Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
Jesus warned: And HE said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath. Mark 4:24-25
Our own fleshly ways and devils can pervert our hearing.
An example of this:
A woman told me her parents are Pentecostal church people.
Unknown to me, this woman had stored up evil against her father and desired to prove his doctrine to be wrong.
I realized this was in her heart when she began asking me about "tongues" in the church.
I told her the apostle Paul said: "Forbid not to speak with tongues." I Corinthians 14:39
She gleefully said, "So Paul forbid the speaking in tongues?" (She thought she had her proof to fit her perceived doctrine and to use to attack her father.)
I said, "NO ... Paul said, 'Forbid not to speak with tongues.' "
(This woman was so twisted that I'm not even sure she could hear what I said the second time.)
I avoided meeting with this woman in the future for I knew she was eaten up with what she wanted to hear rather than seeking truth.
Titus 3:9-11 But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.
Heretick: One who refuses to submit to the power of truth.
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It is similar to the following.
The rulers of the temple in Jesus day wanted to find grounds whereby they could accuse Jesus. They were not looking to understand truth from God. They asked questions of Jesus thinking they could trap Jesus in the words HE spoke. Their heart was evil so they judged what Jesus said in an evil way.
John 2:18-22 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? (trying to trap Jesus)
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
But HE spake of the temple of HIS body.
(They completely missed what Jesus was really saying and perverted Jesus words into their own evil thoughts because evil was in them and they were not really seeking truth. They only wanted to trap Jesus so they could justify killing HIM.)
Later when the Jews examined Jesus, desiring to find grounds to use to crucify Him, here is the way Jesus' statement was reported by those who gave witness against Jesus.
Mark 14:57-58 And there arose certain, and bare false witness against HIM, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.
(Their witness against Jesus was false for they thought Jesus said one thing while Jesus actually meant something else though HE did speak about raising "this" temple but "this" temple was his own body.)
***
If we take evil thoughts against another into our hearts and allow those evil thoughts to dwell in us without taking such to God for HIS judgment, we will likely find those evil thoughts to fester inside us and at some time they grow to the point we can no longer keep them in us and they will come forth from our own heart out of our mouth to bring unwarranted destruction against an innocent person.
Therefore we are greatly warned:
Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
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The way the devil works is this way:
A person helps us. The devil will look for ways to accuse that person who helps us. The devil suggests (to our mind) something against that person.
Instead of allowing accusations to lodge in our heart and in our mind, against that person, we learn to begin immediately to call to God's attention the good things that same person has done to help us and we ask God to bless that person!
And when we do think another person has trespassed against us, we learn to turn to God in prayer, forgiving that person and asking God not to hold what he did toward us against him .
By these spiritual ways, we stop the works of devils as devils would try to work in us to destroy us and others.
And we ask God to help us in the temptation.
***
We who are appointed by God know we are likely to be misunderstood by some church people when we share things of God for not all church people have good hearts.
They who are fleshly persecute those who are spiritual. And this happens in the church itself, for both fleshly and spiritual often sit in the church together, though separated by the Spirit, one having the Spirit and the other not hearing the Spirit but judging what he hears by his own fleshly thinking.
But we suffer the wrong persecution from the religious people who wrongly hear what we say. We speak because we believe that which we say is what God has given us and is what God wants us to say and also we speak that word for edification of those among us who have the Spirit and who have true hearts, desiring truth, although we know the others will often misunderstand what we say when we speak.
Once I said to God, "If I speak that, some will misunderstand."
God said to me, "They misunderstand the Bible."
I said, "Oh ..." and I spoke anyway knowing some would misunderstand me.
Sometimes we are shocked by how wrongly those in our own church groups heard us!
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A woman who had been in our own church group for almost 40-years, leveled many accusations against me.
It was so shocking to me for I didn't know she was holding things in her heart against me.
One day while I spoke with her by phone, she just "exploded", bringing all her stored up accusations against me.
She stored in her own heart the words devils spoke to her against me and she thought upon that instead of taking each thought to God in prayer in a willingness to be purified from those devilish thoughts brought to her mind against me.
Instead, through decades, she allowed the evil thoughts of devils against me to fester inside her and pile up in her heart and in her mind, until finally these things she was holding in her heart erupted against me.
(The devil brings evil thoughts to each of us. We must take these thoughts to God in prayer and allow these thoughts of evil to be uprooted by God.)
If we store evil thoughts in our hearts, evil will grow in our hearts, and at some point evil fruit will come forth from our mouths, doing harm to ourselves and to others.
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This woman's words against me could have stopped me from doing the ministry except for one thing.
I turned strongly to God and asked HIM to judge me.
(I told God I must have HIS judgment concerning me. For if I really did these things against this woman then there was no way I could be HIS minister.)
That same night, God gave me a dream to show me the truth:
In this dream, I opened the front door to my house. Someone had dumped bags of garbage outside the front door of my house and all the way down the front of my house. I would have to find someone to remove all these bags of garbage.
I believe God was showing me this woman had stored up her own "garbage" in her mind against me.
And her thoughts against me were "garbage".
Through the months and years, this woman would speak words which I believed were words of knowledge and words of wisdom (spiritual gifts from God). But the problem was she held these words inside herself and rarely shared them with the church where these words might be used to help the church.
When I would speak to her about something, she often said, "I thought of that." (But she didn't share it with me or with the church when she thought of "that".)
I was trying to get her to share these concepts, in a timely manner, when they came to her for I believed it was God giving her spiritual gifts.
I Corinthians 12
4 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. 6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; 10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:
11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as HE will.
(These spiritual gifts are given to us by God to help the church. We have to speak these things to the church in a timely way to help the church. If we receive information and hold it inside us, it profits nothing. This is what I tried to teach this woman... to recognize when she had a word of wisdom or a word of knowledge and to share these with the church in a timely way when she received them.)
Finally she exploded and said it was as if I had been throwing rocks at her all these years. She began telling me various things I'd said to her but her words were very distorted and she was speaking with great anger and vehemence!
I finally stopped her and told her we needed to get Pam Pagett to witness our conversation. I got Pam on the extension. Again while Pam was listening, she erupted against me. Pam tried to intervene but neither of us could reason with this woman.
It was very hard for us to go through this and I would think it would also have been hard for this woman.
I was sorry for each of us.
Sometimes devils do win.
But the warning to us is not to allow devils to win.
Evil thoughts will come to us from devils.
Paul said: For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (II Corinthians 10)
If we allow him to do so, the devil will destroy us.
But we do not have to allow this to happen.
James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Take the matter to God for HIM to judge.
Resist the devil with that which God gives concerning the matter.
Keep resisting each time a memory of the situation comes to mind by citing that which God has shown you. And go forward in that truth that is shown to you by God.
Hold fast... for Jesus says, concerning the last days:
Matthew 24:12-13 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
***
The war rages, especially as we draw nearer to the return of Jesus.
We must fight this war in spiritual ways and keep fighting as long as necessary with the weapons given us by God in the matter.
I once said to my mother: "You can go down, but I will not go down with you."
(Why should both of us be destroyed?)
My mother straightened up.
This church woman who came against me should be same way. I must not allow myself to be destroyed with her. I must fight with that which God has shown me and keep fighting as long as is needed. Believing what God showed me in the matter.
And I must not allow my grief for this woman in her rebellion to destroy me.
I must go forward in the joy of God's Word and in HIS peace, deliberately making my mind focus on that.
*****