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A SCRIBE FOR THE LORD
Copyright © 2006 Trumpet Ministries, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
I have decided to give an account of my Christian walk in the hope that it will be a help to others. Truly, from the time I put my faith in Jesus Christ more than fifty years ago the Lord has proved His faithfulness again and again. Perhaps by writing down some of the insights and experiences the Lord has sent my way, younger believers, who will be required to face the challenges of the years to come, may be inspired and encouraged.
Table of Contents
In Bible School, and Then, Revelation
The Continuity of the Testaments
The Four Aspects of the Divine Decree
Grace and Faith Versus the Law of Moses, not Versus Righteous Behavior
The Manifestation of the Sons of God
Responding to the Vision of God
Shattering the Power of the Saints
Survival and Security, Worship, and Achievement
The Three Stages of Redemption
A SCRIBE FOR THE LORD
I think the Lord is prodding me to write my memoirs. My close friend and the editor of my writings, Eddie Reiter, has been after me to start on an autobiography. However I have not felt free until now to take the time to pull together some thoughts about the past, present, and future.
What excuse do I have for assaulting your mind with an account of my life? None, really. Except that the Lord has shown me a few concepts over the last decades that I believe will one day be in the possession of many Christian believers, and a few people might be curious about what kind of individual wrote these things. I am not implying by this that the Lord’s Word comes only through me, but I do think it is true that Christ has given me a small part to play in this great revival of the last days.
It is true of all major revivals that they include diligent repentance, worldwide evangelism, and a step forward in the understanding of the Scriptures. These three aspects will be true, I believe, of the harvest rain that even now is upon us.
It appears that a fullness of the spirit of power and revelation rested on the Apostles of the Lamb. When they died, however, it may be true that the religious leaders who followed them did not inherit the mantle of revelation.
Distinguished scholars, such as Jerome and Augustine, worked with the writings of the Apostles but did not produce texts having the same authority.
Perhaps we all are aware of the politicizing of Christianity that occurred under Constantine the Great. In order to make Christianity acceptable to the masses, various prevailing religious ideas were adopted into Christian thinking, such as the concept of the holy family. Whether due to the philosophy of Gnosticism, or the influence of other religions, eternal residence in Heaven became firmly established as the goal of salvation. Christ became man’s ticket, as it were, to a better life after death.
The Prophets of the Old Testament never spoke of eternal residence in Heaven as the destiny of the righteous. John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, and the Apostles proclaimed the Kingdom of God. The vision of eternal residence in Heaven as the goal of salvation is not present in either Testament.
Since the spirit of revelation and power of the original apostles was not passed on, scholars wrote their opinions of the apostolic writings. From that time forward it seems that a God-given interpretation of the Scriptures was not prominent. The Word was sealed.
Then, at the time of the Protestant reformers, a glimmer of light appeared. We all know how impressed Martin Luther was with the foundational revelation, "The righteous shall live by faith." This revelation threw doubt upon the custom of the sale of indulgences as well as the whole idea of our acquiring righteousness by our religious works.
Unfortunately, there is death in the pot. Today we interpret "The righteous shall live by faith" as meaning if we profess belief in the fundamentals of the Gospel it does not matter how we behave. We are saved by forgiveness alone without reference to any moral transformation.
From the days of the Reformers until the turn of the twentieth century, the meaning of the New Testament has unfolded. The priesthood of the believer, water baptism by immersion, the born-again experience, the literal return of Christ have been added to our understanding.
Then, at the turn of the century, the Holy Spirit began to impress fervent believers that speaking in tongues is for today. Since speaking in tongues is now practiced in many of the major denominations, the twentieth century may well be termed "the Pentecostal century."
In the middle of the twentieth century there came an increased understanding of the gifts of the Spirit. Several ministers demonstrated gifts of healing and miracles. The most spectacular of these, in our opinion, may have been William Branham.
Can you see that the several refreshings that have occurred since the time of the Reformers have included sincere repentance, worldwide evangelism, and a step forward in the unfolding of the meaning of the Scriptures? This certainly has been true of the Pentecostal revival.
Now we are entering a new century. While all of the previous understandings are still valid, God is adding something new. We are close to the return of the Lord. The tares of wickedness are coming to maturity, meaning that Satan is coming to maturity in people. The wheat of righteousness also is coming to maturity, indicating that it is time for Christ to come to maturity in the saints.
God’s response to the increasing wickedness in America and the rest of the world will not be an unscriptural "rapture" to enable His witnesses to flee from the earth at the time of earth’s greatest need. Rather, God’s response will be to greatly increase the Presence of Christ in the saints so they always are more than conquerors. Isn’t this really a better vision?
We know from the pattern of the feasts of the Lord that Christ will come to His Church in order to declare war on His enemies in His people Also, He will train us in warfare so we may appear with Him and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.
He will help us drive from our personality all of our love for and trust in the spirit of the world; all of the lusts and passions of our flesh, soul, and spirit; and all self-will, rebellion against God, and stubbornness.
Christ will be formed in us to a far greater extent than is true of most believers in our day. Also, the Father and the Son will come to dwell in that which has been formed in us.
So we are looking for diligent repentance, worldwide evangelism, and an unfolding of the Scriptures. These three aspects always are present when the Divine refreshing is given to us.
Usually God’s people are willing to accept diligent repentance and worldwide evangelism as being efforts that Christians should make.
But when it comes to a step forward in the understanding of the Scriptures they rebel. It is true of us Christians that we view all who do not have as much biblical understanding as we do as being cold and backslidden, and all who have more biblical understanding than we do as being of the Devil. Why is this? Is it impossible that someone would have more understanding of God’s Word than we do? How foolish!
Every time the Spirit of God takes a step forward, whether the revelation concerns water baptism by immersion or speaking in tongues, the members of previous moves of God become outraged. How dare anyone have more of God than we do!
What sense does this make? There always will be people who have less of God than we do, and people who have more of God than we do. We better get used to this idea for it is a fact in the Kingdom of God.
Now the Spirit of God is revealing to us that we have been mistaken about grace. We Christians of today perceive grace and trust in the atoning blood of Christ as alternatives to righteous behavior. Obviously this perception defeats God’s intention in providing a new covenant.
A casual reading of the New Testament will show clearly that the major emphasis by far of the New Testament is on righteous, holy, and obedient behavior, and imputed righteousness is discussed in but a few passages. In spite of the scriptural emphasis on righteous behavior, the idea that our trust in the unscriptural "state of grace" is destructive of God’s purpose in our salvation no doubt will elicit violent protests from the majority of the blood-washed people.
They will not respond as did those in Berea. They will not turn again to the New Testament to see if what we are teaching is scriptural.
Rather we will hear: "You are teaching works"; "you are a Pharisee"; "You are a legalist"; "you are of the Devil."
One thing is certain: if we desire wide fellowship we had better stick with the conventional wisdom and not introduce something new, even if it is from the Lord.
We all understand how every time the Spirit of God moves there is violent opposition. For example, people were put to death for baptizing by immersion in water. Can you imagine! A practice that clearly is scriptural was viewed by Christians as being an act worthy of death!
Perhaps we all ought to learn from this that when someone points out to us that our traditions are not entirely scriptural, this does not mean the individual is Satan’s emissary. It could be true that God once again is moving forward in unfolding the meaning of the original apostolic writings, the New Testament, just as He has in time past.
I think the Lord has given me an understanding of His Word. Since I know Christ wastes nothing, I fully expect that at the right time on the Divine calendar the Holy Spirit will present what has been written to those young warriors against whom will come the full forces of Hell in the last days. I really am writing for the future, I guess.
These memoirs will not be strictly chronological because a person’s life kinds of hangs together as one piece, so I will elaborate ideas as they come to my mind. Also, the memoirs will not be long because my life has been rather ordinary.
I am not a religious person. I think religion creates more problems than it solves. I consider myself a friend of Jesus who is doing what he can to help the Lord gets what He wants, such as a pure bride and a company of brothers in His image. Jesus set aside His life to help me, and now I am setting aside my life to help Him, so to speak.
Jesus is not religious, and I want to be just like Him. Don’t you?
As for religion, the Devil take it. It corrupts character and destroys common sense. The Bible name for religion is "Babylon the Great." When the Bible states there is no temple other than God and the Lamb in the new Jerusalem, it is saying there is no religion practiced there.
I have come to believe in iron righteousness; fiery holiness; and stern obedience to the Father. These three virtues sort of distill what has come to be my goal in life. It has taken a while to get to the point where this goal is solid in my thinking and desires. I have stumbled on occasion, and then have gotten up, confessed my sin, received my forgiveness, made restitution as the Lord led and gave grace, and then have plowed ahead
I will be eighty years old in a few months. I have been a Christian since I was nineteen. I was not raised in a Christian home. (Please forgive all the I’s—this kind of writing is new to me.)
