The March Of A Christian Soldier: Ed Reeves, A Hero Of The Korean War
Tract #12 of the Godly Warfare series
written by Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr.
Copyright 2005 by Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr. All publication rights and mass-reproduction rights are reserved to the author, but internet users are given permission to duplicate this digital file and distribute it without alteration to friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, and acquaintances. Distribution is encouraged, and the file may even be printed out on paper for paper copies, but the text must remain unaltered and the total number of printed copies for each individual tract should not exceed 10,000 unless you have gotten permission in writing from Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr. or a surviving member of his family. You may contact Ken Street (RKSJ) by e-mail using the web-mail addresses that follow: etracts@yahoo.com, or earthtrek1@hotmail.com, or eztraveller@netscape.net. Many more free teaching tracts by Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr. will be found at the internet sites WorldwideChristianTracts.net, OnlineChristianTracts.org, and Christian-Tracts.net. This note must be retained on all duplicate copies that you may make.
On Veterans' Day and throughout the entire year, God’s Soldiers everywhere should remember to give honor to all the valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ who already have attained a lofty position in God’s Hall of Heros. We must never forget the example of a brilliant warrior like the veteran named Ed Reeves. This man spent decades marching in the infantry as a member of God’s Army, and like many others, he has had to suffer great discomfort from the problem of sore feet. Even though he is a hero of the greatest magnitude, greatly loved by God, this man had to spend decades contending with the aching pains of sore feet... feet that have marched long and hard.
This soldier of God has shown himself to be enormously courageous, a truly brave warrior of God. He is a Korean War veteran who may well be in the same league as Richard Wurmbrand; he’s a survivor of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, which many students of military history have declared to have been “the most severe battle ever fought on this Earth” and “the most savage battle in the history of modern warfare.”
His name is Hubert Edward Reeves.
For an 18-year-old GI named Ed Reeves, the Korean War had probably seemed like a good chance to see the world and find adventure. It would certainly be a great opportunity for him to prove himself a hero, and to gain respect in the eyes of humanity. He proved his valor there as a U.S. soldier, but his story is even more astounding as the "onward Christian soldier" account of a young believer in Christ, a follower who did not surrender even in the face of overwhelming odds and seemingly hopeless conditions. He never lost his faith in the goodness of God, even though the circumstances of his life got really tough.
"When I was a teenager, I was already a believer, but keeping one foot in the world. Doing my own thing, and a dropout from school, and I was interested in the military, so I took all of the tests, and the Army offered me the most, and so I enlisted at 17."
He had volunteered for duty in Korea, and in Oct. 1950, Ed Reeves was one of the many troops in an Army unit marching toward the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea.
"When we got up into the mountains, it got cold. Now when it gets to 25 to 35 below zero weather, you can't stop on the road. Your clothes are sweaty; you don't dare stop or you freeze in place. You just keep moving. We were ordered to dig in on a ridge that night, so that we could move out in the morning, and that night the Chinese came in, in force. They had eight to ten thousand people; we had something like eighteen hundred, total. And their orders in the whole campaign up to Chosin were to wipe us out to a man. Their general said 'Like you'd kill a snake in your house, kill them.' Nobody in our perimeter was further away from the enemy than an arm reach. Much hand-to-hand fighting, and that's how it was all night long.
"Then when morning came, I was feeling pretty proud of myself; all I had was scratches.
And I was looking around, relaxing, and they shot me with an anti-tank gun. And I flew. And I
wasn't as proud when I landed. We were holding out at the farmhouse, and when I was
wounded, then a major and a sargeant drug me through the shell fire and put me in the room
of that house. I could look out of two doorways and watch the fighting outside. When I was
awake, I would take out my New Testament, and I was reading the promises in there for
believers: that the Lord would always be with us, that He'd never forsake us."
The waves of Chinese troops continued to attack, and in such circumstances Ed could feel little peace. Then Ed's unit was ordered to load up the wounded, to abandon their position and the perimeter.
"We had no medical supplies, no food— nothing but a lot of enemy. So I was put in the back of a sleeping bag and put in the back of an Army truck. We went about four miles, and then we ran out of everything. There was nobody to drive the trucks; they'd been killed. The trucks were out of fuel or so shot up they wouldn't run. We were out of ammo, so the enemy overran us. They took the men who were on stretchers— they could use the stretchers for their wounded-- and dumped them down on top of us.
