Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
In 1975, I owned a business, American Indian Arts, in Dallas.
One day, a short fat man came in and as he approached me, I noticed he was wearing a tie and his tie clasp was a pair of handcuffs.
He said, "Little lady, do you know such and such (naming a man)"
I replied, "No ... I don't know him"
He replied, "Well he knows you ... He is suing you for a million dollars."
I was shocked! (At that time, my total worth was less than $20,000 including all inventory and an old car which I drove. I lived in a modest apartment and had no personal items worth anything.)
Turns out this man was an itinerant traveling salesman who sold cheap jewelry. He had come to Dallas and the city Better Business Bureau had spoken against his merchandise. The Better Business Bureau of Fort Worth did the same thing. Some other dealers of American Indian arts spoke against him. I didn't know this man but I had given an interview to Dallas Morning News to try to help people know the difference between treated turquoise stones (almost worthless) and natural turquoise stones (non-precious jewels but having some value). This man attached me to his multi million dollar lawsuit because of this article. He was suing the Better Business Bureaus of Dallas and Fort Worth, several dealers in American Indian arts in Dallas, and me. The charge against us was conspiracy to keep him from doing business in Dallas/Ft.Worth.
I was a new Christian at the time.
I turned to God immediately and was reminded of the following promise of God to HIS people.
No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD. Isaiah 54:17
This lawsuit drug on for about 4 months and many fears came to me during this time. And each time a fear came, I would be reminded of a scripture. I ended up with about 14 scriptures which I recorded on cassette tape and played all night. I would fall asleep to the scriptures and when I would awake during the night I would turn the cassette tape over and fall asleep again to sound of the various scriptures which I had recorded over and over on both sides of the tape.
At one point, I hired a lawyer. But the bills from the law firm were eating up all my money and I had gotten out of debt at the instruction of God and if I didn't stop the law firm bills I knew I would end up back in debt. So after prayer and after consulting with my pastor, I called my lawyer and told him I had decided to go to court without any human legal counsel. (When I explained the situation to my pastor he said, "Joan ... I perceive you have the faith to do this this way.")
Gordon (my lawyer) said, "Joan, you can't do that ... You don't know how evil these courts can be."
Then Gordon said, "It will only take about ten-thousand dollars more to try this case."
I shouted ... "Ten-thousand dollars ... Gordon ... STOP... don't do anything more." (I had no cash at that point and had already paid the law firm more than $3000 which was a lot of money for me.)
Then I said, "Gordon ... "I am a Christian. And the Bible says No weapon formed against me will prosper. So if the Bible is really true, this weapon against me will not prosper. And if the Bible is only an history book, telling about things that happened to others long ago, then I don't want anything more to do with the Bible. This is a good time to find out."
So I dismissed the law firm. It was a very big firm that occupied the entire top floor of Bryan towers in downtown Dallas.
A week or so after I dismissed the law firm, Gordon called. He said, "Joan, we have discussed your case and have decided to try it without any further legal cost to you."
I replied, "Let me find out. I'll get back with you."
I prayed immediately ... asking God what HE wanted me to do about this "free" legal service.
At the time Gordon made this offer, I was struck by the fact that he said nothing at all about God. He didn't say, "God told us to offer this free service."
After asking God about this, I was reminded of a scripture as follows:
And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. 22And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, 23That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: Gen. 16
I knew God was saying ... "Turn down the "free" legal service."
So I turned it down.
The law suit hung over me for weeks.
Then six days before we were to go to trial in US District Court, I received a phone call from the lawyer of the man who was suing me and suing the others.
His lawyer said, "Since you don't have an attorney, I'm calling you to tell you that my client has dropped all charges. We tried all along to get him to drop charges against you but he was like a mad man. We couldn't reason with him."
I replied, "Did he just drop the charges against me or did he drop charges against all the others also?"
His lawyer said, "No ... he cut everyone loose."
A week or so after this, Gordan came to my shop. He said, "At the law firm, we've done nothing but talk about your case for the past week and we have decided what you said happened happened."
"No weapon that is formed against me would prosper ..." Isaiah 54:17
It ended up being a witness for the promises of God to the church ... I wasn't trying in any way to "witness" ... I was just trying to do things the way God wanted me to do them.
That is the real witness ... trying to do things the way God wants us to do them on this earth.
Sometime after all this, I was across the street at a copy business waiting to make copies of an item and I was approached by a man who was probably in his 70's. He said, "Little lady ... you didn't park behind that green and gold car did you."
I replied, "No sir ... I didn't."
He said, "That's a Baylor car." (Baylor University ... a Baptist University in Texas)
Then he said, "You don't happen to be a Christian do you?"
I excitedly replied, "Why ... yes I am."
He said: "Oh heck ... I just joined the witnessing class at First Baptist Church and you're the first person I chose to witness to." (He was sorry I was a Christian!)
It is an amazing story but this is the way many try to "witness". The witness is doing what you believe you have heard from God. We don't "try" to witness ... we just try to do what we believe God wants us to do in the issue at hand.