I have a loving, faithful wife, Audrey; two sons, Marc and David of whom I am proud; two outstanding daughters-in law, Carol and Wendy; and eight remarkable grandchildren: Robyn, Troy, Jonathan, Hadassah, Sarah Anne, Cody, Cheyenne, and Kasey.
The Gospel was explained to me by a fellow marine while I was stationed on Oahu at the Marine Corps Sixth Base Depot. It was just what I needed to hear and wanted to hear. It gave meaning to life.
I had to pray for faith in order to even believe there was a God. In a direct answer to my prayer, God gave me faith enough to believe.
Then my thoughts went something like this: "God, I do not know if you are up there and this business about Christ is true. Jesus, You said that if I would do what you taught you would reveal to me whether You spoke from Your own Spirit or from God. I will do what You say. If You reveal yourself, then I will testify to that. If You do not, then I will say the whole business is phony and look somewhere else for a meaning to life."
Such youthful effrontery! But more about the Marine Corps later.
Actually I started on an autobiography five years ago. I got tied up in knots trying to put it together. It wasn’t any fun.
This book (if it grows into that) probably will ramble all over the place. If an editor picks it up some day he or she probably will cut out most of what I have written. I don’t really care. I am going to have fun and enjoy what I am doing.
If you want to see what I think God has given me through the years you can check it out at <http://www.wor.org/BooksMain.htm>
Let me tell you how I got started on this second attempt at an autobiography. I went for a short walk an hour or so ago. We have a long driveway that goes down the hill to the mailbox. I like to go out and walk from the house to the mailbox and back six or seven times to get some fresh air, and hopefully to benefit my cholesterol level. I had an angina attack about seven years ago. Now I have two stents in my left descending artery. I do not desire to have any more angina pains, thank you very much.
Our house is in northern Escondido in San Diego County. Today it was unusually rainy and cold. As I walked (tottered) down to the mailbox I breathed deeply, enjoying the cold, wet air. It reminded me of West Haven Connecticut where I grew up.
As I walked, carrying a stout stick in my left hand for no good reason, I asked the Lord to focus my mind. I wanted to know what He was thinking at this moment, maybe what I should be praying about.
Perhaps it was the New England-type weather that occasioned my thoughts, but I began to picture growing up in West Haven, Connecticut. I started to think about some of the kids. I can still remember some of their names. My best friend was Fred Hudson I remember a boy named Roy, someone that I knew in the Scouts. I was mean to him, so this afternoon I asked him to forgive me wherever he is. The stupid, mean, self-centered things I did during my life cause me sometimes to cry out during the night.
Stella (Kosakof, I think) Nahum gave me piano lessons free for three years, as I remember, because we were far too poor to afford her fee. She lived out on Whitney Avenue in New Haven with the rich people. Her husband was a brain specialist at New Haven hospital, as I recall. Her generosity left me with a good feeling toward Jewish people.
Eddie Silver was one of the boys who took piano lessons with me. He could afford it, I am sure. His parents owned Silver’s Drug Store in West Haven. I went back there about forty years ago, and I believe Eddie at that time was in charge of the store.
So you get the feeling of what I am about. I may dump the project tomorrow. I feel sentimental right now and am reveling (is that the word?) in old memories. I guess we do that when we become candidates for AARP.
If you live in West Haven or New Haven Connecticut, remember me to Eddie Silver and Fred Moskowitz. (Fred changed his name to Moss, which I do not understand because there are a lot of Mosses. How many Moskowitzs are there?)
Fred became an attorney. He is probably retired now. Maybe he would remember Bobby Thompson from the West Shore in West Haven.
Robert B. Thompson (March 23, 2005)
Everyone has to start somewhere. They tell me I was born in Portland, Maine. We lived in South Portland until I was about five years old. My earliest memory is of Thompson Avenue (or Street) in South Portland. You could hear the guns go off at Fort Williams and Fort Preble (I hope I got the spelling correct).
As you entered Thompson Avenue our house was the last one on the right, except for one. In my mind there was a field, or drop-off of some kind where the street ended. The only two names I can remember are the Dames, and the Lovelands. Maybe they still live there. Some families stay put. I have been all over the country since then.
I remember we had chickens. There was a small doorway on the side of the coop so the chickens could go in and out. I decided to enter through that opening and gather some eggs, which I did and put them in my pocket.
I exited the coop through the small opening. Needless to say, the eggs were scrambled by the time I got to the house. It’s funny, isn’t it, the things you will remember. This was kind of emotional, so I guess it is why it comes back to me.
Another thing I remember about Thompson Avenue was the practice of putting May baskets on peoples doorsteps. I haven’t seen this custom practiced since we left Maine.
And I remember Ayuh, Ayuh, Ayuh. If you are a Maniac you probably will know what I mean. I wasn’t Bobby, I was Bobeh, in the Maine dialect.
I recall Willard Beach, which was near Thompson Avenue. There was a stand there that sold the best clam cakes I have ever eaten. I wonder what the man’s secret was.
I remember the pier at Old Orchard. A young lady was in charge of me and she led me by the hand into the water. Evidently her mind was somewhere else, because before too long the water was over my head and the bubbles were ascending. I guess drowning is not too bad a way to die, not very painful.
We had a good time with fireworks on the Fourth of July. Fireworks do not interest me any more, although I was fascinated with them while growing up.
Well, I hear the cannons from the two forts (in my memory), so it must be time to close this brief introduction to a quite ordinary life, although a life dedicated to the Lord as we shall see.
We moved to West Haven, Connecticut when I was five or six years old.
We lived at the West Shore, which is an area between Savin Rock and Woodmont. We were kind of poor. My father took whatever kind of work he could get. I remember on one Christmas season he worked at Malley’s department store, wrapping presents. Malley’s at Christmas time, in the toy department, was a little boy’s idea of Heaven.
I remember a circular tub about the size of a swimming pool. It was filled with presents. You couldn’t see what they were because they were wrapped. For a quarter you were given a fishing pole, and you could hook whatever package caught your eye and looked promising. I wonder if Malley’s still does that.
Then Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president. "Happy Days Are Here Again." My father got a job working in the post office.
We had been renting. Then my parents had a house built for them overlooking Long Island Sound. The address is 39 Crest Avenue. The telephone number was 91329-M. Do you remember that kind of number? I am sure it has been changed long since.
Crest Avenue was a short street, and then turned into Lucy Avenue as it went downhill.
A big part of my memories is going down Lucy Avenue on my Flexible Flyer.
For the last forty or so years the Lord has established us in California, first in the Bay Area in Palo Alto, and now in the San Diego area. I miss the snow. I miss the weather. The weather here is bland, blah. But this is where God wants us, and that is all that really matters.
But I still think of Lucy Avenue in the winter, and standing under the telephone pole on Crest Avenue and watching the snowflakes dance their way downward. Wonderful! Maybe it will keep snowing, and in the morning the horn will sound from the fire station meaning no school today. Put on your knickers. Get the high shoes with the knife in the side pocket, and the sled, and off to Lucy Avenue.
Funny thing! There were three activities I hated dearly while growing up. One was school. I would much rather have gone off by myself in the woods with my BB gun and plinked at tin cans.
Another was church. So what do I end up doing? Teaching the Bible and pastoring a Foursquare church.
A third was piano recitals. For half a year previous I dreaded the spring recital. I finally put my foot down and refused to take any more piano lessons.
So I started my professional life as a music teacher in Globe High School in Globe, Arizona, after having graduated from Arizona State University (then college) at Tempe. After a year in Globe I enrolled for one summer at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, and in the fall commenced teaching music at School Number One of the Rochester School System. This is on Hillside Avenue.
I enjoyed the children so much I switched over within the University of Rochester to the college of education, and began teaching the fifth grade at School Number Fifteen in downtown Rochester.
Now I am the pastor of a church—have been for twenty-nine years.
My desire growing up had been to go into police ballistics (being a gun nut), or to be an electrical engineer. My mother and I on one occasion even investigated Yale University as a possible school to learn electrical engineering.
You know, sometimes your life doesn’t always turn out the way you imagine it will. And everyone said, "Amen."
Back to 39 Crest Avenue. I attended Colonial Park School. My guess would be it is still there, off to the right as you go down Lucy Avenue. In those days they skipped pupils who learned to read quickly, and so I missed third grade. I am not certain that is a good idea. Perhaps better to use the faster students to assist those who are having problems. In any event, from that time I was too immature among those at my grade level to have a normal social life.
When I graduated into West Haven High School, my friends of my own age were still in the eighth grade. Since the high school only went for half a day, it left me all afternoon with no friends. So I spent the time at the beach throwing stones at the seagulls (which I would not do now because it is cruel; I never hit any anyways), and digging clams.
My rowboat was anchored where you could see it from the house. So on occasion I would swim out to my boat, untie from the float, and row out to the breakwaters, a few miles from the beach, I estimate. One time a ship harvesting oysters threw me a line. I tied up and went and sat down. I watched the men as they separated the oysters from the starfish.
