No. 456
The visitors say that one feels like in the days of the Messiah while visiting Emek Hashalom. The atmosphere of tranquillity is of another era.
THE VERY NEAR ADVENT OF MESSIAH
Some say that Hermann Bezner is eccentric. A German comes to Israel, buys a desolate piece of land, builds a settlement and expects the days of Messiah. The Messiah – he says – is on His way real soon. If you ask Joseph Schmidt what he thinks of Hermann, he will tell you that Hermann for him is an undisputed authority, upon whose word he relies. There are many these days who talk endlessly yet do little. Not Hermann, a man of vision and fulfillment. Meanwhile, until Messiah comes Hermann and Joseph till the soil in their version of God’s little homestead, and prepare for His arrival. The people of Israel, they say, have an important role in the Messianic advent. This people has to prepare itself spiritually to those beautiful days.
Emek Hashalom (Hebrew: “Valley of Peace”) looks more like a romantic dream than a reality, like a painting by a skillful artist. However it has been built by ninety years of uncontested ideal, solid faith, and thirty years of hard labor by Hermann Bezner, this pious Christian Zionist.
When Hermann bought this desolate and stone‑filled land, people told him: “You will not be able to settle in this place, which is beyond cultivation. You are insane to try and you shall fail.” Hermann replied that there is no place in the Holy Land that will remain unfruitful. “You need love and real faith, the only two agents imperative to the revival of the land,” he says with the quiet certainty of a person who is absolutely confident of his way. His firm serenity radiates over Emek Hashalom, over the fruitful orchard, the walking paths, the gardens and the fields... a celestial, Paradisiacal serenity.
“It is true,” says Joseph, “For us it is indeed a dream come true – the fulfillment of our faith. Joseph joined Hermann twenty years ago, and ever since then he has been building Emek Hashalom with Hermann and serves him faithfully.
Hermann, so it seems, accepts Joseph as a gift from Above, and although unrelated, their relationship reminds one of that of a prophet and his disciple, much like that of Moses and Joshua, or Elijah training Elisha to the forthcoming future.
Hermann is a devout follower of Charles Taze Russell, one of the famous Bible scholars and most important reformers who ever lived. Hermann contends that according to the Bible there will be three great events towards the coming of the Messiah. Charles Taze Russell, who continued the tradition of true Christians in supporting Zionism, was first to predict clearly the date of the first event, as the beginning of the end of the temporary gentile dominion, and the beginning of the return of God’s favor to Israel, which would start with the regathering of Israel in the Promised Land. Russell discovered that the seven punishments mentioned in Leviticus 26, are seven times 360 years, i.e., 2520. 606 BCE Israel was exiled to Babylon. Add to that 2520 we get 1914, the year of the expected end of the Exile of Israel and which also saw the outbreak of WWI, which made the return to Zion possible. The Holy land was liberated from Muslim rule, and the gates of Zion were opened for the Regathering, based upon the Balfour declaration, to which most gentile nations agreed.
Hermann called upon his Jewish friends between the years 1920‑1930 to leave Germany and migrate to Palestine, where, he said, a Jewish State would be founded. He also knew at that time that a second world war was impending, based on the prophecy of Jeremiah. His passionate plea fell upon deaf ears. Many Jews claimed that they were living in a civilized country, which they could not exchange for a plot of desert and go back in time and become as the Bedouins. History then took its course, making all of us thoroughly familiar with the tale of the Holocaust. Hermann too was persecuted by the Nazis, as they did all Bible scholars, claiming these were particularly dangerous, telling the Jews what to do. Hermann’s brother was sent to work camp and was subjected to various surgical procedures. Hermann fled to Austria, where he hid in a mountain farm.
During all this time he knew of the Nazi’s impending fate. WWII, tragic and horrible as it was, is the event that brought about the establishment of the State of Israel. The third event – the last one, which will enable the coming of Messiah – is quite near today. Until now there were preparations, says Hermann. The third event will give birth to the New Era. Hermann quotes from the prophet Ezekiel, who foresaw the war of Gog and Magog as the most colossal annihilation attempt of the people of Israel, which would expand into a global catastrophe. According to the prophet Daniel, this will be the most difficult period in human history. However, out of this inferno the Messiah will save true Jews and all men who revere and serve God (Malachi 3). It is then that Israel will begin to realize its global destiny under Messiah’s reign. Relying upon His Supreme authority, one of His first activities will be to enforce the nations to convert all their weapons into plowshares and tools, and nations will no longer learn to make wars. He will bring the real peace that nations long for, but alas, do not know the way to it. Then shall the peoples of the world say: “Come, let us go up to the House of the God of Jacob, He will teach us in His ways so that we may walk in His paths, for the Law will go out of Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 2) The earth will resume fulfilling the function it was made for, and will again become Paradise. Man will be granted complete redemption and live in true peace, justice and brotherhood.
