Dear Jon Tng and fivedove readers,

Moments ago I sent a "post" to you in which I said something which needs adjusted.  I said that I think Russia will be one of the parts of the Beast system (described in the Book of Revelation in the Bible) that is an instrument of the Lord to judge wayward Christianity.  Actually, those words, "... to judge wayward Christianity", probably convey a wrong message unless put into a longer list of things. 

What I think - and I am not a Bible teacher or pastor, but just a brother in the Lord - is that the Beast system destroys Babylon.  And I think that the Beast and Babylon also are martyring Christians.   When someone suffers persecution or death, it is not necessarily that they were "wayward".  I do not want to say that to anyone. Rather, I mean that the system of sin and power and money which results from corruption and from false religious assumptions, this will be destroyed at the end of this age as Jesus is preparing to return.  But there is also the martyrdom of believers.

For believers, "there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus."  And Jesus said, " He who hears My words and believes Him Who sent Me has eonian life and shall not come into judgment but is passed from death to life!"  So, even though some may suffer like Job of the Bible, yet the Lord will purify those who seek Him.  We are reconciled to God in Christ by the blood of Jesus through faith.  And we need not fear death. 

Thank you for your patience as I merely try to fellowship with you all as a mere brother in Christ.

When I was 12 and 13 years old I held the "materialist" philosophy.  And I thought I was a Marxist for awhile.  And I thought I believed in "the Brave, New World" of Aldous Huxley and those sorts of libertarian or anarchistic philosophers.  I hoped that the world was evolving in a positive way.  But as I tried to mature into adulthood, it was obvious I was ugly, destructive, undisciplined and could not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ even though I tried.  And I asked the Lord to give me faith in Him and in His bodily resurrection from the dead, as I knew He had suffered on the Cross as a result of my killing Him.  And, somehow, faith arrived to me from God.  I do not know how.  But God gave me faith in the resurrection of the Son of God from the dead.   And, I do know that Marxists and Islamists as well can come to believe in the Son of God and his resurrection from the dead.

-Peter A. Van Breemen