If you have never sat on the huge stones of a breakwater with a lighthouse on one end, and listened to the seagulls, you have missed a treat. I know that someday I will have to answer to Jesus Christ, One on one, and give an accounting of my life. If He permits it, I want to do this interview while both of us are sitting on the breakwater, where you can see our house up on the hill.
I spent a lot of time alone, for the reason I have given. I spent many hours walking through the woods with my BB gun. I was not a Christian, although my mother wanted me to go to the Episcopal church on the green in West Haven. In fact, for a while I sang in the boy’s choir there. I believe my cousin Joan Marie still attends that church.
What I remember of the Sunday school was the day my pocket broke and spilled rock salt all over the floor—rock salt I had picked up from the trolley tracks, that was used to melt the ice on the tracks. Very embarrassing!
But church was not the place for me. I would go for a long walk in the woods on a lazy, summer afternoon, find a meadow and lay down on my back. Maybe there was an old abandoned wooden cart there. You could see the little chipmunks playing on the stone fence. One time I fell asleep. When I woke up there was an owl sitting on a branch right above me.
To this day when I think of Heaven I picture myself lying under a tree in a meadow and watching the clouds.
I don’t remember too much about high school. I can recall the New England hurricane. It must have been about 1938, my first year of high school. The physics teacher came into our classroom and said the barometer was falling. So the principal sent us home.
I was walking down Elm Street on my way home, looking at the elm trees that had been blown down. My uncle Howie came driving by and picked me up and took me to our house. I think he was not too displeased at some of the wreckage he saw since he was a lumber salesman.
I can recall also when the principal called a general assembly. We all sat in the auditorium of the high school. The principal was on the platform with a radio at his side. We listened to Congress declaring war on Japan. It seemed to me there was only one dissenting vote. It was cast by a lady member of Congress.
The day before I had been down in the cellar of our house on Crest Avenue, shoveling out the ashes from our furnace, when I heard the radio upstairs. The announcer was telling us that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.
High school continued without incident. I did moderately well but the grades dropped during the last two years. I just was not interested in the school subjects. I graduated when I was sixteen, on a Sunday evening, and had a job working for Clark Dairy by seven o’clock the next morning. I was apprenticed to Rupert, an ice-cream maker.
America went to war during my last year in high school and President Roosevelt started a training program for machine-shop work. I quit Clark Dairy and rode the trolley across town to the machine shop school. One of the teachers took an interest in me and got me a job in Safety Car Heating and Lighting Company. He worked there during the day and taught in the program at night. I started on the bench, in Safety Car, and then went on a milling machine. Safety Car was a short distance out of New Haven.
My family kind of broke up after that. My mother was working the swing shift in an airplane factory. My father was working the midnight shift, counting freight cars for the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. I was commuting an hour each way out to Safety Car to work on a drill press or milling machine. I have no brothers or sisters.
Then my mother had moved to California and after a while was institutionalized. My father went to sea in the Merchant Marine.
My father had been a letter carrier while I was growing up, and had a problem with alcohol. I came to see the day many years later when he received Christ as His Savior. My mother never left the institution and died there.
My Father and Mother, though not Christians, were always good to me. They paid for piano lessons when the fifty cents for the lesson was hard to come by. Eventually a Jewish piano teacher, as I stated previously, perhaps one of the best in New Haven, by the name of Stella Nahum, took an interest in me and gave me lessons for several years at no charge. Also Madame Terranova of West Haven, operator of the Terrace School, accepted me into her school for several years, at no charge as I understand. I am grateful to these two ladies and contacted them with an expression of appreciation after I had returned from the Marine Corps and married Audrey.
You can see that my early years are hardly worth mentioning. Probably a pretty average dysfunctional American upbringing in many respects.
After working for about a year at Safety Car I joined the United States Marine Corps at the age of seventeen. This would be in 1943.
While still seventeen years of age I quit Safety Car and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. I spoke previously of having received Christ while stationed on Oahu, one of the Hawaiian Islands. Well, I quit drinking beer and started to memorize verses from the Bible. I stopped looking at the movies on the base. When I had to stand guard duty at the movies (the marines do this sort of thing) I would turn my back and read the Bible.
Right around that time I was sitting in a Quonset hut one evening and the chaplain read (from Jeremiah): "I will be your God, and ye shall be my people."
The love of God touched me right then and I was born again. I walked out of the Quonset hut at the end of the service and the whole world looked different, the stars were brighter.
After a week of praying and looking to the Lord, I became discouraged. I went into a Quonset hut, put my Bible down, closed my eyes, and said, "Lord, please speak to me."
With my eyes closed I flipped open the Bible and put my finger down on the page. Under my fingers were these words from the Book of Proverbs: "My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man" (Proverbs 3:1-4).
As you can imagine, I was thrilled. God was talking directly to me! Can you imagine the odds against opening your Bible, putting down your finger, and under your finger were the words, "My son, forget not my law"?
I do not recommend this procedure and have never again practiced it. But God had mercy on me, since I was discouraged after having been a Christian for one week.
Sixty years have passed since then, and I am not discouraged today! The light is shining more and more to the perfect day!
After Japan surrendered we were moved to the naval base at Sasebo.
There were some of us who would go over to an empty Japanese barracks and have a Bible study, the marines taking turns bringing the Word.
I would never present the Word because I had picked up the idea somewhere that a person should not preach until he was called by the Lord.
Again, God was merciful to me.
One night I went into the barracks before anyone else had arrived. I knelt down to pray. Suddenly the Presence of the Lord entered the room. I did not "see" anyone but the Presence grew stronger until my heart was pounding.
I asked, "Is it to preach?" The assurance came immediately and powerfully. Then the Presence withdrew.
When the rest of the group filed in, I said, "The Lord called me to preach while I was praying."
It was like a shock went through the men. I can still picture them sitting in a row on the folding chairs. Then the leader appointed me to preach the next evening. This I did from some verses in First John.
At one point in my Marine Corps experience, probably while on Oahu, I was practicing the piano. I had developed quite a liking for classical music. Suddenly the Lord was standing at my right hand. I knew He wanted me to stop playing the piano.
This I did.
That afternoon, while working at a bench moisture-fungus proofing some electronic equipment destined for the jungles, the peace of God came on me in a most supernatural manner. Then I understood the expression "the peace that passes understanding." I knew this was a confirmation that I had done the right thing by turning away from the piano.
Later, when returning home from Japan on one of the Kaiser ships, I was asked by the chaplain to help out in a talent show. I told him, "the Lord ordered me not to play the piano."
I wonder what the good brother thought about that.
Also, during my first year in Bible school\ I refused to play, although a piano player was needed for the school music program. It was not until my second year in Bible school that I felt released to return to the piano. Several years later I found myself practicing many hours a day, since I was in a college music program. Now piano playing no longer is an idol to me. I can do it or not, as I please. Its power over me has been broken.
I had enlisted for the duration plus six months, which was the standard enlistment commitment at the time. I went in, in 1943 and was discharged in the spring of 1946. I had become a Christian. I had been called to preach. I felt I was to attend a seminary.
Being from the New Haven area my first thought was Yale Divinity School. However, I did not seem to have peace about this.
Next I tried some smaller seminaries and Bible schools. But the returning veterans, taking advantage of the GI Bill, had filled up the various colleges and schools.
Finally I found a Bible school that was not already filled up. It was the Berean Bible Institute on 641 South Boundary Street, in San Diego. I applied and was accepted.
Two incidents took place while I was in the Marine Corps that are worthy of note, for they have affected my thinking ever since.
When I was converted to Christ I was informed that I was to "testify to every person you meet." Some of the Christian marines were quite bold and aggressive. On one occasion some of them went up on the stage during the intermission between movies and preached Christ. This took place on one of the Hawaiian Islands.
Because it was a time when the marines were preparing to invade some of the Japanese-held islands, there was an unusual receptivity to the Gospel. No doubt many of those who were preached to never returned from Iwo Jima.
After I had been saved a few weeks, I was standing in the chow line one day. There was a huge Marine standing behind me.
I turned to him and said (according to my instructions from my fervent brothers), "I would like to tell you what Christ has done for me."
He asked, "What has Christ done for you?"
You know, I could not think of one blessed thing. There had not been time for me to have experienced a definite happening that I could recount in honesty. Of course I could have preached to him the customary proselyting formula about how "Christ has saved my soul and now I am on my way to Heaven." But he did not ask for a sermon, he wanted to know what Christ had done for me. In other words, he wanted a truthful testimony, not a tract.
I could give him an earful today, but not at that time.
On a second occasion I was waiting for a bus. Meanwhile I was working myself up to "speak to someone about Christ."
The bus came and it was packed. I went to the rear bench seat of the bus and squeezed myself in next to a rather stout lady.
