Through Comfort of the Scriptures

By K.W. Swain

Gods timeline of Providence is almost at its end. This is not the author playing prophet, but the observation of prophecies coming to pass in the events occurring today.

If we have rewritten the Word of God to accommodate our departure from its instruction, how shall we find any comfort for the dark days ahead? While it pronounces dire judgment upon disobedience, it also provides the way of escape. If it predicts a time of trouble such as the world has never before experienced, it also comforts with all the security needed for such a time. For every threat God has provided in His Word a promise, for every chastening, a kiss.

Through Comfort of the Scriptures is a book for those old in faith as well as those young in hope. They are the ones able to understand the mysterious paradox: Zion (the Bride of Christ on Earth) refined as gold in the fiery judgment of the nations, yet is not consumed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456753429

K.W. Swain

I have been interested in the Holy Bible for some time now. I have written and published The Image of God, a Bible Study of Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage, and A Great Silence in the land, newly released defense of the Scriptures which answer many problems of this day. These are my only credentials except for a lifetime of experiences. I have three children who are successful thanks to God's mercy, and 11 Grandchildren. One grandson served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is just home and out of the Army. Another grandson served in Afghanistan and is home and still in the Air Force. Believe me, I have found just how powerful prayer is. I now have 3 Great grandchildren (two more on the way). I enjoy visiting them all in Houston, Georgia, and Maryland. I lived in El Paso, Texas for a number of years after my husband passed away. I taught sixth grade science and worked for a short time at UTEP before I retired. Back home now in the place where I met and married my husband, a Korean veteran, had my children and watched them grow as they graduated from Tomball High School, and moved on in their various directions. Problems, perservance, and prayer were our lot, but my large family and I can say, "Thus far has the Lord brought us, and we are unhurt." Kelsay Swain

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THROUGH COMFORT of the SCRIPTURES

K.W. Swain

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© 2011 K.W. Swain. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 7/1/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5342-9 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5343-6 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5345-0 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011907275

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

DEDICATION

FOREWORD

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

Bio

DEDICATION

I have written this book to my children that they might know what their mother believes, with fervent prayers unto Almighty God that one day they might believe it also; that having been chosen providentially to share my tribulations, they might also have been chosen to share my consolations in the knowledge of the one true and living God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

FOREWORD

I had been impressed for some time with the great faithfulness of our Heavenly Father in providing comfort for His people in every time and trouble—comfort that spans the ages through ancient words unto the last one that shall ever be born into this world.

While shopping one day, I came upon a book fair, and a table of religious books drew me to wonder silently, Lord, is there one here for me? At the same instant my hand fell upon one entitled Through Encouragement of the Scriptures written by a British author, Helen Willis. I remembered my own thoughts on the subject as I scanned the book and found it to be a record of the author’s experiences in the missionary field of China during the early days of the Communist regime. I bought the book, and when I read it, I felt my heart and soul knit to the author’s as she dwelt in a dark land, and the Lord spoke to her through the scriptures, as it were, face to face.

You might wonder how I could feel something in common with a woman who walked in danger of prison, torture, and death. How could we have had some of the same promises spoken into our souls? No government power can be more terrifying than Satan himself, and no despair darker than the inability to believe that God can save. Whether fear of pain and death, fear of shame and disgrace in this life or fear of a final eternal casting away, His people share the same great encouragement, comfort, reviving, and strengthening of a prayer-answering God.

Miss Willis did not fail to set forth her God in His most glorious and God-honoring capacities: Father and Savior of both body and soul. It is that keeping power of God in the cares of this life that I desire to praise here, so as she has taken her title from Romans 15:4 as it is written in the New Translation, I take mine from the same verse as it is recorded in the Authorized King James version:

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

PREFACE

I trust I have only one aim for this book: to set forth the fiery and cloudy Pillar to the next generation, for as such our God is now seldom remembered.

