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THE KEN WILLIAMS
QUARTERLY NEWS LETTER
________________________________________________ Spring 2010 (March thru May) Vol. 3, No. 2
IN THIS ISSUE
BIBLE STUDY:
Finding Jesus in the Book of Judges
SCIENCE:
Did Man Come from Apes ...or... Did God Make Man?
AMERICAN HISTORY:
The Greatest Depression and the Greatest Revival
A PERSONAL MESSAGE:
Ken Williams
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BIBLE STUDY
Finding Jesus in the Book of Judges
Shof'tim in Hebrew
By Ken Williams
Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reverved
As you may remember from last quarter's study in Joshua, we are going through the books of the Old Testament in the order they appear in the Jewish Bible (the Tanakh). While both the Jewish and Christian Bibles contain the same books, they do not have them grouped in the same manner. The Christian Bible, like the Hebrew Bible begins with the five books of Moses. But from there they go their separate ways. The Christian Bible groups the books by: the Pentetuch (the books of Moses), the books of history, the books of poetry, the major prophets and the minor prophets. The Jewish Bible organizes the books in the same order they have been listed since long before the time of Jesus. In fact Jesus referred to them as "the Law, the Prophets and the Writings." In the Hebrew Bible, the Prophets begin with Joshua, which we considered in our last study, and continues this quarter with Judges.
The Book of Judges is primarily a book of history - the history of Israel from the death of Joshua till the time Saul was anointed the first King of Israel. It was a time of rejecting God, being punished by God, repenting and returning to God, slipping away from God, and repeating the same cycle over and over again. Joshua was a book of victory, whereas Judges is a book of defeat. While Joshua, the leader, had died, God remained. There was no need for defeat.
During the times of repentance, God raised up thirteen Judges (12 men and one woman), to deliver Israel from her invaders, and to lead the nation during the remainder of their lives. Each judge was a (1) prophet, (2) a spiritual leader, and (3) a ruler. Each judge therefore portrays the role of Jesus (Yeshua), the Messiah as Prophet, Priest and King.
Each judge came to office during a time when Israel, as a nation, had strayed from the God of their fathers, and gone after the idolatry of their neighbors. In some instances they went so far away from God as to offer their children as burnt sacrifices to idol gods. When God permitted surrounding nations to conquer and subjugate the Israelites, they cried out to the Lord in repentance. God then raised up a judge to deliver them militarily and to rule over them throughout the rest of his or her life.
The Book of Judges also illustrates the need for a righteous king. Judges 17:6 says, "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in their own eyes" (NIV). In other words, there was anarchy. The result was, "They forsook the LORD (Yehway in Hebrew)" (Judges 2:13 NIV). "Therefore, coming full circle, God allowed the nations surrounding them to 'test' them, so they might return to Him" (Judges 2:22-23 LB).
There are numbers of instances in Judges where God personally spoke to individual judges, giving to them messages and direction. However, there is one instance when God actually appeared in a body and spoke to the entire nation. In Judges Chapter 2 it says, "One day the Angel of the Lord arrived in Bochim..." (LB). This "Angel of the Lord" is Jehovah (Yahweh) God. How do we know?
1. He said He was the One who had brought them out of Egypt. Who brought Israel out of Egypt? God!
2. He said He was the One who had brought them into the Promised Land. Who brought Israel into the Promised Land? God did!
3. He said that He had made promises to their forefathers. Who was it who made those promises? God made those promises!
Let's look at this term, the "Angel of the Lord." This term appears a number of times in the Old Covenant (the Hebrew Scriptures). Unlike some other angels (Gabriel and Michael, for instance), this angel is never given any other name. This could be correctly translated from Hebrew as "The Angel of God's Presence."
