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February 2009
Greetings to everyone in Yeshua’s Holy and Wonderful Name!! Life has been so full of blessings so far this year and we don’t see any indication that the blessings will be ending soon.
THANKS FOR THE BLESSINGS
We here at the Delusion Resistance count on our members for support, for the most part in prayer and supplication from Yahweh. The blessings that we receive in the Ruach are not the results of the prayers of just Lourdes and me, but they are because many of you lift us up in prayer, and for that we are always thankful. Last month we put out an appeal for financial help, simply because times are hard these days and the bill for our website hosting was due and we didn’t have the money to pay to continue for another year. For those who were able to help out with financial gift we want to say that we thank you and we thank Yahweh for you. We’ll be here for another year ministering and being ministered to. Just so that you know that Yahweh uses us I would like to relate to you a story about a phone call that came to us via the AACCOA last month. One weekday I was at work and the phone rang and the page came over the intercom that I had a phone call. I left my cell phone at home and Lourdes had a man call to my workplace. At the other end of the phone was a man who was distraught who told me that he had been experiencing alien abduction and wanted help right away. Well, I could not talk to him because I was at work but Yahweh told me to have the man call Jim Wilhelmsen. I told the man to go back to the website and get Jim’s number. He was on the website at the time and found Jim’s number quickly. He thanked me and hanged up. I called Jim that night and asked him about the man. Jim said that he talked to the man for a couple of hours and even talked to his father. Jim told him all about what was really happening to him and prayed with them. Score another one for Yahweh!! This is just one example of the importance of keeping our message and website on the internet. Thanks to those donations, we are able to do just that. So thanks for listening when He talked and for being a help to this ministry in a time of need. Bless you in Yahweh Yeshua’s Holy Name!
RESIGNING FROM MUFON
As believers in Yeshua we have important decisions to make sometimes. We’re supposed to remain a holy people; set apart for Yeshua and His service. I’ve never been one for fads; especially fads that I can discern are ploys to make money in the Christian arena. When I came to know Yeshua as Adonai and Savior I put aside fads. IF we decide to follow Yeshua and if we take Him seriously then we really have no time for the trivial things of the world, or things that the Church sees as new revelations from the Almighty. Yeshua gave us commands by His own mouth and through the mouths of the apostles. The commands and lessons that we are given in both covenants are for our benefits and the benefit of those we love and respect as well for anyone that we have contact with. Where my affiliation with MUFON is concerned, I had to listen to Yahweh when He spoke to me about this association: Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. 2 Corinthians 6:14-16 For starters we should look at what being “unequally yoked” means. In the past animals were used as beasts of burden for mankind. They used alone to pull chariots (as in horses) or in tandem with other beasts to pull plows and carts. When beasts of burden were used to pull a cart or anything with wheels it was very important that animals of like kinds and like statures were used for any one cart. For instance, when two oxen were chosen to pull a cart they had to be the same size and roughly the same age. This would insure that the wagon would be pulled by two animals with equal abilities. It is pretty simple to imagine what would happen if two different animals or two animals of different stature were used. The ability of the weaker animal would not match the ability of the stronger and the wagon would in effect be pulled around in a circle. Ask any pilot who is skilled in flying an airplane with two engines what happens when one engine stops working. He or she has to make great allowances to ensure that the airplane will fly in a straight line. Better yet, try driving a car which has one front tire with only half the air pressure of the opposite tire. The steering wheel pulls toward the tire that is underinflated. What Paul was telling the church in Corinth is that if they had associations with nonbelievers or even believers who didn’t take their walk with Yeshua seriously then their walk with Yahweh was in danger of getting off of the straight pathway. We see such things all of the time. We see marriages where one person is a believer and the other isn’t and in most cases the believer lives in misery because the excess friction that the unbeliever brings into the relationship causes a lot of hardship. We see it when our kids become involved with bad kids in the neighborhood; they almost always are the ones that are corrupted by the bad kids and very rarely do the bad kids come around to a correct way of thinking. In personal relationships being unequally yoked almost always leads to unhappiness and corruption in ourselves or in our brothers and sisters in Yeshua. We have to keep in mind though that Paul wasn’t just talking about personal relationships. He speaks of a much wider scope of association. The advice that Paul gave to the church in Corinth applies to every part of our lives, our associations and our business dealings. For instance, if a Christian goes into a business venture with an unbeliever there is a very high probability that the believer will be asked to compromise his or her faith in one way or another. In today’s business environment businesses are many times forced to compromise by cutting corners, lying or cheating in order to remain lucrative. When two unequally business partners face hardships the worldly person would not be bothered by doing something unwholesome and there would be many problems that would arise if the Christian business partner were to stand on holiness; however, the temptation would be present that would cause the believer in Yeshua to reason that if they just cheated a little here or there they would be successful and would prosper. We see these things in Biblical example first in the story of David and Bathsheba. David ran to many dark corners to keep his secret from the public and foolishly he tried to hide it from Yahweh too. David of course was found out and he was forgiven for his sin, but it is clear that he had to pay consequences for that sin. In the New Testament we find Ananias and Sapphira who sold some land and laid some of the money at the apostles’ feet, claiming that the money that they brought was all the money that they got from the sale; but they had kept some of the money back. Because they had tried to lie to Yahweh they both suffered physical death. Cheating and cutting corners are practices that are never honored by Yahweh and in most cases those things will catch up to the offender somewhere down the road. Another area where an unequally yoked state would be unethical is where associations are concerned. By associations, I am referring to organizations. Organizations always operate under a philosophy or a mission. If the organization, club