You Can't Outrun God: Mark Wood's Story of Redemption

Mark Wood spent decades running from God.

Raised in church and surrounded by faith, he eventually built a successful career, pursued his own path, and left much of his spiritual life behind. But when his world began to unravel, he found himself facing experiences he couldn't explain and questions he could no longer ignore.

In this conversation, Mark shares his journey from spiritual darkness to redemption through Jesus Christ. We discuss his return to faith, the role Scripture played in transforming his life, and how difficult seasons ultimately drew him back to God.

This episode explores topics such as spiritual warfare, discernment, biblical study, and the importance of testing everything against God's Word. While some of the experiences discussed may challenge listeners, the heart of this conversation is a powerful testimony of God's pursuit of a man who thought he could outrun Him.

Whether you're wrestling with doubts, searching for answers, or simply need a reminder that God never stops pursuing His children, this conversation will encourage you to keep seeking truth and keep your eyes fixed on Christ.

Episode Highlights

•  Mark's upbringing in church and early exposure to faith 
•  Walking away from God and pursuing life on his own terms 
•  The spiritual and personal crisis that changed everything 
•  Opening the Bible after years away from God 
•  Hearing what he believes was the voice of the Holy Spirit 
•  Spiritual warfare and discernment 
•  The influence of Chuck Missler on his biblical studies 
•  Why Christians should not be afraid to ask difficult questions 
•  The importance of testing everything against Scripture

If this episode encouraged you, challenged your thinking, or strengthened your faith, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear that redemption is never out of reach.

Want to be a guest on The Valiant Forge Podcast? Send Mark Osborne a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/17432638464878159623a121d

The Bride, the Wise Virgins, and the Last Adam: The Greatest Love Story No One Knows - Kindle edition by Wood, Mark D . Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

About two thousand six, I started going through physical demonic manifestations in my home. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 0:07

So during that during that time, did you have a relationship with God?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

No relationship with God. In fact, I made things worse by uh getting books on angels, praying to angels, lighting candles and incense. And I I mean it was they just had a free fro. Wow. It's the first time I opened my Bible, and the minute that I opened it, the audible voice of the Holy Spirit, keep your heart steadfast on Jesus, for even the angels shall be judged. And I thought for a minute that I had read it. I didn't know if I'd heard it. I read it. I was a little confused. Well, that verse doesn't exist in that form in the Bible. Um, that was the audible voice of the Holy Spirit that I heard that that spoke those words to me. I folded my Bible up, I broke into tears, and um that was that was the day that I came back to God.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Welcome to the Valiant War Podcast, where we help men overcome life's battles, show up better in the world, and become a valiant warrior for God. This is a place where we should have practical practice that will put you on life's journey to help become the thing of God's own feet. Are you ready to overcome your doubt and fulfill your purpose just by giving us? If so, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 1:30

As men, one of the greatest dangers we face isn't weakness, it's certainty. It's assuming we've got everything figured out, assuming we already know what God is trying to teach us, assuming our current understanding cannot be challenged. The men who continue to grow are the ones willing to examine what they believe and remain teachable. That's one reason I'm sharing today's conversation. This episode is a little different from what I normally post. My guest, Mark Wood, was raised by a loving family in church, but eventually he spent decades running from God, building a life on his own terms. Then everything fell apart. What followed was a series of events that pushed him to the edge financially, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. In the middle of that darkness, he opened his Bible for the first time in years and encountered God in a way that changed the trajectory of his life forever. Now, some of the experiences we discuss in this conversation are unusual, some are controversial, some may challenge what you may think you know about the spiritual realm. But there's a powerful testimony here. A story of redemption. A story of a man who thought he could outrun God and discovered that God never stops pursuing him. And I believe that mature faith shouldn't be afraid of questions. We should test things, search the scriptures, think deeply, wrestle honestly. Now that doesn't mean abandoning discernment. That means listening carefully and comparing everything against God's word and keeping Jesus at the center. So listen carefully and think critically. Here's my conversation with Mark Ward. Mark, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Thank you, Mark. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

So tell us a little bit about your story.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Well, my story begins, um, and I outline this in the book. The name of the book is uh The Bride, the Wise Virgins, and The Last Adam. The greatest love story no one knows. My story begins. My grandfather was an evangelical pastor, um, very charismatic guy. He was bigger than life, very outspoken, uh, very strong. How should I say? Um, he was just a very strong personality and a great leader. And um in his church, I saw things as a child that were not things that nor children normally see. You know, when you actually see a demon leave a person, and that was a normal Wednesday night for us. But I didn't really grow up. He I was 13 years old when uh he died, and I didn't really grow up the rest of my life in that environment. In other words, that was um where I was cultivated, but I would have this void in my life for a very long time, decades. And um fast forward to about 2006, um, there were a number of circumstances in my life that just seemed I just could not business ventures, I mean just relationships, everything was difficult. I'd gone through a divorce uh that was horrible. And um about 2006, I started going through physical demonic manifestations in my home. Wow. And they were powerful. Uh it began with a picture of my mother, a portrait of my mother on the piano that came off as I walked through the house, walked past the piano, the portrait came off and hit the floor behind me. Well, in my in my work, I worked uh in a field of engineering, metallurgical, but you know, I could not make sense of that in my head. There was not enough wind, there was not enough air, there was no way that that picture just came off the piano by itself. I couldn't figure it out. I picked it up, put it back on the piano. It stayed on my mind, but then I just forgot about it. And I want to say it was uh a week or two later, the exact same thing happened, but this time shattered the glass, broke the frame, just ruined the portrait. That's how this demonic attack began in my life.

