H H____,
I will comment on your letter paragraph by paragraph.

Hi Mike:
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. And understanding what I am going through.
I don’t plan on seeking out the pastor. He is so entrenched with the false doctrines that if only he knew that it is just not tithing that we part ways. Like you said virtually every doctrine Christendom teaches is tainted with error and contradiction. If he knew what I think, they would not have me in the church.
It would be very uncomfortable for both of us if I went.

There is no doubt that you would be “casting your pearls before swine” if you had a public confrontation in the church. The structure of a church service in today’s church is not the structure in which Christ was permitted by His Father to  teach in the temple in Jerusalem. In today’s churches the minister is the dictator, and the sheep are the subjects. 

I do ask you for you are further along than I am in this process. Where do I go from here? What is next for me? Do I just continue to learn and share with the very few that God has given me? Feeding the few flock? Is God preparing me for something? What is the pattern? What is God doing with you and those around you?

Let’s take these seven questions one at a time.
1) Where do I go from here?
    You do what all men of God have done when given a calling. You first go into training in the Word of God. Christ waited till He was thirty years old to even begin His ministry. Saul of Tarsus, spent years in Tarsus before he was “separated unto the work” assigned him by the holy spirit. And even Joseph spent 13 years serving his Egyptian taskmasters in preparation for ruling Egypt. Those 13 years of preparation came only after Joseph was made called and given a robe of rulership and was given dreams of rulership.
2) What is next for me?
    I cannot answer that question any more than Barnabas could tell Paul what to do with his life after introducing Paul to James, Peter and John in Jerusalem. Paul went on back to his home town of Tarsus for several years until the spirit of God inspired Barnabas to go and get Paul whose name at that time was still Saul. But I can tell you this, that before Saul of Tarsus went back home to Tarsus, he had spent three years witnessing in Damascus and several weeks witnessing in Jerusalem. The point being that he was not sitting around doing nothing. But just as with all men of God, even Saul of Tarsus did not immediately go into the ministry. He took time to get his doctrine down first. He spent time in the wilderness of Arabia, and he spent time in Tarsus. So don’t stress over what is next. Get into God’s Word and stay there. Don’t waste precious time when you can be using that time to get to know the mind of Christ by knowing His Word. There are 200,000,000 false doctrines out there which blot out all the light of God’s Word. It takes a man who is willing to die to stand up to all of that opposition:

Rev 9:2  And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
Rev 9:3  And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
Rev 9:7  And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces [ were] as the faces of men.
Rev 9:16  And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.
Rev 11:7  And when they [ Christ’s witnesses] shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.
Rev 11:8  And their dead bodies [ shall lie] in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Rev 11:9 And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
Rev 11:10  And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

3) and 4) Do I just continue to learn and share with the very few that God has given me? Feeding the few flock?
    The answer in both cases is yes, you need to feed those who God has placed in your charge as their overseer. When I say ‘overseer’ I hope and believe that you are aware that no overseer has any dominion over the faith of anyone. You are to oversee that none of the heresies of Babylon overcome and seduce those who God has given to you to instruct in His Word. You cannot lead these people out of the darkness of Babylon and just forsake them. You and your friends ought to see the need to “assemble together.” I have just written a letter on Heb 10:26 which I will forward to you for your consideration.

Heb 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
Heb 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

For you to abandon anyone who would want to assemble with you at this point would amount to ‘Sinning wilfully after coming to a knowledge of the truth.”
5) and 6) Is God preparing me for something? What is the pattern?
    I think that I have already answered these two questions in answering questions 1 & 2. God is, without a doubt, “preparing you for something.” He has promised all of those who “overcome the wicked one” all of the promises given the seven churches. They are promises of priesthood and rulership. Priests teach and rulers rule with a rod of iron. The job qualification for both is to “know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.” To know God and Christ is to know His Word. The pattern is that you must spend time in that Word in preparation for what lies ahead.

2Ti 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

It takes time to get to the point of “needing not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of Truth.” But even then, pray that you never get past the ability to receive admonition from others:

Mat 18:4  Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Luk 21:16  And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.
Luk 21:17  And ye shall be hated of all men] for my name’s sake.
Luk 21:18  But there shall not an hair of your head perish.
Luk 21:19 In your patience possess ye your souls.

“Some of you shall they cause to be put to death… but not a hair of your head shall perish???” There are those who would say that Luke believed in contradictions. But those who think that way cannot see or understand the concept of “comparing spiritual with spiritual.” It is spiritual hairs which “shall not perish of your [ spiritual] head.”
7) What is God doing with you and those around you?
    I have posted an article entitled The First Ten Years of IWWB, which will answer this question. Any true work of God is always a work which is not even in the control of those who are being used of God. This is demonstrated by Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, King David, Jonah, Christ and all of His apostles. Saul of Tarsus and Jonah and Moses all demonstrate in a rather graphic way, what is true of all of those who God uses in His service. Not one of these men were stumping for the job which God sovereignly thrust upon them. That is especially true of me and all who are on our team. It is God who is directing His Work. There is no way he can use anyone in whom is so much as a scintilla of pride. It must be burned out.