or society that we associate with doesn’t have Christian foundations then we are already in compromise. What might be surprising to some is that even some entities that label themselves as “Christian,” do so only by name and not by deed. It is so very important to determine beforehand who and what we are associating with. We carry the name “Christian,” or “Messianic,” and those names carry an association themselves because we are not just ambassadors of Yahweh, we are His Sons and Daughters. In the rest of the passage Paul makes great contrasts, telling us that some things and some persons just aren’t designed to coexist with each other. In each of our lives there is at least one person or thing that we just don’t like being around. It might be a relative or a classmate that really repulses us. It could be a certain food that we don’t like or perhaps a smell that turns our stomach whenever we smell it. I’m reminded of something amusing that happened to me a few years ago. Well, it is amusing now, but it wasn’t back then. Early one week I talked with my friend Lloyd. I had just left my church and was looking for a place to worship the next Sunday. Lloyd worshipped in a church that was about 45 miles from my home and I wouldn’t have gone but Lloyd told me how great the worship was and he liked the teaching too. He gave me directions that I followed to a tee. Lloyd drove trucks for a living, so his directions should be perfect right? Wrong! I got to the general area where He said the church was located but couldn’t find it. After driving around for about ten minutes I heard singing and noticed a nice brick building that looked like a church, so I pulled into the parking lot. I got out of my truck and headed for the front door. When I got to the door I noticed two neatly dressed gentlemen who wore white shirts, black ties and black pants and I thought that Lloyd must have joined a fellowship where a nice wardrobe was required. The gentlemen greeted me and welcomed me, even though I was wearing a black shirt and blue jeans. I went inside and didn’t see Lloyd but decided that since I had not found Lloyd’s church I would sit in this one and go home after the service. It was at this time that I started to feel very uncomfortable. There seemed to be a presence in the place that felt opposite of the feeling of the Ruach Ha Kodesh that I so often felt in churches. I looked around some more and I noticed that all of the men in the church were dressed like the two men outside the front door. I was the only man with a black shirt and I felt like a black ball in a hat full of white balls. I began to feel even more uncomfortable, not because of the different attire, but the spirit that I felt there was not from Yahweh, it was a strange spirit and I felt like it didn’t want me there. I was starting to feel like I concurred and wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to be rude or discourteous. A woman had been speaking for some time and I thought that when she was finished there would be a lull and I would slip out of the building. Right at that time I heard the woman proclaim, “this is why I love the Book of Mormon.” I started to get fidgety and wanted to leave but I waited for the lull, but it never came. So I thought to myself that I would never see any of these people again so even if they do get offended there will be no scene. Finally, with my Dakes Study Bible tucked under my arm I bolted for the door. When I drove out of the parking lot and got down the road a bit I noticed a school that had cars in front of it so I drove through the lot and noticed the church sign on it. I found Lloyd’s Church. I found Lloyd and sat down next to him, thanking him for his bad directions and then told him my story. We both laughed through the rest of the worship service and the teaching too. So how does this story relate to anything? Well, I made quite a few errors that day. I saw the two men outside and it should have clicked in my mind that these men were Mormons and not Christians. When I went inside their attire should have confirmed again to me that this was not where Lloyd would be worshipping. Third, when I discerned that the spirit was not the Ruach Ha Kodesh I should have just got up and left. There was no way in heaven or on earth that the people in that Mormon Church and me would ever be equally yoked and I knew that. I could have never stayed in that place for the whole service, nor could I have ever visited again. The point of my story is that the Ruach Ha Kodesh warns us about unevenly yoked things. Christians and Mormons are not equally yoked. Not only that, but there are totally different animals in the yokes. If we listen to His voice we will avoid a lot of heartache. It is interesting to see the examples that Paul uses in his letter to the Corinthians. In each example he uses a good thing compared to a bad thing; the first thing always conquers the second. Righteousness triumphs against lawlessness; light overcomes darkness and so on. The third example is Christ over Belial. If Messiah (Christ) is called the Prince of Peace, then Belial must be the opposite, and that is exactly what we find. The Dead Sea Scrolls contains a book titled, “The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness,” which explains exactly who Belial, the Leader of The Sons of Darkness: 'But for corruption thou hast made Belial, an angel of hostility. All his dominions are in darkness, and his purpose is to bring about wickedness and guilt. All the spirits that are associated with him are but angels of Sweed, a type of drug.'
Paul then uses these examples to enforce the two opposed groups where we are concerned; believers having fellowship with unbelievers. Building on that, he then shows that we are not just believers, but temples (dwelling places) of the Ruach Ha Kodesh; and if we are that then we should have no relationships with worldly people, who are being equated to here as idols.
Some might be quick to make the assumption that we are saying that we should avoid contact with the nonbeliever altogether, perish that thought! That would mean that we would not leave our houses and would become hermits. No, we’re just not supposed to enter into covenants with them and we’re certainly to avoid any of their ways and practices that countermand Yahweh’s ways or compromise our Messianic witness to those in our communities. This is especially true when a person is given a ministry from Yeshua; a work that is in public spotlight so to speak. This doesn’t exempt each and every believer in Yeshua, because when you think about it, we’re all given a ministry; the Great Commission.
As I mentioned, this year has brought a great deal of circumspection. I really desire to know what is right and what is wrong in my life as far as Yahweh is concerned. I think that a lot of believers in Yeshua are feeling the tug of the Ruach HaKodesh in this respect. Compromise has always been something that Yeshua has disdained, from the Garden of Eden to this very day. He wants us to be Holy in every part of our lives; to live as a called out people, sanctified and set apart for Him. Simply put, we either strive for righteousness now while it is a choice, or we can learn it later when everyone if forced to make a choice for Yahweh, or for the man of perdition. As for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh!!
