Almost every fear that the world tries to get you believe is debunked in the Bible. Again, I ask you to think about why they want you to be scared about this place ending? Why do they want you to think that we can do anything about it?
The next major historical event the world does everything they can to discredit, is the flood from Genesis 7. The worldwide flood Noah and everyone alive at that time experienced changed everything. It changed our topography and our ecosystem. For the first time it rained, and millions of people, animals, and birds drown. From this point in time forward, man would eat animals, and animals would eat each other. Most animals were no longer tame, and God put the fear of man in them so they weren’t an easy target.
The flood was brought as judgement on the people of earth because they had become so wicked that every thought of theirs was to do evil. After the fall, and before God brought the flood, Satan was working overtime to stop the seed line from moving forward. He had his fallen angels indwell human men and impregnate the women of earth. This was Satan’s way of trying to corrupt the lineage leading to Jesus.
Now, think for a second about what it took for God to flood this earth and start over with only Noah and his family. The place was nothing but evil, 24×7. Outside of one family, no one was worth saving. That is how bad the world was then. As a teaser for later in the book, Jesus told us in the New Testament that when He comes back again, the earth will be as wicked and evil as it was right before the flood. I can tell you it is bad right now, and getting worse, but I don’t think we are quite as bad as the people who drowned in the flood were….at least not yet. One could easily argue that we are definitely seeing an increase in the presence of spiritual darkness nowadays.
So, the real reason why the world of unbelievers has to target the flood story is this: If we can prove there was a flood, then we prove there was a judgement. If there is proof of judgement, then they have to believe there is a judge. If they believe this, then they have to believe the judge is coming back. Still seeing the pattern? It’s not just the fact that the flood happened, it is the fact that a similar judgement is coming again. That is why they deny it happened, and they tell us the story is just allegory. A righteous God, brought judgment on an evil world. This is exactly what the world doesn’t want to acknowledge. Again, the book of Genesis has so many foundational truths, that Satan is be best served when people cause confusion and doubt about its authenticity or meaning.
Someday, Lord willing, I will show you guys how the geological columns and the fossil records prove the flood, and opens up more questions about what scientists say happened. You have to jump through hoops, make assumptions, and outright try to fool people into believing their eyes are deceiving them, to proclaim our earth supports the evolutionary model. There are millions of animals that all died at the same time from the flood, and were buried instantly, creating fossils groupings that scientists can’t explain. What science tells us happened is more unbelievable than the belief of a worldwide flood. The earth’s crust was opened up and mass amount of water shot out from the earth. This should have left an impression we can see today, and it did. Scientists just won’t show you, because they can’t believe in God. It’s tough to hold onto something as truth, when all the physical evidence of a worldwide flood is everywhere. But who is going to challenge the experts?
One more thing I have to tell you about is in Genesis 10. This is where God documented the beginning of all the nations on earth. This chapter is unparalleled when you compare it to any other ancient writings about the origins of mankind. There is no document in history that comes close to explaining the beginnings of modern nations and cultures like Genesis does. Many of the names of Noah’s grandsons can be directly traced to nations of people still existing today. Other names have lost their meaning and their people groups are a mystery today. From this chapter in Genesis, we know that the world we see today, was settled by a few families moving outward from a place called Babel. All of this took place about 4,500 years ago. I have a map for you of where these descendants of Noah ended up.
Babel is a city that most of the people settled in after the flood. God told the people to be fruitful, multiply, spread out and fill the earth. They didn’t listen, and instead congregated in big cities like Babel, and built a huge tower. God forced their hand by changing their languages, which then caused them all to move away from each other. Mistrust started to build with the people they couldn’t understand, so they spread out into groups and families by language. They refused to listen to God, so He forced their hand. Now you know why your Aunt Steph tells me I am babbling a times, and where that word came from. Read the story of the Tower of Babel and check it out.
I find it interesting that in today’s world, we are moving back to one universal language, English. Hmmm, I wonder if that is a sign of something? I guess to find out, you are going to have to read the end of the book.
After sin came into this world from Adam and Eve disobeying God’s law, death also came. If you notice, before the flood people lived to be several hundreds of years old. The oldest person to ever live was Methuselah, who lived to be 969 years old. There are some interesting theories about why people lived longer before the flood, and what the flood did to change our atmosphere and climate. I’ll save that for a future study.
The rest of the book of Genesis is focused on the nation of Israel. We learn how they were formed, and what they went through as they grew into a nation. Genesis takes us all the way until Jacob (Israel) and his family move into the land of Egypt, where they would later become slaves.
In the background, throughout all Genesis, we have Satan trying to get in the way of God’s promise of a Savior, and God doing what He does to ensure the seed lines moves forward. We know who succeeded because the Savior did in fact come!
The more this book comes together, the more I see what a moron I was. I wasted so much time. I wasted so much of my life wandering in the wilderness those 40 years. I spent every hour of every day, worrying about my future. I was always trying to picture what my life would be like in 5 or 10 years, but the lens I used was the wrong one. I looked at my life through the lens of the world, when I should have been looking at everything that was happening to me through the lens of the Bible. I should have been comparing my life to Jesus, instead of the rich CEOs I worked for.
I put an incredible amount of pressure on myself, and I partied like a rock start to try and forget it. I never lived in the moment; I was too worried about what was next. Most of it feels like a blur now.
I’ve been writing in a journal since I was 15. I have notebook after notebook filled with my thoughts, ideas, dreams, disappointments, and successes during that time. When I go back and look through it all, it’s pretty depressing. Every time I actually sat down to write, I questioned if I would ever get something done. If there is an overwhelming theme from the stuff I wrote while wandering in the wilderness, it is that I was miserable, and I was always waiting for my story/life to unfold. The most common sentences over thousands of journal entries were: “Why am I going through this?” and “am I ever going to write something?” I thought there was no way out from the expectations I set for myself. I thought the failure that hit me over the head all my life was here to stay.
Instead of going to God for relief, I went to motivational speakers, business leaders, published authors, and the countless books and tapes on earthly success. I have a ton of stressed-out writing in my notebooks, and very little that was positive. I’d write when I was totally wigging out about something, but I didn’t go back and write about how God helped me through it. I guess I was more miserable than I ever realized. Not once, was I ever able to confidently say I know what I am going to do with my life. Sure, I thought I knew a few different times, but God squashed those ideas really quick.
Stressing about my life achievements, and when they would happen, is the only thing I was consistent with in my whole life. It sucked. Job after job I quit, failed attempt to write after failed attempt, I lost hope. All this time, God was trying to teach some valuable lessons, but I was either too altered, or too distracted to notice. Every day for me was either a day to forget, or a day to think about what I haven’t done. It is the worst feeling in the world, and it just kept repeating itself for most of my life.
One of the main reasons I was stuck in that vicious circle is because I failed to recognize that God disciplines His children. God puts us through trials and tests our whole earthly lives. This is how we grow in maturity, and how we grow spiritually. Ask my parents how well it went when they tried to discipline me back in the day….
There is a movie I loved when I was a kid called “Back to the future”. There is a scene in it where the bully knocks on McFly’s head and says : “hello, Mcfly?” “Is there anyone home?” I think of God doing that to me for 40 years. Bill, how many times do we have to go through this? Bill, I thought you promised you wouldn’t do that again? Bill, why are you so upset, don’t you remember I always provide? Bill, why do you need that fancy car? Why did you quit your job before I told you to? Hello, McFly?!!!
I don’t think the main issue God had with me was my 30 jobs, it was the fact that I never gave Him credit for hooking me up with the new ones. Every time I got a new job, it was a better one, and I took all the credit. Uncle Bill has a big head, full of pride. I remember going to the in-laws not long after I found a new job. My father-in-law Tom said “I don’t know how you do it Bill, but you always find a better job, every time”. I just smiled, while thinking in my head how awesome I was, and that the in-laws recognize my talent. Lol It’s weird how this interaction stuck with me over all these years. I think about it a lot, because it was a great chance to give credit where credit was due. Instead, I let Tom’s comment fuel the pride in me even more. In actuality, he was probably thinking: “Bill has had more jobs in 5 years than I’ve had in my life.”
On the outside, I radiated self-confidence; but in reality, it was all but gone by 35. How could that have happened? I was a cocky, over-confident punk, who thought the world revolved around me. Someone had to put me in my place, and many tried. It wasn’t until God brought me down from my perch, that I finally learned what humility was. If there ever was a perfect parent, it is God. God got my pride in check really quick. Over the last 13 years, He has made sure I know who really provides for me and my family. Had I never learned this lesson, I would still be thinking every positive thing in my life was because of me. Because I am awesome. Because I am fire!
Thankfully, God never stopped trying to make me better. When earthly parents might give up because their kids are too out of control, or they are adults now, God won’t. He never grows tired of trying to get something important into my thick skull. This only benefits me, why wouldn’t I want to grow? In fact, spiritual growth (becoming more like Jesus) not only benefits us tremendously in this world, but even more so after Jesus comes back again. Keep reading, God has a lot to say about the time when Jesus comes back.
The Israelites who were rescued from slavery in Egypt, got plenty of learning lessons, plenty of discipline, and plenty of time wasted in the wilderness too. You can read all about it in the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in the Bible. Did you know it took Israel 40 years to reach the land God promised after they left Egypt? Do you know they should have been able to get there in 2 weeks? So, what was the hold-up there? What was the hold-up that had Uncle Bill wandering in the wilderness for 40 years? In both cases, it was man being stubborn, and purposely ignoring God’s attempts to point out our wrongs.
Israel broke God’s laws given to Moses on the mountain. I broke God’s laws, and I broke man’s laws. Most of the people of Israel, who were old enough to know better when God rescued them from Egypt, never made it to the promised land. It was supposed to be a short trip, yet most of them died in the wilderness. In contrast, I already have my citizenship to the promised land. I’m just waiting for the place to open; they are expecting me. I decided to wander around for a while and hang out in the desert first. I chose to try and “live my best life now”, but it never worked. I was always thirsty, hungry, hot, and tired. I just kept wandering, going in circles over and over again. The way I felt, (thirsty, hot, etc.) is what the Bible tells us life after death for the unbeliever will feel like. More on all that later.
Remember one of the questions I posed earlier in the book? Why couldn’t Uncle Bill be good, when he knows God wanted him to be good? One answer is because Uncle Bill was stubborn, and I didn’t learn from my mistakes very quickly.
The other part of the answer lies in what we discussed about sin in chapter 3. We are born with sin; and it is part of our nature. It was passed down through Adam, to every person ever born on earth, minus the One. My sin nature is opposed to God, so it is always working to try and undermine God or my belief in God. I can’t blame Satan for everything I do wrong, but the sin and lies he brought into this world, sure make it hard to be good. In fact, this side of heaven, it is impossible to be as good as God wants us to be. Did you know that? We can’t change who we are, but thankfully God can.
Do you know that your parents didn’t teach you to be bad, but they had to teach you to be good? Which side of a child’s nature comes out first, and is instinctual…good or bad? Did anyone teach me to lie? Nope, I just preferred to lie over telling the truth most times. A lot of times it was because I was too embarrassed to admit that I was a failure. Other times it was to cover up another lie, or to get me out of work, or doing chores. This was another thing God had to work on with me over and over again. I wrote a FB post to Zach 10 years ago about excuses. This sums up how I lived with lies and excuses during my time in the wilderness. Check it out:
As I got older, I could lie and cover it up so well that I believed it in my own head. I had lies that no one would ever know about. There are still lies that I have yet to admit, stupid ones that I know would be fine if I owned up to them now.
Ok let’s give it a try: Dad, if you are reading this book, and you are at this point, I have to tell you something….
Remember the Ford Ranger you used to have? Remember the one time I came home with part of the front all crushed in? Remember when I told you that I was in the parking lot, and when I came out of the store the damage was there? Remember Uncle Tom seeing it and saying it looks like someone hit a pole? Well, that is what I did. I was trying to spin the wheels in the grass at a small church. The grass was wet and I lost control and hit their flag pole. Sorry about that pop! I feel better now, if that is any consolation. Lol The Church also learned to put a large concrete barrier around the pole after that. What a punk I was, and still am sometimes.
This was one of the main reasons that God had to keep teaching me the same lessons over and over. I wouldn’t get it. Thankfully He didn’t give up trying, because I do get it now. It wasn’t until after my 40 years in the wilderness, after all the trials and tests, that I finally stopped worrying about my future. It is the most freeing thing I have ever felt! Living each day as it comes, knowing God has a plan for me and this world, is all I need now.
It was 5 years ago, right around Christmas 2020. The nation was experiencing all the Covid hysteria, and I was winding down a consulting gig God gave me. It was then, before I knew what would come next, that I decided I didn’t care if I ever wrote another thing. I didn’t care about any of the dreams I had my whole life. I was just so happy knowing the Truth, and that God gave me so much time to read and study the Bible. Nothing else mattered to me after that. I finally knew my future, and it wasn’t here on earth that I cared about anymore. God gave that peace to me 5 years before I started writing this book. It’s almost like I had to give up the priority I put on my dream, and put it on God. Once I did that, it all started to happen. Now the dream, and the peace, are both real.
I can’t explain how great I feel right now, writing this. I have not had the stress over my failed life in a little over 10 years. The sick feeling I had in my gut all those years is gone. I didn’t think the day would ever come. I am not sure I could have been further down in the dumps, but now I am more alive and hopeful than any time in my life. This is what a miracle looks like! To come out of the wilderness virtually unscathed, can only be God’s doing.
It sure would have been nice if God could have come right out and told me what His plans were for me all those years ago. Like this: “Hey Bill, I know I told you about being a writer, but first you are going to have 30 jobs, lots of stress, and no money. I’ll give you some joy in there with a wonderful wife and kid, but you will have to wait until you are the same age as the speed limit to get it done. You aren’t going to write it for the money, and it’s going to be a book about Me and how I worked in your life. You are going to write it for your future nieces and nephews.”
Actually, now that I think about it, I wouldn’t have wanted to know all of that! I know it wouldn’t have helped me. Who wants to know they have to wait 40 years and go through all that crap? I would have probably done the same things, but with a mentality to prove God wrong. I would have said, “I can do it quicker. I don’t want to wait for some punk kids I don’t know to be born.” I couldn’t have even imagined my little sisters getting married, let alone having kids. No way I could have benefited by knowing it all up front. If I knew all the pain that was coming, I may have tried to shut myself up in the house my whole life.
As we’ve learned in Genesis 1 chapter 3, and from everything I have told you so far about my life, God doesn’t give the whole plan up front. He purposely revealed more and more through time, slowly unveiling His plan for us throughout the centuries. This is a key concept in the Bible, and is the way that God gave out His program for the past, present, and future. Now that the Bible is finished, God is done revealing His plan. Sure, He may give a person here on earth more insight into what God already promised would happen, but never anything that would contradict the Bible. There is a position in God’s workforce called Prophet. They speak for God, and He expects those who hear the prophet’s words to listen. What could go wrong there?
Today, there are many people out there calling themselves prophets. There are zero (0) who have 100% accuracy in their predictions. In fact, most have closer to 0% accuracy. The Bible tells us that any prophet of God will be known, because 100% of everything they predict will come true. 100%! God used prophets as mouthpieces. They spoke exactly what God told them to; nothing more, nothing less. So why did God use prophets? For one, as I mentioned earlier, this was the method that He used to reveal His plan over time. Different prophets, over different times in history, would all have pieces of God’s plan that would eventually come together into what we know today.
Get this… not one of the Old-Testament (OT) prophets had as much insight into God’s plan as we do today. All the prophets died, only knowing a piece of the puzzle that they were given. They put their faith in God’s plan, even though they didn’t know all the details we have now. The prophets heard directly from God, yet they knew little compared to what you can know by studying the Bible. That is pretty remarkable, and it makes me incredibly grateful I was born after the Bible was completed, and the whole plan was revealed! I’m also extremely blessed that God gave me the last 13 years to study it full-time. Now that the Bible is complete, God is finished bringing prophets to us for the purpose of revealing His plans. He has told us everything He intended to tell us in the Bible; there is no need for any more prophets or apostles.
Hebrews 1:1-2: ‘God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. ‘
God also used prophets to write the Bible. They spoke Gods words, usually to Israel, and then put them on paper scrolls. There was no complete Bible back then, as the Savior wasn’t even here yet. It was also the norm, that the common person (non-priest) didn’t own any of God’s written word. The scrolls weren’t cheap, and the amount of time it took to copy it all over, word for word by hand, took forever.
Another way God used the Prophets like Moses, was as the middle-man between the people and God. In the wilderness, the people of Israel were so frightened by God’s voice, the earth shaking, and the ramifications of His Words, that they asked Moses to speak and talk to God on their behalf. This is what we would all feel like if God was that close to us in the sinful state we are in now. We would fall to the ground on our face with fear, because instinctively we would know we are standing in front of the judge of our sin. Our Father in heaven would not be reaching out for a hug in that moment.
From the time of Moses forward, God used prophets, and never spoke directly to the nation of Israel again. Even today, believers have a mediator between us and God the Father. Someone we have to go through for God the Father to hear our prayers. There are also middle-men/women between unbelievers and God. The Bible tells us that God only hears His children’s prayers, so those who are not His, need someone to help relay the info to God I’ll get into all this later, don’t worry.
Anyone who claims to hear from God, but contradicts what God has already said in the Bible, is wrong 100% of the time. They may be hearing from a spiritual being, but it isn’t God. Once the Savior came, and God’s plan was fully revealed, there was no need for any more people to tell us what God has in store. We have all we need to know about our future, and the future of mankind, right in the Bible. Anyone who wants to take away, or add to God’s Word, is doing so for worldly reasons like fame or wealth. Always look for the motives behind people who call themselves prophets. False prophets have been around since the serpent in the Garden of Eden. People of the world will always choose to listen to them, because their message blows sunshine up people’s butts.
True prophets sent from God, always speak the truth, no matter how hard it is for people to hear. If there was a real prophet walking amongst us today, His message would be the same as all the prophets in the Bible. No one would listen to him, and his following would be very small. He would get attacked, and probably killed, just like many did. People who don’t believe in the promises of God, don’t want to hear that a judge is coming. They don’t want to know that there are consequences for their actions and unbelief. God’s prophet’s always spoke the Truth, even when no one wanted to hear it.
To keep it simple for you: if you run into someone calling themselves a prophet, look to see if they are happy or miserable. Are they wearing an Armani suit with Air 1 Jordan sneakers, or do they look worn down, and humble in their appearance? Do they look like the world has been beating them into a pulp and dragging them through the mud, or do they look like they just got back from the spa, relaxed and refreshed? God’s prophets weren’t treated well. There is no “rosy only” message from God. God is love, but He is also wrath for unbelievers. God is both, and He wants us to know all sides of Him. No one will never be able to say that God didn’t try to warn us. He gave more warnings to the people of Israel than I would have ever given. He took decades longer to bring penalties, than any human patience could have lasted. All of this for a people who wouldn’t listen to Him. I would have given up, especially knowing that they only change their mind after I punish them.
Would you prefer a God who tells you the whole truth so you know what is coming, or would you prefer to live in la-la land and never have to hear Truth you don’t like? Since it has future impact to you and those you love, one would think most would want to know the Truth. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It’s much easier to ignore the problem, or pretend it isn’t real, than hear news that there are consequences for sin. If you are a believer, this news makes you humble yourself and ask for forgiveness. If you are an unbeliever, this news makes you angry, scared, or just plain anxious. Somewhere inside, no matter how hardened a person is against the Truths in the Bible, they know something terrible is coming if things don’t change for them. They can ignore it, and over time their conscience gets hardened, and it becomes easier to hear the Truth without worrying about it. Most of Israel chose to ignore the warnings sent from God, and it didn’t work out well for them.
So why all the talk about prophets and their predictions about the future? Because you have to know the whole Bible to get the whole message. One thing to know about Bible prophecy, is that if it says something in the Bible will happen, and it hasn’t happened yet, then it is part of the future. Everything God says will happen, always does. Most of the prophecies in the Bible have already come true. What is left are prophecies about the end-times, the 1,000-year reign of Christ as King on earth, and the new heavens and new earth. Our future was given to us through the mouths of prophets throughout the whole OT.
