David Cloud
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David W. Cloud (1949) is an independent, fundamental, Baptist missionary and author. He founded Way of Life Literature, a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing ministry, in 1974. Way of Life Literature is based in Bethel Baptist Church [1], London, Ontario. Wilbert Unger is the Pastor of Bethel Baptist, while Cloud remains the director of Way of Life.
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[edit] Early life
Cloud was born in 1949 in Florida, and grew up in a Christian home, graduating from high school in 1967. He made a profession of faith as a child, but there was no evidence of biblical repentance. During high school he stopped attending church and went very far out into the world.
[edit] Army career
In 1969 he was drafted into the Army. Desiring to have some control over the type of duty he would have, he joined for an extra year. Since he was a good typist, he was assigned as a clerk. He served as a general’s driver at the U.S. Army Record Center in St. Louis, Missouri. When orders came for Vietnam, he was assigned as a company clerk for a military police unit based in Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon. By 1970, he was flying across the Pacific on his way to what would be a year and a half of duty in Vietnam. It was during that tour that he become involved with drugs. Upon discharge from the Army, he carried his love for drugs home.
[edit] Post-Vietnam
He got a job at a children’s psychiatric hospital in southern Florida and made plans to continue his education at a local college. Yet within a few months, this ambition was dissolved in a world of drugs. He quit his job and sold drugs for awhile, leading to his arrest and imprisonment for drug possession and public drunkenness. By then he had become intrigued by westernized Hinduism, particularly the Self-Realization Fellowship Society. While hitchhiking from California to Florida he was given a ride by some young people from India, and through their testimonies and literature became convinced that reincarnation was true. After devouring several books they had given to him, including The Autobiography of a Yogi by guru Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, he made a pilgrimage from Florida to Los Angeles, California, to visit the headquarters of that organization. After a brief stay in California, he was back in southern Florida. After working a short while as a tow motor operator in a lumber yard, he quit and decided to drive to his hometown in central Florida.
[edit] Conversion
On a weekend during the summer of 1973, Cloud pulled onto the highway near Fort Lauderdale with the goal of driving the roughly 200 miles to his hometown. A few miles down the road, he saw a man on a touring bicycle travelling alongside the highway, and though he passed by him, he had a powerful urge to turn back and find out where he was going, which he did. After talking a few minutes beside the road, he invited him to ride with him as far as Cloud's hometown. He agreed and when they had stored his bicycle and gear in the trunk of the car, they pulled back onto the highway and headed north.
Cloud was the first to broach the subject of God and religion. He was still interested in reincarnation, and even had some books with him. When asked if he believed in God, the stranger acknowledged that he did and pulled a Bible from one of his pockets. His name was Ron Walker, and he was headed to Mexico to preach in a coastal area he had visited earlier. Cloud learned one more thing very quickly: He was very skillful in the use of that little Bible.
As Cloud began asking questions about life and religion, he became so intrigued with the discussions they were having that he decided to go to Mexico with Walker, not even stopping in Cloud's hometown.
For two days they drove from southern Florida to Brownsville, Texas, where there is a border crossing into Mexico. Cloud discovered that the Bible contradicted practically everything he believed in. Somewhere in Alabama, Ron Walker bought Cloud a large-print King James Bible without any notes or cross references. He also bought Cloud a copy of Strong's concordance. That night they slept beside the car at a roadside park in their sleeping bags. Cloud was already disgusted with the things Walker was teaching him from the Bible, and as he lay in his sleeping bag looking up at the stars, he had the strong impulse to get up, put Walker’s bicycle out on the ground, and drive off alone so he wouldn’t have to hear any more of it. He fell asleep without doing that, though, and the next morning they continued driving toward the Mexican border. The next day when they were getting information about entering Mexico, Cloud was given trouble by the Mexican authorities about his long hair. There was also trouble with the U.S. authorities because he had a drug arrest record. They were strip searched, and Cloud decided not to go any further. Walker told Cloud that he had decided to ride back to Florida, that he wanted to put off his trip into Mexico. Cloud wasn’t happy with this but agreed to travel with him back to Daytona Beach, Florida, where they would split up.
They rode back to Florida basically in silence. Walker knew Cloud was not interested in hearing any more from the Bible at that point, and he wisely waited and prayed. When they arrived in Daytona Beach, they decided that it would be nice to sleep on a real bed for a change and also to take a shower and freshen up. They got a room in a motel. While each was sitting on their beds, they began talking again. Walker opened his Bible and began to read. There, very peacefully and calmly, but very definitely, Cloud repented and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The next morning they had breakfast together then said good-bye. Walker rode away on his bicycle, and Cloud has never seen nor heard from him since. David Cloud drove the 100 miles to his hometown, walked into the house, placed the big black Bible on the kitchen table, and declared to his mother and father that he was saved. He soon got a job—and kept it until he went away to attend Bible school about a year later.