I would remind them of the One who still sets a table in the wilderness and brings forth water from the rock, the One who substitutes for their fleshly pain the joy of His manifest presence as He makes their troubles as though they were not. They shall have need to remember, for God’s people are not safe from trouble in this life; but, oh, how safe they are in trouble!

All of us naturally tend to worship those gods which seem most to nourish us (both our bodies and our pride), and deliver us, (from trouble or boredom). Many, spiritually taught, acknowledge the true and living God, the Creator of all things, as the Supreme Provider and Deliverer and the first Cause of all causes. But comparative safety and prosperity have clouded our eyes and dulled our senses so that today He is viewed only through those secondary causes of our delights. These then have become our idols, which should be our servants.

Food is good for hunger and water for thirst; money is good for securing them. Our good health and our hands are good for earning money, and indeed we are allowed to take hold of all provisions that the Lord, according to His mercy and goodness, sends both to the just and to the unjust.

However, when those very provisions become to us providers, we no longer look to the maker thereof nor have respect unto Him that fashioned it long ago. We have become absorbed in hewing out a sepulcher for ourselves; our souls and bodies are earthbound, our spiritual yearnings quenched for the One in whom we move and breathe and have our being.

For these things the Lord’s people are not safe from trouble. Rest assured He shall pull us down from this state, and in His jealousy every idol, though it be as close as our right hand and dearer than our eye, shall be cut off before we can enter into Heaven.

It is not my aim to predict dire circumstances—the scriptures are clear on the things that are coming to pass. Neither do I wish to attempt to convince the world nor browbeat my brethren who believe that a millennial haven is prepared for Zion during the judgments of the last times. It is my desire only to comfort in the trial of their faith; to show that the safety of God’s people in trouble is not only in agreement with the whole of the scriptures, but is most consistent with the glory of God which shines the brightest in the great and mysterious paradoxes which attend the salvation and deliverances of His people.

It is in the presence (not absence) of the sword that they find peace that the world knows nothing of (Matthew 10:34; John 14:27). It is the valley of Achor (that dark and troublous place) that becomes their door of hope, and into the wilderness, a place not sown, the Lord lures them that He might give them their rich and fruitful vineyards (Hosea 2:14,15). It is beneath the waves, seaweed wrapped around their heads, drowning in the swirling, dark waters, they find a haven prepared for them (Jonah 2:5,6), and it is in the wilderness, again where no food is, that His bride is to be nourished unto her full growth in total dependence upon her Husband (Revelation 12:14).

It is true that God’s people are never left to the final destruction of the wicked, but we do not read that they are gathered away without a trial of their faith. The ancient patriarchs were all gathered home before the flood, but it is sure that many trials attended their long lives, and as they, through pride of the eyes, began to join themselves to those who cared not for God, surely the great wickedness spreading forth throughout the earth gave cause for many cries heavenward (Genesis 6:4,5).

Noah experienced a great trial of faith for how many have had to stand for the word of God alone against the whole world? Sodom and Gomorrah could not feel the wrath of God until righteous Lot was safely out, yet he offered up the lives of his daughters for the safety of his heavenly guests, experiencing the trial of leaving all natural ties for the love of his Savior.

Rahab was promised deliverance for herself and her house, yet she must endure the sounds of the slaughter around her, and surely her heart must have failed her many times for fear of trusting in the word of two spies and in a little scarlet cord. The Hebrew children found their Deliverer in the furnace and Daniel, his, in the presence of the lions.

So it is throughout the scriptures and so it shall be until the last of His saints enters Heaven through great tribulations. In all these things the Lord alone is glorified, and I believe the time is at hand when that glory shall fill the earth; that is, when the whole earth shall see that the fire of the Lord’s judgments is destruction to one and cleansing to another.

K. W. S.

He spread a cloud for a covering; and fire to give light in the night. The people asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of heaven. He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out…

Psalms 105:39-43

CHAPTER I

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness.

Psalms 31:1

Suppose one day you were to fall into a narrow shaft too deep to climb out. As you waited for rescue you would probably look up and see a portion of the sky as the opening