Prophecy is only accurate 100% of the time, when you can control the details along the way. I can tell you that I will drop this water bottle on my desk and it will fall to the ground right now. But I can’t tell you with 100% certainty, that I will do it on December 12th at 6pm. So many things could get in the way of that happening, not the least of I could be dead. The desk could break; or I could get called out of the house for an emergency. There are all kinds of variables. God knows exactly how everything works out, because He is in control of the variables. You can’t accurately predict the future 100% of the time, unless you can control it. Just think about that logically for a minute.
I will tell you again, that not only did God know that I would write this book, He made it happen. He made sure that I am sitting here right now typing this out today. This is more than just God knowing the future. This is God controlling everything, so He gets the outcome He wants every time, without fail.
The same goes for God’s plan for all of His children. The Bible tells us that God knew of us before He created the universe. He wrote the names of all those who would be saved in a book called the “Book of Life”. God chose us before He created Adam, or the earth Adam came from. He set us apart to be saved, before the reason we need saved even occurred. Let that sink in. God didn’t just look in His crystal ball and see that Billy would someday believe in Him, He made it happen. He said it would happen before I was even born, before the universe was born. More to come.
Since we know that the prophets worked for God, we know that all of their predictions will come true. What did God reveal during this period of time in world history? More than you would think! God gave us a lot of insight into why, and how, God was going to punish the nation of Israel for breaking His laws. Some of their punishments have already happened, but some of the worst are still yet to come. However, because God is merciful, He also gave His people a lot of prophecies about all the good things that will come in Israel’s future. Not only good things, perfect things.
The biggest promise Israel was given is that there would be a Savior King, who would come and set up His Kingdom here on earth. He will rule the nations with an iron rod, and Israel will be the chief nation on earth. God made all these promises to the nation of Israel. In a future time, God will come and be King on earth. Yes, this earth, the one we live on now. I’ll skip ahead in the story and tell you that the King did in fact come, and was ready to set up His kingdom, but the people rejected Him. God knew the rejection was coming, and this is why He made plans to make the Kingdom happen for a future generation of Israel, who will be alive right before the Savior comes back again.
If everything I have told you so far about God is true, can you just imagine what the world will be like with God in charge, physically here with us on earth? When God is King here, he will squash evil and chaos before anyone can even act on it. He will know everyone’s motives, and can judge based on what is on their heart, not what is coming out of their mouth. The Bible tells us we will know God’s thoughts instantly, no matter how physically far away we might be. It will be a perfect world for God’s people, with perfect justice and perfect harmony. God gave us a long period of world history to look back on and see that there was no man on earth who ruled perfectly. There is no man on earth that can ensure we all live in real peace for one day, let alone 1,000 years as King. It will take God ruling for any of this to happen. He wants us to see what perfect rule looks like for ourselves. God wants us to see that without Him, none of it is possible.
Right now, there is no such thing as perfect justice. I can name a ton of people who were treated unfairly because of their lowly station in life, or because of what they looked like. I can also name a ton people who got off scot-free because of their higher station in life, or because they were good-looking. There are bribes, corrupt judges, district attorneys, and lawyers who all erode a perfect system of justice. Innocent people are locked up, and the guilty are freed. Today, many think no one is truly guilty, and the innocent really aren’t that innocent. Justice is not blind, and the better lawyer you have, the better your outcome usually is. None of this will happen in the Messianic/Millennial Kingdom that God runs. None of it.
The promises of that glorious future kingdom, also includes believers from the church age. The church age started after Jesus left the earth, and it continues until sometime before He comes back to rule. More on the whole different ages of time thing in a Bible study. Just know God set aside different ages of time. We are in the end-times of our current age right now. When our Savior comes back to rule as King, a new age will start. When the 1,000-year kingdom is over, a new age will start with new heavens and a new earth. I’m hoping I have your interests high enough that you will watch a Bible study on it later. I’m also sure some of it will come up in my book again.
So, God knew we needed saving before the sin came into the world. Why else would He write our names in a book of saved people? God created this world, knowing Adam and Eve would sin. He knew He would have to curse the earth and He knew He would need to bring the flood later down the line. Yet, He still went through with creating it all. Had he chosen to just destroy it all and start over, would you and I even be here right now?
What if the world we grew up in was perfect? Would we really appreciate God like we do now that we have seen how things go wrong without Him? Would we know everything about the God we will be spending eternity with? The answer is no. This whole world is for the believers, and the “not-yet” believers. Everything we learn now about God and His plan will only help us in eternity. How could we ever understand how merciful God is if He didn’t have to save us? This will become clearer as you learn about God through His Word. Knowing the fate God saved us from is essential to knowing the kind of God we serve.
It’s impossible to say you believe in a God who could create everything, is all knowing, and is everywhere all at once, and not believe that He also knew the fall/sin was coming. He knew I was going to be a punk teenager, and a rebellious young man too. He knew all the stupid things I was going to do before He even created me. He knew He was going to get me to write this book, in spite of the way I lived my life. He didn’t just know it because He can see the future, He knew it because He made it so. You will see a lot more examples of this when I tell you what God did in the last 10 years that defy earthly logic.
If you created a world like ours, would you sit back, put your hands up, and just watch what happens? Wouldn’t you be involved in this world you created? Of course you would! The idea that God created us all, and then watches us like some science experiment is wrong. This isn’t Maze Runner. Our God is a God of planning and order. Nothing is by chance. Once you start seeing it, you can’t stop seeing it.
In the OT, God was visibly involved and performed incredible nature defying miracles that all of Israel, and most of the world could see. God was involved in our history, so why wouldn’t He be involved in our present and future? What changed? The only thing that has changed is the way God dispenses His miracles. In the OT, miracles were visible awesome signs for the nation of Israel. Now, God dispenses His miracles on the personal level. Yes, He can still part seas and stop tsunamis, but more often than not, what we see is the kind of stuff that happened to your Uncle Bill over the last 10 years. Stuff that not everyone saw, but none the less were miracles.
I can also tell you that hundreds of prophecies, that gave us detail no man could duplicate, were fulfilled exactly as God told us they would be. The Savior came, and was born in the town God told us He would be born in hundreds of years earlier. The Savior’s ministry on earth and His death and resurrection happened just as the OT prophets told us they would. The nation of Israel rejected their King, just as God told us they would.
Lastly, I just want to explain to you the difference between the Old-Testament and the New-Testament. Testament is another word for covenant, or promise. God promised His people (Israel) in the OT that if they obeyed His laws, they would get tremendous blessings. If they failed to keep His laws, there would be tremendous punishment. This type of covenant, (you can think of it like a contract) required both parties to fulfill their obligations for the guarantees in it to happen. Israel failed to live up to their end of the bargain, and so they received mainly punishment from God. They were kicked out of their land a few times, and they have had no real lasting peace over all their existence.
We will later find out from the New-Testament prophets, (aka apostles) that the Law Israel agreed to keep was impossible to live up to. The law and 10 commandments were given to Israel to show them that they still need a Savior, because no one can be perfect enough to keep all of God’s laws. As I told you before, in order to spend eternity in the good place with God, we have to be perfect. The law was another way of God showing us that we can’t get there on our own no matter how good our intentions, or how hard we try. It is impossible without God.
Another covenant God made in the OT was with Abraham. Abraham is who the Bible calls the “father of faith”. This covenant God made with Abraham was a one-sided only contract. Only God was obligated to fulfill the promises He made in it. Abraham didn’t have to do anything for the guarantees in this covenant to come true. Abraham was promised that God would give Him and his descendants the land of Israel, and more descendants than there are stars in the sky. God promised that all of the families on earth would be blessed through Abraham.
We find out later in the Bible, that all who have faith in God, are spiritual descendants of father Abraham. This is what God means when He said all the nations of earth will be blessed because of Abraham. The physical descendants of Abraham are the Jewish people, who individually, could also be a spiritual descendant, if they believe the Messiah already came and did the work required for them to be saved. A good Bible student would notice that although God promised the physical land of Israel to Abraham, God didn’t fulfil that promise during Abraham’s lifetime. Abraham lived as a transient in Israel, never owning a piece of land outside of the small burial plot He bought to bury His wife in. God made it very clear to us that Abraham was looking towards a future date of the Kingdom, and the land God promised to him wouldn’t come in his lifetime.
Most have heard about the little shepherd kid who killed the mighty Giant Goliath. David, is revered in both Christian and Jewish circles. God loved him, even though He was far from perfect. God made another covenant with David. This was just like Abraham’s in the fact it was only God’s obligation to make it come true. David had to do nothing; the contract was unconditional. God promised David an heir to the throne that would rule forever in perfection. David was gifted with incredible prophetic knowledge. He wrote most of the Psalms, and most of the Psalms tell us about the Savior and His future kingdom. This is where we start to get the knowledge that the Savior will reign as king, from this covenant he made with David. No earthly king can rule forever in perfect peace, so we know He has to be talking about God ruling. It is a physical place that Abraham was promised, so we know God will be ruling from Jerusalem in the future.
So, as I keep telling you, God used these guys to get his plan out in pieces, over a long period of time. God used Ezekiel and Isaiah to give us some of the more detailed writing about the future kingdom, and temple that will be set up there. Daniel gives us the reason why Israel is still facing punishment now, and how long they will have to go through it. Jeremiah tells us that God has a plan to change the hearts of the nation of Israel so that they realize they rejected their Messiah and call out for Him to return. Hose, Joel, and the other minor prophets all wrote about the end-times, the kingdom, and other pieces of God’s plan. Without all of it, we can’t get the complete picture. God wrote every word in the Bible for a reason. I’ll get into more of what these prophets of the OT said about our future later in my book. We will also get into the New Testament/covenant that our Savior enacted, and how it is different from the old one. For now, just keep on reading on…
It was almost 14 years ago that Uncle Bill lost his mind. I was at my “stressimus maximus”. I was miserable at work, and I knew that my day was coming soon. In fact, over the previous year, I had to lay off half of my team. Many of them were my friends, because we worked together for 7 years. This was the longest I’ve ever kept a job. I got lazy, and comfortable. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I got paid a sick amount of money for the work that I did, and I bet I could have stayed there another 7 years had that darn president not been elected.
It was December of 2011 and our AZ family went up north for our annual family vacation. I really like hanging out with you guys on these vacations. It’s awesome when we are all just chillin out and making fun of your parents together. We didn’t get to spend much time together on this vacation though. You guys were still pretty young, so you probably won’t remember uncle Bill’s breakdown. That darn guy who ran the nation worked his way into our conversation the first night there, and it got me all worked up!
I don’t even remember what your grandpa, your moms, or I said, but things got a little heated. Anyway, I stormed out of the room, flipping of my sister on the way out. (I’m sure you know which sister it was.) Lol I can’t explain it; I wasn’t myself, but I was. I don’t remember a time I was angrier and more upset. I couldn’t understand how they could vote for that guy knowing it was going to cost me my job. Family first, right? Whatever. The next morning, I got your aunt and Zach up super early and we drove home. Well, your aunt drove us home. Uncle Bill would’ve had to stay there until all the snow melted, if he had to drive down those crazy curvy mountain roads.
It took me about 3 months to get past that one. I swore I would never go on a family vacation again, but then they started to get more fun as you guys got older and we could hang. Also, a lot changed in the 3 months after my meltdown.
Flash forward just a few months after “fight night with the family”. I was driving my sad self to work. Even though my job was a long way away, I took the back roads there. I hate sitting on the freeway in traffic, I need to be moving. I also wanted to make sure I was mentally prepared for work, and sometimes that took me a while. Anyway, after I turned a 1-hour trip into a 2-hour cruise, I finally made it to the office. Something seemed different that day, and I still can’t explain why I felt that way.
Less than two months prior, I laid off half of my team. The people that actually made work half-way enjoyable for me, were now out enjoying their new free time, while I was still stuck at work. We got a new boss who was there to figure out what to do with our department. Most of our senior leadership team thought my area would go away with the recent bill passed in DC. They panicked, and they started cutting everything and everyone they could. Eventually, their theory proved wrong, and the department is now staffed back up. But I digress….
Anyway, I walked in to my office and pulled up my emails. There was a calendar invite for that afternoon with my boss and the human resources director, down in his office. This was it, layoff day! It was finally here! Now I have to wait all day??? It’s a little HR trick, to use Friday afternoons as the day to let people go. There is less disruption, the business is closed on the weekend, and you give the employees who still work there a few days to digest the news. I had been on the other side of this many times, but never the person waiting to be let go. It was weird.
Since I had to anxiously wait around all day, I slyly packed up everything I wanted to keep, and took several trips out to my car throughout the day. I was sneaky, so no one thought anything was up. I wasn’t supposed to know it was coming, but your Uncle Bill ain’t no fool. I went to lunch a few times that day, then I just sat around deleting emails and clearing out my desk.
Well, 4:00 finally came, and the news I was waiting a year for came with it. I was getting laid off! They offered me a severance package, which you never get when you quit a job. I was going to get paid for a few months while I look for another opportunity. This is crazy! I drove out of that place faster than the cookie dough disappeared after my sister found it! I went over to the K-mart down the road and called your aunt Steph from the nasty old payphone. (I had to give up my company cellphone)
Your aunt Steph knew this day was coming. She has had lots of days like this since she met me, and I would bet she expected it to happen a lot sooner than it did. On the way over to the payphone I was practicing how I would tell her. I started working on my voice inflections: ”Hey babe, (sounding down & out) I just got laid off”. I tried it a few more times before I got out of the car and put the quarter in the phone. I had to call her a couple times because she didn’t recognize the payphone number, so I had to keep that sticky, gross, nasty phone on my ear longer than I wanted to. Plus there were about 20 homeless guys in line behind me waiting impatiently.
My heart was racing. I had plenty of these conversations with your Aunt Steph before, but this one felt different. This one felt a little less my fault than usual. Still, it is hard to tell your wife you lost your job. Trust me, it doesn’t matter how many times you do it, that call home never gets easier. “Hey babe, I just got laid off”, I told her as I struggled to keep the joy in my voice contained. “They gave me a severance package, so I’ve got some time”. Your aunt Steph didn’t like the sound of “I’ve got time”, so she was quick to tell me I better start looking for a job now, because it can take a while. I mumbled “I’ll see you at home”, she told me she loved me, and I disinfected my face hand and ear, and got ready for the long drive home. I remember thinking: “she said she loves me, so she must not be that mad at me”. What a nutjob your uncle Bill is.
I got back in the car and started screaming with joy at the top of my lungs! Woooooooohoooooo! A few of the homeless guys thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care. It was OVAH!!!!!!!!! I felt all that stress just melt right off of me. I still can’t believe they keep paying you after they let you go. What a world! I stopped by my cousin’s house to celebrate and give him the good news. I called your grandma to break it to her as well. If there is anyone who has lived through more of my jobs than Steph it’s my mom. She worries about her boy. I am a momma’s boy; I’ll never be ashamed to admit it. My mom rocks. You know guys know it. Well, she wasn’t too happy about the job going away, but what’s a mother to do? Life got a little less hectic for my her when your aunt Steph came in the picture. It’s like now Steph could take over, and my mom could worry more about you guys. lol
I stayed at this job until God made me leave. I had never done that before. I didn’t handle the year I was waiting for layoff day very well, but I made it. I just kept thinking maybe now is the time to finish the book! This has to be why I got laid off. It’s frickin time!!!!!! Or maybe not….that was 13 years ago….
I spent the next few months before the severance money ran out, trying my hardest to get something written. It had to be the time now. Getting laid off work was the event that would catapult me in to being a successful author, right? Uh….Nope.
I tried starting my own business, and I shacked up in my sister’s office space. That lasted a couple months at best, because that darn president didn’t give me the free money I was hoping for. Still, it was way fire to spend some time with my sister! I even got to see Riley and Kali a lot because they weren’t in school yet, and the office became their daycare center some days. The conference room was their playroom/prison cell. Lol
Even with 4 months of total free time, I couldn’t get a thing done. Instead I went golfing, hung out with cousin Kenny, and spent money like I still had a job. I admit, the whole “getting paid for not working” thing was really not good for me. Your poor Aunt Steph, she saw the same pattern over and over during our time together. Make money, spend money, quit job, run out of money, find new job, make money, and on and on… It was a pattern that I’m sure she still has concerns might happen again in the future. After 4 months of pretty much stress-free fun, I started to get worried. It was obvious I wasn’t going to sell my book before the mortgage payment was due on our house next month.
I hope you learn a lot quicker than Uncle Bill, so you won’t have to go through so much of your life feeling the kind of stress I went through. Make no mistake, I brought all the stress on myself, and I had zero options left. I needed someone to save me from feeling so horrible.
I am literally bawling right now after typing out how stressed I used to be. I remember that sick stressful feeling so well, that it’s bringing me to tears because I haven’t felt that way in a long time. Wow. That is how God works kids! It’s like a total relief I can’t even begin to explain. It’s like I can finally breathe now…
Anywho, back to the story. The party was over, and I gave up. I brought in the big guns to help me. I had to do something drastic.
I need to get up and take a break. I can’t stop crying thinking about this stuff. Holy cow, things have changed a lot since those high stress times. I keep having these flashbacks in my head about what I was thinking back then. There were a lot of happy times sprinkled in there, but how could you ever really be happy, when your lifelong dreams are being shattered? It was a tough pill to swallow at the time, and that is why I am getting so emotional about it right now.
So where were we? Oh yeah, I started reading the Bible. I started praying those “please Lord, help me!” prayers with tears and sometimes fist pounding into the pillow or steering wheel of my car. I needed help getting rid of this pain and disappointment! So I went to the only option I had left: God.
It stinks that sometimes God has to bring people down so low, that they have to look up to Him for help. I am sure glad He brought me low, because it changed me forever.
Today was the first time in a long time that I looked at my life right now and said “it doesn’t get any better than this!” I try to imagine what it would be like had God decided to keep me at that job another 7 years. I can feel the stress just thinking about it. No joke, my heart rate went up and I started getting that feeling in the pit of my stomach again. At the time, I was so pissed off at the darn president, my family, the company I worked for, and anyone else I could blame. Now, I can’t imagine it all going down any other way. I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to, but with God’s twist on it.
This is how I usually notice God’s work in my life. It’s almost always when I take the time to reflect back on key events like losing my job and family fight night. Usually, when you are going through these big life changes, you’re not seeing things clearly. It is really hard to step back in the moment and ask God what He is doing, and what His purpose for it is. It takes a lot of practice, but Uncle Bill is much better at it now.
The moral of the story is that Uncle Bill couldn’t see that God had a plan that was different than his own. I never could have pictured that I would end up where I am right now. When God got the guy in the White House elected, I highly doubt He did it just so I would lose my job. There are a lot of easier ways to get me to leave a place. But He used the bill that was passed to get what He wanted done: me out of the job, and secure financially for the time being.
I should have never been stressed about a job enough to act the way I did on family fight night. I never should have let myself get so down when things didn’t turn around right after I was let go. I should have had more patience. Nothing ever moves fast enough for me, but God isn’t confined by time like we are. God is eternal, and outside of time. His timing in the events of my life was always perfect, because the things I went through and those moments in time, shaped me into who I am today. Little did I know He had quite a bit more teaching to go… Stay tuned. Next chapter I get schooled.
I just got back from taking the dogs out for our morning walk around the property. I like to pretend I’m a farmer, and I talk to all the animals next door as we head out back. It’s great, because I get the joy of hanging out on the farm, without all the farm work.
When we first moved in here, we got to see my new buddy Rico the calf being born. The chickens have always liked me, but big momma the cow, and Sadie the horse, would have nothing to do with me at first. I’m persistent, and every morning they get a “hi” from me no matter how far away they are. Nowadays, Rico and Sadie will go for walks with us sometimes. Me and the dogs on one side of the fence, and the big animals on the other side. It’s pretty funny to watch. The neighbors leave here for the summer to escape the heat, and although their daughter stops by once a day, I feel like it’s my job to keep the animals safe. I have chased off hawks, coyotes, and owls. Uncle Bill even stopped a huge hawk right when he was in flight swooping down on a little bunny out back. If I was a superhero, I would be called “Farm Man”. Did I hear a duck quack over there? I better go check it out!! Off we go… No lie, that is how I act. Ask your aunt. lol
When I am out there and I see all the animals, the green grass, and the vast horizon, I think a lot about what heaven will be like. This kind of daydreaming is one of the coping mechanisms I use to block out how awful this world can be sometimes. That daily walk, in my version of nature, is exactly what I need to start my day and put a smile on my face.
