THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
KEITH MALCOLM HUNT
The year 2000 and 2005 were years of great importance to me. I had a number of years in my life that were special to me.
The year I was 7 was super important. It was the year my Dad sent me to a Church of England School—— Holy Trinity. The first day was like it was yesterday in my mind. That first class we were given a KJV Bible. The lady teacher told us to open to the first page; she began to read—— “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…..”
It was like a light switch was turned on—— I had the answer to all the marvellous, and wonderful, things I could see around me—— the vegetation, the animals, the birds, the insects, all so wonderful, now I knew who made it all—— a being so mighty in power and a mind that humans cannot grasp in their wildest dreams or imaginations.
It was the year I believed in a being called in English “God.”
It was the year also that a neighbour girl invited me to a church just down the road, and its Sunday School. It was the year I started to learn about Jesus the Christ.
It was all so thrilling and exiting!
It was the year my parents took me to see my first Roy Rogers movie, in colour—— my eyes just about fell out of my head—— a fancy dressed cowboy riding full gallop of this golden horse, with its mane and tail flowing in the wind.
Wow…. It was so captivating, I knew at once what my life was to be, in the future, when I grew up—- I was to be the next Roy Rogers!
I was as sure about this as I was about God and Jesus—— in fact I believed God was telling me what my vocation in life was to be. I had no idea God would allow me to “go west” and think I was going to be the next Roy Rogers. But in so doing the Father was leading me into a life I never thought about, for to me, for all those years of growing up, nothing was more sure in my mind, than being the next Roy Rogers.
The next big event was to have to memorize in school, the 10 Commandments, as given in Exodus 20 of the KJV Bible. I eagerly set about to memorize every single word of the 10 Commandments. And looking at them I thought, “Wow….if only the whole world was obeying them, what a fantastic world it would be.”
Then at 10 years old, an event that I would always remember, but not in the mind-set of the reality of truth, but actually as falsehood. It was the Sunday school class where this kid next to me said, “My Dad has told me Sunday is not the 7th day of the week, but the first day, and Saturday is the 7th day.” I laughed at him, and replied, ‘That just cannot be true for Christians and Christian churches observe Sunday, so Sunday must be the 7th day of the week, for the 4th Commandments says we are to observe the 7th day of the week.” The Sunday school teacher quickly interrupted us, and was on to his teaching for the class. I left church that day still 100 percent certain Sunday was the 7th day of the week. For I said to myself, “All of Christianity cannot be wrong— we are to observe the 4th Commandment, and that commandment says we are to observe the 7th day as the weekly Sabbath.” The whole issue was put out of my mind, until it hit me between the eyes, when coming to Canada, and my Baptist landlord told me the same thing—— I just about fell over, and instantly remembered that day in Sunday school when I was 10 years old.
Another huge happening was when I read in the New Testament Jesus said He would return to earth again, sometime, but return He would. That was a wonderful revelation to me. I was about age 12—— I said it out-loud to my pal in church, and got this strange look from an adult—— the local church I was attending did not teach or believe in the “second coming of Christ to earth.”
Another important happening took place when I was 14; a lady in church, knowing my very faithful attendance in Sunday-school and now in attending the main service at 11 am. She gave me a red-letter New Testament—— the words of Jesus in red. That was one treasured gift she gave me; I would read some of the words of Jesus every night before falling asleep. So by the time I came to Canada, I had read the four gospels over and over. And the words of Jesus in the book of Revelation. My foundation in the New Testament was deep and strong, by the words of Christ Himself. I thought how can the foundation of true Christianity be stronger than by what Jesus preached and taught. And of course it also showed Jesus observing and teaching the 4th Commandment— the weekly Sabbath day.
Naturally the day I set sail for Canada, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was also a mighty big day in my life. I was now over age 18, an adult, and I was finally off to start my training to be the next Roy Rogers.
It was important for me, in God’s plan for me, to hear on the radio in Saskatoon, the religious broadcast of the Radio Church of God. I was listening to all religious radio broadcasts, but the Radio Church of God—— it was different in some ways, and caught my attention more than other religious broadcasts.
Then a smashing year was when I was 20 years old. Smashing in dumfounding me. It was the time my Baptist landlord told me Sunday was the first day of the week. The incident brought back that lad in Sunday-school when I was 10, telling me his Dad had told him that Sunday was the first day of the week. I went to the public library, and a Roman Catholic book called “Christian Feasts and Customs” told me the same thing—- Sunday is not the 7th day of the week. I was in a daze—- how could all Christianity I had ever known be WRONG!
BUT THE MASSES OF CHRISTIANITY WERE WRONG! I WAS AS SURE ABOUT THAT AS I WAS SURE GOD EXISTED!
Another important time came when I discovered the Radio Church of God, taught, and observed the 7th day Sabbath.
Now it was time, an important time, when God had opened the book up on me shall I say; He and His word of truth, became more important to me that my childhood dream of being the next Roy Rogers. I now saw it was not to be, in fact it had never been for me; God the Father had had other plans for me, which would indeed mean I was to come out West, to run smack into what was really, from way back as a kid, God’s work for me in this life on earth.
