Daniel Inabnit’s TESTIMONY of the Faithfulness of God
A Cautionary Story
I remember in early elementary school desiring to be accepted and thought highly of by my mom and dad. So I made up stories about playing organized baseball in school. It wasn’t until they showed up to see me play that my lies found me out. I wasn’t playing on the team. The school didn’t even have a baseball program! I wanted desperately to tell stories that would impress people with who I was, to make them think more highly of me than I actually was. The reality was, I was a liar. This story is my opportunity to testify about He who alone can change a liar into a proclaimer of the Truth.
I grew up in a protestant Christian family that believed that the Word of God was the final answer for our every action in life. My father was the pastor of a number of churches while I was growing up. And I praise God for being raised in an environment that taught that the Bible was the God-inspired, written Word of God. As a young child I prayed that Jesus Christ would come into my heart. The only problem was that I still was selfish; I still lied. Public school only took me further down the selfish road. Our culture had an impact on me, I was going to public school where I was taught evolution and introduced to any number of sins that I then perfected in school and practiced hiding at home. Unfortunately homeschool was not an option in those days. As I attended college, I perfected the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life.
I got married after college and we moved to Alaska where I continued the “art” of lying to try to cover my sins. Outwardly I was in church leadership positions and was always at every church function. But the Bible says we are to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him”, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God is perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked (1 John 2:3-6). I was being unfaithful to my wife in my mind, at the same time I was having idolatrous/adulterous affairs with other gods, doing the same as I’d done to my wife with the one who created me, God – UNBELIEVABLE!?
One particular event from this time will always stick in my mind. My wife and I were sitting in the church building. I was sitting on the back of a pew and she was sitting in the pew facing me. She looked at me with her big, innocent eyes and said, “Dan, if this Bible is really true maybe we should sell everything we have, move to Africa, and share with those who need this truth so desperately.” What she didn’t know was that this struck a panic button inside of me. On the outside I tried to maintain control, but inside I was seriously afraid. If we did this I wouldn’t be in control! See, I was in love with the world and my flesh was loving it, because I thought I was calling the shots. I was a slave to sin and didn’t even know it (Romans 6:16). My wife just wanted to innocently believe and obey what the Bible said and I was in no position to encourage her vision. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you (1 John 2:15-17). We had five wonderful children, but they grew up under my deception. They did not have a father who loved their mother as Christ loved the church or loved them enough to quit loving himself. The Bible says that God is Love. How can one love if he has not yet known Love and been known by Love?
After moving back to Montana we were divorced. But God still didn’t have my full attention. I was challenged by my parents to do Grant Horner’s Bible reading program that would have me reading 10 chapters a day all over the Bible. I thought I knew what God’s Word said, but found out quickly I didn’t have a clue! The God of the Bible, did not fit in my “god box”. As I began to read, I came across a passage that really grabbed my attention. Jesus was asked by a religious leader what the greatest commandment is. He answered, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:28-31). The Holy Spirit convicted me so strongly. I knew I didn’t love God like that at all. I had loved basketball that way in college. I was fanatical about basketball, to the point I flunked out of college because I’d skip classes to play. I got on my knees before the Lord and asked Him to show me what it was to love Him with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. Since then, He has demonstrated His faithfulness, by patiently teaching me how to love Him, through His Word, “if you love Me you will keep my commandments”, “Whoever commits sin transgresses the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” (John 14:15, 1John 3:4). It was around this same time that I first heard of Ray Comfort’s evangelism ministry, where God’s law is used to expose an individual’s sinfulness and God’s justice to emphasize our need for repentance, the very message that John the baptizer and Jesus came teaching. As I humble myself and earnestly seek Him, He is opening my eyes to the Word’s truth. In the past, reading the Bible had only been putting in my time, but now the words were beginning to convict. As they did, I would repent and obey. My job also allowed me to listen to the Word often throughout the day; I couldn’t get enough. I found my desires changing. I wanted to talk about God and His Word and spend time with others who wanted to do the same. I also found myself dealing with sin right away rather than letting it continue because I found it broke my communion with my heavenly Father.
Early one morning I was woken from sleep with the revelation that the “church” is broken, and given the assignment to get together with leadership in the church I was attending to share this with them. At 8 o’clock sharp I called the head of the board and that evening sat across from he and his wife describing how our church was broken. They agreed, but then asked what I recommended. I told them I was just sharing the message that it was broken but I didn’t have the reason or a solution.
Through all this I came to see that until now I was not “in Christ” according to Scripture, because the Bible said that I would become a new creature; old things would pass away, all things would become new. My desires were definitely changing now!