When Judaism understands this matter and occupy the designated station, the prophecy of the End of the Days will come true. If so, why have the Bible students remained Christian? The solution to this question, responds Hermann, is a singular Jew – Jesus. When Jesus died, the Temple was destroyed. If you strip Judaism and Christianity of the rituals, all that remains is the personality of the Messiah. Abraham became the father of the nation when he was prepared to sacrifice his son. Jesus sacrificed Himself for Humanity. Here, says Hermann, Christianity is in the right. When Messiah returns, He will be Jesus.
Hermann now reverts to current affairs. He tells of the many visitors who frequent Emek Hashalom, approximately 10‑20,000 a year, youth, soldiers and others: “I tell them all this. We try to guide them in the right way, because the youngsters tend to lose their uniqueness.” To substantiate that statement Hermann uses the words of the former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, who said that the youth today stray off the Right road because of lack of values. This phenomenon is tantamount to a calamity, and a spiritual revival is essential. Hermann and Joseph confirm his statement and attempt to solve this problem.
Much of the blame, says Hermann, goes to the indecisive leadership of the people. The secular atheistic culture leads them to diminutive struggles for power and drives them into leading the people astray. In doing so they follow the ways of other nations. But Israel is not and cannot be as such. The Bible has assigned Israel as the Chosen people, and is therefore the only authority and real power source of Israel.
A Bible student from Germany is currently staying in the valley of Happiness. She heard of the place all the way to a little village near Stuttgart, and came for a short while to lend a helping hand. Is it not difficult for her – we ask – to be so far away from civilization? “No”, says she, “with the love I find here between one person and another, it is possible and even suitable.” Three Zionists, three gentiles, three Christian souls who came to the Holy land to live on a small, autarchic farm, in order to render the Jewish youth an example and to train them to their grand destiny – a destiny seemingly outside of many Jewish people’s range of faith.
(Translated in part from news articles by Shalom Zmirin and Amos Senthouse)
------------------------------------
THE GIFTS AND CALLING TO ISRAEL
“For this cause he [Christ] is the Mediator of the New Testament [Covenant], that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first Testament [Covenant], they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” (Heb. 9:15)
Paul Addressing Hebrew Christians
The Apostle, we must remember, was addressing Christian Hebrews who were in perplexity in respect to the Law with Abraham. Many of the Hebrews, therefore, after coming into Christ, accepting Him as the Redeemer, felt that somehow they, must still maintain their relationship to the Law Covenant, its ordinances, etc. The Apostle, in his Epistle to the Galatians, attempted to counteract this erroneous theory, which he calls a judaizing influence. He told them that if any of those who were Gentiles by birth should in their mistaken zeal and earnestness become Jews by being circumcised, thus coming under the domination of the Law Covenant, they would thereby be indicating that they had forfeited their standing in Christ; and, as he pronounced it, Christ would profit them nothing. (Gal. 5:2)
Paul Teaching Hebrews Broader Thoughts
In his Epistle to the Hebrews St. Paul wished the Christian Hebrew brethren to take the larger, broader, truer thought respecting the Law Covenant and everything pertaining to it – its sacrifices, its mediator, its Law. He wished them to recognize it as merely a typical Covenant; that it prefigured a New Covenant; that its mediator typified a better Mediator, The Christ; that its bulls and goats of sin-offering typified the better sacrifices by which the New Covenant would become operative, the better sacrifices being those of the better Mediator – Jesus the Head and the Church His Body.
Privileges of Gospel Age Those of Sacrifice
St. Paul had already pointed out that the privileges of this Gospel Age, so far as the Church is concerned, are chiefly those of sacrifice – that “if we suffer with Christ, we shall reign with him; if we be dead with him, we shall live with him”; that we must seek to copy Him in self-denial and self‑sacrifice and be baptized into His death, if we would share His Kingly honor, His service as the great Prophet, Priest, and King of the Millennial Age, to bless Israel and all the families of the earth.
