LXII

BE SURE YOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT

NUMBERS 32:23

SEVEN SALLIE (FATHER OF SEVENIA SALLIE GIRL PROPHETESS)

It was about ten minutes before Sevenia’s 6^th Bible study/lecture was to begin. Brock and Destiny walked in with the two young ladies Destiny had been bringing. One of them was wearing a denim skirt, and I joked with myself that our church might one day make it an official uniform for the ladies. I just hoped the men didn’t start wearing kilts. I chuckled.

I noticed Brock looking at me with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. I pictured him in a kilt and started laughing. I became concerned that I would look like a nut sitting alone at the slide projector chortling uncontrollably. You know how it is when you shouldn’t be laughing, but you can’t stop. As a matter of fact, it somehow seems to make you laugh all the harder. I put my face in my hands, leaned over, and convulsed with inappropriate merriment.

I felt a strong hand on my shoulder right before I heard Brock’s voice whisper in my ear. “Dude, everyone’s staring.”

This sobered me instantly. Sevenia’s study/lecture had grown to around thirty people, give or take. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass my daughter. I took a quick moment to come up with an explanation. I lifted my head preparing for two dozen pairs of eyes gawking at me. Not a single eyeball was on me other than Brock’s. He also covered his mouth and jiggled with laughter.

“Laugh all you want,” I said in a low tone. “I’m glad you stopped me. The last thing I want to do is embarrass Sevenia.”

“Same here,” he replied. “But secondarily, I wanted to see you embarrass yourself, so it was tempting to let you go on laughing.”

“Thanks, Cousin.”

“What’s family for?” he asked with a shrug.

Salena walked in, glanced at me, smiled, waved with one hand as the other caressed her pregnant belly. She looked like she could give birth anytime now. I smiled and waved back.

“I thought the interview Destiny did on your podcast the other day was pretty good,” Brock said.

“It went beyond well,” I replied enthusiastically. “It got a bigger response than Sevenia’s interview. What did Destiny think?”

Brock pursed his lips, bowed his head, and sadly shook his head. My spirits sank like a lead balloon.

(DESTINY KNIGHT-STORM)

I was surprisingly calm when Seven introduced me to a pleasant woman named Amber Jenkins for the interview. Maybe it was because I was relieved that it wasn’t an actual couple that had been in something like a love triangle. Yet Amber’s situation did involve a love triangle, two actually. I had been dreading the possibility of interviewing  two people overcoming marital problems, at least when I was brand new to this podcast thing. Amber and I spent some time getting acquainted before we recorded.

Amber grew up in a nominally Christian home. She loved her parents. They were very involved in their two daughter’s lives, and they seemed to have a solid, loving relationship with each other. Her mother was an energetic, aggressive manager of a department for a factory that made aviation equipment. Her father was a laid back former hippie and an art professor at a local college.

She showed me a picture of her parents. Her mother had short black hair and intense blue eyes that seemed like they were looking for a challenge. Her father had sandy blonde hair, hazel eyes framed with laugh lines, and a lazy grin. They were a nice looking couple. Eddie and Janet were their names.

She showed me a picture of a man who looked like a science nerd. He wasn’t particularly handsome with frizzy red hair, close set eyes and a long beaky nose. But he had a nice smile, even though it looked forced.

“This is Conner Kelly,” Amber told me. “He worked with my mother. But he was close friends with both of my parents. He and my father shared the same hobby, which was flying remote control airplanes. Every other Saturday the three of them would go out to lunch together, and then Conner and my mother would spend the afternoon together. This bi-weekly tradition began when my sister and I were in high school.

“I never thought much of it,” she continued. “I always thought it had to do with work. Then when my sister and I were in college, our parents were both killed in a car accident. They were both forty-nine years old.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “How long ago was this?”

“Sixteen years ago,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Anyway, Conner was devastated. My parents were pretty much the only people he was close to. He was the top electrical engineer where my mother worked, and as many brainiacs are, he had poor people skills.

“Anyway, to make a long story short,” she said as she showed me a handwritten letter. “My sister and I didn’t really start going through our parents things until several years after they died. Then one day my sister showed up at my house all distraught. I was married with a two year old and another on the way.

“She had had some time off work and was going through some of our parent’s belongings. She came across a show box filled with letters from Conner to my mother. Love letters. And a few to my father.”

