Unmasking The Greatest Mystery

By Timothy Mehl

This book is about my testimony. I grew up attending a fundamental church out of the mainstream of other Christian churches. Many of the doctrines and views that came from its teaching caused me to be an outcast and different from my peers. When I reached the age of eighteen and became independent of my parents, I started to study the Bible and find out for myself what was in it. It's been a long road and a difficult journey, but my quest has been rewarded by the many treasures I have found hidden in its pages. Just recently, I found the ultimate treasure: bringing the Bible into focus as one picture. This picture has become predominate in my understanding of God and how He views and works with those who come to Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641404150

Book preview

Acknowledgement

I am in indebted to all those who have preached sermons, written articles and books pertaining to the Christian faith my mind has pondered. Listening to and studying what has been written about the Christian faith has fueled my quest to understand the scriptures, and has been influential in my desire to write this book.

Prologue

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them—before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain; when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim; when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; when people are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets. Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

—(Ecclesiastes 12:1–7,NIV)

My parents took me to church ever since I can remember, but it wasn’t until I reached the age of eighteen did I start searching and studying the Bible trying to know and understand the God with whom we have to do. It’s been a long journey and a difficult road, but getting up to the next hilltop to see a different view of Him propels me onward.

My writing about this journey is surely clumsy and not like some books that have quotes and sources from other books to try to prove a point, although I do quote scripture. I will leave the proving up to the reader. One of the things I have learned through my years of teaching is unless a student is willing to put in the time and effort to learn, the proving to them on my part becomes fruitless.

I believe what I have written to be correct because I have been engaged for nearly fifty years studying different views from different sources on different biblical subjects, sorting it out through reason and scripture. Some of the things I believe to be truth are not popular in the teachings of the majority of the Christian community. I have left the door open in case my understanding is flawed.

I recently bought my grandsons a ping-pong table of their own since they enjoy playing on grandpa’s so much. It came in a box and had to be assembled. I thought about just leaving it at their house and let my son put it together, but since the boys were out of school on Thanksgiving break, it would give me the opportunity to interact with them while putting it together. In the box there were the two boards, legs, support arms, casters, brackets for the net, the net and different sizes of bolts, washers and nuts, the instructions, and there were no tools provided. In the instructions, there were several steps to follow, and the first step went something like this: Step 1. Use an M16 machine screw with M4 washer and place screw in hole provided to attach R 12 supporting bracket to the leg and use M 4 washer and R 12 nut to complete the task. If you are like me a picture of the ping-pong table would sure help, and a picture of the steps along with the written instructions would provide clarity to the task at hand. The larger and more detailed the picture, the better for understanding.

So it is with me, trying to understand the Bible. Not having a picture of what God is doing, His purpose for creating us—well, the Bible is like a lot of instructions and details. Without a picture, it can be difficult to understand. It was ingrained in me, working on the farm, to first understand the task at hand, to visualize the task in my mind so I could take necessary tools and equipment to accomplish the task. That carries through to plumbing, being twenty miles from town and not having the right parts can be costly and inefficient.

Through most of my Christian life, I found that reading, studying, and comprehending the Bible was like assembling the ping-pong table without a picture. I am wired to see the picture to understand the details. I have been studying the details and gaining knowledge of the Bible my entire Christian life trying to find the missing link that would unveil the picture, allowing me to tie all the details together. When I was a young boy, I would be given a piece of paper with numbers on it. The task was to draw a straight line between numbers 1 to numbers 2, etc., and it would reveal an object to color. In studying the Bible, there seemed to be numbers missing, which would tie the entire paper into a complete scene instead of just individual objects.

This book is about an overview with some details about this picture. It is the picture of the jigsaw puzzle called the Bible for years I struggled to see. The picture came into focus after I read a book called Law and Covenant by Ronald L. Dart. Maybe it was because of the road I traveled kept me from seeing the picture earlier, or maybe God was saving the best treasure to be discovered in the latter part of my life. The picture I longed to see came into focus, and most of the pieces of this great puzzle I struggled to connect have been put into their place. Now, I am able to see its picture.

Introduction

As I reflect on my life, I am amazed at the influence my parents had on it. Growing up on a farm, my dad being a farmer, placed me in an environment loaded with rich life learning experiences. It has helped to shape and mold me in understanding life and how it works, and the common sense that comes with dealing and working with animals and nature.

