As an anesthesiologist, I have no professional reason to write a book on biblical numbers. I have no desire for notoriety, nor for any financial gain in this endeavor. I never have written a book, nor was it ever a personal desire of mine to do so prior to obtaining the information I will share with you. But after obtaining this information, I asked myself, “Why am I getting all of this numeric information?” I needed to make sense of this. It didn’t seem right for me to keep this information solely for myself and take it to my grave. Was there a broader purpose? I would not have bothered to write this book if I believed the information, as well as the means by which it was obtained, was totally random and had no benefit to others.
I have identified both personal and spiritual motivations to write this book. My personal motivation is simply to help other people who will listen. I remember two stories in which members of my family made efforts to help others that may have inspired me also to help others by writing this book.
One family story was about my great great-grandfather Joseph H. Diss Debar. He was one of the founding fathers of the State of West Virginia and the artist that designed the State Seal of West Virginia, which is still in use today. He had a history of trying to help others. This can be seen in the book he published in 1870 (with his own money from my understanding), entitled THE WEST VIRGINIA HAND-BOOK AND IMMIGRANT’S GUIDE. Its stated purpose was to provide unvarnished facts and figures to potential immigrants from other states and countries. He described his hope for his book in its preface. He wrote, “It is hoped that its [the content of his book] freedom from all romance and exaggeration may secure for it the attention and confidence of the class of honest and enterprising workers in both hemispheres, whom we are most anxious to welcome as permanent settlers to our infant State.” Considering today’s debate over immigration policy it’s interesting to note that in the 1870s, the focus was to attract honest and enterprising workers. I found my great grandfather’s purpose for writing his book to be a noble one. I hope this book also turns out to be a noble endeavor as well.
The other family story that may have inspired me is how my father tried to help out motorists on an extremely dense foggy day in Pittsburgh, PA in the late 1950s. There was a multi-car pile-up developing off of McKnight Road. My father ran down the hill from our house to the side of the road. He waved his arms with lighted flares above his head, desperately trying to warn the oncoming motorists about the collisions that had occurred ahead on the road. To his horror, many people just ignored him and sped by at full speed. He then heard these cars slam on their brakes and collide, one after the other, into the multi-car pile-up. As an analogy to this story, I see many people in this world speeding through a dense fog of deception and heading into collision in our not too distant future. It is my sincere desire that the information in this book may act as a warning flare to the dangers that lay in our future.
I hope to use this book also as an aid to reach out to many of my friends who are dear to my heart and who are sorely lacking in critical knowledge and awareness about biblical implications of what is going on in the world today. What the Bible foretold thousands of years ago has come true in the past, is coming true in the present, and will come true in the future.
My spiritual motivation to write this book stems from the prospect that I may have been given the assignment to do so by God’s grace. God has a purpose for everyone’s life: this may be part of mine.