“Conner sent love letters to your father?”

“Not exactly,” she chuckled without humor “To make a long story short, Conner was a real life forty year old virgin story. Only he was thirty-five. We were able to piece together this bizarre relationship going by dates. The first was a pair of letters. One to my mom and the other to my dad. But it’s the one to my dad that explains where the love triangle began.”

She handed me a two page letter addressed to Eddie. In it Conner told him that the gift of his wife was the best birthday present he ever received. He gushed about what a good friend he was, how beautiful Janet was, how wonderful it was making love for the first time and how special Janet had made this new experience.

I finished reading it with my mouth hanging open. Amber handed me another letter to her father dated a year later. In it Conner thanked Eddie for the best year of his life. He told Eddie he was the most generous man on the planet and the best friend a guy could ever have. He said he was the most unselfish man he had ever known, and thanked him profusely for sharing his wife with him.

I think my jaw hit the table as Amber handed me a third letter. It was from Janet to her husband. It was dated Valentine’s day and approximately two months after Conner’s first letter. In it she thanked him for being so open and trusting her to be involved with another man. She said she never has loved him more for giving her this experience and bringing such joy to a lonely man’s (Conner) life.

“How long did this go on?” I asked with a blown mind.

“It looks like about six years. The last letter was dated three weeks before my parents died. There’s just over sixty letters in all.”

“Have you ever talked to Conner about it?”

She shook her head. “He had died before we found them.”

“How?”

“An accidental drug overdose we had always thought. But after finding these, I’m wondering if it wasn’t suicide.”

“How long after your parents died did Conner pass away.”

“Almost two years.”

“How tragic, and bizarre.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Anyhow, my sister was absolutely appalled with this three way relationship, and still is. I was too at first, but then I began to see it as a uniquely beautiful love story. So, fast forward about a decade. My best friend gets divorced. One of the issues, besides him cheating on her, was an inability to get pregnant. Having a baby was something she always longed and dreamed for.”

“I think I see where this is going,” I told her with a sad smile.

“Yup, you guessed it,” she said with sarcastic snort. “Just like Conner was given a special gift for his 35^th birthday, I gave my husband a threesome for his 38^th. All involved knew the goal was for my friend Debbie to conceive with my husband, obviously, as the donor. And what a fun way to donate, huh?”

“That’s why adultery is still adultery,” I said sympathetically. “Even if all involved are consenting. So what happened?”

“Well, Debbie didn’t conceive. So when Debbie was next ovulating,” Amber told me using air quotes for ovulating and saying Debbie with a hard D. “I allowed Doug, my ex-husband, to visit her.”

She used a hard D for Doug and did air quotes again for visit. I squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“So after about five or six months of visits,” she said, using air quotes yet again for visits. “I run into Debbie’s ex-husband and his new PREGNANT wife. Turns out the infertility problem was Debbie’s issue. I confronted Debbie on the deception. She argued that she wasn’t convinced that she was infertile. I said after six months and twenty or thirty visits from MY husband, you’re still not convinced? Then she gets this sick, little sinister grin on her face and says ‘Once you gave me a taste of Dougie, I couldn’t stop eating.’”

Amber bowed her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. I was about to console her when she suddenly raised her head. “Later when I told my husband the visits with Debbie were over, he declared that they weren’t. Turns out he preferred the woman that runs five miles a day and practiced yoga multiple times a week to his slightly overweight, out of shape wife who was busy raising HIS children.”

Amber put her face in her hands and sobbed. When she quieted, I gently asked, “Are you sure you’re up for this interview?”

She raised her head with a fierce, determined look in her pretty blue eyes. “You bet I am.”

The interview went well and I actually enjoyed myself. Amber was easy to talk to. She was also receptive to the scriptures I had to share. The strongest point made during the process was the ripple effect of sin. Even if everyone got along in her parents love triangle, and even if they intended to keep it a secret, it ended up getting discovered regardless. (Be sure your sins will find you out). It ultimately ruined an otherwise good marriage by its deceptive influence.

“I’m gonna go tell Mr. Giggles over there that you didn’t like doing that interview and are done,” Brock whispered in my ear two days later at Sevenia’s study/lecture.