SPEAKER_04 5:41

It escalated uh during that during that time, did you have a relationship with God?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

No relationship with God. In fact, I made things worse by uh getting books on angels, praying to angels, lighting candles and incense. And I mean, it was they just had a free-for-all over my home. Uh things would turn over in the night, they would uh jump on my bed in the night, uh lights would turn off and on, stereo would turn off and on. I invited my father over and I comment on this in the book. I really thought I was losing my mind, and I needed somebody that wouldn't think I was crazy, that would come over and uh see for themselves. Well, my father came over for dinner, uh, made spaghetti, and I had told him about these events, and uh he just thought, well, you know, he kind of didn't really take it seriously. So he came over, we were gonna watch a movie and have some spaghetti. And the kitchen light turned back on by itself. We're sitting in the living room, the kitchen light turned on, and he says, How did that happen? I said, I've been trying to tell you, Dad. This is what's been going on in my house. And then the light turned off and the stereo turned on while we're watching the movie. He said, Thanks for dinner. This place gives me the creeps. I'll see you later. So I knew I wasn't crazy, at least. I had someone that I knew and trusted that saw the same things that I was seeing. But for a while there, I really thought I was losing my mind. Well, when I finally opened my Bible, it was in the summer of 2007, I had been through numerous books. In fact, that was the first time I'd read the book of Enoch, it was before I had opened my Bible again. And it was the uh, you know, there's a couple of books of Enoch. One of them is the second Enoch is not too good, not reliable at all. Um it's the first time I opened my Bible, and the minute that I opened it, the audible voice of the Holy Spirit, keep your heart steadfast on Jesus, for even the angels shall be judged. And I thought for a minute that I had read it, I didn't know if I'd heard it. I read it, I was a little confused. Well, that verse doesn't exist in that form in the Bible. Um, that was the audible voice of the Holy Spirit that I heard that that spoke those words to me. I folded my Bible up, I broke into tears, and um that was that was the day that I came back to God. I was uh in my forties by then, and uh it's you know 30-year void in my life, practically, of uh of being so distant from God. Well, so I began this mission of learning because part of the problem that I had with the Bible is so many things that never made sense. In other words, it always seemed to me like it's like a 3,000-piece puzzle, and about the time you get two-thirds of it put together, somebody dumps another 3,000 pieces from another puzzle in there, and I could just never make sense of it. And um, you know, the six days of creation, it's it's it's hard to make sense of that. And then you have so many people, scholars included, that have their opinions on these matters that become more confusing because you don't know who's right. That's keyword opinions. Little by little I just started digging in myself and I came across Chuck Missler. And um the more that I studied Chuck Missler's work, the closer I got to God, to the point that um I began I just I felt like I had learned so much that it was uh a sin to hold it all to myself. So that's when I started writing. Um and it's you know, it's been a long, a very, very long, difficult journey. But I'm glad that I'm where I'm at now. No matter what happened in the past, I'm very happy with where I'm at today. I have um a very strong relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Uh there's times when I I feel like I know my angels. Speaking of, there was an event going back to the demonic attacks. Um one of the most significant events in my life came a couple of months after I anointed the doors and windows with oil, went through the house, prayed over everything, uh got rid of all the incense and candles and all the junk that had made the demonic attacks worse in my life. And um immediately everything stopped. The demonic attacks ceased immediately. And I um don't know how much time elapsed. I want to say it was a month or two that I knew that it I knew that what I had done worked because I hadn't had that much peace that uh over that much time for a very long time. This went on for two years. And an angel came to me. I want to say it was about four o'clock in the morning, and I I the only way I have to explain it is I came out of my body. I I don't know how else to explain it because I'm laying in bed, but I can see everything in the room, and I can see this angel, and the reflection uh before the angel said anything, the there was a reflection all over the house that is exactly like the way sunlight reflects off of water. This illumination that was like reflection off of water all over the house, and the peace that came over me was um a peace that I had never experienced in my life. Never, ever in my life. I had never been so peaceful, and I didn't want that peace to leave me. And the angel spoke, said that the demon that had attacked me had been sent to the abyssal and gave me the demon's name and said, He will never be back again. He'll never bother you again. This demon will never bother you again. And then the angel was gone just as quickly as it came, and um just a very strange experience that I don't have really have enough words to explain. Wow. But the peace that I felt for a long time, I just laid there absorbing it. I didn't want it to go away. I just kept absorbing that peace. It was just incredible. I don't know how to describe it. It's like I've heard people on Sid Roth's program explain this liquid love, and that's what it was like.

SPEAKER_04 12:25

It's like something I've experienced peace like that myself. I don't know if I I didn't really feel like a liquid, but I've had moments where I just would be in the presence of God, just worshiping, just me and myself. And you know, I have I have a pr a prayer closet here and I had my guitar and I just started playing, and I got in this place. This was probably three or four years ago now. I thought that I had only been in my room for about thirty minutes. My wife came in three hours later, she's like, Are you coming out of the room? And that that what felt like 15 minutes to me, I just was overwhelmed with this feeling of peace. And I'm glad it was three hours. It's three hours approximately, because you know, she doesn't know what time I started praying. She heard me playing my guitar, but I stopped playing my guitar at some point. But it was she said it was about three hours that I was in there, and she'd never seen me in there long, and I haven't been in there that long since. But that that piece, it you know, they talk about it in the Bible, it's hard to explain. You just can't explain it. But man, uh yeah, I have definitely felt that.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

So at that point, you definitely feel called, you know, when you have an experience like that, you know that you're called for something.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Yeah, that's something I was gonna ask you. So when the demonic attacks started, do you know what you know, looking back now, do you know what opened you up for those attacks?