One day I remember intensely expressing my love for God and asking, “What do you have for me now?” Way off in the distance of my mind I could see something small that got bigger and bigger until the letters I S R A E L were emblazoned across my mind. Quite frankly that surprised me, and I literally said. “Let’s try this again.” However, He wouldn’t take it from me. Over the next two years He began preparing me for Israel by revealing more of the traditions the churches have inherited from the Roman Catholic Church while setting aside the commandments of God.
I must back up a bit to introduce some discoveries that ultimately took me to Israel with the group I went with. While in Alaska I saw a documentary that seemed to demonstrate that Mt. Sinai was not located in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt (the traditional location), but rather was located in Saudi Arabia. When I tracked down the original source of the information, I found that Ron Wyatt not only had rediscovered the real Mt. Sinai, but had found many other archeological sites as well: Noah’s ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Red Sea crossing site, and most astounding, the Ark of the Covenant buried beneath the site where Jesus was crucified! I quickly found many people just blew these discoveries off as tall tales. And sadly the “church” establishment led the way. I was perplexed. Why would God honor the work of a Seventh Day Adventist? Was, “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” really that important? Were the claims that Ron was a fraud legitimate, making the first question irrelevant? One Christian source, that I respected, claimed that Ron had not served in the military as he had said. However upon following up on this claim, I was able to find his obituary in the newspaper where it said he had received a 21 gun salute at his burial. You can’t make that up! So, when the Spring of 2013 rolled around, I had sold or given away most everything I owned and signed up for a tour to Israel led by Michael Rood. I knew that at least in this tour I would get to see Ron Wyatt’s claimed remains of Gomorrah and see for myself if Gomorrah was legitimate.
For the next three months, I wondered as I wandered in the land. A land that God redeemed from pagan idolatrous nations and gave to His chosen people Israel, then gave back to them in 1947 (UN Resolution 181), and will redeem again for His Son’s reign in Jerusalem for a thousand years. It was a trip that connected the long ago I read about in the Bible to the present, and the far away to where I was standing. It also brought historical events to life in a way the Father knew I needed to experience. Just like He knew Thomas needed to thrust his fingers in Jesus’ wounds to fully grasp the reality that he was standing in the presence of his Risen Creator and Savior, so I needed to see for myself that Israel really exists; that the places and details lined up with what the Bible said. I spent nearly a month each in Jerusalem, Sterodt, and Tiberias.
The part of this trip that impacted me the most was spending six days and nights among the ash buildings and city walls of part of what Peter and Jude were referring to as Gomorrah. The Father fully illustrated His patience, love and justice in one earth changing event. To see the testimony of His salvation of the righteous, and His judgement of the wicked, and to contemplate the account as I slept in the ash, was life changing. The last part of Jude 7 says the cities “are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire”. And sure enough, the cities’ brimstone (sulfur) impregnated, ash walls stand loudly testifying to everyone who will listen. “Behold this was the guilt of your sister Sodom; she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy!” (Ezekiel 16:49)
Part of reading the Word was seeing that miracles happened throughout the whole of scripture. But the gifts of the Spirit were not being lived out in the churches I was involved with. Those miraculous signs had “ceased”. The Bible says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. It says that these signs will follow His followers. Was I going to follow the “church” and its doctrines or follow Christ? I got on my face and prayed that God would show me what it was to walk by faith and not by sight. In just over a week I was introduced to the testimonies of Henry Gruver. It was like reading the book of Acts. Here was a living example of the miracles of our heavenly Father in living color. God hadn’t changed, the doctrines and theologies of the “church” was what had changed. A respected person in the church said these testimonies were the working of Satan. But I knew from being in the Word that Christ, when He was accused of casting the demons out by the hand of the prince of demons, said that those who claimed that were blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which would not be forgiven. I had to bring my life into alignment with the Word not the “doctrines” of the “church”. This is when the Father began helping me understand that my sin was idolatry. I set up places (shrines) where I could go at any time to “worship” the gods (demons) of food, sex or any other fleshly pleasure. The Bible says that in the last days people will be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Why is it that we always seem to ask if people had “fun” in whatever they were doing. Not, “How were you drawn closer to the Father?” or “What did the Father teach you or accomplish through you for His kingdom?”
