From Hopeless to Hopeful!

From Hopeless To Hopeful!

My name is Bob Schoenle and this is how I became a Bible-believing, born-again, fundamentalist Christian. It all began on January 15, 1972, when my wife and I with our two babies moved to a small town in central Michigan to open a real estate office as an agent for a national rural real estate firm. The house we purchased would also contain our office. I went into this venture with so little money that there were days when I would leave the house with a single dime in my pocket so I could call my wife to tell her where I was.

I made my first sale on April 1, 1972, and had two more sales the next day. These were the first of the many sales that caused my agency to be ‘number one’ for United Farm Agency in the northern Michigan district for 1972, and for my becoming their ‘Rookie of the Year.’ My wife, who managed our many customers and visitors to our agency, and I surpassed that accomplishment by being the top office for our company in the entire state of Michigan in 1973.

We had another baby girl in May 1973, and by the end of that year my wife and I had a large amount of money, a number of real estate holdings, a new car, and a remodeled house with a showcase kitchen. Our house sat on a site of two thirds of an acre, and was like Old MacDonald’s farm. Our garage was made into a barn for our three horses, onepony, two hogs, two ducks and a dozen rabbits. Our very busy household consisted of my wife and I, our three kids, our dog and two cats. This was the happiest and greatest time of my life. It was also the most financially rewarding two years I would ever enjoy. I ate, drank and slept real estate. I attained everything I ever wanted from January 1972 to December 1973. Life was truly good!

It was a book, given to me by a client in December 1973, that changed my outlook about the future and caused my 18-month journey with fear to begin that led to my eventual hopeless state of mind. This book answered questions about runaway inflation that had lingered with me from when I was a young teenager. One such question was how could runaway inflation, in a nation, be the cause for its citizens to lose their real estate holdings? This book introduced the word ‘devaluation’ to me. Its author clearly explained how a runaway inflation can not only cause the devaluation of a currency, but financial bankruptcy for a nation.

I became convinced that a financial collapse of the economy of America was inevitable because of her excessive debt and from having a currency backed by nothing of substance like gold or silver. Thus I would lose all that I had recently attained through no fault of my own. I became extremely fearful of this and set out to protect my family by becoming one of the few people who would profit from the financial crisis that I believed was going to take place in the near future.

I then began an extensive and intensive study of economics, politics, history and current events by way of many books, magazines, newsletters, tapes and seminars. All of which caused me to conclude that not only was a financial collapse inevitable, but so was a nuclear war and a world dictatorship. Most of the people I knew and met, however, were unaware of how bad conditions in the world were at that time in 1974. I think that the everyday activities of life is the reason why most people tend to ignore much of what does take place throughout the world. Thus, they are unaware of how they will be affected by world events.

I suppose if one seriously considered subjects such as the spreading of infectious diseases, failing national economies, unstable political regimes, ecological disasters, nuclear weapons proliferation, energy shortcomings, population growth, changing weather patterns, inadequate food and water supplies, one would have to conclude that there is little hope for the future. Maybe that was the reason why I did not meet many people willing to discuss those issues. When I shared some of what I was learning with others, I was ridiculed. It was like I could see a tornado coming towards our little town of Six Lakes, but it was invisible to everyone else. This is when I learned that most people will usually reject a message of warning!

I also learned that whoever controls the currency of a nation will also control that nation. Free elections do not change this from being so. The people who have been responsible for most of the major events of the 20th century also know this. They are members of an international group whose goal since the 1890s has been to create a ‘one-world’ government. I think of them as the ‘puppet-masters’ since they are pulling the strings of mankind. Their plan was first funded by the diamond king, Cecil Rhodes. His last will and testament, in 1902, established the Rhodes Scholarship Trust Fund whose purpose was to place key people in positions of power and influence throughout the world to achieve their goal. Bill Clinton is the first ‘Rhodes Scholar’ to be elected President of the United States!

In America, this conglomerate is represented by the ‘unknown’ owners of the Federal Reserve, which is a privately owned corporation that has never been publicly audited by any agency of the government of the United States since its inception in 1913. In addition to controlling the currency of the United States, these same unknown owners also control both political parties in America along with the mainstream media. For those who are interested in having an in-depth explanation of how the plan of the puppet- masters came to be implemented and by what people, I recommend reading Fabian Freeway by Rose L. Martin, published by Fidelis Publishers, Inc. in 1968.