"I'd always said I would never be a prisoner; they would have to kill me first. But now I had no choices; I couldn't go anywhere. No strength, and (inaudible) my arm left. I took out my testament, and the Psalms were in the back. Everybody was quiet; I don't know what they were thinking. And now, [when] my thinking was really certain, it changed.
"The driver of our truck was so wounded that he hadn't been able to leave. He said, 'The Chi-Coms are burning the trucks.' I said, 'Where are they taking the wounded?' He said, 'They're not. As they climb out of the fire, they shoot them.' I knew I couldn't go anywhere; I was going to have to burn alive.
"And I started talking to God like I should have been doing all along. And I just simply said, 'God, I don't have a right to ask You anything. You remember when I was a boy and I asked forgiveness of sin. And Christ came into my life. But You know I don't live for You; I do what I want to do. Take this fear from me and just let me die like a man, and I'll see You very soon. Amen.' And He took it away. I just couldn't believe it; it was just a complete 180 degree turn.
"And while I was thinking that way, the driver called and said, 'It's our turn. Here they come.' And in a minute they tried to get gas out of our truck, but it was so shot up that there was no fuel left; it had drained out in the road. One started walking around the truck executing the wounded, and then he continued shooting, one shot each in the head (inaudible) to go. I'm watching these men die, and thinking... and I was allowed to serve with these men... that I was proud that I had been serving with them. The man next to me went into eternity. The next bullet came over, and I said, 'Jesus, here I come.'
"I could look up the rifle barrel, see the trigger squeeze, and the muzzle blast knocked me flat. But I opened my eyes and thought, 'You don't miss at three feet. I can't be alive.'
"So I felt my forehead and my head to see where the hole was, and I didn't have a hole between the eyes or in the forehead like the others; I had a scalp wound.
"And I talked to the Lord and said, 'Why am I alive when everybody else is dead?' I couldn't
even get out of the bag. If God wanted me out of there, I told Him, He would have to get me off
the truck— I couldn't do it."
Helpless, he lay there for 2 nights in the extreme cold. Then the enemy returned.
"They're taking bodies and searching them, and putting them in piles in the road. And as they walked toward me, I thought, 'All right, hold yourself stiff like you're another frozen body again. They could see I was alive by the give to my body and the warmth to it. And I was the enemy. So they worked me over good, and they threw me off the back of the truck. And my prayer was answered; I was off the truck.
"And then I had two of them that held me up by my hair and my clothing and worked me over some more, dragged me to the pile of dead and threw me on top of it. I was miserable as I could get; they picked up the rifles and started pounding with the rifle butts. And one took a handful of hair and lifted my face to see if I was dead, and I thought, 'Don't breathe; just stare back in the road.' And he threw the head down, wiped his hand off on the back of my jacket, and headed up the road to go north.
"So I climbed off the pile— dead, halfway— and slid down. I could look out at the ice of the reservoir that I had to cross to get over to the Marines' side.
"And I said, 'God— ' out loud. The enemy couldn't see me, so why be quiet. 'God, I can't
walk. How can I get out of here?'
He had to keep moving so he wouldn't freeze to death, and he somehow forced himself to crawl onward for hours, moving himself slowly toward the reservoir.
"I finally felt something hard under me. I took an elbow and looked at it, and it was ice. And I looked around, and I was on the ice of the reservoir. And I said, 'Lord, thank You for getting me to the ice.'
"I lifted up on an elbow, and I could see these dots on the ice get bigger and bigger until I
could see they were men on jeeps. Then when I got closer, men got off: Lieutenant Colonel
Olin Beal and Sergeant Ralph Morton.'"
Beal and Morton had for 3 days endured the freezing cold and had frequently dodged enemy gunfire in their persistent effort to rescue wounded American soldiers. Together they succeeded in rescuing over 200 of the wounded U.S. troops from the frozen reservoir.
When flown to an Army hospital in Japan, Ed Reeve's body was suffering from severe frostbite and gangreen. His body was so infected that his death seemed certain. He was next flown to another hospital in the U.S., where a doctor phoned his mother and told her that she should not expect him to live.
"They told her, 'Mrs. Reeves, don't come to the hospital to see your son; we believe he's dying right now. If he does live, he'll be bed-bound the rest of his life. If he does live, he'll be addicted because we're giving him so much drugs to stop the pain.'
