The Wayside Pulpit No.15  

10th August 1999

TRIBUTE  TO  RON  WYATT  

Ron Wyatt died last Wednesday, 4th August, at 66 years of age. He had been suffering from bone cancer for some time. He leaves behind a loving wife, Mary Nell, and two sons. My wife and I would like to express publicly our deep sorrow, and offer our condolences to his family, and pray that the Lord will uphold them and comfort them at this time of loss. We know that they all have a living relationship with the Lord Jesus, and they know that Ron will have passed into the presence of his Lord and Saviour, but nevertheless, in times of bereavement, the vacuum created is particularly hard to bear.

As writers of "The Prophetic Telegraph" we are known as those who have upheld Ron and his archaeological work, even in the face of the mounting criticisms and censure that he received. We had the privilege of entertaining Ron in our home, and although the visit was brief, we had the opportunity of assessing his character and spirituality first hand. From that day until now we have never ceased to look upon him as a true and sincere man of God, whose whole motive in archaeology was to bring incontrovertible proofs of the Bible to light, whereby he could use the information as an evangelistic tool. To lead people into a living relationship with his Lord was the highlight of his life.

We have in our files a number of statements from organisations and individuals denouncing Ron as a charlatan, a liar, a deceiver. These detractors claim to be Christians, and yet their manner of speech is more vindictive than found within the unbelieving world. In respect of his finding the Ark of the Covenant, he has received more vitriole than for any of his other discoveries, and yet he never answered them. He claimed that the Israeli authorities asked him to shut down all further information beyond that which he had already written, and to his dying day he has kept to the promise he made them. Clearly the information was sensitive to such a degree that it might have been responsible for triggering a Middle East conflict between Jew and Arab. More than a dozen people have died strange deaths in trying to break through into the cave where the Ark is situated. This in itself is indicative of the danger, and indeed, of the importance of the find. It must have been difficult for Ron to keep the further evidence under wraps, and allow the rest of the Christian world accuse him of fraud. But now his work is done, and the Lord has called him home. Sadly there have already been snide comments made about him, to the effect that he is now under judgement for all the lies he told.

The news programme WorldNetDaily has run an item on the Internet about Ron, and the telephone conversation David Bresnahan had with him shortly before he died. Asked whether he wanted to recant any of his claims, he chose to reaffirm all that he had claimed without hesitation.

What of the future? Ron said to Bresnahan, "The blood and all that part will be shown, all of that, on video. The only thing that will be shown typically that people will be able to have a look at and maybe touch, you know I don't know what the restrictions will be on that, and that's the tables of stone." Ron told us that he had cleared the cave of all the rubbish, the rotted covers that had hidden the artefacts, and then made a video of all that was in the cave. But he maintained that it was not yet possible for it to be made public. Maybe the time is now right for this video to be shown. Maybe it has to do with the recent change in leadership in Israel. In this respect we are just guessing.