Lee W Brainard Books in Order

If you want his apocalyptic fiction first: The Rogue → The Rendezvous → The Russian Run
If you want his most direct prophecy argument: The Pre-Wrath Rapture Answered from the Testimony of Scripture
If you want satire with doctrine: The Glorious Salvation Machine
If you want a focused study of the eternal state: The New Heavens and Earth: Recreation or Renovation?

Lee W Brainard was born in Valley City, North Dakota, on June 22, 1961. When he was five, his family moved to Helena, Montana, and a lot of his childhood was shaped by the outdoors, camping, fishing, hunting, backpacking, gardening, sports, and reading. Later the family moved to Langdon, North Dakota, where he finished high school in 1979.

That mix of practical life and serious study stayed with him. He attended the University of North Dakota for a year in 1983 to 1984 and also completed two summers of graduate-level linguistics training with SIL, which fits neatly with the language-heavy direction his teaching would later take.

Before long, the Army years changed his plans.

Brainard was born again in December 1978, during his senior year, and he has written that the experience pushed him toward a much more serious engagement with Scripture. After basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, he moved from the National Guard into the Army, trained at Fort Benning, and entered Ranger Indoctrination Program at Fort Lewis on his way to serving in the Second Ranger Battalion.

There, another believer became a turning point in his life, urging him to read the Bible daily, take church seriously, and study with purpose. By late 1980, Brainard says he felt called to teach the Bible, and that new sense of direction only sharpened. He even carried study tools into Arctic training in Alaska. When told to choose between keeping quiet about his faith and keeping his Bible, he chose the Bible and left the Army with an honorable discharge in 1981.

That decision seems to have set the course for almost everything that came after.

He went on to become a Bible teacher, writer, and longtime student of Greek, Hebrew, prophecy, apologetics, and church doctrine. His work ranges from direct theological argument to fiction. In The Pre-Wrath Rapture Answered from the Testimony of Scripture and The New Heavens and Earth: Recreation or Renovation?, he writes for readers who want close, point-by-point engagement with biblical prophecy and big end-times questions.

His fiction takes a different route but keeps many of the same interests in view. The Rogue, The Rendezvous, and The Russian Run blend astronomy, conspiracy, survival pressure, and biblical prophecy in the Planets Shaken series. Then there is The Glorious Salvation Machine, a satire that uses humor and allegory to press questions about conversion, grace, and changed lives. Across both fiction and nonfiction, he returns again and again to Scripture, the last days, and the problem of false confidence.

He has also had a remarkably varied working life. In different seasons he has been an Airborne Ranger, carpenter, truck driver, farm hand, factory worker, sawmill hand, car salesman, insurance salesman, day trader, Jiffy Lube tech, and propane truck driver. He has written with the voice of someone who has spent plenty of time outside classrooms, and that grounded, practical streak comes through in both his teaching and storytelling.

Now based in Drumright, Oklahoma, with his wife, Nita, Brainard continues to write and teach while staying close to the subjects that have shaped him for decades. He and Nita have four grown children and a large family of grandchildren. He also sounds like a man who genuinely enjoys simple things, coffee, dark chocolate, mountain air, campfires, and long conversations about the things of God.