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Yeah, so I've thought about that a lot. And um I don't know of any specific thing, but that's the thing. Um probably, you know, language, you know, when we're when we're living in the world, we're living a life that is uh the sons of disobedience, you know. Um I went through a period of uh extreme uh self-destructiveness after my divorce. And I think a lot of that brought it on. I was very self-destructive, drank very heavily. Um you know, the the type of drinking where you wake up somewhere and you don't remember how you got there. That sort of thing. And around people that, you know, we have no business associating with.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

I had it in those years. And it wasn't like a lifestyle, but I was I was kind of submersed in it.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

It was my weakest. Yeah. And then I I was thinking about how you experienced demons being cast out when you were young on a regular basis, right? I saw a lot of that when I was young too. I grew up Pentecostal charismatic. And that's I think when your spirit gets opened up to the different realms and the different worlds, it makes you more open to see. I agree. Which obviously you you were open because you read about the angels and stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

So Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's very true. And I in fact, I remember seeing demons as a young child. I didn't know what they were. I would tell my parents that I was seeing these things, but they they they didn't see them. They didn't know what I was talking about. One of them was uh it seems like we were maybe at a I couldn't have been more than five or six years old. Seems like we were at a fast food restaurant of some kind, and I could see these entities, ugly little entities, um but they weren't tall, they weren't like what I expect, you know, I because I go into this in the book. Um the origin of demons comes from the Nephilim. I'm convinced of this. I've done a lot of research on it. Uh I believe that the uh the incursion of the fallen angels on Mount Hermon that Enoch writes about, I believe this is what uh this is what brought demons into the world. Their offspring were never they were never legal. Their existence is illegal. So they have nowhere to go except hell with Satan and his angels when this is all over with. And that's a lot of who we're fighting against, but they're a lower rank than fallen angels. They're a much lower rank. So when we when we talk about princes, uh, you know, Ephesians 6, when we're talking about uh Princes and powers of the air. Yeah, princes and powers of the air, powers of darkness. Uh these are these are ranks. So powers of darkness, I believe, would be demons. Princes are definitely fallen angels. I don't believe it's possible for a demon to have the rank of prince because they were never illegal. I mean, they were never legal to begin with. Um but anyway, so I I go into a lot of detail of this in the book, um because I think it's really important to understand. We you know, what kind of a strategy can you form around an unknown enemy? You know, and from the there's my next book, in fact, is gonna be uh boot camp, Christian Bootcamp 101, because we we really don't know uh much about uh there's another world out there that we can't see. Right. I mean, I know it because I lived it, you've lived it, and I was talking about those demons when I was a child. Um I just I you know, they're there. That's who we fight. We can't see them. They're in a d another dimension that we're we can't see, but I can't see gravity. There's a lot of things I can't see, but I know it exists. So um I think it's weakened of the church to a great extent that um we ignore this. Yeah. Uh in fact, there was a a Barnab study that I read, uh, 38% of Christian Christians don't even believe Satan is a real entity.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

Well, I know.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

I mean Christians, so that tells you that we have um a blind spot in the church. Yeah. And it has opened the door for the lawless one in these last days, the great falling away, the great apostasy.