Back in Genesis when Jacob was fleeing his home headed for Haran, the "Angel of the Lord" identified Himself as "the God of Bethel" (Genesis 31:11-13). When Jacob was returning to his homeland with his family, and wrestled with the "Angel of the Lord," his response was, "I have seen God face to face, and my life was preserved" (Genesis 32:30 LB). When the "Angel of the Lord" met Moses, He identified Himself by saying, "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham" (Exodus 3:2-6). There are about a dozen references to the "Angel of the Lord" in the Old Testament, and each time, there is indication that this Angel is Jehovah of the Old Covenant, known as Yeshua, or Jesus in the New Testament.
Remember that God the Father has no body. The Bible tells us that the Father is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. It is God the Son, who appears in the Jewish Scriptures of the Old Testament in a body to communicate with His people. We will see this carried forward into the New Testament as we move forward in our study.
Judges makes for some interesting reading about the history of Israel from the time Joshua died, to the time Saul was anointed as the first king. It also gives great insight into man's tendence to depart from God's way and to go his own way.
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SCIENCE
Did Man Come from Apes?
...or...
Did God Make Man?
By Ken Williams
Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved
That is the question, and it all comes down to that. There is an old saying, "If you have to tell a lie, tell a big one, and tell it often enough, and people will believe you." In this series of essays we have already looked at some "lies" that have been foisted upon us by evolutionists. But let's look at some more.
I wish I could show you the chart I have before me. However, if you have ever looked at a book or article discussing evolution, you likely have seen it. Let me try to describe it. On the left is an obvious ape, slouched over, but walking with a human-like gait. To the right is an obvious human being, walking erect, but with some ape-like hair on his face. Between the two are three creatures which are supposed to be the developmental links between the ape on the left and the man on the right. This chart appears in nearly every school science book dealing with the subject of evolution. It allegedly shows the progression from ape to man.
The chart is partly true. The animal to the left is an ape. The figure to the right is a human being. However, the three entities between them are the figment of an over active imagination. They do not exist, and no evidence that they ever have existed has ever been discovered. Yet they are portrayed as if it is scientific truth. It is a lie!
Where do these things come from? What you are about to read may seem off the wall. But listen to this! In the March 2000 issue of National Geographic, in an article entitled "Behind the Scenes," we read the following: "It's hard to find someone who can draw realistic-looking early hominid. That's why the Geographic's art department conducted a search for new talent. Four artists were picked to receive casts of two-million-year-old female Homo habilis fossils. From these bits of evidence they were to sketch - in skeletal and fleshed-out form - the hominid to whom the bones belonged. 'Each artist had two weeks with the bones before they were sent on to the next persons, says coordinator Kris Hammah. Research was completely up to the individual. That's why their work looks so different. There's no one way to draw her.' Paleoanthropologists reviewed the results. Intrigued with all four entries, the art department has invited the artists to paint finished versions based on input from consultants."
Think about it! That is all art (imagination), with totally zero science. These artists received casts of seven small pieces of bone (small and insignificant pieces - six of them partial pieces of relatively straight bone, just inches long), with which they were supposed to construct a missing link between ape and man.
There was not a bone on that pad more than a few inches long, and no skull bones at all. This is preposterous! There is not an ounce of sience in this activity.
All four artists received the same set of bones; but their drawings were in no way similar. Let's first consider the length of the arms. They vary from one drawing to the other. The ratio of length of arms to legs is 3/4ths to 1 in humans; but 1 to 1 in monkeys and apes. Of course, there is no way the artists knew what the length of the arms would be from looking at the bones. No scientist could know that, let alone an artist. It is total conjecture. Some were drawn with arms down to their knees, while others were drawn to be more human-like.
Next we take a look at their heads. Every one is very different from the others. Some are ape-like. Some are human-like. It is purely imagination.
We also need to take a look at the hands and feet. They all have human-like feet. But some artists drew their hands to be ape-like. Some drew ape hands. Some drew human hands. I think it is interesting that one of them even put human hands on ape length arms.
There is nothing scientific about this. Yet it is perpetuated on the American people as though it were scientific fact.