Shed Blood Necessary Before Covenant
In his endeavor to make this matter plain (Hebrews 9:13,14), St. Paul points out that before the Law Covenant went into effect, it was necessary that blood should be shed: saying, “For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Here is a contrast between the institution of the Law Dispensation, the Law Covenant, and the institution of the New Covenant. And the first effect of this better blood which is to seal the New Covenant is to cleanse our consciences from dead works. The Apostle does not here refer to it as having been for all Israel, but for those Jews who had become Christians but had been bound by the Law previously, that they might see that now the true sacrifice had come; that this was sufficient to satisfy all the claims of Justice and put away from their minds all consciousness of sin, to assure them that all of their sins were thus covered and that they might now render acceptable service to the living God. “And for this same cause [that is, because His blood was sufficient to cancel all sin] He is the Mediator of the New Testament.” He has not only purged us from a consciousness of sin, that we may serve God and become members of the Body of Christ and accept him as our Advocate and trust in His finished work on our behalf, but He has by the same sacrifice made such an arrangement with God and with Justice as will constitute Him the Mediator of the New Covenant for all Israel. The Apostle is not here saying that the New Covenant is operative now, nor that we are under this Covenant; quite to the contrary. He is speaking of the Jewish nation, as we shall see.
“Called” of Hebrews Nine Not the High Calling
The remainder of the fifteenth verse (Heb. 9) declares, “By means of death for the redemption of transgressions that were under the first Testament [or Law Covenant], they which are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” We are not, therefore, to consider the ones here “called” as referring to those who receive the High Calling – joint‑heirship with Christ, the Spiritual Seed of Abraham – but we are to understand the Apostle here to mean the Jewish nation that was called – all of this Jewish nation who would come into accord with the Divine arrangement. The same Apostle (Rom. 11:29) says, “For the gifts and the calling of God are not to be repented of.” That is to say, God having called the Jewish nation to be His peculiar people, having made them definite promises respecting the blessing of all nations, has no thought or intention of abrogating those promises. Every Covenant, every promise that God has ever made and everything that He has ever done, He has foreknown its full import and its results, and He has done nothing hastily. Israel, therefore, is the nation which He has foreknown to be the one He will use in connection with His work of blessing all of the families of the earth; as the Apostle says (Rom. 11:27), “For this is my Covenant with them, when I shall take away their sins.”
The Blindness Upon the Jewish Nation Is a Mystery
In the 25th verse of the same chapter He informs us that the blindness upon the Jewish nation, until the fullness of the Gospel Church has come in, is a Mystery. God is now gathering out only a special few of the Jews and a special few from all nations to constitute the Spiritual Israel, to whom appertain the highest feature of this Abrahamic Covenant or promise; and then, as soon as this Spiritual Israel, which will constitute the Prophet, Priest and King, is complete, the Deliverer – taken from Jew and Gentile – shall come forth. That will be the fulfillment of the promise that “the Deliverer shall come forth out of Zion and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob,” for this is God’s Covenant with them, with the seed of Jacob; as we read (Jer. 31:31), “After those days, saith the Lord, I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah.” This thought is confirmed when we consider the fact that the Gospel Church were not all under the first Testament or first Covenant, but only the Jewish nation.
Jewish Nation Redeemed in a Special Manner
The trend of the Apostle’s argument, therefore, is that Christ, the Mediator of the New Testament, becomes such by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first Testament, or Law Covenant. In other words, the Jewish nation needed to be redeemed in a special manner before God could use it as His channel for blessing the other nations.
Israel Must Be Recovered Before World Is Blessed
Since the Mediatorial work or the Millennial Kingdom is to be accomplished through natural Israel, and since all the families of the earth are to be blessed through them, it follows that nothing can be done until Israel shall have been recovered from their present outcast condition. Then the blessing of the Lord will go forth and the Mediatorial work will be accomplished through natural Israel. We are to distinguish between the work to be done through this nation and the One who will do that work. It will be the Mediator of the New Covenant who will have the power to confer the blessings – the Great High Priest, the Great Prophet, the Great King, the Great Mediator. There could be no blessing outside of this Great One; and this Great One, as the Apostle Paul and all the other Apostles clearly show, is composed of Jesus the Head and the Church His Body.