It is a wonderful thing to see how the world reacts to a person who is striving to live a righteous life. As you the reader are probably aware, Lourdes and I do not traditionally celebrate certain holidays. After researching the occult origins of many of the traditions of holidays like Christmas and Easter, we choose to celebrate in a way that is fitting to the true meaning of the days. We won’t get into all of that now. Let’s just say that there are those in our families who think of us as rather odd because we don’t accept a lot of time honored traditions that we don’t see as Christian in origin. Another thing that is noticed by people trying to live a righteous life is that Satan’s disciples come out of the woodwork to wreak havoc. My pastor, Pastor Tom has said on more than one occasion that if a person wants to live a righteous life dedicated to Yahweh then they automatically become a target. This is a time proven truth. It’s not only Satan’s people who will come against a righteous person, but even those whom have been friends and acquaintances will suddenly become an enemy. Recently, one fellow whom I have always thought to be a level headed individual who loved Yeshua started writing some of the vilest and evil letters to me. They’ve taken my letters out of context and turned around the things that I have written for good and made a spectacle out of them. Normally I would see these things as being hurtful, but instead I see them as being tools that will hone me for the battle that will get much worse in the days to come.
One day that has been growing in popularity with most of the population is Halloween. After studying its origins we renounced that day and we avoid every part of it altogether. A few years ago our workplace was having a celebration for Halloween and I did not participate. I spent the time talking to a couple of coworkers who think the entire hubbub about Halloween is childish folly. One of my fellow coworkers, Abdullah, who is a Muslim, came back to where we were and he asked me why I wasn’t involved in all of the celebratory stuff in the break room. I informed him that I am a believer in Messiah Yeshua, and that Halloween is a Satanic day and that my love for Yeshua precluded me from joining in the madness. Abdullah got a puzzled look on his face, sort of like you could imagine a computer would get if it couldn’t process a command. He then looked at me and said, “finally, a Christian who practices his faith,” and he walked away and went back to work. If we’re walking with Yeshua like we should be we would hear that all of the time and it would make us feel happy that the world recognizes us not for what we say, bur for what we do. Maybe then we’d have more credibility and people would listen to us when we tell them about salvation. The world doesn’t want to listen to Christians because they see us as basically just like them. I can’t really blame them for their views because in a lot of cases they describe many Christians adequately. Believers in Yeshua need to wake up and claim what they’ve so willing given away to the enemy.
One day last month I sat quietly and wondered what I could do to help with our financial situation. Yahweh reminded me of my MUFON membership and I started to reevaluate the importance of belonging to this organization. I had originally joined for two reasons. I wanted to learn about what the world was saying about UFOs and their origins and to keep up on these sort of things. I also wanted to have an attempt at talking to some of the people in their community so that I could tell them about Yeshua and hopefully evangelize the MUFON crowd. It was nice to keep informed of the newest things in the research of the UFO phenomenon and I did learn quite a bit during my membership.
I tried to start a dialogue with the director or MUFON and even tried to submit a letter for publication in their journal but received the brush off both about the letter and the dialogue with the director. One thing I did learn about MUFON is that it is slowly making a paradigm shift. Over the months there has been more and more mention of New Age things in their publication and it has alarmed me for more than a year. So having seen this develop over the years and knowing that it was bound to happen I received permission from Yeshua to cancel my membership with MUFON and to resign my Field Investigator status. I’d write more about it, but when you read the letter you will get more of an idea of why I made my decision to leave. Now I present to you the letter so that you can read it and see why I made the decision that I made.
Dear James, January 17, 2009 It is the middle of January of 2009 and the time approaches for me to renew my membership. Because the time approaches I have to take time to assess what MUFON means to me and if it has been a source of education for me; and of course I have to see what I have done for MUFON in return. I joined MUFON in March of 2005 after meeting Joe Jordan, who is your state section director for Brevard County in Florida. Joe is a charismatic sort of fellow whose excitement about anything makes people want to join in with what he is energized about. It wasn’t just Joe who persuaded me to join. I have watched MUFON from afar for many years, probably since its inception. I was brought up in the UFO culture, my dad having been an ardent researcher, even before MUFON came into being. So aside from Joe’s excitement about MUFON; what other things attracted me to your organization? Well, primarily it was the scientific study of the phenomenon. I was a seeing is believing sort of guy early on in my life and I believed that only science could answer all of life’s questions. In my younger days I felt that if I couldn’t touch it, it didn’t exist. I felt a sort of kindred spirit with MUFON because I felt that it saw things through the same glasses that I looked at the world through. James, we have corresponded before and you know my take on things. We’ve met twice in Roswell, New Mexico during the UFO Festival. You also know me because I sent a letter to you a couple of years ago explaining my take on the UFO and alien abduction phenomenon and also I sent you a letter where I made a plea to the UFO community to listen to the Biblical Christian angle on UFO and their occupants. You were kind enough to write back to me and to explain that you would try to print my letter in the MUFON UFO Journal and you explained that you needed to run the letter by your editor for approval. Knowing that you are the international director, and that you could have printed it if you wanted to, I took the silence that followed as a polite brush off of me and my views. That’s okay though because I am the sort of person who realizes that things don’t always work out in these regards. Later that same year I wrote a letter to you and asked you if you had considered putting a Christian Researcher on your staff, or at least one who could contribute to your Journal and you wrote back and told me that