I wanted to ask you in your reference in Genesis that you said the dominion was given to man by God to be over the beasts, the fowls of the air, the creeping things etc. You stated these are spiritual symbols of things in our lives. The fowl of the air representing the false doctrines. What do the fish of the sea represent? And how do you know or see the interpretation being the way you see it ? Like this word means this in spiritual language, etc.,

I know what symbols mean and what is Truth, the only way anyone comes to know these things, by “the revelation of Jesus Christ:”

Gal 1:12  For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Mat 16:17  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

The team at IWWB shows God’s Truth to not one person. That is the sole work of the holy spirit:

Joh 6:44  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 6:45  It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

All this web page does is to serve as confirmation to those who are “taught of God.” For example, Christ told His apostles that He would make them “fishers of men.” The scriptures tell us that the waters on which the woman sits are people. Hence the sea is mankind and the earth are the many called, but not chosen, out of the sea.

Mat 4:19  And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
Rev 17:15  And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

Whether you can receive this Truth is the work of the holy spirit. But even in that statement there is a work of the spirit since Christ tells us that the spirit is His Word:

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

So the answer to your question “And how do you know or see the interpretation being the way you see it ?” is that “the words Christ speaks are spirit” and He shows them to me as spiritual words in His Word; “The waters on which the woman sits are people.”
The first thing that must be made clear  is that spiritual knowledge is witnessed to by God’s spirit in you and not by the human capacity of reason. The human capacity to reason is what keeps  mankind blind:

1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 

If spiritual understanding were just a simple matter of showing you the verses which witness to the spiritual definitions of words, then the natural man could understand the things of the spirit. But if you read How To Rightly Divide The Word of Truth, you will see if God grants you the eyes to see or ears to hear and understand, that there is a way in which the apostles and New Testament writers used God’s Word, which is always rejected by the natural man.
For those to whom it is given to “compare spiritual with spiritual” this is what separates the IWWB team from every orthodox Christian site that is on the Internet. Every symbol of which we speak has verses of scripture which demonstrate the spiritual meaning of that word.  But only those to whom it is given can see and understand what the spirit is doing with the Word.
Take for instant the word ‘beast.’ In the orthodox Christian world, this word elicits the concept of some one very wicked man who will arise at the end of this age to rule over ten nations in Europe. This man will be so incredibly wicked that he will build a temple in Israel in which he will set up a throne and proclaim himself to be God just before he declares war on Israel.
But when we say that this ‘beast’ is already sitting on the throne of God within each of us, we demonstrate this truth with the scriptures instead of very popular speculation without the benefit of scriptural interpretation. This ‘beast’ is not a man, this beast is mankind as a whole. Here are the verses which demonstrate this Biblical Truth:

Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has a mind calculate the number of the wild beast, for it is the number of mankind, and its number is six hundred sixty- six. (CLV)

… Witnessed to in the Old Testament by this verse:

Ecc 3:18  I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

So while the whole world is looking outward for the beast, he sits smugly on the throne of the hearts of all mankind, and the prophecy is fulfilled:

Rev 13:8  And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Rev 13:9  If any man have an ear, let him hear.

We have a section on this page entitled The Spiritual Meaning of Key Words. We add to that list from time to time. That list is based upon how God’s own Word uses any given word. It is a rare person who doesn’t understand that Israel’s call to come out of Egypt is a type and shadow of our call to come out of the world.
But the very same people who see that Egypt has a symbolic meaning, which they can all see and recognize, cannot see that Babylon is also a place that God’s people need to “come out of ” at a later stage in their Christian experience. To the orthodox Christian world, the word Babylon in the book of Revelation is no different than the word Egypt in the books of Genesis and Exodus. We know that there is a difference because the scriptures reveal that Israel spent forty years in the wilderness, crossed the Jordan and fought with the giants in the land and spent hundreds of years in the “land flowing with milk and honey” before being carried away to Babylon.
Every word we have in that list so far, as every word we will add, will have the scriptures listed which show how the spirit of God has seen fit to use these words as symbols, types and shadows.

If the fowl of the air means this and the fish means that – then what is the meaning of the rib or side taken from Adam to make Eve if it isn’t a literal meaning? Was Adam both male and female when He was created? And then Eve came out of Adam ….