I girded up the loins of my mind, turned to her, and said, "Do you know Christ as your Savior?"
This represented a heroic effort on my part for I do not communicate readily with strangers.
She replied, "No hablo Ingles" (I do not speak English).
This set me to thinking: "I am not being led of the Spirit. Personal work must not be my ministry."
Later, in Bible school, after the Lord began to speak to me about the rest of God, about letting Christ work through us instead of attempting to "work for Christ," I wrestled with this concept of "saving souls from Hell, and the urgency thereof."
I’ll tell you it was hard to "let go and let God."
I finally said to the Lord and myself, "I don’t know if I am doing the right thing, but from now on I am going to rest in God. If He decides to use me, fine. If He does not, fine. I just cannot live like this with the feeling I am not doing all I am supposed to do."
If millions are going to slide into Hell in the next few minutes, then God is going to have to direct me if I am to help out in any manner. A conscientious person who has been taught that millions of souls are dropping into Hell while he is eating his lunch, and it is his fault for not doing more to warn them, is not going to enjoy much peace!
So I said in my effrontery to the Lord: "Look, everybody around here is saying that the world is waiting for the man who will do the whole will of God. I will do Your whole will if You will show me what to do and give me the grace to do it. From now on the ball is in Your court. I am through with this eternal condemnation about how I am supposed to go to the jungles and "burn out for Christ."
After having declared myself to the Lord, the school recess came to an end and I went back into class. As soon as I sat down someone in the back started to prophesy: "If you mean what you say it will be a blessing to many people."
I meant it then and I mean it today, fifty-five years later. I absolutely refuse to return to the old condemnation that I am supposed to go out and "save souls from Hell." This is not the Great Commission. The Great Commission is to go into all the world, and make disciples and teach them to keep Christ’s commandments; not tell them they are saved by grace and do not have to keep Christ’s commandments.
This I am doing with audio and video tapes, books, pamphlets, E-mail essays, and the Internet. Presently there are more than eight hundred people getting the essays each day and thirteen thousand visits on our Internet site each month. We have sent several thousand books free of charge to the Philippines, Africa, and India. All of these books are designed to make disciples and tell them to keep Christ’s commandments.
In addition I preach two times a week in the church which Audrey and I pastor, making disciples and telling the people to keep Christ’s commandments. And so now I am accused of preaching "works." Doesn’t that beat all? I am told I should go forth and fulfill the Great Commission by saving souls from Hell. Then when it is discovered that I am telling people to keep Christ’s commandments. which is central to the Great Commission, I am accused of preaching "works." Sheesh!
I have been attacked several times since I have been pastoring by individuals who tell me I am doing wrong and should be out "saving souls from Hell." They are not doing this themselves but they want me to stop doing what I think Christ is leading me to do. Actually I am saving souls from Hell by warning them that if they do not cease their sinning and begin to keep Christ’s commandments they will find themselves in Hell, whether or not they have taken "the four steps of salvation."
Interesting, isn’t it? Hundreds of churches in San Diego County have as their focus saving souls from Hell. Ours may be one of the few congregations in the county that is being fed the Word through expository preaching. But I should stop feeding the sheep and go out to save souls from Hell!
Who is this that is seeking to call me down from the wall? If it is the Lord Jesus, then I am deluded and my life’s work has been in vain. I have wasted my time bringing God’s Word to thousands of people when I should have been out staggering through rice paddies until I burned out for Christ, falling on my face, and drowning while saving souls from Hell.
At least that is what the good American Christians say while they are preparing to go out and stuff themselves with cheeseburgers and French fries.
The concept of the rest of God is central, I believe, to where the Charismatic move is today. Here we are with more knowledge of gifts and ministries than any other generation in Church history. What are we to do—go forth and use our gifts to relieve the problems of a "lost and dying world"?
This is what is being proclaimed, but I do not think this is what Christ is saying. I think we are to return to the Lord Jesus and find out what He has in mind for us to do. The decision whether to set out with our gifts under our own direction, or wait until we know what the Lord Jesus desires, may be a major fork in the road for Charismatics. Obviously both procedures are not correct.
I am not talking about entering a state of passivity, because pressing into the rest of God requires constant diligence and vigilance. It is hardly a passive state.
But I will tell you this: it takes faith to believe that God knows what He is doing and we do not have to charge out and do whatever we imagine is going to help. There is always someone who is challenging us to come down from the cross.
I think it is remarkable that the abomination that causes desolation will be on a wing (pinnacle) of the Temple.
He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him. (Daniel 9:27—NIV)
You remember that Jesus was tested in the area of "stepping out in faith" after Satan had placed Him on a pinnacle of the Temple. Perhaps the above verse is saying that the abomination that produces desolation is man acting according to his own presumption (which is the nature of Antichrist).
I have chosen to wait on the Lord Jesus until I know what He wants me to do. How about you?
In Bible School, and Then, Revelation
The Berean Bible Institute was operated by the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination. Now, having come from the East, I knew nothing of the Pentecostal movement. Our family recognized only the Episcopal denomination. All other denominations were "religious nuts," according to my father, and this description was applied by him to no less a personage than Billy Graham.
Yet I saw the day when my Father accepted Christ, in Maude Blackstone’s mission in San Diego. My father and I were living in the Admiral Hotel in San Diego while I was attending Berean. When I returned from a service, one evening, my father was sitting in the middle of the hotel room. "Take a look at your father," he said, I got saved tonight.
It seems Sister Blackstone came down off the platform and shook her finger under his nose and told him he better get saved or else.
After this my father did what he could for Audrey and me, sharing with us the little bit of money he got from Social Security
Almost all the other students in the Berean Bible Institute had come from Assembly of God churches.
I had never heard of the Assemblies of God or speaking in tongues. When I was saved I was given a Scofield Bible and informed about grace and the rapture. Because of contact with the Navigators (I heard Dawson Trotman speak on one occasion, on Oahu) I had been drilled with the idea that the Bible was the infallible Word of God and should be adhered to closely.
This I have done, and the result has been that I have noticed many unscriptural traditions in current Christian teaching. More about this later.
But I had an open heart. It took me about a year before I was able to speak in tongues. I am a cerebral-type person and such are hard nuts to crack. The students used to have Jericho marches around me, but to no avail. I could not speak in tongues.
I greatly admired the students who would give messages in tongues while others would interpret. To me this was the height of supernatural ability and adventure.
One night I was waiting to take a bus home from San Bernardino. It was quite late and I had to get up early the next morning in San Diego because a brother (Truman Cumbie, a cotton picker from Floydada, Lubbock County, Texas—God bless him wherever he is) and I used to pray before the chapel service.
I was praying in the bus station and began to pray in tongues. I was so distressed over the problem of getting a bus that I did not even realize what had happened.
The next morning when Truman and I were praying it came back to me that I might have prayed in tongues. So I tried it a little, and Truman began to praise God that "Brother Thompson had received the baptism."
I have been speaking in tongues ever since.
I do not teach that a person who has not spoken in tongues cannot have received the Holy Spirit. I say speaking in tongues is a blessing and any believer who seeks will find. But to me the sign of the indwelling of the Spirit is not speaking in tongues but the fruit of the Spirit. I don’t know how you feel about that.
Some who speak in tongues do not reveal love, joy, or peace in their personalities. So how can they be filled with the Spirit?
Now we come to something significant. Soon after I was released to this extent into the Holy Spirit, the Lord, or an angel, or somebody in the spirit world, or perhaps even the Holy Spirit Himself, began to explain the Bible to me.
It was as though a being of some sort was looking over my right shoulder and giving me understanding of what I was reading.
I knew the traditional Christian teaching. I understood about the blood atonement, the born-again experience, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ and His literal return. I had been taught that we are saved by grace and not by righteous behavior, and that any moment we are to be caught up in the "rapture."
My heavenly Teacher did not change any of the fundamentals of the faith, such as the blood atonement. Yet I could tell that something different was taking place in my understanding of the Scriptures.
I wrote some mimeographed pamphlets at the time. One of them, titled The Temple of God, was about thirteen pages long. Several years ago I divided The Temple of God into two books: The Temple of God, and Christ in You, because it had grown to over four hundred pages. The idea of Christ being in us rather than just with us is central to my doctrine.
Several events took place right about this time (1948).
Israel became a nation.
Billy Graham’s ministry exploded in Los Angeles.
William Branham was working miracles over in Phoenix.
Donald Gee and other writers were telling us about the gifts of the Spirit.
The Hawtin party came down from North Battleford, Canada to A. Earl Lee’s church in Los Angeles. Audrey and I were present at the first Sunday service, announcing the Latter Rain Revival. The Glory of God was as a river about four feet deep, it seemed.
During this period of renewal the spirit of prayer in the Bible school changed. A quietness came over the chapel services. Prophecy broke out.