When I started learning about what heaven will actually be like, I was very surprised. I had this idea that our spirit went to heaven, and we spent eternity there as a ghost like being. I pictured everything I liked about this world being there in heaven, but with none of the worries. This was what I understood from all my time growing up in church and private school. I had no idea the Bible had so much more information on heaven in its pages. I had what’s called “Hallmark Heaven” knowledge. This is where most of your understanding about what heaven is like, comes from greeting cards you’ve seen over the years. It’s funny, but it is true. I had a very basic understanding of what heaven is really like.
One of the features of heaven that first caught my attention was the fact that animals are no longer afraid of humans, and they will all be tame. This is how it was in the beginning, before Adam brought sin into the world, and before the flood of Noah’s day. In heaven, all the animals will live in harmony with each other and us.
The Bible says that an infant can be playing out back and put his whole arm down a cobra’s hole and not be harmed. The cow and the bear will graze, and their young will play and hang out together. The wolf will be chillin with the lamb, and the leopard will take naps next to the young goat, not even thinking about eating him. A calf, young lion, and a chubby lamb, will all eat straw like an ox, while a little boy leads them. Animals won’t hurt or destroy anyone or anything ever. We will be able to train any animal, and they will actually follow your orders. I’m going to have a bear as one of my many best friends. I’ll have lots of dogs, and every farm animal there is. I know a few of you are animal nuts like uncle Bill, so this should be great news to you! There are not only animals in heaven, but they are all friendly and will like hanging out with you. My dad is going to ask for the dog free zone. lol
Another awesome thing about heaven is that there is no real work like we think of it today. There won’t be any worn out, dead tired and grumpy, just got home from the office days. You won’t have to get a job to pay for anything, and there won’t be any bills waiting for you in the mail. Plants get all the water and sun they need to grow to their fullest; food is always available, and gardening will be fun, not tiring. I can have my own farm and not have to be out working 14 hours a day in the heat to maintain it like my father-in-law did. I don’t know what will happen with all the animal poop, maybe it just quickly dissolves into the ground. (the stuff I think about…) We will build our own houses and nothing will ever wear out. Ever! Imagine that.
If life doesn’t feel like hard work, what will it feel like? ENJOYABLE! Even your uncle Bill, who has your Aunt Steph do any sort of minor house project now, will somehow be able to build a place to live in that won’t fall apart 10 minutes later.
Just think about how much better your life would be right now if you didn’t have to work at anything. What would it be like if everything came easy? Imagine coming home every day not having to worry about the car breaking down or your favorite shirt wearing out. You won’t be stuck in school studying all day, because you will know everything there is to know already. God will also be there, and you will be more alive than you ever will be here. One second in heaven would be worth giving up your whole life in this world for.
This is just a glimpse into what’s in store for those who believe in the promises God made in the Bible. Think about the times you were the happiest you have ever been. All those days added up, will pale in comparison to one day in heaven. I’ve only told you a couple things about heaven so far. The Bible has a lot more info we will get into as we go.
The very first time I read through the Bible I picked up a bunch of stuff that I never knew was in there. I also noticed that there was a lot that I thought was in there, but wasn’t. I was hooked. I read the Bible 5 times in 6 months. I tried several different versions, then started looking for a more in-depth Bible study. The stress was melting away, and I was learning something new every day. Do you know how long it had been since I learned something new, let alone something new every day, for almost a decade?
I remember one key moment when I was getting my mind blown from the stuff I was reading in the Bible. I prayed so hard that God would give me the time and passion to keep studying it. The time I spent learning what was in the Bible felt like the most important thing I have ever done. That is not normal, and I would doubt, but you never know, that God’s plan for all of you will turn out just like mine. My point is, it is not a normal human reaction, it is a God reaction. What person out there who has the “unique set of skills” that I have, would just let it all go and pray for God to give him more time for Bible study?
It’s not hard to imagine, that the words in the Bible I gravitated to first, talked about why I was going through this mess, and what my future will look like. There are things I stressed out about that the Bible said not to worry about for a second. The biggest thing most of us worry about at some point or another is dying. I didn’t realize I had that much fear of death lurking in my head, until I learned the Truth and no longer have that fear. I was always afraid of the actual way I would die, and because I didn’t really know what happens after that, I had doubts, anxiety and fear about it. I had greeting card knowledge of heaven, and that just isn’t good enough to help us live a life without needless worry and fear. Look how much easier it is for me to daydream about heaven now that I know what it will be like. The more I studied, the more the stress melted away.
Here are a few other things I worried about when I was in the age range you guys are in now: “Should I take that job? Should I quit my job? Should I leave the parent’s house? Am I going to die young? How am I going to die? Is God going to pay me back for all the dumb things I did? And the biggest one for me was; What am I going to do with my life?
The answers to all these questions came when I started to understand what sovereignty means. When the Bible says God is sovereign, it means He is powerful and trustworthy enough to override all He created. Nothing can stop any act or any event or design or purpose that God wants to make happen. That is sovereignty, and the Bible shows us How God has always had His hands in the creation. I’ve told you about the many times God has used His sovereignty in my life. Sovereignty is not Jesus “take” the wheel, it is Jesus “took” the wheel. Sometimes we will know when He took the wheel, other times we will think we are still driving, even though He is.
The Bible tells us that God determined where we would live before our parents were even born. God also determined what your calling/career/financial situation in life will be before you even had your first job. Love taking care of people? Guess what, God put that in you for a reason. The Bible isn’t saying God controls us like robots, but we are where we are because He made it so. We made our own decisions, but sometimes God made them for us, and the whole time we thought we did. Sometimes like in my life, you can see God’s sovereignty in the things that I am doing that a “normal” person would not. It’s not normal, and I am not normal. That right there is a big red flag and should draw attention to the fact that God is doing something in my life.
God also tells us that He set the day when each of us will die. This isn’t God just seeing the future, this is God marking the specific day, time, and event, that will bring about the end of your physical body. The Bible teaches us that death is inevitable for most of us, (more on the exceptions later) and since God already has it all planned out, there is no need to worry about it. Think on that for a second. If you can’t know when or how you will die, but you know God knows, and you trust Him, then why would you worry? He is a good father, and everything He does is for our long-term, eternal benefit. If you die early, then you get in to heaven sooner. If you know what heaven will be like because you studied, then it will be easier to prioritize that next life over this one. If you live longer, then you have more time to tell others how they can join you in heaven, and can help them understand what heaven will be like.
This is not some crazy talk. God tells us that we can’t add a day to our life, and that it’s pointless to make any effort to live longer in this world than God has already planned. Don’t get me wrong, God can and will use natural or human remedies as the catalyst to get you to live to the age He chose, but you can’t go past that day. You guys are all pretty young, so I doubt you are sitting around thinking about it like us old people do. Just know that God always has a purpose in everything He does. He is always proactive and never reactive. If he wants me to live to 101, then there is nothing I can do about it. I just want to finish this book and some Bible studies before it’s my time, but I’m ready whenever He calls me home.
We have no control over the day of our birth, and we have no control over the day of our death. Both were pre-determined by God a long time ago.
Learning about all of this has helped me a ton. If I listen to what God is telling me, then I can avoid stressing out about a lot of things. I worried a lot about dying young. Now I worry about living too long. It is a totally different state of mind, and one you can only get from studying and knowing the Bible. Had I never really understood that we all die, and God already set the date, I would still be stressing about it. Now it is irrelevant. If we all have to go someday, what difference does it make how or when it happens? We should all take care of our bodies; they are God’s design and creation. But, should we worry and stress that if we don’t do enough, we are going to die earlier than we wanted to? No way!
I love exercising. I should say, I love walking. I was considered overweight/obese most of my life. I know how much better I feel now that my eating and exercise habits changed. The more you exercise, the better you will feel. You will have more energy to do what God calls you to do. God can’t use a slouch who never gets off the couch. That’s how I was. I was useless to God because I didn’t take care of myself. So, in no way am I advocating for you guys to avoid trying to stay physically and mentally fit. I am saying don’t let it rule your life, and definitely don’t give credit to your diet and fitness regimen if you live to age 80. Credit the God who planned it out before the words diet and fitness ever existed.
I have to tell you this story. Big boy Bill had an eating problem, and he could never stay consistent with any exercise program. This was another reason why I was down in the dumps about my life back then. I hated how my body looked, and I had zero energy most of the time. Every time I tried to lose weight I gained it right back. Another fail, after fail in my life. Thankfully God gave me this face to look at as a distraction. Lol
I remember this one year, I got extra cocky about my weight goals. I wrote a letter to my family letting them know that I was going to lose a ton of weight by Christmas. We didn’t have emails or text back then in case you’re wondering why I always wrote letters. lol Christmas came, and chubby Uncle Bill had actually gained 5 lbs. I opened up a present, and it was the letter I wrote to the fam, put nicely in a frame. I’m sure I handled that well… Again, now I can look back and see all the times like this that God was working to bring my pride in check. I never forgot that day, so in a way it worked.
Flash forward to today. I might still have a dad bod, but I am not overweight according to US government health guidelines for my height and weight. Lol I love walking, and before I started going nuts writing this book, I was walking at least 15,000 steps or around 7 miles a day. I have been doing that for about 5 years now. Wait, what? Uncle Bill spent his whole life trying to get in shape and lose weight, but never could until God got involved? Now he has done it, and maintained it for several years? Is this another example of how God works in our lives? You better believe it.
When I first started really studying the Bible, I would always fall asleep reading it. I wasn’t getting as much study time in as I wanted to. I decided I would try walking around the house, listening to the Bible on my phone app with my ear buds in. If I stand up, I can’t fall asleep. I also found out that as long as I was listening to the Bible, or a Bible study, I could keep walking, and I could be consistent with it. I have to be careful, because I started to get obsessed with getting my steps in, instead of the real reason I started walking in the first place. I know I am only an injury or bad illness away from gaining all that weight back if I’m not careful. I found the secret formula, and I am in the best shape of my adult life. It is also no coincidence that God led me to a doctor on YouTube, who told me about what sugar does to our body, and changed the game for me. I even challenged Miles to the 100-yard dash, but he got scurred and cancelled it.
Balance in life is the key. Balancing all the junk you put in your body and brain with the good food and nourishment you can only get from time in the Bible should be our goal.
I told you earlier that many people think we can stop the earth from wearing out and ending, by driving electric cars and getting rid of cow farts. The same applies to your physical bodies. Many think if they never eat meat, go keto, fast, run marathons, and sleep in hyperbaric chambers, they will live longer. None of those things are wrong by the way. The wrong comes from a life focused more on that stuff, then on learning about and growing with God.
Everyone is looking for the key to longer life, but they fail to realize in the long run, none of it really matters. If God set the year you would die at 39, there is nothing you can do to prolong it. If God wants you to live as long as Methuselah did to 969 years old, you will, and nothing will accidentally take your life before then. God did it this way so that we don’t sit around and worry about our longevity. He wants us to focus on the fact that we will shed these sinful corrupting earthly bodies for new ones that never wear out or die. God didn’t want me to be so anxious and down about my weight my whole life. The stress only added to the problem. Just dumb…
While most of you were in school, uncle Bill was in the school of “hard knocks”. I avoided studying like the plague, and if I wasn’t interested in the subject, good luck getting through to me. I always thought I’d go back to school and get my college degree someday, and I didn’t know God has His own curriculum. Not having a college degree cost me a bunch of jobs, and I resented those positions that I was the perfect fit for, but couldn’t get because I didn’t have that degree. Now I can see why God kept me out of the university education system. Mainly, it kept me away from jobs I would have probably stayed at longer and made more money at. At the time that seemed unfair to me, but now I know why God kept me away from climbing the corporate ladder too high. I was just a middle manager in a sales department and I was a stress case every day. I can’t imagine the pressures of running a huge company.
I would much rather be here right now doing this, over running a multi-million-dollar company in corporate America. It’s not even a tough decision, and it wouldn’t matter how much they paid me. The only way I would switch places would be if God decided He wanted me to make that climb for some reason. From watching how He has worked in my life over the years, I am going to guess that is extremely unlikely.
To give you an idea of what God did to educate me, I put together a math question and some simple math equations.
If Uncle Bill studied or read the Bible for 20 hours a week, starting in March of 2012, how many total hours would that equal? What does that equate to in minutes, hours, and 24-hour days? How does that compare to the other schools?
Let’s show our work:
Uncle Bill’s Bible School
Length of program = 13.6 years and counting.
20 hours a week x 710 weeks (13.6 years) = 14,200 hours
14,200 hours X 60 (minutes) = 852,000 minutes
852,000 / 1,440 (minutes in a 24-hour day) = 591 days
Kindergarten-12th grade high school
Average hours per week = 30 hours
Length of program = 13 years.
30 hours a week x 678 weeks (13 years) = 20,340 hours
20,340 hours X 60 (minutes) = 1,220,400 minutes
1,220,400 / 1,440 (minutes in a 24-hour day) = 847 days
Bachelor’s & Master’s degree from university
Average hours per week = 20 hours
Length of program = 6 years.
20 hours a week x 313 weeks (6 years) = 6,260 hours
6,260 hours X 60 (minutes) = 375,600 minutes
375,600 / 1,440 (minutes in a 24-hour day) = 260 days
I think it took longer for me to do the math above, then it took me to write the rest of the chapter. Thankfully God didn’t have math as a pre-requisite for His Bible class.
Uncle Bill spent 13 years studying the Bible. I used 20 hours a week as average, but it was likely closer to 30 a week. If I was going to an accredited school, I would be working on my second doctorate in Bible studies with all the time God gave me. I’m not bragging, I’m just showing you how God made the impossible, possible. I’ve never been a good student, but now I am? I studied most of the day, every day for a long time, and I didn’t get bored and stop after 13 years? I couldn’t keep a job longer than a couple years because I got bored. I was never consistent at anything, and now I can say I have been consistent for 13 years? If you don’t see God written all over this, then you need a different school.
Those 3 years I spent on community college and university campuses never amounted to any real learning for me. Yes, I know you have to go to class to experience learning, but I was too busy learning on the mean streets of Mill avenue. You can’t learn that in them there colleges my nieces and nephews. Lol
I think it was so awesome of God to give me the answers to the questions that I needed answered the most first. Hopefully what I learned can help you guys as well, but nothing beats jumping in and reading it for yourself. The biggest question I had during Bible school was what is God doing this for? What is He training me for? It’s pretty obvious He is preparing me for something, but what? Today I know some of the answers, and they are all over this book.
Sometimes I think the Bible should come with a warning label. Since it doesn’t, I will give you one: “WARNING, CONTENTS INSIDE WILL CAUSE SIDE-EFFECTS”. I think the reason I avoided reading the Bible until it was made a requirement to attend God’s school, was that I was afraid to know what was in there. I was afraid there was going to be a bunch of rules that I didn’t know about. You know what they say: “what you don’t know can’t be held against you”. It was probably some of the dumbest logic I have ever used in my life. What am I some mob boss who doesn’t want to know the details of a hit he sent his guys out on, so he can deny it later? What a whack-job I am. lol
When God enrolled me in Bible 101, the first 6 months was nothing but reading the Bible. I told you some of the things I learned during that time in my last chapter. God gave me some peace and relief from stress and worry. He taught me that I shouldn’t be anxious over things I can’t control, and He helped me understand more about heaven. One of the side-effects I got from reading the Bible, was an overwhelming desire to share what I was learning. The stuff in those pages was so incredible, that I had to share it. Naturally, I started with the people I was most comfortable with, my family.
I remember, asking God to give me boldness and courage to tell you guys about God. I got Haley & Nikk’s email addresses, as well as the emails for my sister-in-law, my parents, the in-laws, my sisters, Steph and Zach. My plan was to start sharing Bible verses through that family email chain. I was pretty nervous the first time I sent one out. I started with just a Bible verse, then as I got bolder, I added some of my commentary on it. It’s hard to believe I was nervous about sending out an email, when I would end up doing live Bible study on Facebook a few months later.
I started the thereishopemyson.com website right at the end of my first semester in Bible 101, and would use it to post the same sort of things I was emailing the family. I started giving more detail and comments on the verses as I went along. The only school major that God offers is in Biblical Studies, so I didn’t have to worry about making that decision. There is only one book, and you can get it for free. If you know the One who runs the place, tuition is not a concern, and you will get help with room and board. Wow, doesn’t all this sound too good to be true? For me it was!
Everyone is looking for wisdom and learning that will help them find success, happiness, contentment, and peace in their lives, right? Nope, not everyone. Some will always think they can get the same thing from worldly sources.
My first goal was to help Zach understand and know who God is. We started going to one of the big churches here, and we were pretty consistent with it. Every time I went to church it seemed like the message was tailored to me. It was almost too hard to believe, but I lived through it, so I know it was real. I still have all the notes I wrote on the church bulletins during that time.
It was getting pretty obvious with everything that was happening to me, that God was training me up for something. It never felt like training though. It felt like reading the greatest piece of literature, history and wisdom ever written, and then finding out more and more every time I read it. I wanted more…I needed more. Does that sound normal? Do you know anyone who is obsessed with studying the Bible? Do you know anyone who also had the time to study it as much as they wanted to? I didn’t think so. This is how you know it is a sign. You already know a lot of my story, and you know I wasn’t picked to do this because of my qualifications. There is a saying out there that “God doesn’t call the prepared, He prepares the called”. My life is an obvious picture of that being true.
I started Bible study for Zach. I figured that I’d record it so he could listen to it the way you youngins like to. I quickly moved to doing them live on Facebook. I never pressured Zach to listen to the studies, and I never tried to sell him on anything the Bible talks about. I went through the Old-Testament verse-by-verse, and it took me 2 years and around 60 videos. The result was that Zach asked to be baptized, and I got to be the one to baptize him in my mom’s backyard pool! I can’t tell you what a relief and a joy that day was. Now I don’t have to worry about Zach’s eternity, and I know I get to spend forever with him. Who cares what job he has or what he accomplishes here, because that day will go down as the proudest of him I will ever be. You can tell someone you believe in God, but until you show it by getting baptized, no one really knows. I remember thinking maybe this is the reason God had me study the Bible; just to teach Zach.
I know of at least one of you guys, who was going to be baptized, but thankfully backed out. You have questions, and weren’t sure what you believe yet. Zach had no question. That doesn’t mean he knew all the answers, he just had no doubt God is real and that he should be baptized. It’s one of those: “if you know you know kind” of deals. It shouldn’t take convincing, and you just know you need to do it. I had very little understanding when I was dunked in a tank at Immanuel Baptist Church, but I knew I wanted to do it. I’ll tell you more about baptism when we get to the reason why we do it.
When I found out Zach was saved, (he told me he believed, and then got baptized to show everyone he believed) I moved on to thinking more about you guys. I now had a few years of Bible study under my belt, and I was ready to start some videos on the New Testament. I had a lot of momentum, and two years doing live Bible study is a long time. But for some reason, I never started anything new after that. I tried and tried, but soon realized that there was still a lot for me to learn. God can slow us down or even stop us from doing something whenever He wants to. I tried so hard to get new videos or Bible studies done, but I felt like I was stuck in the mud. I was bummed every day I sat there getting nothing done.
There is this Percy Jackson movie where they end up in the “Lotus Hotel & Casino”. This place is a trap, and the way it traps you is by making you lose track of time. You are eating something that alters your state of mind. They have all the fun & games and food you would ever need, and by the time you realize you’ve been there a long time, it’s too late to save the world. Geeze, that almost sounds like Vegas. Heck, it also sounds like my life in a lot of ways. Distracted, and time flew by with nothing accomplished but a bunch of fun and games… I look up one day, and I’m 40.
Anyway, I bring that movie scene up because that is how I felt up until 3 weeks ago when I started writing this book. I kept trying, but nothing. I kept stressing, still nothing. All it took was getting on the Facebook and hitting go live. All it took was me getting on the computer and typing out what I’ve learned. It’s not like it was physically or mentally hard. I knew the stuff, or so I thought. Why nothing? Again, a wise child of God will always ask why, even if you don’t get the answer right away, or the answer you were expecting.
The same thing was still happening on the job front. Although I was more optimistic and grateful about the jobs God gave me, I never had one that lasted. Many of the jobs during Bible school were part-time and temporary jobs. If someone was paying attention, they would notice that all the same things were still happening in my life, even after I started reading the Bible and changing my life. I was broke, and I went through more jobs in those 13 years than any similar timespan in my life. I was always “trying” to write, do Bible studies, get a job, or just do something. Nope…nothing done. There is a misconception out there that once you start reading the Bible, or once you are saved, everything in life is smooth. The Bible teaches the exact opposite.