the only way that I could fill such a responsibility is if I had a Masters Degree in Divinity (or religion, I can’t remember now) which pretty well ended any Christian’s ambition in such things; seeing that there are no courses in any Theology College that I know of that offers a degree in UFO and/or alien abduction studies. Wondering if your polite brush off was just toward me, or toward the Christian UFO Research Community in general, I set out to ask questions of some of my colleagues. I contacted several of them, all who are current of former members of MUFON and they all told me that MUFON takes no delight in Christians doing research and that they too have been snubbed. One such person is Jim Wilhelmsen, who has done years of study into the UFO phenomenon, and was an expert of NAZI ufology long before any of the current so called “credible” people came onto the scene. People like Joe Jordan, of CE4 Research, who as I mentioned above is a State Section Director of your organization, and who has investigated hundreds of alien abduction cases, to my knowledge has never been interviewed by MUFON about his research. Why is this James; maybe because he is a believer in Jesus Christ? James, one of the things that Jesus Christ told us is that you can tell a tree by its fruit. If MUFON truly is purely scientific in nature in their research, they will prove that premise by their works. I do believe that MUFON started out with purely scientific motives because the original Mission Statement stated MUFON’s purpose: MUFON's mission is the systematic collection and analysis of UFO data, with the ultimate goal of learning the origin and nature of the UFO phenomenon. Scientific Method is denoted in the statement above. Earlier in the decade however, MUFON decided to change its mission statement to read the following: MUFON’s Mission is the Scientific Study of UFOs for the Benefit of Humanity Through Investigation, Research and Education. In the original statement it is stated that “the ultimate goal of learning the origin and nature of the UFO phenomenon.” If the current statement supersedes the first then one can only assume that MUFON has come to the determination that UFOs and/or their occupants are benevolent. Basically, your current statement says that now that MUFON has found that UFOs and their occupants are benevolent, we are now going to research their ways, using science and that you will educate the public about their benevolence and mankind will benefit from what you find. Actually James, this comes as no surprise to me, and probably to others. I’ve taken the time to go through my past volumes of the MUFON Journal and have discovered something. When John Schuessler was director there was rarely, if any mentions of things that might be deemed occult or New Age. However, since you have taken the reigns there has been an explosion of such things such as: 1. A review of a book titled; “From Sirius to Earth – A Therapist Discovers Soul Exchange” 2. An advertisement for a book titled; “Diary of a Psychic Visionary.” – Advertised for nearly a year. I know that other occurrences exist but I don’t have more time to research these things. James, I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking that I forget that you let me put an ad in the Journal about our Counseling webpage; The Alien Abduction Crisis Centers of America, and technically you might have a point, but nowhere in our ad did we mention Christianity or our basis in the Bible. James, we are grateful for the opportunity to advertise in the Journal, but at the same time we think that a Journal that is printed by an organization that claims to have foundations in real science really shouldn’t be advertising occult or New Age things. You are scientific, or you are not, there is no middle road. Well, that brings me to my next to final point. It is quite obvious that there is a reason why people with such a scientific background haven’t found out the truth yet. That reason is that the entities that inhabit the craft aren’t of a solely physical nature, but are a physical manifestation of a spiritual origin (or interdimensional origin if you like that word better) that science will never be able to explain as long as it denies the spiritual world, specifically God (The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). Finally James, I don’t know exactly what is happening with MUFON, but I know that it is changing, and I don’t like the change. Judging from what I have seen, I can only surmise that you know that science can’t explain these things, but the spiritual can. You are starting to go over to the occult explanation of UFOs and alien abduction which will lead to the occult sciences which will sometime down the road lead to some sort of demon worship. I know that it sounds so farfetched that you are considering throwing this letter in the garbage but before you do, mark my words. You and the others in MUFON are getting into things that will ultimately lead to your spiritual demise and if you don’t put a check on it your eternal condition is in jeopardy. I challenge you to go to my webpage about getting saved. Even if you just go there and read it for amusement, read it. If you take it seriously, it will change your life. The page is at www.delusionresistance.org/christian/saved.html In conclusion, I want to inform you that I am resigning my field investigator membership with MUFON. As a believer in Yeshua Ha Mashiach (Jesus Christ) I can no longer continue with an organization that is moving into the occult. Be blessed in mighty ways in Yeshua! Respectfully David Ruffino
A TURKEY WATCH UPDATE
From time to time we post articles that we find interesting in regard to the nation of Turkey. We do this because of the possibility of an Ezekiel 38-39 scenario that could happen in our lifetimes, perhaps within the next couple of years. This conflict will involve the whole world, and since here in the United States we have elected a Marxist leader with sympathies to Islam, we really need to keep our eyes open to the possibilities of the Ezekiel War being a reality sometime soon. I was browsing the Drudge Report today (January 31, 2009) and found a link to the following article which we think you as the reader will find interesting to the subject at hand: Times of London January 31, 2009