Thus, presidential elections in America are like having all of the horses in a race owned by the same person. I came to think of both political parties in America like a snake, having two heads. This is why government continues to grow in size and policies do not change with new presidential administrations. Unknowingly, the American voting public has been engaged in a political shell game for most of the 20th century. The goal for the past 100 plus years has been to financially bankrupt America, which would enable the puppet-masters to lead America into a one-world government due to economic necessity! Is this a possibility today?

Of course, this ‘conspiracy’ viewpoint is ridiculed by the mainstream media. Think of how the 20th century began with America having thousands of independent news outlets, banks and school districts. This century closed with their consolidation and being controlled by a small number of people in positions of power. Did this happen by chance? Personally, I think not!

The mainstream media of today is able to influence public opinion by either creating or suppressing news stories, innuendo and ridicule. It appears there is an agenda, by what is investigated and reported. This has led to the perception that themainstream media has been compromised, leading to a loss of its credibility.

In the spring of 1974, I learned of a coming cashless and checkless medium of exchange for all goods and services. This was another plan of the international financial puppet-masters. I obtained a 16 mm copy of a film produced by CUNA Mutual Insurance Company, that showed how this system would work by use of a plastic card. This movie, however, was obsolete before its completion because no insurance company could be found willing to insure the loss or theft of these cards, which could cause the financial ruin of its owner.

In the fall of 1974, I read an article in a trade magazine for the banking industry, where it was advocated that a microchip be placed into the body of its user instead of using a plastic card. This would eliminate the possibility of loss or theft. All financial accounts would be electronically posted by computers using the information programmed into each microchip.

Of course, for this new medium of exchange to be accepted by most people, all paper money or currency will have to first be devalued and discredited. This would lead to economic chaos and cause this new medium of exchange to be readily accepted by people seeking economic stability. Thus, most would allow having this microchip implanted into their bodies, enabling them to buy or sell all goods and services.

There will be many advantages to this new system of purchasing goods and services. It will prevent the loss of money and assets due to accident, theft, bad checks or stolen credit cards. It will stop illegal aliens from entering a country and criminals from leaving. False identification will become a thing of the past, along with identity theft. Fraudulent use of government programs such as Medicare, welfare and food stamps will end along with income tax evasion, the illegal sale of drugs and secret bank accounts. The ‘underground economy’ will also be severely crippled. This new medium of exchange will ultimately be used as the way to control all mankind!

I learned afterward, that the apostle John prophesied of just such a system of doing business more than 1,900 years ago. It is recorded in the Holy Bible “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and [enslaved], to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, And that no man might buy or sell, [except] he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (Rev. 13:16-17).

The apostle John also described what the penalty would be for those who allowed this computer chip to be implanted in their bodies so they could buy or sell, goods and services. “And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name” (Rev. 14:9-11).

The Holy Bible calls this microchip the “… mark of the beast …” (Rev. 16:2). The ‘beast’ refers to a man from the nation of Italy (Dan. 9:26), who will be the President of the European Union. This man will rule over all of the nations of the world through the use of this new medium of exchange during the three and a half years or 1,260 days (Rev. 12:6) that precede the ‘2nd Advent’ of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth. This man is called the ‘beast’ since God views him as such.

By the spring of 1975, I had become a fatalist. There was nothing that I or anyone else could do to prevent what I knew was eventually going to take place on the earth and in America. I had no hope for the future! I did those things necessary to survive a runaway inflation and economic collapse by divesting myself of illiquid investments like real estate. I became a ‘survivalist’ like many others during that time.

I purchased a large amount of gold, silver, dehydrated food and ammunition with several guns to protect my young family and possessions. But I was not hopeful of us being able to live for long after a financial collapse, followed by a war and being under a dictatorship. Also, living without freedom, and being in fear of somebody taking what I had, held little appeal for me and added to my hopeless state of mind.

It was in May 1975, while on our weekly Friday trip for groceries at Meijer’s Thrifty Acres in Greenville, Michigan, that my wife and I followed our regular routine. She went with the kids for groceries and I went to check out the book section. It was there that a book entitled, There’s a New World Coming, a ‘prophetic odyssey’ by a guy named Hal Lindsey caught my eye. As I held this book in my hand I can remember the words that went through my mind as if it were yesterday. Those words were, “What has this clown got to say about the future? There is no future!” I became intrigued by the contents of the book, bought it and read it that night while my family slept.

