I have to include my fundie journey...

Phil Liszewski

When I was in the Air Force, I was without belief, and an extremely troubled soul. My father died while I was in basic training, and it set me searching for God. Of course, going back to catholicism for my answers wasn't going to happen. I joined the Air Guard, and was baptized and saved and joined a small Baptist church. I was very annoying, drove away everyone I knew with my zealous preaching of the need for everyone to be saved :)

As a fundamentalist, I transferred from the Air Guard to the Army Guard. Then I found out I would have to do gun training. I had passed all my gun training with no problems years earlier and had forgotten about it. I couldn't imagine shooting another person, since my salvation was assured and there's wasn't, it would be the same thing as condemning them to hell, in my view at the time. I became a chaplains assistant to finish my year out. Never met the chaplain.

I must have driven my pastor in the baptist church nuts. Every week I was wanting to answer the altar call, because I was walking around convicted all the time. I really was a miserable person to be around, I'm sure, looking back. Even my hardcore friends didn't want anything to do with me anymore. I was working a pretty low paying job at the time, and a friend who had moved to Evansville, Indiana, called me up with a job offer hanging storm windows for the summer on an eight story building. Since my new bride could no longer stand to be around me either, I went to the pastor with this question: "How will I know when God wants me to move on?" His answer: "He'll make you miserable where you are." Looking back, he must have known I'd take that answer and move on. That's how miserable of a person I was before God opened my eyes to his precious grace.

I took that job in Evansville after 9 months in that baptist church I was talking about. A friend put me up for a couple weeks until I found a room for rent. My first night there, I was alone looking out a back window at the little church next door, and prayed for the Lord to help me find a church to join. Of course, in my head I'm thinking 'church', like the one I was looking at, with a couple people walking out of it with sour looking faces on. I thought, "They look dead in the Lord, maybe I can bring some life to them." Ha, I was a miserable old sourpuss myself. A few hours later, neighbors from the other side of the house came by for a bible study. They smoked and drank beer! I hadn't done that for 9 months, and while I don't remember if I actually said anything (probably) my judgment I'm sure was showing. Next thing you know, out comes Romans! By the time we got to chapter 14, I had been convicted of my judgment in a big way. That night I had a cigarette, to help me bury it. The next two weeks I couldn't tell you much about, I have no memory of where I lived, who I might have been with. It was me digging in my bible with the Holy Spirit, and it was all like a cloud, it's the only way to describe it. That summer I worked 2 days a week, and did bible study for 5 months straight. Then apparently I was ready to come back home. I hung out with that fellowship a little, and spent some time at a place called the Sheep Shed across the border in Kentucky. But mostly it was just communion. It was an awesome answer to that prayer.

I was pretty wrapped up in the Second Coming stuff at the time, but that summer was about learning about God's grace, and the fulfillment of the cross in our personal lives. Still, I kept pressing the issue.

This was his answer to me at the time...

"But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." Lk 12:39

"for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night....But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief." 1Thes5:2,4

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare." 2Pet3:10

"But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you." Rev 3:3

"Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed." Rev 16:15

All these verses I was taught have to do with the day of the rapture. It certainly can't be a pre-trib rapture, since the last one is placed at the end of the 'trib' as taught. When I got to this one in Rev 16:15, I noticed it was in quotes! Of course, later I would get a red letter version, but at the time that was a real eye-opener, and the Spirit used it for me, to show me the teaching I had been given was wrong. That's it...it was wrong and I couldn't count on any of it, but for now I should concentrate on what he was trying to show me. It took a long time, and I gave up on understanding Revelations and prophecies more times than I can count, because it never occurred to me to look at history, or if it did it seemed like an overwhelming task. No one taught Preterism...there was no internet...I had scripture.

"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return..."Lk12:35

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." Mt 25:35

These types of verses still bothered me, but I came to see them in the fulfilled light anyway. Not historically fulfilled, but in the sense that he left an attitude for us to understand.

I'm not a works person. But He does come to us from time to time with needs, if He knows we will meet them for Him. I don't even think of these things as works. If you come to my house thirsty, I'll pop you a beer if I have one (or whatever I have that you might like). I just see that as being polite, and I think most do the same. It is in His nature, and so it is in your nature. It's not that being dressed and ready to serve is going out looking for something to do. It's being ready to meet the needs of your brother when he crosses your path.

A couple years ago I started a YouTube channel, commenting on videos about grace and fulfillment.

Of course, I was talking about covenant fulfillment, not prophetic fulfillment. As an inclusionist (although I still held the annihilation doctrine) I started making friends with others who held the Universalist view. I wasn't familiar with it, and of course many of the U/R crowd are also Preterist, and I wasn't familiar with that teaching either. Dave Lewerentz started getting several of the YT crowd who were in those camps to get over to FB and I did so as well, kicking and screaming. But it gave me the opportunity to join in conversation and banter with people over these beliefs, and so back to the bible study I went. Already seeing fulfilled covenant relationship for almost 30 years, made seeing fulfilled eschatology easy, and so out came the book of Josephus that has been sitting on my bookshelf for (decades????) without getting read. I didn't even realize it had multiple books in it, so any time I started looking at it, I would get into Antiquities and basically get bored. But now, I got into the Wars of the Jews, and Mt 24 and many of the prophecies I was familiar with came together. Shortly after accepting the view, I started reading Terry's weekly posts. So, while it wasn't Terry who led me to Preterism...it was definitely Terry who helped me to understand the apocalyptic language and Josephus revealed in light of scripture even more.

That's a long post, isn't it? Sorry...it was a long road, and I came to it from a different angle perhaps then some do. It all started 30 years ago for me, and didn't come together until the last year.