"I found out later my mother and my grandmother were in daily prayer for me all the time, and it wasn't long before many people were praying for me. I could hear my heart beating, and I waited all night long; it didn't quit.
"So I said, 'All right, God's got a plan going. He still wants something going here.'
At this point in Ed's story, the Earth-Trekker who is author of this book is very much inclined to think that our God particularly wanted Ed himself to "get going" and to finally start telling a lot more people about the gospel of Jesus Christ— the salvation that He offers to humanity, a rescue that can prevent anyone from perishing in "the second death" of Hell. Jesus said, "Unless you repent, you will likewise perish." Maybe Ed's heart was then broken to a point where God thought he would become an excellent ambassador for Christ. God asks us in the book of Isaiah, "Whom shall I send?"
It seems that at this point Ed was just starting to discover his real mission in the Cosmic Battle of the Ages. God wanted to send Ed out to that same world with His divine message, with a mission that was given to him by Jesus Christ. Nineteen years old already? So soon? Time to get going, Ed. Time to start telling people everywhere on this embattled planet about the salvation that can be found in Jesus Christ. Ed's response, as you will see in the latter part of his story, was "Here I am, Lord. Send me."
"I didn't know what. But when they started cutting the gangrene away, the feet were
amputated, and the fingers were gone, they started grafting and operations and putting me
back together again. They decided this guy looks like he might live a while."
More than 50 years have passed since Ed Reeves endured the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, which most military historians agree is "the most savage battle in the history of modern warfare."
"He's let me be in 14 other countries and to show that, when everything else goes wrong, God's there waiting to hear. The Lord has promised in His Word that if we'll go tell one person about Christ, our feet are beautiful. He's promised; He doesn't care if they're wood-and-rubber or flesh-and-blood.
"So I tell people about beautiful feet and real peace. Real peace, no matter what's
happening, is with Jesus Christ."
That is the story of a valiant hero, one who is a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ. Having lost both his feet and hands to frostbite that was inflicted on him during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, he has still managed to travel for speaking engagements in the United States and in a total of 14 countries, telling everyone the good news of Jesus Christ.
He’s done this for more than 50 years. We may be amazed that he came through the nightmare of Chosin Reservoir with his faith intact, but it’s even more astounding that he has been a courageous evangelist for Jesus throughout the half-century and more that has passed since that battle of the Korean War.
How beautiful are the feet of those who come with the good news of Christ.
Ed Reeves was only 17 years old in 1949, when he enlisted in the infantry. Ed Reeves had gone out to see a world that was already deeply involved in the warfare between Christian libertarians and the Atheistic Communists. He had only completed eight years of schooling at that time; still, he eventually managed to qualify for Officer Candidate School. Before he was even old enough to attend OCS, he had felt called to volunteer for service in the Korean War.
He was only 19 when he was severely wounded in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, which occurred in Dec. 1950. He was fighting on the side of Western Christian Liberty against all the dictatorial power of a widespread Atheistic Totalitarianism that prevailed in China and North Korea, and he fought valiantly. But he was maimed in that battle, afflicted by a severe frostbite and gangrene that cost him his hands and feet.
That episode of Cosmic Warfare cost him dearly, but he didn’t regret his sacrifice. He was already a Christian believer at that young age, and he knew he was fighting on the Right Side. Yet he had suffered the strain of amputations from frostbite, a consequence of being immersed in a nightmarishly cold environment that had created “the most severe battle conditions in the history of modern warfare.”
Did he blame God for his misfortune and bemoan his fate? Did he stay in a perpetual state of battle-shock, feeling that the Devil had succeeded in injuring him so badly and killing most of his comrades?
Apparently not. Instead, he felt that he had been miraculously preserved by God. He was one of a very tiny number of American soldiers who had survived the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. He saw himself as being a survivor only by the grace of God, knowing that he was among “the Chosin Few.”
He saw himself as a man rescued by God from the nightmarish battle conditions of the Chosin Reservoir conflict. He had gone through the most severe battlefield environment in all the history of modern warfare, and he was still alive. Not many of his comrades had made it through.
But maybe, in a world where the level of Cosmic Warfare has become so savage and destructive, we should all be glad just to know that God has preserved us through all of our trials... just as He has done so for Ed Reeves.
A major theme of the Bible is that God is preserving a remnant of people for Himself. It doesn’t promise that God Almighty will make all of His followers as powerful as Samson or as successful as King Solomon, but it does say that He will preserve His followers and ultimately bring them to a paradise... a new home in Heaven.