Turkey’s Prime Minister returned home to a hero's welcome this morning after storming off stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos during a heated spat over Israel’s assault on Gaza. In the most dramatic moment of this year's muted Davos conference, Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked off a panel discussion including Shimon Peres and Ban Ki-Moon after a moderator cut off his reply to a long and impassioned monologue by the Israeli President. Mr Erdogan gathered up his belongings and marched off stage, red-faced, shouting that he would not return to Davos again as he had not been allowed to speak. Around 3,000 supporters gathered at Istanbul's airport in the early morning, waving red and white Turkish flags and banners reading "Conqueror of Davos" as Mr Erdogan's flight back from Davos landed. Some carried banners denouncing Israel, a worrying development for a state that counts Turkey as its closest ally in the Muslim world and relies on its role as an intermediary between it and traditional enemies such as Syria. "I did what I had to do," Mr Erdogan told reporters. "I cannot remain apathetic when it comes to these things, it's just not in my nature. I am duty-bound to defend the honour of my country." Mr Erdogan blamed the debate's moderator, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, for the incident, although he condemned Mr Peres's hectoring behaviour on stage. "My reaction was directed at the moderator. I think that if we have moderation in this way, we won't really get out of Davos what we all come here to get out of Davos, and it would cast a shadow over efforts to reach peace," he told reporters at the meeting. "President Peres was speaking to the Prime Minister of Turkey – I am not just some leader of some group or tribe, so he should have addressed me accordingly. Each of the four speakers in the debate on the Middle East was to have delivered a five-minute speech. Mr Ban, the UN Secretary-General, spoke for eight minutes and Mr Erdogan for 12. Mr Ignatius intervened to silence the head of the Arab League after 12 minutes, but Mr Peres then spoke uninterrupted for 25 minutes, raising his voice, pointing fingers and challenging the other panellists over what they would do in Israel's position. "President Peres you are older than I am. Maybe you are feeling guilty and that is why you are so strong in your words. You killed people. I remember the children who died on beaches," Mr Erdogan said before he was cut off as the debate was due to end. He then stormed out, pursued by a phalanx of bodyguards and crowds of reporters. Hamas, the Islamist leaders in Gaza, hailed Mr Erdogan for his "courageous stance" against Israel's war in Gaza, which killed more than 1,300 people, a third of them children. "Hamas pays tribute to the courageous stand of Turkey's Prime Minister ... who in Davos directly defended the victims of the criminal Zionist war against our children and women in Gaza," said spokesman Fawzi Barhum. "We consider his departure from the room an expression of support for the victims of the Holocaust carried out by the Zionists." Mr Peres, a former Nobel Peace Prize winner, later called Mr Erdogan to apologise. At a press conference arranged hastily by Davos's organisers, Mr Erdogan said that he was still considering whether he would return to the forum or not. It was not immediately clear what impact the row would have on relations with Israel or Turkey's mediating role. So now it appears that Israel will have more anxiety in its midst. Not only do they have to worry about Islamic Jihad on their northern border, and Hamas in the Palestinian controlled territories; and not only do they have to worry about world opinion whenever they try to stop attacks on their land and people, but now they have to worry about their relationship with Turkey being jeopardized. The days ahead are going to be interesting and there will be a lot of anxiety in the whole world before the return of Yeshua. We need to keep our eyes focused on Messiah Yeshua, the author and finisher of our faith, in whose hands all of creation is held.
YAHWEH’S TIMING AND YAHWEH’S PLANS
January was a month that was full of all sorts of things. Having been married for a whole week, Lourdes and I decided to take a run down to San Francisco. It was a nice day for travel, and instead of taking the truck down to the city, we opted for the ferry ride from Vallejo. It is a nice ride; about an hour in length and it let us off right at Pier 39, which is one of the main attractions in the city. I knew that even though I was going to be with wonderful company it would be a difficult day. About twelve days before our trip one of the nerves that goes to my left leg decided that it was going to be rebellious, resulting in a burning sensation on the outside of the thigh on that leg. The dimensions of pain really can’t be adequately put into words. The sensations switched back and forth from a feeling that an ice pick had been stabbed into my leg to the other which felt like someone had forced a hot steam iron onto the skin of my leg. Without saying anything else about the condition, let me just say that it made for a painful day.
Dave and Lourdes in San Fransicko We took the ten o’clock ferry which put us in San Francisco right around eleven o’clock. Not long after we exited the boat the leg started to flare up again. Our day consisted of window shopping for a few minutes and then resting, a cycle that repeated during our whole trip. We knew that there were two ferries that left from Fisherman’s Warf after noon; one at four o’clock and the other at seven o’clock. My leg was killing me as we mulled over whether we wanted to walk briskly to the first boat or wait till the second boat. As we thought it over we heard the whistle for the ferry, telling us that it was departing. We were destined to stay for the second boat. On one of our walking forays we heard what sounded like Christian music coming from across the street. We jaywalked across the street to find a group called SOS San Francisco playing to the people in front of the Warf. When I looked at the keyboardist he looked very familiar and after closer examination I noticed that it was Chuck Girard playing with the singers. Man, I was elated to see him. When I was first saved back in 1979 it was Chuck’s albums that inspired me in many ways. His music showed me that the Christian walk was simplistic, not like the religious rigor that I had seen in the past with the mainline churches. His music showed me that a walk with Yeshua was just like a walk with a close friend and that Yahweh demanded nothing more than faith and obedience to HIM.
Chuck Girard Playing the Keyboard – Dave Sitting in Back Things started to get even better. You see, my pastor and our worship team go to San Francisco several times during the summer to sing and minister to the people; sometimes in homosexual neighborhoods where the Gospel of Yeshua is met with hostility, sometimes even with physical violence toward the ministers. I met the leader of SOS, whose name is Larry Rosenbaum (yes, a Jewish believer in Yeshua) and when I told him that I attend Pastor Tom Mooney’s church we were treated with special accord. Chairs were brought out from a van for me and Lourdes and several of the folks with the ministry asked about Tom and his wife; their welfare and such. I met another Jewish believer, named Dan whom I talked with for much of the time. Chuck Girard asked me if there was a song of his that I wanted him to sing and he played “The Name Above All Names,” for the people. After a while he asked me if I wanted to hear another and he sand “The Power and the Glory.”