As it turned out, this book was an exposition of the book of Revelation, which is the last book in the Holy Bible. I was raised as a Roman Catholic, which is why I knew nothing about the Holy Bible or of Bible prophecy. As I read of the many prophecies that had been fulfilled and those still to be, I learned that what I had determined about the future had been prophesied in the Holy Bible along with a great deal more.

Knowing Lindsey was right in my subjects of study and interest, which were economics and politics, I had to conclude that he must also be right in his subjects of study and interest, which was the Holy Bible and Bible prophecy. Lindsey believed that our generation would see the ‘Second Coming’ of the Lord Jesus Christ to planet Earth. I became convinced he was right, based on fulfilled and unfulfilled biblical prophecies. After 18 months of fearing the things I knew were to be, I now had a new and exciting hope.

The next day I drove 60 miles to Grand Rapids with my wife and kids where Zondervan Publishers had an outlet book store. It was there where I purchased, Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth, The Late Great Planet Earth, and The Liberation of Planet Earth, all of which were authored by Hal Lindsey. I read each of these books on successive nights while my family slept. I thought The Liberation of Planet Earth would be the least interesting so it was the last one I read. How ironic, since it was this book that God used to bring me down to my knees.

In this book, Lindsey clearly and simply explained the ‘Person’ and ‘Work’ of the Lord Jesus Christ, which I had never understood as a Roman Catholic. It was while reading this book that I came to understand and appreciate just how much God loved me. It was His love for me that caused the Lord Jesus Christ to come and pay the penalty that I deserved for all of my transgressions against a holy God. If everyone else in the world was perfect and sinless, the Lord Jesus Christ would have still done everything the same, just for me. I found that to be absolutely amazing.

It was my learning of the love of God for me that broke my heart and with tears streaming down, caused me to kneel by my coffee table in the middle of the night, while my family slept, and ask the Lord Jesus Christ to be my personal Savior. It was then that I accepted His free gift of salvation, for the forgiveness of ‘all’ my sins by simply believing that what He had done was for me personally and was sufficient to save me from the penalty due me for them (Jn. 20:30-31).

I was spiritually ‘reborn’ that night and became a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). The fear that I had lived with during the previous 18 months left me. I had peace of mind with hope and excitement for the future instead. The reason was from learning I would not be on the earth to be a part of or witness all that I knew was going to take place because the Lord Jesus Christ would first ‘catch-up’ His ‘Church’ and meet her in the air. This event is known as the ‘Rapture.’

The night following my conversion, I read the gospel of Matthew for the first time and I became a serious student of the Holy Bible. I then ordered a large number of cassette tape books by Hal Lindsey, Walter Martin and Chuck Smith. These men became my first Bible teachers by way of their recordings. Several weeks later, I prayed to God that He use me and what I had accumulated in whatever way He desired. Also, I asked God to allow me to be a ‘disciple’ [learner] of the Lord Jesus Christ. God honored my request!

My family and I began to attend a small independent fundamental Bible church, where I learned of the Scofield Study Bible and the Grand Rapids School of the Bible and Music. In August 1975, I gave up my real estate agency and enrolled as a 34-year-old father of three, first year student of GRSBM. This was three months after trusting the Lord Jesus to be my personal Savior. My reasons for enrolling were that I ‘knew’ God wanted me to go to Bible school and I ‘needed’ to learn as much as I could from the Holy Bible!

My reasons for giving up my real estate business was that I had come to realize that real estate had been like an ‘idol’ or a ‘god’ to me. I never gave God any credit for my success and seldom thought of Him during that time. I had reasoned that my success was due to my being great at my work. Also, I did not believe I could honestly talk to people about their future plans with the real estate they were purchasing when I truly believed the Lord Jesus Christ would return for His Church [the Rapture] within the next 20 years or so.

My family and I left Michigan and moved back to our home town of Chicago in December 1977. The decision I had made to leave my real estate agency caused us to suffer great financial hardship and humiliation for many years. As a result of being unable to find stable employment, I lost all that I had gained and been so intent on retaining during my 18 months of fear. It was ironic that my great success in rural real estate proved to be a major handicap while job searching. My reasons for leaving an extremely successful and lucrative business was difficult for employers to comprehend. Also, my work history indicated I was an ‘entrepreneur’ from my previous ventures. Thus, I was deemed ‘overqualified’ by them.