I had wonderful parents, and the sacrifices they made to make a home for my three brothers and me could be a model for every family. They weren’t perfect as parents, but their focus was to provide a good home with our best interest in mind. As a young boy, everyone said I looked like my mother; but I, being a boy, wanted my identity to be in my dad and not my mother. I now realize how much of me is my mother and now how thankful I am that I look like her. As a young boy, I wanted to do the things Dad did. I went with him whenever I could, learning to milk cows the old-fashioned way, learning to drive a tractor, scooping silage with a pitchfork into a truck and from the truck into a feed bunk to feed cows and many other things required at the time to be a farmer. When I could do them about as efficiently as Dad, I felt I was becoming a man, and that was what I wanted to be—a man like my dad.

My parents had a life before I showed up, and I didn’t realize it until years later that the experiences my dad had during WW II heavily influenced our family. Dad and Mom had just been married for three months before he was drafted and sent overseas to England to serve in the Eighth Air Force during WW II. They were separated for three years. While Dad was in England, Mom worked in an airplane factory in Wichita to support the war effort. They were separated longer then they knew each other. Mom told me they were faithful to each other even though she was not sure she liked my dad after he came home. There were periods of six weeks at a time when Dad would not get any communication from her or from his family because delivery of the mail was delayed because of the war. They had to get reacquainted and restart their lives, and it makes me wonder if I would have had the character to do what they did. Dad was a sergeant over a crew that picked up the B-17 plane crews when they landed after a bombing raid. It was also their job to pick up the wrecks of the planes that tried to make it back to base after they were shot up and crashed trying to land, many times killing the entire crew of ten or eleven; most were under the age of twenty-one. Dad knew many of the crew members because they were stationed at the same airfield where he worked. He told me of one of the crashes where the plane nosed in while trying to land with all the crew on board, and there was no recovery of the crew because of the intense fire. I never asked him, but I am wondering if some of his friends were on that plane.

My dad came back from the war with a nagging question no one could answer to his satisfaction. My dad became what I would call a seeker. He had a question he wanted answered, and he would leave no rock unturned until he found the answer. The anxiety of not knowing the answer dogged and tormented his thoughts on a daily basis for several years. In my mind, that separates him from being a little curious to a question to being a seeker. I have known a few seekers in my life, but not many. The question that made such an influence on our family was; those boys who were seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years old who died in those plane wrecks or who were shot down over enemy territory and never returned to base, did they go to hell, and are they still burning in hell? Would God, who is categorized as a loving, merciful, patient, slow-to-anger God in the Bible, send those boys to a the hell he learned about from a small country church his parents took him to? In hell, according to what he was taught, they would be burned and scorched not for a day or a year or seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen years, but every day for all eternity, because they hadn’t accepted Jesus as their Savior. Dad rubbed shoulders with them and knew probably most weren’t saved. Dad wasn’t either at that time, and that was what was bothering him; he came home, and they didn’t.

No one in our community of churches in our town or county at that time could give Dad an answer from the Bible to subside the gnawing question he had. I can remember different ministers from different churches coming over in the evenings to visit with Dad, but none could show Dad out of the Bible the answer to his question. In the evenings on the farm, before TV was available for us to watch, Dad would listen to preachers on the radio in the evenings searching for the answer. He also read religious material, checking that material with his Bible for understanding of the subject. Then there was a night when he heard a preacher on the radio explaining from the Bible the question he had of hell. He answered Dad’s question by going through multiple Bible verses expounding God’s purpose for creating man, God’s time table and plan for salvation for all generations. That preacher had biblical answers and insights to the many other questions, doctrines, and prophecies Dad soaked up like a sponge. That was in the early 1950s and the preacher was located in California. It wasn’t until 1960 when there were enough people listening and interested in the area for a church to start in Wichita, Kansas. We went almost every week, and it was a four-hour trip one way on a two-lane highway. For a seeker, the cost both financially and risk of travel was well worth paying to find the answers to the gnawing questions he had. Church, and the teachings which came from it, dominated my parents’ lives, which transferred to our family. Everything else in their lives took a backseat, including the farm. I didn’t realize it until later in my life, but it reminded me of the parable in Matthew 13:44 when a man knew there was a treasure in a field and he went and sold everything he had to purchase that field. Dad and Mom were willing to make the sacrifices necessary to purchase that field. Growing up and seeing my dad read the Bible (there was one, two, or three different translations by his chair) with different Christian literature he studied set a mold or pattern for my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time. My dad was true to himself, meaning if he understood something not to be correct, even though most churches taught it as correct, he didn’t follow the crowd. He was willing to stand alone if necessary rather than compromise what he understood to be true. Standing alone is never easy, and Dad wrestled with scripture, deep in thought even while he was working. That led to many times forgetting to shut the gate after feeding the cows, which let the cows get out.