As I was reading the Bible one day, Christ challenged the religious leaders of His day that unless they became like little children they could not inherit the Kingdom of God. So, I tried to use the mind of a 10 or 12 year old in the reading of the scriptures, rather than running everything I read through the doctrinal and theological filters of pastors, and church leaders I had followed through the years. Talk about freeing and seeing the Bible as if I’d never read it before. I also more and more took the approach of if it says it I’m doing it. But Satan kept on the attack, “What will they say or think about you when you do that?”. Satan was preying on my “fear of man” planting seeds of doubt. During this time a friend challenged me to put up or shut up with regard to the Sabbath. I had been using scripture to show the Sabbath must be for us today, not just for the Jews. I remember walking into my place of employment and telling my boss on a Wednesday that I would no longer be available to work on Saturdays starting that Saturday. He made me aware of my commitment to the company and how I would be letting everyone and their plans and families down. I acknowledged that what He said was true and apologized saying I totally understood if he needed to let me go. We had a snow plowing business and I thought the easy solution was to pray that the Father would cause it to not snow on that coming Saturday. Problem solved. Right? Wrong. The Spirit convicted me to pray that the Father would do whatever He saw fit to display His glory and honor His name with regard to the Sabbath. That Sabbath the biggest and worst storm of the year moved in. It snowed so hard that the two community churches both closed on Sunday. The Father had spoken loud and clear to me to call holy what He calls holy, and not to fear man. From that time on the Father provided so that not one of the concerns my employer had mentioned ended up being a problem. All of His Word is true for all people for all time. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works 2 Timothy 3:16. Come to find out the “Sabbath” (Shabbat in Hebrew) was only the first of 7 other “appointed times” (moedim) I’d been missing out on. And those who believe (walk out His Word through obedience) are blessed.
October 27, 2014 I woke at 3:13 a.m. to the Spirit revealing the answer to the “broken” church. Jews and Christians embrace traditions of men (Mark 7:6-9). But, the Father is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23, 24). The “church” is broken and in crisis because it doesn’t know what Truth is and doesn’t walk by the Spirit. The whole time this is being revealed to me a song called Justice with the words “It won’t be long” played over and over in my mind. If you walk according to the Spirit you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). Yeshua (the actual name of Jesus) asked His Father to “sanctify them in the truth” and He declared, “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). You shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of Yehovah (God) Deut. 8:3. In short; read His Word, love His Word, hear His Word, obey His Word!
The god I had believed in was capricious and manipulative. I believed he would judge me not worthy to do anything for him for long periods of time until I was “good enough” to perform what he was asking me to do. Guess what, that god doesn’t exist; he was a figment of my imagination. Yehovah (God’s actual name) doesn’t call perfect people, but perfects the people He calls. The only true God is like the perfect, earthly father who would be ready and willing to receive our humble repentance and obedience at any time. The things of this world blocked my view to the only true God, Yehovah. As I’ve given each of those things up I could see more and more of Yehovah (God) Elohim (Almighty) waiting patiently with arms wide open for His wayward son to come broken and repentant from his latest foray of trying out the things of this world (satan’s reality). But, the reality that counts, not only in this world but in the one to come, is that only He satisfies. The sports don’t satisfy, the accolades of men, being good, having things, money, movies, television, internet, education, video games, lust, news, knowledge, work, family, food. All these things at one time or another have been idols in my life that I strove for. In the last days men will be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:1-5). I spent my time, money and energy trying to find fulfillment in these things. In the past I wanted to do what the flesh wanted to do. Now I praise Him that I want to do what my Savior did. Do I fall? Yes (Prov. 24:16), and as the Spirit convicts I quickly confess (1 John 1:9-2:1). I have Yeshua who is the advocate with my Father interceding to Him on my behalf (1 Timothy 2:5). Father, conform me more to the image of Your Son.
My prayer is that the heavenly Father by His Spirit would use this testimony of His faithfulness in my life to provoke you to love Him with all that you are. And if you don’t know Him you would cry out to God Almighty in repentance (turning toward Him and therefore away from the ways of the world). That you would love and obey the One who made you and provided salvation to all who believe on His only begotten Son, Yeshua.
Thank You Father for Your patient working in my life, and thank You that You are the rewarder of those who earnestly seek You (Hebrews 11:6)! Praise Your holy name!
Daniel Inabnit dan.inabnit@gmail.com (406) 220-3141
P.S. In 2023 I had the privilege of spending more time and collecting more information about the ruins of Gomorrah and spent time in Sodom as well. We had the privilege of going to the real Mount Sinai in Saudi Arabia and the Split Rock of Horeb. One of those places you have to see to fully grasp its enormity! Contact me if you’d like to see a large screen presentation of these discoveries the Father is bringing to light in these last days.
The life of Jesus (Yeshua) as you’ve never heard or seen it! I can honestly say it captures the character of the son of God just like I’ve been reading about in the Bible, as he interacts with those He encounters. It has challenged my faith and brought things to light I’ve missed in reading the Bible. (I highly recommend downloading The Chosen app as it is totally free and easy to use!) TheChosen.tv