SPEAKER_04 18:49

I think a lot of that is because it's not preached. A lot of sermons nowadays are kind of ear-tickling, and you know, better yourself, improve yourself, you know, be God. And those are true things. God does bless you, God wants you to be prosperous. You know, Proverbs 29, 11, great verse. I know the plans for you to prosper. But then there's also the verses that you're gonna be oppressed by demons and gotta be ready for the attack and ready for the battle. It's just not, in my opinion, from what I've seen. I've been in church over 40 years now. It's not preached a lot. Now, when I was in the Pentecostal church, it was probably preached too much. There was more hellfire and brimstone than anything, and not enough encouragement. But I think in the body of Christ, we need the whole Bible. All of it. You can't just take parts of it. You need to preach the whole thing. That's why I I tell men, if you're trying to become a better Christian man, find a church that preaches the whole Bible, not just the good parts.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Yeah, we have to take it all. We can't pick and choose, and we can't choose some things to be true and other things we question. You either take it all or you don't. Take it all or none. And um my daughter went to a church last year where the pastor, it was a new church, and uh the pastor said demons were restricted to the time of Jesus. And I'm like, oh my gosh, pray for the guy, but find another church. That's it's a shame that um it's it really is a shame because it's one of the reasons there's I believe it actually begins in Genesis, our lack of understanding in the book of Genesis. It would help a lot if we understood the real story. And that's actually that's where I begin this book, is um there's a lot of things that I always questioned, beginning with the men the men and women that were created in chapter one, and then this guy that's without a woman in chapter two. And you'll read a lot of scholarly work on this where it's an expansion on the day six men. Um, but uh it's just so much of that doesn't make never made sense to me. So I spent a lot of time breaking that down to a it makes sense to me, and I write a lot about it. There's a whole chapter dedicated to that. One of the greatest uh books that I ever purchased was by Dr. Merrill Unger. I don't know if you'd ever heard of him. He wrote uh Unger's Commentary on the Old Testament. It was during this time period when I was, it was like the 3,000-piece puzzle thing, you know, where I'm putting pieces together, but a lot of it doesn't make sense. I'm in the bookstore trying to find something. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I knew I needed something. And I grabbed Unger's commentary, just going down the shelf, hours and hours in the bookstore, going down the shelf, trying to find something that would grab me. And I look at his breakdown of Genesis 1 1. So Merrill Unger, uh, for people that don't know, was A uh he had a PhD in Semitic languages from John Hopkins University. The guy knew Hebrew and uh was a brilliant, actually a brilliant researcher. I found uh he died in 1980, but I find his work to be just unparalleled, even still today. Genesis 1.1, he says uh the use of the word in the Hebrew is not really create, it's recreate. It was reconstructed from something that already was. So, which makes sense with the earth being in the state of chaos. God didn't create anything out of chaos. Um, he would recreate something that was chaotic. So there was something that happened on the earth before Genesis, you know, before the this whole creation narrative, there was something that happened, and God is rebuilding it for what I believe is um is for mankind. So in the beginning is a relative term that God has no beginning. So then the beginning of what is the beginning of our time on earth. The Genesis narrative begins our story. So if you take that and then you look at Adam and Eve, I think, and then there's a point there where God says, because you hearken to the voice of the woman, so it it's not necessarily that he was listening to her, and just, you know, it's not like a game that he was playing. This was God saying, Hey, you chose her over me, which is exactly what I believe he did. I believe he was so in love with Eve that rather than let her die alone, because you will surely die, um, rather than let her die alone, he chose to go with her and die with her and partook of her sin, uh, departed from God, knowing what was going to happen. So the whole story that I put together here is this is the first Adam fell with his bride so that she wouldn't die alone. The last Adam, Jesus, died so that his bride would never face death again. So it's the first and last Adam. The first Adam begins a story, the last Adam ends the story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:19

Paul talks about that as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

And that's who we are. We are we are that bride. So, you know, when you when you look at it from that perspective, it's hard to see that the bride would be subjected to the wrath of the lamb. What's why would he be angry at this, you know, if she's justified and justified uh by faith and by the blood of the bridegroom, then what's he angry about? It's the ones that are not justified. It's the sons of disobedience that he's angry with, and this is the point of the book of Revelation is to try to rescue as many that will be thrown to the fire, to the tribulation for not having uh achieved the status of the bride in the opportunities that they were given to do so. So there's this mystery of the church that Paul talks about in Ephesians 5, and you know, and you be you just put all these little pieces together and you see this this bride, and then all the the wedding langu language throughout, you know, even uh in the uh the Garden of Gesamani, where uh he's saying, Please take this cup from me if there be any other way. Right. This is uh the the uh the cup of joy in that Galilean wedding ceremony. And you know, it's just wedding language throughout the whole thing is this wedding language, it's between uh the bride, which is the church, and uh the groom, which is which is Jesus. By the way, throughout the book I say Yeshua. And uh it's just my preference because if you ask a Jewish person what Jesus means in Hebrew, they don't know, but they know what Yeshua means. Yeah, so so I I usually say Yeshua. I don't want to throw anybody off with that, but uh that's how I refer to him.

SPEAKER_04 26:18

Yeah, got it. So but before we started, you you were talking about the feast a little bit and how we we get a lot of that misconstrued. And you're and you've obviously studied it a lot. So why do you think God drew you to the patterns and appointed times in the season?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Well, so what we see in these feast patterns, um we have first the feast of Passover. That's the first one of the year. And we know that we know what happened at Passover. There's uh another story I'll get to in a minute. I hope I don't uh one of the reasons that we've lost these lost track of these feasts and times is because it goes all the way back to uh the persecution of the Christians in the time after the crucifixion, throughout the uh all the way into the part of the fourth century, and then Constantine comes along, the Emperor Constantine of Rome, and he's the first one to pause these persecutions because Rome was in decline, Christianity was exploding. He had to find a way to uh to bring it to bring Rome back together, and persecuting Christians was not working for Rome. So it is at that time when we begin to lose track of the appointed times. Going all the way back into about 325 AD, um, when we begin to blend religions, and this is this is uh the birth of the Church of Rome. We've started mixing religions together, and uh, you know, it's impossible to have Easter and Passover on the same day, because that was uh that was a decreed by the Council of Nasea, 325 AD, um that Easter would be the first Sunday after the spring equinox, where Passover is very well defined in Leviticus 23. Um it'll be the full moon. Or the yeah, so it's basically Passover is a full moon. The new year begins on the new moon of Nisan 1. Passover is on Nisan 14, so there's 14 days from the new moon, that's the full moon. And uh it's so it's impossible to have Easter and Passover on the same day. This is when we begin to lose track of the appointed times, is going back 1700 years. So it's um, you know, it's not our fault uh really that we've lost track of this. But now that we live in this age of information, the information's there. If you, you know, I mean, if we if we really want to know, we can we can find out, we can learn it. Um so then you have the the Passover, which is uh the first feast, that's on Nissan 14. Then you have um let's see, right after Passover, you have uh Feast of Unleavened Bread, and then the Feast of First Fruits. Those are those are all those first three days uh after the Passover. Passover is the barley harvest. And then from Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Feast of First Fruits, which by the way, Jesus was our first fruits. He was the first fruits uh resurrected. The barley harvest, actually, I go into some detail that's pretty pretty mind-boggling, is uh in Matthew 27, towards the end of the chapter, around 52, um it talks about people coming out of the grave. They're they're they're literally, I mean, they're transfigured, they're not going to be dead zombies walking around the street. These people that come out of the grave have been transfigured, and they're visiting with family members and having meals and dinner for those three days that he's in the belly of the earth. Wow. That Jesus is in the belly of the earth. This is bizarre.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