As far back as I can remember, our family was different from most families because of what Dad and Mom were learning. We didn’t go to church on Sunday, but Saturday. We observed the feast days God gave Israel in Leviticus 23, and we didn’t observe Christmas or Easter because of their pagan origins. There were other things we either did or did not do, causing our family to be different. It wasn’t easy as a boy or a teenager to be different. My nature wasn’t inclined to be rebellious, so I went with the flow of my parents, attending church with them and listening to the Bible stories Mom would read to us. I became very familiar with the Bible growing up because the sermons in church would last at least an hour and half. Those attending were expected to turn to all the scripture references, which could be as many as thirty, and take notes all the same time. Most who attended that church were seekers and hungry for spiritual food. Even though an hour-and-a-half sermon may seem like a long time; it wasn’t to them. Also, the church taught and emphasized studying the Bible, meditating, and praying at least thirty minutes in each of these categories each day for our spiritual health. When I was eleven or twelve years old, I subscribed to a correspondence course published by our church. It had fifty-six lessons that dealt with different subjects in the Bible, and they were sent every month. The scripture reverences had to be written out by hand along with the answers to the questions in the text. You might ask why did I do all of this and not rebel; it was because of the fear of God. The church excelled in putting the fear of God in its members, and if I couldn’t do these simple disciplines, then how could I ever be worthy enough to be saved?

I went to a one-room school in the country through the eighth grade, and I was the only one in my grade throughout those years. I excelled in math, but spelling, English, and reading I disliked. I don’t remember ever bringing homework home, and being the only one in my class, I had no competition. I skated through the first eight grades. This lack of discipline to study was going to catch up to me in high school. Now I love to read, wish I could spell, and wish I had paid more attention to English and grammar because I find myself compelled to write about the treasures I have found in the Bible I have struggled to understand. There is a picture painted throughout the Bible I just read over for many years. I have a desire to write about its beauty because it has now become central in my understanding of God and how He works. More about this later.

I had to drive seventeen miles one way to town to attend high school, because the school system at that time didn’t provide a bus to transport country kids. Those years of high school were very difficult for me. I wasn’t ready academically, or socially, to go to high school, and being different compounded the problem. My freshman English teacher would give pop tests on reading assignments, and I would flunk them all. I was failing English. I never failed anything before, and I was near a nervous breakdown. I went out for football my freshman year, and I wasn’t allowed to play during games except for the last thirty seconds or so, even if we were ahead by thirty points. I was told freshman and junior varsity games were getting students ready to play varsity. I couldn’t play varsity because the games were on Friday nights. It was against my parents’ religion to play sports on the Sabbath. So, I quit football because the coaches weren’t going to let me play in freshmen or junior varsity games. One of the coaches called me a quitter, and I found myself in a situation where I could not win. I nearly became completely unglued. Dad was going to take me out of high school, but I would not let him. Quitting high school would have been the ultimate disaster because it would mean I was a total failure and completely alienated. To save face, I coped the best way I could by checking out socially and doing the minimum to pass my classes. I spent most of my free time hunting and helping my dad in the stone business after school throughout high school.

I did play baseball during my high school years in the summer, and they are some of my fondest memories of my teenage years. After my senior year, after baseball was over, I moved to Wichita, Kansas, to go to work and spread my wings. My older brother Steve was there, and I stayed with him and three other bachelors who all attended the same church my parents attended. I worked for the Wichita Water Department in the mains and service division, fixing water leaks, repairing fire hydrants, and installing new water mains in new housing projects. I worked there for about a year and half and then transferred to be a meter reader and was there for five years before I moved back to the farm.

There were two major events in my life that had a huge impact on my spiritual life, and one of them was leaving the security of home. I was no longer under the rule of my parents; the road I was now going to travel was up to me. I wasn’t the partying type, and I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time, but I continued to go to church on a weekly basis. I attended weekly Bible studies sponsored by the church and had discussions with the bachelors I roomed with about the Bible and life in general because we were generally all in the same boat. When I became a meter reader, I had around 350–400 meters to read every day, and if I wasn’t done by ten thirty in the morning, I was having a bad day. The remainder of the day