Me and My New Friend Dan – Jews for Jesus It was s neat just sitting there and singing with this wonderful group of believers. It really didn’t matter if my leg hurt and Yahweh turned everything around as a blessing for Him. Soon we were flooded by a group of young people who came from a church in Tracy, California. They all held up signs about Yeshua, and ministry and such and we were all shouting the name of Yeshua to all passersby on foot and in cars too. What an incredible time of ministry!! As five o’clock rolled around it came time for the ministers to pack up their things and call it a day. Soon Lourdes and I were departing from our new friends after exchanging pleasantries, blessings and prayer requests. She and I decided to head back to Pier 39 to look in any other shops that she might have missed the first time around. Pretty soon it was time to head over to Pier 41 to wait for the Vallejo Ferry. As we sailed home on the boat we recapped our day and how wonderful Yahweh Yeshua really is. He had us miss the earlier ferry on purpose so that we could meet the neat brothers and sisters who were witnessing to unconcerned residents and visitors to San Francisco. We drove back to Sacramento, but only after stopping in Vacaville; my old stomping grounds, to grab a burger at a Carl’s Jr. Restaurant. Arriving home we found the bed to be a very comfortable friend and it didn’t take long until we were both sleeping like little children, worn out from a day full of activity.
YES – WE TIED THE KNOT
Well, just in case you didn’t know it; Lourdes and I were married by our pastor, Tom Mooney on January 10 or this year. It was a very nice ceremony and very simple. We just had close friends and family in attendance and when all heads were counted, there were eighteen people there. We are just people who are into the small and simple things of life; even for our wedding. My mom flew out from Florida at the end of December and stayed till two days after our wedding. It was so nice to see her again and the look that I saw on her face was one of happy satisfaction. She told us many times that she was happy for us and she is very impressed in Lourdes, who she calls, “my girl.” Mom and Lourdes really hit it off which blessed me. They went on a couple of shopping forays which sort of sent a fear down my spine, but not much money was spent which is good because we have none to begin with. Also in attendance was Lourdes’ brother Carlos who flew out on Saturday morning for the wedding and then flew back to Indiana on Sunday afternoon. My sister was Lourdes’ maid of honor and our friend Juan Del Gallego was my best man. Originally my long time friend Lloyd was supposed to be my best man, but he came down with a bad case of bronchitis and couldn’t make it to the wedding. At the beginning of the ceremony I walked my mother down to her seat and then returned to the back. Soon I walked up to the front of the church with Juan and we took our places. My sister Susy came up next and waited for Lourdes, who followed being escorted by Carlos. Pastor said a few words of exhortation and then the ceremony began. Pastor explained the communion of marriage and then led us in vows. At the end of those vows I said my special vow to Lourdes which was:
I could never promise you on just my strength alone, Now if those words sound familiar to you then you are as old a believer in Yeshua as I am. The words are a song that Don Francisco sang many years ago. When I heard them all of those years ago I said that I would use those words as my vow to my wife. After the vow Pastor Tom pronounced us man and wife and we lit the center candle with the two candles on the side of the table. Next pastor asked Lourdes if there was something that she wanted to say and she spoke. Lourdes was very emotional and she explained to everyone that she had prayed for many years for the man that Yahweh would have for her. Then she explained how Yeshua had answered her prayer with giving me to her and that she was a very blessed woman. Needless to say that most of the women there cried at that point. Then Pastor Tom led us in Communion and presented us as Mr. and Mrs. David Ruffino. After this we sat down and pastor preached a wonderful salvation message. I had mentioned to him that there would be at least two unbelievers at the wedding and Lourdes and I wanted them to hear the salvation message. I was told that both of these people prayed the prayer. After the service everyone was dismissed to the fellowship hall for the reception. The whole affair, both the wedding and the reception was put together by Laurie Del Gallego, Juan’s wife and we were so blessed with the incredible work that she did. The church was decorated very nicely. The inside of the church isn’t exactly the most appealing to the eye, but Laurie did a wonderful job at decorating it so that it looked like dignitaries were being married there. She did a splendid job for the reception, arranging the tables in a horseshoe so that Lourdes and we could sit at the head and fellowship with everyone. The food was wonderful too; pasta with shrimp scampi and/or filet mignon which was all proceeded by a wonderful salad. There was plenty of wedding cake for everyone too. We truly don’t think that anyone could have done a nicer job of putting our wedding together and we will always be thankful to she and Juan and we will sing their accolades to everyone who will listen. An added blessing was how our families melded together in their time with one another. My mom and sister were very impressed with Carlos and Carlos was equally impressed with my mother and sister. I truly enjoyed Carlos’ visit and it made me sad that he had to leave so quickly. One of the things that still amazes me is how much alike our families are; different cultures, different countries but still the same character, love, grace and refinement. Can Meeting on The Internet Really Work? It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that people are sort of leery about meeting other people on the internet. People always ask Lourdes and I where we met and we tell them that we met on a Christian meeting service on online. Sometimes they look at us like we’re just living out an infatuation or a fairytale life that will all come crashing down around us in the weeks or months to come. Their reactions really do not concern us and I can understand why they tend to act the way that they do. I had scanned the Christian dating services for two or three years. I was amazed at the sort of people who were on those services. It was always easy for me to discern who was who on the services. Generally, the ones who are serious about serving Yahweh will say that in their profiles. They tend to put Yeshua first and will almost sound like they are witnessing for our Lord rather than looking for a spouse. Lourdes found the same thing and in her profile she said that she had met many wolves and that if anyone was like that then they should just move on because she would discern them anyway if they tried to pull the wool over their eyes. Well anyway, I decided to end my search one day but felt led to look at one more service that I had not checked out before. I signed up for a site called, “Christian Mingle,” and figured that after one month I would cancel my account and remain single forever. I was tired of all of the half hearted women on these services who were really just looking for any mate, not necessarily a believer and follower of Yeshua. So I filled out all of the