That was a mighty massive work now set before me; studying the Bible in the deepest way I could. I did have help from the Radio Church of God; they taught me many truths I had never seen; it was a fresh start on my journey through the Bible. But even then I had no idea of what would lie ahead with the Radio Church of God, and its final downfall as it turned itself into a “cult”—— worshipping the organization and finally the man who would claim he was “God’s end-time Apostle” with tens of thousands believing it.
So this leads to another mile-stone—— the final year of breaking away in 1972, with the WORLDWIDE [Radio] Church of God; going into a kind of 7 year desert, till 1979.
Circumstances once more changed; God was still working with me, and with the Radio Church of God—— it had faltered, was going off the straight and narrow path of truth and righteousness. There was a large split, and some smaller splits; all taking ministers with them. Yes there were many small break-away groups, But the largest at the time was the son of the “apostle” GETTING KICKED OUT! And he immediately started up his own work, radio and TV broadcasts; it was now time for TV evangelists. And this “son” was already pretty famous as he did their radio broadcast.
This “son” being kicked out and starting his own “church work” was an important event— my 7 years in the wilderness, was over!
It was another mile-stone to move into. There was no “voices” or fire coming down from heaven. There was this powerful force within me to get fully into doing what I could for God and Christ, and all the confused people there must be out there, somewhere, from the membership of the Worldwide [Radio] Church of God, and all the ones near and far that needed to hear about salvation and the age to come.
I was living in Oshawa, Ontario—- and put some religious study message in the local paper— I did it to see what response I might get. This was 1980. I did not have to wait long for positive…. well could be positive results.
Within a few months I was leading a Sabbath Bible study. Actually people who had had contact with the Radio Church of God, with their literature and magazine, but never became members. This then led me to baptizing some, and then a weekly church service, and regular weekly religious messages in the local Oshawa paper. And through various happenings and people contacting me, I also found I was pastoring a group of people twice a month in Rochester, New York state.
These were exiting times for me; events large and leading to another very important time in my life. The meeting of Fred Coulter and the Biblical Church of God. I have already related it—— the end result being ordained to the ministry of Jesus Christ, at the Feast of Tabernacles in 1982—- I was 40 years old.
The next large and significant event in my life brings us to the winter of 1998/99. I met the man in a church service who would do a first draft on my website. Yes the personal computer was now becoming the way to communicate, and to teach. I was off into the website world with enthusiasm and gusto.
My name and work in the 7th day Sabbath observing churches was now reaching around the world.
And this brings us to the year 2000.
I have to back up a little—— during the 1950s in the Radio Church of God, a man by the name of Basil Wolverton became a member. He was famous—- he was a talented comic-strip artist, but had the talent to draw black and white serious drawings. He started to do episodes of the story flow in the Old Testament, illustrated with his drawings of certain events, i.e. a drawing of Noah’s Ark being built, and on the waters of the flood. I believe he managed to live to the near end of his Old Testament Bible Story; if my memory is correct, someone else had to finish his work— well it did get finished. I believe it was about 5 volumes, which church members could obtain.
One day an email came through to me, from persons who at one time had connections with the Radio Church of God. They were desirous to have a person write a New Testament Bible Story on the harmonized four Gospels, but written for children; easy modern English that children could read.
I told them I believed I could do it, and would be happy to give it a try. They were delighted that I offered to undertake the work.
Writing on teachable things, especially teachings from the Bible, has to have one important ingredient—— easy communication. Fancy words and confluted prose is not going to reach but the PhD theology folk. Just a reading of the four Gospels say as in the NewKJV will show you, Jesus did not use fancy language, but on the contrary— simple to understand words.
I was to go one step further, put it in the English language that children can read and understand.
The “introduction” to the series came out in November 2000.
I went from there as they say. I did not take any particular note of when I did the sections, only mentioning when a particular chapter was finished.
There was no dead-line; I worked at it as I was inspired, sometimes more, sometimes less.
By the time I had reached near the end, the man I was sending all the chapters to, for his checking of spelling and punctuation errors, was impressed enough to ask me to continue on with the whole New Testament—- so it would then be in essence, a New Testament Bible Story Commentary.
I had been busy for years studying and writing Bible articles on various topics, uploading them to my website; also uploading other writer’s studies I found was the truth of the matter on that topical issue. It had never crossed my mind to do a New Testament Commentary. Now I had been requested to do so.
I have a number of Bible Commentaries in my home library— Albert Barnes, Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, and others. For a New Testament Commentary I believe Albert Barnes is the most detailed. I was not going to try to be anywhere close to his detailed work; why try to re-invent the wheel as they say. But Albert Barnes was a Protestant and so he did not have the truth on all passages of the New Testament. So my work would correct the errors of Barnes and others like him.
So it was—— a large effort of many years for me to undertake a commentary on the entire New Testament. And it would take [not taking note of it until I finished] a full 7 years to complete.
That was the important event that came my way in the year 2000. A spiritual work.
But around the same time, well some years later, 2002/3 my physical life would change in a way I never thought would happen again, which led to a wonderful event in the year of 2005.
That’s for next time.
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