And it's was this was this when the saints were walking around, the old saints were walking around Jerusalem.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Exactly. Yeah, it's Matthew 27, 52, I believe. If you if you think about that, so they're only they're only for a few days and then they're gone. Well, that was the barley harvest. That was the very first harvest. So you go from barley to wheat, which is the Pentecost. We know that the church is wheat represents the church. And the church was born on Pentecost, and that's where we get that identity with the wheat, with the wheat harvest. The church was born on Pentecost. Um and so there's a lot of people that believe that uh the feast of Pentecost has been fulfilled because of Acts chapter 2. But I don't but the theological wheat is still in the field. I mean, the church hasn't been harvested yet. So it it began in Acts chapter 2, but the church age hasn't closed yet. So that feast is still open, and that's that's the bride uh or the church, and then there's a lot of things, you know, it's uh there's 560 pages. I think it's 534 pages in this book, so I'm trying to condense it all. And actually, I wrote it two years ago. Wow. It took a took a year to get it published. Um but um so we go from barley to wheat, and then the fruit harvest is in the fall. Well, the feast of trumpets is in Israel, that's what begins the fruit harvest, is that Feast of Trumpets. And most people that believe in a pre-tribulation rapture believe that the rapture will occur on or around the Feast of Trumpets. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

And so we hear a lot of that. People were saying that recently, you know, some people were predicting the rapture was gonna happen. I think it was back in September, because they're there obviously the timeline is off, but some people were saying the rapture was gonna happen back this past September.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Well, I think it probably will happen uh on the Feast of Trumpets. But there was a problem I had in trying to put all this together was reconciling if the church is the wheat and the wheat harvest is at Pentecost, then how is the wheat going to be harvested in the fall? In the fruit harvest? I couldn't make sense of that. And in fact, it was a ones that was a part of the uh the process of writing this book when I just wanted to quit. I said, well, this obviously this isn't for me, because if if there is a threefold harvest rapture, then and the wheat is Pentecost, then how can we be harvested? Because it makes the most sense that he descends. I mean, you have uh you have these verses where he descends with the voice of an archangel and the trump of God. I mean, there's uh the last trump. I mean, we have these uh things that point to that feast of trumpets in the New Testament. Um and then I came across Leviticus 23, verses 5 and 6, that if you remain obedient to me, I will extend your harvest, your grain harvest will extend all the way into the fruit harvest. And that's in that same uh chapter of the feast. It's the same chapter that breaks down all the feasts. It's actually how that chapter begins. It says, if you're obedient to me, I will extend your grain harvest into the fall. So that was the one little thing that that put it together for me. That verse put it all together that I really do believe that the feast of trumpets would be the would be the rapture. Um then you go back to the Exodus where uh Leviticus 23 and they're learning about these feasts. Go back to the Exodus, that was actually the feast of shouting. It wasn't changed to the Feast of Trumpets until the Babylonian Talmud period, and that's actually where we get Rosh Hashanah. That's where a lot of what uh Israel celebrates today comes out of that Talmudic period. Um so it's not really biblical. Feast of trumpets is not really the biblical term for it, the biblical term for it. In fact, it's Yam Tiruah in uh in Hebrew, which is day of shouting. The day of shouting, it's not the Feast of Trumpets, it's the day of shouting, which goes back to Mount Sinai in the Exodus when he was going to descend with a shout before the uh the Jewish people, and they were so afraid they sent Moses and said the camp all moved back and got away from it and sent Moses in front of them. And so it it just makes a lot of sense that there's someone is going to be raptured, a group of people are going to be raptured on the Feast of Trumpets. And I break it all down in the book. Like I say, I'm probably doing not a very good job of explaining it here, but it's about 534 pages, and I believe I've detailed it pretty well. Uh I would like for readers to comment on that if they if people will pick it up and read it, let me know what they think. I've been getting some good reviews on it, so I I think it's um there may be a few things I could have improved upon, but it is my first book. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:44

Yeah, and you said you're in the midst you finished writing the second book already, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:49