If  indeed  “the words that I speak unto you are spirit,” then there can be no doubt that the fowl and fish and rib all are spirit. No, Adam was not male and female. Adam was a male only. The whole spiritual point being made in the creation of Adam is that God was not finished creating ‘Adam’ until Eve was taken out of Adam and made to be His wife.

Gen 1:27  So God created man in his [ own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 5:2  Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

‘Adam was “their name,” because Eve is also Adam.
As Paul tells us in Eph 5, this is all a secret which shows the relationship which Christ holds with the church. They, Christ and the church are one flesh with Christ as the head, just as His Father is His head. The father is never referred to as mother. He is, and  always was, the male, the husband, the head. Christ came out from the father, He did not come out from the mother. Motherhood began after Christ came out from the father and after Eve came out from Adam. None of this is concerned with physical sex. It is, however, very much concerned with spiritual headship and spiritual subjection:

1Co 11:3  But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

The flesh loathes the concept of subjection. But that is the spiritual lesson of Adam’s rib being the source of the woman. It demonstrates that “the head of Christ is God.” Read the paper on the site entitled The Head of Christ Is God. It will open your eyes on this most basic subject of Christ’s relationship to His Father and how marriage is designed to reveal that relationship in a proper manner. No man who is lead by his wife, loves his wife or his God properly. In like manner, no woman who will not follow a godly husband, does not love that godly husband or her God properly.
The whole male and female relationship is for the purpose of demonstrating God’s eternal headship. When it has served its purpose, and God is all in all, Christ will still “submit Himself unto the Father and God will be all in all,” and we will be “neither male no female,” yet “subject unto Him.”

Another question is concerning Mat 24. The Olivet discourse. I hold to the partial preterist view when it comes to Mat 24 but I have read your view and I do see what you see to a certain point. I believe that the Great Trib happened in 70 A. D. when Titus invaded Jerusalem and there were millions that died in that siege. Church never told me of that event and the writings of Josephus. But if Jesus Is, Was and Will be then, how do you explain Mat 24 ? Is there a spiritual application instead of the futurist “Left Behind” thinking or the preterist believing this is a past event ? What is the now or present application ?
I also had problems with reconciling that God came in judgment in 70 A. D. because Israel rejected and crucified Him and they didn’t repent. But Jesus asked the Father to forgive them on the cross. But HE still came and destroyed the temple and killed millions.
Maybe you can clear that up for me.

Yes, “there a spiritual application instead of the futurist “Left Behind” thinking or the preterist believing this is a past event?” You are right about that. But if you have read what I have written on Preterism, then you need to go back to the search box at the upper right corner of the home page and type in preterism and reread the exchange I had with Gary Amirault on this subject. None of Christ’s apostles were Preterists. Here is what they all believed:

Rev 1:4  John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace [ be] unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;

Christ’s pardon of those who crucified Him will be displayed in the white throne  judgment. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. had nothing at all to do with God’s judgment of His people. It was Christ who told us in Joh 6:63 that “the flesh profits nothing.” Those people who died in the siege of Jerusalem weren’t even Jews, so far as God is concerned:

Rom 2:28  For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly ; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision [ is that] of the heart, in the spirit, and] not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

I am happy to see that you “had trouble reconciling that God came in judgment in 70 A. D.” Christ IS, was, and will be judging His house in every generation:

1Pe 4:17  For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

Judgment began on the day of Pentecost, not 70 A. D., and has been upon the house of God ever since, because Christ’s words are our judge in their Is, Was and Will Be character.

Joh 12:48  He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

The entire book of Revelation is written to the seven churches which are the church as a whole. Their problems and faults are enumerated in the second and third chapters and their judgment is the rest of the book.

 Rev 1:3  Blessed [ is] he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein : f or the time is at hand.

“The time has been at hand” for two thousand years, Is, Was, And Will Be.
As I said up above, take time to “study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed rightly dividing the Word of Truth.” If you are a Preterist in any way you are denying that Christ is He that IS, was and will be.
Christ is neither a Preterist, a Futurist, or a ‘Presentist’. He is rather the combination of all three with the emphasis on “I am,” or on the IS part of His Is, Was and Will Be character.

I did listen to your audio on loving your enemies. I understand your biblical stance on that it is wrong to go over there and bomb your enemies. I believe that the Iraqi war is wrong and evil. But how would you respond if someone ask you would you do nothing if the U. S. were attacked? And also that God has raised nations and caused wars to carry out His plans and judgments. So He can bomb and attack; the elect cannot?

Again, go to the search engine in the upper right corner of the home page. Type in the words ‘military service.’ You will get your answer. We are not citizens on this earth. We are ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven. That is all in the military service section.

Thanks for your help. It seems as I learn and grow – I get answers but have more questions.

Mike