My father was a Methodist deacon, so I attended services with him. I listened to the pastor’s sermons but gained little from them because they centered on his weekly experiences rather than the Word of God. Around age twelve, while reading Matthew’s parable of the wheat and tares, I prayed that the Lord would count me as wheat.
Around age sixteen, I dated a girl who attended the Baptist Church and began going with her. The sermons there focused more on the Word of God, including Hellfire and brimstone for non-Christians. I nearly got baptized, but when the time came, something felt wrong. Sensing insincerity among those who would baptize me, I held back.
At twenty, I was drafted but enlisted in the Army, hoping to receive training and avoid Vietnam. After about a year of microwave technician training, I was sent to Vietnam anyway. Four months later, because I was not using my training and President Nixon was reducing troop levels, I was reassigned to Thailand to finish my overseas duty. There I was introduced to marijuana, though I thought little of it then. Returning to the States, I joined an early-out program, trading a year of regular duty for service in the National Guard.
After my service, I sought work at Bell Telephone because of my microwave technician training. They offered $10,000 a year, but before the Army I had built a lawn service earning about $3,000 a month, so I returned to that business instead. With the money I earned, I bought a home in Clawson, Michigan. During that time, I also began smoking marijuana and spending time at the local pool hall.
Feeling my life was headed downhill, I decided to read the Bible again from beginning to end. Revelation especially puzzled me: unlike much of the Bible’s historical and prophetic history, it was filled with symbolic prophecy about the future. Wanting to understand it, I compared the seven churches, seals, trumpets, and plagues side by side by cutting and taping pages from several Bibles together. I also read Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, which increased my interest but did little to explain Revelation.
I told a friend from the pool hall that I wanted to understand the Bible better, especially Revelation. He said he knew someone who seemed to know almost everything about the Bible and mentioned a group that met at the YWCA, so we went together.
There, Frank Shallieu was speaking on Revelation. After a lengthy question-and-answer discussion, I asked how they understood the book so confidently. They directed me to the six volumes of Studies in the Scriptures, which I bought for $6. In the first volume, I learned from Scripture that Hellfire and brimstone was not awaiting the unsaved.
Around then, my sister told me of a Bible-minded friend who needed a ride to California. I agreed to take him if he first came with me to visit my father in Florida. We discussed the Bible throughout the trip and, while passing through Denver, witnessed to one of his friends—also a former high school classmate of mine—who then decided to become a Christian and move to California with Mark.
After dropping them off in California, I drove home and reread the first volume. This time it seemed to answer all the questions raised during the trip. I then read the full set, began attending the YWCA meetings, consecrated myself to follow the Lord, and was baptized in January 1974.
My desire to understand the Book of Revelation never faded; it only grew stronger. I attended many Bible Student conventions and often questioned those who seemed most knowledgeable about Revelation and the Bible, asking about the meaning of its symbols and how they connected with the rest of Scripture and the history it foretold.
I soon saw that the Bible Students had become, like many churches, centered around a gifted teacher—much as Methodists following Wesley or Lutherans following Luther. Yet I still agree with their belief that Pastor Charles Taze Russell was the seventh messenger to Laodicea in Revelation 3:14–22. Through the six volumes of Studies in the Scriptures, he helped reveal that the Church has been in a harvest period since 1878 and that the Lord had returned for the harvest and to restore Israel, as suggested in Acts 15:14–18. Though rare in Russell’s day, this understanding now seems strikingly fulfilled as Israel remains central in world events, while most churches remain unaware of its significance.
I also believe Russell is the servant described in Matthew 24:45 and Luke 12:42: the faithful and wise servant appointed to give the household of faith its meat in due season. I understand “all his possessions” Luke 12:44 as the Laodicean church—the Christian church at the end of the Gospel age. While some view the possessions as the truth itself, and Russell’s writings do surpass much that followed, this does not mean light ceased growing brighter after his death in 1916. The Lord rebukes Laodicea for assuming it was already rich and needed nothing and counsels it in Revelation 3:18–19 to seek refined gold, white raiment, and eye salve, and to repent.
