At the
time I was born again, I owned a business in American Indian Arts. At this point in time in USA American Indian
Arts was very popular.
A
man came to town and rented a motel room and advertised heavily.
Frequently
such itinerant salesmen were selling massed produced items which had been very
heavily over priced and then marked down 50% or more.
The
Dallas Morning News came to me asking me if I would write an article to warn
people and to help people select this merchandise wisely, giving them some
guidelines.
A
few days after the article was published, I little heavy set man came into my
shop.
He
was wearing a tie clasp shaped like handcuffs!
He
said to me, “Little lady … do you know such & such,” naming a man.
I
replied I didn’t know that man.
He
said, “Well … he knows you for he is suing you for a-million-dollars.”
I
was very shocked!
(At that time, I
probably had less than $2000 in the bank.)
The
situation was so ridiculous to me that I couldn’t even take it seriously. I threw the legal papers off to the side and forgot
about them for a week or so. Then I
realized if I failed to respond to this law suit, judgment could be rendered
against me by the courts.
I
hired a lawyer.
Several
weeks passed. The man was also suing 3
or 4 other dealers of American Indian Arts in Dallas. He was also suing the city of Dallas and Fort
Worth with the charge of conspiracy to try to keep him from doing business in
the metroplex.
My lawyer kept filing legal papers
and would call me from week to week, and send me a bill for his services.
The legal fees were eating up all the
profit from my small business. At the
rate we were going I knew I would be back in debt shortly. I had felt God had showed me to get out of
debt and stay out of debt. And I had
worked very diligently to get out of debt and to keep the business debt free,
purchasing merchandise only as I had the cash available to pay for the
merchandise.
I was a “baby” Christian, newly
born again, at the time this was happening.
One day, while reading the Bible I
saw the following.
Isaiah
54:17 … 17 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.
I began to reason this
scripture. This lawsuit was a weapon
formed against me. God said in the Holy
Scriptures, “it would not prosper.”
Now I am a servant of the
Lord.
This scripture applied to me now.
Therefore, I decided to
dismiss my lawyer and plan to go to court without any human legal counsel.
I made an appointment to consult
my pastor and present my scriptural case to him. As I drove to the appointment, I was praying
for God to give pastor HIS wisdom.
At the end of the conference,
pastor said to me, “Joan … I perceive you have faith to do this this way.”
I called lawyer immediately and
dismissed him and told him that I am now a Christian and this is what Bible
says, quoting Isaiah 54:17 to him, and I told Gordon this is a promise from God
to the church, therefore this lawsuit against me will not prosper and I
was going to court without any human legal counsel.
Lawyer was very shocked!
He responded, “Joan … you can’t do this. You
don’t know how evil these courts are… It will only take about $10,000 more
to try your case and we are willing to work with you.”
“$10,000” … I cried out … “Gordon stop … don’t do another
thing” …
A couple of weeks later, Gordon came into my shop. He said the law firm had decided to try my
case without any further legal fee.
What is going on here?
One week they were going to charge
$10,000 more … now the legal
service was going to be “free”.
I told Gordon I would have to get
back with him on this.
I began praying, asking God what HE
wanted me to do.
I was then reminded of the following …
Genesis
14 … 17 And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the
slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley
of Shaveh, which is the king's dale. 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought
forth bread and wine:and he was the priest of the most high God. 19 And he
blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of
heaven and earth:20 And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered
thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.
21
And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the
goods to thyself.
22
And 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, 23 That 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:
I knew God was telling me to turn
down the “free” legal service. Also
since that time I have purposed to depend on God for that which I have on this
earth. I do not want anything except
what God gives me. I want my “riches” to
come from God and not from man.
But during these weeks and months, I
was very frightened. Many terrible
thoughts of what might happen to me came into my mind.
I began holding onto scripture to fight
the fearful thoughts, starting with the following scripture:
Isaiah 54:17
(a promise of God to the church) …
17
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.
I kept this scripture before me day
and night to give me strength and courage and to fight the fearful
thoughts.
God brought other scriptures to my
mind and when HE did, I wrote those scriptures down and added them to Isaiah
54:17.
In the months before the trial was
scheduled, God had given me about 14 additional scriptures which I kept before
me constantly.
I took these scriptures and
recorded them over and over on a cassette tape, on both sides of the tape. I started the tape playing when I went to bed
each night. I fell asleep to these scriptures. When I awoke in the night I turned the tape
over and started playing it again on the other side.
The case drug on in the courts for
several months.
All the time, I was keeping
scripture before me and hearing scripture in the night.
Six days before the trial was
scheduled in US District court, I received a phone call from the lawyer of the
man who was suing me.
His lawyer was calling me because
I had no lawyer.
He said this man dropped all
charges.
I asked the lawyer if this man
dropped all charges against the other defendants also and the lawyer replied, “He
cut everyone lose.”
The lawyer went on to say, “We tried to get him not to sue you but he
was like a mad-man and he wouldn’t listen to us.”
It was over … almost …
A few days later, Gordon, my
former lawyer came into my shop. He said
they had done little but discuss what had happened since the case was
dropped. And Gordon said, “We have
concluded at the law firm that what you said happened, happened… no weapon that
was formed against you would prosper …”
Now this was over! Except for the fact that God used this
fearful trial to teach me to believe HIM and to hold fast to the promises of
God in the Bible … and to take thoughts captive to bring those thoughts into
obedience of the Word of God.
The Bible is not a history book.
The Bible is real … with real
power of God for HIS people who can believe what the scriptures tell us …
Later a man came into my store
looking for power in Indian Arts. He
thought these objects had mystical power and he wanted that power.