Dr. Bernard Wood, an evolutionist, and professor of human origins at George Washington University wrote, "There is a popular image of human evolution that you'll find all over the place... On the left of the picture there's an ape... On the right, a man... Between the two is a succession of figures that become ever more like humans... Our progress from ape to human looks so smooth, so tidy. It's such a beguiling image that even the experts are loath to let it go. BUT IT IS AN ILLUSION" (Who Are We? New Scientist, 2366 [26 October 2002] page 44.
There are many more examples we could look at, but let's take one more. It is the picture of a pregnancy less than a month into development in its mother's womb. It is taken from Biology A Journey into Life, Arms and Camp 1991, p. 557. It says, "At the beginning of the third trimester (6 months), the fetus is still tiny. It will normally more than triple in size before birth. By 7 months, the fetus looks from the outside like a tiny normal baby, but it is not. The lungs and temperature regulation systems are not functional." The article continues on to tell why this fetus (not baby) cannot live outside the mother's womb.
This biology book tells the students that "By the 7th month, the fetus looks from outside like a tiny normal baby, but it is not." I want us to notice two things that are wong with this statement.
First, by seven months a baby is viable, and able to live outside the mother. I have two granddaughters who were born at six months. At the time of this writing one of them is in the sixth grade, the other in the seventh. The purpose of this biology book is to implant in the child's mind that a baby is not a baby until it is born. Therefore, abortion does not involve the killing of a human life.
The second thing I notice that is wrong with this statement is the use of the term "fetus." Back in the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church tried to hide its departure from the Scriptures by forbidding the Bible to be written in the languge of the people. Even the Masses were conducted in Latin, which no one but the church elite understood. Today abortionists are trying to keep people from understanding what is going on, by hiding the truth in that same Latin language. Some in the scientific and medical communities try to tell us that the person in the womb is not a "baby;" it is a "fetus" - just a blob of tissue. The word "fetus" is a Latin word which has an accepted English translation. The Latin word "fetus" is translated into English as "unborn baby." Ah! The LIE has been unveiled.
Finally I would like for you to notice the biggest, but least obvious fraud on that textbook page. Right next to the discussion of the seven month old baby being too young to survive outside the mother, is a picture of a baby in the mother's womb. The average reader would assume that is what a seven month old baby looks like. But the picture is actually of a baby only three to five weeks after conception. It is an absolute fraud!
The Theory of Evolution as it is being taught to our young people is not science. It is a revolution against God. I believe it is even more of a faith system than is faith in God. Unfortunately there are many Christians, even Christian leaders who have felt the need to jump on the evolution bandwagon. They have bent over backwards to try to somehow fit evolution into the Bible. They contend that God guided evolution. I will agree with them that the only way evolution ever could have happened is if there was a supreme guidance to make sure it happened. It could not have happened by mere chance.
The question, however, is not, "Could God create by guiiding an evolutionary process?" The question is, "Did He use evolution to create the world, life, the universes, etc.?" Yes, I know the argument that some suggest that the six days of creation may not have been literal 24-hour days. That sets up a whole host of scientifically unviable situations which I won't get in to here. I'll just say that I choose to interpret the Bible literally unless the Bible itself indicates that it is to be taken figuratively. Otherwise, you can make the Bible say anything you want to make it say. However, if you believe in Theistic Evolution (evolution directed by God), then you have to deny some very important New Testament teachings.
The New Testament also declares that God did all of His creating in six days. In Greek, that is a lot more precise than is the Hebrew in the Book of Genesis. However, there is something much more important. Let me quote two passages of Scripture.
"Death came into this world because of what one man (Adam) did... "I Corinthians5:21 LB).
"When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. His sin spread death throughout all the world, so everythging (animal, plant and mineral, in addition to mankind) began to grow old and die..." (Romans 5:12).
Analyze these two verses. Before Adam's sin, there was no death. Death came as the result of sin. Not only that; but it says that before Adam's sin nothing aged. It says "everything," (not just human beings) began to age because of Adam's sin. So let me put it to you this way. If anything (plant, animal or human) died before Adam sinned, then the Bible is not God's infallible, insired Word. It is as simple as that.