It's already Yeah, it's it kind of coincides with this one, the Sons of God, who are the sons of God that uh Paul refers to in in uh Romans 8. Um the uh every creature anxiously awaits the manifestation of the sons of God, the sons of God to be revealed, and then John mentions it too. And so I break that down who are the sons of God and who are the sons of disobedience. Because uh there's two kingdoms on earth. When we're baptized, we're baptized into uh Satan is the God of this world, he's the prince of this world. I mean, that's very clear in scripture. This is one of the things that we fail to understand going back to Genesis is that Adam was royalty of the earth, and he lost that royal position to Satan. And um so from the time of Adam's fall, Satan has been the prince of this world. That's what he gained out of that event in the Garden of Eden. So there's two kingdoms. When we're baptized, it's we're literally, in fact, baptism through submersion is the only thing that's that's really biblical according to the New Testament, because when we're baptized, we're passing through the water, reborn into the new kingdom. That's the whole purpose of baptism is rebirth. And the Holy Spirit is our witness. There has to be a witness in heaven uh to certify this change of citizenship, and that's the Holy Spirit. So that's uh that's his function. In addition to uh in uh agreement with the Galilean wedding ceremonies, the Holy Spirit is is a guy that the bridegroom left behind to keep an eye on the bride while he's gone preparing a place in the father's house. You know, it just all comes together. Um but anyway, there's uh there's there's a lot to it. There's a there's a lot to it. I think and there's another thing that I pointed out here, because you'll hear a lot of people talk. In fact, one of the things that inspired me to write this book was an interview uh between Tucker Carlson and John Ridge on how John Rich just insisted that this is uh this was a conspiracy between uh John uh J.R. Darby and uh uh John Rockefeller. Well, I mean I had to go research that. And uh they weren't they their timelines don't coincide with each other. Um John Rockefeller's father maybe would have coincided, but at the time that uh Darby was a pastor in England, uh Rockefeller was just he was kind of a uh a crook. I mean, basically he was uh he was not uh they called him Devil Bill. I mean, he was not a very honest guy. So the fact that those two people could even have been friends and that there would be some kind of a relationship between the Rockefellers and the Derby. So I, you know, that whole thing, I don't know where it came from, but it it just doesn't make sense. Well, there's a guy named Lee Brainerd. I don't know if you've heard of him, but he wrote a book. Um it's called uh the I forgot the name of it now, but anyway, it's about the um the rapture theory that actually was among the early church fathers. And so I share extra excerpts from his book because this was not original work on my part. I share excerpts, uh, Irenaeus. I mean, they're uh you know, it's just amazing when you when you hear what these what these people had to say. Uh you know, I think Irenaeus being probably one of the more prominent of them. I call it the 19 year old 1900-year-old rapture theory in the book. Because uh this this is nothing new. It's just been forgotten. Time time has erased it. So um there's a lot of things that we've been the devil's you know, he works nonstop to keep us.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

I was gonna read an excerpt from uh from Irenaeus, if I could find it here.

SPEAKER_04 40:23

I've I've seen a few clips of that interview, and I have to go back and watch it now.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

Tucker Carlson and John Rich.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Yeah, you know, and it's it's sad because Tucker Carlson has, you know, I don't know how many what is it, four million followers or something like that. So Ephraim the Syrian, Yesubius of Caesarea, Irenaeus. Um see if I can find one here from Irenaeus because it's it's fascinating. When you look at the the biblical timelines, uh you know, they they're coming in right behind uh prodigies of of John. You know, I mean these these people were very close to the to the event of the of the crucifixion and resurrection. The Subius indeed is all this is a Subius, uh indeed is all perished then except those gathered with Noah in the ark. So also at his coming the ungodly in the season of apostasy shall perish at the time of the deluge. It did not come and destroy all the inhabitants of the earth until Noah entered the ark. Therefore, at the consummation of the age, this pattern demands that the cataclysm of the destruction of the ungodly shall not happen before those men who are found of God at that time are gathered into the ark and saved according to the pattern of Noah. All the righteous and godly are to be separated from the ungodly and gathered into the heavenly ark of God. Makes perfect sense. I mean, they they could see this, you know, 1700 years ago. It's amazing. It's amazing that we've lost it. Um, and it's because we don't know the appointed times. We've lost track of these appointed times. So, how how long have you been researching all of this? So that's another story. Um I got hit with a cancer in February of 2017, and I really wasn't afraid of dying. I just felt like I didn't want to die without having fulfilled my mission on earth. I knew that I didn't know the Bible to the extent that I wished that I had. And that same year we had Hurricane Harvey later in that year, and when I saw that Hurricane Harvey was aiming for Corpus Christi, Texas, body of Christ, and detoured at the last minute. I mean, it looked like it was going to devastate Corpus Christi and then moved north and devastated the Houston area. I thought, I wonder if there's any significance to this. And so I started researching that hurricane, and that's what actually led me down this multitude of rabbit holes. Wow. It started 40 days before Yom Kippur, the month of Elul, where the, you know, which was the uh ancient Jewish custom of the days of atonement, 40 days before Yom Kippur. Um it was born at the same time of the uh the 2017 eclipse. That hurricane was born on the same day that we just had, you know, that X mark in 2024, April of 2024. There was a number of signs in that hurricane that I thought this is, and then the name itself, Harvey, uh there's an old English name for a blazing iron rod. Well, who comes to rule with an iron rod? So the iron rod. Ra dodges the body of Christ, destroys everything else. On the uh, you know, 40 days before Yom Kippur, I mean, there were just too many things that could not be coincidence on this. And that's what got me started in a lot more research. That's when I found Chuck Mischler and began uh much deeper research. It was just this craving to know, craving to understand. And um, that's the reason I I kind of, you know, I don't have all these verses memorized as these pastors that they just amaze me how they just rattle verses off and where it is in the Bible. There's uh one that I ran across, he's a Seventh-day Adventist, and the guy knows the Bible front and back. I mean, any verse, he he has the entire Bible memorized. I don't know how that's humanly possible.

