Introducing Hillary: a New Voice at Unsealed

Hello everyone! My name is Hillary and I am overjoyed to be a new voice here at Unsealed. 

While I love to study and write about eschatology, I am most passionate about the gospel of grace and encouraging the body of Christ in these last days. You will begin to see more from me soon, but first I want to tell you a little about who I am and how I came to understand the lateness of the hour.

My mother tells me I accepted Jesus when I was 3 years old. I love knowing that something in me responded to the gospel at such a young age, but I have no recollection of doing so. What I do remember is sitting at my family’s dining table at six, bawling my eyeballs out as I begged forgiveness of my sins and asked Jesus into my heart. A red-faced baby brother, in the arms of my mom, hollered with me in the background. I can still see that moment. I can feel it.

At the ripe age of 7 I sat in a pew at a local church for my first exposure to all things apocalyptic: a viewing of the infamous 70s film Thief in the Night. Fear took root in me that day, fed and watered over the next several years by personal family beliefs that the rapture was not biblical and we would have to endure the tribulation, avoid the mark of the beast, and be killed for our faith.

From the age of seven I became paralyzed with fear. I would cry hot tears into my pillow at night, terrified—of the antichrist, of being tortured, of being ripped away from my family, of accidentally blaspheming the Holy Spirit, of nazi-like police, of not being good enough, of being rejected for some sin I forgot to confess, you name it. We believed that Jesus would return in our lifetime. The only important things were saving souls, preparing for the end, and living a holy, obedient life. Faith, plus. Grace, but…

I did not know anything about true grace.

An unshakeable paralysis was born in my youth that continued for many years. In my teens, futility & depression nearly had their way with me, because what was the point of anything? All of my dreamy creative dreams were foolish and had no place in an apocalyptic world where there was no room for reading novels or wearing custom-designed dresses or planning beautiful weddings or decorating homes or anything other than sheer survival. Writing stories was stupid. Hoping to get married was stupid. Sewing pretty things was stupid. Learning to play guitar was stupid. But learning what native plants were edible? Learning how to live without electricity? Reading about how Corrie Ten Boom hid Jews from the Nazis? How to be faithful unto death? All of these were important. All of these things would be useful to know during the apocalypse.

I finally reached a point where I realized I was either going to die in the tribulation or die waiting for the tribulation. As a perfectionist who very much wanted to please God and my family, I never experienced the typical teenage rebellion that some do, but at nineteen I thrust everything end-time-y out of reach and refused to think about it for almost twenty years.

It was the Revelation 12 sign that called me back. Rather, God used the Revelation 12 sign as a gentle hand placed on my sleeping shoulder to say, wake up and watch, love. It’s time. 

Seeds had already been planted and I had, in the course of my adult years, come to fully understand that God’s love is not conditional to my behavior and that He is a good, good Father, and that grace is not a “grace, but…” and that saving faith is not a “faith, plus…”

And the time came to heal the fear from my childhood.

Image source: Revelation 12 Daily

“Have you heard about that star?” My mom asked. It was late autumn, 2016.

I had not. “What star?”

“Some star or something. It’s in Revelation 12. It’s supposed to do something on September 23 next year.” She’d heard about it on shortwave radio but knew I had the Internet and could find out more. “Just look it up.”

I found Scott Clarke this way, looking up Revelation 12 on the Internet. It’s how I found Unsealed. It’s how a door splintered open for a flood of healing—healing of my theology, of my fear, even healing how I read and understood the Bible. What feels like twenty years of Spirit-led seminary (admittedly, spoken somewhat naively) were condensed into less than six months. I lived in Unsealed’s archives. I hung on every word in Clarke’s videos. I discovered Robert Breaker and devoured hours and hours of teachings on how to rightly divide, and Scripture came alive to me. I bought a new Bible and read the entire thing, parts of it multiple times, in less than three months. Without using pre-conceived doctrines of man, the Lord showed me through Scripture how we are not appointed to wrath and that Israel is about Israel and the Church is about the Church and one day, after we are gathered to Him, He will turn back to Jacob to complete all He has promised.

Amazing what a Spirit-led study of eschatology—not with a spirit of fear but with power, love and a sound mind—can reveal!

I’m humbled and grateful to the Unsealed team who have blessed me so much over the last year or so and who have made space for me to be among you. 

I am not here as a teacher, but as a fellow watchman. I am a humble daughter of the Most High who longs to encourage and bless the body as we look for and yearn for our Lord’s appearing.

I’d like to close with this. In these last days of the age of grace, as we watch and discern the signs and season, it's important to remember that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

“Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints...” (Eph. 6:12-18)

Psalm 91

According to Pastor and Hebrew scholar Mark Biltz, Psalm 91 is a spiritual warfare psalm. (To hear Pastor Biltz's comments on Psalm 91, press play [video is set to begin at the time he starts talking about this psalm.])

I have read & recorded it and hope it brings peace and comfort to you. (For best results, listen with headphones or earbuds.) God bless you, dear brothers & sisters!

I would love to know how you came to be aware of the season and times we live in. What is your own personal journey with the end times? Please say hello in the comments and share your story with me!

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