information required and submitted it to the service. There were probably twenty matches for me but most lived far away from California and the ones who lived close sounded like they walked superficially with Yeshua and they didn’t interest me. There was one however who looked pretty but I noticed that she lived in Mexico. I almost dismissed her because of the distance that she was from me but I decided to look, feeling led by Yahweh. When I got into Lourdes’ profile I saw someone who was definitely a follower of Yeshua and who wanted someone who loved Yeshua and who put HIM in his life more than anything else. At the same time, Lourdes only had a day or two left of her account with Mingle and she saw my profile and she became interested. The service has something called a smile. If you are interested in someone you send them a smile, which is a small message. Lourdes “smiled” at me and said that she wanted to get to know me better and I wrote back to her in kind. She told me that her account would expire soon and that she was not able to write e-mails to me on the service so she gave me her e-mail address. So I wrote to her and things started to happen. Right off the start we realized that we wanted to send more than letters so we started to chat in Yahoo Chat for a short while. Soon I had an urge to hear her voice so I called her using the free call feature on Yahoo. We would talk for hours on end. I think our record was five hours talking on the Yahoo service. After we had been talking for about a month Yahweh started to do some things that really blew my mind; He started to show me dreams and visions about me and Lourdes. One day while I was driving to work I saw a vision as clear as day. It was weird because I could see the vision but it didn’t impede my ability to drive. As I looked I saw two golden goblets; one had Lourdes’ name on it and the other had mine. After a very short while a crimson ribbon was tied around the cups and Yeshua’s name was on it. The cups were full of wine and as I watched the knot on the ribbon was tightened and the cups were brought closer and closer together until they touched. Then, the cups started to incorporate into one another and after a while the cups were totally joined to become one cup that had both of our names on it. Fear then entered into me because I wondered how I would present this to Lourdes without scaring her off. I didn’t want her to think that I was a lunatic. I just stored that first vision into my head and figured I would present it to her when the time felt right. About a week after that vision I went to a Friday night service that the young adults in our church were hosting. During the worship time I decided to lay prostrate on the floor and pray. As I prayed I saw another vision where Lourdes and I were holding hands and looking at a group of people. The shocking thing about that is that I was wearing a tuxedo and she was wearing a wedding dress. I was really stressing now. How do I tell a woman that I have known for only a few weeks that we’re going to get married? Yahweh would provide a way. Well, Yahweh did provide a way. A short time after Yahweh provided those visions He provided another one for Lourdes’ edification. Lourdes was constantly worried about her parents who were Catholic and not practicing a truer faith in Yeshua. One day on the way to work Yahweh showed me something else. What I saw were two hearts hanging by strings and the hearts were covered with wax, like the hearts were suffocating and not able to function correctly. I noticed under each heart was a lit candle and the flame of each candle was melting the wax on each heart. The bottom halves were already free from the wax. Yahweh told me that the hearts were the hearts of her mother and father and that HE was working to melt all of the wax so that the hearts could be healthy. He said that as the wax was melted more and more off of the hearts they would turn more and more to him. The wax was an insulating agent that kept them from seeing Yeshua, but it was also a preserving covering that kept them for Yeshua. I told this to Lourdes and it brought her comfort. At or around the same night that I told Lourdes about the hearts covered with wax I decided to tell her about the other two visions. This was hard for me to do because we hadn’t known each other very long, and how do you tell a woman that you just met that you were going to marry her, without driving her away. I told her on the phone that I had a vision recently and that I wanted to tell her but didn’t want to freak her out. This gave her license of sorts so that she could accept or deny the chance to hear what I had seen. Toward the end of the conversation she said that she wanted me to tell her about the visions. I told her about the cups goblet vision first and she was quite for a little while. She asked me what I thought it meant and I told her that there was another vision that was related to it. I told her about the vision with her and me standing in front of others with our wedding clothes on. She asked me what I thought about these things and I told her that it appeared that Yeshua had brought us together to get married. She asked me something to the effect if I thought that these things were real and I told her that I was sure. She said that we needed to pray about these things but that she felt like we were meant to be together too. About a week later we were on the phone and Lourdes asked me a question that I found quite easy to answer. She asked me if I were to imagine her as being an animal, which animal would she be. I told her that I thought that she would be a deer in the forest because she was delicate and beautiful. I told her that I would probably be a buck in the forest. She became quiet again and I could hear a little crying on her end of the phone. She came back to the phone and said, “you are going to be my husband.” I asked her what she was talking about and she told me that a friend whom she hadn’t seen for a while had come up to her and told her to post the question to her future husband and that the right man would give her the answer that I had given to her. In later weeks she would see this man again and tell him about me and the man replied to her, “and his name is David, right?” This caused both of our lower jaws to hit the floor. It wasn’t long after this that I had another dream or vision. As I watched two trees came up out of the ground and grew close to each other. As they grew their root systems came together and the roots grew around each other and they drank from the same water source and the intermingling of the roots gave them a firm foundation and strength. On top the branches also intermingled with each other and the trees in effect became one tree. This was another affirmation from Yahweh that we were to become one flesh in marriage. Toward the end of October of 2007 Lourdes’ sister Monica, who had cancer had grown progressively worse. She had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and it was only a matter of time. Lourdes was worried because Monica was a staunch Catholic and believed in the Guadalupe Virgin and had no born again faith in Yeshua. One night Yeshua gave me a dream that impacted me so much that I woke up crying. The dream wasn’t very long but in it I saw Monica right after she died and I saw her in heaven. Yeshua walked up to her and raised her from a lying position to one that was standing. He looked into her eyes with such a feeling of love that it overcame me and I