Life wasn’t “a bed of roses” for Jesus Himself during His time on Earth, nor for any of His apostles, and He warned all His followers that they would also go through difficult trials. He informed them that they must be willing to carry a cross on their backs, and to even be crucified as He had been.
Of His original group of apostles, all but one (John) went on to face a violent end, and they were often tortured to death. In most cases, these first apostles expired only after a slow and agonizing form of execution by the enemies of God.
Many of the later disciples of Jesus met a similar fate, as in the case of the Roman Christians who were victimized by Emperor Nero and his ilk. Many millions of Christians were likewise tortured and executed under the Marxist Communists... whom soldiers like Ed Reeves and pastor Richard Wurmbrand have so bravely opposed. Today there are millions more being victimized by belligerent Muslims, who are actively seeking to decimate or exterminate the Christian population of countries such as the nation of Sudan in Africa. These have likewise persecuted the Christian believers in nations of the Mideast and elsewhere, in many locations... whenever there is a Muslim majority in control. Yet the Christian believers in each situation know that a paradise awaits them in Heaven, and there they will be forever with the Lord Jesus Who has preceded them.
When he lay wounded on the ground of a battlefield in Korea and thought that he was only a moment away from being shot in the head by a Chinese Communist soldier, Ed Reeves had uttered the words, “Jesus, here I come.”
But it turned out that God was going to preserve Ed Reeves for several decades before he would ever be taken up into Heaven. It would be quite a while before he would get to see the inside of the heavenly Hall of Heros.
By Sept. 1951, he had already gotten himself married, while on medical leave from an Army hospital, to Beverly Jean Hall. They stayed together and eventually had eight children together, then fifteen grandchildren.
After his discharge from the hospital, Ed Reeves proceeded to earn a B.S. degree (in 1958) from University of Illinois at Urbana. He was thereafter employed by the Department of Defense as a systems analyst, but he quit that work in 1971 so that he could devote himself full-time to a Christian ministry. He was thus able to serve as a missionary in North America, Central America, and South America— as well as in Russia. By this current date, he’s already traveled to at least 14 countries telling them about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
He started into a full-time ministry in 1971, and it looks like this ex-soldier has become a world-class globetrotter. In matters of worldwide evangelism, he’s been a quite successful disciple of Christ.
He’s gone all over the world talking about the Truth that he has found in Jesus Christ, and he’s obviously a devoted disciple of our Lord. He’s been doing this without any feet.
And yet he reminds us once again of the Biblical Scripture: How beautiful are the feet of those who come with the good news of salvation.
The rest of us will just have to keep working at it, and we should all be forced to try a little harder from now on, in order to make sure that our own feet don’t get too ugly.
Your own feet may be slightly battered and torn at this particular moment in time. Maybe you’re not sure just how many more miles you’ll have to go before you finally get to sleep. War is Hell.
No matter whether you are caught in the middle of the Korean War, or just caught in the midst of more general human conflicts and the all-pervasive Cosmic Warfare of this Universe, life is not easy.
Richard Wurmbrand and Ed Reeves are two great wonders of the Earth. You have to admire people like that; they are the real heros of our current age. They are Christian soldiers who never stop moving forward. They are always striving onward, never willing to surrender. Men like these are busy always, ceaselessly seeking to rescue people from the Kingdom of Satan... and to bring them safely into the Kingdom of Heaven.
We believe, as followers of Christ, that we will be preserved by God. The fact that we survive the battlefield conditions in this time of Cosmic Warfare, as the world endures the period that Jesus called “the Last Days,” is rather astounding in itself.
The fighting has been fierce and injurious for many of His soldiers, but we have not yet given up the hope of a rescue... and an ultimate victory. We see a paradise that still lies before us, and we are getting a little closer to it every day. We are His Chosen Few.
It is a privilege and an honor to have served in the same army as these two men, and to know that we are all part of the same team.
We belong to an elite military force; we are an army of Christian soldiers. Quite a few people have now declared allegiance to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who is our leader and commander. He is truly the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, because He is part of a Divine Trinity. He was there at the Creation of the Universe; all things in our world were made through Him and for Him.
Through Him, we have seen the face of the Father in Heaven. Jesus Christ has made the Father known to us.