Stanley Howard Frodsham, the editor of the Pentecostal Evangel for so many years, came and spoke to us as did also Thomas Wyatt of Wings of Healing.
At this time Brother Frodsham was dismissed from the Assemblies of God because he said the practices of the new "latter-rain" movement were of God. Brother Frodsham knew God if anyone ever did. You can get Brother Frodsham’s definitive work, With Signs Following, from the Gospel Publishing House in Springfield, Missouri.
Recently many comments have been made concerning the "latter rain revival." I wonder how many of the critics were present in the early days. Audrey and I were. I know there were excesses from the beginning. There were excesses also in early Pentecost. When the rain comes down it brings up more than flowers.
So North Battleford became the "new Jerusalem," they tell me. "The sons of God are going to be manifested at any moment." I know all this. The reason people are so easily moved off course is that they are famished for the Presence of God. They fall on the carcass and drink the blood, so to speak, because they are starving. Why are they starving? Because all they are hearing in the churches is rapture! rapture! rapture! There is no food in this. It has less nourishment than circus candy (spun sugar).
The irony is that the bold critics of the latter rain and William Branham are straining out gnats while swallowing the current grace and rapture errors. Belief in the latter rain, the immediacy of the revealing of the sons of God, and William Branham’s misunderstanding may have harmed a few. But the lawless grace and any-moment rapture myths have destroyed the moral strength of the entire Christian movement. The tiny gnat is carefully strained out while two mature camels are gulped down with satisfaction.
The main objection of the Assemblies to the "latter rain," as I understand it, was the practice of laying on of hands and personal prophecy. I have no doubt this practice occurs today in numerous Assembly of God churches. The Assemblies may have been premature in their rejection of the godly Stanley Howard Frodsham, a man who knew the "old sound" of Pentecost, the marching feet in the mulberry trees.
Oh well, the battle of religion against Christ is not over yet!
Then another distinguished Assembly of God elder came to Berean. This was Elmer E. Fullerton, former pastor of the Assembly of God in San Pedro, California, and before that pastor of First Assembly of God of San Diego at Sixth and Fir.
Brother Fullerton was said to be an honorary presbyter of the Assemblies. He was one of the major influences in my life, and I can still hear him speaking in tongues, in my memory.
God had spoken to Brother Fullerton about the next move after Pentecost. Brother Fullerton referred to this move as being Christ in you, the hope of glory. The idea was that we were not to work for Christ, Christ would live and work in us. Fullerton was teaching the rest of God, although I do not remember him referring to it as such.
Before He died, two of the latter-rain team, I think it was Ern Hawtin and Brother Kirkpatrick, were brought to see him. I am told he raised up in his bed and began to prophesy to them. That must have been something to see.
Brother Fullerton’s best friend was Samuel S. Scull of Arizona, whom Audrey and I went over to visit. They both spoke of the new work of God on the horizon. You must remember that Fullerton and Scull were pioneers and established many Pentecostal churches. They were not spiritual lightweights.
As you can imagine, we Bible students were carried out of ourselves because of the Life of Christ that was being brought to us and acted unwisely on several occasions. We were "educated beyond our intelligence," as Brother Dowell used to say.
An older man from Chula Vista used to come to the school services. His name was Brother Wright.
Brother Wright received a "revelation." It was that Christians have the authority to forgive sins. When old Brother Wright decided something was from God he made no bones about it.
The local pastors were already on edge because of Brother Fullerton’s teaching. This new teaching of Brother Wright’s broke the camel’s back. The primary teaching of the time was, we are saved by grace; if you have never spoken in tongues you do not have the Holy Ghost; the Catholic Church is Babylon the Great; we are approaching the great tribulation; there will be no more revivals; we are supposed to be falling away; and we Gentiles will be raptured at any moment while the Jews without the Holy Spirit do evangelistic work during Antichrist’s rule over the nations. This was the Pentecostal preaching in the late 1940s. I guess the numerous revivals and manifestations of God’s power since then, including the entire Charismatic renewal, have been out of Divine order.
Five of us who were former servicemen, Dick Hutsell, John Marlowe, Carl Chunn, Darrell Reynolds, and myself, were brought before some of the local pastors. Two of the men "recanted" and went back into the fold.
During our appearance before the "Sanhedrin," Pastor John Poteet of La Mesa asked me about the Trinity and was satisfied with my answer. Other pastors asked me if I believed we could forgive sins. I said I did not know anything about the subject, except that I knew it was in the Bible and I was not going to deny anything that was in the Bible.
On this basis I was thrown out of the Bible School. I had one semester to go and a straight A average, as can be verified by searching the records at the large Assembly of God Bible college in Costa Mesa, where the records of the defunct Berean Bible Institute are archived.
The local pastors closed the school not too long after that, but of course there was no graduation for the three of us who would not recant.
Brother J. O. Dowell (bless his memory), the president of Berean, took the side of the five veterans and was dismissed from the Assemblies of God. Brother Dowell had founded the Assembly of God in La Jolla, California.
He then started a mission in downtown San Diego and this is where Audrey and I went to church.
Let me tell you now about Audrey. Marrying Audrey was one of the two wisest things I have done in my life, the other being deciding to do God’s whole will. We have been married now over fifty-four years. How time flies!
During my second year of Bible School, Audrey showed up from Phoenix and enrolled in Berean. After a few months passed, God spoke to me. He said, "You are to marry Audrey." I promptly went and told Audrey. God already had spoken to her, and so in a couple of weeks we were married. I did not give her time to change her mind.
Audrey has been such a good helpmeet and balance for me—and believe me, I have needed her wisdom and strength. Today we are co-pastors of Mount Zion Fellowship, a Foursquare church in Poway, California, in San Diego County.
After being put out of Bible school I went to work in Rohr Aircraft, in Chula Vista. Then Brother Dowell started the San Diego Christian Schools. He was a pioneer in San Diego County in the Christian school movement. He hired Audrey and me as his first teachers. Brother Dowell told us that the Assemblies of God invited him to return to the denomination so they could take advantage of his experience in starting a Christian school. His attitude was, "You put me out, so forget it. You didn’t need me then so you don’t need me now."
Brother Dowell, and others of the early Pentecostal pioneers, were not exactly suited to giving flowery compliments at my lady’s soiree. J. O. Dowell was rough, tough, and caustic. God bless him. He had a major impact on my character and stood by me when I was trying to find out how to respond to what God had given me. He and Sister (Mildred) Dowell used to say, "Bob has the Word."
They are both gone now, along with Elmer Fullerton, Walter Harriss (my Greek teacher who would regale us with tales of Dr. Yoakum and other miracle-workers of the early days), Henry Whaley, Lloyd Marlowe, and the like. Because of their influence on me I have been able to escape the faith and prosperity messages and the other excesses of our time. Once you see the real stuff you are not as easily taken in by that which has the voice of Jacob but the hands of Esau.
Soon Brother Dowell erected a tent on the outskirts of National City and we worshiped there for a while.
Another excellent Pentecostal teacher of the time was Oliver Ellenwood. He taught on the Tabernacle of the Congregation, and had excellent charts. This subject was new to us.
During one session Brother Ellenwood mentioned the feasts of the Lord. The moment I heard this expression it burned in me. I began to search the Bible for these celebrations.
I learned there were seven feasts, described in the twenty-third chapter of the Book of Leviticus and in several other passages.
Then God spoke to me; I mean, God spoke to me! He told me that the sixth feast, the Day of Atonement, symbolizes the Divine judgment of the Church, and this would be the next Divine move after the Pentecostal outpouring.
I went to Brother Ellenwood for his opinion of the seeming revelation. He appeared to bear witness to this understanding.
To the present day, the seven feasts of the Lord have been one of my principal means of marking off the several stages of the Christian redemption, from the covering of the Passover blood through to the fullness of the indwelling of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the transformed inner nature, and finally outer nature, of the born-again believer.
I found out many years later that the Jewish people, with their instinct for Divine truth, view the ten days (the Days of Awe) from the Blowing of Trumpets to the Day of Atonement as the time when God judges the world. What a confirmation that it really was the Lord who spoke to me!
The last feast, the Feast of Tabernacles, tells us of the rest of God, the time when God settles down to rest in us through Christ and we cease from our own works. The concept that we are to rest in God and not sally forth to establish the Kingdom of God by our own efforts has been a major factor in my thinking.
Two incidents seemed to assist my determination to turn away from the traditional "You must go out and save souls and testify to everyone you meet!" and to just look to Jesus instead to find out what He wants, not taking anything whatever for granted.
One evening I was with my fellow students at Sixth and Fir, Ben Hardin the pastor at that time. A missionary had preached. At the end of his message he asked those who would like to serve the Lord as a missionary to come forth. I proceeded to the altar.
The pianist was playing parallel octaves with marvelous dexterity.
