Why the Picture-Bible-Codes
Were Removed
This is my response to an email that was written to me:
In these letters, you can see my struggle over the years before I came to the confidence I now posses in the codes.
(This response was written shortly before I removed the Bible-codes from my Web site on Nov. 1, 2001. I put them back on 4 months later. Why I put them back on is at the end of this document.)
Bible Code Prophecy
Greetings:
Thank you for writing.
If you are wondering whether or not it is easy to find similar codes in the bible like the burning-bush bible code by simply looking up the name of Jesus using your software, then my answer is, 'No---it is impossible.'
I intend to post this letter because what you have asked is heavy on my heart.
Bible codes that do not exalt the Lord Jesus Christ are of the devil.
Bible codes that truly glorify our Lord Jesus Christ according to sound doctrine, and that fix men's eyes on Jesus and away from the codes themselves, are from God.
Bible codes are real. This I am largely convinced. But I see many sincere (and many insincere) people searching for codes and it grieves me greatly. I see it as a diversion away form the simplicity of Christ. I am pondering and praying hard as to whether I should remove the bible-code Web site altogether. Though they are real, I wonder how profitable they are. How many of God's people are being led astray from the plain bible to look for what they imagine are codes? Codes that glorify Jesus Christ are real, but are they profitable? They may wins souls and encourage Christians but what about the many being caught up into the bible codes to their own confusion and waste of time? For unless God wills to show someone something they cannot see anything but what the deadness of their heart brings forth out of their own vain imaginations.
This is not to say that I doubt your motives personally. As a matter of fact, I have the sense that your motives are pure.
However, the bottom line is this: No man can see anything of worth without God's help. I confess my weakness: Both in my study of bible numbers and then in the codes---all have dropped into my lap by God's grace easier then picking apples from a tree. I found them despite my weaknesses; mentally, emotionally---even my faith is weak. They came despite my personal weaknesses---by the gift of understanding mysteries, as mentioned in 1Cor. 13. And they came in great power with fearful signs. But one ounce of God's love shed abroad in the heart is far more superior and profitable than all bible codes, or any sign for that matter. For after the honey comes the bitterness. No wonder Jesus said, "Blessed is the one who believes and has not seen."
Therefore, to answer your question---and the question of many others whom I beg would take this to heart---No man can see anything without God; no man can receive any gifting apart from the will of God. Gifting does not make a man great. Love and good fruits alone are the evidence of greatness, and I come miserably short in what really matters.
My heart quakes and breaks at the thought of being instrumental in the dying of God's people. For properly understood, the bible codes are a judgment upon a disbelieving people who search for signs. But no other sign is being given them other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. All other codes, miracles, or whatever, are counterfeit if they do not proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified, risen, ascended, and glorified at the right hand of God awaiting His enemies to be made His footstool. It is preposterous to think that if the Spirit of God has breathed words deep into the bible, that they should contradict the theme of the plain text. Whoever does not know the theme of the bible does not know God, nor His Word. Jesus is the theme of the bible.
Therefore, flee from bible-code research! Whether you believe on the bible codes means nothing; whether you believe on Christ means everything.
If one insists that they are being led by God to study the bible codes then let that one consistently bring forth Christ crucified, demonstrated in power in the codes. But let us not pretend that the mere scattering of religious phrases aimlessly across a matrix is from God. It is not. It is confusion. God is not the author of confusion. A jig-saw puzzle is confusion unless pieced together. And 'pieced together' does not mean 'forced together.' Only the Spirit of God can piece them together. And though there are many pictures---yet there is but one theme: Jesus the Messiah.
If you have been personally strengthened and even converted to Christ by the codes then glorify the Christ by leaving the codes behind and let yourself be rooted in the simple truths of Christ. Walk humbly with Him, and with those of like mind.
For like the Law of Moses, if the codes have provoked you to seek the Christ---good---but know that the purpose of the Law (of the Old Testament) is not something to live by but to die by. As it is written, "Cursed is everyone that does not do everything written in the law." Both law and bible codes gender to bondage because of the weakness of the flesh. The law is good, and whatever God has recorded in the bible---or hidden in the bible---is good. But so was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was in the garden of Eden 'good.' For it is written that everything that God created was called 'good' in the day that God created them. This includes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, though every tree is good, it is not good to eat from every tree. Likewise, all knowledge is good, but it is not good to have all knowledge. Not everything that can be known should be known. Some things are better left shut up and sealed.