SPEAKER_04 44:48

I I wish I could do that, but uh Yeah, I know. I I I know people that are like that. Like I said, I've been in church for 40 years, I know the popular ones, but you know, and I I I actually did a 31-day challenge where I tried to memorize one verse every day, and so I repeat them, and I did memorize a lot of those, but you know, I didn't keep up with it, so they didn't stick. Proverb, Proverbs is a book that I read once a month. So I know a lot of scriptures from Proverbs, and a lot of those because I hear them over and over again, and I from what I remember from when I was a kid, that's how you memorize things is just repetition over and over again. Exactly. Yeah, I I'm a musician, so I can remember songs, chord progressions of songs that I played 20 years ago, but then I can't remember that my wife told me to take out the garbage yesterday. Memory is a weird thing.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

It is. I wish I'd started much sooner in life. That's one of my biggest regrets if I have if I have uh you know any regrets, it's that I didn't start this path earlier in life. But God was always in control. So um, you know, there's an interesting thing before I got hit with the cancer, and just before Thanksgiving of 2016, uh I had bought a farm in Panama, and I was living in Panama, and this white dove, I had never seen a white dove in Panama. You don't see very many doves at all in Panama, actually. White dove was um sitting in this palm tree where I could see it from the swimming pool, and I thought, I'm gonna try to get my camera before he flies away and get a picture of it. It was just so interesting, sitting so beautifully in that palm tree. And I couldn't get my camera before it flew away. Well, then it came back, and I went to get the camera again and it flew away again. Landed in the same spot. Then I didn't see it again, and it came around, I think the next day on the other side of the house. Uh, landed in this, I was working on an upstairs apartment there at the house, and this white dove landed again, just looking at me from about 15 feet away, but I didn't have a camera to take a picture of it with. Well, I mentioned this to a Christian friend of mine, and she gasps for air. She says, Oh my gosh, the Holy Spirit is trying to make contact with you. This is a sign, this is a big sign, and she was really excited about it. So I kind of blew it off. I didn't really think anything more about it. It stuck in my mind, but I didn't think about it too much. Well, then a few months later, well, actually, right about that time, I got very sick, had no idea what it was. It kept misdiagnosing me. I ended up having cancer surgery in February of 2017. Was pretty sure that I would not still be here, you know, with with it, especially by now. That's you know, almost nine years ago. Um, and so I was uh afraid of leaving this world with not knowing my God, having gone through this entire life, being raised properly, knowing that God is real, knowing that the Bible is true, but not understanding any of it. And it was very frustrating. So I had the luxury of uh about four days a week where I either was not in doctor appointments or uh therapy or whatever. I would study from Friday night to Monday morning, and that's that was uh when I found Chuck Messler. Wow. Uh Chuck Messler explains the Bible like no like very few people. His his knowledge is very deep, it's very extensive, his knowledge of history is very extensive, and he combines history with with his biblical expertise, and it's just amazing. You learn so much from him. There's very few people can break down the Bible in terms that are easily digestible. And he has a but he's gone now, he died in 2018, but um he just had an incredible knack for that. So uh most of my learning came from him, but you know, one thing about the way that he taught, he always left something else for you to learn. He would never take you all the way to the end of the subject. It was he'd always left things for you to learn. And I if if I would ever meet any of his other students, I would imagine they would probably say the same thing. He would challenge you to find something new that he hadn't found yet. Yeah. So anyway, I had that luxury of studying just nonstop. And there were so many things that stood out to me, like the Adam narrative, the Adam and Eve narrative, didn't make a lot of sense to me. And I I just when it doesn't make sense, it's because we're missing something. And that was what would drive me crazy is trying to find that detail that uh that completed the puzzle. And so that's kind of where I tripped on this uh first Adam and last Adam and the two brides was uh was understanding Genesis.

SPEAKER_04 49:55

Did you ever get to meet or talk with him?

SPEAKER_01 49:59

No, but I'm looking forward to meeting him when uh when this is done.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

Yeah. So with with this book, what's what's your message to that church, to the to the bride of Christ?

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Well, my message to the church is several fold. One, I think we should understand the harvests and why they're important to understand is because I don't think God wants this people going through any of the tribulation. Um and you know, for those for people that believe that that it that we have to go through it there's there's something I would like for people to think about. You know, he he says in uh Matthew 16, 18, I believe it is, upon this church I will build my rock. Today you're Simon Peter, and upon this church I will or you're you're you're called Peter and I will build my church upon this rock. Well at the fourth seal of Revelation, we have uh the pale horse whose name is Death and Hell comes with him. Well, if hail's not going if hell's not going to prevail against the church, well then who is this pale rider and hail prevailing against at the fourth seal? So it so you know at the very least, the very minimum, the church would have to be removed before then, and that's pretty early in the in the tribulation. That fourth seal comes comes early. Um and that's when uh you know by then a fourth of the earth is is killed by plague and wild beasts, and uh, you know, it's it's a violent place. Well, our job is to get as many people on board as possible. So in order to understand, uh I think we have a responsibility to know what's expected of the bride. You know, we have a mission, and that part of that mission is it can't be completed if we don't understand. I mean, you know, we have to understand the Bible to understand the mission. So um what I would like to communicate is that there's a lot of people, a lot of beautiful, wonderful people going to church that are lost. That don't know the Bible, they don't know God, they go to church maybe for the wrong reasons, uh, maybe it's some of these self-help type, you know, there's a lot of these these um, you know, these uh I don't want to say the name, but there's a big one in Houston that uh I've heard him preach for an hour without quoting a single verse from the Bible. Um it's just uh, you know, and so we need we need to be looking, we need to understand that there are two kingdoms on this earth. Yep. Sons of disobedience belong to the Prince of Death, the church belongs to the Prince of Life, and we need to make sure that we don't have one foot over in the other guy's kingdom, you know. Right. There's uh when you get to the church of Pergamos in uh in Revelation, you know, that's not a pretty picture that's being painted there, and and that's a Christian church.