I knelt down and prayed with great fervency: "Lord, tell me what you want me to do. I am ready to leave right now for Tibet wearing only this sweater (I was not married at the time). Just command me, whatever you want. I will do it—to the ends of the earth." And so forth.
Suddenly I knew the Lord was going to speak. I turned over on my back and waited for the regal command that would send me forth into some mighty enterprise
The Lord spoke "I love you." That is all, no command to save the lost and dying, no challenging directive that would scare me half to death. "I love you." This is it. End of the royal audience.
The second incident is as follows, and this was a classic in terms of my quandary concerning whether I should try to go out and work for Christ, or wait on the Lord to find out what He wants..
William Branham was in Long Beach ministering in a tent.
Old Brother Wright, whom I mentioned earlier, he of the "forgiveness of sins," had a son, Jesse, who was mentally handicapped. Brother Wright drove up to Long Beach with Jesse, Audrey, and me so Jesse could be prayed for.
When the service started, Brother Branham announced that he was going to divide the service into two parts. During the first part he would use the gift of knowledge given to him by an angel. During the second part he would pray over a healing line, because his advisors told him he was not ministering to enough people, like Jack Coe and the others.
So this is what this humble man did. During the first half he pointed out a few people in the audience and by the word of knowledge described their ailment. Then he prayed the prayer of healing. This was Branham at his best. Being in one of Brother Branham’s meetings in those early days, before he was led astray, was the closest thing to Heaven on earth. I do not believe anyone else in this century has had a ministry quite as supernatural as that of William Jefferson Branham.
He began the second half of the service by singing "All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name." A healing line was formed and Brother Wright brought up Jesse.
When Jesse’s turn came, Branham prayed for Brother Wright, and then Jesse. Jesse went home unchanged.
The significant part was that Brother Wright always testified he was never sick because he trusted the Lord. And yet Branham prayed for him!
As I watched this I saw that the prophet’s eyes had been put out like Samson of old. The man with an incredible word of knowledge did not perceive that Brother Wright was totally healthy. His advisors, although certainly well meaning, were using human understanding rather than waiting for God’s wisdom. God wanted Brother Branham to minister just as the angel showed him, not in a manner used by other healing evangelists.
God told us in the Old Testament not to put a tool on the stone altar or it would be defiled. In other words, keep your hands off the Ark of God!
These two incidents tended to reinforce what Brother Fullerton had taught and what God was teaching me: don’t try to do things in your own wisdom and strength. Just look to Jesus and follow Him.
I continued to struggle to dare to let go of my own efforts and just trust God, believing that He was more concerned about the unsaved and the building of His Kingdom than I was.
Finally I determined that if I did not follow where I thought God was leading I no longer was my own man. I was being led around by the opinions of other people and my own understanding. I then decided to trust the Word of God and turn away from the endless condemnation and striving that so often characterizes Christian teaching; for the Word of God, by instruction and example, does not urge us to go forth according to our own understanding. In fact it advocates the opposite.
Although there may have been fruitfulness in my life during the last twenty-nine years, it has not been due to any striving on my part. I still wait on the Lord and do only that which I feel He wants.
Brother Dowell called on me to preach a great deal, but soon I felt it was time to leave San Diego. Audrey and I went to Phoenix and attempted to start a church there, but to no avail. Little by little I was forced out of opportunities to preach and finally took a job driving a truck for a printer. God had taught me so many things but there was no opportunity to present them.
Then I turned to the Lord for direction. He did not answer.
So I thought, "since God will not advise me what to do, I will do what I would like to do." As I pondered this and prayed, it came to me that I would enjoy teaching music composition at the college level.
I enrolled in Arizona State College at Tempe, now a university, with a piano scholarship. I graduated in three years with a major in education and a minor in music, and got my first job in Globe, Arizona teaching high-school music. This marked my entrance into public education.
Public education had been a large part of my adult life until I began to pastor at the age of fifty.
As I said before, after gaining a bachelor’s degree at Arizona State at Tempe, and enjoying a year of teaching at Globe High School in Arizona, I went on to study music for one summer at the Eastman School of Music, in Rochester, New York. In order to earn money to continue studying composition at Eastman, I took a job in the fall teaching music in an elementary school in the Rochester area.
I had been planning on teaching music composition in a Christian college. I had Westmont College in mind. But after my year at School Number One in Rochester I knew where I belonged—teaching children. I transferred over from the Eastman School to the college of education of the University of Rochester, and pursued a master’s degree and finally a doctorate in education, in the meanwhile teaching in the Rochester Public School System.
Teaching elementary-school children has been one of the most pleasant and fulfilling aspects of my life. I have had tenure in both New York and California, and currently hold three life credentials in the State of California: Elementary Teaching, Secondary Teaching, and General Administration.
I worked as an associate professor of education at the state college in San Jose, California for one year. I taught in an elementary school for several years in Palo Alto, California. Then I served as principal of an elementary school in the Whisman School District of Mountain View, California. After five years as a principal I felt a desire to return Christian education, which I did as a principal and then a teacher.
All the while I was in education I prayed that some day the way would be made to preach the Gospel. I knew that God had called me. But I had to wait God’s time.
As I said, I was being given an understanding of the meaning of many Bible passages. The insights being emphasized were obviously scriptural but they certainly were not conventional.
One of the more radical insights, for example, is that residence in Heaven is not the goal of salvation. Remember, I had been taught by the Navigators to memorize the Word and to stick closely to it. They gave me the verse from Joshua about the Book of the Law not departing from my mouth.
So when I say I received the understanding that residence in Heaven is not the goal of salvation, I am not speaking lightly in order to be cute or novel. It absolutely is true that there is no verse in the Old Testament or the New that presents eternal residence in Heaven as being the goal of salvation. The goal of salvation is to create us in the moral (and ultimately, at His coming, bodily) image of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to bring us into untroubled rest in the will and Presence of God. This transformation and uniting is not so we can go to Heaven but so we can fulfill the Kingdom purposes of God, such as being a living stone in God’s temple, a brother of Christ, and a member of the Wife of the Lamb.
Check it out for yourself.
So here I am, teaching elementary school, and all these wonderful insights flying around in my head. When I did have opportunity to teach in a church, the response of the believers was "Brother Thompson has a good spirit but you can’t understand what he is talking about."
Pioneering doctrine does not make for popularity or extensive fellowship.
One time Audrey and I were prophesied over by a distinguished presbytery, including Ernest Gentile and David Shoch (sp?). Audrey and I were encouraged to "go on and on." Others would come and present this or that idea to us, but it would be "empty crackers." So it has been. We still have a copy of the prophecy.
By this time I was teaching the fifth and sixth grades in Palo Alto, California, which is a city adjacent to Fremont and the home of Stanford University. I used to pray every morning before going to class that God would enable me to "preach the Kingdom of God wherever people breathe the air." Remember that the Gospel of the Kingdom has been lost for centuries. The preaching today is that of the Gospel of Heaven, but God has impressed on me the Gospel of the Kingdom. There is a huge difference between these two gospels!
I believe that special prayer will be answered before the Church Age closes.
One morning I sat at my desk in our Eichler house on Carlson Circle in Palo Alto. This is how I prayed: "Lord, if all you want me to do is just have faith that you are going to do all these wonderful things you have shown me, and I never have a chance to express myself, then that is agreeable to me. Your will be done."
We had been attending a church in Palo Alto, Pastor Clyde Pickthorne. Brother Pickthorne came over to the house one day, a week or two after this prayer of committal. I had answered a couple of questions that had been raised in the Sunday school class.
Brother Pickthorne asked, "What is it you believe?"
I had not realized it but all these concepts that had come to me were arranged in logical order in my mind. And so I answered Brother Pickthorne with a series of insights.
He said, "You should write this down."
The next morning I arose about four o’clock. I began to type. I continued until it was time for my morning prayer, and then off to teach the fifth grade in Walter Hays Elementary School in Palo Alto.
If any of my former grade-school students read these memoirs, I want you to know that I loved all you guys and still remember you. You were a very important part of my life. We had some terrific softball and touch-football games.
I made a mistake at that time. I became determined to be a principal; you know, the old upward thrust! I did become a principal, and I guess I did all right. But it was not the same as teaching elementary school
Probably those five years as a principal were what it took to get me out of public education and into the ministry. If I had stayed in elementary-school teaching I probably would have remained until I was forced to retire.
I will say this: everything I learned about people and business in the public-school systems has served me well as a pastor.
After Brother Pickthorne’s visit I got up every morning between four and four-thirty and wrote like a madman. The Feasts of the Lord, The Tabernacle of the Congregation, and the Land of Promise flew out of the typewriter. Then there was about a six-month’s pause, and after that I started again at a less feverish pace. I have been writing now for about thirty-five years. All I have written is on the Internet. Anyone can read the material free of charge. Freely I have received; freely I am giving.