So what was the difference between pre-Bible and post-Bible time for me? I had nowhere near the stress or fear after I started reading the Bible. There wasn’t even close to the same amount of anxiety. This time, I just let God drive. It isn’t easy giving up control, but God gave me no other option. I wanted in…all in, and you can’t do that and still try to drive.
To the world this is crazy behavior. But remember, I had already spent half my life doing the same thing, but I relied on me instead of God. Look how that worked out. This go-round, I put my trust in God, and He delivered time after time after time. There is nothing like the experience of seeing God come through in ways you never could have predicted. Nothing beats having to rely on God for everything.
The majority of you guys were still pretty young, so Bible study wasn’t the option God gave me to reach you. God wanted this book to serve that purpose. The first thing God gave me to help my research for the book, was lots of time to spend with you. I can’t even begin to count all of your visits, your soccer, your basketball, volleyball, plays, graduations, school music events, spring fall and summer breaks, babysitting, and of course every holiday and family vacation. I keep telling you this, not to brag, but so you see God was at work. What kind of uncle wants to spend that much time with a bunch of punk kids? Apparently, I do.
If God was going to have me write this book for you guys, I had to have some personal investment in you. I needed to know you all very well, and that can only come with time and interaction. I had to be visible and active in your lives for you to get the most out of what I am writing to you. I had to be available to be a baby sitter on short notice. I had to be around when spring break came and your parent’s had to work. I had to be able to take time off or be unemployed to attend all the vacations we went on together. I always had to have July 4th off so I could see my nieces. All of the time God gave me to spend with you guys is not normal. It’s not normal to have an uncle who has been “in-between jobs” most of your lives.
Before I ever thought about writing this book for you, I was spending a lot of time with you guys. Once I realized God has a plan to use me to help you understand Him and the Bible, I took things to another level. I started “Operation Undercover Uncle.” You didn’t realize it, but I was like the family spy over the last 10 years or so. I watched you keenly as you grew up into the fine young men and women you are today. I listened to see how you responded when issues the Bible talks about were discussed. I wrote down the questions I heard you guys struggle to answer about God. I paid attention to see if you went to church and what kind of church it was. I was laser focused on getting to know you and what you knew about God.
I made sure I attended every event of yours I could go to. Haley was the oldest when Jesus took my wheel and made a U-turn. I didn’t get to spend as much time with her or Nikk as the rest of you, because they were both older and didn’t need babysitting when I started my undercover work. One of the reasons I include so many pictures of you guys in the book, is so that you don’t forget that I’m not just some chump off the street, I am your uncle Bill, and we spent a lot of great time together. The pictures prove I was there for all those events, in case you forget when you get older. All of it is a testament to God at work in all of our lives.
My undercover work didn’t go so well at times. I almost blew my cover on many occasions, and worse yet, I almost blew my opportunity to get some of you to listen to me about God. I told you the Bible should have a warning label on it… Zeal is a word you hear in the Bible a lot. It’s the Bible word for passionate or enthusiastic. Uncle Bill had zeal for the Lord, for example. Well, uncle Bill had lots of zeal for the Bible and making sure everyone knew what was in it. I just failed miserably on most of the opportunities I had to actually teach others about it. You don’t need a Bible study for teachable moments, they happen all the time around us. It’s the in person, out of the blue, spur of the moment, teachable times I struck out at the most.
Poor Haley. Since she was the oldest, she got to experience Uncle Bill’s “I’m gonna let everyone know they are wrong” side effect. She had friends over to the in-laws and I acted holier than though when they came back talking about the rocks and crystals in Sedona. The buildup started earlier when my mother-in-law was showing me some of the rocks they got up there. I kept hearing things like this one is for healing, this one for protection, and there was one for spiritual something or another. I literally was just studying about the Israelites and their fake gods they started to worship, and how God kicked them out of the land over it. Many worshipped trees, and other parts of nature too.
I couldn’t hold back anymore and just went off about how ridiculous all this spiritual rock and crystal stuff was. I should have just sat there and soaked it in so I could write about it later, but nope. I went nuts, and then ended up leaving before I lost it any more. I didn’t understand how they could think a rock could help them. I got home, and later got a text from Haley. She was mad at me for acting like a punk in front of her friends. (my words, not hers) I typed out a reply right away saying “ thank you for letting me know, love you”. That is what I should have sent, but nooooo… I cleared it out and started ranting about worshipping rocks and how crazy that is. Nobody was worshipping rocks, uncle Bill overreacted. We went back and forth for a few more texts, before I let it go. Dumb. I felt bad every day for almost a year. I wanted to reach out every day, but I didn’t want to blow it.
How could I let my favorite niece (whoops lol) be mad at me for that long? All I know is that I wanted to reach out, but I never did. Maybe there was a reason for that? Finally, not long before our annual trip to Hawley lake on the 4th of July, Haley texted me telling me that she loves me and doesn’t want to fight or for it to be weird up camping. I was in San Diego on vacation with most of you when I got that text. I doubt you noticed, but I had a lot more pep in my step after that. What a relief that was!
Now, I ask you again, does any of this sound like normal behavior to you? First, why did every ounce of my body ache listening to the descriptions of what the rocks and crystals supposedly do? Was it because it was so fresh in my mind from my studying of the Bible? Why couldn’t I stop myself from clearing out my original text reply and instead babbling on about how I was right? Would most uncles worry about it day after day, or would the worries of their own lives take priority? I learned a lot from this experience, and that is exactly what God wanted from it.
The next people on my holier than thou tour were my sisters and parents. I had been on a few vacations with the AZ nieces and nephews, and I learned from my undercover work that you didn’t know a whole lot about the Bible. I decided I would go to your church for Christmas one year. That didn’t go well. I didn’t flip out and leave the church in the middle of the service, but I wanted to. They had some missionary “healer” lady who spoke about her escapades in some other country. It was Christmas, and I was listening to someone tell me these wild stories about healing miracles? I believe God heals people all the time, but being healed of what ails us in this physical body that is dying, is not near as important as healing our soul that will live forever.
I went home and started watching videos of past sermons on your church’s website. No lie, I spent several days watching videos of sermons non-stop. I took a half of a notebook full of notes as I watched. I paused it to make sure I heard something right, and I paused it when I needed a break after what I just heard. So, after 3 days listening to more sermons from your pastor than any of you have, I decided texting the whole family about my frustrations would be a good idea. Again, I had to let everyone know that I thought their church was horrible at preaching from the Bible. I had to tell them I didn’t think you guys were going to learn anything there.
I rarely heard the pastor mention how someone is saved in all the videos I watched, and the little Bible preached was all from the same 4-5 books of the Bible. Almost all the sermons were filled with stories of the preacher’s time in some other country helping out those in need with shoes. There was always another book that was promoted besides the Bible. Either some Christian author, humanitarian, or the preacher’s own book. It was all milk, there was no meat, no bread to anything I heard. Anyway, that went about as well as you would have expected. My sister was pretty upset about it. I put her and all the family on the defense, why wouldn’t she come out swinging? I remember thinking I thought the whole world was against me. First the incident with Haley and the mother-in-law, now this?!! What in the heck is going on? Why do I care that much? Why did I have to watch hours and hours of sermons just to prove a point? Why did I have to send that text? Yet another experience I learned a lot from.
The next blow-up came at my dad’s expense, and it ended up being about your church again. Dad was trying to be the peacemaker so he asked me out for a walk. We didn’t talk much about the church until we got back by the cars. I told him the main mission of the church is to teach the congregation and to help unbelievers know how to be saved. Everything a church does should be centered around training and shepherding your congregation. We didn’t see eye to eye on this one, and out of frustration, I threw my water bottle on the ground and took off. He didn’t want to listen, he just said I was wrong.
I went home and skimmed through the whole Bible looking for the verses that supported my view of the church. I worked on it non-stop from the time I left the park until a few days later when I sent it to him. The word doc I sent him was 13 pages long! It is filled with Bible verses talking about the role of the Church. Who does that? A crazy uncle who is trying, and failing, to look out for you guys. Did we go through the doc verse by verse to see what was right? Not yet. (LMK if anyone wants to read the word doc & I’ll send it)
There are many more stories I may get into later, but I feel bad enough for now. I could have, and should have, handled all these situations better. One of the reasons I wanted to tell you about this is because I want you to see how unusual all of this is. The way I handled things was pretty crazy. I wish I could explain the side-effects I had. I wasn’t thinking I was better than anyone, I was frustrated that no one would believe me about what is in the Bible. It’s like I was speaking a foreign language.
I got like this when I was trying to look out for you and what you were being taught. I had control over what Zach learned first, but I have no control over what you guys did. I didn’t care if it was coming from your church, your teachers, or your parents, I wanted to make sure you got the truth from the source…the Bible. It’s not about who is right or who is wrong, it is about taking the time to do your homework and figure it out for yourselves. God is not a God of confusion; He wants us to understand Him and His plan. It’s not rocket-science, yet so many treat it like it is. You guys mean everything to me. Making sure you have the chance to know the truth is all I care about. I’m selfish, I want to spend eternity with every one of you! I am trying to leave as little doubt as I can that I did my part to share the truth and keep you away from false teaching.
Another side effect I got from ingesting the Bible every day was guilt. The more you learn about what God has done for us, the more you want to please Him. The Bible tells us the best way to please Him is to obey Him. You just read about how I did anything but obey God most of my adult life and look where that got me. I started to feel guilty about a lot. I started writing posts on Facebook telling Zach I’m sorry for letting this world get into such a mess. I told him that it was me and my generation’s fault we are in the state we are in as a country right now. I wrote apology posts to my grandma, my parents, my wife, and all the people I treated badly in my life. I’ve included a few for you below.
There are side-effects for almost anything you do. Some are good side-effects, some not so much. Although your Uncle Bill didn’t handle the learning lessons God sent his way very well, I am much better prepared to handle it going forward. God also made sure I got to learn these lessons with my family who can’t disown me. lol
The “I’m Sorry Phase Posts”
Hi Grandma Landis.
I never told you how much I love you. I don’t think I even said the words very often. I was too busy thinking about you nagging me. I didn’t realize until later that you had every reason and every right to give me grief.
Maybe you will think what I used to do to you is funny now. Hopefully you can see the changes I am trying to make in my life. I know someday I will get my payback; it might be from my own grandchildren when I get older.
I’m sorry for taking out the tobacco from your cigarettes and replacing them with random household spices and mustard to hold it all in. I still think you never knew, you never said anything about it.
I feel bad about cranking up the music on the intercom system when you had just fallen asleep. I won’t soon forget you coming out of your room screaming “you damn kids, turn that radio down!” I think I blamed it on Ken or Christian, I can’t remember now.
I feel horrible about loosening the bolts on your extendo-toilet seat. I am thankful you never fell off of it.
How about the time my parents were out of town and you were charged with watching all us rascals. You kept asking me what was going on as girls kept coming in to use the restroom. “I just have a couple friends over” I told you. “We are just swimming out back”. Well, your suspicions were correct, I was having a party. There were about 20 people out back, but I only let the girls come in to pee. Yes mom, I am finally admitting that it was my bag of empty beer bottles out in the middle of the alley behind our house. And yes, those were my beer bottle caps you randomly found around the house over the months that followed. We would flick them with our fingers to see who could make them fly the farthest; we just couldn’t find all of them.
Grandma, I still can’t believe we would call you from Aunt Joyce’s house (before caller id) saying in our best Colonel Clink voice: “this is the Gestapo; you are to report to headquarters immediately or will be shot. Do you understand me Lillian?” Yes, that was me, even though I didn’t admit it when you asked me: “Billy did you crank call me? Someone said something about shooting someone”.
One of the worst I remember was when Ken just moved out here to AZ to stay with us until Aunt Joyce moved here. We devised a plan to really get you going. We sat on the couch while you sat in that chair of yours. It started when I put on my shoes and you asked me where I was going. I told you I was going to hang out with my friend. You wanted to know if I was taking Ken with me. I said “no, I don’t like him. I don’t want him to go”. You were so mad that you started that thing where you say all your grand-kids names before you finally got to the right one: “Wendy, Kristi, Tommy….Billy.” You couldn’t believe I just said that with Ken sitting there acting all lonely and depressed. “He’s no fun grandma” I said. Inside Ken and I were busting up laughing; you just about had a heart attack. Sorry grandma!
When I look back and think about all the rotten things I did to you, it’s partly because we spent a lot of time together. I understand now how lucky I was to have you around. Ken and I both cherished the times we came to visit you in the nursing home those last years of your life. We had some great conversations and I remember feeling like I could just be myself around you. It made my day.
The day you died I showed up at the nursing home before you took your last breath and went to heaven. I remember everyone was there huddled around you. You hadn’t said much all day and you weren’t in the best spirits. When I walked in the room, you perked up, smiled and said “hi Billy”. After all I did to make your life a challenge you didn’t hold it against me.
As Ken and I drove behind the hearse in your funeral procession, I couldn’t help but feel you were there with us. It was an incredibly beautiful overcast day and Ken and I cruised with the top down in my old Toyota. We still talk about that drive all the time, it was almost magical.
I love you and miss you. I promise things will be different with me next time I see you.
Your grandson,
Billy
Tillie and Abe.
I want to thank you for having such a big impact in my life. Not many people would have accepted all us crazy friends of Gabby and Tommy. You guys opened your house up to us at all hours of the day and night. You fed us, gave us a place to crash, and offered lots of great advice when we needed it. You treated me like one of your own kids.
I learned a lot about what grace looks like from you. Yes, you got mad at “pinche Bruno” many times, but you never held it against me for very long. Usually by the next morning you were saying “mijo, come get some breakfast”, again taking care of me. I was also amazed at how hard you and Abe worked. Especially impressive after we woke you up at 3am the night before.
I’m sorry it has been so many years since I’ve seen you and Abe. I should have come over to introduce you to my son, he is 11 now. I think part of me wanted to wait until I was successful or finally finished my book. I wanted you guys to be proud of me, and I didn’t feel very good about myself so I shut everyone out.
You and Abe mean more to me than you will ever know. I have many great memories of the time I spent with you. Todos ustedes son mi familia!
Thanks for putting up with my sarcasm and smart-ass mouth. Thanks for always being such great examples for me to follow. Your marriage was always what I wanted mine to be like when that day came. You showed me a lot about how important family is. I’ll never forget it.
I know it has been a long time, but I promise to try and make up for it. I told Gabby it would be great if we could all get together sometime over the holidays.
If you guys ever need ANYTHING, I will be there for you like you were always there for me.
I love you guys,
Guillermo
Mom, I am sorry for all the stupid things I did. I am sorry for not realizing sooner how big of a role model you were. I’m sorry for lying to get my way.
I’ll never forget coming home late one night to see all my clothes you told me to pick up off the floor in my room now laying on the bushes and ground outside my window. I won’t forget coming home from a night out partying with my friends and finding my bed in the garage because I didn’t make it before I left like you told me to.
I’m sorry for being so stubborn and actually sleeping on the bed in that hot garage that summer night just to prove I didn’t really care about it, or that it didn’t really bug me. I wouldn’t let you win. I’m sorry for always scheming my way into you giving me money or using some “spin” to get out of doing chores.
I should have realized this sooner, but you are the most generous, loving, and gracious person I know. I am so happy I am finally starting to take after you. So many things I learned from you and dad I am trying to pass on to Zach.
I deserved every punishment you and dad gave me, and probably much more. I thank you for dragging me to church every Sunday and Wednesday night. I appreciate the example you both set for me.
I would not be who I am today without your love and praise.
I love you!
Your son.
I just turned 18 a few days earlier when I decided to go get my first lottery ticket. Maybe this was the way I was going to get rich. I felt it! God was going to take care of me! I sat at home watching tv with my dad that night and anxiously waited to see my winning numbers get drawn. I can’t say dad was really watching, as usual he was half asleep. Then came the moment I was waiting for my whole life. The drawing was almost here, I was soon to have it all! Suddenly my dad woke up and said “son, you need to take out the trash, they are coming to pick it up tomorrow”. Knowing me, this was probably the 10th time he had to remind me.
I pulled out the lottery ticket from my back pocket and held it up to show him. In the cockiest way I knew how I said “see this dad, I’m going to win. In the morning, I am going to pay you to take out the trash”.
How many of you would have got away with that one?
Sorry Dad! Thanks for your patience with me. I hope you are starting to see that the lessons you taught me didn’t just fall on deaf ears, but actually did sink in.
I love you,
Your son.
Son, first, you need to know what we are up against. You need to know what got us into this mess. I am to blame for much of what you are seeing wrong. If it isn’t’ apparent to you yet, there sure is a lot of “bad news” these days. It is no wonder I lost sight of what is important during times like these. Prayer and faith are the only things that can get us through. It took way too long for me to realize that.
I’m sorry I had to sit in my car for 15 minutes once I got home from work to cool off and let go of my anger and frustration. I’m sorry you had to witness me arguing with my family over things I had no control of. I’m sorry you had to hear me call our political leaders names and talk down about the great people of this country. Maybe you can reverse the curve.
Lord, thanks for this awesome responsibility! Thank you for the lessons you are teaching me every day. Thank you for helping me understand that I have to prepare harder for those who “think” they know your Word than I have to for those who have never read it.
I’m sorry I got frustrated tonight. I’m sorry I started to feel sorry for myself about how difficult this road you have me traveling down is and will be. I can read story after story in the Bible to see that these feelings are typical of all who know the Truth and try to help others realize it. I know I am not alone and you are always with me.
I’m trying Lord. Please continue to be patient with me. Please continue to use me as you will. Thank you for knowing I could handle it with your help. Thank you for equipping me with the tools to do the job. Thank you for creating me for this purpose.
Please help me worry more about what pleases you than what pleases others.
I have lots of undercover/spy work in my background, so when God asked me to keep an eye on you young whipper-snappers, I already had the experience. My dad had a Dodge K car, and I used to pretend it was my undercover cop car because it fit the profile. (Zach will probably know what that car looked like.) I called it the “FBI-mobile”. I didn’t drive it much, for obvious reasons, but sometimes Ken and I would take it out and park in front of people’s houses I knew. Most of the people weren’t major criminals, but I could see them peak out of their windows, and sometimes come out to their car, like they were getting something out of it. When they looked, we would act like we were writing something down or calling for backup on the CB radio. This is what life was like before the internet. It was hilarious. I would sit there for an hour if I saw anyone checking me out from the house. I remember a couple people bringing it up that next weekend, but they never knew it was me.
So you can see I was a natural at the spy game. Another time I sat outside all night waiting for some young punks who tried to prank my house. They filled up my recycling bin with water and leaned it up against the front door. The plan was that I would open the door, and 30 gallons of water would flood inside the house and on me. (see pics) Luckily, we don’t use the front door, and I noticed it when I came back from the store. That night I waited for them, and I parked my car down the street so if the turkeys ever came back, they wouldn’t suspect me. I got tired so I set up a chair in my backyard by the gate and kept an eye out front. They are lucky they never came back. lol
The funniest time was when I lived in Tempe with all my buddies. There was a 7-11 right across the busy street. The payphones were always in use, and they usually had lines. Yes, the payphones again. This is was what you had to do if you were on the road, and lots of people bought alcohol there so it was always busy. Every day around the same time, we would see the same guys hanging around the phones being all suspicious. They were always looking around, as they made and received calls there. We decided to spy on them, so we wrote down the phone numbers of the payphones when they weren’t around. We walked over to 7-11 at least 3 times a day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so there were plenty of opportunities.
The next night the payphone crew was back, and we had a great view of the payphones. Some nights, just hanging out on our patio watching the 7-11parking lot, was entertainment for us. If you went upstairs in our condo, you would have an even better view, so I’d go upstairs and call the pay phone:
ring ring: (the recognizable sounds of a payphone ringing)
Cut to: sketchy looking guy in a green shirt
guy: ”Yo”
me: “Sup dawg?”
guy: “What you want?”
me: “what you got foo?”
guy: “What you need?”
me: “How much you got?”
guy: “how much you got”?
me: “ I got enough to afford better clothes punk”
guy: “What you talking bout? Who gave you my number?”
me: “Your momma gave me your number foo. She told me to tell you that green shirt is ugly dawg”.
