dgregory

Perhaps it would be well to explain how all this started. It was way back in 1975 or thereabouts, and my car was out of commission, and another Christian brother had taken me to a meeting of an interdenominational Christian group. When he brought me home and was sitting at the kitchen table he just opened up and began sharing with me about Daniel chapter 9:24-27.

I will not say that his manner of delivery was the best (that was a long time ago) but something sparked inside me, and since what he said blew my prophetic 'ship' right out of the water I resolved that I had to follow this one up, which I did, and which took about two years.

I found one book on 'Antichrist' which was very poorly written, but the bibliography in the back took me to the reasonably well stocked shelves of what was then Columbia Bible College, which was where I met my first wife (with the Lord since 1988). And since I lived in Columbia at the time I took considerable advantage of their library.

The author whom I found to be almost an inexhaustible resource of prophetic and historical information was one Henry Grattan Guinness, about whom I have already written somewhat. Fortunately, the CBC (now CIU for Columbia International University) library had several books by him, and I proceeded in the course of the next not just two years but probably ten or more to read all of them.

I must at this point argue along with Os Guinness, great grandson of the above Guinness, that the view of many Christians that learning and scholarship is a hindrance to spiritual growth, is a very unhealthy attitude. Certainly when we boast of our learning it becomes an outright sin, but if one does a simple study in Proverbs on the word 'instruction' one will find that the Spirit of God has nothing but good to say about learning. Indeed, the very word disciple does not mean follower, but rather learner.

Anyway, the study that I am about to pursue in this venue is about the things that our eyes were opened to back then, and which I have considered to be truth ever since.

It is getting late, and I sign off here.