If the dinosaurs became extinct 65-million years before man appeared on earth, then there was death before sin; and that would make the Bible wrong. If a plant or flower expired before Adam sinned, then the Bible cannot be right.
"...LET GOD BE TRUE, BUT EVERY MAN A LIAR..." (Romans 3:4).
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HISTORY
The Greatest Depression
And
The Greatest Revival
By Ken Williams
Copyright 2007
All Rights Reserved
We remember Patrick Henery for his statement, "Give me liberty or give me death!" But there is another statement of Patrick Henry that used to be just as well known, and appeared in all of our history books. Henry also said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
However, less than seventy-five years after the Holy Revolution to overturn what the colonists felt were unbiblical regulations from the King, church attendance and spiritual fervor had waned. By the early 1850's church attendance had dropped to about twenty percent - about what it is today.
Historians laid the blame for the rapid spiritual decline in the new nation to affluence. That may seem strange to us, since they had few of the conveniences we have today. But in less than 75 years, the United States had become the richest nation on earth. There were basically two reasons for this. First, the people of the United States were very industrious. They were producing far more per man-hour than any other nation. Second, they were a very thrifty people. They had large portions of their incomes into savings. That, in turn, was used to build factories and purchase tools and machines. They also had more disposable income and more free time than any earlier society.
Suddenly, in 1852, they were brought back to reality by the greatest and worst depression ever to hit this country. We are told that the Great Depression of the 1920's and 30's was like a Sunday School picnic compared to the depression of 1852. In New York City (population was a little over 100,000), 30,000 men lost their jobs in one month. Panic struck the country. Suddenly the church were full. Laymen led prayer meetings broke out everywhere. In New York City, one such daily noontime prayer meeting attracteed nearly half of the city's population every weekday.
God answered the prayer of the young nation. Revival, such as had never been experienced before, spread across the country. Stories were written of people falling to their knees while walking down the street. The had come under such conviction from God they could not wait to repent of their sins. The bars were empty as the nation returned to its roots.
There were literally thousands of stories of the convicting power of God on siful people during that era; but let me share just one. A merchant ship was coming into the harbor at what today is Newport News, Virginia. As the ship entered the bay, more than half of the hardened seamen on board fell to their knees and began crying out to God to be merciful to them. When the ship finally docked, the captain sent ashore for all the preachers that could be found to come on board and pray with his crew.
While the depression of 1852 was the worst depression ever to hit this country, it was also the shortest as a repentant nation came back to God.
We would, however, not do juistice to this subject, without writing about the man God used to bring the revival that brought America back to God. His name was Charles Finney. Perhaps you never heard that name before; but Charles Finney played a great part in the shaping of America, and his story used to be a part of every American history book.
Finney was born in 1792 in Litchfield County, Connecticut to a Revolutionary War veteran. Unlike most homes of that era, Finney says there was no Bible in their home and he never heard anyone pray as he grew up.
Finney's father got caught up in the westward move, and along with many of his neighbors loaded his family and belongings on ox carts and moved to the unsettled wilderness west of the Hudson River in what today is known as Upstate New York. There young Charles grew up working on the family farm and hunting with his long-barreled flintlock rifle.
True to the traditions of the pioneers, the three R's were not neglected even in the wilderness. Every youth must know how to read correctly, spell accurately, write legible and keep family accounts in order. Teachers came around for a week or two at a time, with the rest of the education being done in the home. By the time Finney was fifteen he had advanced far enough to become a school teacher himself.
Finney's father, however, kept pushing his son to become a lawyer. After some persuading, Finney decided he could best serve his young country in the legal profession. In 1818 Charles Finney moved into the law offices of Judge Benjamin Wright at Adams, New York; not far from present day Rochester. For two years he read and was taught by Judge Wright before being admitted to the bar and taken into partnership.