Unlike the sixth stage of the church, which received no rebuke because its love of the brethren and Bible study carried it beyond Luther’s teachings, the seventh stage appears hindered by a “fear of death” that brings bondage, echoing Hebrews 2:15 and the tare element in the harvest parable. Many hesitate to question Russell, even when Scripture suggests some teachings may need correction. Yet Russell admitted he did not know everything and urged believers to search and prove the truth for themselves. He hoped to write a seventh volume on Revelation but said he did not understand it well enough. Those who try to explain Revelation only through his teachings risk binding themselves to limits he himself acknowledged that he did not understand.
This website is for those in the seventh stage of the church who have heard Charles Russell’s message and recognized him as the servant sent to sound the seventh trumpet. Many who accepted his message became so devoted to it that they believed the Lord had nothing more to reveal. If that is your view, this website is not meant for you. I believe the Lord seeks those like Elisha in 2 Kings 2:9–10, who asked Elijah for "a double portion of his spirit." In this interpretation, Elijah represents Russell, who passed away on October 31, 1916, during the whirlwind of World War I, and was “caught up…to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). The Lord offers “crowns of righteousness” to those who love His appearing (2 Timothy 4:8); those who cease to long for it may lose the crown and fall into the great company class. Spirit begettal qualifies one to enter the race, but only faithfulness to the end secures the prize, as pictured by the 144,000 and echoed in Psalm 91:7.
Things the Lord has taught me beyond what I learned from Pastor Russell
Around 1977, at the Bible Student General Convention, Jim Parkinson asked if I knew Daniel 7’s four beasts had seven heads and ten horns in total. I had accepted the common view that Revelation’s seven heads represented seven forms of Roman government, but over the next year I concluded the two could not be the same, since Revelation 17:10 says, “five are fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come.”
The next year, I challenged Jim on this point. He explained that the seventh head referred to Constantine, who moved Rome’s capital to Constantinople in Thrace—the fourth head of the Grecian empire, which had not yet ruled Israel in John’s day. I debated this with the brethren for another year and, around 1982, wrote beastly heads and horns of revelation. Since then, a few have changed their views. I believe this reflects the need to diligently seek wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, remaining Called, Chosen, and Faithful to win the prize of the high calling.
Around 1985, Brother Carl Hagensick asked me to explain 1 Chronicles 5:1–2, especially the difference between genealogy and birthright. After about a year of study, I wrote The Blessing and the Birthright, which remains one of my favorite articles.
Around 2006, my wife encouraged me to write a book on Revelation. Completed around 2016, Revelation by Jim Schucker began at about 250 pages and has grown to about 350. I later wrote a shorter 41-page version, Revelation Unredacted. I chose that title because, like redacted government documents, the Bible’s deeper truth is not fully visible on the surface. Revelation 5 pictures the Bible as a scroll written inside and on the back: the outside represents what the world sees, while the inside reveals meanings the Lord grants to consecrated believers through His spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9–16).
As I near the end of my life, I believe the Lord has finally given me a clearer understanding of the animal sacrifices Israel was instructed to act out for us in Leviticus. Many believe Russell understood this early in his ministry, and he came close. But I believe the apostle Paul understood it much more fully. I will leave that for you to decide. I titled the article The Meaning behind Animal Sacrifices.
My Quest to Understand Where we are in the Stream of Time
Charles Russell understood 1874 as the end of Daniel’s 1335 days and the time of the Lord’s return for the harvest at the end of the age. He taught that, like Israel’s harvest, this harvest would last 40 years, ending in 1914 with the beginning of the destruction of Christendom’s church-state systems, paralleling Israel’s destruction in AD 70. Though some believe the harvest continues until an appointed time, history shows Russell was correct in part about the end of the Times of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24) and the burning of apostate Christianity, the weeds/tares. Since 1914, clergy-led Christian state systems have disappeared. While Muslim church-state governments remain, their conflict with Israel suggests they too have reached a limit. The Lord is now establishing Israel for the next age, when Jerusalem will become the world’s capital and Israel will be trained in warfare, as foretold in Judges 3:2.