Cloud began his studies at Tennessee Temple Bible School in 1974. Soon after arriving there he met Linda, his wife-to-be, but six weeks later she went to South Asia to be a missionary nurse. They corresponded for a year and were engaged by mail. She returned to the States for their wedding in August 1976. The Clouds have four grown children, two of whom are missionaries.
[edit] Missionary Work
The Clouds have spent 15 years in South Asia as church planting missionaries. Together with their co-labourers they pioneered a Baptist church in the 1980s and began a new church planting project in 2004.
[edit] Way of Life Literature
When David Cloud was saved at age 23, he felt that the Lord had burdened him to communicate the truths of God’s Word via the printed page. Within six months, he had printed his first booklet. It was a book warning about rock & roll music. He had gotten a job working as a commercial printer shortly after his conversion, and his boss allowed him to use the equipment on his lunch breaks to print little sermon booklets that he had written. This burden for writing and the printed page has grown steadily through the years. He began using the name Way of Life Literature on his books in 1978. The name came from Proverbs 6:23: "For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life." The biblical instruction that moulds men to God’s will requires reproof. It is not strictly positive. It does not focus on man’s "self-esteem." It does not avoid controversial or unpopular subjects. It warns as well as comforts. It deals with sin and false teaching in a plain manner. It is reproves, rebukes, exhorts with all longsuffering and doctrine (2 Tim. 4:2). Their Bible materials have been produced in Nepali, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, German, Russian, and Czech.
In 1984, Way of Life began publishing O TIMOTHY MAGAZINE, the title taken from 1 Timothy 6:20. One of the chief goals is to help protect churches from end-time apostasy through doctrinal preaching and carefully documented research. When the magazine started in 1984, the Clouds were missionaries in South Asia, and his concern was especially for churches in that part of the world. As they travelled out of Nepal every three months to neighbouring countries to renew their visas, they met many preachers and observed the weak condition of churches and Christian institutions firsthand. He knew that the only effective way to change churches is to change the preachers, and understood the power of the printed page to accomplish this task because he had witnessed the influence of fundamental Baptist periodicals in the United States. He had a burden to use the printed page to exalt the Truth of God’s Word and to preach against apostasy through a magazine in South Asia. He has been doing that ever since, not only in South Asia, but also in North America and in many other parts of the world. In 1992, Pastor Wilbert Unger and the Bethel Baptist Church of London, Ontario, began printing the magazine as well as building its distribution across Canada and sending copies to other parts of the world.
The Way of Life Website, launched in 1993, was one of the first fundamental Baptist sites on the Internet. Today there are thousands of books and articles available for anyone anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. The information is geared primarily to assist church leaders and missionaries. It is consistently one of the top Baptist sites for traffic, and thousands of people from around the world visit the site each month and glean information. Some have been saved through the material. Many have left unscriptural churches and organizations and have joined sound New Testament congregations through the influence of Way of Life's literature on the Internet. The web site address is http://www.wayoflife.org. In 1996 Way of Life established the FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST INFORMATION SERVICE to send out articles on almost a daily basis by e-mail.
[edit] Controversy
David Cloud is very well known on his strong stances against Rock and Roll Music, Against the teachings of Peter Ruckman, Jack Hyles, For his stance on true Bibical Repentence, against the Southern Baptist Convention, against the Pentecostal Movement. and everything in the New Evangelical Circles of Christianity. There are those who accuse David Cloud of distorting facts, and of him being extremely biased. There are also Fundamentalists who dislike him as well. Although, not very widely known, He fired a webmaster and The reason was, this man original went to plant a church, even though he was divorced, he solely on the premise that he was "Planting a Church, after a while, He decided to become the Pastor there. Which is not allowed in Fundamental Baptist Circles. It is also important to know that this webmaster, came in contact with a very controversial Baptist evangelist named "Johnny The Baptist" (real name Johnny Campbell) and this is what caused him to go astray in his beliefs. (Although, there are a group of Fundamental Baptist Christians who subscribe to the doctrine of Hyper-Dispensationalism, which is a extreme form of Dispensationalism, that believe you can be married and divorced before Salvation, However, this is highly disputed and flatly rejected among mainstream Dispensationalists) There are those who accuse David Cloud of being a Textus Receptus man. or a defender of the Received Text. Which is partly true, however, David Cloud strongly rejects Peter Ruckman's claim that he downplays the King James Version in favour of Textus Receptus. He has been challenged to many debates, and has refused them all. He does however respond to questions and remarks made about his articles. Although, A word to the wise, if one approaches David Cloud in the wrong manner. He will not answer your questions.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
David Cloud's Biography from the Way of Life Literature Website: [2]