Guy starts looking around, wondering what the heck is going on.
me: “This is Tempe PD; you are using this phone to conduct illegal narcotic transactions. We are on the way.”
He would start looking around, we would duck. It was pretty funny. We used to call the phones just to see if the rando walking by would answer it. One time we got girls who just bought a bunch of alcohol to answer the phone. We talked the ladies in to coming across the street to party. Good times.
I now have over a decade of spying on you guys under my belt, and I gathered a lot of intel during that span. You already know that God gave me plenty of time with you guys, and that time allowed me to get lots of insight I needed for this book.
What I observed were some of the most amazing, kind, honest, and caring young people in the world! I have to be the luckiest uncle there is! God wanted me to spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephews, and He couldn’t have given me a better bunch. Thank you for always wanting to hang out with me. (or at least faking it well) Thanks for always talking to me about all kinds of different of things. God definitely blessed me when you guys were born.
So what did the family spy discover?
For one, it made a big difference growing up in Baptist churches. If you compared my behavior at age 17, verses your behavior at that same age, you would see a remarkable difference. If I took a poll of 100 people, and I had them watch a brief flashback of all of our lives, 100 of them would say I was the kid who didn’t go to church. My behavior was horrible; yet all you guys are little angels in comparison? That goes to show you that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Just because little Billy walked in and out of church thousands of times, doesn’t mean he’s a better-behaved kid than those who didn’t.
You can be a Christian on the inside, but look nothing like one on the outside. You can be an unbeliever on the inside, but look nothing like one on the outside. This is what makes it so hard to identify who is a saved and who is not. There is no secret handshake Christians get to help identify each-other. Any one of you could tell me you believe, (and I would trust you) but there is really no way to prove it. Baptism is about as close as we can get to knowing. It’s rare that someone who doesn’t believe in God will go through with a baptism in front of other people. We have an example of that in our own family. Still, under pressure from parents, or from the church, unbelievers do get baptized. There are also many Christians who have never been baptized, so that won’t help anyone be 100% sure.
Here is what I do know… I didn’t have as many questions as you guys do about God. Part of that is your church or lack of church, part of that is your parents not teaching you, part of that is on you for not listening if anyone did tell you, and part of that is the world we live in today. I am sure there were tons of atheists out there when I grew up, but I never heard from any of them. You are bombarded with more false information about God in one week, than I was in my whole pre-internet life. Before I started reading and studying the Bible, I couldn’t have answered most of the questions you guys have about God now. Some of the questions you have, I never would have even thought to ask. That is how different the worlds we grew up in are. My faith wasn’t challenged every day like you guys had growing up.
All of this was by God’s design, so I am not bagging on you guys or your parents. Had you all gone to churches that preach the Bible consistently, maybe you wouldn’t need this book. If you didn’t need this book, then what would I have done? What else would be different? Would I have had the same amount of time with you? What if I had a career with a job that I worked at for 60 hours a week when you guys were younger? Everything happens for a reason. Of course, I would have preferred you guys knew more about God, because I know it would have helped you. But maybe that’s why I am here, it sure seems to be my purpose.
What I had growing up was an unshakeable belief that God created everything, including me. If evolution was taught in school, I don’t remember it. I knew creation history, so nothing ever got me to doubt where I came from. On the other hand, I don’t know how you guys couldn’t have doubts about your origins. In your lives, you’ve probably heard about evolution 10,000 x as much as you’ve heard about the creation account in Genesis. (and that is if you go to a church that believes in God’s creation story) You need more info to defend Bible history than I ever needed, yet you aren’t getting near as much as I had.
I listened as you talked about the preachers who drive Lambos, own jets, and live in multi-million-dollar compounds. I noticed when Haley talked about all the billboards in the south and how they shout God at you, tell you that hell awaits, and crazy things like that. I have heard some of you use the word spiritual in a sense I don’t understand, and I know is not the Biblical meaning. I saw some of you disappointed when a preacher you liked fell from grace. I saw some struggle to identify where the stars and planets came from. In fact, I wrote down all of this stuff when it happened. My decade of undercover work gave me some great insight into what this book should be about. Spy-work was fun, and it felt like just hanging out with you guys, paying attention to you, and chillin, gave me everything I needed to write the book.
One of the biggest areas of question from all of you was about creation. That’s why I spent a bunch of time on it in my book, and I plan to do a creation vs evolution Bible study in the near future. Another insight you needed more on is the sovereignty of God. I wanted to make sure you guys heard that term and understood what it means. I wanted to show you how you can tell God is in charge of His creation by what has happened, and is still happening in my life. I am hoping you will have your own understanding and experiences watching God work in your lives someday, if you haven’t already. I wrote about death, and why so much evil is in this world, because those topics came up a lot. Everything I cover in this book I got from you.
I know that the world you grew up in makes young people feel unimportant, and that your life means nothing. I know what you are being taught in school, and what you are not hearing enough about in church. I know they tell you this earth and universe is permanent, and we are the temporary ones, which is the total opposite of what God tells us. I know the majority of the world is wrong about who God is, and I want to help equip you for that challenge. Most of all, I just want to make sure you know the truth so you can make a decision for yourself. Without a doubt, God is real and the Bible is Truth. You can trust me, or go read it for yourselves. I am also hoping that by reading about what God has done in my life, you will have more insight into who God is and how He works. Everyone lives forever; it is where you live that matters. I want you to live in the same place I’ll be in. Heaven. (more on this to come)
Thankfully, I learned from the side-effects I had early on. I learned that you don’t always have to “tell” people about God. In fact, there is a saying: “preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words”. This time around I was determined to do more “showing” instead of “telling”. How did Uncle Bill handle that situation vs what my teacher told me? Why is my mom so stressed, when uncle Billy doesn’t have a job and he looks relaxed? Why is uncle Bill so much cooler than my parents? Why doesn’t uncle Bill get worked up over silly little things? When we are on vacation, I’m never glued to my phone, because I am talking with you guys. I want to show you how important you are to me.
Tell me that you haven’t noticed uncle Bill is different. Before you think anything, I mean in a “good way” different. lol You’ve seen the unnecessary stress on family vacations and holidays; I made sure I was carefree and go-lucky uncle Bill. I didn’t just show up every once in a blue moon to your events, I was consistent in attending most of your things, for most of your lives. I made fun of other adults, and took your side 90% of the time. Most of the time you saw me I didn’t have a job, but I made sure you knew I wasn’t stressed. Stress is something you can’t hide for long, so you would have noticed if I was faking it. Do you know any adults who are not afraid to die, and would be perfectly fine if it was today? Most of you know I live like that now.
There is absolutely no doubt that you can see the peace I have. Now that you have this book, you don’t have to guess as to why I have it. Peace comes from understanding. I tried extra hard when I was around you to show you how different I am now. I’ve tried to model what God expects me to be to all of you. I have failed many times and succeeded some as well. I’ve tried to show you how different I am because of my relationship with God. I know you are all very perceptive and can tell when adults are being hypocrites. I talk to you a lot and try my best to always listen attentively.
Below is the large poster size sheet I used to write down the topics I got from being a spy. Don’t worry, I am not going to cover all of that in this book, but it will make great Bible study topics down the road.
This chapter may be the most important thing I ever write. I want to make sure I cover enough to give you a good understanding, but there is so much in that great Bible that I can’t even begin to do it justice in my little book.
I have purposely been vague about a lot of things when it comes to who God is, and what His plan is. I did this because that is how everyone felt who lived before the Messiah came. This is also how most of Israel feels to this very day. God hadn’t revealed who the savior would be yet, so there was always a void or limit to what they could know. God’s plan was always moving forward; it just took longer than humans could have imagined. Every generation of God’s people starting with Adam was waiting for the promised Savior King. The later you were born in God’s timetable, the more of God’s plan you could have known. Still, it all couldn’t truly be revealed until the Savior came and everyone got to see Him and know who He is.
There were around 450 prophecies given to the people of Israel over 1,000 years of history, to help them identify their Savior when He arrived. The Jews, especially the priests, knew the Old-Testament like the back of their hand. They not only knew all the verses; they knew exactly what page each verse was on and what part of the page it sat. They studied night and day. There was no other people group given the Old-Testament, so Israel of all the nations should recognize their Messiah when He comes.
I’m pretty sure you all know the story. The Messiah came, and His name is Jesus. He came to save the nation of Israel from bondage to sin and the penalty for it. They rejected Jesus as the promised one from scriptures, and they eventually had him killed for saying He was the Son of God. But (and this is a big but!) in triumph over death, Jesus rose from the dead! It’s easy for us to know all this now, because we have history and the Bible on our side. (we were born after the whole Bible was written and all prophecy was given.) In this chapter, I am going to try and focus on some of the things I didn’t know until I started studying the Bible. Things that blew my mind about Jesus and what He did for us.
Do you remember in Genesis 3, when we heard about the seed of woman crushing the serpent’s head? We talked about it back then, but this was predicting the virgin birth. God placed the Messiah inside the womb of Mary, and she was told to name him Jesus. The Hebrew word for Jesus means “God saves”. Here is what is so important about that virgin birth. Because Jesus did not have an earthly father involved in the procreation process, he was not born with the same corrupt and dead spirit we inherited from our parents, and their parents, and so on, back to Adam. This is why the Bible calls Jesus the “second Adam”. God gave mankind a second chance. Jesus would be tested much more than the first Adam was. All Adam had to do was stay away from one tree, while Jesus’ temptations were much more intense. Jesus passed with flying colors, unlike Adam.
Jesus was the only man after Adam to be born with a spirit and body that is perfect and not corrupted by sin. Jesus would still need to go His whole life without sinning for any of it to count. He had to be perfect. We can see a picture of this in the Old-Testament and the temple sacrificial system God set up for Israel to use. The animals they sacrificed had to be free of blemish, imperfections, and deformities. They had to be perfect, or God would not accept them as a sin offering. These animal sacrifices were a picture of the true Lamb of God that would be sacrificed once and for all for our sin. (Jesus) The Passover lamb sacrifice was the ultimate picture of Jesus. This started right before Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt. Check out Exodus chapter 12 if you are interested.
We learn early on, that God requires blood to atone for sin. In the garden, we didn’t hear specifically about the sacrifice of an animal, but we did hear about God giving Adan and Eve animal skins for covering. This was a clue that God killed an animal as a sacrifice for Adam & Eve’s sin. (You can’t take an animal’s skin without killing it.) Once Jesus came and made his ultimate, once and for all sacrifice, there was no need to shed the blood of animals again. Take notice that Israel doesn’t have a temple anymore to sacrifice in. If they could build one on the site of the original temple and start sacrificing animals today, they would. They haven’t accepted that Jesus was the Messiah, so they don’t believe in His sacrifice, and they think they still need animals to cover their sin. Stay tuned, because Israel will build another temple right on the temple mount where the Muslim dome of the tock sits now. This all happens before Jesus comes back. I’ll fill you in a little later on how that all shakes out.
God also required that the sacrifice to save us had to be someone just like us. A human. Sacrificing animals doesn’t make up for man’s sin, it just covered it until they sin again. We would need a man to be our substitute, so sin is paid for once and for all. Each of us has our own sin. We have to pay our own penalty, so it’s not available to pay for anyone else. Who sets the rules for what counts as an acceptable sacrifice to save us from the death penalty of sin? God does of course. He required a “like” substitute, and this is why Jesus, who is and always was God, had to empty himself of His God powers. Jesus had to be born as a man, and He had to experience what we all go through in life here on earth. All of this so that Jesus could relate to us, having been in our shoes, and so His death would count as an acceptable sacrifice. Jesus coming down in all his Godly power and glory to save the earth was not the solution God wanted. No, Jesus became human just like us. Of course, this doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t still God. You can’t just give up your title and power that you’ve had for eternity, and not still be God. The point is, the advantages that being God had, did not help him during His time here as Jesus the man.
Next time He comes back we will see Jesus with all his Godly power and glory, and He won’t look anything like the Jesus that walked the earth. In fact the Bible tells us we will call him by a new name that nobody even knows right now. When Jesus comes back, this is what He will look like:
Revelation 1:13-17
‘and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, ‘
John, who wrote the book of Revelation, was one of Jesus’ closest disciples here on earth. Yet, John fell down in fear at the sight of Jesus in his heavenly form. This is much different than the human response should have been to someone John spent so many years close to. John didn’t run in for a hug like some might think, instead John was on the ground like a dead man. Would you expect God in all His power and glory to look like a humble Jewish servant? Nope, that was only for a short period of time in history, and for a specific purpose. The way Jesus looks in the verses above is the Jesus we will be around forever. We won’t have the fear like John did, because we won’t be hiding sin. When we see Jesus next, we will be perfect.
So, I mentioned there must be blood (death) to atone for our own sin, and that the sacrifice God accepts on our behalf, must be perfect, and a man just like us. Here is another thing that had to happen for God to accept Jesus as a substitute for you and me. Jesus had to die willingly. God the Father couldn’t force His Son to come to earth, give up His God powers, be rejected by His people, spat on, tortured and hung from a cross. Jesus had to volunteer knowing exactly what He was in for. Here is a good one for you: The Bible tells us that Jesus, created the universe and everything in it. That means that Jesus created it all, knowing He would eventually have to die on that cross. What? Any chance you or I would have done that? I would have found another way, or just not created the place or the people. He created it anyway. The greatest event in human history was the day the Savior of the world entered the world He created to save it. Tell me there is any kind of love greater than that. I’m waiting…
Before we move on, I want to be clear on something that is very important. You need to understand what the Bible means when it speaks about “life” and “death”. The word “life” is used around 450 times throughout the Bible. It is on the first page of the Bible and it is on the last page of the Bible. The word “death is used 372 times. The first mention is in the first book of the Bible chapter 21, and the final mention is in the last book of the Bible, chapter 21. Hmmmm, coincidence? There are lots of little things like this in the Bible where you have to look at it and know God wrote it. Everything in there, and the order it’s all in, is something only a supreme being (God) could dictate.
The Bible uses the word life to symbolize enteral life with God in heaven. If you have life, then you are saved. As a believer in Jesus, and what He did on the cross for me, I am assured I will live forever in heaven with God. That is what “having life” means in the Bible. The word death, is used to symbolize an eternal life without God. If you are dead right now, that means you are an unbeliever. As an unbeliever, you are still assured you will live forever, It just won’t be with God in heaven. You will need to be brought to life before you can enter heaven. Death never means nonexistent, it means separation. Before you think that living forever away from God doesn’t sound that bad, you need to know the truth. I’ll have that covered in another chapter. For now keep on reading on…
Jesus proved He was the promised Messiah. He fulfilled every prophecy in the Old-Testament about His 1st coming, he led a life without sin, and he performed miracles and signs only the Savior could do. The odds of one man fulfilling 350+ prophecies written over 1,000 years of time is impossible, but Jesus did. More than that, Jesus proved He was God when He rose from the dead. Buddha is in the ground, Mohammed is buried somewhere, and every shaman or faith guru always dies. Jesus is the only one to still live. You will see Him someday…Everyone will.
So why didn’t Israel accept their Messiah? It wasn’t what God wanted at that time. God’s plan was to let His son die on the cross so we could be saved. He used the Jewish priests and leaders of Israel to help accomplish it. God took His plan from centered on Israel alone, to now being spread to all the nations of the world. If Israel had accepted Jesus as their king, the 1,000-year Messianic kingdom would have started. Although that would have been great for the people of Israel, it would not have been good for any of us. We would have missed out on heaven. We would have missed out on being born. We would have missed out on living forever. More to come on that…
Israel has always been God’s people. They were the only nation God recognized as His, and they are the only nation God gave the law to. There were some foreigners who ended up part of the Jewish community and believed in God, but they were more of an exception. God’s plan did, and always will, have the nation of Israel as central to it all. The Messiah was born a Jew in Israel, and when the Messiah comes back, He will rule from Jerusalem. Jesus left the earth when Israel rejected Him, and He comes back when Israel accepts Him. Israel will be the most important country in the world, and everyone from all the nations of the world will go there to see the King. Can you tell who the enemy (Satan) is working through in the world now to try and stop Jesus from coming back? Satan thinks if there is no Israel, then the Messiah has no one to come back for. Maybe now you have a little more insight into why most of Israel’s Muslim neighbors hate them. When the Kingdom comes, the enemies will be done with, and Israel will live at peace in cities without walls. Just a little hint for now.
Let’s examine what Jesus went through, because God tells us that we will experience the same things if we believe. First off, we know that Jesus’ time here on earth was anything but the life of a king. He was a humble servant, who came to save His people from the penalty of sin. He didn’t have a home to sleep in, was rejected throughout, tortured and killed. God tells us to expect similar treatment, because the world hates Jesus. (see John 15 below) It doesn’t mean we will be killed for Jesus, although that is certainly a possibility nowadays, but we will suffer persecution and ridicule just like Jesus did. That is if we practice our faith and don’t hide away at home. When I first started sharing the truth, I was met with opposition on many fronts. Some of the persecution was from people I least expected. Persecution isn’t always physical, and if you share the truth, or just act different than the world expects, you will get pushback.
John 15:18-20:
‘ “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ‘
Next, Jesus died like we all do. Did He die? Will we all have to die? We talked about this before; since Jesus had no sin, He was perfect and wouldn’t die. What we find out is that Jesus had to “give up” His spirit in order for His physical body to die. He would have hung on that cross forever if it wasn’t in God’s plan for Him to die on it. No one forced Jesus to that cross, and no one took Jesus’ life. It was all part of the plan, orchestrated from before time began. We know our physical bodies will die because they are full of sin. We won’t have to give up our spirit, because our body will die first and our spirit gets released after that. There is one big exception: Some of us may never suffer a physical death at all. Wait what? More to come.
When Jesus gave up His spirit and the physical body died, Jesus went down to a place called Sheol. His spirit/soul descended to this place that held the spirits of every human who died since Adam. I told you earlier that your spirit lives forever, but it is where you live that matters. Your spirit is the real you, and the part of you that will live long after this container it is housed in dies. The souls/spirits in Sheol are being held there because they all have that corrupted spirit from Adam, and they could not be in heaven with God because of it. Adam and Eve were down there, Moses, Abraham, David, and every other believer from the Old-Testament. There are also the souls of every unbeliever that ever died, starting with Cain, the first murderer.
The Bible tells us that Sheol has two sides to it. One side is called “paradise” or “Abraham’s bosom”, because you were warmly wrapped in the arms of Abraham like a big hug. This side was a place of comfort and rest for the believers who were waiting for the Messiah to come. They put their faith in God’s promises, and since the Messiah had not come yet to make His sacrifice, they stayed down there. The other side of Sheol is not pleasant. In fact it is hell. There is no rest, it is hot, you are always thirsty, you are laying in the earth full of maggots and worms, and worst of all you are separated from God and the light. In Sheol, there is a huge divide or chasm that separates the two sides of hell and paradise. No soul can cross over from one side to another, and no soul can leave there to come up to earth. If you want to read the story, it is in Luke Chapter 16.
When Jesus’ spirit went down to Sheol, it was to announce that the Messiah was here, and that He was the promised One. The promises of a savior that those on the paradise side believed in was now fulfilled. They would no longer have to be separated from God, and all their spirits went up to heaven with God the Father. Those souls on the hell side of Sheol stayed down there. In fact, every unbeliever from all time, including those who die today go straight down to the hell side of Sheol. The paradise side is empty now, and no longer necessary. Because Jesus already paid the price for us, the spirits of all believers now go right into heaven with Jesus. Jesus spent 3 days down in Sheol before His spirit went back into that lifeless body in the tomb, and He rose from the dead. His spirit which never died, was now reunited with that perfect body and He walked right out of that tomb.
Jesus conquered death, and we can to. If we believe in the sacrifice Jesus made for us, we will also rise from the dead. Our process is a little different, but we get the same result. More to come on that later. The sacrifice was already made by Jesus, so we can accept it and get right with God. How is that possible when our spirit is corrupt from Adam? Our belief in the second Adam, Jesus, is how it happens. Ever heard of the term born again? When we believe in Jesus, our old sinful spirit nature is replaced with a perfect, sinless spirit. A spirit that will never sin and therefore can be in the presence of God forever. Are you starting to see how God worked around our dying corrupt spirit? He replaces it with a new perfect one.
