My Israel

Truth and Revelation

 My assumption when I joined the church was that the church was interested in truth wherever it may be found. The missionary effort of the church is unparalleled and they put great resources in play to share what they understand is the truth with the world. I did the same thing with the new truths that I found, I began sharing what I had found over the pulpit and during home teaching visits. I was surprised at the response, not from the general congregation but from the leadership. I was, as I stated earlier, very devout and would frequently bear my testimony on fast Sundays.

I recall one fast Sunday that was in close proximity to the signs in the heavens outlined in Revelation chapter 12. I spoke a bit on this topic, and at the time the Stake President's theme was becoming more spiritually prepared. I spoke as I was inspired by the spirit and I said basically that the time to physically prepare was past and that we need to turn to preparing ourselves spiritually. The Stake President was presiding at this sacrament meeting, but took no action. However, the following Sunday I was publicly censured by the Bishop at the direction of the Stake President for preaching false doctrine. This troubled me a great deal and I didn't understand what I had said either at the time. A month later just before fast and testimony meeting I was summoned to the Bishop's office and basically asked not to bear my testimony (they were in fear of a rebuttal from me, which I was in fact prepared to give.) I was also interrogated about my beliefs and I told the Bishop I would only speak what I believed to be true. But, Yehovah works in mysterious ways...

It wasn't until over a year later that I began to understand why I was inspired to say what I said. About a year later, Michael, a Category 5 hurricane visited our area and caused great devastation. This storm went quickly from a tropical storm to a powerful Category 5 hurricane. There was little if any time to prepare physically for this tragedy. We were out of town the weekend before the storm and came home late Monday evening. I spent the evening searching for gas and additional gas cans for my generator. We filled our 55 gal water container with fresh water. Less than six months previous I was impressed to have a hand pump installed on my irrigation system. These physical preparations proved very helpful, but still inadequate.   

 Because of our late return and the short time, the hurricane took to increase in intensity from a Category 3 to a Category 5 (actually announced as a Category 4, but we expect it to be recategorized to a 5 soon) the time to evacuate had passed. Our only choice was to ride out the storm. During the peak of the storm the eyewall was over our home for about four hours. It was terrifying, we had windows break out in several rooms and we could hear trees falling (we didn't know what it was at the time) and other sounds as debris and tree limbs pelted our home. This entire time I was praying to Yehovah to make our home a migdal oz (strong tower in Hebrew, see Psalm 61:3). It was not until several months after the storm that I was reflecting on the words I had been inspired to speak and realized that the words I had spoken had come to pass! There was little to no time to prepare and our physical preparations were woefully inadequate and we were left with nothing but our spiritual preparations and prayer. As I realized this I felt vindicated and praised Yehovah!