“Honey, don’t you dare,” I whispered back. Then I frowned when I spotted Seven in the back with the slide projector laughing about something. Then he put his head down as Brock got up and made his way toward him.

A few minutes later, not long after Salena came in and exchanged waves with Seven, Zella strode in. She wore a green dress with a pale green sweater. One side of her hair was held back with a hair clip. Her short new hair style really brought out her striking features. She was a vision of loveliness.

She sat down without so much as a glance at Seven. Seven on the other hand stared at her in awe. Brock looked at her too, grinned, and said something to Seven. Seven looked flustered, said something back and pointed to the empty chair beside me. He apparently suggested that he leave him alone and sit down. Then Seven smiled and waved to me. I wiggled my fingers back at him,  Brock chuckled, and made his way back to me.

Now I don’t consider myself superstitious. As a matter of fact, I think superstition is an opposite of faith. But at six minutes after the hour, in walks Six Sallie, to join Sevenia’s sixth lesson.

(DESTINY’S STORY IS TOLD IN THE E-BOOK ‘KNIGHT STORM by JOHNATHAN EMBERS)

DESTINY KNIGHT-STORM’S NOTES FROM SEVENIA’S 6^th LESSON

ARE WE LIVING TOWARD THE END OF TIME?

Jesus (The Son of God) coming as a man.

Jesus’ incarnation and defeat of sin, Satan, and death ushered in “the last days.”

“The last days” see: Acts 2, 2 Timothy 3, Hebrews 1, James 5, and 2 Peter 3.

The concept of the last days goes all the way back to the promise of deliverance in Eden. Genesis chapter 3, in particular verse 15. See also Romans 16:20.

Satan’s weapons- sin, fear, and death were overcome by Jesus.

“Do not be afraid” appears 400 times in the Bible.

Satan has known for a long time that he has a short time. See Revelation 12:12.

Something about the cross sealed Satan’s doom. See John 12:31-33, and Colossians 2:14, 15.

Notice the centrality of the cross in ushering in Satan’s defeat and the last days.

The prophetic timelines are mostly fulfilled.

Prophecy is not a prediction. It is a foretelling of what is going to happen.

Biblical Prophecies

Israel’s failures, judgement, and captivity,

Daniel’s many prophecies

The messianic prophecies that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection fulfilled

Jesus’ prophecies

The end time prophecies of Revelation

Daniel’s Prophecies

Chapter 2: The metal man

Chapter 7: The four beasts and the horn

Chapter 8: The horn and the sanctuary

Chapter9: The covenant keeping messiah

Chapters 10-12: A detailed history

The Basic Outline of Daniel

Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, Rome divided and “the little horn”, Divine intervention.

Daniel was written in the 6^th century B.C. During the rein of Babylon. Yet he foretold the future reins of Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and Rome divided and “the little horn.”

Daniel 2

Head of Gold= Babylon

Chest of silver= Medo-Persia

Belly of bronze= Greece

Legs of iron= Rome

Feet of iron and clay= Rome divided

Divine stone= God’s own kingdom

Daniel 7

Lion with eagles wings= Babylon

Bear with three ribs= Medo-Persia

Leopard with four heads= Greece

Beast with ten horns= Rome

Little horn= The medieval church

Judgement seat= Divine intervention

Daniel 8

Ram with 2 horns= Medo-Persia

Goat with large horn= Greece

Little horn, horizontal= Rome

Little horn, vertical= Medieval church

Sanctuary cleansed= Divine intervention

Prophecy shows that history has a guide and a goal. History is going somewhere specific.

Jesus’ “signs of the times (See Matthew 24) are fulfilled all around us.

(Signs of the Times)

The destruction of Jerusalem

Religious deceivers and confusion

Wars and rumors of wars

Famines, pestilences, and earthquakes

Religious persecution

The love of many growing cold

The gospel going into all of the world

The abomination of desolation

The fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecies

General difficulty and turmoil

The prophecies of Revelation are fulfilling

There is a beautiful tension in the Bible between God’s urgency and His patience.

Your personal “last days” could be this week or even today.

We make our decisions, and then our decisions make us.

Choose for yourselves this day who you will serve Joshua 24:15

And I, if I be lifted up will draw all people to Me. (the words of Jesus in John 12:32)

You cannot drive someone to faith, they must be drawn.