A good Bible student would ask how is it possible that we have a perfect spirit, when I know uncle Bill still sins? Yep, we all sin, and having a perfect spirit doesn’t fix the whole issue. We still have these sinful bodies. Therein lies another problem God has to solve. We were created to live on earth. We need physical bodies for this to be a suitable home. If we were created as spirit only beings like angels, why would we need a physical earth? God intended for us to have physical bodies, and He made us to live on a place like this earth. So how does God solve this problem?
As I told you earlier, our bodies die, get buried in the ground and turn back into the dust that they came from. If you are a believer, when your body dies, your spirit will be released and escorted by angels right to Jesus in heaven. Because our physical body was full of sin, it had to die. It couldn’t be with us in heaven, because you have to be perfect to be there. Because this physical body is sinful and cursed to die, it will never be used again. There are all kinds of weird things people believe about how you have to be buried, or that you can’t be cremated, or if you drown and they can’t find you in the ocean, God can’t use your body later. All are nonsense. God will not be using our old dead sinful bodies again, so it doesn’t matter what happens to them after they die. This body is the only thing keeping us out of heaven right now. If I was spirit only, I’d be with God.
The spirit only life we have in heaven will be temporary. Everything will change at the resurrection. This is when your old dead body is replaced with a new perfect sinless one. Just like the perfect spirit all believers have now, soon we will be matched up with our perfect physical body. As I wrote about before, our new bodies won’t sin, so they won’t die EVER! Now, think about this: If we get new physical bodies, then we will need to live on a physical earth. Heaven for us isn’t in the clouds, it will be a real place that we walk and live on. Guess what? God has a plan for that.
So when does this resurrection happen? It is different depending on when you die and if you are a believer or not. I’ll try to keep this simple; we will have to dive deeper in a Bible study.
There are only 2 kinds of people from God’s perspective. The saved, and the lost. The believer and unbeliever. The living and the dead. In God’s view, it is pretty cut and dry. You are either written in the Book of Life or you aren’t. These 2 types of people have similar experiences after death, but different paths and eternal homes. Everyone will be resurrected, and the group you are in will tell us when you will get your new body.
Believers in Jesus and His sacrifice for us. (Those born after Jesus came are called the Church )
All members of the Church will get their new bodies at the same time.
Many members of the Church have already died, and are in spirit only form in heaven now. (I think of my grandparents and my in-laws up there to name a few)
There will also be a lot of members of the church still alive on earth, with a perfect spirit and sinful body when the resurrection happens.
When does all of this happen? The Bible tells us that the event that triggers the resurrection of all the Church is when Jesus comes down to the clouds. All the current church members in heaven will be there, and any member of the church still alive on earth will get whisked away instantly up to that same spot in the clouds. You may have heard this event called the rapture. It is when believers alive on earth somehow get shed of their physical bodies and their spirit is called up to the clouds with Jesus and all the other Church members from all time. We all get our new bodies at the exact same time, and we go back to heaven with Jesus and wait for the Kingdom to start.
So when will the rapture or resurrection of the Church happen? God tells us in His word that it can happen at any time, and there is nothing that needs to happen before it comes. This is a way for God to keep us on our toes, and for us to always be aware that it could happen today. We should always be ready for Jesus to call us home. This is the only event where we have no idea when it will start. All we know is that in a blink of an eye, we will all be changed. (resurrected) Whether you are here on earth, or already up in heaven, we all meet together and God gives us our new and improved, guaranteed to never break down bodies.
Unbelievers. (don’t believe in Jesus or His sacrifice, from Cain through the end of the kingdom)
All unbelievers from all of time will get their new physical bodies at the same time.
Many unbelievers have already died, and are in spirit form only down in Sheol/hell. (I try not to think about anyone I knew being there)
There will also be a lot of unbelievers on earth right before they get their new physical bodies.
So when do unbelievers get their new bodies? Not until after Jesus rules in the 1,000-year kingdom here on earth. After the Kingdom, and before the “new heavens and new earth” come, they will all stand before the judge (Jesus) and get their new eternal bodies. Yes, they get eternal bodies too, just like the Church. Again, its all about where you spend eternity, and unbelievers have a much different location. The Bible tells us after unbelievers all get their bodies and are judged for their unbelief; they are thrown into the lake of fire for eternity. A much different outcome for unbelievers who are separated from God for eternity.
There are other groups of people who get resurrected at different times. One is the Old-Testament saints. These are the believers before Jesus came. They trusted in God’s promise to bring a Messiah before they knew who He was or when He would come. They are all up in heaven right now in spirit form only. They all get their bodies right before the Kingdom starts. The other group is what many call the tribulation saints. These are new believers who will come to faith after the church was raptured and resurrected. They are alive during a very special period of time during the last 7 years of this age. More on all this later.
The problem is now solved! The issue created in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned and became separated from God, is now fixed for the believers. We will have a perfect spirit and body and will be able to be around our Creator forever. Unbelievers will always have their same corrupted dead spirit for all of eternity, and can’t be around God forever. Right now, you have a choice where you want to spend eternity. You also want to make that choice before Jesus comes to get the Church. I’ll have some more on that later in the book. There was a lot in this chapter. Re-read it a few times if you need to.
God sure makes it all sound so easy. All you have to do is believe that you need saving, and accept the sacrifice Jesus made by dying on that cross for us. If you accept the gift, then you are saved. Pretty simple right?
Think of it like a court of law and you are in front of the judge. You are up on trial for not paying your speeding tickets, and they want to throw you in jail. Before the judge can pass sentence on you, a rich uncle comes in and pays the fines and interest in full. If you accept his payment on your behalf, the judge is justified in letting you go because your fines were paid in full. Same sort of thing with Jesus and His death. We are already guilty, we will have to stand in front of the judge, and we are due the sentence of death. Fortunately for us, Jesus came and died on the cross. His blood was an acceptable payment for our debt of sin. The only thing we have to do is believe that Jesus did that for us. We have to accept that offer to pay our penalty.
Belief/faith is all it takes to be saved. Nothing more, and nothing less is required to spend eternity in the good place. But even a simple message like the gospel can get counterfeited by the world. Humans don’t like the fact it’s so simple, so they add rules and rituals. Man wants to work for things so they can keep a checklist and mark off stuff as they earn their way to heaven. They want to feel good about themselves and in charge of their own future. God doesn’t work that way. God says you can’t climb up to heaven on your own. You need Him to reach down from heaven and bring you up there. God says all that stuff you are doing to try and earn your way to heaven is a waste. That type of man based, work your way to heaven philosophy is what the Bible calls “religion”.
Religion is man trying to work his own way to heaven. God’s way is called grace. Grace is a gift. We don’t deserve God’s grace, but we have it anyway. There is a big difference between earning something and being given something. If man earns something, he feels good about himself and all the credit goes to him. If man is given something, the One giving the gift gets all the thanks and praise. See the difference?
Do you know how they train bank tellers and cashiers to spot a counterfeit bill? Do they bring in every possible fake 100-dollar bill out there and make sure the tellers know all the phonies? Nope, there are new versions of fake bills made every day, so they study the real bill. They get to know it like the back of their hand. The feel of it, the weight of it, the coloring, the texture, everything about that real 100-dollar bill they know. Since they were trained on the real thing, they can spot even the subtlest of differences when a fake bill comes across their path. This is how you spot false teachers and false religions too. You don’t study all the religions of the world; you just study the Bible. Once you know the Bible like the back of your hand, you can spot a counterfeit a mile away. Although I did spend a little time on some of the world’s largest religions over the past 10 years, it was very minor compared to the time I spent in the real deal Bible.
Let’s just use a little logic, shall we? There are lots of religions with lots of different rules. Only one religion (Judaism) has the right rules, but Jesus was the only one who could ever meet them all. So what does man do? Man creates rules that man “can” obey. The craziest thing to me, is that all religions build in an “exception” because they know you will break the rules. They tell you that you “have to” follow the rules to get to heaven, but when you break them, you can just say a certain prayer 10 times and you will be ok. If you forget to say the prayer to make up for breaking the rules, then you have to bathe 10 times in holy water. The rules say you have to go to church every week, unless you don’t, then you can just send us a big donation and you will be back on track to heaven. Huh? No, that kind of logic doesn’t work. God sets the standard to get into heaven, and it is perfection. You must be as good as God, 100% of the time, forever and ever, with no exceptions. This is an IMPOSSIBLE task for anyone but Jesus. This is why religions go away from teaching the Bible. Their pride wants to elevate man, while the Bible says God has to humble us before He saves us. You become humbled when you realize everything that Jesus did to save us, especially knowing we couldn’t do it on our own.
There is a common saying that most people think comes from the Bible. It is: “God helps those who help themselves”. Ha! That saying is nowhere in the Bible. In fact, it goes against the whole theme of the Bible. God says we can’t help ourselves, and that is why we need Him. Do you see what I was talking about? Look at what man does to try and get some credit. It’s like God won’t help us until we do our part first. Again, it puts the emphasis on “our part”. God says there is no “your part” it is all “His part” to get you to heaven. If there is anything man can boast about, the Bible says it won’t count.
In fact, just about everything the world thinks is true, is actually the total opposite of how God thinks. I call it opposite world. Here are just a few:
The universe in permanent, and we are temporary: I covered this a little before, but the Bible tells us this universe is temporary and will be replaced. The only thing temporary about us right now is our physical body. Our spirit, which is the real you, lives forever. (we also get that brand new body at the resurrection that will live forever) Fear of the world ending is very high on most people’s fear list right now. This is a fear Christians should not have since we know what God’s plan is for this place.
There are many roads/ways to heaven: There is only one (1) way to heaven and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. Why would God send His Son to die, yet still allow other ways to get in? Why would Jesus have to die in the first place if there are a lot of other options available? No, there is only one way, and those looking for a different way will fall short. Humans like multiple choice, but this a true/false question. Jesus died for you, and your faith in Him is the only ticket to heaven. True or false?
All but the worst of humanity get in to heaven: It will actually be quite the opposite, as most of humanity will not get into heaven. The road to heaven is narrow, and most will follow the wide road that leads to hell. This is just Biblical truth; God doesn’t save everyone. He wants us to be extremely grateful that we were chosen before we even existed, and to not take it for granted that He didn’t choose everyone. God wants us to see what we have been saved from.
We are nothing, and just another part of the evolution process of chance. I covered the creation account already, but don’t ever forget that you were created and that you have purpose. Remember why they want you to believe in evolution. If there was no Creator, there is no one we are accountable to. If we aren’t accountable to anyone, then we can live our life anyway that we want to without consequence. Sounds really good until the day you stand in front of the creator on judgement day and realize it was all bull.
God doesn’t get involved with this place; He just sits up in heaven watching. This makes no sense, as the Bible is full of God being active in His creation. So much so that He sent His only Son into it to save it. People say God just watches, because they can’t understand why God lets bad things happen. It’s hard for a lot of Christians to explain why God does some of the things He does, and why He lets some of the things happen that He does. I will point to just 2 things. 1. Adam’s sin cursed this place, and sin spread causing evil and bad things to happen. 2. Yes, God knows everything that is coming, and He could stop disasters if He wanted to. Do you know how many He has stopped bad stuff from happening? Me either, but I bet it is a lot, maybe 100 x what He let run its course. God knows all of history and all of the future, and we can’t even begin to understand why He does everything He does. One storm today that kills 40 people may end up being the disaster that brings many new believers to God who wouldn’t have otherwise. The Christians killed in the storm are much happier in heaven then they were here. Maybe there was a guy who drowned who was going to be a serial killer but God ended that with a storm. Someday when we get to heaven, God says we will know the whys. I can’t wait for that day.
God will be waiting at the pearly gates with a checklist to see if we deserve to get in. This is part of that greeting card knowledge I was telling you about earlier. Most expect God will ask us “why should I let you in?”, so people spend their life doing stuff they think will help convince God. There is no checklist for believers. Once you believe, you are in, and you go right to Jesus when your physical body dies. There are no pearly gates; that doesn’t come until the new heavens and new earth. We will have been in heaven for at least 1,000 years before the pearly gates come into the picture. If God asks you: “what have you done to earn entrance?”, just say “nothing, Jesus hooked me up with a VIP pass”. Lol The only thing resembling a sort of checklist is when all the unbelievers are judged after the 1,000-year reign of Christ as King. The Bible says the books will be opened and the unbelievers will be judged by them. It has no bearing on getting into heaven, it is just telling them why they are going to hell. More to come on all that.
If my life is going well, then I must be doing something right; if bad is happening, it’s payback for something stupid I did. This is that karma thing that people bring up all the time. We learn from the Bible that your situation in life has little connection to how God feels about you and your behavior at that moment. Many unbelievers live a very happy long life, while many believers live a life full of challenges and pain. Sin has consequences. When we are experiencing what some call karma, that is really us dealing with the ramifications of sin. Sin has bad effects, although God can help us avoid some of those effects if we go to Him with a sincere heart and ask for forgiveness. By faith in Jesus, all of our past, current, and future sin is forgiven; but the earthly consequences of sin are always in play. When things are going well, who gets the credit? If you say karma, that means you give yourself the credit, because you are so good, that good things happen to you. What we should really be saying is thank you Lord for this blessing of a life!
You can’t read the Bible yourself, because you need it interpreted by a holier person than you. Just think about why they would say that. Is it because if you read it yourself you may find out that they are hypocrites, and not following the Bible? Is it because they are making stuff up? God didn’t leave His Word for a few so-called holy people; He left it for all of us. We are the priests now. Don’t trust anyone who says you shouldn’t read the Bible or ask questions about what you are reading. Just look at your Uncle Bill… If this moron can read it and learn, then anyone can.
Jesus wasn’t perfect, He sinned like us. More people believe this than I would have ever imagined. Even a cousin of mine sent me a video of some preacher guy he listens to, and the guy thinks Jesus sinned. I couldn’t watch it past the 11-minute mark when he said it. I thought this cousin knew more about the Bible than I did, because he has religiously been going to church his whole adult life. If Jesus sinned, then He was really just like us and not God. If Jesus sinned, then His blood only paid for His own sin and not ours. If Jesus sinned, then we are calling the whole plan of God a lie. God tells us He would only accept a perfect sacrifice; if Jesus sinned, we have no cure for our own sin. If we think Jesus sinned, then we don’t know the real Jesus and that spells doom. There are probably dozens of reasons why people want to say Jesus sinned, and all of them were created to support a false agenda. I don’t know if my cousin believes what that preacher said, or if he didn’t catch it when he watched it. He sent it 3 years ago and I haven’t responded yet. Maybe there was a reason why? Either way, it goes to show you that studying the Bible is crucial to avoid false teachers.
God has secrets in the Bible only certain people can find. This is true, except the “certain people” is everyone who reads and studies it. There are lots of secrets because no one takes the time to read and study the Bible. Heck, I have probably revealed quite a few of these so-called secrets in my book so far. There are no secret codes, however God does use some numbers to symbolize certain things. For example: the number 7 is used consistently to mean 100% or complete, full. It is not guessing, it’s pretty obvious when you study the Bible. The number 6 = sinful man, 5 = grace, etc.
God wants His children to be wealthy, healthy, and happy. Why? What benefit is it to God? Will we be more apt to thank and worship God when all is so good that we don’t think we need Him? One of the worst positions to be in is a rich unbeliever who never has an occasion to need help. Sometimes it takes bringing people down real low before they reach out to God in desperation. Some Christians will be wealthy, healthy and happy, but that is the exception. Look how Jesus was treated when He was here. Do we expect better for us?
You too can have wealth and health if you just believe enough. They call this the prosperity gospel. If you name it, you can claim it. They say God wants us to be rich, you just need to ask for it and have enough faith that it will happen. Look at them, they have 2 mansions and a jet, because they have HUGE faith and asked God. All you have to do is test this theory out. Go ask God to give your uncle Bill a brand-new corvette. Keep trying. If it doesn’t happen, then you aren’t trusting God enough. Lol It’s all BS! The only ones getting rich are the false teachers. Think about what this does to someone in their congregation when they ask for something and don’t get it. They think Christianity is a scam because of preachers who lie and profit off their sheep.
We are all children of God: Not true. Only believers in the real Jesus are children of God. In fact, unbelievers have to go through a believer for their prayers to be heard. God doesn’t hear the prayers of unbelievers, because they are not praying to Him, but some other man-made version of God. This is why Christians are called priests. We are the go-between for the unbelieving world and the One True God. The Bible tells us to look at God like the best Father in the world. He only wants what is best for us, He won’t give us everything we ask for, and sometimes there are lessons that have to be learned the hard way. He does all of this because He loves His children, and because He is a good Father.
Jesus isn’t coming back. Why would they want you to think that? Is it so you lose hope? Of course, if you believe Jesus is coming back, then you believe the rest of the story. That story does not end well for the unbelieving world, so they will always deny His 2nd coming. If you have hope, then their scare tactics won’t work on you. Jesus has to come back. God promised the Savior would rule as king for 1,000 years from Jerusalem. God always keeps His promises.
The earth has been around for billions of years. We talked about this early in in my book, and according to the Bible, the earth is around 6,000 years old. There is a theory out there that I could see being a possibility. They say since God created the earth in 6 days, and on the 7th day He rested, we could equate that to the age of the earth when the Kingdom starts. Since the earth has had to work under the curse for (6),000 years, they think the next (1),000 years will be rest. (as in the 1,000-year Kingdom) (6)+(1)=7. Remember, 7 is the number for completion or 100% or fully fulfilled. That would be just like God to make it all come together like that to mirror creation week. The earth would be around for 6,000 years experiencing sin, evil rulers, wars, and death, then the last 1,000 years would be rest, because the world is at peace with Jesus as King. Interesting theory, I guess we will see sometime soon if it’s true.
Jesus was man who became God because He died on the cross. The Bible says Jesus was always God, then became man like us for a time. Some religions say the opposite; that Jesus was just a man, and what He did to save the world made him a god. When they say this, they have to ignore the Bible, because it says that Jesus is the One who created the whole universe. See, you always have to take away parts of the Bible to try and prove lies. The Bible is infallible, except in the hands of those who don’t read it or try to purposely distort it.
Pride is a good thing, and we need more of it. If there is one thing God hates and mentions everywhere in the Bible, it is pride. If pride was a 4-letter word, it would be the 4-letter word of the Bible. Lol Pride led to Satan’s downfall, and pride keeps many away from humbling themselves before God. Isn’t it interesting that in today’s world the word pride is celebrated like never before. There are new meanings to the word now, and a whole month out of the year is set aside to celebrate it. Boy, if that doesn’t hit home, I don’t know what will. Pride destroys everything. Read your Bible to see for yourselves.
If you don’t do (fill in the blank) you can lose your salvation. If you do (fill in the blank), you can lose your salvation. This passage below from the book of Romans tells us all we need to know about what, if anything, can take us away from God once we are saved. Nothing can, and the list includes everything you could think of including if someone pointed a gun at your head and made you denounce Jesus. Nothing can separate us from Jesus, because His spirit (the Holy Spirit) lives inside of us. The Holy Spirit is our down-payment or collateral, ensuring that we are God’s children. He wouldn’t put His spirit in us if we weren’t forever His. He wouldn’t write our names down in the book of life before He created the world, if He had an intention of erasing it later.
Romans 8:35,38-39: ‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
Your best life is now. Tell that to Jesus, the apostles, and the prophets. Tell that to countless Christians in heaven right now. I’m definitely not living my best life now. The truth is that your worst life is now, no matter how great it is. This life will pale in comparison to eternity in heaven. Remember, no stress, no hate, no fear, no pain, no work, and no death. I’ll take that over my best life here.
There are thousands of religions and false teachers out there, but they are all just pawns for their father Satan. You can always tell religion by the way they give man much more credit than we deserve. If you are looking for praise from the world, you need tell people what they “want” to hear. If you are looking for praise from God, you tell people what they “need” to hear. I find it very interesting that there are so many people who believe there is a creator God, but they just don’t know Him. Why do unbelievers even go to church? Why do the religions seem to prosper? Because the Bible tells us that everyone born has a conscience that can look around at this world and the beauty and know deep down there was a god who created it all. The don’t know who God is, but they instinctively feel there is someone. But, since they don’t have a relationship with the One True God, they search to fill that void through religion. This means that all of you, even if you don’t believe right now, know deep down there is a creator. You can keep pushing that knowledge down even further until you harden your conscience, but God will always be able to say you knew and did nothing to find out the truth.
Because you guys have asked for it, here are some truths about the spiritual world.