Peace be upon you and upon all that love the Truth,
Dean
Post log:
Nov. 3, 2001
If I am wrong to have removed the picture bible codes from this site than please pray that God releases them again. But as it stands now, I have only a peace about putting out the mene-tekel bible code as limited to just the 15 Hebrew letters that were upon the wall. This one code is able to prove all that needs to be proved---hopefully without encouraging others to pursue vain bible-code research. Moreover, if the mene-tekel bible 'code' can be proven erroneous than the lovers of truth are much obliged. It is not something to be feared but welcomed. For that which cannot stand the scrutiny of men will by no means stand the scrutiny of God.
Personally, I am convinced that if the mene-tekel bible 'code' does not stand, then I for one will have lost all confidence in bible codes as a valid phenomena. For then it will have been sufficiently proven that the Hebrew language, with its largely consonantal text, is so fluid with random possibilities for word formation that any message at will can be composed with all the sophistication of a well-written novel. But for now I find this hard to believe. So I welcome all such testing and sifting of this one code. For this reason the mene-tekel code remains on this site: It demonstrates all that needs to be demonstrated to the proving or disproving of all bible codes---at least to my own personal satisfaction anyway.
If you feel that I was wrong to have taken the picture-bible-codes off the Net than take a moment now and pray. Pray that God will remove completely all doubts concerning His will in this matter. "For whatever is not of faith is sin."
Why I put the codes back on:
- When I review my work on the codes I cannot help but know that some, if not all, are real. The bible numbers consistently agree with the bible codes and give me that extra nudge of confidence needed.
- I am reminded that the purpose of the bible codes is not for the average Christian. They have no need of reading it other than as a tool to reach others. As I wrote years ago on my bible-numbers site, the purpose of the revelation is mainly twofold: To testify to the unsaved (especially the Jew) that Jesus is the Messiah, and to comfort the oppressed of mind or body; in mind due to the oppression of evolutionary/atheistic teachings that prevail in many parts of the world; and in body, because, many Christians in the world are being physically persecuted. This is why most of the codes address the oppressor with disdain, and a judgment that is as certain as it is fearful. Such as this code, which starts from the very first letter of the bible and runs through the text that says: "Now the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
"At the judgment seat, alas! Into bitterness and a sea the Lord cast, along with the 'brain' and his sorcerer, and the days of 'science' and the thing standing." (Compare with Revelation 19:20, ch. 20. "Standing," cf., Daniel 9:27, Mark 13:14, Revelation 13:15.)
This represents about 5% of the whole code. There is nothing trite about these words. God is greatly to be feared.
- I decided to put a notice on the homepage welcoming the scrutiny of others realizing that not every jot is correct, but believing that the substance thereof is. May God use men to sift it and let that which is of God remain.
- I have decided to state plainly that both my work on the numbers and the codes have largely come by revelation, and therefore, I do not encourage anyone to look for bible codes on their own. Their study is more a burden than a blessing, and is given only to those whom God has called and prepared.
Among the many signs that the Spirit has given directing me to go forward with the work, this one is perhaps most disturbing. Within the mene-tekel-peres code (the arch-type of all codes) are words that foretold my own actions---my doubt, my fleeing (I literally moved away a hundred miles the same week I removed the codes in an attempt to put everything behind me), my name (my full name is literally Dean Thomas Coombs), my putting God to the test like others have, my return to my call and the cross/banner-message, and my renewed commitment to sit alone just as I have in fact been doing these past ten years, "being shut up by God" (Ezek. 3:24)---something I have been doing long before I ever even heard of Bible codes. Here is what was posted on my site before I took them off 3½ months ago. God is my witness that I did not wittingly fulfill this prophecy.
"More than a piece, he cut off; Babylon was severed in two!
Against her, wrath is pent up from God! They put God to the test!
"You (too) ran from God!
Flee, O' Thomas, to the banner (of the cross)
---to the Flawless One of God, Flee, O' Thomas!"
(Thomas remained shut up by God, having fled to the banner.)"
{Every aspect of this bible code was fulfilled in the life of 'doubting' Thomas. He is the pattern of all who doubt like him. Compare with John 20:19-31. However, I found myself unwittingly following in the steps of Thomas also--to my own shame. I, like him, tried to deny all that I had seen, but by the grace of God I could not. However, I do not agree with looking for ones own name in the bible-codes. A message about "Thomas" just happened to be a part of the said code, that is all. Perhaps it would be better to not even mention this fact, for by doing so I open myself up to my motives being misunderstood. However, what it says it says, and since it has nothing good to say about me, I mention it now as a sign of God's grace, and a reminder of my failure.}