Others have declared allegiance to a different father, the Father of Lies, and they have become the enemy that harasses us. These would enslave us if they could, and would force us to bow down to their own false gods.
God’s Army is still looking for additional recruits, because humanity is even yet engaged in a prolonged and savage form of Cosmic Warfare. We invite you to join us on the side of Righteousness, and applications to Jesus Christ may be sent in from any interested persons.
These are two valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ whom we are privileged to remember on Memorial Day and throughout each year of our lives on planet Earth. We should keep their fine example fixed firmly in our minds as we proceed with our own lifetimes on this planet.
This writer’s feet are not nearly so beautiful as their own, which are entitled to the highest honors. Richard Wurmbrand suffered many years of torture while a prisoner for Christ, and as a result of that he was plagued for the rest of his life with a persistent affliction-- a problem of painfully sore feet. But he kept right on traveling with the good news, bringing people all over the world the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ed Reeves may have lost his feet in the battle against the Dark Forces, but he kept right on traveling with the good news of Jesus Christ. Ever since that traumatic time in 1950, he has been wearing the full armor of salvation in Christ, and he continues to go all around the world preaching the Truth of Jesus, the Savior of Humankind. Since he's wearing the armor of Christ, that means he goes everywhere on beautiful feet that are wearing what Paul calls "the sandals of peace."
The march of Christian soldiers in this world continues even now, and you have a chance to be part of God’s campaign. He wants His troops out there showing virtue and doing good, working for justice and righteousness and the Kingdom of Heaven. He wants us to gather in all the new recruits— including anyone who commits himself to the Father by showing loyalty to Jesus Christ— and to then put them to work in His cause.
God Almighty plans to regain control of the Earth, and you can choose to join His side and serve in His cause. You can choose of your own free will to become a soldier of God. You can start a new life in which you are serving a Righteous Lord and helping Him to fight against all the evils of this world.
There is a war raging on our Earth, and in all the Universe, between the armies of God and the armies of Satan. Every adult on Earth has been enlisted by one side or the other, so everyone participates— whether they wish it or don’t.
The Lord God Almighty is looking for a few good men (and women) to help Him in His battle against the forces of Darkness. If you repent of your evil ways and turn back to the Light (Jesus Christ, the Light of the World), He can use your service in the Great War which is currently underway on Earth. He needs more soldiers, and He need more recruits who have a courageous spirit like that of Joshua and Caleb!
God’s Remnant is an army of loyal soldiers that survives all this supernatural warfare, and this group of humans will comprise a Special Forces team that is the apple of God's eye. These soldiers get an exalted position with God and are individually chosen by Him-- they are carefully picked out of the crowd by the Righteous King Himself. These troops compose an elite corps that is destined for a special position in God’s Developmental Program for His Universe. This is the overcoming remnant that will be victorious over our current world (which will one day be called Old Earth), and they are the ones whom God will use to re-populate the planet of His New Earth.
The more massive population on our current Earth is that formed by the Armies of Darkness, who mostly adhere to the Majority Opinion. These guys serve the Prince of Darkness, whom Jesus declared to be “the prince of this world”— whether they realize that fact or not!
But that team is headed for ultimate destruction, since they will share the same fate as Satan and his demons! They will first march over all the Earth causing a lot of damage, but ultimately they will suffer an eternal torment when they are consigned to Hell, a place of Outer Darkness where there will be only mental pain, weeping, and despair!
Hell is a place where the enemies of God will be trapped forever with their leader (Satan) and endless remorse. It’s rather like a Lunatic Asylum that will imprison all the enemies of God.
You may wonder why a Loving God (a God of Light) would allow such a thing as Hell to exist. Well, it’s like this:
God created all human and angelic beings in His Universe with the innate gift of Eternal Life, and they get to keep forever that Endless Spirit which resides within their outward forms. They stay alive for all time, infinitely... no matter how much they sin, no matter how evil or insane they may become. So God has to put the Evil One and all his followers SOMEWHERE, and this miserable Hell is where they will reside even after He recreates the Universe and produces the New Earth as a World of Light. In Hell they will know endless remorse, endless despair, and endless torment.
The Darkness which Satan, his demons, and his followers have so long promoted... then becomes the Prison that will trap them for all of Eternity.
So choose this day whom you will serve. If God the Father is your God, then choose to follow Him! If you continue to follow instead the Prince of Darkness, then you must share that monster's ultimate destiny.
