Dear Wake Up Family,
Nearly 40 years ago, I began a road trip from Oregon to Ohio in a pickup full of garden equipment, household supplies, odds and ends, and an Alaskan malemute named Silver. My wife Barb and I were moving to Ohio to start new jobs. In Portland, I had worked as a regional budget director for the Army Corp of Engineers covering the Pacific Northwest states. Barb had already arrived in Ohio a few months earlier to work as a hospital medical records manager in Dayton and I had accepted a position as a director of internal audit for Kettering Medical Center. We anticipated that we would work in Ohio for a few years and move back to the West Coast so we could be closer to our families and find better positions when we moved again. However, the Lord had other plans. A couple of years after we moved, I assumed responsibility for a group of departments that provided community services outside the hospital. One unit provided health improvement services to individuals and businesses. Its manager was a person who had recently moved from Texas to Dayton. Larry Wilson had come from Keene, Texas to restructure the hospital community health program and try to make it financially viable. He had a unique background considering the department he managed. He was a veteran of the Vietnam war, had worked as a pastor, a college staff member, a software developer, and a laboratory salesperson for the same company that had employed my brother in Portland. We became good friends and often discussed our wide-ranging interests in amateur radio, computers, politics, and current events.
When I started my new position, I held regular management meetings with all my departments and asked each manager to take a turn presenting a short devotional thought before each meeting. Larry and I had not talked much about prophecy, so I was surprised how Larry used his devotional time one week. He told us that he had been studying prophecy and believed that Jesus was coming imminently—not meaning soon as during our lifetimes, but soon as in months or a few years. I was taken aback. Later, Larry shared an outline of his understanding of end-time events with me. At that time, I knew Jesus was coming but assumed He would come when He was ready, and it didn’t matter how I understood the events leading to his return. I told Larry that I thought his work was like arranging deck chairs on Titanic’s final trip! Our actions didn’t matter because the world was going down and we knew little about when or how it would happen.
Fortunately, Larry did not give up. When he developed new ideas, he would present them to me. Perhaps he thought that if he tried different avenues, he might find one that would raise my interest level. However, I was skeptical of most of the ideas he came up with. He had just started refining his charts, so one day in the hospital cafeteria having lunch, he drew a chart showing 1,335 days on a paper napkin. Daniel 12:12 says, “Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days.” I had never considered what 1,335 days was and what the blessing might be. The idea that the blessing might point to the day Jesus returns after 1,335 literal days intrigued me. That little spark of interest was just enough to motivate Larry to work harder to fan the flames.
Some time later, Larry told me he wanted to leave the hospital and begin a full-time ministry. Larry had rebuilt his department and had made it financially viable, and I didn’t want to see him go. At that time, I really did not realize how a new interpretation of prophecy could change your life. Larry asked me to help him set up a nonprofit organization and provide financial and operational support. So, in November 1988, we began a new ministry named Video Tape Ministries. Larry completed and published the first edition of his book, Warning! Revelation is about to be fulfilled that year. Within a year, we decided that the name of the organization was too limiting so we changed the name to Wake Up America Seminars. Little did we know in 1988 that in 20 years, full-sized video cassette recorders would be relegated to the dustbin of history. I used to tease Larry that he copied the name “Wake Up America” from a skit aired by a well-known local radio personality.
Larry also began presenting regular seminars to groups of friends and people interested in Bible prophecy. I attended Larry’s meetings and began learning more about his conclusions on prophecy. He told me he wanted to step out in faith and spend a year writing his next book providing more details outlining his understanding of Bible prophecy. Shirley, Larry’s wife, had agreed to begin working full-time to provide some money to support the household while Larry began his faith-based, full-time ministry. The decision that Larry made to leave a secure position at the hospital and begin a ministry with no guarantee of success made a huge impression on me. Larry had decided that he would model his ministry after George Müller’s mid-nineteenth century orphanages and schools. Müller served over 10,000 orphans and 120,000 students with funding only from unsolicited donations. If Larry was willing to step out in faith and begin a new ministry with no assurance of future donations, I felt I should be willing to consider what drove Larry’s conviction.
I began studying Bible prophecy to try and understand the basis for Larry’s view that Jesus was returning shortly. I was skeptical because one of my early childhood memories was my mother saying that she expected Jesus to return during her lifetime. My parents died in a car accident thirty years earlier in 1964 and I thought Jesus would return in . . . maybe a few decades. As time passed, I kept studying and talking with Larry and began to accept the relevant Bible information about prophetic events. I began to realize that God had a greater purpose for drawing Larry and I from Oregon and Texas than either of us expected when we moved to Ohio. It is the primary reason Barb and I have stayed in Ohio nearly 40 years longer than we anticipated when we moved to Ohio.
