Present Distress


March 22, 2002

Dear John:

Here is the Word of the Lord to john and his family; this is a singular, cohesive and exhaustive Word thrust upon any who claim to have faith. God warned the Old World through Noah, giving that Corruption 120 years to repent: they did not. God warned Sodom through the great and mighty saints Abraham and Lot. Even though just 15 years previously Abraham delivered this whole region from subjugation, the day before their destruction the men of Sodom wanted to rape Lot. Lot barely escaped with his family, only to lose his wife. God warned the whole world through Luther of impending judgment for its neglect of the Word, Whose luster had been restored through Luther's most precious ministry. The world ignored this ministry (Germany itself paying for this great crime with two world wars) and now 500 years later God has raised me up as the final firewall between Heaven and Hell, truth and error, and faith and hypocrisy. Even if I am not the greatest gift to the church in the last 500 years, no one can take from me my right to call the church to repentance: even a demon has this right. As a saint I have this responsibility. No one can steal or force from me my Spirit-breathed unction which constrains me to prostrate my Luther-circumcised heart before Our Father Who art in Heaven in fear for the church I love. No one can deceive me from quaking before Christ's words, "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" No one can cover my eyes to what God has Worked in my life these last six years. My life, ministry, and family confirm the Truth of the Word: "As in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." No one can bother me, for I bear in my body the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ, and well recognize His judgment on the church, the very church which John emotes: "I will spew thee out of My mouth for leaving your first love." And no one can confuse me by their complaining about the detestably sad estate of the church, while simultaneously believing, affirming, and confessing the sterling nature of their own particular faith. Yes, "particular" is truly a word straight from the Spirit's uttering to my tongue, embedding itself on this very ink-stained page of Luther's God-given commentary. "PARTICULAR." A terrifying word which cuts my heart, soul, mind body and strength to the quick, at time driving me to despair: for those I love, as a faithless lover, have prostituted their adulterous faith to so many, many lovers. There is no "certain sound" today, no one Lover and Bishop of our souls. Our lovers are as many as our own ideas lurching from the wicked depths of our natural minds. Yes, we have many particular lovers today, but we have neglected our first love which was fully defined and explained through Luther. What did Luther most ably define and defend? Nothing more and nothing less than the true nature of what it means for Christ, alone, to dwell in the conscience by grace through faith. We have lost this particular faith, which anyone can affirm who would properly read Luther. Ah, but no one dare read Luther or read him fully and properly. Why? Because men love darkness rather than Light because their deeds are evil! Thus, God has called me, a truly lowly less than a nothing; a miserable, wretched product of this adulterous and greedy age, within Whom God has placed This Treasure of true faith. How do I know it is true faith and a true word? It conforms to Luther's description. Period. My message is clear and this message is in agreement with previous workings of God, no matter how incredible they seemed to those who claimed the Name. My message, which is the Word and Work of God through me is: "Come out from among them and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you. I will give you salve for your eyes." This "salve" is none other than Luther's teachings, given by a most gracious God to the blindest people of all time, that we might have a most gracious faith, despite our utter blindness and arrogance. BUT WE WOULD NOT! Instead, we spurned the Word and Work of God until Luther's comments on the opening chapters of Hebrews are alive and thriving right now among us: "There will arise a generation of Christians so noxious to the Lord that the Lord will not even grant them a name." WE ARE THAT GENERATION. But true to hypocritical form, we believe ours to be the greatest generation. I leave you then with this warning and plea from the Spirit: "Do not harden your hearts as the Jews did in the wilderness, but repent TODAY, for TODAY is the day of salvation." Today, what does it mean to repent? It means to come from the physical and psychological buildings of the visible church, to the spiritual Building of the True Church-Luther's teaching and doctrine. It is the same, singular, and consummate message which God gave Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Christ, and Paul: "Hear ye Him!" Luther is nothing other than a pure teaching of "HIM." This "coming from" a gathering, synagogue, or church, to a mysterious work, such as the Ark, the leaving of a city, or the looking upon a snake on a stick, is always most offensive to those who have hi-jacked the name "church" for themselves. My message to "turn to Luther' offends reason and the self-worshippers, just as those of Noah's day were offended at his preaching of righteousness. If you, John, or anyone else, will not boldly and humbly step away from today's Sodomites and Neo-arkists, you can have no assurance you have true faith. Faith works, Anyone who will publicly declare his allegiance among this soft, anthing-goes crowd of today, to Luther becomes a work of faith which saves. Anyone who will not make this declaration puts himself into the unknown category of Lot's wife, who became a pillar of salt. "Remember Lot's wife!" What, then, does your spiritual life look like when you leave the established camp and withdraw to the true camp of Christ? You hang by a hair-but what a mighty hair that is! You are condemned by the "righteous" to the point of experiencing what a true cross is: the point at which the cross meets the cross: the world condemns you and God forsakes you, yet you hang on, by faith, to the Word of the Living God: "THIS IS MY BODY, THIS IS MY BLOOD, GIVEN TO YOU FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS!" I, by permission from the Lord, declare to you, John, and anyone else, to partake of this Meal often, even if you must serve yourself, for you are not alone; you have me, or a member of my family right there with you until the end of this world. The church has degenerated to the point where Christ's words are most comforting: "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst." You and your children, John, amount to this. Gather them around you as you feast on the heavenly Meal, humbly praying for your wife, giving her all you can according to the flesh, but withholding from her any adulterous relationship of the spirit. This means you cannot allow your children to pollute their hearts and minds by allowing them to frequent the "pope's church." God must be true and every man must be a liar. I commend you, us, and the Elect to the mercy of God. And may God be merciful. May God have mercy on our souls.

Timothy Vance