Thank You

[Craig]

I will try to be brief as i cannot contain the joy in my heart at studying the scriptures since discovering your site about a month ago.  I cannot remember just how i came across your site but at first i was taken aback by the headings and the topics. They looked blasphemous at first glance, and the first couple of things i read, i thought, this cannot be right; it's not what i understood to be what word of God says.

But somehow, over the next 2 days, i could not stop thinking of what I'd read because even though it did not agree with what I'd been taught to believe, I cannot fault it, unless if i was to cheat on my intellect.

So somehow the Lord drew me back to your site and i began to read and study earnestly, even checking out verses through my e sword bible with its many translations, dictionaries, etc etc.

The more I study the more joy that grows in my heart; I can hardly contain it, even as I write this. After coming to the Lord in 1993, it is almost like I'm reading the Bible for the very first time again. I find myself like a kid again, saying "wow" how could I have missed the meaning of that scripture, it is so obvious!

I had just finished reading "The Lake of fire" part IV and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I have read the new testament right through at one time before but today, scriptures like  (I Tim. 4:10). Was like a new revelation to me. The simple explanation of Brimstone brought great joy to me.

I always knew that the Tithe thing was a farce in the New Testament as I could not find any New Testament scriptures for it. You have made that even clearer to me.

I have also read your paper on Lucifer, thanks for pointing that out.

Just a little history about me Ray...(hope you don't mind this long e mail)

I came to know the Lord Jesus in 1993 after about ten years of being in a wilderness of drugs and other stuff. I had an encounter with Jesus one night in a drug house and as a result my addictions came off me in one night.

I then started going to a local church and started learning all the "christian things". At three different times in the next three years the Lord gave me, through 3 different speakers, a verse.  2 Tim 3;15. To study and to correctly divide the word of God. At this time I was working in the Forestry department in a little town in New Zealand.

After cleaning myself up and having a new outlook on life I put myself through University and came out with a Bachelor of Education degree  in the year 2000. I have thus been a school teacher since 2001. The last 4 has been at a Christian School which I have very much enjoyed.

However I have always been troubled at various times by some of the teaching and practices that I have come across in the churches I had attended. Things like the tithe; how about those that never heard of Jesus; those who were born into Buddhism, Islam etc etc; those people that died in the great Flood, are they now roasting in hell? My stepdaughter who died in a freakish drowning incident on 1997, she was not a spiritually filled born again Christian at the time. The list goes on Ray...

And you have probably heard of the quick fire answers that are often given about these difficult things. "Well, you just have to wait and ask the Lord when you get there".

You know I thought I was doing a good job about reading and studying the Word until this year. The Lord has been pressing that scripture again on my heart (2Tim 3:15) since the beginning of this year.

Somehow, I came across your site and I have been delighted about the way in which you communicated the truth of Gods word. The contradictions I found before are now starting to disappear and I have not enjoyed reading and studying as I am now.

I began running a home church at the beginning of this year (before I came across your writings) to cater to my fellow rugby players who found it difficult going to church and it has been going well. Yesterday I shared, and I used some of your materials from "What happened to the church Jesus built?" I hope you don't mind.

I have also found myself not being so quick to answer my student's questions about hell, heaven and those important issues until I was sure that what I was saying is biblical.

Again, thank you very much Ray. God bless you and your family

Tom


Dear Tom:

Thanks for sharing your story with us, Tom.  You are welcome to use everything on our site. It is free to all. We pray that your Bible study encourages others as well.

God be with you,

Ray