Charles Russell carefully studied the Lord’s appearing and expected His kingdom soon after 1914. Although he misunderstood what would happen, 1914 still marked the beginning of the destruction of this world’s so-called Christian Church-State systems, symbolized by the smiting of the image in Daniel 2:44 and the seventh plague in Revelation 16:17. Since then, others have set dates for the Lord’s “appearance,” but such expectations also proved unscriptural, causing many brethren to reject date-setting entirely. I believe, however, that the Lord still seeks those who keep watching for His appearing, even under scorn, and thereby share in “that which remains of the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24). While many cite “no one knows the day or hour” as a reason to avoid considering even the year, watching for His appearing can encourage deeper study of Scripture’s many time prophecies.
Before Russell, William Miller led an early-1800s movement expecting the Lord to appear in 1843–1844, based on Daniel 8:14’s 2300 days: “then the sanctuary will be properly restored,” or “cleansed.” Many were disappointed when that expectation failed, and date-setting has since been criticized. Yet Miller’s 1843 date was not entirely wrong; like Russell, he misunderstood what was to occur on a scripturally prophesied date.
Daniel 12 gives three prophetic periods—the 1260, 1290, and 1335 days/years—whose meaning depends on their starting point. Russell placed that start in 539, when Justinian reconquered Rome after its 476 fall and, in this view, established the Papacy as a church-state authority. This was understood as the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel and referenced by Jesus, when the Church was told to flee into the wilderness (Revelation 12:14). These passages are taken to describe the 1260 years in which Papacy suppressed Scripture’s truth, especially concerning the Beast and its Image.
The 1260 years, understood as 539 to 1799, mark the period when the Papacy suppressed scriptural truth about the Beast and its Image, enforcing that suppression by the sword and threats of execution. On February 20, 1798, French General Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Napoleon’s chief of staff, entered Rome, abolished the Papal States (the image of the beast), and arrested Pope Pius VI, who died in exile in Valence, France, in August 1799.
In 1805, Napoleon annexed the remaining Papal States →[The Image of the Beast]← and ordered the arrest of Pope Pius VII, who remained a prisoner in France until Napoleon’s fall in 1814. Thus 1799, the end of the 1260 years, began the Lord’s Judgements against the world’s religious rulers for suppressing scriptural truth.
The 1290 years, 539 to 1829, are linked in Daniel 12:11 to major religious developments. Historians often see 1829 and the surrounding years as a turning point in English-speaking religious life, especially with the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828 and Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
These reforms:
Broke the old Anglican‑dominated religious order.
Empowered Dissenters—many of whom were already revival‑minded and prophecy‑focused.
Heightened Protestant–Catholic tensions, which many interpreted through Daniel and Revelation.
Created the social and legal environment in which Adventist, premillennial, and restorationist movements could flourish in the 1830s–1840s.
Parliament abolished the laws that had, since the 1600s, barred Catholics, non-Anglican Protestant Dissenters (Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, etc.) from holding public office or public university faculty positions.
The religious freedom reforms of 1828–1829 helped spark the prophetic interest that followed. By repealing laws that had long barred Protestant Dissenters from public office and enforced Anglican supremacy, Parliament reshaped Britain’s religious order, encouraging new movements, publishing freedom, and theological debates. This prepared the way for William Miller to teach his view of Daniel 8:14’s 2300 days/years and calculate their fulfillment in 1843–1844, awakening many to prophecy, especially Daniel and Revelation 10.
When Miller’s expectation failed after 1844, much of Christendom again “fell asleep,” as pictured in the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins and the Shulamite woman in Song of Solomon 5:2–16.
Miller had formally stated his conclusions in September 1822, including his belief that Christ’s second coming was “near, even at the door,” within twenty-one years, “on or before 1843.” He did not begin public lecturing until August 1831.