In 1990, Larry invited me to attend a prophecy conference with him in Springfield, OH where he planned to share his prophetic conclusions. Another presenter spoke about the Jubilee calendar. While Larry did not agree with the presenter’s conclusions, he began to integrate information he had learned from the Jubilee calendar into his study. Larry managed a dual role of prophetic student and teacher. He began incorporating his study of the Jubilee calendar with his deep knowledge of Bible prophecy. He had an analytical mind and quickly shared his understanding of concepts like the seventy “sevens” or 490 years of Daniel 8:14 matching ten jubilee periods of 49 years. Jesus confirmed the seventy-times-seven period because he said we should be willing to forgive sinners 490 times. He was really demonstrating His willingness to give the Jews 490 years (times) to finish transgression, end sin, atone for wickedness, bring in righteousness, and anoint their savior. (Daniel 9:24; Matthew 18:22)
The year 1994 was a pivotal year for WUAS. March 23, 1994 marked the end of 70 Jubilee periods of 49 years and also marked the point when we understand the prophetic day-for-a-year time ended and literal time began. Many detractors accused Larry and the ministry of “date setting,” and instead of carefully evaluating the basis for Larry’s conclusions, they often misrepresented Larry and attacked him based on their straw-man arguments. Many people and organizations expected WUAS to disappear after 1994 came and went and Jesus did not appear. However, they overlooked two important points. WUAS was initiated and continues as a faith-based organization. That means we never in the history of the organization solicited funds. If the Lord wanted the ministry to succeed and His message to continue, He would provide the necessary financial means. He continued to generously provide, and we have continued to share. Second, the detractors never understood the difference between date setting and time study. We eagerly anticipate that Jesus is coming very soon based on our study of times in the Bible. Alternately, if you believe Jesus is returning at an unknown future date, you have also studied time and made a conclusion based on your time study. The study of the timing and sequence of prophetic events is not date setting. Jesus told us to, “Keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” (Matthew 25:13) The Bible describes a watchman as one who hears the word the Lord speaks and give them warning. (Ezekiel 3:17) If the Lord calls us to be watchmen, how can we give a warning of Jesus’ return if we have no warning to give?
Working at WUAS has changed my life. In the 1980s, my primary goal was to raise a family, achieve personal success, live a comfortable life, and reflect Jesus to those around me. Forty years later, I look forward to Jesus’ imminent return. I now understand the walk of faith. I have been blessed to be a part of a ministry that has allowed me to participate in a walk of faith. I will conclude this letter with a short story.
I began working full time at WUAS in 1994. One year later, we organized a meeting in Durango, Colorado where Larry planned to present a series about God’s Plan A/Plan B for His people. I was traveling from Ohio to Colorado on another cross-country trip with my wife and three daughters and had spent hours driving across the wide-open space of Kansas. We decided to take a break from driving and let our girls spend some time outside the car. As we approached a highway exit, we saw a billboard advertising the High Plains Museum. We arrived at Goodland, KS, which was marked by a large collection of grain elevators. The museum seemed to be a good spot to see some cultural and educational sights while getting some exercise. We went inside and as we were walking through the exhibits, we saw what might be called a drone today. It had two canvas rotors that spun in opposite directions mounted on a tricycle frame. Two local inventors had designed and built an original prototype using $30,000 raised from townspeople in 1909. It was one of the earliest versions of a helicopter.
The inventors’ names were Charles Wilson and William Purvis. Mary Collett Farris gave this description, in her account of the initial test flight:
“Purvis was just in time to see the water tank coming toward him at an alarming speed. Desperately, he stretched out his hand to fend it off, but it was too late. The blades shattered on the tank and the platform buckled. The huge iron rotor shaft plunged through the water tank and busted it wide open. Thousands of gallons of water cascaded out onto the crowd. Parts of the flying machine pelted the audience. People dropped to the ground under aerial bombardment, just as the water rolled over them. It was like doomsday.”
So ended the Goodland Aviation Company and the partnership between Purvis and Wilson. They went their separate ways to Wisconsin and Kansas City, never to see each other again. After the test flight and company implosion, the US Patent Office issued the first patent for a rotary winged aircraft to the defunct company in 1912.
Thankfully, the Lord was able to use two other individuals named Wilson and Purvis nearly a century later who came from different parts of the country to create WUAS. This organization committed to sharing Revelation’s story has lasted decades longer than the ill-fated Goodland Aviation Company. “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ ” (Jeremiah 29:11)
Marty
All of us at Wake Up would like to wish you, your friends, and family a blessed, wonderful holiday season. We just received the book The Temple of God from the printer and have included it this month as our gift to you. Rex Johnson transcribed this book about parallels between the Old Testament and heavenly temple from a video series Larry presented in 1996. We hope it will help you understand God’s grace, love, power, justice, and mercy. To order additional copies of this book, see page 9.