The New Covenant To Be Made With the Jews
No doubt many Jews are now faithless and unbelieving because of the long period of blindness upon them, and perhaps in their hearts are hungering after the promises. When the light of the New Dispensation shall begin to dawn upon the world; when they shall begin to see the resurrected Ancient Worthies as recipients of Divine favor; when they shall see their brethren beginning to be blessed under the ministration of this new Kingdom, then many of the Jews who are now blinded and unbelieving will manifest true faith and be obedient and turn unto the Lord. But we are not to understand that any one will become an Israelite unless he has the faith of Abraham, sincere faith, trust in God, faith that will be manifested by obedience.
All Nations to Be Gathered Through Israel
Then, as the people of the various nations shall gather themselves to the Lord and seek to come into harmony with him, the way of approach will be by coming into accord with the Holy Nation – God’s representative Kingdom in the world – and thus they will come into harmony with the Spiritual Christ, the Great Prophet, Priest and King. Eventually, by the close of the Millennial Age, those who prove faithful will be turned over to God, even the Father. Such will then be fully in accord with Jehovah and fully in Covenant relationship with him.
The New Covenant Is Not To Be Made With Any Others Than The Jews, for no others were in Covenant relationship with God. The words “New Covenant” seem, therefore, to indicate the repetition of God’s favor to Israel under the better Mediator, who will bring the glorious blessings that they had expected under Moses, but failed to obtain because of the inability of Moses to make satisfaction for their sins; for the blood of bulls and goats could never actually take away their sins. The antitypes of these, the sacrifice of the Lord and the members of His Body, must first be accomplished before this New Covenant with Israel could supersede the old or Law Covenant, which it then will do.
Jesus the Testator
Hebrews 9:16 reads: “For where a Testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.” In the case of Moses the death of the Testator was represented by the slaying of the bullock and the goat. In the case of the Antitypical Moses, the death of the Testator is shown in the sacrifice of our Lord and the Church His Body. The ability of Christ to give a Testament or Covenant, or to make a Covenant, should also be seen. As the man Jesus He could not make this Covenant. Why? Because as a man – not spirit‑begotten – He could merely have given His human life for mankind and then would have had nothing left for Himself; or if He had retained His earthly life He could have established only an earthly Kingdom and never could have given eternal life to any one subsequently. He might have blessed them with wise laws and regulations and improved conditions over the present time, but never could have given them life and the perfections and blessings that He will be able to give under the New Covenant.
How the Lord Became a Testator
In order to be a Testator and give eternal life to the world, it was necessary that our Lord should carefully follow the Plan that God had arranged: First, by His own obedience He should demonstrate His loyalty to God and receive life on the Divine plane as His reward; second, that then, by taking up His human life which He did not forfeit in anywise, He should have that human life and its rights to give to Israel and through them to all mankind. He is thus a Testator. He is thus one who bequeaths something to others. He bequeaths it not while He is alive, as a gift, but He gives it as a Testator, as that with which He parts in death. So our Lord Jesus, as the Great Mediator of the New Covenant, will give to mankind the human rights and privileges to which He had a right by virtue of His perfect obedience to the Divine Law. He invites us, not to share those rights with the world, not to come under His Mediatorial reign and be sharers in restitution privileges, but, according to the will of God, to do something else, viz., to join with Him in becoming Testator, to lay down our lives and thus be sharers with Him in the spirit of His great work, that we may also share with Him in the actual features of that work during the Millennium.
Imputation of Merit for Purpose of Sacrifice
The very first difficulty encountered is that we, unlike Him, have not perfect bodies that we could give as perfect sacrifices; hence God’s arrangement for those who have this sacrificing attitude of mind is that they may be dealt with by the Lord Jesus and that He may, as their Advocate, impute to them His merit, His restitution rights, to make up for, to offset, their blemishes and imperfections, that they may offer unto God a sacrifice that would be pleasing. We see that He does not give to these who are now called, either the Mediatorial blessings of the Millennial Age or the restitution conditions which that Mediatorial reign will confer. He gives to them that which will serve His purpose for them much better; viz., an imputation of His merit for past sins, to allow their sacrifice to pass the Divine propitiatory satisfactorily. Even then their sacrifice would prove imperfect and unsatisfactory because of inability to carry it out to a completion, did He not continue to be their Advocate. With every blemish and imperfection that is unwillingly theirs they can go to Him as their Advocate and obtain mercy and have the cleansing from all sin through the merit of His sacrifice.
