Was convinced that:
1. The second-coming was so near, there was no reason to do anything else in life but prepare for it. Literally told me "there's no need to worry about grades in high school, or what to do for a living, because the anti-christ is alive and rising to power, and will declare war on the church before you ever graduate". (I graduated in '83; he was telling this to all his kids class members when I signed up in 76-77).
2. A SOG unit of christian guerillas would need to be readied to protect the yet unrevealed 144,000. Based on his military and martial arts experience, God had selected him to prepare such a group.
3. All good christian martial artists must study kendo and kenjutsu, in order to speed up the fulfilment of scriptural timelines...the anti-christ is wounded by a sword, but recovers. Christian martial artists, therefore, must be ready to embark on a suicide mission to hack at some poor slob who shows up in the news, and is misidentified as the anti-christ and other such silly crap.
Ah, well. Maybe we need nuts to apreciate contrast. According to some, "it's all necessary." D.