Angels are real. They are spiritual beings created by God for a purpose. Angels are sent out to earth to help God’s children. They are called ministering spirits because they take care of us. I can think of a few times that I am sure an angel helped me. One was a pretty bad car accident, and the other was when an old friend of mine tried to fight me. Both times, everything felt in slow motion, I was calmer than I should have been, and nothing in the moment seemed real. It’s hard to explain until it happens to you. There are remarkable stories of humans doing extraordinary things in times of crises or emergency, and I would bet angels are behind a lot of them.
There are different levels of angels, a sort of hierarchy. Satan was the highest, most powerful angel ever created. He was also the most beautiful and most cunning. When you see Hollywood portray Satan as some ugly beast or dragon, that isn’t anything close to correct. He doesn’t look like Sparky and carry a pitchfork like my favorite team’s mascot. He isn’t red, or black, or any color because He is a spirit being. Satan is the most beautiful angel God ever created. He gets way more done being an angel of light, then the prince of darkness. I can name at least a couple religions who say they saw a beautiful angel who gave them new words from God. If they saw anything, it was probably Satan.
Satan used to have the highest and most honored position in heaven guarding the glory of God. He got jealous of God, and wanted all the praise and adoration for himself. He wanted to be God. Satan recruited 1/3 of the angels and they rebelled against God. They were thrown down to earth sometime before the garden of Eden on earth, because Satan was here for that. We call these angels who fell from grace fallen angels or demons. 1/3 of the angels in heaven is a very large number. They are here, taking advantage of the fact their boss is ruler of this place for now. They seek to do nothing but destroy. Satan thought he had the upper hand when He indwelled Judas, one of the 12 inner-circle disciples, and betrayed Jesus. He soon found out that Jesus dying was part of the plan, and that Jesus is coming back again. In the meantime, Satan is busy creating all kinds of unbelief and doubt through false religions and false teachers. A little hint about the end: Right before Jesus comes back to rule as King, Satan gets rid of every false religion in the world except one.
Although there are some people who can communicate with the evil spirits out there, you should avoid trying to at all costs. Think of it like a drug, sometimes all it takes is trying it once and you are dead. It’s the same sort of thing with demons, because that is who these mediums speak to. If an evil spirit can find an opening, they will take it. Most people become possessed only after trying to barge into the spiritual world. Although the majority are probably fake, don’t mess around with fortune tellers, spiritualists, mediums, palm readers, or anyone who says they can contact the dead. The real ones, have real power behind them…Satanic power. I had a relative reach out to me because he felt like demons were tormenting him when he was trying to sleep. I told him to download the Bible app and turn it on so it reads it to him. I didn’t know what else to say, it was what I did every night to go to sleep. He tried it, along with praying, and it worked. I don’t know exactly what happened with him that night he called, but he is a changed man now. I can see the fire for God in his eyes that I never saw before.
Yes, demons can indwell humans. They don’t have as much incentive as you would think, because the Bible tells us once they possess someone, they can’t leave until the host dies. Does that sound familiar? It should, because when our physical body (host for our spirit) dies, our spirit is released and escorted to Jesus or to hell. Same sort of concept with demons. I’ll ask you this, is it just coincidence that most school shooters and mass murders kill themselves? If the demon inside them doesn’t torment them enough to kill themselves, they will be trapped inside that body for years. If that body is locked up in prison, what good would that do for the demon? This is why the evil humans involved in these atrocious acts almost always commit suicide. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same demon or two who are behind most of what we have seen in the US in your lifetime. It takes real evil to kill children, and that kind of evil is not a mental disorder. You can’t cure possession with Zoloft or psychotherapy. The good news is that if you are a Christian, you cannot get possessed. God tells us the light of Holy Spirit lives in us, and there is no room for the dark to enter us. Jesus cast out hundreds of demons when He walked the earth, and they are still here. Jesus also told us that towards the end, demonic activity will drastically increase. I’ll tell you more about that in a few.
Behind all of the different religions and false teaching out there is Satan. He is still causing chaos, because that is what he does. Satan tries to confuse who Jesus is and what He did for us. He wants us to think Jesus is not coming back, or that He already came back and we missed Him. Satan did the same sort of thing to Eve in the garden. He believes the more religions the better, because they detract people from the truth of the Bible. If Satan can prevent any new believers, or make it so Christians are ineffective, he thinks he is winning. Religions are one of the many tools Satan uses to try and stop God’s plans.
So what else does Satan do? He gets people to believe Jesus wasn’t really God, or that He sinned, or that you can be just like Jesus, or that Jesus was just a prophet or a wise man. There are many more I’m sure, but the only one you need to know is that Jesus was, is, and will always be God. Anything short of this belief would make you an unbeliever. Satan has millions of people thinking they worship the same Jesus that’s in the Bible, when sadly they don’t. See how that works? Satan is the father of lies, and the most cunning created being ever.
Millions of people think that Jesus going through all the pain, suffering, ridicule, and being nailed to a cross for us wasn’t good enough. What does that tell you about how highly they think of God? They must think He is a liar, because it is as clear as day in the Bible that the cross was enough. Second, they must not have a relationship with God, or they would have asked Him themselves. If you were God, and you sent your Son to die on the cross, wouldn’t you be pissed if the people your Son died for don’t believe you and want to add more requirements to weigh people down? God planned this all from before creation, and we humans are going to tell Him His plan wasn’t good enough? WTH? Talk about disrespect.
I touched on this in the chapter on the fall, and that is the truth that Satan is a created being. He is not, was not, nor will he ever be, equal to God who created him. Here is a simple example. Jack likes to build massive complex Lego sets. Jack decides to build this huge Darth Vader statue to go with all the others masterpieces he has created. Jack loves that Darth Vader, he dusts it off every week, and talks to him like a friend. Jack even put Darth in charge of all the other Legos to watch and make sure no one destroys anything. One day, Darth Vader decides he doesn’t want to be the one of the shelves anymore, and he wants to be in Jack’s position. (who wouldn’t, that kid is spoiled. lol) Darth decides to try and take over Jack’s room and gets 1/3 of the other Legos to start a revolt. Jack walks in and crushes them all within 10 seconds. There was no battle, there was no rebellion, there was no chance for the Legos. They were just created things, how could they be a match for their creator Jack? Get it?
Satan only goes as far as God lets him. Satan cannot go anywhere God doesn’t want him to go, and he can’t do anything God doesn’t allow him to do. God can destroy Satan in an instant, but He hasn’t, because God will use him and his fallen angels for His end of the age plan. Like Darth Vader in my example, Satan also recruits other created beings (unbelievers) to rebel against their Creator. I tell you all of this so that you don’t think there is actually some war between evil and good. There are some battles that God allows Satan to win, but the war was already over before it even began. But you should also respect those dark spiritual beings like Satan and the demonic fallen angels. They have a lot of power; much more than we do. Fortunately for us, they don’t hold any real power compared to the One who lives inside of us.
You guys have all seen the movies about the end of the world, with all the destruction and death, and a small group of rag tag humans fighting to survive each day. Usually there is only a small amount of people left because some major catastrophe, climate disaster, or nuclear war hit the planet. The earth is always dark and looks like a bomb just hit. The special effects during the disaster scenes are usually awesome, especially nowadays with CGI. Some of the things happening to the earth in those movies are not that far off from the things the Bible discusses happening at the end. At the end of this age, the earth and the universe will experience levels of destruction never seen before. The largest earthquakes we experience now will seem mild compared to what is to come.
There is so much in the Bible about the end-times that I am struggling to try and simplify it into a chapter. I figured I would put a quick list together here, and discuss what is most important to the Christian right now. The rest of the bullets below you will have to study on your own; or wait for me to do a Bible study on it. Here is what God told us is coming, but hasn’t happened yet:
The rapture/resurrection of the Church .
Elijah, a prophet from the Old-Testament will come back to Israel.
The Antichrist will start to come on the scene. He will broker a massive peace deal that will allow Israel to build their temple back on the temple mount in Jerusalem. (A Muslim mosque sits there now.)
There will be at least one more world war that will start when the antichrist takes power.
We will go from a world with hundreds of world leaders to only 10 world rulers, and they will all be under one man, the Antichrist.
Satan gets kicked out of heaven for good and is stuck down here. This is not good news for the Jews and any Christians still on earth.
Satan eventually possesses the Antichrist, and he sits on the throne in the temple like God used to. He goes back on the deal he made with Israel and desecrates the temple.
We learn that this period of time where the earth is being destroyed, and the Antichrist is killing Christians and Jews is called the tribulation period.
Before the 7-year tribulation period is over, most of the Christians who recently came to faith after the rapture/resurrection will have been killed. Some will die in all the disasters to the earth, and many more will die due to persecution from the Antichrist and for not taking the mark of the beast.
Satan, through the Antichrist, false prophet and the unbelievers still alive, will kill anyone who doesn’t pledge their eternal allegiance to him.
The last 3 ½ years of the end of the age are called the great and terrible day of the Lord for a reason. Satan will have his way going after and killing all the Christians and Jews in an unmatched period of martyrdom.
In the very last days, Satan and his army of unbelievers will go to Jerusalem to try and kill everyone in the city.
They enter the city and kill 1/3 of the people before the whole nation of Israel, will all at once, call out for Jesus to help. They all came to understand Jesus was their Messiah at the same time, and they mourn because their ancestors killed Jesus, and they think they lost their chance.
The minute Israel calls out to Jesus for help, He comes back and destroys the enemy in a flash. The example God gives is like a winepress. Satan and all of his followers are the grapes that God will squish so that all their blood comes out like the grape being squished in the press. It won’t be a pretty site, but there is a reason Jesus does it that way.
This whole conflict and more are what many call the battle of Armageddon. Turns out it won’t be much of a battle once Jesus gets involved.
After all the unbelievers in the world are killed, their spirits go down to sheol/hell as they wait until the end of the 1,000-year kingdom to be judged and sent to their permanent home in the lake of fire.
All believers on earth, and with Jesus from heaven, will enter the Kingdom and start to enjoy 1,000 years of peace and prosperity in Jerusalem.
Satan and his demons are locked up in Sheol/hell until the end of the Kingdom, when they will be let loose. They will gather all the rest of the unbelievers born during the Kingdom, and head for war to try one last time to defeat God.
God brings fire down from heaven when the enemies get close, and they are all destroyed.
Satan and his demons are then thrown into their forever home in the lake of fire. All unbelievers from the beginning of time are judged, given their new physical bodies, and thrown in to the lake of fire as well.
Next, we get a new heavens and new earth, and a new heavenly city of Jerusalem comes down from heaven and we live there forever. (Believers only)
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit will all live in the new place with us.
There will be no Sun, God will be the light.
Wow, that is a lot, and I didn’t cover a bunch of things.
If you are a Christian, the next event you are looking forward to is either going to heaven after your physical body dies, or getting caught up in a flash while still alive on earth to meet Jesus in the clouds. This is called the resurrection of the Church. All Christians are members of Jesus’ church. This event is the time when our bodies get back to the way God originally designed them…without sin. Without sin there is no death, and the new physical body we get will match up with our perfect spirit and we will live forever that way.
Did you know there is a judgement for the believers at this same time? It is called the Bema seat. Don’t worry, the Bible makes it clear that there is no condemnation that will be happening for the believers after we die, this is to judge the stuff we have done for God while we were here on earth. If God says our service meets His qualifications, we will be rewarded in the 1,000-year Messianic kingdom. The rewards are not spelled out in detail for us in the Bible, but they will be things we can use in the Kingdom. Some rewards will include positions in Jesus’ government, or some kind of leadership role. It could be the nicest house on the block; but again we aren’t sure. One thing we do know is that God knows how to reward those who do what He asks of them. I am sure we will wish we took Him up on the offer for rewards when we see what they are. These rewards will last forever; unlike any reward we get here that we leave behind when we die. I’ll take whatever rewards I can get for the Kingdom life.
Before you go rushing out to volunteer at the soup kitchen, you should know there are some disqualifiers God put in place to only allow certain good works to count for reward. Good works are things we do to serve God that the Holy Spirit inside of us is leading us to do. God knows our hearts, so if we are doing something for selfish reasons like to look good at church, or to brag to your friends, then it won’t be eligible for a reward in heaven. God’s insight will eliminate a lot of things done for the wrong reason. Next, God says we are supposed to do this stuff without letting anyone else know. I blew it a few times when I first started reading the Bible. Zach, Steph, and I went out and passed out a card with the gospel message I wrote out, and some cash to families in need. I posted it on FB, not to brag, but so you all could see there is charity we can do. I got all kinds of praise from the world, so I will lose my praise/reward for it from God. He says if we get our reward here, there will be no reward there. If it is possible, God says don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Don’t seek praise from men, but from God and you will get a reward.
So how do you earn these rewards? There are countless ways, it’s all about what God is asking you to do. Here are a few examples:
Tell a friend about Jesus
Live a life that gets others to notice so they ask how you do it.
God pulls on your heart to stop and give a few bucks to a stranger.
God wants you to volunteer somewhere and you do it without bragging or seeking praise
God wants to you be a loving parent who teaches your kids the Bible
You stick up for your Uncle Bill when you hear his little sister picking on him. (not sure about this one, but you never know…lol)
God gives each of us different ways we can serve Him while we are here and He is in still in heaven. Some of us will have a much larger opportunity to serve than others, but everyone will have the same ability to get max rewards. Billy Graham had a lot more time and people he could affect, but your rewards can be the same as his if you follow what God asks of you.
The one thing God asks of all of us is to be a reflection of Christ here on earth. That means living a life that others will notice, and give credit to God for. The only thing we can do here that we can’t do in heaven, is help unbelievers know who God is. That is why we are still here. God could have all of His children in heaven right now, instead we stay here for our whole earthly lives. The only way to have a chance at being a reflection of Jesus, is by getting to know who He is. You can’t do that without studying the Bible. You won’t feel the peace inside that radiates out so others can see it, until you know the whole truth in God’s Word. It will be hard to answer questions about the God you believe in when you don’t know much about Him. Make not mistake though, rewards are a bonus, not a requirement. Only faith can save you, but serving God now has an incentive that we should all strive for.
Let’s get back to that rapture event. Why does God need to remove the Church from the earth? Because something bad is coming, and it wasn’t meant for us. There are a few movies about the rapture, and they are usually called left behind or something like that. They are the same sort of plot as most of the end of the world movies, a small group of people fight for survival while trying to find out what really happened. The fight is against an evil force, this time the antichrist and the false prophet. I’m going to tell you that I think when the rapture happens, and all the Christians are caught up in an instant and brought to Jesus in the clouds, most of the world won’t even notice. There will be religious people all over the world saying it wasn’t the rapture, because they are still here. The news will cover it up, and all that will be left are a few conspiracy theorists who nobody pays attention to. If it happened today, there would be so many people left behind that most won’t even notice. God doesn’t plan for the rapture to be a mass awakening event that leads to millions seeking God, so it must not be a worldwide panic when the Church is brought home to heaven.
So when is it happening? The timing is a mystery, although you will see people all over the world try to predict the day. There is a pastor in Africa who recently predicted the rapture was coming. People were selling their homes and possessions because they thought they were leaving the earth soon. This happens every 10-20 years or so. People can’t accept that God wanted it to remain unknown for a reason. In fact, if you predict the date of the rapture, that guarantees it won’t be that day. This panic that the false teacher in Africa started could have easily been avoided if the people knew the Bible. The rapture is the only event that we can’t pinpoint or look for signs that have to happen before it. It could have happened a few years after the Church started, and it could happen today. We should always be ready for the day Jesus collects His Church.
If we knew Jesus was coming back 20 years from today, how would we do things differently? Maybe some of us would get moving on being a better Christian right away, maybe most of us wait until the last minute to get ready. Think of it like me and your aunt Steph when we plan a vacation. It could be 2 years away and I am already getting ready for it. I’m ordering things for the trip, planning the itinerary, doing my research of the place, and visualizing myself on vacation almost every day until it arrives. (Yes, I’m a nut) Steph on the other hand, doesn’t like to waste all that time. As soon as we get a few weeks away, she gets ready and we go. God wants us to act like Uncle Bill and think about and prepare for His return every day even though it could be years or decades or even a century or two from now. (I think it will be sooner than later, but I’ll be prepared either way) We need to be ready as if the vacation is today and we are packed and just waiting for our ride to get there. Jesus wants us always ready for His arrival, this is why He told us no one can predict the day.
Now we get to why God is pulling the Church off the earth. Because the last 7 years of the punishment Israel earned for breaking God’s law, will be coming soon after the rapture. Chapter 24 from Isaiah below gives you some insight into how awful life on earth will be and what will be happening to it. The book of Revelation then expounds on this chapter with more of the detail.
Isaiah 24:1-23
‘Behold, the Lord lays the earth waste, devastates it, distorts its surface and scatters its inhabitants. And the people will be like the priest, the servant like his master, the maid like her mistress, the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower, the creditor like the debtor. The earth will be completely laid waste and completely despoiled, for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and withers, the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth fade away. The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left. The new wine mourns, The vine decays, All the merry-hearted sigh. The gaiety of tambourines ceases, The noise of revelers stops, The gaiety of the harp ceases. They do not drink wine with song; Strong drink is bitter to those who drink it. The city of chaos is broken down; Every house is shut up so that none may enter. There is an outcry in the streets concerning the wine; All joy turns to gloom. The gaiety of the earth is banished. Desolation is left in the city And the gate is battered to ruins. For thus it will be in the midst of the earth among the peoples, As the shaking of an olive tree, As the gleanings when the grape harvest is over. They raise their voices, they shout for joy; They cry out from the west concerning the majesty of the Lord . Therefore glorify the Lord in the east, The name of the Lord , the God of Israel, In the coastlands of the sea. From the ends of the earth we hear songs, “Glory to the Righteous One,” But I say, “Woe to me! Woe to me! Alas for me! The treacherous deal treacherously, And the treacherous deal very treacherously.” Terror and pit and snare Confront you, O inhabitant of the earth. Then it will be that he who flees the report of disaster will fall into the pit, And he who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the snare; For the windows above are opened, and the foundations of the earth shake. The earth is broken asunder, The earth is split through, The earth is shaken violently. The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard And it totters like a shack, For its transgression is heavy upon it, And it will fall, never to rise again. So it will happen in that day, That the Lord will punish the host of heaven on high, And the kings of the earth on earth. They will be gathered together Like prisoners in the dungeon, And will be confined in prison; And after many days they will be punished. Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, For the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, And His glory will be before His elders.’
This chapter in Isaiah, which is in the Old-Testament, lays it all out for us in a very general, high-level way. Isaiah is telling us about the last 7 years right before Jesus comes back. In the Bible it is called tribulation, with part of it being the great tribulation. It is also called the time of Jacob’s troubles, and the great and terrible day of the Lord. These last 7 years will be a time unlike any the earth have ever experienced. Just look at some of the details in those verses.
-The earth laid waste, devastated and distorted, and humans scattered.
-There will be no class system, because aint nobody gonna care that you are rich if you are sleeping in a ditch.
-“All” joy turns to gloom.
-There will be as many people left, as grapes are left after you shake the vine. (very few) No one will want to be alive on earth during this time.
-Also notice that it talks about the curse in verse 6. This is more confirmation that the curse on the earth is still in effect, and will be until it is replaced.
This is a great example of how God worked when writing the Bible. Here is a chapter in Isaiah written around 700 years before the book of Revelation was written. In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, we learn the details of this chapter in Isaiah. God revealed His plan over time and through different people. He gave Isaiah this level of detail around 700 BC, then gave the apostle John the rest of the detail around the end of the 1st century AD. Think about it. If you had a plan that was going to take years to get done, but you needed to make sure nothing or no one got in the way of that plan, would you share the whole plan all at once so the world had years to try and disrupt it? No, you reveal only what needs to be known at each step along the way. God did the same thing when first announcing a savior would come. The closer we got to Jesus, the more the plan was revealed. Guess what, the closer we get to the end, the more of the plan can be revealed. There are parts of the book of Revelation that no one born prior to the late 1800s could have known, and only within the last 50 years or so has it become pretty obvious. Time tells all.