SPEAKER_04 53:21

Yeah. So I go into some detail. All the all the seven churches were Christian churches, they just had issues.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

That's right. They had issues, and that's that's the whole point of the book. That's the reason it begins with uh the reader is blessed for reading the book because once you understand that book, you're gonna try to keep as many people as possible from going having to go through that event.

SPEAKER_04 53:44

Amen. Well, I I'm blessed having you on this podcast. We're we're starting to run out of time. So I'm there's a question I ask every man that comes on the podcast, and I'm not gonna stop now. I've I've been doing this for almost a year and a half now. So in uh 1 Samuel 22, David fled from Saul into the cave of Adulun. While he was in that cave, men of the kingdom were disgruntled, disheartened, discontented. They came to David while they were under David, under David, they ended up becoming David's mighty men. David inspired them when David took, became king of Judah. These men were still with him when he became king of Israel. These men were his men. Modern day, you got a group of men in front of you, and I just asked you what your message to the church was, but maybe slightly different. Modern day you got a group of men in front of you who are disgruntled, disheartened, and discontented. They're looking for some kind of hope, some kind of inspiration to move forward in the kingdom of God. What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 54:57

So I see David first as a great leader, and in order to be a great leader, I would say the best leader asks God for wisdom. You know, David was um incredibly humble for all of his shortcomings. He was a very humble man. He went to God first for everything. And you see this in this battle between he and Saul, where Saul is a pretty ruthless guy. And David just puts vengeance in God's hands. David had a lot of fears, but he feared God above everything else and put everything always in God's hands. And I think, you know, in this in this confusion that we live in today, where the cross-genders and you know, all of these this the spiritual warfare that's going on, we can't lose sight of the fact that we must fear God above all else, and don't fear anything else but God and ask for wisdom daily. David took that group of 400 men to 600, and that was the beginning of the new nation of Israel as it fell away from a disintegrating confederacy under Saul, 12-tribe Confederacy, uh, to the superpower that it became in the world under Solomon after after David. I mean, Israel was a superpower. Yeah, they were going all over the world bringing gold in to build the temple. So that was all because of David's leadership. And David's leadership came directly from God, and this is why he's called the beloved. David is the beloved. That's what the name means. And uh, you know, if we look at Abraham, the friend of God, we look throughout the Bible, these great leaders, their greatest fear was of God.

unknown 56:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 56:45

David shared that with Abraham. Uh, friend of God and the beloved both shared that that leadership factor. Wisdom and uh fear of God are the two things that men need the most to lead in this world.

SPEAKER_04 57:00

Amen. Yeah, and if you you think about the book of Proverbs, which I mentioned is the one book that I memorize a lot of scriptures from, right in the first chapter written by Solomon, he tells his son, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Exactly. You said it all right there.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Beautiful. Yeah, beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 57:22

So uh where can people find your book?

SPEAKER_01 57:24

Well, right now it's only available on Amazon. It's uh The Bride, the Wise Virgins, and The Last Adam by Mark Wood. Unfortunately, Amazon's the only place you can find it right now. Hopefully that'll change soon. If it does, uh I'll send you an email and let you know.

SPEAKER_04 57:39

Okay, do you have a website?

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Uh I do, and it's under construction, but it will be john1.org.

unknown 57:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:47

Uh spell.

SPEAKER_04 57:48

Maybe by the time this comes out, that'll be up. Hopefully, yeah. Yeah. And I'll have a link in the show notes. Are you are you on any social media or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 57:58

Not yet. Uh I will be.

SPEAKER_04 58:05

Oh, believe me, I know. I only have YouTube and whatever podcast platforms, and that's all that I really want, but um I feel like I need more just to promote more. But yeah, I get it. I don't like to do all that social media stuff. I like to just have conversations about God and get it out into the people that need to hear it. Whatever it takes. Yeah, whatever it takes to get that, that's that's what we'll do. So when this podcast comes out, I'll reach out to you and try to get some links to some of your stuff.

SPEAKER_01 58:37

Okay. Very good. And maybe we can do another one someday.

SPEAKER_04 58:41

For sure. Yeah, when your next book comes out, or I'm gonna read this book because I'm very intrigued now after having this conversation with you. So I will be getting the book.

SPEAKER_01 58:52

Well, I hope I did a I don't think I did a great job of discussing it, but uh I hope you read it great. If you read it, uh I would love to have some some of your feedback on it. For sure.

SPEAKER_04 59:04

Yeah. Mark, thank you very much for coming on. It's been a blessing and an honor.

SPEAKER_01 59:09

Likewise, Mark. Thank you very much. All right, God bless you. Good night, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 59:15

I know this episode may have been a little bit different than what you're used to, and that's somewhat intentional. It's meant to encourage thoughtful faith, faith that studies, questions, tests, and ultimately submits to truth. Now, I'm I'm just gonna be honest, I don't know if I agree with everything that he said because just being real, I have not studied probably as deeply as he has. And I'm not sure you know what the truth is, but what I'm saying here and the reason I share this episode is we as men need to go and seek the scriptures, talk to the Holy Spirit, talk to God, and ask him to reveal to us what the scriptures are actually saying to us to help us with our lives. Now, if this conversation challenged you, sparked questions, or made you open your Bible, that's a good thing. Let me know what stood out to you the most. With that, stay strong, stay valiant, keep forging your path, and be blessed.