The Jews “Will Obtain Mercy Through Your Mercy”
Thus we see the great Testament which is in Christ’s blood and to which He refers, saying, “This is my blood of the New Testament.” Instead of applying that blood of the New Testament to the world or to Israel, He applied it first for the Church. It must all pass through the Church, so to speak. “Drink ye all of it”; be ye all sharers in My cup, for unless ye are sharers in My cup ye cannot be sharers in my life. It is His cup; and He gives us a share of it. We are not worthy to have any direct dealings with the Father, but the Father, nevertheless, had us in mind from “before the foundation of the world,” as the Apostle says. (Eph. 1:4) Hence we are not to understand the Mystery – the selection of the Church, the Body of Christ – as being an amplification of the original Divine Plan, but merely the carrying out of a part of that Plan not previously disclosed or revealed.
All of Gospel Age Required to Drink “Cup”
So, then, it requires all of the Gospel Age for the Church of Christ to drink of His “cup” and be “baptized into His death.” When the last member shall have drunk of this cup and shall have been baptized into His death, and shall have finished his course, then all the sufferings of the Priest, Head and Body, will have been accomplished – the sufferings to which the Lord refers through the prophets as “the sufferings of Christ and the glory that shall follow.” The sufferings began with the Head and have continued all the way down to the members of the Body; and as soon as these sufferings shall have been finished The Christ will be crowned with glory, honor and immortality beyond the vail.
Participation in Sacrifice Necessary for Participation on Divine Plane
When we drink of this cup of the New Testament – His blood or sacrificed life – we have communion (participation) in the death of Christ. (1 Cor. 10:16,17) We are also to be participants in His special life on the Divine plane (1 John 3:2), and thus sharers with Him in this work of making the Testament, or Covenant, which will go to Israel and through Israel to the world. This is further admitted by the Apostle in Romans 11:25‑28. Speaking of the time when Israel shall be recovered from their sins, when the Deliverer, The Christ, Head and Body, “shall come forth out of Zion and turn away ungodliness from Jacob,” when God will make His Covenant with them and take away their sins, the Apostle adds, “They shall obtain mercy through your mercy.” (Rom. 11:31)
Mercy of God Operating Through Jesus and Church
This will be the mercy of God operating through Jesus and the mercy of Jesus operating through the Church. So it will be God’s mercy in one sense; it will be Jesus’ mercy in another sense; and it will be the Church’s mercy in a third sense. This mercy will go to the Jews. What mercy is this? It is this New Testament. How? Through the death of the Testator, Christ the Head, and the Church the Body. And what will Israel get by this Testament or Will? The earthly life and earthly rights which The Christ laid down in sacrifice: all will go to Israel. All those rights to life eternal, and all those things lost in Adam and redeemed by Christ, will go to Israel alone – in fact, to none of them but Israelites, indeed. So during the Millennial Age it will be necessary for all mankind to come to these people of God to get eternal life and to share in this Testament or Will of Christ – in order to become Israelites indeed, that they may thus be heirs of this Will, which gives eternal human life and all the earthly rights which Jesus had and sacrificed, and which He imputed to us, and allowed us to join in sacrificing together with Him.
(What Pastor Russell Taught, pages 202-208)
========================
QUESTION OF GENERAL INTEREST
QUESTION – It has been said when Jesus “gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1 Tim. 2:6) that He bought the whole world. Is that correct?
ANSWER – No, Jesus had not bought the world – or even the Church – when he gave Himself a Ransom at His crucifixion. It was only after He ascended up to Heaven, and deposited His merit with the Father, that His merit was loaned to the Church, at which time He bought the Church. “Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit [mind], which are God’s.” (1 Cor. 6:19,20) The price for this purchase was His “own precious blood.” (1 Peter 1:19)
This truth is well typified in the Atonement Day service, when the blood of the bullock was sprinkled on the mercy seat of the ark in the Most Holy. The Most Holy in that performance typified Heaven itself. Thus, it is seen that purchase of the Church was made in Heaven.