While I was in Palo Alto I taught a Bible class at the home of George Gillies. After a while, Audrey and I moved to Fremont in order to attend the Fremont Assembly of God church. After we had been in attendance there a short while Brother Leroy Cloud, the pastor, asked me to teach a deeper-life class. This I did and the class grew over the next few years. The elders of the Assemblies of God told me they had been watching the people who had been taught in my class and they were pleased with the results. They said my deeper-life class was larger than the average Assembly of God church in the United States.
One significant episode, that occurred while I was working as a principal and writing at the same time, had to do with the text of The Tabernacle of the Congregation. I was writing the chapter titled "Holiness." As I stated, when I was first saved I was handed a Scofield Bible and told about how I was saved by grace and not by works of righteousness I have done. I accepted this as Gospel truth. The impression I received was that we ought to try to do good but the New Testament has little to do with righteous behavior. Whatever commandments are included in the New Testament are for the purpose of showing me my need of a Savior. No believer is able to, or expected to, actually obey the commandments of Christ and His Apostles.
I started to search out some verses in the New Testament that would support my discussion of the holiness of the Tabernacle and how this applied to our salvation; for the Tabernacle of the Congregation, beyond all doubt, is one of the grandest of the Old Testament types of Jesus Christ and His salvation.
As I searched through the Epistles and the Gospel accounts I noticed numerous verses that were exhortations to righteous behavior. I guess the Holy Spirit must have touched my mind, for all of a sudden the thought came to me that what I had been taught about grace and imputed righteousness was not in accordance with the emphasis of the Epistles.
I thought, "I will go through the New Testament and make a list of passages that exhort us to live righteously."
You can imagine what happened. Almost immediately I discovered that such a list is impractical. Every Epistle is filled with exhortations to righteous living, and there are pointed warnings concerning the results of not obeying these commandments.
I possess a doctorate in education from the University of Rochester in New York, so I have a certain amount of confidence in my ability to read and think. My dissertation included research in the subject of transfer of training. This was a genuine scholarly effort, a rigorous discipline; for I was part of only the second group to go through the doctoral program in education, and the University was careful about the quality of its offering.
I realized clearly that current Christian doctrine concerning the role of righteous behavior in our salvation is not scriptural.
That a powerful bias is operating is revealed in the traditional emphasis placed on the following two verses:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8,9)
The above was told to me I’ll bet over a hundred times, a conservative estimate. What are we saying? We are saying that our salvation has little or nothing to do with our behavior. We ought to live decently, but that has nothing to do with our behavior. Right?
But the next verse blows this away.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2;10)
We have been created to walk in good works.
I have enough background in scholarly investigation to understand there is a deliberate effort to conceal truth operating here. This is not an innocent oversight. Whether satanic in origin, or the deliberate attempt of theologians to sway thinking according to their preferences without regard to the Scriptures and the will of God, the very basis of Christian theology is in error.
It is not a case of our saving ourselves by our own efforts to live righteously. The truth is, the very purpose and nature of the Christian salvation is the change of a sinner into a righteous individual. The emphasis on imputed righteousness has been vastly overblown. The major New Testament emphasis is on actual righteousness of behavior, not imputed righteousness.
I could see from the Scriptures that the goal of salvation is our conformation to the moral image of Jesus Christ, and also untroubled rest in the Person and will of God. Our goal is not eternal residence in Heaven; neither is Christ building houses for us in Heaven. All of this is mythology. It simply is not scriptural.
Now I understood that the very nature of salvation is our change from the adamic nature to the new righteous creation, a new creation that results from the forming of Christ in us. It is a transformation empowered and directed by supernatural virtue and wisdom.
It wasn’t long afterward that I noticed the lack of scriptural support, not only for a pre-tribulation rapture, but also for the very concept of the rapture itself—that its purpose is to carry us to Heaven so we will escape Antichrist and the great tribulation. There simply is no passage of Scripture in the Bible that states the Lord is returning to bring His Church to Heaven, let alone to escape trouble. According to the Bible, the Lord Jesus shall return with His saints to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth; to insure justice for the people of the nations.
What do we do now? It is apparent that Christian theology is way off course. What is being preached is not according to the Scriptures—it is, in fact, opposed to God’s very purpose for replacing the old covenant with the new.
For a while I was excited. Then, when people could not understand me I became angry. Now, perhaps because there is an increasing (though small) population of people who understand what I am yelling about, I am becoming placid and sit quietly at my computer, writing my brief memoirs in the hope that someone, someday will read them.
I am not at all discouraged. There are fine young men in our church, and perhaps some young women also, who understand what I am teaching and will be able after my demise to explain what is unscriptural in today’s Christian teaching. Eventually, I expect, there will come the understanding to God’s people that we really are preaching Gnosticism today instead of the Christian Gospel.
Jesus told us in Matthew that the Gospel of the Kingdom would be preached to every nation for a witness, and then the end would come.
At the start of the Christian era, John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, and the Apostles of the Lamb all preached the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth. None of them at any time ever suggested that God is going to bring His Church to Heaven to live in mansions for eternity.
At some point the Gospel of the Kingdom was changed to the Gospel of Going to Heaven. This may have been due to the philosophy of Gnosticism, or perhaps to the efforts of the early church organization to accommodate its teaching to the other religions found in the Roman Empire. For whatever reason, the Gospel of the Kingdom has been lost.
In the denomination of which I am a part, to my knowledge the phrase The Kingdom of God" is not found in the Statement of Faith. Is it found in the Statement of Faith of your denomination?
And yet, through the centuries Christians have prayed: "Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in the earth as it is in Heaven."
We have been blind. We cannot hear what we are praying. We are brain-dead, spiritually speaking.
We pray "Thy Kingdom come," and then talk about making our eternal home in Heaven. Don’t we want to be part of the Kingdom?
If we would read the Old Testament we would understand that God’s Kingdom is going to be set up on the earth. But the deceitfulness of the Dispensational philosophy has destroyed our ability to understand the Old Testament. So we have conjectured the height of folly—a Gentile kingdom in Heaven and a Jewish kingdom on the earth.
This idea of two kingdoms of God, one Jewish and one Gentile, is so obviously unscriptural that it is nothing short of supernatural that devout, intelligent scholars could subscribe to such a position. It is utter nonsense, without a shred of scriptural support.
Here God is training us every day so we can return with Jesus Christ and establish God’s will in the earth, and we are telling people who are still living in their adamic nature that they are going to be brought up to Heaven to lay around in mansions doing nothing of significance for eternity. Alice in Wonderland. The Wizard of Oz. Utopia. Shangri-La. The happy hunting ground. Disneyland in the sky. These are being presented today as the Gospel of the Kingdom.
I have to be careful or I will be getting angry again, and that is bad for my health. I already have had one heart attack and would not care for another, thank you.
I know, my job is to write down what the Lord reveals to me, and the Holy Spirit's task is to see that it is read and understood by those whom the Lord chooses. And so I have peace in this.
The years in education were delightful in many ways. Teaching children is a taxing occupation, but the emotional satisfaction is great. I loved the children and they loved me. When you teach high school and college you have to know your subject matter well. But when you teach elementary school you are teaching children, not subject matter.
Children will not learn and grow as they should unless you really do care for them. And I had these little darlings, from the poverty level to upper middle class. A few had emotional problems but most were a joy to teach. I dreaded spring and looked forward to the fall when school would take up again.
We did great things in the fifth grade, my favorite of the grades. We tackled algebra, several kinds of art projects, music, science experiments, push-ups and sit-ups in the classroom. What a golden age ten years is! We had fun, and the reports from the parents were excellent.
We kept a high moral standard, and I would talk to the children about self-control, and the dangers of alcohol and smoking. But I never tried to bring the Gospel into the public-school classroom. I played it straight with the school districts.
Audrey and I had always wanted to be in the ministry. Now, in our late forties, we began to feel a stirring. Meanwhile Pastor Leroy Cloud of the Fremont Assembly of God church in California asked me teach a deeper-life class, and also to start the Fremont School of the Bible.
You know, I had wondered through the years if I was right and everyone else was wrong. The deeper-life class grew, and soon some of the elders of Fremont First Assembly were attending the class. I knew then that God was around somewhere.
On one occasion the Northern California-Nevada District of the Assemblies of God sent me to a conference to teach teachers of deeper-life classes. On another occasion the elders from Santa Cruz came to the Fremont church and invited me to take out papers with the Assemblies. This was a kind gesture on their part. But I refused because stapled into the handbook of doctrine was the statement that one must believe in the pre-tribulation rapture of the believers. After years of teaching I was persuaded that this doctrine is not scriptural, and so I declined.
As I stated previously, the Lord had called me while I was in the Marine Corps to preach the Gospel. This was at the age of nineteen. Now I was fifty years old and Audrey was forty-seven. We had always wanted to go into full-time ministry. In fact, a couple of years after we were married we had in mind to go to Japan as missionaries—probably because I had been called to preach while stationed in Japan. But nothing came of this.