There are only 3 times in history that God showed mighty signs and wonders that the whole world could see and know they came from God. The first time was in Egypt, then Elijah and Elisha and their huge miracles, then Jesus and all the miraculous things He did while He was here. The next time the world sees such incredible power that they can only attribute to God, is during the tribulation period. At first, the people living on earth won’t know God is behind it all, but it won’t take long before everyone knows who is causing all the chaos and destruction. When they realize it is the creator God, they don’t get on their knees to say sorry and ask for forgiveness, they basically give God the bird and wait for someone else to help them. They find their “savior” in the Antichrist, because most will be happy with what he is doing during this time. It will look to them like the Antichrist is saving them from God’s destruction. They later find out it was just a short period of peace for them.
Just in case any of you are here during the tribulation, I put together a page of things to look out for that will tell you if you are in it. God gave us a list of things that have to happen before the tribulation period starts, so I will list them out for you in the back of my book. In the meantime, Jesus gave us some really good detail so we know when we are getting close to tribulation. He tells us that certain events will start to increase in size and regularity. Jesus compares it to birth pangs. When you first become pregnant, they are not really noticeable, but they get more severe, and come more often the closer you get to birthing that kid. We can also look at the pain that comes before childbirth as an afterthought when the new birth comes. The tribulation is painful, but at the end, a new birth: the Kingdom.
Here are the things Jesus said would increase in size and frequency the closer we get to the end. There is much more we can cover in a Bible study, but here are a few:
He tells us not to look for wars and skirmishes as a clue, but only world wars. No one ever thought we would have the first world war, but now we have had two. WWII was worse that WWI, and WWIII will be worse than WWII was. The pattern Jesus talked about is definitely there. Many people get worked up by any war that starts, and then try to show how its proof the end is near. Jesus said only world wars count, so the sign is foolproof.
There will be more famines in the world and they will be more widespread. The closer we get, areas that never had food insecurities will. Look up info on world famines and you will see they are much more widespread than they have ever been. Had Covid lasted much longer, famines would have been in most of the world.
Earthquakes is another sign God gave us. In keeping with the birth pangs theme, earthquakes will get more frequent, more severe, and show up in places they never were before. I pulled earthquake data from the government website a few years ago and the trend is moving just as Jesus said it would. The worst earthquake the world has ever seen is coming in tribulation.
False prophets will increase and mislead many. Holy cow, I can attest there are way more false prophets than real teachers of the Bible. I struggled to find Biblical based pastors and teachers, and I looked for years.
Lawlessness will increase and most people’s love with grow cold. Boy if this isn’t happening now, I don’t know what is. I just watched a Christian young man and father get shot in cold blood, and then his death celebrated all-over the place on social media, mostly from adults who influence our kids. If that isn’t love grown cold, I don’t know what is.
Lots of Christians worry that they will miss the second coming of Christ. Again, that fear can easily be removed if you read the Bible. God tells us there is no way a Christian will miss Jesus when he comes back to rules as king. We won’t be fooled by anyone claiming Jesus already came, because we know the truth. The Bible tells us that we will be with Jesus when he comes from heaven down to earth to rule. How can we miss him when we are part of the procession that will follow right behind Him? This is why the Bible tells us so confidently that we won’t miss Him, or the event. Remember, that all Christians alive on earth before the 7-year tribulation, are raptured/resurrected and in heaven waiting for the Kingdom to start. We leave to go back to earth with Jesus when he does.
Even the people on earth at the time will all see Jesus when He comes back. As you read from that chapter in Isaiah, the earth has been basically turned upside down. There will be no electricity, and the sun, moon, and stars, will not give off their light. It will be pitch black. Then, out of the blue, comes a light so bright it will be seen from East to West. Think of lightning, but constant without every stopping. The contrast is how dark the earth will be, and how bright the Son of God will be on His way down. God makes sure no one will miss Him.
The First thing Jesus does when He comes back is crush the antichrist/Satan and his human and demonic army. This is what most call the battle of Armageddon. It is Satan and his crew against Jesus. It won’t be a fair fight, and it will be over quickly. God then moves to clean up the earth after all the destruction over the last 7 years of tribulation, and we all go into the Kingdom and start with a huge feast.
After the Kingdom, when Jesus finally gets to show us what perfect rule is, this earth is destroyed and we are given a new one. There isn’t a ton of detail on the new heavens and earth, and the prophets of the Old-Testament weren’t given any insight into it. What we have is from the book of Revelation.
Revelation 21:1-4
‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them , and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” ‘
There is a new city of Jerusalem that will come down from heaven for us to live in. Check out the size of this city: It is a cube, 1,500 miles long x 1,500 miles wide x 1,500 miles high! Wait, what? The atmosphere in the new place must be much different than what we have now, or maybe our new eternal bodies can handle altitude differently. I can’t even image what that will be like. The best part of it all, is that we get to live with the full Trinity or Godhead. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit will all be with us. There won’t even be a temple, because God lives with us. There is One God, in three personages, that is the Trinity. God is One, but three. I don’t think anyone will really understand how that works until we get to heaven, but I can give you more detail in a study down the road. God the Father is not able to be with us here on earth now, or in the Kingdom later, because sin still exists in both of those times and places. It won’t be until the new heavens and new earth come that sin will be gone for all time. This why the Father can live with us there.
By now you should all see that the end is just the beginning. The place we live changes a few times, but we will live forever. Will you spend eternity with God or separated from Him? That’s the choice you have in front of you. Unlike what some religions will tell you, the decision needs to be made before you die. That is why there is always a sense of urgency to help people find the Truth. We never know when our day will come. We never know when Jesus is coming back for the Church, and we don’t want any of our loved ones to experience the last 7 years of hell on earth.
I could hardly sleep last night, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face all day. I have never felt like this before. EVER! I’ve never been this close to finishing anything with my writing. This is it! The last chapter of the book that took 40 years of “research,” but was written in about 40 days. Right after I finished writing the last chapter it hit me. I wanted to be super stoked, but all those failed attempts to write in the past flashed in my head. I held it back. I kept telling myself: “It isn’t finished yet Bruno; you still have a chapter left. Get er done before you get too worked up pal”.
Another sign that God commissioned this book, is how excited and relieved I am about completing it, even though I have zero expectations that it will ever get published. I could care less if I make a dime off of it; that is not why I wrote it. I wrote it for an audience of 6, not 6,000,000. In the past, it was never about the subject of my book, it was all about the money honey. I always looked ahead of the actual writing of the book, to the glitz, glamour and gazillions I would get when I was done. Flash forward to today, and I am just so thankful it’s finished! If this book never goes any further than to you guys, who cares? I helped God achieve His mission in my life, and in part of yours. I think that is pretty darn cool, and much more valuable.
I’ll have to ask God what He wants me to do next. Maybe He will want me to go back to work in corporate America, or maybe a job working with young people at a school or church. Maybe it will be more writing, or the Bible study like I used to do for Zach. Maybe now that the book is done, He doesn’t need me here anymore; or maybe He has a lot more for me to do and I’ll be here for longer than I planned. Whatever chapter in my life comes next, I can’t help but feel like a huge weight has been lifted from me! Maybe now I can finally get my life started. Lol
A couple days ago, your aunt Steph and I were talking out back about all the work that needs done around the ranch. (that sounds cool calling it a ranch even though the only animals we have are two mini doodle farm dogs) I casually told aunt Steph that I would start working on everything once I finish the book. She turned to me so quick I thought she was going to get whiplash. “What? You can’t wait for that.” I said “chill girl, I’m almost done. It won’t be that long.” It was a funny and surreal moment. I have said that same phrase to her: “wait until I finish my book,” hundreds of times since she met me. This time was different though, and it felt really strange knowing I was almost done. I don’t have any anxiety about what comes next. How could I? I just saw what God did for me the last 40 years. If I am doing what He wants me to do, I expect it will all work out and end up being what is best for me. This book is proof of that.
The world will tell you to never give up on your dreams. I am here to tell you that until I gave up on my dream, it didn’t happen. God wanted me to know that writing a book wasn’t the most important thing in my life. Once I realized that, the book got done. Once I put my trust in Him, and not in my future book earnings, my dream of writing came true. Sure, it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be, and the subject of the book isn’t anything I would have ever predicted, but that is how God works. He can turn all things to good; even me and my book. My old plans were much different, but God had the right one. The way this book came about takes me totally out of the picture, so there is no way I can get credit for it. See how that works? My whole life I took credit for any of the good that happened to me. Now, the biggest thing I’ve wanted to accomplish my whole life, I can’t even brag about. I can’t say “see dad, I told you I would be a writer someday!” lol.
I am literally sitting here stunned. I don’t know what to do now. I am so happy writing this last chapter, but I still can’t believe it is happening! What an amazing God we have! This is it kids, this is it! Uncle Bill’s book is done! The moment I started writing this book, the pain and anxious feeling in my gut was gone. I don’t even remember what life was like without that feeling…and now it is gone? Wow! My world has been a blur since the moment I wrote out the first page. I’ve spent nearly every waking hour working on it. I swear it felt like I was in some sort of out of body experience, because it went so quick and easy. I know I was getting help.
I had this poster on my wall for years. This was how I imagined my life ending up. I put it on my wall hoping that if I looked at it and envisioned it enough, it would all come true. Although it would have been cool for you guys to have a rich uncle with cars and a house like that, I would have probably been a jerk, and I definitely wouldn’t have let Jack, Miles, or Nikk touch any of those cars. I bet there are a lot of mosquitos when you live by the water too. Uh, no thanks…
God had a better plan for me; and instead gave me this place. What an awesome God! Had He given me the choice when I was 18, I would have picked the poster. Now, there is no chance I’d pick the poster because what I have is perfect! God knew better than me, He always does.
Ok, so back to business. The goal of this book was never to help me feel better now that I accomplished my life-long dream. The goal of this book is to help answer some questions you guys had, and to give you the truth from a source you can trust. I wanted to tell you how God orchestrated it all, so that you know how our God works. The hope is that I can play a small part in your journey to heaven. I spent over a decade behind the scenes planning, observing, and researching the material for this book. Material designed for you guys. The rest of my book is just an awesome example of a man trying to achieve something great on his own, only to realize he can’t do it without God.
Don’t get it twisted. God wanted me to write this book, but I am not the one who He wrote if for. God pulled everything together over all the years, just for you. Its possible that for some of you, this will be the closest you ever get to hearing the truth. For some of you, it will be eye-opening and get you curious to learn more. Some of you will read the whole book right away, some will read part of it then stop, and some won’t read it until later down the road sometime. But God has His plan, and it obviously involves you guys reading it at some point. If you won’t read the Bible, maybe He can get to read my book which is mostly about the Bible. Only God knows, and I can’t wait to see what He does.
40 years to write this book. Not even one of my efforts over the years paid off. It wasn’t until I let God take control that things started moving. God made it a long journey for me because everything I lived through had to be in here. I’m also a slow learner. Don’t forget that I had to wait the last 20 years for all of you to be born and grow up. All of the time we have spent together was not by chance, and was all part of God’s plan. I can’t wait to see what the next part of His plan is for you guys too.
So what is next for my wonderful, caring, cool, and crazy nieces and nephews?
If you believe what I told you about Jesus, then you need to get baptized. Baptism is NOT a requirement to be saved; just ask the guy on the cross next to Jesus. He was saved while hanging on a cross, and he never had the opportunity to get baptized. Even though baptism isn’t required to get to heaven, it is something very important to Jesus. He would tell you that He died on the cross for you, and you can’t even let others know you believe in Him? It should be the first act we do after we come to faith. We should do it immediately, and not wait months or even weeks to do it. The good news is there is not cutoff date. The offer to please God by getting baptized doesn’t expire. Maybe some of you needed this book to remind you. Well then, let’s go before the water gets too cold!
If the savior of the world asks us to do one thing to show we have faith in Him, what is to stop you? If you don’t quite know what you believe yet, that is fine…don’t get baptized. I am strictly talking to any of you who are believers right now. I can guarantee you one thing: if you don’t get baptized, God will find ways to keep reminding you until you do it. Just make our Lord Jesus happy and get dunked already, will ya? Do you think it is a coincidence that right as I am writing this last part on baptism, that your aunt Steph tells me it was 10 years ago today that Zach got baptized in grandma’s backyard? There are no coincidences, only God incidences.
Baptism is a picture of what happened inside you when you came to faith in Jesus. Your old spirit died and was buried, and you are raised back to life with a new perfect spirit. The water is symbolic for the earth, and dunking you under it is representing burial in that earth. You then come up out of the grave (water) alive in God. This outward act of baptism symbolizes the inward act of being born again. It also represents Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. It’s telling others that because Jesus died, and was resurrected from the grave, we will too. If you have questions, please let me know. I volunteer to baptize you wherever and whenever you want me to. Yes, this means I will come do it even if you live out of state at the time.
My best advice is to attack studying the Bible like it is just as important, if not more, than anything else you learn. If you do that, you won’t end up like your Uncle Bill, and having to wait until I was in my forties before I found real peace in this world. Because I know so much about the next world, and because I know when we are getting close, I don’t have that stress. Because I know that God is in charge of when I die, I don’t worry about it. Who cares? The most important thing is that I got to get this stuff written and in your hands. I got to be a part of the plan God used to bring Zach to faith, and I pray hard that I can help Him with you guys too. What else could I possibly want? What else really matters? I’m here to please the God of the universe, not the god of this world.
I’d like to help you guys and other young people with my Uncle Bill’s Bible Hour, and I feel like I can start on it as soon as I get done with this. Again, it all depends on what God wants me to do next. I guess we will see. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions or if you are ready to get baptized. I’ll answer your call 24×7, and I will respond to texts when I am awake and not napping like us old people do.
I love you guys!
Uncle Bill
Matthew 28:19
‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ‘
I am so proud of the young woman you have become! I am always watching from afar; and seeing you grow and mature has been pretty awesome. No matter how far away you live, or how long in between seeing you, I am always thinking about you. I have also watched your journey to find out about God. I know some of the so-called Christians you have seen in your life aren’t the best examples. I saw you get turned off by the rock-star like church services, and disappointed when you found a great preacher, who later had to step down over something he did wrong.
I was pretty zealous when I started reading the Bible. That can be a good thing, but it can also make someone come off like a “holier than thou” person. I tried really hard for the last several years to make sure you knew I wasn’t like that. I just sat back and waited for the opportunity to talk to you about God. This book is my opportunity. I know you have lots of questions, and I know you have seen the hypocrite Christians out there. God must have given you some great discernment to be able to spot fakes or hypocrites, because I saw you doing it before you even knew what the Bible said about it. I am overjoyed to hear that you are reading your Bible. I can tell you with 100% certainty that the Bible is God’s Word, there are no contradictions, and the answers are all there.
I am so grateful that you are my niece! You are so smart and of course beautiful inside and out. The passion you have for helping others in incredible, and I can’t believe you have been able to put all the cancer charity events together to honor your grandma. It just makes me so happy that I am related to you.
Love you so much!
Uncle Bill
Nikkolina
Yo Nikk, thanks for being such a great niece! You are such a bright light when you enter a room. I have watched how much you love to help other people; and your positive attitude is infectious. That is a gift young lady, and a very unique one! You just make me smile every time I see you. It’s like I still picture 6-year-old Nikk running and giving me a hug. You have never changed, and that is pretty remarkable. I know inside, or when you aren’t around others, it may not always feel so rosy, but the joy and laughter you have brought to so many people, including those you have served at work, make a huge difference in people’s lives. That is something to be incredibly proud of!
It’s funny how us old people work. I always think back to all the “what happened to Nikk?” times in my life. The bee sting, the broken arm, falling off the swing, and many more. You are so darn tough; and God wanted you that way for a reason. I admire the joy you have in life and how it sure seems to me like you don’t take any day for granted. We could drop you in the middle of any town or city in the world and within a week you would have a ton of new friends. People are attracted to you because of the gift you have.
God blessed me big-time when I married into the family and I got to be your Uncle.
I can’t wait to see you for Christmas. I am counting down the days. Give Jack a big hug for me!
I love you!
Uncle Bill
Jack
Yo Jacko. Right now, you are my favorite nephew named Jack. You might have some competition in the future if I ever get another Jack as a nephew, so you better be on top of your game. Lol Seriously though, it has been a privilege watching you grow from just a poor farm kid on Tatooine to the Jedi fly-boy you are today. You always crack me up. I don’t know what it is, but I can just look at you and start laughing. It has been that way since you were 2. Even funnier was watching you and Miles together when you were kids. It was like a comedy routine, where you were the comic and Miles was the audience.
Dude, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate our walks together. The fact that you continue to invite me to hang out with you and chat means more to me than you will ever know. (Well maybe now you know lol) Our talks are awesome and I think we have touched on just about every topic of the day. I still think we are going to do a podcast together some day.
I will always be here for you, as long as I am still here. I hope this book can answer some questions for you, and maybe get you to ask a few more.
Thanks for being such a great nephew!
Uncle Bill
Miles
Yo, what up? You are the man, Miles. Until Jack steps up and starts wanting to golf all the time, you will be my favorite. Lol I am just so darn fortunate (unlike our sports teams) because I got to spend so much time around you. Ripping on your pop wouldn’t be near as much fun without you in the mix. I am also very impressed at how disciplined you are with work and school. You always had the craziest memory. I couldn’t ever slip anything past you. If we wanted an honest answer, and the adults weren’t giving one, we would go to you. It was great getting to coach your basketball team with your dad that one year too.
It’s been pretty special to watch you grow up. Getting to hang out with you all summer golfing was more fun than any other golfing I’ve done. Even if we played like crap, I still had fun. Thanks for letting me beat you, and thanks for always agreeing with your uncle’s sports takes over your dad’s.
Let me know if you ever have any questions or if you need anything. I am always available for you my brotha.
Peace!
Uncle Bill
Kali
Yo, what up gurl? Thanks for being such a wonderful and caring niece! I have totally loved all the time we got to spend together while you were growing up. I am so proud of the young lady you have become! The way you help others and put others first is a really big gift God gave you. I always appreciated the birthday cards, and you are still the first to respond to any of us old people when we need something.
I can’t wait to see what God does in your life and where you go next after high school. Wherever you go, I hope it isn’t too far, because we need you around here to help keep Miles and Jack in line. You are funny and smart and an awesome part of our family. Thanks for making me smile! Thanks for putting up with my sister all these years. She means well. Haha!
I am always here for you.
Love you!
Uncle Bill
Riley
Yo. Sup? What u dewin? When I was looking through pictures for this book, you were in a lot more of them than your cousins. I think It could be that you had more sporting events to photo than anyone else? You also fell down a lot, and that made for some good pics. Thanks for being such a great niece. I am so glad your mom was too busy to hang out with you and we got to spend so much time together. Lol You know I think you a fire, and I thought that way before that word was cool.
I am very proud of the strong young woman you have become. You are wicked smart and when you agree with your Uncle Bill you are right a lot. Thanks for putting up with my nephew all these years, I know that wasn’t easy. Being the youngest out of all the nieces and nephews can stink, but you make up for it by being the coolest.
Reach out to me anytime you need me.
Love you!
Uncle Bill
TEAR OUT IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
Below are signs that the tribulation period (hell on earth) is here
There is a world leader or diplomat who will strike a peace deal that allows Israel to rebuild their temple on the temple mount in Jerusalem.
If Uncle Bill was alive and went missing before the peace deal happens, then you are in tribulation. (just check local hospitals first, I am pretty old now)
There is a prophet from the Old-Testament named Elijah. He is going to come back and get Israel focused on God again.
There will only be 10 people ruling over the entire world. They might be called kings, rulers, presidents or whatever, but the key is there are 10. Right now there are hundreds, so this will be a noticeable change.
There will be another world war. We are not sure if it will be the next world war or another after it. Most say it will be WWIII, because they can’t image much survival from it with all the nukes out there.
Famines will have been increasing around the world and in places no one would have expected. Food shortages will raise the cost of a loaf of bread to around $100 or an average person’s daily pay.
Earthquakes will be increasing, and you should have noticed them happening in places they never used to. The largest earthquake ever is coming during tribulation.
Plagues will be increasing, and most of the earth will be start seeing them. Tribulation will be the only time in world history where men want to die to avoid the plagues God brings on them, but are not able to. God ensures no one can kill themselves, or die in any other way to avoid His wrath.
If you are reading this and the things above are happening, don’t lose hope. Maybe this is the time God has planned for you to come to faith. Whatever you do, don’t take the mark of the beast. You will know it when you see it, because people will be killed for not taking it. God tells us death is a good thing during tribulation because your spirit goes right to heaven and out of that hell on earth.
THERE IS HOPE MY SON 