It was during the Judge's tutelage that Finney learned something about himself. He learned that he was completely out of step with the Founding Fathers and most of the American people. He put it this way, "I was almost as ignorant of religion as a heathen." He called himself a "skeptic," which would equate to the word "agnostic" today.
As all law students, he had to study Blackstone's Commentary on the law, used in law schools into the first third of the 20th Century, and still used in some situations today. This volume opened his eyes. He saw Blackstone's many references to the Mosaic code of laws and other Bible quotes. He saw that every law and every legal concept was back up by and based upon Biblical passages. Even the very framework of the Constitution had been built upon the Bible.
Charles Finneywas so taken back by this, and how it could have excapted him, that he bought himself his first Bible and began reading it. One Wednesday morning on his way to another session with Blackstone's Commentary on the Law, he said, "An inner voice confronted me saying, 'What are you waiting for? Are you endeavoring to work out a righteousness of your own?'" He said, "I saw that Christ's work was a finished work; and instead of having or needing any righteousness of my own to recommend me to God, I had to submit myself to Christ."
Right there on the street, he met the Christ of the Bible, and became one of the greatest revival preachers the world has ever seen - one of the great preachers God used to sweep the country back to Himself following the disastrous depression of 1852. Finney finally quit preaching in 1872 because of his advanced age.
Let me throw in a personal comment with regard to the effect of Charles Finney on a small church in Skaneateles, New York in the Finger Lakes Region. I lived in Syracuse, New York from 1969 to 1973. During that time, I conducted services on numerous occasions at a small Presbyterian Church in Skaneateles, about 15 miles to the west of Syracuse. It was a resort and tourist area at the north end of Lake Skaneateles, one of the Finger Lakes.
The church had dwindled in membership, and was too small to have a pastor of its own. One day, in looking over the records of the church, I discovered a huge spike in its membership and attendance. It was the result of Charles Finney's revival meetings in Rome, New York. Note that Rome was about 75 miles to the east of Skaneateles, not an easy trip on horseback or in a horse and buggy. Yet that revival impacted this small community so far away. The church membership spiked from membership of about 75, to over 500 in just a few months at the time as God moved, not only just in that area, but across the entire nation. Incidentally, the total population of Skaneateles at the time was fewer than 100 people. They came to church from miles around.
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A PERSONAL WORD
From Ken Williams
The following article is by far the most difficult thing I have ever written. The Lord has impressed upon me stongly that it is past time to come clean, explain what happened and ask for forgiveness from the many that were hurt by my actions.
The total of our lives can be evaluated by the sum of the hundreds, thousands and hundreds of thousands of decisions, small and great, which we make every hour every day of our lives. Hopefully, those decisions are made based upon a Christian world-view. However, in my case, while that was my goal, many were far from the mark.
While our lives are made up of the cumulative decisions of life, groups of large decisions seem to approach at three different times in life. The first big set comes as we complete high school, decide on a college or not, a career, even a spouse. Another set comes for many people in mid-adulthood. We sometimes call it the mid-life crisis. Interestingly enough many people never really face this set of decisions. Others collapse beneath the weight of it. The final set of the three appears as we move into our retirement years. Over the years I have found myself going back many times to that first set after high school, going over what might have happened if I had made different decisions. I don't go there any more. It is an exercise in futility; although it does allow for temporary escape when one has made bad and irrefutable decisions such as I have made.
I need to fast-forward to my mid-life crisis. It was not a traditional mid-life crisis in that it did not begin with any faulty thinking process on my part. My mid-life crisis was actually forced upon me by a heinous crime committed against my family, my church, my community and myself. I'm not going to go into detail; the story has been on the internet for some years. It happened in 1975. As a reault of that attack, I spent six weeks in a mental health institution operated by Loyola University School of Medicine, being treated for more than a year following by Psychiatrist Dr. Marvin DeHaar, a hospital board member, and son of the late Dr. M. R. DeHaan, founder of Radio Bible Class Ministries. It was at this point that my bad decisions began. They seemed so little in the beginning, but by the time it was over, I had hurt the ones I loved the most, and ruined both their lives and the life God had entrusted to me.