Suddenly we both knew that we were not waiting for the Lord any longer. He was waiting for us. We wondered what we were supposed to do. I was a school teacher, not a pastor or evangelist. I was teaching in the Fremont Assembly of God elementary school at this time.
One night as I was holding forth in the Fremont Assembly of God Bible school, an angel came into view. I had seen angels before on a couple of occasions, and have since that time. Whenever there is a crisis in my life, or an unusually important decision to make, I often become aware of an angel—perhaps my guardian angel.
He rose up in the middle of the classroom. All I noticed was a person from the waist up. He was quite large.
The angel was looking south, and frowning.
I told my wife that night of this experience, and we gathered that we were to move south. We had friends in San Diego and so we thought in that direction. We pulled up stakes and moved to Escondido, in San Diego County.
After we had been in Escondido for a week or two, the Divisional Superintendent of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, Carl Purdy, learned through a mutual friend of our coming.
Carl came to us and asked us if we would take over the Foursquare church in Poway that had just closed for want of members. Carl had heard that I am a Bible teacher. Audrey and I had never been in a Foursquare church but we realized this denomination is similar to the Assemblies of God.
We decided to accept the offer for a month or so to see what took place. We have been in the Poway church for nearly thirty years.
It must be remembered that I was not a minister but an educator. Our move was in blind faith, not knowing how we would be supported. After accepting the Poway church, the Lord told me not to get a job but to accept whatever was provided. This I did, and we have never wanted for anything. Jesus in His faithfulness has provided every need.
I understand that a denomination is a rift in the one Body of Christ because of its loyalties to its Statement of Faith and to its own organization and membership. All of this is Babylon, that is, religion conducted by the strength, wisdom, and talents of man. However, while we are in Babylon we are to serve the Lord with all our might and He will prosper us. Before the Lord returns He will bring His true Church together as one body. Then the voice of the Bridegroom and the Bride no longer will be heard in Babylon.
The Foursquare denomination has been good to Audrey and me and we have many valued friends herein. Although I think the organization has been touched with the prosperity, faith, and super-grace errors, it seems to us that the leaders of the Foursquare are returning to their roots of holiness and prayer. Needless to say we are very pleased with this turn of events. There is a new sincerity, a new desire for righteousness instead of the dead grace-rapture-Heaven emphasis that has left God’s people famished for His Life and Presence.
The Spirit of God today is not speaking of grace-rapture-Heaven, and that is why this sort of preaching results in spiritual death. Rather, the Spirit is calling for repentance and is promising us an unprecedented refreshing, a coming of Christ in the Spirit to bring us to the summit of fruitfulness and dominion.
It is not by our wisdom or talents but by the Spirit of God that the work will be finished. All of us need to wait more on the Lord until we know what we are doing instead of embarking on some new program that is "sure to win the world for Christ."
How about letting the Lord build His own Church in His own way? Hands off, if you please. The Ark is coming down the road on the shoulders of the priests, not in some new cart of human design.
After leaving Fremont and moving south because of the leading of the Lord, we now found ourselves pastoring the Foursquare church in Poway.
I went through a real identity crisis at this time. I had always thought of myself as an educator. When I left the field of education I had no vocational identity—very difficult for an American male. I no longer was an educator. I was not a minister. I was nothing but myself. I had a hard time being referred to as Pastor. I thought they were speaking of someone who somehow deserved this title. I am accustomed now to being called Pastor, but it has taken almost a quarter of a century.
The Lord instructed me not to look for a job. He told me to take whatever money came in and He would supply my needs. This He has done abundantly.
We started out with around twenty-seven people counting the babies. These were friends from the area.
There was a large, rapidly growing Charismatic church in Escondido. When I heard of this I went to the Lord. "What am I doing here? There already is a great church that is alive and on the cutting edge of revelation. Why can’t I go where there is a need?"
The Lord answered, "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted shall be plucked up."
Soon afterwards there was trouble at the large church and the congregation broke up and departed.
I used to spend all morning in the church praying. One day I was sitting on the platform. A spirit approached me. He said, "On whose authority are you here?"
I responded, "I came down with the blessing of the Fremont Assembly of God and now am under the covering of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel."
This seemed to satisfy whoever it was and they left. This caused me to understand that starting a church is a serious matter from the viewpoint of the spirit world.
A newspaper reporter came to interview me. She asked, "What are your plans?"
This question startled me. I do not operate by plans but by looking to the Lord for every detail. I did not expect to come down to Poway to be a pastor and I was just following the Lord a step at a time.
I said, "I do not have any plans."
She marveled at this. "This is the first time I have asked a new minister what his plans are and he didn’t have any. Usually I am told of a number of plans he has for the future."
I do not say we do not plan for the future. The Church Council and I do. But every move has been saturated with prayer, and we remain aware that the Lord may provide midcourse corrections from time to time. We proceed cautiously, prayerfully, and are not afraid to make bold decisions when the situation so requires.
Nevertheless, our whole posture is that of looking to the Lord for guidance in all that we do.
As I said, I used to spend whole mornings in prayer in the little church (we since have built a larger one). There were demons in that building. I learned from that experience that spirits can attach themselves to a building. When I walked from one room to another I could (spiritually speaking) "hear" the demons shrieking. It was enough to frighten me, but I kept plugging along.
A few years later a visiting evangelist told me he could feel the power of prayer in the building.
Our church has grown slowly. Some have been concerned about this. But when I go to the Lord He says, "You take care of the Word. I will take care of the attendance." This I have tried to be absolutely faithful to do.
The Lord has sent us outstanding people. When I consider the people we have it is plain to see the Lord is keeping His part of the deal.
God sent us one of the finest youth leaders one could imagine, Brian Wagner.
Our worship leader is a guitarist, composer, and singer, with an outstanding anointing of the Holy Spirit.
God sent us several computer people, one of whom serves as our webmaster. He created a large site. Several hundred of my writings are online. Anyone can download them and print them out. A daily essay goes out every morning.
A software engineer keeps my equipment up to date and operating.
There is a school teacher who proofread my typescripts.
I spoke before of Eddie Reiter, my editor.
We have a very competent man in charge of buildings and grounds.
We have built a new building since we have been here, paying off a four hundred thousand dollar loan in five years with minimum appeals for money. Once a year we held a mortgage-reduction offering, but this was low-key. Begging for money has been characteristic of religious efforts in our country. I don’t believe this is a good testimony.
Our Church Council comprises competent men of various fields of endeavor, including two engineers.
The head of our health and safety department is a judge of the municipal court who works with workmen’s compensation cases.
A talented artist does the covers for our books.
God recently sent us a West Point graduate, a former captain in the army, who is overseeing the foreign-language translations of our books and pamphlets.
A college employee with a master’s degree in business administration oversees our pageantry.
We have a dedicated, loyal church secretary.
A husband and wife team from our assembly are helping with a work among the American Indians. A husband and wife team from our assembly are ministering regularly in Mexico. Some men from our church are active in prison ministry.
We have nurses who take care of the sick, people who take care of other needs, such as banquets when they occur, correspondence with missionaries, and several other tasks.
A few years ago our youth leader, Bryan Wagner, passed away suddenly. He was twenty-six years of age and had been with us since the age of eleven.
I cannot speak too highly of this young man. It seemed he lived in prayer. We assumed we were training him up to be a pastor or missionary, but we learned from this that we had better concentrate on what is taking place now, for the future we plan for may never arrive.
Although the sense of loss is tremendous, the elders and I feel that Bryan’s departure was the Lord’s will for his life. We knew he was a wonderful young people’s leader, but we did not realize what an impact he was making on all of us.
On Sunday, the next day after his death, the morning and evening services were devoted to Bryan’s memory. I could hardly say anything without crying.
I turned over the Sunday evening service to the youth. One after another they came to the platform, weeping, and telling what Bryan had done for them as individuals. How he found the time to help our kids in such a supremely personal way I do not know. He was holding down a full-time job working for his mother, who has a carpet-cleaning business.
We have had a saint among us and did not realize it. I know our church will never be the same. We have turned a corner. We will have dedicated youth workers with us in the future, but there never will be another Bryan.
So its goodbye for now, Bryan of the eternal smile, until we gather with you on the great resurrection morning. Then you can see all the young people who carried on with your selfless dedication and brought Christ to their generation.
Goodbye for now, our son in the Lord. I know you are with Jesus Christ and having fellowship with Him, as only those who diligently served him are qualified to enjoy. We shall never forget you. We hope to see you again soon.
I am sure I left out several important workers. But this gives you some idea of what the Lord means by "You take care of the Word and I will take care of the attendance."
I am not interested in getting a multitude of people under one roof. We have a message to communicate to the Body of Christ and we look for workers, warriors, worshipers—people who pray, who are