My inability to find a stable job eventually caused me to lose the respect of my wife and respect for myself. I was crushed when my wife of 17 years filed for divorce in August 1984. I never blamed her since I was responsible for the unhappiness and grief we had suffered through for all of those years. My loss of position, possessions, and sense of purpose had made life incredibly difficult to endure for me, but losing my wife and kids was heart-crushing. I had learned during this period of time how most people, whether family, friends or acquaintances, will line up to kiss your ring when you are doing extremely well, but line up to kick your butt when you are down and out.

I cannot overexaggerate the importance of my mother’s faithfulness throughout my life. She was the only one who never ceased to love, support and encourage me during those miserable years of failure and rejection. I have no idea what would have become of me without her, since I was both homeless and broke after my divorce. God used her on my behalf in a great way. She died on January 5, 2002. Our reunion in heaven is something I have been looking forward to ever since!

There were many times when I gave up on God. He, however, never gave up on me and would draw me back to Him. I am so thankful to God for His love, mercy and grace. I believe that God gave me a job by way of a packaging and shipping store I opened in 1986 and managed until 1998. This was another business venture that had no right to succeed due to my lack of operating capital. God used this store to rebuild my life. It was difficult to keep the doors open and 70-plus-hour work weeks were more often the rule than the exception to make it succeed. But succeed it did until I closed the doors on January 31, 1998.

Through these years, I would often remind myself that God had never stopped loving me no matter how bad things were. I would think of ‘Lazarus the beggar’ who the Lord Jesus told of in Luke 16:19-31. I think that most people who knew of Lazarus thought that he was cursed by God. However, at his death, angels carried him to the ‘Paradise’ section of Hades. It was in this ‘holding tank’ where all of the ‘saved’ of past ‘ages’ would go upon their physical death because the sacrificed blood of animals could only ‘cover’ sin and not ‘remove’ it (Heb. 10:4). It would take the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, to ‘remove’ the sins of Lazarus and the sins of all who would ‘believe’ in Him to allow their entry into heaven (Lk. 23:39-43; Jn. 3:17-18; 20:17,30-31; Heb. 10:10,12,14,16-19).

Of all the people told of in the Holy Bible, this man Lazarus is the first person I plan to speak with when I get to heaven. I want to know if he once had a home, wife, kids and family? If so, what happened to them? How had he made a living? What caused his poverty and sickness? Had he been lied about or betrayed by loved ones? Who would bring him to the gate of the rich man? How did he maintain his personal faith in God? I want him to know how important he had been to me, since I could relate to him in so many ways!

Another way I would encourage myself after becoming a Christian was to remind myself that the Lord Jesus Christ would soon be meeting me in the air at the Rapture. This is why it is known as the ‘blessed hope’ (Mt. 24:37-41; 25:1-13; Lk. 17:26-30,34-36; Jn. 14:1-3; 1 Cor. 15:51-53; 1 Th. 4:13-18; 2 Th. 2:1-3; Ti. 2:13; Heb. 10:25; 2 Pet. 3:3-4; 1 Jn. 2:28-3:3; Jude 17-19).

God has always been in control. The financial collapse (Jas. 5:1-6) I was so fearful of in 1974 may now be occurring, based on current events. What I was saying back then is now being said throughout the world. Millions of people are now out of work, unable to get a job and are feeling rejected, frustrated and fearful, as I once did. These feelings will often cause an increase in alcohol consumption, drug use, spousal or child abuse, and divorce. A sense of hopelessness may cause some to lose their will to carry on or even to live!

Humanly speaking, there isn’t much hope what with all the things now taking place throughout the world (Mt. 24:4-8). There is only one way to avoid the soon-to-be years of ‘tribulation’ and it is the ‘supernatural’ Rapture. Soon after the Rapture, the 21 judgments of God as described in the book of Revelation will begin to be fulfilled during the 2,520 days (Rev. 11:3; 12:6) that precede the ‘Second Coming’ to earth by the Lord Jesus Christ. This will be the worst period of time in the history of the world (Mt. 24:21). I can only hope that you who read this booklet will come to appreciate the fact that God loved you (Jn. 3:16) enough to send a Savior willing to take upon Himself the penalty you deserve for your sins. You simply need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, by faith alone, to be forgiven [saved] (Jn. 3:17-18; 14:6). Amen

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