started to weep. He then took his right hand and cupped her chin in it and smiled as he looked at her. He kissed her on the cheek and then he then led her by the hand as the scene transformed and they were in a field with lovely flowers and they danced together. I called Lourdes the next day and told her about the dream and reassured her that if Monica was dancing with Yeshua in the dream, then she would get saved and go to Heaven. Lourdes told this dream to Monica and it blessed her. As time progressed Monica grew worse but she never really suffered much pain. We had prayed for such a thing and it was a miracle that she was so pain free for her last months on Earth. At the end Lourdes brought many church people to meet with Monica, one in particular whose name was Lidian. Lidian witnessed a lot to Monica, many times against the wishes of Filipe, Monica’s husband. Just a few days before she died, Monica accepted Yeshua into her heart, which blessed all of us who know Yeshua. She went to be with Yeshua just before Christmas of 2007. About a month after Monica went to be with Yeshua my future mother in-law started dying due to complications from emphysema. This was so hard on everyone in the family, especially Lourdes who was losing her mother whom she was very close to. It was a hard three months and what made it harder was that Guadalupe didn’t know Yeshua as her Lord. Lourdes stayed up with her talking about Yeshua and His love and how telling her how she needed to be born again. Just a few days before her death Lourdes talked with Guadalupe again and asked her if she wanted to accept Yeshua as her Lord and Guadalupe looked at Lourdes and replied “claro” which means “sure.” Guadalupe went to be with Yeshua early in March of 2008. The rest of the story will be abbreviated so as to save time for anyone reading this. In March of 2008 I went to Mexico City to meet Lourdes and to meet her family. We knew that Yahweh meant for us to be married so part of the purpose for visiting was so that I could meet some of the family and to ask her dad Xavier for Lourdes’ hand in marriage. I spent a wonderful time in Mexico, visiting many places and spending a lot of time with Lourdes. Her dad, who is very Catholic and her brother Javier didn’t quite understand all that was going on. Her dad asked a lot of questions and he blessed us by saying that if Yeshua was in the relationship then it would last forever. Her brother was a bit more cautious and said that he would feel more comfortable if we spent more time together before we got married. We honored his request and Lourdes came to California in June and then we went together to Roswell in July to minister down there. The rest of the year we got to know each other more and more and every night was devoted to talking for hours on end. In January our pastor married us and now we are finally together after waiting many years for each other. Now the adventure begins!
REMNANT CALL TIMES ARE FANTASTIC!
For those of you who have been missing the Remnant Call chat times you have been missing a lot. A lot of prayer has gone into this ministry and the prayers are being answered left and right. One of the things that we have come to realized is that the Church has done its best to kick the prophets out. The prophets have been ridiculed and beat up for many years and many are hurt and licking their wounds. One of our purposes is to help in the bind up of those who are broken so that they can heal. One brother from New Zealand recently joined our little group and told us of how the Church in New Zealand is all but dead. He told us of his experiences and the experiences of others who simply wanted to follow Yeshua and love Yeshua, only to be ridiculed by a Church that has been taken over by people who call themselves Christians but really don’t know what a Christian life is or how it should be lived. This brother visited our little group during a Thursday teaching night and said that he felt like he finally found his home. He felt like he was amongst people who understand him and whom he can trust. What we’ve found is that a majority of people who come to visit with us don’t trust churches. They see that Yeshua’s Spirit has left a lot of the churches and they don’t know where to attend for fellowship. Our contention is that even if the churches are godless that we should still be attending them, not necessarily to get anything from the church, but to be there to bring healing when the bad times come about. We feel that when the weirdness starts to happen and the church is in dismay, we will be there to provide help and answers to those who have been duped into the idea that everything is fine and dandy. We feel that the doctrine of pre-tribulation rapture is a lie and that it will cause many to lose faith when they realize that times have gotten bad and they have not been removed from the earth before the bad things start. We know that since most churches promote this lie that a lot of people will be left reeling when they are here for the Great Tribulation. We do think that we will be removed from Earth, but we think that it will be pre-wrath and will happen at the last trumpet of the seven trumpets or thereabout. We also feel that the enemy will use a false rapture (taking away some in the New Age) as a way to bring about the “great falling away” as mentioned in scripture. Many will leave the faith thinking that Yahweh had lied or that the Bible was wrong. Only time will prove this out, but we feel that it is a plausible scenario and one that is worth taking note of. Anyway, with anything public, there is a chance for interlopers to come in and try to ruin things. We’ve had many flavors of people visit to do such things including; Satanists, New Agers, Revisionists Theologists, Christian and Jew haters and even Judaizers. We make it clear that these sort of things will not be tolerated and we ban these sorts from our study times and all times that we are together. The last few times together have been a real blessing and if you haven’t been there then you have missed the blessings too. If you want to join with us, we meet every Monday and Thursday nights at 9:00 Eastern and 6:00 Pacific. On Mondays we have a free talk night where we discuss anything that relates to the Bible or our lives as they pertain to it. On Thursday nights we have study nights. Jim and I stagger nights, him teaching one week and me the other. We really hope and pray that you’ll join with us sometimes and if you need any more information on how to do that, then just contact either Jim Wilhelmsen or Dave for more information. You can also go to the Resistance website and click on the Blue Cow at the bottom.
THAT’S ALL FOLKS
Well, this Journal might have been long, but it was shorter than the last one, so maybe I am reforming…lol. We know that the days ahead are going to be tough. As forces unite together to destroy our nation (for those who reside in the U.S.) and as forces unite to come against Yahweh’s people we have to remain strong. We encourage everyone to fellowship with fellow believers more than they ever did. Of course, we highly encourage you to read your Bibles more and to pray without ceasing as the days become wicked. Lourdes and I pray blessings upon all of you and we trust that Yahweh will keep you in his hands and under the shadow of his wings. May the love and grace of our savior, our majestic Lord and King Yeshua Ha Mashiach be with you all this month and in the days to come, and forever!! Dave and Lourdes |