....
Father God wants YOU to join Salvation’s Army! Become one of the Best... be smart and join the winning team! It’s the only way to come out on top in the end!
The alternative is to stay on the losing side... and then you’ll end up at the bottom of a Pit of Fire, with a nasty guy named Satan and an ugly bunch of demons. Woe, woe... and whoa now! Hey, that’s a fate that shouldn’t appeal to anyone with an ounce of good sense...
Let us reiterate...
Father God wants YOU to join Salvation’s Army! Become one of the Best... be smart and join the winning team! It’s the only way to come out on top in the end!
Yeah, that’s right— we’re the World’s Finest, the Good Guys who are “the salt of the Earth.” Admittedly, we fight for truth, for what’s right, and for justice... just like those “naive” police officers that a lot of people try to avoid!
So why do we end up thinking that we’re “better” than all the rest? What makes us so special— what sets us apart from all the other evil sinners in the world?
Only the fact that we’ve accepted salvation through Christ, and have thus gotten forgiveness from our sins... and the fact that we’ve turned to Jesus Christ as a source of Light.
...
You can share the Light of Jesus Christ, can reflect His Holy Light in a Cruel World, and thus become a point of illumination in the darkness of this world.
God’s Light can become a Lamp unto your feet and a Light unto your path, if you choose to accept rescue and salvation that is available in Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God Almighty.
You can even live to see the Light of God flowing through you and reaching out to other people in our world...!
It’s time your mind was illuminated by Jesus Christ, the Holy One Who is the Light of the World!
....
God Almighty, the Holy and Righteous Leader of the Armies of Light, is looking for a few good followers. You can join His army by placing Jesus Christ, Who in the Trinity of God created our Universe, upon a throne at the center of your heart! He deserves that position and that kind of respect. He was first God The Son, but when born in human flesh He became the only sinless and righteous person who ever lived. Yet He sacrificed Himself on a cross for your sake, taking all guilt and sins upon Himself, in order that you and I— that all people— that whoever wishes for salvation might be rescued from the due punishment of sins.
If you will do this, you will gain a new contentment and peace as you accept God's organizational plan for the Universe . . . because you'll be letting God be the Ruler of All Things in this world . . . and in your own life.
All it really takes is a simple but sincere little prayer— one that you should make up in your own words. The prayer for deliverance and for God's leadership should come from your own heart!
Some important elements that you might include are:
1) your desire to turn away from the wrongness or evil of your
past life, and your remorse over the sins of your previous life,
2) your desire for God's forgiveness and mercy through the act
of sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son (Jesus Christ),
3) your desire to know God's leadership in your life,
4) your desire to learn more of God's truth through Bible study,
5) your desire to find fellowship with genuine believers.
Jesus said of the people of God that "The kingdom of heaven is like a net that God has cast into the sea, and it gathers of every kind: When it is full, it will be pulled up on the shore, where they will sit down to sort the catch, and they will collect the good fish in baskets, but the bad things will be thrown away. This is the way it will be at the end of the world: The angels shall come forth, and they will separate the unrighteous persons from among those justified by God . . ."
Excerpt from the Book of Matthew, who was a constant
companion of Jesus and his devoted disciple [13:47-50].
Jesus spoke of the people of God as being like a seed that is growing secretly, saying, “As for the kingdom of God, it is as if a person should cast seed into the ground; and then he sleeps, and he rises up night and day to see that the seed is springing forth and always growing up, although he knows not exactly how. The Earth is bringing forth fruit from itself; first the blade, then the ears of corn, and after that the fullness of the ears of corn. And when all the fruit of the Earth has come forth, immediately God will use the sickle to reap the fields, because the harvest-time has come."
Excerpt from the book of Mark [4:26-29].
It's also important for all of us to remember this:
1) WE SPEAK TO GOD by our prayers.
2) GOD SPEAKS TO US by the words of Holy Scripture.
So we must try to read His words and His Book
just as often as we possibly can!!
God wants to bless you for all your long efforts to understand this very confusing and difficult Universe in which we live— so let Him reward your search with the grace of His forgiveness and enlightenment!
THIS GUIDE WAS WRITTEN FOR YOU BY. . .
Ken Street, a baptized follower of the Way.
May 31, 2004 (draft for my book)
Collinsville, VA
and
March 31, 2005 (first draft of tract)
Williamsburg, VA