For the first time in my adult life, I found myself working at a secular job. It wasn't that I disliked it. There just wan't any challenge; it was a dead end job. I became impatient. I wanted to get well and get back into full-time Christian service; but all I was doing was treading water. It wasn't that my family and I were not serving the Lord. I was leading the singing and the choir at our church and involved in other church activities as well. I was busy with the work of the Lord, but dissatisfied at the pace of my recovery and the likelihood of getting back into full-time Christian service.
It was at this point that I began to be dishonest with Dr. DeHaan. I began to whitewash over things which were happening in my life, or just not telling him about the issues and how I was feeling. I wanted to get this phase of my life over. The fact is that my recovery was not going nearly as well as I made it out to be. I had learned how to calmly cover up what was really going on in my life. And when the doctor finaly dismissed me from treatment, I was not anywhere close to ready. In two years when I became a youth pastor, and a short time later, a senior paster, there was no way I was ready for what was ahead. I even took classes in counseling, and read all of the books of Dr. Jay Adams counseling system. I did it more to help myself than I did to help others.
It was probably about a year into my pastorate that I noticed several things happening that shook me back to reality. Number 1: I believed I had slipped into deep depression. Number two: I could not carry on a intimate conversation with my wife any more, except for the usual generalities of life. No one would have known I was in depression, because my reaction to depression was to, by brute force, make myself work so hard that I didn't have time to reflect on what was really going on in my life. I was up at 5:00 every morning; in the study by 6:00, busy throughout the day well into the evening, when I would come home and collapse into bed, ready to go again the next day. I enjoyed studying and preaching, and I worked hard at it. I created work for myself so I could stay busy. I also stayed perpetually tired and worn out.
Now, please don't think that I am trying to lay down an excuse for what happened next. I have to own up to my decisions. They were mine! They were deliberate! They were very wrong!
It began on a Saturday morning at 6:00 when I unlocked the church for the men's prayer breakfast which would take place an hour later. The doors were all locked. I unlocked the study door (it was locked too), opened the door, and discovered that every one of the hundreds and hundreds of books in my library had been cleaned off the shelves and scattered on the floor. My file drawers and desk drawers had all be emptied on to the floor, as well. It was a mess; totally ransacked! My reaction was one of sheer terror and fright! I'm not going to go into the details of my reaction. If you read my complete story, you already know. Somehow I made it through the weekend; I'll never know how. Looking back the whole weekend seems a blur.
I'm not going to go through the story again to set the stage for terror and fright. If I had been trusting on the Lord instead of all my fighting depression the wrong way, maybe, just maybe I would have approached it differently. I have no idea if, or how things might have been different. I do know that the choice I made was the result of a refusal to wait on the Lord believing that the Lord could not act quickly enough to get me out of this one. I made a choice; a really bad choice. I knew at the time it was very wrong! I knew it would haunt me for what ever life the Lord allowed me to have after this. And I also was quite sure that after making this choice, the Lord would not allow me to live another five years (and that was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy). I told myself that I was trying to save the lives of my wife and children. I really believed that at the time. I told myself that, "If God couldn't help; then I needed to do this." Even while still knowing that what I was doing was wrong!
Again, without going into the details of the story, the result of that decision caused even deeper depression and pressure. I was living life in a cauldron. Having studied up on Dr. Adams counseling methods, I knew I could not live like this for long without it taking a severe toll on my health. Within a few months my blood pressure was skyrocketing. I became dysfunctional. My life was out of whack. There was no doubt in my mind that within just a few years, if that long, I would be dying of cancer. There were times in the following years that I was taking as many as 16 pills per day. It was six years into this time period that God permitted Pat to come into my life. I hope you paid attention to the wording there. He permitted her into my life, I believe to keep me alive. Pat had multiple and very serious health issues from an inherited disease. Her high school aged daughter had been through well over 30 surgeries. Somehow I thought that mybe by remote control I could substitute her and her daughter for the results of my horrible decisions. We would never be able to have what most people would consider a normal family relationship. But over time we became very much in love, and very, very close.