So far as the world is concerned, Jesus indeed did give Himself a ransom for them – “to be testified in due time.” The “due time” has not yet arrived. During this Gospel Age the purchase price (His merit) has been imputed to the Church; and cannot be used for anything else until that merit in its entirety has been freed from its application to the Church. However, it is embargoed for the tentatively justified; and that embargo must also be lifted before any application can be made for the world in general.
When it is entirely freed, it can then be used to seal the New Covenant, under which the world will be “redeemed from death, ransomed from the power of the grave.” (Hosea 13:14) Then the world will be bought with the same price (the precious blood of Jesus) as was applied to the Church. When the last restitutionist has been perfected, then that merit will have been completely consumed; there will no longer be any need for it.
At present no one can make an acceptable consecration until tentatively justified; in the restitution process there will be no tentative justification; when the merit has been fully and properly applied, it will result in actual justification. In the case of Cornelius he had been consecrated for some years before his consecration was accepted three and one half years after Jesus death, because the “due time” had not arrived for him until then, but his prayers and consecration were held in remembrance by God until the “due time.” One great reason for so much error is due to the fact that men have not reasoned correctly on the “due time.” When John Wesley – great and good man that he was – preached “the spirit and the bride say, Come,” he was a few hundred years ahead of the “due time” for application of that text, because there was not yet any “bride” that could declare the truth he was trying to preach. It has been properly stated that consecration is always in order, but the purpose for which that consecration is made determines its real validity. During the Gospel Age consecration is “unto death” – and for those who will deny themselves and follow in His footsteps; but in the Kingdom it will be consecration “unto life” – no sacrifices required or permitted.
There is a very distinct demarcation between justification now and what it will be under the New Covenant. No one has the ability to attain physical perfection now. Of Abraham it is said, he believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. He was not actually righteous, he was merely reckoned righteous. But when the Highway of Holiness is opened, the restitutionists will then advance toward actual physical perfection – a glorious prospect indeed!
========================
LETTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST
Dear Sister Emily,
Let me finally answer your nice letter of March 23. This year I celebrated Memorial on “your date.” There were three dates this year – Dawn and Herald usually concur, but not this year – Dawn, Herald and yours. I was alone with my Lord, as often is the case. I read the chapter in the sixth volume and notes I took on a splendid Memorial sermon by a brother.
Thank you for the extra copies of No. 453, New and Old Covenants Israelitish. One daughter phoned me and said, “Why did you send this to me?” She is very negative about my talking the Truth and thought I had singled her out. I answered that the article about Israel was so interesting that I had sent one to all my children, and aunt and another friend. Then she calmed down and was all right. She conforms to the social events in the community and does not want anyone to think she is “odd or queer.”
My Mormon said it was so good and thanked me. His wife is very negative about anything not of the Mormon Church. The thought came to me that when the Truth further advances in the earth, he will be able to witness effectively to the Mormons because he will understand their views also.
My oldest daughter and husband have changed churches again. They cannot find one to really and truly satisfy them, and I rejoice and stand patiently by. One day she said, “Mama, I will have to say that we admire the way you have taken a stand for the Truth. Year after year you keep on whether anyone comes to meet with you or not.” I treasure this in the depths of my heart. She is not convinced for sure that there is no “eternal torture” and she thinks WORKS are very important. She cannot SEE the works I do in writing, prayers and study.
Some years ago, one of her daughters said, “I want to embrace Grandma’s faith.” Well, the battle was on and she purged her bookshelves of all Divine Plan literature etc., and they had nothing to do with us for a couple of years. My grandchild said to me, “I want to come see you Grandma, but Mama won’t let me.” Then in the last terminal phase of my husband’s illness, they returned and had their minister visit us. My husband witnessed on his death bed and finally the minister said, “I do not understand all your views, but I see you have something special and I will no longer oppose it.” He often came and sat with my husband so I could go to the store for groceries, etc.
My sister in California is strong in the Dawn and has two babies 18 months apart and two stepchildren, and though she enjoyed the article she is not ready yet to be on a mailing list.
My sister in Texas has left the Truth and works for “Missionaries for Asia.” She lives with her son. She enjoyed the specific Israel article. The son’s family attend a Pentecostal Church. Years ago when he visited he saw his mother’s old “Battle of Armageddon” (fourth volume) in my bookcase, and I gave it to him.
Did I thank you for the mustard seed bookmarker? We forget how tiny the seed is.
Love and prayers, ------- (SOUTH CAROLINA)
=======