During those years I forced myself to stay very busy working to try to cover up my deep depression. That's not to say that it was all bad. But there were several times I worked two full-time jobs for long periods, and times I parlayed part-time jobs into more than two full-time jobs. For example, I worked at a news talk radio station from 4:00 am to 11:00 am, six days a week; then from 4:00 pm to 12:30 am as Quality Control supervisor at a local aircraft parts manufacturing company. That allowed me to sleep, eat, and do everything else from 1:00 am to 3:00 am and from 12:00 noon to 3:00 pom. After work and travel time that left me with 5 hours a day to eat and sleep. It kept me sane, if that's what you want to call it. This rush, rush, rush of activity went on from the summer of 1980, till the fall of 2007, when praise the Lord, it all came to an end.
Over the following months, I was reunited with many members of my family and received their forgiveness and made some long trips to visit with them. The Lord has forgiven, as He promised. I finally retured in January of this year (2010), at age 70 after working just four hours a day at the news/talk radio station for the past three years, and we are now busy serving the Lord voluntarily at our church. However, it is time now to ask for forgiveness from the others my decisions have hurt, with whom we have not been able to make contact. There are some who are still very angry and don't want to talk to me. I understand that, and will respect their wishes.
NOW FOR A POSITIVE NOTE
"I have DECLARED my ways, and thou heardest me; teach my thy statutes" (Psalm 119:26).
"WRITE the vision, and make it plain upon tablets..." (Habakkuk 2:2).
Here we come to the decisions heading into one's retirement years. Through the above and additional passages, the Lord has impressed upon me that I needed to write down my declarations before Him, and He will bring them to pass. These DECLARATIONS have come after much soul searching, and I believe they are what God has for Pat and for me during what ever time He gives us to serve Him.
Number 1: I want to cultivate an ATMOSPHERE in our lives in which God can communicate His love, and His will and direction to us. To that end, Pat and I are reading through the Bible at a rate of twice per year; in addition to our daily time of devotional prayer.
Number 2: We will continue to SERVE THE LORD in the two ministries at our church in which we are currently involved. We are currently working in our church food pantry, helping to distribute food to the needy on Monday's, then unload the truck and stock the shelves on Friday. The Lord had to do a real work in me after I asked Him to give me a heart for these people. The second area of service is the Spanish Language congregation we have established at our church. We work together with the Hispanic pastor as one of his prayer partners, and attend the Spanish services. What a wonderful group of believers who love the Lord and serve Him. I didn't think I could learn a second language at 70 year os age. Should other areas of service arise, we will consider them prayerfully before the Lord, wanting to serve Him as best we can.
Number 3: We will continue with the Ken Williams Ministries website, also publications, speaking and singing as the Lord provides opportunities.
After all these wasted years, what a wonderful experience to be able to finally rest in the arms of Jesus and experience what He really wanted for us all these years.
What amazes me is that I am still here. The human body should not be able to endure what I put myself through for more than 35 years. At any moment I expected to hear the word "Cancer." In my mind it was a given. After multiple tests throughout the month of December 2009) (tests for heart trouble, gall bladder, lower organs, full body scans, ets), I heard the doctor say, "Malignant tumor on the spine." There was no shock or reaction of any kind (inside or outwardly). I already knew. And for the first time in my adult life, I had already given it over to the Lord. It was all in His hands.
I am currently undergowing radiation treatments each day on an out-patient basis. According to the doctors, the rumor is reponding. We will keep you informed.
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CLICK BELOW TO VISIT PREVIOUS NEWS LETTERS:
Summer 2010 - Ken Williams News Letter
Winter 2010 - Ken Williams News Letter
Fall 2009 - Ken Williams News Letter
Summer 2009 - Ken Williams News Letter
Spring 2009 - Ken Williams News Letter
Winter 2009 - Ken Williams News Letter
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